GENERAL VON LETTOW VORJBECK.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14596, 4 May 1918, Page 6

GENERAL VON LETTOW VORJBECK.

Major-General von Lettow Vorbeck, now "carrying on" with his ragged Vemnant m Portuguese East Africa, landed at Dar-es-Salaam a few months before the war commenced m August, 1914. He is a Prussian officer, and was specially commissioned by the Kaiser to take over the command of the Protectorate troops m German East Africa. On his arrival he succeeded Colonel Scheinlitz as commandant of the vSchutzerupfen." V.pn Lettow lost no time when war' was announced m entering upon the congenial task of harassing our positions, then slenderly guarded, along the British East African, Nyasalandj and Bhodesian borders, and of 'attempting to cut the Uganda line of railway between Nairobi and the coast; His fame rests, however, on his later defensive measures and tactics, and on the wonderful manner m which he eluded the repeated enveloping movements directed against him." A captured German officer has given the following account of his chief : "If General von Lettow Vorbeck were dead or captured, the campaign m East Africa would come to a conclusion almost immediately. He is the life and soul of our resistance. He is everywhere, and does everything. He goes out on patrol Himself, and. with his own hands has taken three or four prisoners. He carries practically no kit, and will rough it with the lowest of his subordinates.. He is a . hard man, but if he is hard on others he is, hard on .himself, too. We are all afraid of him; but we admire him, too, because we know he is a brilliant soldier, and a brave and fearless man, and one who will carry out jthe Emperor's orders and resist to the death."

is the type.;of Prussian who has found' a hiding-place m the adjacent Portuguese colony. Von Lettow has had blackwater fever, and is spare and wasted with tropical disease. He has only one eye. The other was lost during thd Boxer revolt m China. He has been twice wounded m the campaign m East Africa. The last wound was received' outside of Kondoa Irangj, when he personally conducted the operations against Van Deventer's rapid advance. Von Lettow was there struck by a piece of shrapnel. The general is an old enemy of England, for he fought against us m the Boer war. Hindenburg has been honored m Berlin by the erection of a) huge gold-studded wooden effigy. There is no effigy of von Lettow to- commemorate his stubborn defence of his master's country, but he will be long remembered there as a great' type of 'Prussian military genius and endurance.