Description
Book SynopsisAt 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 . . .
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Trade Review
Another delightful tale sieved from the flotsam of African military history from a writer who is fast creating a niche of his own * Arena *
Foden has brought to life one of the strangest episodes of the first world war'... a real romp through the desert of darkness and extremely funny * Sunday Times *
Giles Foden writes with wit ... give it a read * Literary Review *
Foden has brought to life one of the strangest episodes of the first world war'... a real romp through the desert of darkness and extremely funny * Sunday Times *
