Mimi and Toutou Go Forth

Mimi and Toutou Go Forth PDF Author: Giles Foden
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141946571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
At the start of World War One, German warships controlled Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa. The British had no naval craft at all upon 'Tanganjikasee', as the Germans called it. This mattered: it was the longest lake in the world and of great strategic advantage. In June 1915, a force of 28 men was despatched from Britain on a vast journey. Their orders were to take control of the lake. To reach it, they had to haul two motorboats with the unlikely names of Mimi and Toutou through the wilds of the Congo. The 28 were a strange bunch -- one was addicted to Worcester sauce, another was a former racing driver -- but the strangest of all of them was their skirt-wearing, tattoo-covered commander, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson. Whatever it took, even if it meant becoming the god of a local tribe, he was determined to cover himself in glory. But the Germans had a surprise in store for Spicer-Simson, in the shape of their secret 'supership' the Graf von Gotzen . . . Unearthing new German and African records, the prize-winning author of The Last King of Scotland retells this most unlikely of true-life tales with his customary narrative energy and style. Fitzcarraldo meets Heart of Darkness, this is rich, vivid and flashmanesque in its appeal - military history at its most absorbing and entertaining

Mimi and Toutou Go Forth

Mimi and Toutou Go Forth PDF Author: Giles Foden
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141946571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Get Book Here

Book Description
At the start of World War One, German warships controlled Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa. The British had no naval craft at all upon 'Tanganjikasee', as the Germans called it. This mattered: it was the longest lake in the world and of great strategic advantage. In June 1915, a force of 28 men was despatched from Britain on a vast journey. Their orders were to take control of the lake. To reach it, they had to haul two motorboats with the unlikely names of Mimi and Toutou through the wilds of the Congo. The 28 were a strange bunch -- one was addicted to Worcester sauce, another was a former racing driver -- but the strangest of all of them was their skirt-wearing, tattoo-covered commander, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson. Whatever it took, even if it meant becoming the god of a local tribe, he was determined to cover himself in glory. But the Germans had a surprise in store for Spicer-Simson, in the shape of their secret 'supership' the Graf von Gotzen . . . Unearthing new German and African records, the prize-winning author of The Last King of Scotland retells this most unlikely of true-life tales with his customary narrative energy and style. Fitzcarraldo meets Heart of Darkness, this is rich, vivid and flashmanesque in its appeal - military history at its most absorbing and entertaining

Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure

Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure PDF Author: Giles Foden
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307538435
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
When the First World War breaks out, the British navy is committed to engaging the enemy wherever there is water to float a ship—even if the body of water in question is a remote African lake and the enemy an intimidating fleet of German steamers. The leader of this improbable mission is Geoffrey Spicer-Simson whose navy career thus far had been distinguished by two sinkings. His seemingly impossible charge: to trek overland through the African bush hauling Mimi and Toutou—two forty-foot mahogany gunboats–with a band of cantankerous, insubordinate Scotsmen, Irishmen and Englishmen to defeat the Germans on Lake Tanganyika. With its powerfully evoked landscape, cast of hilariously colorful characters and remarkable story of hubris, ingenuity and perseverance, this incredibly bizarre story–inspiration for the classic film The African Queen–is history at its most entertaining and absorbing.

Lord of the Loincloth

Lord of the Loincloth PDF Author: Christopher Dow
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780985147709
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 556

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Book Description
It’s World War I, and the fate of Africa lies in the hands of a madman—an eccentric Royal Navy commander who sank his two previous commands in the most ridiculous ways possible. Geoffrey Spicer-Simson is ordered to destroy two ships that give the Germans military control over the continent, but that may be easier said than done. The ships are on Lake Tanganyika, and to get there, Spicer-Simson and his men will have to drag two 40' gunboats over desert torn with ravines, through tsetse-infested swamps, and across a 6,000-foot range of mountains. Undaunted, Spicer-Simson forges ahead, but can his men accept the leadership of a pretentious braggart who names his gunboats Mimi and Toutou, is completely covered with tattoos, and wears a leather skirt instead of a uniform? And if the journey to the lake isn’t bizarre enough, imagine what happens when they get there and meet the Germans in mortal combat on the high seas in the middle of Africa! Lord of the Loincloth is the humorously adventurous account of one of the 20th century’s strangest heroes and his extraordinary quest for redemption.

The Last King of Scotland

The Last King of Scotland PDF Author: Giles Foden
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571246176
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
What would it be like to become Idi Amin's personal physician? Giles Foden's bestselling thriller is the story of a young Scottish doctor drawn into the heart of the Ugandan dictator's surreal and brutal regime. Privy to Amin's thoughts and ambitions, he is both fascinated and appalled. As Uganda plunges into civil chaos he realises action is imperative - but which way should he jump?

Gridded Naval Wargames

Gridded Naval Wargames PDF Author: Bob Cordery
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0244688540
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
This book follows on from 'The Portable Wargame' and 'Developing The Portable Wargame' to cover naval wargames that can be fought on a gridded tabletop. The book contains six sets of rules (three of which are from the 'Portable Naval Wargame' stable), four explanatory battle reports, and a chapter that explains 'How to ...' build simple model American Civil War ironclads. Aimed mainly at the wargamer who wants to include aspects of naval warfare in their wargames, it is suitable for both novice and experienced wargamers.

Freight Dogs

Freight Dogs PDF Author: Giles Foden
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 9781409137429
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
'Every new novel by Giles Foden is something to celebrate' Paul Theroux 'An amazing and profound work, rich in memorable detail' Jay Parini 'Foden has cleverly reworked the grand African adventure novel' Aminatta Forna, Guardian 'A perceptive, compassionate history of an enormously complex conflict' Irish Times 'Sharp and fast-paced. Foden does a fine job of locating the reader in the maelstrom of this brutal period in Congo's past, taking us deep into the heart of a complex conflict' Observer 1996: in a Ugandan dive bar, the 'freight dogs' gather. An anarchic group of mercenary pilots from Texas, Russia, Kenya and Belgium who transport weapons between warring African nations, without allegiance. And tonight they have a new recruit - Manu, a nineteen-year-old cowherd fleeing Congo's bloody war. Taken in by this band of unlikely brothers, Manu hopes to reinvent himself. But no matter how fast he flies, trouble always seems to follow closely behind...

Remembering Africa

Remembering Africa PDF Author: Dirk Göttsche
Publisher: Camden House
ISBN: 1571135464
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
"This is the first comprehensive study of contemporary German literature's intense engagement with German colonialism and with Germany's wider involvement in European colonialism. Building on the author's decade of research and publication in the field, the book discusses some fifty novels by German, Swiss, and Austrian writers, among them Hans Christoph Buch, Alex Capus, Christof Hamann, Lukas Hartmann, Ilona Maria Hilliges, Giselher W. Hoffmann, Dieter Kühn, Hermann Schulz, Gerhard Seyfried, Thomas von Steinaecker, Uwe Timm, Ilija Trojanow, and Stephan Wackwitz. Drawing on international postcolonial theory, the German tradition of cross-cultural literary studies, and on memory studies, the book brings the hitherto neglected German case to the international debate in postcolonial literary studies"--Publisher website, July 5, 2013.

Colonial Captivity during the First World War

Colonial Captivity during the First World War PDF Author: Mahon Murphy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108418074
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This new analysis of internment outside Europe helps us to understand the First World War as a truly global conflict.

The Development of Intelligence in Children

The Development of Intelligence in Children PDF Author: Alfred Binet
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Binet-Simon Test
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description


Gunboats of World War I

Gunboats of World War I PDF Author: Angus Konstam
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472804996
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 49

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Book Description
Naval action in World War I conjures up images of enormous dreadnoughts slugging it out in vast oceans. Yet the truth is that more sailors were killed serving on gunboats and monitors operating far from the naval epicentre of the war than were ever killed at Jutland. Gunboat engagements during this war were bloody and hard fought, if small in scale. Austrian gunboats on the Danube fired the first shots of the war, whilst German, British and Belgian gunboats fought one of the strangest, most intriguing naval campaigns in history in far-flung Lake Tanganyika. From the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, from the Balkans to Mesopotamia, gunboats played an influential part in the story of World War I. This detailed technical guide to the gunboats of all the major navies of the war means that, for the first time, the story can be told.