The First World War

Chapter 7, “The War Beyond the Western Front,” turns to the various battles on the imperial periphery of the European powers, which made it a truly world war. Germany had managed to establish a handful of colonies in Africa, in the Pacific Ocean, and along the Chinese coastline. These became targets of Britain, France, and Japan immediately upon outbreak of the war. Germany’s Asian holdings fell relatively quickly, but a difficult climate and fierce German resistance made for a long and costly campaign in what is now Cameroon. After an abortive uprising by South African Boers who refused to fight for a British army they had fought just over a decade before, the German position in South-West Africa (including what is now Botswana) collapsed. All that remained was German East Africa, now Tanzania, which doggedly hung on until the end of the war. There had been a prewar understanding that the powers would exclude one another’s colonies from military operations, but local white settlers were eager for combat and the Great Powers quickly forgot their earlier promises under the pressures of war. After their early successes, British and South African forces would spend years chasing the army of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, who became legendary for his ability to ambush and evade his vastly superior enemy for the entire remainder of the war.