West African Campaign (World War I)

West Africa Campaign (World War I)
Part of African theatre of World War I
African troops in German Kamerun
Date August 3, 1914 – February, 1916 Location Kamerun, Togoland Result Treaty of Versailles
Belligerents
United Kingdom France Belgium Belgian Congo	Germany File:Kamerunflag.PNG Kamerun File:Togolandflag.PNG Togoland

The West Africa Campaign of World War I consisted of two small and fairly short military operations to capture the German colonies in West Africa: Togoland and Kamerun.

Overview

The United Kingdom, with near total command of the world's oceans, had the power and resources to conquer the German colonies when the Great War started. The two German colonies in West Africa were recently acquired and not well defended. They were also surrounded on all sides by African colonies that belonged to their enemies, the United Kingdom and France.

Togoland

This small colony was almost immediately conquered by a military force from the British Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) and a small force from French Dahomey (modern-day Benin). Fighting was over by August 27. John Keegan identifies the two military forces as the West African Rifles and the Tirailleurs senegalais (Keegan, "World War I", pg. 206).

Kamerun

Kamerun (modern-day Cameroon and parts of what is now eastern Nigeria) had a garrison of about 1,000 German soldiers supported by about 3,000 African soldiers. The British attacked out of Nigeria following three different routes east into Kamerun. However, all three columns were defeated by a combination of terrain, rough trails, and ambushes by the Germans. The French attacked south from Chad and captured Kusseri. Early in September, a Belgian-French force (mostly from the Belgian Congo) captured Limbe on the coast. With the aid of four British and French cruisers acting as mobile artillery, this force then captured the colonial capital of Douala on September 27 1914.

The only major center of German resistance was now Yaounda (modern-day Yaounde). The Belgian-French troops followed the German-built railroad inland, beating off German counter-attacks along the way. By November, Yaounde was captured. Most of the surviving German soldiers retreated into Spanish Guinea (modern-day Equatorial Guinea), which was neutral territory. The last German fort in Kamerun surrendered in February of 1916 (Keegan "World War I", pg. 207).

References

• Togoland and the Cameroons 1914-1916 by Brigadier-General F. J. Moberly (1931, HMSO, official history)
• Paice, Edward Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, ISBN 0-297-84709-0.