Mimi and Toutou Go Forth

By Giles Foden,

Book cover of Mimi and Toutou Go Forth: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika

Book description

At the start of World War One, German warships controlled Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa. The British had no naval craft at all upon 'Tanganjikasee', as the Germans called it. This mattered: it was the longest lake in the world and of great strategic advantage. In June 1915, a force…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Mimi and Toutou Go Forth as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

A very humorous look at a little known and true episode in WW1, in which a failed naval officer with tattooed legs and wearing a skirt somehow transports two boats across a vast stretch of jungle in the Congo and leads an assault expedition on the German fleet on Lake Tangyanika. Against all odds this bumbling troops achieves the first naval successes of the Great War. Full of delight, surprise and fascination.