East African Campaign (World War I)

The East African Campaign was a series of battles and guerrilla actions, which started in German East Africa and spread to portions of Mozambique, Northern Rhodesia, British East Africa, Uganda and the Belgian Congo. The campaign was effectively ended in November 1917. The Germans entered Portuguese East Africa and continued the campaign living off Portuguese supplies.

The strategy of the German colonial forces, led by Lieutenant Colonel (later Generalmajor) Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, was to divert forces from the Western Front to Africa. His strategy achieved only mixed results after 1916, when he was driven out of German East Africa and Allied forces became composed almost entirely of South African, Indian, and other colonial troops. Black South African troops were not considered for European service as a matter of policy while all Indian units had been withdrawn from the Western Front by the end of 1915; the campaign in Africa consumed considerable amounts of money and war material that could have gone to other fronts. The Germans fought for the whole of World War I, receiving word of the armistice on 14 November 1918 at 7:30 a.m. Both sides waited for confirmation and the Germans formally surrendered on 25 November. German East Africa became two League of Nations Class B Mandates, Tanganyika Territory of the United Kingdom and Ruanda-Urundi of Belgium, while the Kionga Triangle became a mandate of Portugal.

East Africa

East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 20 territories constitute Eastern Africa: