Gregg Adams earned a doctorate in physics in 1983 from the University of Missouri-Rolla. His interest in the World War I's East African campaign begin in 1973, when he first read Major J.R. Sibley's Tanganyika Guerrilla, followed shortly by reading Charles Miller's Battle for the Bundu. From that time he has studied the campaign with a particular interest in the 1917-18 period, an aspect of the conflict poorly covered in most publications.

Johnny Shumate works as a freelance illustrator living in Nashville, Tennessee. He began his career in 1987 after graduating from Austin Peay State University. Most of his work is rendered in Adobe Photoshop using a Cintiq monitor. His greatest influences are Angus McBride, Don Troiani, and Édouard Detaille.

Specially commissioned artwork and thrilling combat accounts transport the reader to the far-flung and inhospitable East African theatre of World War I, where the Schutztruppe faced off against the King's African Rifles. In an attempt to divert Allied forces from the Western Front, a small German colonial force under the command of Oberst Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck raided British and Portuguese territory. Despite being heavily outnumbered, his expert use of guerrilla tactics forced the British to mount a series of offensives, culminating in a major battle at Nyangao-Mahiwa that saw both sides suffer heavy casualties.

Meticulously researched analysis highlights the tactical and technological innovation shown by both armies as they were forced to fight in a treacherous climate where local diseases could prove just as deadly as the opposition.