Lake Force
Lake Force (or Lakeforce) was a British
Force publique of the Belgian Congo under Charles Tombeur.[1] The Uganda Native Medical Corps (UNMC) served with both units.[2]
Lake Force cooperated with the Belgians during the
Philippe François Joseph Molitor, commander of the Northern Brigade, and stating that the British assault on Tabora would begin on 19 September was on the 16th intercepted by the Germans, who then abandoned the town on the night of 18–19 September. The Belgians occupied it the next day, and Lake Force camped outside it to the east. On 3 October, after the Allies had established control of the African Great Lakes region, Lake Force was disbanded.[1] Some of its Ugandan medics were sent to serve with the Uganda Field Ambulance in the 4th battalion of the King's African Rifles.[2]
Notes
- ^ Several underlying factors played a role in the allied cooperation in this campaign. The South Africans and the British had only a decade before ended the Second Boer War and more recently the Maritz rebellion. The allies never lost sight of their interests with regard to the post-war settlement and the redistribution of occupied territories. Lewis Harcourt, the colonial secretary in London had been unenthusiastic about Belgian cooperation in 1915, because he feared Belgian claims, and British control of German East Africa would open the link from the Cape to Cairo.[3] The Belgian Congo had a majority of African soldiers in the Force Publique, while the Lake Force were mainly South African Boers.
- ^ In August 1914 the French foreign minister, Gaston Doumergue, had suggested a joint operation in East Africa, but the Colonial office had no wish to excite French ambition in East Africa, the French troops in Madagascar were not called on.
References
- ^ a b c Hew Strachan, The First World War, Volume 1: To Arms (Oxford University Press, 2001), 616–19.
- ^ JSTOR 715948.
- ISBN 978-0-19-926191-8.