The Forgotten Front: The East African Campaign 1914-1918

The first history of the East African Front of the First World War a campaign that inspired the Humphrey Bogart film The African Queen. The First World War began in East Africa in July 1914 and did not end until 13 November 1918. In its scale and impact, it was the largest conflict yet to take place on African soil. Four empires and their subject peoples were engaged in a conflict that ranged from modern Kenya in the north to Mozambique in the south. The campaign combined heroic human endeavour and terrible suffering set in some of the most difficult terrain in the world. The troops had to cope with extremes that ranged from arid deserts to tropical jungles to formidable mountains and almost always on inadequate rations. Yet the East African Front has languished in undeserved obscurity over the years with many people only vaguely aware of its course of events.