BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS "BIS REVIEW NO. 21": BERNANKE REPORT

February 26, 2010 on 5:16 am | In Economics, Financial, Globalization, Research, USA | No Comments

BIS Review

Bank for International Settlements

BIS Review No 21 available

Press, Service (press@bis.org)

Publications, Service (Publications@bis.org)

Thu 2/25/10

Please find BIS Review No 21 attached as an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file. Alternatively, you can access this BIS Review on the Bank for International Settlements’ website by clicking on http://www.bis.org/review/index.htm.

What’s included?

BIS Review No 21 (25 February 2010)

Ben S Bernanke: Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress

Duvvuri Subbarao: Lessons from the financial crisis for monetary policy in emerging markets

Hirohide Yamaguchi: Japan’s economy and monetary policy

Paul Tucker: Inflation, growth and stability – balancing the Bank of England’s economic priorities

Lorenzo Bini Smaghi: Slaves of defunct economists

e-mail press@bis.org.

BIS Review

Bank for International Settlements

BIS Review No 21 available

http://www.bis.org/review/index.htm

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Thu 2/25/10

BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS "BIS REVIEW NO. 20": GLOBAL INTEGRATED ISLAMIC FINANCIAL SYSTEM

February 24, 2010 on 7:19 pm | In Economics, Financial, Globalization, Islam, Research, World-System | No Comments

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BIS Review

Bank for International Settlements

BIS Review No 20 available

Press, Service (press@bis.org)

Publications, Service (Publications@bis.org)

Wed 2/24/10

Please find BIS Review No 20 attached as an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file. Alternatively, you can access this BIS Review on the Bank for International Settlements’ website by clicking on http://www.bis.org/review/index.htm.

What’s included?

BIS Review No 20 (24 February 2010)

Mario Draghi: The world economic recovery and Italy’s part in it

Zeti Akhtar Aziz: A milestone towards a more efficient and internationally integrated global  Islamic financial system

Tarisa Watanagase: Strengthening the banking and financial sector – what needs to be done?

Ric Battellino: Mining booms and the Australian economy

Cleviston Haynes: Civility, creativity and performance – building and sustaining smart partnerships for improved productivity

e-mail press@bis.org.

BIS Review

Bank for International Settlements

BIS Review No 20 available

http://www.bis.org/review/index.htm

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Publications, Service (Publications@bis.org)

Wed 2/24/10

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SVANTE ARRHENIUS AND THE ORIGINS OF THE THEORY OF GREENHOUSE GASES

February 24, 2010 on 2:59 pm | In Earth, History, Research, Science & Technology | No Comments

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Svante Arrhenius

(19 February 1859 – 2 October 1927)

He was the first person to predict that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and other combustion processes would cause global warming.

Arrhenius clearly believed that a warmer world would be a positive change. From that, the hot-house theory gained more attention. Nevertheless, until about 1960, most scientists dismissed the hot-house / greenhouse effect as implausible for the cause of ice ages as Milutin Milankovitch had presented a mechanism using orbital changes of the earth (Milankovitch cycles).

Nowadays, the accepted explanation is that orbital forcing sets the timing for ice ages with CO2 acting as an essential amplifying feedback.

Svante August Arrhenius (19 February 1859 – 2 October 1927) was a Swedish scientist, originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. The Arrhenius equation, lunar crater Arrhenius and the Arrhenius Labs at Stockholm University are named after him.

Later years

In 1902 he began to investigate physiological problems in terms of chemical theory. He determined that reactions in living organisms and in the test tube followed the same laws. In 1904 he delivered at the University of California a course of lectures, the object of which was to illustrate the application of the methods of physical chemistry to the study of the theory of toxins and antitoxins, and which were published in 1907 under the title Immunochemistry. He also turned his attention to geology (the origin of ice ages), astronomy, physical cosmology, and astrophysics, accounting for the birth of the solar system by interstellar collision. He considered radiation pressure as accounting for comets, the solar corona, the aurora borealis, and zodiacal light.

He thought life might have been carried from planet to planet by the transport of spores, the theory now known as panspermia. He thought of the idea of a universal language, proposing a modification of the English language.

In his last years he wrote both textbooks and popular books, trying to emphasize the need for further work on the topics he discussed.

In September, 1927, he came down with an attack of acute intestinal catarrh, died on 2 October, and was buried in Uppsala.

Greenhouse effect

Arrhenius developed a theory to explain the ice ages, and first speculated that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect.[3] He was influenced by the work of others, including Joseph Fourier. Arrhenius used the infrared observations of the moon by Frank Washington Very and Samuel Pierpont Langley at the Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh to calculate the absorption of CO2 and water vapour. Using ‘Stefan’s law’ (better known as the Stefan Boltzmann law), he formulated his greenhouse law. In its original form, Arrhenius’ greenhouse law reads as follows:

if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.

This simplified expression is still used today:

ΔF = α ln(C/C0)

Arrhenius’ high absorption values for CO2, however, met criticism by Knut Ångström in 1900, who published the first modern infrared spectrum of CO2 with two absorption bands. Arrhenius replied strongly in 1901 (Annalen der Physik), dismissing the critique altogether. He touched the subject briefly in a technical book titled Lehrbuch der kosmischen Physik (1903). He later wrote Världarnas utveckling (1906), German translation: Das Werden der Welten (1907), English translation: Worlds in the Making (1908) directed at a general audience, where he suggested that the human emission of CO2 would be strong enough to prevent the world from entering a new ice age, and that a warmer earth would be needed to feed the rapidly increasing population. He was the first person to predict that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and other combustion processes would cause global warming. Arrhenius clearly believed that a warmer world would be a positive change. From that, the hot-house theory gained more attention. Nevertheless, until about 1960, most scientists dismissed the hot-house / greenhouse effect as implausible for the cause of ice ages as Milutin Milankovitch had presented a mechanism using orbital changes of the earth (Milankovitch cycles). Nowadays, the accepted explanation is that orbital forcing sets the timing for ice ages with CO2 acting as an essential amplifying feedback.

Arrhenius estimated that halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by 4 – 5 °C (Celsius) and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5 – 6 °C[4]. In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 °C (including water vapour feedback: 2.1 °C). Recent (2007) estimates from IPCC say this value (the Climate sensitivity) is likely to be between 2 and 4.5 °C.

Arrhenius expected CO2 levels to rise at a rate given by emissions in his time. Since then, industrial carbon dioxide levels have risen at a much faster rate: Arrhenius expected CO2 doubling to take about 3000 years; it is now estimated in most scenarios to take about a century.

Svante Arrhenius (19 February 1859 – 2 October 1927)

He was the first person to predict that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and other combustion processes would cause global warming.

Arrhenius clearly believed that a warmer world would be a positive change. From that, the hot-house theory gained more attention. Nevertheless, until about 1960, most scientists dismissed the hot-house / greenhouse effect as implausible for the cause of ice ages as Milutin Milankovitch had presented a mechanism using orbital changes of the earth (Milankovitch cycles).

Nowadays, the accepted explanation is that orbital forcing sets the timing for ice ages with CO2 acting as an essential amplifying feedback.

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BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS "BIS REVIEW NO. 19": GLOBALIZATION

February 23, 2010 on 3:49 pm | In Economics, Financial, Globalization, History, Research, World-System | No Comments

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BIS Review

Bank for International Settlements

BIS Review No 19 available

Press, Service (press@bis.org)

Publications, Service (Publications@bis.org)

Tue 2/23/10

Please find BIS Review No 19 attached as an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file. Alternatively, you can access this BIS Review on the Bank for International Settlements’ website by clicking on http://www.bis.org/review/index.htm.

What’s included?

BIS Review No 19 (23 February 2010)

Patrick Honohan: The intertwined recent experience of the Irish and UK economies

Caleb M Fundanga: Enhancing access to finance in Zambia

Bandid Nijathaworn: The role of Early Warning Systems in economic policy formulation

Louis Kasekende: Overview of the Ugandan economy

José Manuel González-Páramo: Globalisation, international financial integration and the financial crisis – the future of European and international financial market regulation and supervision

e-mail press@bis.org.

BIS Review

Bank for International Settlements

BIS Review No 19 available

http://www.bis.org/review/index.htm

Press, Service (press@bis.org)

Publications, Service (Publications@bis.org)

Tue 2/23/10

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BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS "BIS REVIEW NO. 18": FINANCIAL SECTOR

February 22, 2010 on 2:46 pm | In Economics, Financial, Globalization, Research, Third World | No Comments

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BIS Review

Bank for International Settlements

BIS Review No 18 available

Press, Service (press@bis.org)

Publications, Service (Publications@bis.org)

Mon 2/22/10

Please find BIS Review No 18 attached as an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file. Alternatively, you can access this BIS Review on the Bank for International Settlements’ website by clicking on http://www.bis.org/review/index.htm.

What’s included?

BIS Review No 18 (22 February 2010)

William C Dudley: The challenges ahead

Nout Wellink: Working on the future of the financial sector

Caleb M Fundanga: Financial sector development in Zambia

Caleb M Fundanga: Innovation for leadership excellency

Eleni D Dendrinou-Louri: Assessing the performance and regulation of the Greek banking system

e-mail press@bis.org.

BIS Review

Bank for International Settlements

BIS Review No 18 available

http://www.bis.org/review/index.htm

Press, Service (press@bis.org)

Publications, Service (Publications@bis.org)

Mon 2/22/10

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U.S. FINANCIAL MARKETS: FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CLEVELAND

February 21, 2010 on 1:13 pm | In Economics, Financial, History, Research, USA | No Comments

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Research Department of the

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Econpubs

Monica.Crabtree-Reusser@clev.frb.org

Fri, 19 Feb 2010

February’s PDF issue is compiled and posted. This issue contains articles on:

Inflation and Prices
–December Price Statistics

Financial Markets, Money, and Monetary Policy
–What Is the Yield Curve Telling Us?…And Should We Have Listened?
–A Sign of Normalization

International Markets
–Imports and Economic Growth

Economic Activity
–The Employment Situation, January 2010
–Real GDP: Fourth-Quarter 2009 Advance Estimate

Regional Activity
–Fourth District Employment Conditions
–Seriously Delinquent Mortgages in the Fourth District

To access the PDF:
http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/trends/2010/0210/ET_feb10.pdf

To access articles that have appeared within the last 30 days:
http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/trends.cfm

To access earlier Trends articles:
http://www.clevelandfed.org/Research/Trends/trends_archive.cfm

Please e-mail us at editor@clev.frb.org

Research Department of the Federal Reserve

Bank of Cleveland

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Econpubs

Monica.Crabtree-Reusser@clev.frb.org

http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/trends/2010/0210/ET_feb10.pdf

Research Department of the

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Fri, 19 Feb 2010

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IMF PAPER: "RISK AND THE CORPORATE STRUCTURE OF BANKS"

February 20, 2010 on 1:11 pm | In Economics, France, Globalization, Research | No Comments

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IMF Update: Working Paper No. 10/40

NewContent@InternationalMonetaryFund.org

Fri 2/19/10

New item:

Working Paper No. 10/40:

Risk and the Corporate Structure of Banks

Author/Editor: Dell’Ariccia, Giovanni; Marquez, Robert

Summary: We identify different sources of risk as important determinants of banks’ corporate structures when expanding into new markets. Subsidiary-based corporate structures benefit from greater protection against economic risk because of affiliate-level limited liability, but are more exposed to the risk of capital expropriation than are branches. Thus, branch-based structures are preferred to subsidiary-based structures when expropriation risk is high relative to economic risk, and vice versa. Greater cross-country risk correlation and more accurate pricing of risk by investors reduce the differences between the two structures. Furthermore, the corporate structure affects bank risk taking and affiliate size.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=23595.0

DISCLAIMER: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate.

IMF’s new policy Blog on the global economy: http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/

For tracking globalization and its impact on individual economies, please see the new IMF Survey magazine online at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/home.aspx News, views, and analysis from the IMF.

email message to webmaster@imf.org.

IMF Update: Working Paper No. 10/40

NewContent@InternationalMonetaryFund.org

Fri 2/19/10

New item:

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=23595.0

Working Paper No. 10/40:

Risk and the Corporate Structure of Banks

Author/Editor: Dell’Ariccia Giovanni and Marquez Robert

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BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS "BIS REVIEW NO. 17": INDIA

February 19, 2010 on 7:22 pm | In Development, Economics, Financial, Globalization, History, India, Research | No Comments

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BIS Review

Bank for International Settlements

BIS Review No 17 available

Press, Service (press@bis.org)

Publications, Service (Publications@bis.org)

Fri 2/19/10

Please find BIS Review No 17 attached as an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file. Alternatively, you can access this BIS Review on the Bank for International Settlements’ website by clicking on http://www.bis.org/review/index.htm.

What’s included?

BIS Review No 17 (19 February 2010)

Glenn Stevens: Overview of the Australian economy and future challenges

Zdeněk Tůma: Forecasting at the Czech National Bank

Duvvuri Subbarao: Financial crises and the impact of the latest one on India

David Longworth: Bank of Canada liquidity facilities – past, present, and future

Elizabeth A Duke: Unusual and exigent – my first year at the Fed

e-mail press@bis.org.

BIS Review

Bank for International Settlements

BIS Review No 17 available

http://www.bis.org/review/index.htm

Press, Service (press@bis.org)

Publications, Service (Publications@bis.org)

Fri 2/19/10

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CASPIAN OIL: " THE OIL AND THE GLORY" LEVINE BOOK

February 19, 2010 on 4:57 am | In Books, Globalization, History, Oil & Gas | No Comments

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The Oil and the Glory:

The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the

Caspian Sea

Steve LeVine (Author)

Review

“The collapse of the Soviet Union was a big opportunity for Big Oil, whose exploits are detailed in this fast-paced work of political and economic reportage by Wall Street Journal energy correspondent LeVine. Westerners had been sniffing for black gold in Russia and its satellites long before the empire disintegrated, notes the author. Averell Harriman, “the Harvard-trained scion of nineteenth-century robber baron Edward Harriman,” tried his hand at the business before turning to manganese mining, while Armand Hammer “became a money launderer for the Bolsheviks, sneaked cash to secret Bolshevik agents in the United States, and profited handsomely as the representative in Russia of some thirty American companies.” Hammer set the tone for the Americans who flocked to the Caspian in the first years of the Clinton presidency, which maneuvered for the construction of an east-west oil pipeline that, by reversing the old pattern of Central Asian materials going north to Russia and coming back as products for sale, “would favor the West and disfavor Russia.” Not a nice way to treat a fledgling democracy, but the oil scouts, of course, considered Russia a rival for Central-Asian resources second only to Iran, with its heartfelt and long-standing enmity toward the United States in the region and abroad. These scouts-the first among equals being LeVine’s heart-of-darkness antihero, Jim Giffen-kept their distance when Russia still had control over the area, spurning a Gorbachev-era program to allow foreign co-ownership. But they rushed to support separatist movements and encouraged ethnic and political divisions that opened the door to an even bigger share of the wealth. The tale of Giffen’s rise and fall (the latter for perhaps surprising reasons) occupies much of the later pages, but he never loses sight of the bigger picture: namely, Central Asia as oil lamp and potential powder keg in the realpolitik of the next few years. A complex story rendered comprehensible, with much drama and intrigue.” — Kirkus

Product Description

Remote, forbidding, and volatile, the Caspian Sea long tantalized the world with its vast oil reserves. But outsiders, blocked by the closed Soviet system, couldn’t get to it. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and a wholesale rush into the region erupted. Along with oilmen, representatives of the world’s leading nations flocked to the Caspian for a share of the thirty billion barrels of proven oil reserves at stake, and a tense geopolitical struggle began. The main players were Moscow and Washington-the former seeking to retain control of its satellite states, and the latter intent on dislodging Russia to the benefit of the West.

The Oil and the Glory is the gripping account of this latest phase in the epochal struggle for control of the earth’s “black gold.” Steve LeVine, who was based in the region for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Newsweek, weaves an astonishing tale of high-stakes political gamesmanship, greed, and scandal, set in one of the most opaque corners of the world. In LeVine’s telling, the world’s energy giants jockey for position in the rich Kazakh and Azeri oilfields, while superpowers seek to gain a strategic foothold in the region and to keep each other in check. At the heart of the story is the contest to build and operate energy pipelines out of the landlocked region, the key to controlling the Caspian and its oil. The oil pipeline that resulted, the longest in the world, is among Washington‘s greatest foreign policy triumphs in at least a decade and a half.

Along the way, LeVine introduces such players as James Giffen, an American moneyman who was also the political “fixer” for oil companies eager to do business on the Caspian and the broker for Kazakhstan’s president and ministers; John Deuss, the flamboyant Dutch oil trader who won big but lost even bigger; Heydar Aliyev, the oft-misunderstood Azeri president who transcended his past as a Soviet Politburo member and masterminded a scheme to loosen Russian control over its former colonies in the Caspian region; and all manner of rogues, adventurers, and others drawn by the irresistible pull of untold riches and the possible “final frontier” of the fossil-fuel era. The broader story is of the geopolitical questions of the Caspian oil bonanza, such as whether Russia can be a trusted ally and trading partner with the West, and what Washington’s entry into this important but chaotic region will mean for its long-term stability.

In an intense and suspenseful narrative, The Oil and the Glory is the definitive chronicle of events that are understood by few, but whose political and economic impact will be both profound and lasting.

Product Details:

· Hardcover: 496 pages

· Publisher: Random House 1st Edition

· October 23, 2007

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 0375506144

· ISBN-13: 978-0375506147

The Oil and the Glory:

The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea

Steve LeVine (Author)

·

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COLONIAL AND MILITARY GLOBALIZATION: WORLD WAR I IN AFRICA

February 17, 2010 on 8:25 pm | In Africa, Books, Germany, Globalization, History, Third World, World-System | No Comments

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Africa is the forgotten front of World War I and only famous movies like “The African Queen” and “Out of Africa” vaguely bring this aspect of modern world history back to mind.

World War I started in Africa in 1914 and World War II in China in 1937 and “now is like now because then was like then.”

The Forgotten Front: The East African Campaign 1914-1918

Product Details:

· Hardcover: 368 pages

· Publisher: Tempus

· January 1, 2004

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 0752423444

· ISBN-13: 978-0752423449

The first world war began in East Africa in 1914 and didn’t end until 1918: its impact would change a world, and was the largest of its times on African soil – yet the East African campaign would remain largely under-stated and nearly forgotten were it not for Ross Anderson’s in-depth study THE FORGOTTEN FRONT. Surprisingly, THE FORGOTTEN FRONT is the first full-length history of this campaign, providing in-depth coverage of events and politics as well as military strategy analysis.

Relevant Films:

Black and White in Color (1976)

Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins

Genre: Foreign Films

Synopsis: In 1914, some patriotic Frenchmen, living in a small town on the west coast of Africa, find out about the war with Germany, declaring: “I would have thought it would be with England.”

Starring: Jean Carmet, Jacques Spiesser

Starring: Jean Carmet, Jacques Spiesser

Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud

The inaugural film effort of French director Jean-Jacques Annaud, Black and White in Color is set during World War I. Upon the outbreak of hostilities, a French trading post in West Central Africa finds itself at odds with a formerly peaceful German post, for no other reason than their parent countries are at war. The newly xenophobic French traders attack the Germans, only to fail in their efforts. Socialist Jacques Spiesser is put in charge of the debilitated French contingent, utterly discarding his former high ideals in the process.

Shout at the Devil (1976)

The story of the film was inspired by one of the most spectacular and adventurous event that took place during WWI, in German East Africa, later Tanganyika, later Tanzania, in late 1914 – early 1915, known as Battle of Rufiji Delta, in which the German light cruiser SMS Königsberg was blockaded and finally sunk by various British units.

Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck

(20 March 1870 – 9 March 1964)

Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (20 March 1870 – 9 March 1964) was a German general, the commander of the German East Africa campaign in World War I. He commanded one of only two German colonial forces of that war which were not defeated.

As lieutenant colonel in October 1913 he was appointed to command the German colonial forces known as the Schutztruppe [protection force] in German Kamerun (today Cameroon apart from a portion in Nigeria). Before he could assume this new command, his orders were changed and he was posted — effective 13 April 1914 — to German East Africa, the mainland part of modern-day Tanzania.

During the early phases of the Great War in August 1914 Lettow-Vorbeck was the commander of a small garrison of 260 Germans and 2,472 Africans in fourteen Askari field companies.[2] Knowing the need to seize the initiative, he ignored orders from Berlin and the colony’s governor Heinrich Schnee. Schnee had insisted on neutrality for German East Africa.[3] Lettow-Vorbeck promptly disregarded the governor, nominally his superior, and prepared to repel an amphibious assault on the city of Tanga, where between 2 and 5 November 1914, he fought one of his greatest battles. He then assembled his men and almost nonexistent supplies to attack the British railways in East Africa. He scored a second victory over the British at Jassin on 18 January 1915. While these victories gave him badly-needed modern rifles and other supplies, as well as critical boost to the morale of his men, Lettow-Vorbeck also lost numerous experienced men in these pitched battles, among them the “splendid Captain Tom von Prince,”[4] whom he could not easily replace.

Lettow-Vorbeck’s plan for World War I was quite simple: knowing that East Africa would never be anything but a sideshow, he determined to tie down as many British troops as he possibly could; this would remove them from the Western Front, and in this way, might contribute to Germany‘s victory.

Lettow-Vorbeck knew he could count on his highly motivated officers (their casualty rate was certainly proof of that).[5] As a consequence of costly personnel losses, he afterwards avoided direct engagements with British forces, instead directing his men to engage in raids into British East Africa (modern Kenya), Uganda and Rhodesia, targeting forts, railways and communications — all with the goal of forcing the Entente to divert manpower from the main theater of war in Europe. He realized the critical needs of guerrilla warfare in that he used everything available to him in matters of supply.

The Schutztruppe recruited new personnel and expanded to its eventual size of some 14,000 soldiers, most of them Askari, but all well-trained and well-disciplined. Lettow-Vorbeck’s fluency in the Swahili language earned the instant respect and admiration of his African soldiers; he appointed black officers and “said — and believed — ‘we are all Africans here’.”[6] “It is probable that no white commander of the era had so keen an appreciation of the African’s worth not only as a fighting man but as a man.”[7]

He gained the men and artillery of the German cruiser SMS Königsberg (sunk/scuttled in 1915 in the Rufiji River delta) which had a capable crew under commander Max Looff, as well as its numerous guns, which were converted into artillery pieces for the land fighting, which would be the largest standard land artillery pieces used in the East African theater. In March 1916 the British under Gen. J.C. Smuts launched a formidable offensive with 45,000 men. Lettow-Vorbeck patiently used climate and terrain as his allies while his troops fought the British on his terms and to his advantage. The British, however, kept on adding more troops and forcing Lettow to yield territory. Nevertheless, he fought on, including a pivotal battle at Mahiwa in October 1917 where he lost 519 men killed, wounded or missing and the British 2,700 killed, wounded or missing.[8] After the news of the battle reached Germany he was promoted to Generalmajor.[9] The British would recover their losses and continue to hold an overwhelming manpower advantage; for the Schutztruppe it was serious, there were no reserves to again fill the ranks.

Lettow-Vorbeck now began a forced withdrawal to the south, with his troops at half rations and the British in pursuit. On 25 November 1917 his advance column waded across the river Rovuma into Portuguese Mozambique.[10] In essence he cut his own supply lines and the Schutztruppe caravan became a nomadic tribe. On their first day across the river they attacked the newly replenished Portuguese garrison of Ngomano and solved all their supply issues for the foreseeable future.[11] When they captured a river steamer with a load of medical supplies, including quinine, at least some of their medical problems were no more.[12] For almost an entire year they had now lived off the land, but mainly with provisions captured from the British and Portuguese; they had replaced their old rifles with new equipment and acquired machine guns and mortars after capturing Namakura (Nhamacurra in modern Mozambique) in July 1918.[13] At the end they had more ammunition than they could carry.

On 28 September 1918 von Lettow again crossed the Rovuma and returned to German East Africa with the British still in pursuit. He then turned west and raided Northern Rhodesia, thus evading a trap the British had prepared for him in German East Africa. On 13 November 1918 two days after the armistice, he took the town of Kasama which the British had evacuated,[14] and continued heading south-west towards Katanga. When he reached the Chambeshi River on the morning of 14 November, the British magistrate Hector Croad appeared under a white flag and delivered a message from the allied General van Deventer informing him of the armistice.[15] Lettow-Vorbeck agreed to a cease-fire at the spot now marked by the Von Lettow-Vorbeck Memorial in present-day Zambia. He was instructed by the British to march north to Abercorn (now Mbala) to surrender his undefeated army, which he did there on 23 November.[15] His remaining army then consisted of 30 German officers, 125 German non-commissioned officers and other enlisted ranks, 1,168 Askaris and some 3,500 porters.[16]

The East African war and the population

General von Lettow-Vorbeck and colonial Governor Heinrich Schnee

The British and Belgian invasions of German East Africa set off a chain of events with devastating ramifications for the natives and their German overlords. The invasions caused interruptions throughout the colony so that the land no longer “basked in a climate of plenty.”[17]

As military commander, Lt. Col. von Lettow-Vorbeck’s first obligation was to his army over the objections of Governor Heinrich Schnee. The governor regarded war as the worst possible calamity that could befall German East Africa; it would “undo everything his social and economic reforms had accomplished.”[18] Lettow-Vorbeck knew he would have to give ground and escape confrontations with Allied forces. He thus established food depots along his intended line of march from Neu Moshi to the Uluguru Mountains, and if the neighboring villages were near starvation, that was a misfortune of war.[19]

Hardly any aid from Germany could penetrate the British blockade to alleviate the enormous supply deficiencies, and only two blockade runners succeeded in reaching the colony. On 14 April 1915 the freighter Kronborg arrived off Tanga at Manza Bay after a two months’ journey from Wilhelmshaven, and was promptly attacked by the British cruiser Hyacinth. Fortunately for the Germans, Kronborg had been scuttled by her captain to avoid a coal fire after repeated hits by the British cruiser and the ship settled in shallow water. Nearly its entire cargo could be salvaged.[20] When the steamer Marie von Stettin arrived south of Lindi on 17 March 1916,[21] its precious cargo of 1,500 tons was of only very modest help.[22] By late September 1916, all of coastal German East Africa, including Dar es Salaam and the Central Railway, were under British control, with the west occupied by Belgians;[23] then during December 1917 the German colony was officially declared an Allied protectorate.[24]

Lettow-Vorbeck and his caravan of Europeans, askaris, porters, women and children marched on, deliberately bypassing the tribal home lands of the native soldiers in an effort to forestall desertions. They traversed difficult territory, “swamps and jungles . . . what a dismal prospect there is in front of me [to succeed]” stated the Allied commander Gen. J.C. Smuts. But Smuts did not flinch. His new approach and objective was not to fight the Schutztruppe at all, but to go after their food supply.[25] The end eventually came some time later with Smuts in London and Gen. J.L. van Deventer in command in East Africa.

In a 1919 book, Ludwig Deppe, a medical doctor campaigning with Lettow-Vorbeck and former head of the hospital at Tanga, looked back in rue and lamented the tragedy that was imposed by German forces on East Africa in their war with the invading Allies: “Behind us we leave destroyed fields, ransacked magazines and, for the immediate future, starvation. We are no longer the agents of culture, our track is marked by death, plundering and evacuated villages, just like the progress of our own and enemy armies in the Thirty Years’ War.”[26]

While there was German callousness and harshness, the new British or Belgian masters in German East Africa were by no means benevolent, either. They assumed no responsibility for African welfare and provided little assistance to the malnourished native population; indeed, when food ran short for the Allied formations “the British askaris fell back on the practice of attacking and looting villages.”[27] When the worldwide Spanish influenza epidemic swept into eastern Africa in 1918-19 it struck down thousands with impartiality, native and European alike.[28] The weakened state of many natives made them especially susceptible; this included the caged askaris and porters of the German Schutztruppe, which had been herded together at the Tabora POW camps.[29] [30]

Post-War career and legacy

After hostilities ended, the British transferred German soldiers and POWs to Dar es Salaam for eventual repatriation. Lettow-Vorbeck tried to ensure decent treatment and the briefest time the German askaris would be caged at Tabora.[31]

Lettow-Vorbeck returned home in early March 1919 to a hero’s welcome. On a black charger he led 120 returnees of the Schutztruppe in their tattered tropical uniforms on a victory parade through the Brandenburg Gate which was decorated in their honor.[32] Though he ultimately surrendered; he frequently won against great odds and was the only German commander to invade British territory successfully in World War I.[33]

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was a daring yet prudent commander who showed uncanny ability to fight a guerrilla war in unfamiliar terrain. He was respected as a brilliant soldier and a first rate leader by his white officers, non-commissioned officers and Askaris – and beyond that, by his foes.[28] In the field when rations had to be reduced and supplies dwindled, it was a measure of the Askaris’ loyalty to their commander that they accepted the cuts and did not desert en masse. Some did desert, of course . . . [as did British, Belgian and Portuguese native troops]. But the German Askaris were by far the most loyal as well as the most effective, and it all went back to von Lettow’s brand of discipline, which bound him and his German officers as much as his black soldiers.[34]

The East African campaign then was essentially about a “modestly immense Allied army” that was engaged by “a midget German force led by an obscure Prussian officer who could have conducted post-graduate courses in irregular warfare tactics for Che Guevara, General Giap and other more celebrated but far less skilled guerrilla fighters.”[35] Lettow-Vorbeck’s exploits in the African bush have come down “as the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful.”[36]

One of Lettow’s junior officers, Theodor von Hippel, used his experience in Africa to be instrumental in forming the Brandenburgers, the commando unit of the German Abwehr intelligence agency in World War II.[37]

Footnotes

1. Farwell, The Great War in Africa, p. 106

2. Farwell, p. 109

3. The governor based his position on the Congo Act of 1885 where the European colonial powers absurdly promised each other to keep their overseas possessions separate and neutral from European wars

4. Tom von Prince had a Scots father and German mother and was born on Mauritius. After he was orphaned his maternal relatives brought him to Germany. He and Lettow-Vorbeck were classmates at the Kassel Military School (Kadettenanstalt Kassel); Prince eventually settled in the Usambara region of German East Africa. At the outset of the Great War he was recalled to active service as Hauptmann (captain) and assigned command of the askaris of the 13th Field Company and 7th and 8th Schützenkompagnies (rifle companies) composed mainly of the sons of German settlers. Prince’s exploits soon earned him the nickname Bwana Sakarani – the wild one – from his askaris. He died at Tanga on 4 November 1914.

5. Hoyt, Guerilla, p. 28

6. Garfield, The Meinertzhagen Mystery, p. 85

7. Miller, Battle for the Bundu, p. 38

8. Miller, p. 287

9. Hoyt, p. 175; on a comparison chart this rank was equivalent to Brigadier General in the British forces or the U.S. Army, i.e., the lowest General Officer rank

10. a state of war existed since 9 March 1916 between Germany and Portugal. After neutral Portugal complied with a British demand to confiscate German ships interned in Portuguese ports, Germany reacted by declaring war on Portugal

11. Miller, p. 296

12. Hoyt, p. 214

13. Willmott, World War One, p. 93

14. “The Evacuation of Kasama in 1918″. The Northern Rhodesia Journal. IV (5) (1961). Pages 440-442. Retrieved 7 March 2007.

15. a b Gore-Browne, Sir Stewart (1954). “The Chambeshi Memorial”. The Northern Rhodesia Journal, 2 (5) pp 81-84 (1954). Retrieved 18 May 2007

16. Haupt, Deutschlands Schutzgebiete in Übersee 1884-1918, p. 154

17. Miller, p. 22

18. Miller, p. 41

19. Miller, p. 236

20. Hoyt, p. 89-90

21. Hoyt, p. 119

22. Farwell, p. 276

23. Louis, Great Britain and Germany’s Lost Colonies 1914-1919, p. 74

24. Miller, p. 291

25. Miller, p. 237

26. Ferguson, Empire, p. 253

27. Miller, p. 309

28. a b Farwell, p. 354

29. Miller, p. 329

30. Nearly the entire body of Allied political and colonial literature 1914-1920 was propagandistic and devised to create a climate of “whatever happens, these Colonies can never be returned to Germany” [Louis, p. 116], since Germany was deemed guilty of committing “. . . the climax of Africa’s exploitation: its use as a mere battlefield” [Strachan, p. 571].

31. Miller, p. 327

32. Farwell, p. 355-356

33. Article 17 of the Armistice required not his “surrender” but simply “evacuation of all German forces operating in East Africa.” Evacuation was not at all the same as surrender [Farwell, p. 353]

34. Hoyt, p. 171

35. Miller, p. ix

36. Hoyt, p. 229

37. Lefèvre, Brandenburg Division, p. 17-29

38. a b c Miller, p. 331

39. Farwell, p. 356

40. Garfield, p. 164

41. Garfield, p. 178

42. a b c Farwell, p. 357

43. Miller, p. 331; the suggestion for the nomination as ambassador to the Court of St. James came from retired Col. Richard Meinertzhagen during a visit to Berlin

44. this trip was sponsored by the German news magazine Stern

45. Miller, p. 333

Bibliography

· Anderson, Ross. The Forgotten Front: The East African Campaign, 1914-1918. London: Tempus Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-7524-2344-4.

· Crowson, Thomas A. When Elephants clash. A critical analysis of Major General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck in the East African Theatre of the Great War. (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Faculty of the US Army Command and General Staff College, Masterarbeit, 2003). Washington, DC: Storming Media, 2003. NTIS, Springfield, VA. 2003. Microform-Edition.

· Farwell, Byron. The Great War in Africa, 1914-1918. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989, ISBN 0-393-30564-3.

· Ferguson, Niall. Empire. The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power. New York: Basic Books. 2004. ISBN 0465023282

· Garfield, Brian. The Meinertzhagen Mystery. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, Inc. 2007. ISBN 1597970417

· Haupt, Werner. Deutschlands Schutzgebiete in Übersee 1884-1918 [Germany’s Overseas Protectorates 1884-1918]. Friedberg: Podzun-Pallas Verlag. 1984. ISBN 3-7909-0204-7

· Hoyt, Edwin P. The Germans who never lost. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1968, and London: Leslie Frewin, 1969. ISBN 0090964004. Note: This book is a study of Captain Max Looff and his crew of the light cruiser Königsberg. The main sources are German admiralty records and published accounts by crew members. The book is listed here for reference only, since, as the author explains, he “had gotten off the track as far as [Paul Emil] von Lettow-Vorbeck was concerned.” Thus, all footnotes for “Hoyt” on this page refer to his book Guerilla. See SMS Königsberg.

· Hoyt, Edwin P. Guerilla: Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck and Germany’s East African Empire. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc. 1981; and London: Collier MacMillan Publishers. 1981. ISBN 0-02-555210-4.

· Lefėvre, Eric. Brandenburg Division, Commandos of the Reich. Paris: Histoire & Collections. 2000 (translated from the French by Julia Finel. Originally published as La Division Brandenburg 1939-1945. Paris: Presses de la Cité. 1983). ISBN 2-908-182-734.

· Louis, Wm. Roger. Great Britain and Germany‘s Lost Colonies 1914-1919. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1967.

· Miller, Charles. Battle for the Bundu: The First World War in German East Africa. London: Macdonald & Jane’s, 1974; and New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc. 1974. ISBN 0-02-584930-1.

· Mosley, Leonard. Duel for Kilimanjaro. New York: Ballantine Books, 1963.

· Paice, Edward. Tip and Run. The untold tragedy of the Great War in Africa. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007. ISBN 0-297-84709-0.

· Schulte-Varendorff, Uwe. Kolonialheld für Kaiser und Führer. General Lettow-Vorbeck – Eine Biographie [Colonial Hero for Kaiser and Führer. A General Lettow-Vorbeck Biography]. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2006. ISBN 3-861-53412-6.

· Sibley, J.R. Tanganyikan Guerrilla. New York: Ballantine Books, 1973. ISBN 0345098013.

· Stephenson, William. Der Löwe von Afrika. Der legendäre General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck und sein Kampf um Ostafrika [The Lion of Africa. The legendary General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his campaign for East Africa]. Munich: Goldmann, 1984. ISBN 3-442-06719-7.

· Strachan, Hew. The First World War 1914-1918. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2001. ISBN 0199261911.

· Stratis, John C. A Case Study in Leadership. Colonel Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. Springfield, VA.: NTIS, 2002. Microform-Edition.

· Willmott, H.P. World War One. London: Dorling Kindersley. 2003. ISBN 0789496275

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