Central Africa. 1915.
A small band of British soldiers
marches through the jungle
on a bizarre and secret mission.
In Europe, the first World War has
become a murderous stalemate...
but the clash of kings and empires
reaches far beyond Flanders -
to a pivotal naval battle for
control of the Great Lakes of Africa.
In command of the British
expedition is Lt.
- Commander Geoffrey Basil
Spicer- Simson... an officer
whom the fates of war will label
a hero, a madman, and a god.
June 1915.
Under the guidance of South
African John Lee,
hacking a highway
through the unbroken rain forest
- 150 miles of manual labor in
the tropical heat.
Lee's bush road leads across jungles
through swamps and over mountains
to the Great Lakes of Africa
- Tanganyika, Victoria, Nyasa.
Two already are in British hands
- but Tanganyika is the jewel of
the German empire
- a prize that London desperately
needs
to turn the tide of the African war.
It is a vital lifeline needed to arm
and supply a jungle army.
Whoever controls the lake,
controls the surrounding
territories.
One man rules her waters.
Kapitan Gustav Zimmer of the
Imperial German Navy
commands a powerful marine
unit of 150 men
- his fleet of three heavily-armed
gunboats
has obliterated the puny armada
of the Belgian Congo
...- to win the battle for Central
Africa,
Zimmer's navy must be defeated.
Yet for the job of destroying him,
the Royal Navy selects a former
military surveyor
who has never led a brigade
into battle.
Lt. -Commander Geoffrey Basil
Spicer-Simson
is an old Africa hand who has
spent the first year of the war
behind a desk in London.
Then chance, not choice, gives
him an opportunity for greatness.
"Why did we go to Tanganyika?
Because the Germans with four
ships on the Lake
- were commanding the lake,
and by means of these steamers
were able to supply their troops
on the frontiers with provisions
and munitions.
It was important that this should
be stopped."
Spicer's orders are almost surreal
- London wants him to tote his
own toy navy
from England to Central Africa
a pair of 40-foot motorboats
- to be dismantled and freighted
to Cape Town
- then tugged overland by steam
tractor to the Congo
- a trek of over nine thousand
miles
- with Zimmer's gunships waiting
at the other end.
Spicer assembles the team.
Former architect of the
Rhodesian railway,
Paddy Wainwright is the
chief engineer
- I'm tropical disease specialist,
Dr. Hother Hanschell,
will be the Medical Officer.
As a casual friend of Spicer's,
Dr. Hanschell knows Spicer is
not your average leader.
"Spicer-Simson was a vain man
worthy of ridicule and on occasion,
great admiration at the same time.
This paradox was only possible
because of the very nature of
Spicer-Simson's own behavior,
which was quite often bizarre."
they are gunners, mechanics,
and engineers
- not one has ever served
under Spicer.
The plan to take Tanganyika from
the Germans is a simple one.
Get to Tanganyika, and destroy
the German fleet
by stealth and surprise.
But their own warships are
converted supply boats.
"The two boats taken to Africa
by the expedition were...
not at all suitable as they were,
but they were the only ones
obtainable at the time.
My orders were to get away at once."
Spicer gives his mahogany warships
names befitting pleasure boats
- HMS Mimi and Toutou are quick
- top speed, 20 miles per hour.
Spicer tests them on the Thames
and has a 3 pound Hotchkiss gun
mounted in the fore
and a.303 Maxim in the rear.
June 15, 1915.
Stage One.
The Naval Africa Expedition
leaves England
on a 6,100 mile voyage for the
Cape Colony.
While Spicer and his men enjoy
a placid southbound cruise,
John Lee's army of African
tribesmen hacks its way north.
By early July, at Cape Town
in British South Africa,
the caravan transfers from ship
to train.
July 19, 1915.
Stage Two.
The entire expedition
consisting of men, boats
and hundreds of boxes of supplies
are moved north by rail.
At Fungurume, in the Belgian Congo,
they will meet up with Lee.
Two thousand, seven hundred
miles of European-built railways
pierce the heart of a colonized
continent.
After two weeks,
Spicer and his men reach the
village of Fungurume as expected.
Morale is high.
But then, just as his expedition is
about to begin its overland odyssey,
Spicer fires the man who blazed
the trail.
He dismisses John Lee, and offers
no explanation to his men.
He alone will lead his men across
the burning plains
- into a jungle few Europeans
have crossed
since the days of Stanley and
Livingstone.
To prepare the boats for their waterless voyage,
engineer Wainwright orders them
stripped of all fittings
- propellers dismounted... the
axles of the carrying wagons
reinforced to carry the eight and
a half-ton loads.
While final preparations are
being made,
a critical member of the team
arrives by a rather odd means.
Ex-policeman, Arthur Dudley has
pedaled 200 miles over jungle trails
to reach the expedition.
His role,
to organize and lead the African
laborers transporting the supplies.
"Dudley was Royal Navy Reserve.
He'd served in the Boer War,
now he was fooling about in Rhodesia
doing transport work.
But he was capable, just the sort
of fellow for that.
Just enough sea knowledge
and just enough military training
to manage well."
Two months after leaving London,
Spicer's navy-on-wheels is joined
by the steam engines
that will pull the boats through the forest.
The tractors are built for level
country furrows
- but ahead of them lie some of
Africa's most forbidding peaks.
But this strange caravan is
being shadowed
by Zimmer's African spies -
"we knew that the English
intended to challenge
our supremacy of the lake.
We also knew that the Belgians
were building a boat.
Where they were building, or
wanted to build, was unknown."
If Spicer and his men make it to
Lake Tanganyika, Zimmer vows,
they will not leave Africa alive.
August 18, 1915.
Stage Three.
forgiving terrain
on Earth await the British troopers
- a wild land of disease and
sudden death.
At first light, Geoffrey Spicer
leads his men out of camp.
"There were no roads such as we
call roads in this country,
and except for about 25 miles
the whole route ran through the
thick African forest."
The dry season will last only
a few more weeks
- then the autumn rains will come
- if mud swallows the tractors,
Spicer's mission... and his only
shot at glory -
will be over before it begins.
The steam tractors are in the lead,
each hauling one of Spicer's
little ships,
and ten tons of wood for the
insatiable engines.
Four hundred Africans... men and
women
- carry water, food, ammunition,
medicine
- a procession that stretches for
nearly two miles.
On the first day, at the first river
crossing,
Mimi and her tractor nearly
tumble into the current.
It is the first test of Spicer's
leadership.
Undaunted, Spicer has chief engineer
Wainwright come up with a plan.
Wainwright has more trees cut,
reinforces the bridge,
and the convoy plods forward.
"The work was completed at 2:30 p.m.
and the trailers were towed across
and a start was made along
the road at 3.
good progress was made along
the road
and at 6 p.m. a camp was formed
for the night."
Spicer knows there are more than
The path they are following
continues uphill for 60 miles,
then they reach the Mitumba
Mountains, a 6,400 foot range.
Day by day, mile by mile, the former
desk officer grows more confident
- his boasts more outrageous...
the men love him.
"...he appealed immensely to
the ratings...
They all appreciate a commanding
officer who's a bit mad, eccentric.
And he was obviously mad.
Therefore he was marvelous.
"I'd say he could not refrain from
telling absurd stories
about his prowess at shooting
the lions he'd shot,
although I'd never heard of any
lions in Gambia."
The caravan survives on the skill
of its African hunters,
living off wild buck and guinea fowl.
As for water,
Hanschell and a team of Africans
find the nearest water source.
Much of the water is for the steam
tractors.
The rest is filtered, boiled,
then filtered twice more and
used for tea, cooking
and the next day's water rations.
The steam engines are insatiable
consumers of water and firewood
- advance parties prepare
storage caches of lumber.
"The journey through the Bush was
divided up into three 50-mile stages,
and at the end of each stage was
built a depot
to keep the sun off the provisions
and ammunition."
The Englishmen, many of them
new to Africa,
fear lions and crocodiles,
but Doctor Hanschell's duty is
keeping the men healthy
in a region plagued by unseen
killers.
"One very valuable thing was the
paymaster.
He began to get some boils on his
shoulders,
and out of the boils popped worms,
big maggots rather.
The men all saw this, I showed it,
and I said, "Now see, here you are
going through a country
where the danger's from insects,
not from wild animals but insects.
You see what they can do."
From the spies, crude telegraph
lines convey fragments of news
to Kapitan Zimmer
- he believes that Spicer has
come to help the Belgians
build new warships at Lake
Tanganyika...
"Around Lukuga and south of
there by Kalemie
there seemed to be only
defensive building going on."
But, about Mimi and Toutou
, Zimmer knows nothing.
While the confident Germans wait,
the English plod on... one
agonizing mile at a time.
"Three and a quarter miles a day
was the average for the boats.
Occasionally we did rather more,
and on one occasion we covered
but there were many days
when we were lucky if we did a
mile and a half.
One day, we did only three-quarters of a mile."
By late August, Spicer knows he needs help
if he is to outrun the rains.
At a village called Mwenda Makosi,
the British commandeer 42 oxen
to help
drag the boats up the Mitumba Range.
When the rains begin,
they will turn the plains into a
quagmire
too shallow for ships, too muddy
for wheels.
Until then, heat is the deadliest
enemy
- the thirst for water is
unquenchable
- water for the engines... water
for the oxen...
a few cupfuls a day for the
men.
Then, in early September... a
sudden storm of fire.
Spicer has his men create a fire
break.
He then orders that the precious
mahogany boats
must be protected from flying embers.
For Doctor Hanshell, it is a day of
sheer terror.
"...we nearly lost the whole thing
by fire...
Here was this war train bearing
down on us at a terrific rate.
We'd burnt off, we set fire to it,
only just in time, just in time,
we moved the guns, the wagons
and everything onto the burnt place,
and the thing stopped... it was so
damn near it came."
In the weeks that follow, the oxen
prove their worth.
"The top of the plateau was
reached on September 8, 1915,
and this was a very triumphant
moment for the expedition,
for there were some who had said
that it was impossible to get there.
Our difficulties were by no means
at an end,
for on the downward trek from this point to Sankisia
there was some risky work to be done
in lowering the boats down the
sharp spurs of the mountain..."
They are still weeks away from
the combat zone.
Using 42 oxen, 2 road locomotives,
and hundreds of men,
the expedition struggles to get
down the mountain.
"On more than one occasion
the wheels of the boats dropped
into ant-bear holes.
The only way to get out was to fill
up the hole with logs,
gradually jacking the boat up until
it reached the level.
It was only by good luck that they
received no damage."
"There is a great deal of thunder
and it appears the rains are not
far away.
The journey now, has become a
race to get to the railway
before the rains brake and the
roads become impassable."
Finally, the land is level, but the
dangers remain deadly.
This is the country of the tse tse
fly
- carrier of the sleeping sickness
that kills both men and beasts...
villages are nearly deserted
- the ghost towns of central Africa.
No rain falls... this is a dreadful
blessing -
drought scorches the plains.
"At one point the traction
engines came to a standstill
for want of water,
and the members of the expedition
were getting only half a pint a day."
Lt-Commander Spicer offers local
women a bolt of colored cloth
if they will trek eight miles to the
nearest well
- hundreds accept the bargain,
and the convoy moves on.
For the first time since he tested
them on the Thames,
Geoffrey Spicer's two-boat flotilla
reaches water deep enough
to sail upon
- Mimi and Toutou are reassembled
and lowered into the Lualaba River.
October 1, 1915.
Stage Four.
They will float, or drag their boats,
- strange apparitions to the
resident wildlife.
"Progress on the river is very slow.
I think Mimi and Tou-Tou hold the
record for grounding,
as on October 7 they were
aground 14 times
in twelve miles."
Even on water, Spicer's flotilla
manages barely ten miles a day
- then, at the rail depot at Kabalo,
Mimi and Toutou must be
- packaged safely for another
journey by rail.
October 22, 1915.
Stage Five.
The final phase of the long
odyssey
- 173 miles across precarious
trestles and crumbling bridges
- to the Belgian shores of Lake
Tanganyika.
Spicer rivals are already
preparing their reception
- Gustav Zimmer has followed every
mile of Spicer's incredible trek,
still unaware of the unlikely cargo.
"...the effort to find out more
about the area around Lukuga and
Kalemie was resumed in earnest.
...we took down a lot of telegraph
wires,
and blew up telegraph stations.
As soon as the British reach their
final destination,
he will send his gunboats to
destroy Geoffrey Spicer
and his half-mad dreams.
October 28, 1915.
After four months and over 9,000
miles of travel,
the unlikely odyssey of
Lt. -Commander Geoffrey Spicer
reaches the blue heart of Africa...
Lake Tanganyika.
Finally, he has reached his
battleground.
At Kalemie on the western
shoreline,
a defensive network of guns,
troop quarters,
and shipbuilding facilities guards
the back door of the Belgian Congo.
For their British allies, the Belgians
have prepared simple dwellings
- Spicer claims the largest to be
his headquarters...
and hoists the banner of the
Royal Navy
- an emblem of his growing lust
for power.
Kalemie has guns, but no
harbor.
To protect his boats from the
Germans,
Spicer insists the Belgians
construct a harbor.
"The decision to build the port
was come to owing to the facts
that it is impossible to operate
without a defended port,
and the existing defenses at
Kalemie
will amply protect the port
selected.
Hundreds of tons of rock are
blasted
and positioned into the
crocodile-infested waters
to create an arced jetty.
Atop the rocks, traintracks and a
launching slip are lain
which will allow Spicer to slide his
miniature Navy
into the lake in minutes.
While the jetty is taking shape,
the Belgians give Spicer the
details of the 3 German ships
he must destroy.
The smallest German vessel is
the Kingani.
At 55 feet long and 12 feet wide,
she is far larger and better armed
than Mimi or Toutou.
Her compatriot, the Hedwig von
Wissmann,
is even larger, but slower.
Carrying two powerful guns and a
crew of 22 sailors,
she has room for 200 extra troops.
The Graf von Gotzen dwarfs them all.
An 800 ton monster,
she is over 20 times the size of
the British speedboats.
Her massive guns can blast
Spicer's boats
to oblivion with one shell.
The little British boats are
seriously outmanned,
outgunned and outsized.
To tilt the balance of power,
Spicer plots a surprise attack to
capture the Kingani
- it is an audacious plan...
for a desk officer who has never
led a combat mission.
Across the lake,
Gustav Zimmer plans his own
strategy of strength.
"...we learned from intercepted
Belgian telegram communications
that they were looking for a
building location...
As soon as it was practical, the
reconnaissance work began."
December 1, 1915.
German Lieutenants Walter
Rosenthal and Job Odebrecht
embark on a stealthy mission of
reconnaissance.
In four successive evenings,
the two ships slip in under
darkness, snapping off night
exposures of the harbor.
The next evening,
Lt. Rosenthal risks his life in a
daring solo mission.
"He wanted to swim ashore,
to find out more about the drydock
and the building of the new ship,
despite the danger of crashing
waves and crocodiles...
he reached the drydock, took
notice of two boats,
then swam back to the designated
meeting place."
But a panicky German officer orders
the Kingani to leave without him.
Rosenthal is forced to hide out on
the Allied side of the lake.
At daybreak, abandoned in enemy
waters,
Rosenthal is taken prisoner
- Zimmer is still ignorant of
Spicer's Jungle Navy.
Mid-December, the rains come
- work is impossible -
all they can do is wait.
"We are having heavy rains
almost daily,
and one or two members of the
expedition on an average,
are always down with slight
attacks of fever."
On December 23, Spicer decides
it is time to go to war.
Far from his desk in London,
Africa has freed Spicer's spirit.
His battle dress reflects his
liberation.
"...to the amazement of the crew
and to the Belgians and the natives,
he didn't wear shorts,
he wore a little, tiny little khaki
skirt with. pleats in it."
Spicer and Britain need allies
- the men of the Ba Holo Holo nation
see the eccentric white man
as a natural chief.
Christmas Eve.
The mahogany gunboats undergo
their first trial runs on African
waters.
"On Christmas Day we took a rest,
and it being the first time the whole
expedition had been together,
we had a big celebration.
December 26, 1915.
The Germans come to fight.
Spicer is reading prayers when
an enemy ship is sighted.
Spicer ignores the enemy's
approach
- he alone will decide when his
private war will commence.
"I finished prayers and then sent
off the hands to get ready."
Doctor Hanshell and other
non-combatants head to the cliffs
to watch the battle as if it was a
cricket match.
"...The paymaster and I and the
petty officer Murphy and so on,
we had a grandstand view of it.
It all happened right under our
eyes."
At 11:25 a.m.,
Spicer and his fleet set off in
pursuit of the enemy.
Spicer is in the Mimi and
Lieutenant Dudley
- without his bicycle...
is at the helm of the Toutou.
Spicer's plan is to sneak in
behind the Kingani,
and attack her from both sides.
The Kingani can only fire on them
with her bow guns.
Kapitan Zimmer has sent the Kingani
to blow up the Belgian harbor
installation.
But instead, is confronted by
Spicer's entire navy.
"She was well inside the bay
before she was aware of the existence
of the British boats on the Lake
...and the Mimi and Toutou
rapidly overhauled her
and opened fire."
"An early shot from one of our
guns carried away her mast,
and she got several hits below
the water line."
In the ensuing half hour, eleven
enemy sailors are rounded up.
Lt. Dudley takes control of the
captured Kingani,
and brings her and the captured
survivors back to base.
At Kalemie, Spicer is showered
with sand... a traditional gesture
that confirms his mastery of the
earth he stands on.
Three German sailors are buried
with military dignity.
The British have suffered no
casualties
- but the battle for the blue heart
of Africa has barely begun.
In London, he was ignored,
but at Lake Tanganyika,
Geoffrey Spicer is hailed as a hero
for his brilliant ambush
of the Kingani.
He must now repair his damaged
prize.
British and Belgian engineers
patch up the Kingani's 11 holes,
and refit her with a larger
When they are finished, Spicer
re-christens the German gunboat
as if she were a French poodle,
naming her HMS Fifi.
With a bolstered sense of
confidence,
Spicer's behavior becomes
more outrageous, more bizarre.
Twice a week, he performs a
ceremonial public bath,
complete with cigarettes and
vermouth
- his body is decorated with
symbolic tattoos...
Spicer's men suspect he has
gone mad...
but the Ba holo holo warriors
understand the white man's message
- they call him
"bwana chifungatumbo"
- Lord of the Loincloth...
February 8, 1916.
". we got information from
native spies
that the Kingani had been sunk
by a new coastal artillery battery.
I decided to check into this myself
and sent along the Gotzen, the
Hedwig von Wissmann,
and a smaller boat."
The Germans still do not know
the Royal Navy has invaded the Lake.
"...The Hedwig von Wissmann
was to get to the Belgian coast
in the early morning and enquire
about the position
from friendly spies,
then head back to Cape Kungwe
where she would meet with the
Gotzen at around noon
on February 9th."
Then together, Zimmer and Odebrecht
will attack the harbor.
At dawn on February 9, the
dance begins,
with control of Central Africa at
stake.
It is a humid, hazy morning
- distant vessels shimmer like
mirages in the heat.
Through the haze, Spicer spots
the Germans.
Spicer leads the attack in his
new flagship, the Fifi
- chief engineer Wainwright
takes the speedier,
more maneuverable Mimi.
"...the weather conditions
made the estimation of distance
very difficult...
and until the enemy closed to
within 5000 yards,
he appeared to be a dark blob
suspended above the horizon."
For more than an hour,
Spicer's shells fall short of the
fleeing German ship
- but the Mimi cuts off her
escape...
and forces the Germans to turn
and fight.
As if protected from death by his
magic tattoos,
the Lord of the Loincloth refuses
to take cover.
The battle of Lake Tanganyika
lasts 90 furious minutes.
Hemmed in by Wainwright in the Mimi,
Spicer's cannon blasts a fatal wound
in the Wissmann's engine room.
"In a few minutes the Hedwig
von Wissmann burst into flames,
and finally she up-ended and
went down."
From among the wreckage,
Spicer retrieves the German
battle flag.
The first enemy banner captured
in combat... anywhere -
in the most deadly war in human
history.
Twenty-one Germans survive
the explosion
- seven others are killed...
Again, there is not a single British casualty -
now, only one target remains...
the Gotzen -
the mightiest of all warships on
this deadly inland sea.
To the Ba holo holo people, the
sinking of the Wissmann
confirms Geofrey Spicer's status
as an indestructible warrior...
a man whose magic places him
in the realm of the gods.
For miles up and down the Lake,
elaborate clay fetishes are
shaped in Spicer's image.
"And clay and wood images
grew up all around the place.
The helmet and the beard and
the jupe and the bare arms
with scratches on to make the
tattooing.
He was the great Bwana Ikuba."
At the peak of his powers,
Spicer is told that his war against
Zimmer is over
- the allies will import a new
weapon... airplanes...
to destroy the Gozten from the
sky.
June, 1916.
Allied seaplanes launch a barrage
of bombings on Kigoma.
Zimmer decides to scuttle his
flagship.
"It was hard for us to blow up our
last ships,
but they could not be allowed to
fall into enemy hands,
for they would have construed it
as a kind of victory.
We conceded to the stronger force,
but our willingness to serve and
our enthusiasm was not broken."
Germany's dreams of an African
empire are shattered
- thwarted by an unlikely hero
and his jungle navy.
After almost another year of
protecting the Lake,
Spicer and his men are ordered
back to England.
His warships left behind.
The British Naval Africa
Expedition is a total success.
Its military objective attained,
its men back home, unharmed.
He has led his men on a bizarre,
nearly impossible mission,
a small step on the long road to
history.
He is awarded the Distinguished
Service Order
and 15 others including
Henschell, Wainwright
and Dudley are also honored.
After the awards and the
ceremonies
the Lord of the Loincloth returns
to the same desk he left in 1915.
As a warrior his duty is done.
"...the expedition was the
smallest ever sent out
- there being only twenty-eight
men all told.
And it was the only expedition
that had come back without
a single casualty."