“I have never met another German who has given me such a strong impression of what Imperial Germany was and what it stood for” . This was written by Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa , about a German soldier whom she met in 1913 during her ship trip to the African continent. His name was Paul von Lettow and some time later, at the end of the First World War that was already imminent, he could boast of having been responsible for the only front on which his country managed to finish undefeated:East Africa, where he also starred in the only invasion of British territory during that war.
Let us place ourselves in Saarlouis around the last quarter of the 19th century. It is a modest city in the Saarland that, due to its geographical location, had changed hands several times and at that time was German, after having had to hand it over to France when Napoleon fell (after the First World War it was recovered only to be lost definitively in 1935).
Well, Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck was born there in 1870, into a family of minor nobility originally from Pomerania. The father, a soldier, was stationed in Saarlouis and inevitably determined the vocation of his son, who after finishing his training in various Berlin boarding schools entered the artillery academy and received his lieutenant's office in 1890, being assigned to the General Staff.
In 1900 he had the opportunity to begin his war experience as part of the international expedition sent to China to combat the Boxer Rebellion, returning the following year with some disappointment at having only had to fight guerrillas. In 1904 he was sent to German South West Africa (present-day Namibia) to put down the Maji Maji, Herero, and Namaqua insurrection. An eye injury forced him to be admitted to South Africa, so he avoided participating in the subsequent genocide. In 1907 he was promoted to major and two years later he was commander of the II Seebataillion (Marine Corps).
In 1913 he was already a lieutenant colonel and returned to Africa upon receiving command of the Schutztruppe (colonial troops) from Cameroon (which then included part of Nigeria). But before he took over, on the fly, he was redeployed to German East Africa, a vast territory that encompassed Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Rwanda, and Burundi. It was during the boat trip, by the way, that he became friends with Baroness Karen Christence Blixen-Finecke, who in 1937 and under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen would publish her famous autobiographical book. The thing is that shortly after he took office, the conflict that was going to be baptized with the name of the Great War broke out.
Now it is known more as the First World War, fundamentally to distinguish it from the Second, which would come two decades later, but also because it was a pioneer in its global character, with the participation of all the powers of the time divided into two alliances:the so-called Central Powers (the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires plus Bulgaria, with the support of seventeen other states) and the Entente (about thirty countries that included the British, Russian and Japanese empires plus France, Italy, Portugal, USA, etc) .
But the events that concern us here took place entirely in the colonies, where von Lettow barely had two and a half thousand soldiers plus as many other askaris (indigenous troops, very well trained and well paid) and, what would be worse, he could not receive help because the Royal Navy blocked the ports. In the autumn of 1917, at a critical moment, a supply was attempted by means of a zeppelin that took off from Bulgaria and reached Sudan but had to turn around as it could not contact. So precarious was the situation that Governor Heinrich Schnee himself had requested to leave the territory out of the conflict - to which London refused - and gave his commander the order to stay on the defensive.
It was not exactly what he wanted to hear and he ignored it. Of course, he assumed that this was a secondary front but, at the same time, he was determined to force the British to make an effort and to detain them as many troops as possible. British possessions surrounded the German ones to the north (Uganda and Kenya) and south (Rhodesia), while the Belgian Congo did so to the west, so the enemy had to be engaged before they had time to organize. Paradoxically, it was he who took the initiative when the Indian Expeditionary Force attacked the city of Tanga, north of Tanganyika, in November 1914. Neither side imagined that this would be the largest battle fought on the continent during the war. war.
Von Lettow was barely able to move a thousand askaris to reinforce the solitary company of the garrison against eight thousand Indians and stop what was a clear attempt to conquer the most important Germanic port of the colony, the first step to invade it taking advantage of its weakness, as happened in other places (specifically, Cameroon, Togo, Namibia and New Guinea). However, these meager forces ambushed an inexperienced enemy who had made a blind landing and was advancing confidently through the jungle. The askaris , with the anecdotal collaboration of a swarm of bees first and charging with the bayonet later, caused chaos among the Indians, who suffered more than a thousand casualties between dead and wounded; There could have been many more, but Von Lettow offered them an honorable surrender and even provided them with medical assistance. In exchange, he obtained a rich weapon loot.
The first test had been passed with flying colours, and then it was the Germans' turn to play, attacking first the railway lines and then the town of Jassin, which was in Tanganyika but had been occupied by the British to protect the border. This time, von Lettow had superior numbers, nine companies against four, and managed to surrender the city in one day. He again displayed his chivalry by allowing the defenders to march in return for their promise to no longer participate in the war; the others would display a similar chivalry (for example, they informed him that the Kaiser had awarded him the Iron Cross), something that seemed to be taken directly from the Middle Ages.
Now, in Jassin casualties were even; 86 dead and 200 wounded attackers for 93 dead and 94 wounded defenders, figures that they could afford but the former could not. Especially considering that he lost 27 German officers and that this new defeat led the British to concentrate their forces to ensure superiority and facilitate the protection of the positions. So, henceforth, von Lettow (who was shot in the arm) avoided pitched battles in favor of the kind of action he had so little liked when he was in China:guerrilla warfare. The obvious immediate objectives became the smaller forts, the railway and communications in general.
German troops were stinging like wasps here and there in minor pockets of British East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Zambia), to force the adversary to divert troops from Europe there. Von Lettow took full advantage of his team, although he received askaris of reinforcement to add fourteen thousand troops together with the crew and guns of the cruiser SMS Königsberg , which the Royal Navy had sunk in the Rufiji River. But the German commander had something else:the respect and admiration of the native soldiers, having learned to speak Swahili and appointing many of them officers; “we are all Africans here” , he said.
In the spring of 1916, South African General Jan Christian Smuts was entrusted with the mission of conquering German East Africa, for which he enlisted Belgian help from neighboring Congo; in total, 45,000 men who seized the Teutonic colony, forcing von Lettow to withdraw, avoiding direct fighting until, on favorable ground, in Mahiwa, he ambushed his pursuers and caused them almost three thousand casualties, losing he only fifty. However, the British continued to have an overwhelming superiority and, on the other hand, the Germans ran out of ammunition, having to continue their retreat in that eternal pilgrimage under the equatorial sun.
Despite everything, the high command was pleased with the performance of von Lettow, who was promoted to general. That was in October 1917; Exactly one month later, he moved south trying to distance himself from his pursuers and, with hardly any food (hence the failure of the aforementioned zeppelin), crossed the border with Mozambique and attacked the Portuguese garrison of Ngomano, where he replenished. The capture of a medical steamer also provided medicine and the taking of Namakura in the summer of 1918, arms and ammunition. In this way, he was able to cross the border again in the opposite direction; his target this time was northern Rhodesia, which he raided while eluding the British desperate to find him.
This is how he captured the city of Kasama, which fell on November 13. Von Lettow was unaware that the armistice had been signed two days before, which meant the surrender of Germany and the end of the war, so he continued advancing towards Katanga. When ten days later he reached the Chambezi River he found the British waving a white flag and informing him of the news. Once confirmed, he agreed to a ceasefire and was ordered to go to Abercorn (present-day Mbala, in northern Zambia) so that his men would hand over their weapons (mostly seized from the enemy) there. Since he had not lost any battles, in practice it was more of a discharge than a surrender. At that time he had under his command 30 German officers, 125 non-commissioned officers, 1,168 askaris and some 3,500 porters, with whom he had seasick 130 British generals, causing them nearly 60,000 casualties in all. 
The march had finally come to an end, as long as it was painful because many men brought their families with them, since they avoided approaching the towns to avoid the temptation to desert; something that was barely testimonial thanks to the fact that von Lettow gave them the same treatment as whites. The Germans remained prisoners in Dar es Salaam waiting to be repatriated, a task in which his boss turned to but demanding the same treatment for his askaris , held in Tabora. He returned to Germany in March 1919 and even led a parade through the Brandenburg Gate with his Schutztruppen still wearing the tattered uniforms they brought from the campaign. That same year he married Martha Wallroth; they had two sons and two daughters.
During the Weimar Republic they tempted him with politics but he rejected it and preferred to continue in the army, collaborating in the repression of the Spartacist revolt. Years later he had the opportunity to personally meet the British commanders he had faced, establishing a good friendship with Jan Smuts. In 1928 he finally gave in and joined the DNVP (German National People's Party, a conservative court), running for election in 1930. He was elected by Upper Bavaria and Hitler himself offered him to join the Nazi movement, something he he refused (the legend says that he ordered him “to fuck himself” , literally; his nephew declared decades later that he seemed credible to her, except that he would not have been in such a "polite" way ).
That attitude made him suspicious, so his house was searched and he was placed under surveillance. But at the same time he was so popular that at the age of 68 he was promoted to general for special affairs, perhaps because it was an honorary position and did not require active service from which the regime preferred to keep him away. In fact, he never joined the National Socialist Party and after the Second World War, in which he lost his two sons, he was left destitute, depending on what those former British enemies sent him. he had fought in Africa. He then managed to regain some comfort and in 1953 he was invited to visit the former colony, where the veterans of his askaris They received him with honors, as did the British authorities.
He died in Hamburg in 1964, at the age of 94, receiving an emotional funeral in style. Shortly after, the German government approved granting a pension to the askaris that they could prove to have been under his orders; some presented their documents, others the remains of the uniform and some underwent an instruction test that all passed despite four decades having passed. A sample of the magnificent training that that extinct old Prussian dinosaur had given them. It is not just a metaphor; a species of Jurassic iguanodontid has been named Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki , for its agility to escape predators.