The Explorers' Club Special: March 1916

Operation AXIOM: The World War
In March 1916, the Anglo-Indian effort to relieve their fellows besieged in Kut stumbled; the German assault toward Verdun stalled; the French goaded the Italians into attacking before they were ready & the Russians into a doomed direct assault on the Germans in order to relieve the pressure on Verdun; & the British & Imperial forces advanced into German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika), driving the Germans from Mount Kilimanjaro & seizing control of Lake Tanganyika.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the World War: March 1916
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLXXXVI: The Siege of Kut, Part III: The Battle of Dujaila (8 March 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLXXXVII: The Battle of Verdun, Part II: The German Offensive (21 February-9 April 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLXXXVIII: The Endless Battles of the Isonzo, Part III: The Fifth Battle of the Isonzo (9-15 March 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLXXXIX: The Battles of Latema Nek & Kahe (11-18 March 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXCI: The Lake Naroch Offensive (18-30 March 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXC: The Battle of Lake Tanganyika (December 1915-July 1916)

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club Special: February 1916

Operation AXIOM: The World War
February 1916 saw the Russian Empire gain the upper hand against the Ottoman Empire in the western Caucasus with a surprise winter offensive & the Germans blunted the British & Imperial invasion of German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika) near Mount Kilimanjaro. On the Western Front, the longest battle of the war began, the Battle of Verdun; the "World Blood Pump" would continue throughout 1916.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the World War: February 1916
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLXXXIII: The Erzurum Offensive (10 January-16 February 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLXXXIV: The Battle of Salaita Hill (12 February 1916)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLXXXV: The Battle of Verdun, Part I: The First Day (21 February 1916)

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club Special: July 1915

Operation AXIOM: The World War
July 1915 saw the first victory in aerial combat, a dozen years after the Wright Brothers invented the aeroplane. In East Africa, a German ship's guns were removed & repurposed as field artillery.

Commentary: In July 2015, "The Explorers' Club" was still recovering from a rough spring. We'd be backon track by August.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the World War: July 1915
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXLV: The first victory in air-to-air combat (1 July 1915)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDXLVI: The Battle of the Rufiji Delta (October 1914-11 July 1915)
"The Explorers' Club," № CDLIX: The Endless Battles of the Isonzo, Part I: The First & Second Battles of the Isonzo (23 June-3 August 1915)

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № DCLVII

Operation AXIOM: The World War
14 November 1918: Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's Schutztruppe (roughly 3,000 German officers & 11,000 African askari), still unconquered after more than four years in the field—cut off from the rest of the Central Powers, outnumbered by the Entente more than twenty to one (20:1), & often operating in Entente colonies—learned of the Armistice of Compiègne (11 November) & agreed to a ceasefire.

The Wayback Machine Tour of the East African Campaign
№ CDXIX: The Battles of Tanga & Kilimanjaro (November 1914)
№ CDXLVI: The Battle of the Rufiji Delta (October 1914-July 1915)
№ CDLXXXIV: The Battle of Salaita Hill (February 1916)
№ CDLXXXIX: The Battles of Latema Neck & Kahe (March 1916)
№ CDXC: The Battle of Lake Tanganyika (December 1915-July 1916)
№ DXIV: The Battle of Kisaki (September 1916)
№ DXXXVI: The Death of Frederick Selous (January 1917)
№ DLXXXII: The Flight of L 59, "Das Afrika-Schiff" (November 1917)
№ DLXXXIV: The Battle of Ngomano (November 1917)
№ DCXXXVIII: The Battle of Lioma (August 1918)

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № DCXXXVIII

Operation AXIOM: The World War
30-31 August 1918: The Battle of Lioma—The British King's African Rifles cornered & very nearly encircled the Schutztruppe & Askari of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, outnumbered & cut off from resupply by the rest of the German Empire for four years, at Lioma, in Portuguese Mozambique; though badly mauled & thrown into chaos, the Germans once again managed to escape, living to fight another day.

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № DLXXXIV

Operation AXIOM: The World War
25 November 1917: The Battle of Ngomano—After a pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Mahiwa (15-18 October) & the airship L 59's resupply mission was aborted, Lettow-Vorbeck's Germans & askaris, short on ammunition & everything else, invaded Portuguese East Africa (África Oriental); routed the Portuguese defenders; & rearmed, reequipped, & replenished themselves with Entente matériel.

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № DLXXXII

Operation AXIOM: The World War
21-25 November 1917: The Kaiserliche Marine dirigible L 59 (LZ 104), nicknamed "Das Afrika-Schiff" ("The Africa Ship"), attempted a one-way flight to resupply Lettow-Vorbeck's troops in Africa—cut off for three years—to deliver cargo & then be cannibalized for matériel, but turned back when radioed the Germans had been forced to retreat from the planned flat landing zone to hazardous mountains.

Lest we forget.

Commentary: The flight of Das Afrika-Schiff, ninety-five hours airborne traversing four thousand two hundred miles, remains the longest non-stop military flight in history, a century after the feat. The L 59 still had fuel for another sixty-four hours of flight at the time she returned to her hanger in Bulgaria.

The Explorers' Club, № DXXXVI

Operation AXIOM: The World War
Frederick Selous, D.S.O. (1851-1917), the explorer, naturalist, conservationist, author, & iconic big-game hunter; a founding member of the Shikar Club, friend of Lord Baden-Powell, recipient of the Royal Geographical Society's Founders' Medal, & the inspiration for H. Rider Haggard's character Allan Quatermain; still a soldier at age sixty-five, killed by a German sniper, 4 January 1917.

Commentary: Selous appeared on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, played by Paul Freeman, better known within the Indiana Jones franchise for playing Indy's unscrupulous rival, René Belloq, in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № DXIV

Operation AXIOM: The World War
7-11 September 1916: The Battle of Kisaki—German Schutztruppen lured their principally South African pursuers into a frontal assault against well-prepared, naturally-defensible terrain; the Germans won the field, but withdrew days later, continuing to retreat southward. This last vestige of Germany's pre-war colonial empire had effectively been operating behind enemy lines for two years.

Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № CDXC

Operation AXIOM: The World War
December 1915-July 1916: The Battle of Lake Tanganyika—The British dragged small motorboats overland from Cape Town to become H.M.S. Mimi & H.M.S. Toutou, captured the German gunboat S.M.S. Kingani & rechristened her H.M.S. Fifi, & sank the steamboat S.M.S. Hedwig von Wissmann; Belgian air attacks & changing fortunes in the fighting ashore forced the scuttling of the leviathan on the lake, the armed ferry S.M.S. Graf von Götzen.









Lest we forget.

Commentary: The fighting on & around Lake Tanganyika served as the inspiration for C. S. Forster's novel The African Queen, subsequently & brilliantly adapted to the screen by John Huston. The Graf von Götzen was raised after the war & still sails Tanganyika today, as the M.V. Liemba, pictured above.

The Explorers' Club, № CDLXXXIX

Operation AXIOM: The World War
11-18 March 1916: The Battles of Latema Nek (11-12 March) & Kahe (18 March)—British & Imperial forces—mainly white South Africans & Rhodesians, black Africans, & Baloch Indians—charged with bayonets fixed to redeem their defeat at Salaita Hill, forcing the Germans to abandon Kilimanjaro & the surrounding vicinities & retreat deeper into German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika).







Lest we forget.



Commentary: The Battle of Salaita Hill, 12 February 1916; see: № CDLXXXIV.

The Explorers' Club, № CDLXXXIV

Operation AXIOM: The World War
12 February 1916: The Battle of Salaita Hill—a British & Imperial offensive, under the command of (later Field Marshal) Jan Smuts, into German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika) was thwarted in the vicinity of Kilimanjaro; both sides supplemented their artillery with cannon salvaged from ships sunk off the now-Tanzanian coast in the first year of the war.









Lest we forget.

The Explorers' Club, № CDXLVI

October 1914-11 July 1915: The Battle of the Rufiji Delta—the blockade & bombardment by a British Royal Navy squadron of the German cruiser S.M.S. Königsberg, eventually scuttled by her crew, most of whom escaped overland with some of the Königsberg's guns, which were used to great effect as artillery in the East Africa Campaign.









Lest we forget.

Below, the wreck of the Königsberg, photographed years later, overgrown with vegetation in Tanzania's Rufiji Delta.



The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
The Puppini Sisters, "Tu Vo Fa L'Americano" from Betcha Bottom Dollar (Mike Papa Whiskey)

Commentary: The title, which apparently should be rendered as "Tu Vuò Fà L'Americano," is Italian for "You Want to Be American." The song satirizes those who idolized America & adopted supposedly "American" habits & preferences. I don't know, you might be barking up the wrong tree, fellas; leaving war-ravaged Italy for the welcoming bosom of Columbia seems to have worked out pretty well for Mario Andretti. Here at The Secret Base, our patriotism is robust enough to withstand a little ribbing from sniveling, ingrate Fascists whom we freed from Nazi occupation.

As always, the Puppini Sisters harmonize beautifully.

The Explorers' Club, № CDXIX

Operation AXIOM: The World War
3-5 November 1914: The Battles of Tanga & Kilimanjaro—the defeat & repulsion of a vastly numerically superior British invasion of German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika, today: mainland Tanzania, Rwanda, & Burundi).









Lest we forget.

Operation AXIOM
I have been remiss. So focused have I been on the centenary of the Great War that I've neglected a pair of anniversaries of later twentieth century history.

Twenty-five years ago last Sunday, 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell when the tottering East German regime announced freedom of movement betwixt East Germany (the ironically named German Democratic Republic, D.D.R.) & West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany, B.R.D.), & betwixt East & West Berlin. First, the gates & checkpoints were opened; then, Berliners both Wessie & Ossie began dancing atop the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (the Wall's formal name in D.D.R. Newspeak); & at last, sections of that monumental crime against human dignity began to fall, literally. I was ten years old when the Berlin Wall fell. I'd never considered whether or not Communism in Europe might end or endure forever, it had just always been; & then it was no more, almost overnight. Whatever the dangers of the world today, they do not look half so frightful once viewed through the lens of the three globetrotting conflicts of the twentieth century—the First World War, the Second World War, & the Cold War. We have defeated evil before, & we shall defeat evil again. Take heart, remember that the Berlin Wall fell twenty-five years ago last week.

Thirty-nine years ago last Monday, 10 November 1975, the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was lost in Lake Superior with twenty-nine souls aboard. The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald would be all but forgotten today if not for Gordon Lightfoot's latter-day shanty "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," proof that popular culture need not always be frivolous. The Edmund Fitzgerald sank, thirty-nine years ago last week.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" via iTunes (Animal)

Commentary: Animal, brother of the Blonde & boon companion of Red Patton, made mention of the anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald on the FaceSpace. He's a history major, so good on him. At the time I was consumed with preparations of The Secret Base's annual commemoration of Armistice Day; I am grateful to Animal for picking up the slack. Animal's code name is a reference to the Muppet of the same name, the wild drummer for Doctor Teeth & the Electric Mayhem.

The Queue
I have abandoned Matthew Kelly's book Rediscover Catholicism; 'twas not bringing me closer to God, 'twas not helping me rediscover Catholicism. Mr. Kelly is reputed to be a brilliant speaker, but his writing leaves much to be desired. Maybe this would have been a useful book for me at an earlier stage in my spiritual awakening, but I rather suspect not. This life is too fleeting to read bad books. "Bad"? A tad harsh, you say? Harsh but fair, I rejoin. There was no joy in slogging through Rediscover Catholicism, whereas I have found my ongoing rediscovery of Catholicism to be a source of superlative, boundless joy.

Recently
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Swords of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Synthetic Men of Mars
Matthew Kelly, Rediscover Catholicism: A Spiritual Guide to Living with Passion & Purpose ***abandoned***

Currently
Thomas J. Craughwell, Saints Behaving Badly: The Cutthroats, Crooks, Trollops, Con Men, and Devil Worshippers Who Became Saints

Presently
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Llana of Gathol
Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter of Mars
Rice Broocks, God's Not Dead: Evidence for God in an Age of Uncertainty
Sir Ernest Shackleton, South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage
Richard Price, Clockers
Sir Richard Francis Burton, translator, "Sinbad the Sailor" from The Arabian Nights
Ted Morgan, Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu That Led America into the Vietnam War
Norman Stone, The Atlantic and Its Enemies: A Personal History of the Cold War

Lately Neglected
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill
Edmund Burke, The Evils of Revolution
F. J. Sheed, Theology for Beginners