The "Endurance"

In 1877 the tracked vehicle "Endurance" was to carry its designer and driver Cyril Neveu to victory in the first of the famed Paris-Dakar Rally Races.

Although it proved a cumbersome and uncomfortable drive on the roads of France, falling far behind the other competitors, the Endurance was to come into her own on arrival in Algiers with the commencement of the gruelling desert stages of the seven thousand mile trek.

Neveu's vehicle, designed especially for the shifting sands and merciless heat of the Libyan Desert, was to prove itself remarkably reliable, arriving at the finishing line in the Senegalese capital a full two days before any of the other racers.

Neveu's victory was celebrated throughout France, hailed as a triumph of superior French engineering. The Dakar Rally was to become a keenly-contested arena in which nations would finance entries in attempts to demonstrate the might and ingenuity of their industrial bases. Much to Imperial, Prussian and American chagrin, the French were to prove the masters of desert vehicle design over and over again, winning the Dakar Rally no less than nineteen times in the next twenty years.

Further images of the "Endurance" are available here for the interested reader.

Mobile Howitzer "Wasp"

Bismarck's determination to secure Prussia's "place in the sun" was to see the Great Powers engage in a constant struggle for influence and colonial power in Africa.

From 1831 onwards, Prussian troops were being sent deep into the African interior, often on the pretext of helping native leaders resist the oppression of other European nations.

Although never breaking out into open conflict, strained relations between Prussia and the Empire in Colonial Africa were played out over a constant background of small-scale raids across poorly-defined borders.

The ill-fated Prussian occupation of the Tanganyika Territory in 1863 was to see the attempted use of self-propelled artillery by Prussian forces. Whilst these mobile units had won themselves a formidable reputation on the battlefields of Europe (earning the affectionate nickname "The Kaiser's Wasps" amongst Prussian troops) they were to prove unreliable at best in the heat and damp of the African rainforest.

Howitzer pilots were forced to become adept mechanics as well as drivers and gunners, resulting in the typical ill-temper displayed in this photographic image taken at the time. More photographs, some in colour, may be seen here.

Mobile Mortars of the Transvaal Free State

The elephant-mounted mobile mortars of the Transvaal Free State were employed to devastating effect against Imperial troops during the early engagements of the Second Transvaal War in 1899.

The guerilla fighters of the Transvaal would strike at supply convoys and camps in short, sharp raids whilst avoiding traditional mass engagements with Imperial forces. The elephant mortars were loaded with shells designed to scatter shrapnel over a large area, killing few but injuring many. In the hot, fetid conditions these injuries would quickly become infected, and the resulting numbers of incapacitated troops threatened to overwhelm the limited Imperial hospital provision.

Following his succesful defence of the town of Mafeking, Colonel Robert Baden-Powell was charged by Imperial Army Command with responsibility for ending the Transvaal elephant threat by any means possible. Baden-Powell was to pioneer the use of 'defoliant tactics' where forested areas believed likely to harbour guerillas would be subject to aerial bombardment with incendiary chemical mixtures. Whilst resulting in the unfortunate extermination of much of the region's wildlife, this aggressive 'scorched earth' strategy quickly neutralised the Transvaal elephant menace.

Without mortar support, the Free State troops became much less effective at disrupting Imperial movements and supplies, and although a limited insurgency continued to cause order issues throughout Southern Africa for years, the Second Transvaal War was effectively over. Victory in the conflict ensured Imperial control of the massive Cavorite mines of Witwatersrand, at the time the largest deposits of the mineral to have been identified.

A collection of further photographic images, many of them reproduced in full colour, may be viewed here.