Togo in the First World War
The fighting in Togo, August 1914
| date | August 6, 1914 to August 27, 1914 |
|---|---|
| place | German colony of Togo |
| output | Surrender on the German side |
| consequences | Division into British Togoland and French Togoland |
| Peace treaty | Versailles Peace Treaty |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick C. Bryant |
Major a. D. Hans-Georg von Doering |
| Troop strength | |
| approx. 960 British
about 500 French |
approx. 1500 (including reserves and auxiliary troops) |
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Today's Togo had been a German colony since 1884 , the borders of which to the British and French neighboring colonies changed several times until 1911. Due to the transcontinental radio station Kamina, Togo was important as a telecommunications point for the overseas communications links between the German Empire and its colonial areas . Shortly after the start of the First World War , the area was within a month occupied .
initial situation
In the colony of Togo there was no German military , only a colonial police force consisting of a commander and his deputy as well as ten German NCOs. In addition to these German personnel, there were a Togolese NCO and approx. 660 local police officers who were distributed all over the country. At the beginning of the war it was increased to a total of 1,500 men, including a European company with almost 200 Germans, but the largely untrained units lacked war material.
Course of war
French and British troops called on the colony to surrender on August 6, 1914. The next day, British troops from what is now Ghana (then the Gold Coast ) and French troops from what is now Benin (then Dahomey ) marched in without encountering any resistance. Anecho and Porto Seguro (today's Agbodrafo ) fell without resistance. The Allied troops occupied the capital Lomé on August 12, 1914 and then marched on the Kamina radio station (east of Atakpame ). The German troops withdrew inland and limited themselves to blowing up the railway bridges over the Sio and Lili rivers in order to slow down the enemy advance. In view of the maritime and military importance of the smaller coast radio station Togblekovhe , a German command was subsequently ordered back in order not to let the radio station fall into enemy hands. The command arrived by train on August 11, 1914 at Togblekovhe and made the station unusable before the final withdrawal. At Bafilo in northeast Togo, there was a battle between smaller German and French departments.
Along the railway line Lome-Atakpame an evolved over several days running battle between the retreating police force of the Germans and the advancing of the coastal British-French colonial troops. Seven Germans, including Police Captain Pfähler, were killed in a battle near Tsewie ( km 35). At the Chra River (kilometer 123), on August 22, 1914, the heaviest fighting in Togo took place. 60 Germans and around 500 local mercenaries had holed up in a strongly fortified position. British and French troops ran against this position for hours and lost 73 men. Due to the demoralized mercenaries and porters as well as the lack of ammunition, the position had to be evacuated by the Germans the following day. This cleared the way to the Kamina radio station near Atakpame . On the night of August 24th to 25th, 1914, the station was destroyed by the Germans themselves by setting the machines on fire and knocking down the radio masts. The German commander surrendered on August 26, 1914. After negotiations between Rittmeister von Roebern as emissary and Frederick Bryant of the British-French expeditionary corps, the Togolese colony was finally handed over on August 27, 1914.
losses
There are estimates by a British brigadier general of the troops in Togo after the First World War. Brigadier General Frederick James Moberly assumes 2000 local troops in Togo. He also assumes that there were 1,100 injured and 474 dead among the local troops. For European troops he assumes the number of 44 killed and 77 injured soldiers, which can be recorded on the side of the Allied troops alone. The memorial book for the Colonial Memorial in Bremen from 1932 names 14 dead for the German side, 10 of whom died after 1914.
Prisoners and internees
Most of the prisoners and internees were brought to Dahomey under French guard. After lengthy negotiations, he was transferred to Algiers and Morocco , and in the event of illness, to France. Some of the British prisoners were brought to England. German men from Lome, on the other hand, were sent to Palime , while German women and children remained in the Catholic sister house in Lome.
Hans Georg von Doering , Deputy Governor, in captivity, (1916)
British colonial troops in Togo, 1914
See also
literature
- Frederick James Moberly: Togoland and the Cameroons 1914-1916. HMSO, London 1931 (official representation).
- Peter Sebald : Togo 1884-1914. A history of the German "model colony" based on official sources (studies on Asia, Africa and Latin America; vol. 29). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-05-000248-4 .
- Bernd G. Längin (text), Michael Schindler (photo documentation): The German colonies. Locations and fates 1884–1918 . Mittler, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-8132-0854-0 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bernd G. Längin: The German colonies. Schauplätze und Schicksale 1884–1918 , p. 299.
- ↑ Peter Sebald: Togo 1884-1914 , p. 595f.
- ^ Gisela Graichen , Horst founder : German colonies. Dream and trauma . 4th edition Ullstein, Berlin 2005, p. 334, ISBN 3-550-07637-1 .
- ↑ cf. Heinrich Schnee : German Colonial Lexicon , Art. Togo, No. 15.
- ↑ Peter Sebald: Togo 1884-1914 , p. 600.
- ^ Paul Schreckenbach : The German colonies from the beginning of the war to the end of 1917 . In: Ders .: The world fire. Illustrated history from great times, Vol. 3 . Weber, Leipzig 1920, p. 866.
- ↑ a b c Bernd G. Längin: The German colonies. Schauplätze und Fatesale 1884–1918 , p. 300.
- ↑ Peter Sebald: Togo 1884-1914 , p. 603.
- ↑ Abraham Esau : The large station Kamina and the beginning of the world war . In: Telefunken-Zeitung , Vol. 3 (1919), No. 16 (July), pp. 31-36 ( entire issue as pdf; 4.7 MB )
- ↑ List of names of the German fallen in or from Togo 1914-1918 (memorial book on the colonial memorial in Bremen) (viewed on November 18, 2017)