What is West Africa Campaign (world War I)?

Information about West Africa Campaign (world War I)

West Africa Campaign (World War I)

World War I

European Theatre

Balkans | Western Front | Eastern Front | Italian Front

Middle Eastern

Africa

South-West Africa | West Africa | East Africa

Asian and Pacific Theatres

German Samoa and German New Guinea | Tsingtao

Other

Atlantic Ocean | Mediterranean Sea | Naval battles
Air battles

Contemporary conflicts

Maritz Rebellion | North-West Frontier, India | Easter Rising | Russian Revolution

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 of Great Britain and Ireland, 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 UK 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.

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European
Balkans – Western Front – Eastern Front – Italian Front
Middle Eastern
Caucasus – Mesopotamia – Sinai and Palestine – Gallipoli – Persia
African
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Italian campaign refers to a series of battles fought between the armies of Austria-Hungary and Italy, along with their allies, in northern Italy between 1915 and 1918. Italy hoped that by joining the countries of the Triple Entente against the Central Powers she would gain the
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The Sinai and Palestine Campaign during the Middle Eastern Theatre of World War I was a series of battles which took place on the Sinai Peninsula, Palestine, and Syria between January 28, 1915 and October 28, 1918.
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The South-West Africa Campaign was the conquest and occupation of German South West Africa, now called Namibia, by forces from the Union of South Africa acting on behalf of the British Imperial Government at the start of World War I.
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The Asian and Pacific Theater of World War I was a largely bloodless conquest of a number of German controlled islands in the Pacific Ocean. The only real military action was the careful and well-executed Japanese attack on German Tsingtao.
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Naval combat in World War I was mainly characterized by the efforts of the Allied Powers, with their larger fleets and surrounding position, to blockade the Central Powers by sea, and the efforts of the Central Powers to break that blockade or to establish an effective blockade of
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Bombers of World War I

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Togoland was a German protectorate in West Africa from 1884 to 1914. The protectorate was established during the "Scramble for Africa", when German explorer and imperialist Gustav Nachtigal arrived at Togoville, sent as a special commissioner by Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck.
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This article is about the historical German colony. For the modern nation, see Cameroon.

Kamerun was an African colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1916.
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