World's War Events $v Volume 3 - Beginning with the departure of the first American destroyers for service abroad in April, 1917, and closing with the treaties of peace in 1919. by Various
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page 36 of 495 (07%)
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always in the direction of the enemy!
[Sidenote: Obtaining water on the Kalahari Desert.] When the present war broke out, I proceeded once more on my extensive travels, and I became something of an expert in the waterless, sandy wastes of the southern half of German Southwest Africa. As for the Kalahari Desert, over which the movement of men and transport was supposed to be quite impossible, we did not rest until we had sunk bore-holes for water for hundreds of miles, and until we had moved a large force of thousands of mounted men across an area in which it was thought no human being could ever move. One of the reasons of our success in that campaign was that, moving through the Kalahari Desert, we struck the enemy country at its very heart. The travels of Livingstone, of Selous, who was a comrade of mine in this war, and of other illustrious men in those vast solitudes of southern Africa were as joy-rides to what we had to undergo in conducting a big campaign against the enemy, and still more against nature. [Sidenote: A campaign in East Africa.] [Sidenote: Careful study of topography necessary.] [Sidenote: Books of travelers all wrong.] When that campaign was over, and I thought my traveling days were past, the call came to East Africa, and 1916 was spent in traveling over the vast tropical expanses of that fascinating country. I need scarcely say that a military commander has often very special opportunities of learning geography. He has to study the country with the eyes not of the |
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