Giles Foden
Mimi and Toutou Go Forth — the Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika
Penguin Books 2004 HB 320pp £16.99 (0 71 814555 0)
Spring of 1915 and Europe was convulsed by war. In Central Africa the longest of the Great Lakes of the Rift Valley, Lake Tanganyika was a German fiefdom, Tanganykesse. An affront to the new First Sea Lord, Sir Henry Jackson — ‘It is both the duty and the tradition of the Royal Navy to engage the enemy wherever there is water to float a ship.’ …