The dustjacket heralds Edward Paice’s new book as the ‘first’ proper history of the Great War in Africa. Certainly the fighting in Africa in 1914–18 was long neglected by historians – until recently that is. One of the chief merits of Hew Strachan’s brilliant First World War: To Arms (2002) was the way it underlined the truly global nature of the Great War by emphasising the importance of the non-European campaigns in Africa and elsewhere. He followed this up in 2004 with The First World War in Africa, while that same year saw the publication of Ross Anderson’s The Forgotten Front 1914–18: The East African Campaign.

Subscribe or Sign In to read the full article