'Big Adventure' on Lake Tanganyika recounts and odd WWI battle

Reviewed by Norman M. Brown
July 17, 2005

When World War I began in August 1914, Africa had already been sliced into colonies by European powers including Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and Portugal. Among Germany's possessions was Tanganyika, which was separated from British Northern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo by the long and narrow Lake Tanganyika. Germany controlled the lake with three small armed steamships, which also allowed it to raid Belgian and British territories. The British decided to do something about it.

The plan was to send two 40-foot armed motor boats, to be transported by ship from England to South Africa. A train would then take them to the Belgian Congo, from where they would be hauled overland, through jungle, bush and mountains, to Lake Tanganyika.

BOOK REVIEW "Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika" Giles Foden; Knopf, 241 Pages, $24

The British Admiralty's view of the importance of the mission was somewhat belied by its choice of a leader, one Lt. Cmdr. Geoffrey Spicer-Simson, who had a less than illustrious naval career. He had repeatedly been passed over for promotions, making him, in 1914, the oldest lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy. He also had a reputation as a born liar.

Nevertheless, he managed to assemble a 28-man team of "specialists," an outlandish group whose peculiarities and eccentricities author Giles Foden describes with gusto and subdued humor. The attack boats, which Spicer-Simson whimsically named HMS Mimi and HMS Toutou ("miaow" and "bow-wow" in French), plus fuel, weapons, food, medicines and other supplies arrived in Capetown on July 2, 1915.

Foden's narrative of the backbreaking job of hauling the boats inland, aboard railroad flatcars and in wheeled cradles towed by steam-powered farm tractors, is well-told, as is his description of the antics of Spicer-Simson, who became an object of ridicule among others on the expedition.

In late December, Mimi and Toutou surprised the 56-foot German steamer Kingani and damaged it with artillery fire that also killed its skipper. Spicer-Simson rammed the Kingani and jumped aboard. Kingani was captured and renamed HMS Fifi. Fifi, repaired and rearmed, was then used against the 120-foot German steamer Hedwig von Wissman. In a confused running battle on Jan. 14, 1916, the German ship received two lucky hits (achieved even though Spicer-Simson repeatedly interfered with the gunnery officer's work), caught fire and sank, killing seven aboard.

Spicer-Simson was reluctant to take on the third German ship, the 220-foot Graf von Gotzen. In any case, the ship was scuttled by the Germans when Belgian troops seized a region in German territory.

Spicer-Simson was soon relieved of his command due to "acute mental debility." He later claimed that he had suffered from malaria, dysentery and other ailments, all of which, Foden points out, had "cleared up nicely by the time he reached London in September 1916."

© Associated Press

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