I'm not big into military history but I have a bizarre fascination with the absolutely ape-shit story of the Battle for Lake Tanganyika in the First World War. The most asinine military adventure I know of.

To summarize in a thread:

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/a-strange-braggarts-incompetent-naval-career-in-the-heart-of-africa-89f52a37e40d

PSA- none of the players in this story are good guys. This was a battle between imperial powers for the right to subjugate and enslave millions of humans. It’s distinguished only by the sheer absurdity of the (most likely) drunk buffoons who called the shots.

So it all started in 1915- when the Germans launched this absolute unit of a battleship - The Graf Goetzen- into Lake Tanganyika. She was shipped down in 5,000 boxes from Germany to Dar Es Salaam and assembled in Tanzania (then a German colony).

So why was this important? This was a floating fucking fortress and as the only battleship on the lake, could shell the allies with impunity from kilometers away and assured German dominance across the entire western border of modern Tanzania.

I'm not part of GunTwitter™ so I know precisely fuck all about this- but wikipedia says these old 105mm cannons (like the one on the Goetzen) had a range up to 12km. That's fucking far, as indicated by the map below showing how this boat could beat allied asses from the lake.

After the Germans decimate the tiny allied boats on the lake, the British decide they’re not putting up with this shit. They’re not going to let anyone upstage them at using boats to make people miserable.

So the plan is to ship down 2 small gunboats from London, hike them across Africa, assemble them and put them on the lake. Picked by the British to run this shit-show was this fucking guy: Geoffrey Basil Spicer-Simson: The LeBron James of losing his own ships.

This dude was absolute dogshit at his job. His own wikipedia page describes his record as “undistinguished” prior to being assigned to Tanganyika.
As the oldest Lt.Commander in the Royal Navy, he had sunk or damaged more British ships (4) than German (0).

His record: During his first command, he ran a destroyer aground in Borneo. Then he got another ship torpedoed off the coast of Portsmouth when he decided to go ashore for a night-cap with his in-laws.

Later, he was hunting german submarines in the channel by dragging a huge chain between 2 ships. He managed to catch and damage a submarine- a British one. After this he ran yet another destroyer aground, finally getting court-martialed.

But he was basically the only dude around so in the grand tradition of failing upwards, the Admiralty said “why the fuck not” and sent him down with a bunch of crates full of boat bits and orders to assemble 2 gunboats on Lake Tanganyika to go ham on the Graf Goetzen.

The trip from England revealed Geoff’s second love (#1 being sinking British ships) : going full Karen. He threatened to take command of the ship when the captain wouldn’t let him smoke cigarettes in the engine room.

He lands in South Africa and begins a months-long overland, hauling the crates to the shores of Lake Tanganyika and assembling these raggedy boats. He tried to christen them the HMS Cat & HMS Dog but the Admiralty said no so he settled on “Mimi” and “Toutou”

Unsurprisingly for the racist murder machine that was the British Empire, little is written about the people who carried these boats across Africa. African porters’ deaths were often excluded from casualty tallies. But we can assume scores died at the whims of this boozy lunatic.

So let’s again clarify this plan. To win Lake Tanganyika, the british decide to ship 2 disassembled boats, then HAUL THEM ACROSS A FUCKING CONTINENT under the command of a lunatic failson who will then assemble them and… win?

Geoff immediately gets to work by taking exceedingly long baths, promoting himself to vice-admiral and befriending a chimp named Josephine and insisting on her presence everywhere. Here she is getting a haircut.

His Belgian allies apparently HATED this dude, but not for the right reasons. Apparently they were incensed by his insistence on wearing a grass skirt to avoid chafing (see Geoff on the left).

The germans meanwhile, figure something is up and send some dudes down to investigate. One of them, Job Rosenthal, gets caught by the Belgians but manages to send a secret message written in urine (!) back to his superiors.

In between bathtimes, Geoff manages engage the smaller german ships and manage to capture one, which herenames the HMS Fifi (pictured here).

But he never engages that big fucker the Graf Goetzen, which is still going on the lake, stirring shit up.

Part of the problem was the port of Kigoma, where the Graf Goetzen would dock, was unassailable, due to being protected by a fort with big fuckoff guns. Geoff refused to attack the fort from the lake, telling the Belgians to figure out how to take Kigoma from land alone.

By this point, Geoff continues his tradition of excellent decision-making and decides to fuck off several hundred km away to Kisangani (then Stanleyville) to find a bigger boat. By the time he comes back, sans bigger boat, the battle for the lake is pretty much over.

The Belgians finally take Kigoma in mid 1916, and find out the forts’ “guns” were just painted logs (picture). In addition to being Weekend at Bernie’d by the German army, The Belgians, super chuffed to get to the Graf Goetzen, were super bummed when the germans scuttled her.

Eventually the war ends but the fighting in East Africa continues for 2 weeks after the armistice because the German army couldn’t get telegrams (and I guess they didn’t believe the British when they told them it was over).

But what of the absolute unit, the Graf Goetzen? So the Germans, anticipating a return, covered the engines in grease before sinking her, figuring they’d come back. The British and Belgians spend YEARS looking for her. She was scuttled here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/4%C2%B054'05.0%22S+29%C2%B036'12.0%22E/@-4.9013889,29.6033333,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d-4.9013889!4d29.6033333

In 1927 she is dredged and recommissioned as a ferry. The Graf Goetzen thus became the MV Liemba and has been running for nearly a century. You can still take her from Kigoma to Mpulungu.

Sources: @moe_delaun ‘s excellent piece: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/a-strange-braggarts-incompetent-naval-career-in-the-heart-of-africa-89f52a37e40d

Geoff’s own account is on the Amazon bookstore: https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Lake-Tanganyika-Germanys-Interior-ebook/dp/B07564MPLT/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=geoffrey+spicer+simson&qid=1586313719&sr=8-2 https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-end-at-11am-on-11-november/