Военная история / The Battle of Tanga 1914

Издательство: Tempus Publishing
Автор: Ross Anderson
Название: The Battle of Tanga 1914
Язык: английский
Год издания: 2002
Количество страниц: 134
ISBN: 0-7524-2349-5
Формат: pdf
Размер: 49 мб

On 2 November 1914, obscured by the greater events in Europe, a British convoy of a light cruiser and twelve merchantmen was lying off the German East African port of Tanga, preparatory to the landing of two brigades of the Indian army. It started the main phase of the East African campaign which lasted until after the Armistice in November 1918. The battle of Tanga was the bloody beginning of a long and bitterly fought campaign in tropical Africa conceived as part of a wider plan to conquer Germany's East African empire and ensure British maritime superiority in the Indian Ocean. The ensuing battle proved to be a fiasco for the British, and highlighted the lack of co-ordination between Britain's wartime ministries and the unreadiness of the Indian Army.
For the first time, archival research reveals the full story behind the battle and the astounding and unratified truce concluded between the Royal Navy and the German colonial authorities in August 1914. The existence of this agreement was only revealed to the military commander on the eve of the landings, resulting in the complete loss of surprise. Ross Anderson argues that the failure at Tanga resulted from muddled strategic aims, poor operational planning and inadequately trained troops as well as poor liaison between the military and naval command. Tellingly, the British failed to draw lessons from their misfortune and went on to repeat many of them during subsequent operations in the Dardanelles and Mesopotamia. In many ways, Tanga was the precursor to the operational and administrative defects that were the hallmark of the campaigns in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East from 1914 to 1916.