German countries of Chad
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The German Tschadseeländer were an administrative area, a residence , of the German colony of Cameroon .
geography
The German Lake Chad countries were located in the Lake Chad basin . The residence area comprised from north to south the area from the south bank of Lake Chad to the Adamaua residence through the northern Mandara Mountains and the southern border of the Musgu areas on the left bank of the Logone . In the west-east expansion, the German Tschadseeländer reached in the west to the border of the British colony of Nigeria and in the east to the border of the French colony of Equatorial Africa . In 1911, the eastern parts of the country, the " duck's bill " , went to the French colony of Equatorial Africa through an area exchange treaty between France and Germany, the Morocco-Congo Agreement .
history
conquest
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The prerequisite for the establishment of German rule on Lake Chad was the overthrow of the Islamic emirate Fombina (Adamaua) in the years 1899 to 1902. With the victory in the battle of Miskin-Marua (January 18 to 21, 1902) between the German protection force under Hans Dominik and local rulers had asserted German rule in North Cameroon.
The commander of the protection force in Cameroon, Curt von Pavel , led military operations in the north of Cameroon in November 1901, during which he then led an expedition to Banjo and Lake Chad without commission from the governor of Cameroon, Jesko von Puttkamer . During this expedition he placed the Sultanates of Mandara , Bornu , the Kotoko states and the Shua Arabs under German "protection" and replaced the provisional French occupation in the German area of Lake Chad, which after the victory in the Battle of Kusseri in April 1900 controlled the land on the southern Lake Chad. The Pavels expedition was also supported by the local rulers in the Lake Chad area, who sent him messengers with letters to free them from French rule, which was pillaging their territories.
administration
Since a direct German administration, as in South Cameroon, which was divided into district offices, was temporarily not possible due to a lack of strength, a residency was established as indirect rule in the German Lake Chad countries in 1903 , as in Adamaua . That is, the local administration remained, but under the supervision of a German resident. To strengthen German rule, the former states, sultanates and lamitate in North Cameroon were redistributed and given to loyal African rulers. The former vassal states Gulfei and Kusseri of the Bornu Empire , both in the area of the German Tschadseeländer , were declared independent sultanates by Dominik in May 1902 and the Sultanate of German Bornu was established. The highest German official for colonial affairs, the director of the colonial department of the Foreign Office , Oscar Wilhelm Stübel , issued a decree on January 9, 1903, in which it says:
“For all garrisons in the Adamaua and Lake Chad area, the instruction given in my earlier decree remains that they refrain from any administrative activity in their districts and only look at themselves as advisers to the local rulers in the manner of the English and Dutch residents in India to have..."
The seat of the residency of the German Tschadseeländer was Kusseri , which was on the north-eastern edge of the residency and with the cession of the 'duck's bill' in 1911 became even more remote as a resident's seat , and so in 1913 the Mora , located in the middle of the residency, became the new resident's seat.
Since the Germans were resident in Chad, no taxes were levied, but an annual tribute was paid to the capital of Cameroon, Duala . If a tribute was to be paid to the ruler in Yola before the German colonial rule in the territory of the German Tschadseeländer , the tribute of the two residencies of the German Tschadseeländer and Adamaua for 1905 was 30,000 Reichsmarks. For 1914 both residences had to pay a total of 200,000 Reichsmarks in tribute.
As a result of the reorganization of rule in the area of the German Tschadseeländer, Mohammedan rulers remained in power, who continued to harass the non-Mohammedan population and take them as slaves. As late as 1907, the Mohamedans were still hunting the non-Islamic population in the German Lake Chad countries.
The German Niger-Benue-Lake Chad expedition also passed through the German Lake Chad countries from January to March 1903 to investigate the economic conditions in the areas explored. The expedition report says about the economy in the area - also called Bornu:
“ Ostrich feathers mostly come from Bornu, where wild ostriches are hunted and tame ostriches are bred in large numbers; this latter industry is very profitable and expandable, it is only in its infancy. The German administration in Bornu will do well to direct its main attention to the improvement of ostrich breeding by trying to gain closer contact with the breeding Arabs. "
Shibutter, the fat from the pressed kernels of the fruits of the shea tree, was exported from the countries of Lake Chad to Germany .
In 1913 the Adamaua residences were divided into the Ngaundere residences and the Garua residences. Plans to combine the residential districts of Garua, Ngaundere and German Tschadseeländer, and possibly the district of Ober-Logone in Neukamerun , to form a provincial association under the leadership of a senior government council, were discussed shortly before the First World War , but were no longer implemented.
First World War
At the beginning of the First World War, at the beginning of August 1914, there was a small German military post in Kusseri in the German Tschadsee countries with about 30 men of the protection force and in Mora the 3rd company of the German protection force in Cameroon. On the French side, there was a much larger force in Fort Lamy than in Kusseri. By the end of September 1914, all French attacks on Kusseri could be repulsed. Then the German defenders withdrew to Mora. There the small German troops, under the command of the resident of the German Tschadseeländer, Captain Ernst von Raben , held the position under the siege of British troops. Only after Raben received the news that the German protection force in Cameroon had gone over to internment in the neutral Spanish colony Muni in the first two weeks of February 1916, giving way to the Allied superiority, did it make any sense to hold out in Mora to bind enemy forces and on February 18, 1916, the resident of the German Tschadseeländer surrendered with his troops. Since Germany lost its colonies through the Versailles Treaty of 1919, the history of the German Tschadseeländer ended with it.
Residents
- 1903–1904: Sylvester Stieber
- 1904–1905: Wilhelm Langheld
- 1906–1908: Carl Zimmermann
- 1913–1914: Adolf von Duisburg
- 1914–1916: Ernst von Raben
literature
- Florian Hoffmann : Occupation and military administration in Cameroon. Establishment and institutionalization of the colonial monopoly of violence 1891–1914 . Cuvillier, Göttingen 2007 (2 volumes)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helmut Stoecker (Ed.): Cameroon under German colonial rule , Volume 2, VEB Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin (East) 1968, pages 83-84.
- ↑ Helmut Stoecker (Ed.): Cameroon under German colonial rule , Volume 2, VEB Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin (East) 1968, pages 85 and 94
- ↑ Harry R. Rudin: Germans in the Cameroons 1884-1914 , Yale University Press, New Haven 1938, 338
- ↑ Helmut Stoecker (ed.): Cameroon under German colonial rule , Volume 2, VEB Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin (East) 1968, page 95
- ^ Fritz Bauer (leader of the expedition): The German Niger-Benue-Tsadsee Expedition 1902-1903 , Berlin 1904, page 138
- ↑ OF Metzger: Our old colony Togo , Verlag J. Neumann, Neudamm 1941, page 197
- ^ Uwe Schulte-Varendorff: War in Cameroon - The German Colony in World War I , Christoph Links Verlag, Berlin 2011, page 33
- ^ Uwe Schulte-Varendorff: War in Cameroon - The German Colony in the First World War , Christoph Links Verlag, Berlin 2011, pages 43, 46 and 50