MIMI AND TOUTOU GO FORTH: THE BIZARRE BATTLE OF LAKE TANGANYIKA

the long version

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 of 28 men was despatched from Britain on a vast journey. Their orders were to take control of the lake. To reach it, they had to haul two motorboats with the unlikely names of Mimi and Toutou through the wilds of the Congo. The twenty-eight were a strange bunch - onew as addicted to Worcester [i.e. Worcestershire] sauce, another was a former racing driver - but the strangest of all of them was their skirt-wearing, tattoo-covered commander Geoffrey Spicer-Simson."--Book jacket.