For instance few people will be aware of a small WWI skirmish between the Austro-Hungarians and the English-Belgium Allies with
the World’s longest and second deepest freshwater lake as its backdrop. However during the start of the Great War,
the Brits discovered that the Germans had a number of active craft on Lake
Tanganyika and were getting ready to launch another, bristling with arms, to
patrol and control its’ newly created African colonies. To cut a long yet interesting story short,
the British sent their ‘best’
man down to South Africa with two new gunships, and no doubt enlisting the help
of a few friendly locals, transported the boats by train, ferry and oxen,
overland for 2,000 miles to their launching point in the modern day DRC. Here, in 1915-16 the ships hunted their enemy
and she was eventually scuttled by the Germans, however in the 20’s she was
once again raised from the lake bed, dusted down and began to operate as a
ferry. To this day the MV Liemba still
travels the length of the lake, albeit with a slightly different cargo, nearly 100
years since her baptism by the Germans.
In Uganda on the other hand, there may not
have been any military incursions, but the country is home to what was a highly
strategic and important water source prior to and during the two World Wars. Which is why John Hemming Speke’s discovery
of Lake Victoria in 1858, allowed the Queen and her politicos to sleep soundly
at night, safe in the knowledge that the source of the mighty Nile, which ran
through British controlled Sudan and Egypt, was safe from any ‘dirty
foreigners.’
The securing of the lake not only protected
the British assets further downstream but also allowed them to establish a base
for a truly British sport; sailing, and seventy-seven years on from the
creation of the Victoria Nyanza Sailing Club in 1935 they can still be found at
Kaazi, in Kampala. As part of our active
Uganda 2012, Helen and I decided that this was most certainly an opportunity to
take, so we jumped into a couple of lasers and set sail…only to capsize
instantly under the strong Southerly winds.
However buoyed (sorry) with frustration and competition, after two
weekends of practice we were both on our way towards partial respectability
within the Ugandan sailing fraternity, and who knows, maybe we’ll actually win
one of their prestigious races someday, I’ll certainly be coming back during
the next few years.
