Max von Stetten

Lieutenant Max von Stetten and members of the Cameroon police force around 1894

Maximilian (Max) von Stetten (born May 26, 1860 in Nuremberg , † February 24, 1925 in Munich ) was a German officer, commander of the Imperial Protection Force for Cameroon and Africa explorer.

Life

Max was the son of the Bavarian major and chamberlain Friedrich von Stetten († 1881).

Bavarian Army

He attended the cadet institute in Munich and joined the 3rd Chevaulegers Regiment "Duke Maximilian" of the Bavarian Army in 1877 as a porter ensign . In 1879 he became second lieutenant . On May 11, 1891, he was granted his retirement as a Premier Lieutenant with a pension and permission to wear the uniform of his regiment. He joined then in the service of the Foreign Ministry, was to service the government of Cameroon ordered and received in 1893 the character as Captain à la suite . On July 8, 1894, he was assigned to the Cameroon Protection Force and was appointed commander at the same time.

Cameroon

In 1891 Stetten and Karl von Gravenreuth , the "Lion of Africa", set out on military expeditions against the Abo and Bakwiri west of Duala and in the area of ​​the volcanic Cameroon Mountain. With this symbolic blow, the Germans wanted above all to underpin their claim to power and to intimidate the local Bakwiri and Buea. During the storming of the Bakwiri village of Buea , which was to become the headquarters of the government in 1901, the Maxim gun that was being carried failed due to a jam ; the waitress was also wounded. Captain Gravenreuth fell in the chaos, and Lieutenant Stetten, who was second officer at the time, was seriously wounded. Consequently, Captain Hans von Ramsay , an artillery officer from Tinwalde in West Prussia, had to take over the expedition. The actual colonial political goal of reaching the Ubangi could no longer be achieved at this point, as the 400,000 marks set for the expedition had almost been used up and most of the local porters had already perished due to fighting and exertion. Finally, Bismarck's successor, Leo von Caprivi, telegraphed the end of the company. Although the Germans managed to secure a large part of North Cameroon through contracts with local rulers in time, they had to move away from the plan to advance from Cameroon to Central Africa and expand there, as the French advancing from the north and east to Central Cameroon in the In the meantime, they were able to gain significant influence. Dr. Preuss, then head of the Botanical Garden of the Victoria government station , led the remains of the expeditionary force back to the coast.

In 1892 Stetten was appointed leader of the police force in Cameroon.

At the end of March 1893 he carried out the Cameroon hinterland expedition to the still undeveloped northern part of the protected area on behalf of the Foreign Office and reached Yola am Benuë via Balinga, Sanserni-Tibati, Banjo and Kontcha . This was to be the German's last expedition into the interior of Cameroon.

On August 8, 1894, Stetten was appointed commander of the protection force in Cameroon. In 1894 Stetten led a punitive expedition against the Bakwiri, who refused to surrender their land to the factories. His companions were Dr. Preuss and Lieutenant Hans Dominik . After the chief Jagga had fallen, the Bakwiri submitted. This enabled the planting work on the Cameroon Mountain to begin. The bones of Captain Gravenreuth, who fell in 1891, were recovered and then buried under his monument in Duala.

Stetten's detailed travel reports were published in the Deutsches Kolonialblatt in 1895 and are still a valuable source of ethnography and history in Central Cameroon. When the police force was transformed into a structured military protection force, Stetten became its first commander. With her he undertook, accompanied by lieutenants Dominik and Stein, in March and April 1895 an expedition against the Bakoko on the lower Sanaga and Kwakwa Creek. The reason for this violation was to punish the locals for a previous attack on Lieutenant Dominik and to open the Edea – Yaounde trade route. Although Dominik's company consisted mainly of battle-tested and expedition-experienced Wey and Sierra Leone soldiers, they had 37 dead and wounded within a few weeks. Most of the casualties arose in storming enemy villages. On April 29th, Yaounde , the main objective of the expedition, was reached and Dominik was appointed station chief by Stetten. When Stetten rifles and ammunition were stolen during his visit to Chief Dandugo and the locals refused to return the items, Stetten prepared for a punitive expedition. During this action, which lasted from July 10th to July 26th, 1895, the anger could be subdued and the equipment recovered.

After personal differences with Governor Jesko von Puttkamer , Stetten resigned from his command on August 6, 1896 and retired from the protection force with the statutory pension .

Further career

After his return to Germany, Stetten became court stud director in Bergstetten , was given the status of major in 1909 and from 1913 was the royal Bavarian court stable master or head stable master of the Hofmarstall in Munich. He retired in July 1924. For his services, Stetten was awarded the Cross of Honor of the Order of Merit of Saint Michael in 1911 .

literature

• Florian Hoffmann: Occupation and military administration in Cameroon. Establishment and institutionalization of the colonial monopoly of violence 1891–1914. Part II, Göttingen 2007, p. 183f.
• Kurt Strümpell: Maximilian von Stetten. in: News sheet of the association of former officers of the Imperial Protection Force for Cameroon 1925/26.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Military weekly paper . No. 46 of May 27, 1891, p. 1187.
2. ^ Military weekly paper. No. 63 of July 28, 1894, p. 1687.
3. ↑ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Kingdom of Bavaria for the year 1914. Munich 1914, p. 131.