When Captain Max Looff took command of the light cruiser Königsberg, he had no idea that he would become a leading figure in one of the most bizarre and heroic land battles of World War I.

The Königsberg, just prior to the war, was assigned to patrol duty off the East African coast and in the Indian Ocean. When hostilities broke out, Looff, his ship, and his crew distinguished themselves raiding British commerce, attacking and destroying Allied fighting ships, and bombarding British-controlled ports.

Their successes so worried the British Admiralty that a squadron of ships was dispatched to capture or destroy the Königsberg. After several exciting escapes at sea the Konigsberg was trapped off the East African coast. Looff had on board a local pilot, and using his skill, took the great ship thousands of yards up into the Rufifi Delta. The British ships, lacking knowledge of 'the channels, were unable to follow, and more than a year's blockade and seige followed, during which time over a hundred British ships— including two monitors towed from England—and two airplanes were needed to destroy the Königsberg. Looff took advantage of the blockade to have enormous gun carriages made in Dar es Salaam and hauled overland to the banks of the Rufifi. After the Konigsberg was finally sunk, Looff salvaged all ten of his 105-mm. guns and mounted them on his newly arrived carriages. The Königsberg's crew and the guns then rendezvoused with the German East African land forces under the command of von Littow Vorbeck.

Since they controlled the sea, the British assumed that they effectively controlled East Africa, but Looff, his men, and his guns crisscrossed Africa for the next three years, operated successfully both as guerrillas and assault troops under the most incredibly difficult conditions, and tied up over a quarter of a million British and Allied forces. Hauling the guns over African terrain was itself an astonishing feat, but cut off from their home base and supplies, their successful battles with British forces—far larger and better supplied —approached the miraculous. The cost to Looff and his men was enormous. When the Armistice was announced, only fifteen men and one gun of the Königsberg were left, but they had survived the war, harrassing the British mightily and established a modern legend.
ED Hoyt, who lives with his wife and children in Vermont, is well known for his books about the sea and his biographies of great American families, the latest of which is The Guggenheims and the American Dream.

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