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"Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the First World War in Africa"
by Edward Paice
Apollo/February 2021
Reviewed by Beat Nobs
Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the First World War in Africa is the masterfully told story of the First World War in East Africa. In a detailed and meticoulously researched account of events of that whatershed global conflict in Africa, Edward Paice succeeds in not only sheding light on that often overlooked theater of the war but also offers many insights pertaining to military strategy for the reader in military history but also the incredible suffering of the British, Rhodesian, South African, German, Belgian, Portugese, and Indian soldiers, as well as the thousands of African soldiers and the conscripted labourers and porter of the local African populations of the European colonial powers, who suffered on a scale unimaginable in Europe. One would be amiss not to feel a sense of admiration for their resilience, their tenacity in the face of overwhelming hardships fighting a war and enormous challenges in a area five times the size of Germany to provide logistical support in an unforgiving environment with very little existing infrastructure to use. For over four years the British Empire and its allies tried in vain to defeat the ever elusive German forces under the formidable leadership of Major-General Paul von Lettow–Vorbeck. It details the cat and mouse fight that continued for weeks even after the armistice had been signed in Europe on November 11, 1918. A gripping read!
Beat Nobs served as the Ambassador of Switzerland to Canada from 2014 to 2019. A career diplomat, he served in the Swiss diplomatic core from 1988 to 2019. Previous positions include serving as the Assistant State Secretary for Asia and Pacific (2010-2014), Ambassador of Switzerland to New Zealand, the Fiji Islands, Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands and Niue (2005-2010), and various positions with the United Nations including Vice-President of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and Vice President of the United Nations Environment Programme.
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