African Kaiser
General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and the Great War in Africa, 1914-1918
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Narrated by:
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Paul Hodgson
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By:
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Robert Gaudi
About this listen
The incredible true account of General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his exploits in World War I Africa with the legendary "Schutztruppe".
As World War I ravaged the European continent, a completely different theater of war was being contested in Africa. And from this very different kind of war, there emerged a very different kind of military leader....
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the continent of Africa was a hotbed of international trade, colonialism, and political gamesmanship. So when World War I broke out, the European powers were forced to contend with each other not just in the bloody trenches - but in the treacherous jungle. And it was in that unforgiving land that General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck would make history.
With the now legendary "Schutztruppe" (Defensive Force), von Lettow-Vorbeck and a small cadre of hardened German officers fought alongside their fanatically devoted native African allies as equals, creating the first truly integrated army of the modern age.
African Kaiser is the almost-forgotten true account of Wiemar Germany's military escapades on the dark continent. A story of 1,000-mile marches through the harshest landscapes; of German officers riding bicycles into battle through the bush; of battleships hidden in jungle rivers teeming with crocodiles; of improbable Zeppelin voyages; of desperate men living off hippo lard and facing dangers in both man and nature. But mostly it is the story of von Lettow-Vorbeck - the only undefeated German commmander in the field during World War I, and the last to surrender his arms in final defeat.
©2017 Robert Gaudi (P)2017 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Brilliantly researched and vividly told, The Unknowns is a timeless tale of heeding the calls of duty and brotherhood and humanizes the most consequential event of the 20th century, which still casts a shadow a century later. Celebrated military historian and best-selling author Patrick O'Donnell illuminates the saga behind the creation of The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and recreates the moving ceremony during which it was consecrated.
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The Unknowns
- By Logophile on 05-09-19
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Retribution
- The Battle for Japan, 1944 - 45
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 27 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In his critically acclaimed Armageddon, Hastings detailed the last twelve months of the struggle for Germany. Here, in what can be considered a companion volume, he covers the horrific story of the war against Japan. By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan’s defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained to be seen. The ensuing drama–that ended in Japan’s utter devastation–was acted out across the vast stage of Asia.
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A superb study by one of the world's finest histor
- By Easton Reader on 12-22-16
By: Max Hastings
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The Battle of New Orleans
- By: Robert V. Remini
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The Battle of New Orleans sets its scenes with an almost unbelievably colorful cast of characters - a happenstance coalition of militia-men, regulars, untrained frontiersmen, free blacks, Indians, townspeople, and of course, Jackson himself. His glorious, improbable victory will catapult a once-poor, uneducated orphan boy into the White House and forge the beginning of a true nation.
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Pronunciation please!
- By Paul Randolph on 05-06-19
By: Robert V. Remini
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Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour
- Armistice Day, 1918 World War I and Its Violent Climax
- By: Joseph E. Persico
- Narrated by: Jonathan Marosz
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of Roosevelt's Secret War traces the last day of World War I, weaving together the experiences of the famous, such as President Wilson, General Pershing, and Douglas MacArthur, and the unsung and unremembered.
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Beauty amidst savagery
- By Amazon Customer on 12-06-04
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Through the Perilous Fight
- Six Weeks That Saved the Nation
- By: Steve Vogel
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
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In the summer of 1814, the United States of America teetered on the brink of disaster. The war it had declared against Great Britain two years earlier appeared headed toward inglorious American defeat. In a fast-paced, character-driven narrative, Steve Vogel tells the story of this titanic struggle from the perspective of both sides. Like an epic novel, Through the Perilous Fight abounds with heroes, villains, and astounding feats of derring-do.
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History at its finest!
- By Anonymous User on 04-04-24
By: Steve Vogel
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Catastrophe 1914
- Europe Goes to War
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 25 hrs and 25 mins
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From the acclaimed military historian, a new history of the outbreak of World War I: the dramatic stretch from the breakdown of diplomacy to the battles - the Marne, Ypres, Tannenberg - that marked the frenzied first year before the war bogged down in the trenches. In Catastrophe 1914, Max Hastings gives us a conflict different from the familiar one of barbed wire, mud, and futility.
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I thought I knew the battle of the frontiers
- By Anonymous User on 04-02-21
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American Heritage History of the American Revolution
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Bruce Lancaster starts his story with an examination of colonial society and the origins of the quarrel with England. He details the ensuing battles and military campaigns from Lexington and Concord to the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, as well as the tense political and social situation of the new nation. The American Heritage History of the American Revolution details the birth of America with insight and depth.
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Good thumbnail of the revolution.
- By Tony B. on 07-12-17
By: Bruce Lancaster
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Passchendaele
- Requiem for Doomed Youth
- By: Paul Ham
- Narrated by: Robert Meldrum
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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From Paul Ham, winner of the NSW Premier's Prize for Australian History, comes the story of ordinary men in the grip of a political and military power struggle that determined their fate and has foreshadowed the destiny of the world for a century. Passchendaele epitomises everything that was most terrible about the Western Front. The photographs never sleep of this four-month battle, fought from July to November 1917, the worst year of the war.
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Very compelling - good story, good narration
- By DPM on 11-25-16
By: Paul Ham
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Washington's Immortals
- The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution
- By: Patrick K. O’Donnell
- Narrated by: William Hughes
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In August 1776, a little over a month after the Continental Congress had formally declared independence from Britain, the revolution was on the verge of a sudden and disastrous end. General George Washington found his troops outmanned and outmaneuvered at the Battle of Brooklyn, and it looked like there was no escape. But thanks to a series of desperate rear-guard attacks by a single heroic regiment, famously known as the Immortal 400, Washington was able to evacuate his men, and the nascent Continental Army lived to fight another day.
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Spectacular
- By Robert Everman on 04-26-16
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The Great Anglo-Boer War
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- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 23 hrs and 24 mins
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Performance
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The Great Boer War (1899-1902) - more properly the Great Anglo-Boer War - was one of the last romantic wars, pitting a sturdy, stubborn pioneer people fighting to establish the independence of their tiny nation against the British Empire at its peak of power and self-confidence. It was fought in the barren vastness of the South African veldt, and it produced in almost equal measure extraordinary feats of personal heroism, unbelievable examples of folly and stupidity, and many incidents of humor and tragedy.
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There are no winners in war, only victims.
- By LtTora on 07-19-20
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Hubris
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- By: Alistair Horne
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
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Sir Alistair Horne has been a close observer of war and history for more than 50 years, and in this wise and masterly work he revisits six battles of the past century and examines the strategies, leadership, preparation, and geopolitical goals of aggressors and defenders to reveal the one trait that links them all: hubris.
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I Never Heard W ll Explained this Way!
- By John on 09-01-16
By: Alistair Horne
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In the late 1890s, Edmund Dene Morel, a young British shipping company agent, noticed something strange about the cargoes of his company's ships as they arrived from and departed for the Congo. Incoming ships were crammed with valuable ivory and rubber. Outbound ships carried little more than soldiers and firearms. Correctly concluding that only slave labor could account for these cargoes, Morel almost singlehandedly made this slave-labor regime the premier human rights story in the world.
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Heart of Europe
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The Holy Roman Empire lasted 1,000 years, far longer than ancient Rome. Yet this formidable dominion never inspired the awe of its predecessor. Voltaire quipped that it was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. Yet as Peter H. Wilson shows, the Holy Roman Empire tells a millennial story of Europe better than the histories of individual nation-states.
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Mixed feelings on this one.
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What listeners say about African Kaiser
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jean
- 04-13-17
Gaudi is a skillful storyteller
This book is part of my reading project about World War One. This book takes place in Africa rather than Europe. I remember the Germans in the movie “African Queen”. Little seems to have been written about WWI in Africa.
Germany was one of the colonist nations in Africa. They had German East Africa. The author tells about the life of General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck (1870-1964) but most of the time about his African campaigns. Gaudi goes into depth about how he created his fanatically loyal Schutztruppe. They were a small colonial infantry consisting of some black and white soldiers. They were trained into a highly efficient fighting force, aggressive and completely self-supporting. Gaudi states it was the first racially integrated army in modern history. They were cut off from the world by the British Blockade. They were outnumbered by British, South African, Belgian and Portuguese armies but they could not be caught or beaten. Gaudi provides a brief review of colonialism in Africa and tosses in a myriad of odd facts. Gaudi compares Lettow-Vorbeck to Glylippus from Thucydides in the Peloponnesian Wars.
The book is well written and meticulously researched. The book reads like a novel instead of a dry history book. Gaudi does a great job with the descriptions of the naval and military actions. Von Lettow-Vorbeck had a brief romance with Karen Blixen who is better known as Isaak Dinesen, author of “Out of Africa”. Von Lettow-Vorbeck was the only undefeated German General of WWI and a recipient of the German Pourle Merite and the Blauer Max. This would be the equivalent of the Medal of Honor. He lived to oppose Hitler and died in 1964.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book was about 18 hours long. Paul Hodgson does a good job narrating the book. Hodgson is a classically trained British actor and audiobook narrator.
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12 people found this helpful
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Overall
- ECWalter
- 05-20-17
Gripping history
Beautifully written and excellently read. Astounding story of guerrilla/asymmetrical warfare, exactly the kind of thing today's special ops commands aspire to do with host countries troops. This is military history that reads better than military fiction. Also shows Germans and Englishmen acting like gentlemen even in a deadly war.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Adam
- 02-25-19
Amazing story with whitty modern day comparisons
The story is amazing, it throws you off as it jumps around and then comes to the point of why it was important regarding the African Campaign.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-23-17
A glimpse of an incredible journey and general.
overall excellent but at sometimes the author leaves stories hanging and returns to the much later it's just his own preference and structuring the narrative although the content itself is very incredible and enjoyable.
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- Audrey
- 04-01-18
Interesting perspective on WWI in East Africa.
What did you love best about African Kaiser?
It was interesting to hear about the exploits of von Lettow. Some (on might say revisionist) perspectives on colonialism and warefare on the German side, rarely taught in history lessons nowadays.
Which character – as performed by Paul Hodgson – was your favorite?
von Lettow-Vorbeck of course. Also Meinertzhagen.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
Seriously, Amazon??
Any additional comments?
Note to the author / editors: the are some egregious but easy to fix factual errors in the book. (1) SMS Königsberg was a light cruiser and not, by any means, a battleship as so often mentioned in the book.
(2) Zeppelins could at best carry thousands of pounds, but never thousands of tons. Not even a modern heavy transport aircraft could do that. PLEASE, fix these editorial mistakes.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-13-22
great
Great book, I would recommend to anyone interested in history or just looking for a good story.
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- Erick
- 05-08-17
Brilliant! Brilliant Book
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Absolutely loved it! Great Book about a Great man.
I initially thought the book focused on German South West Africa but was pleasantly surprised to find out it's actually about the Great war in East Africa; with all the familiar place names landmarks.
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- Hannah
- 07-12-18
The Man Who Told Hitler to Go F* Himself
This was a very enjoyable and interesting book. It covered the often tragic history of German colonial expansion in Africa before WWI before describing the fighting between that war's belligerents in the German colony. The main subject, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, is presented as gifted military strategist and leader of men and his story is compelling.
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- Cabazone
- 02-09-17
A fantastic story about an unknown part of WW1
One of the most fascinating stories of World War One, the adventures of Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck as laid out on this book bring a smile to the face and even a tear or two to the eye. He was a skilled warrior, and deserves much more recognition from the world than he currently gets. If you love a good story, a complex campaign diary, or an emotional tale of an officers devotion to his men, this book is the one for you.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Boyd Tschaggeny
- 06-29-18
If you like history, you'll love this book!
This book is fantastic because it does a great job of telling you the story of General Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck. You are given the General's backstory, what was going on in his native Germany, and the what his opponents were doing. This book is written more like a novel, than a history book. This approach to framing General Lettow as a story is risky, but it definitely paid off. I couldn't stop listening to this book once I started, it's very good!
I read a review that had me worried about this book; the troublesome review said the narration was comical at times. That couldn't be further from the truth. The narrator does a phenomenal job. Do not worry about the narrator at all, you will hardly realize he's reading it after a while (because he's that good).
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who likes history or biographies (or good books). You'll like this one, definitely check it out.
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