The Togoland campaign (6–26 August 1914) was a French and British invasion of the German colony of Togoland in West Africa, which began the West African campaign of the First World War. German colonial forces withdrew from the capital Lomé and the coastal province to fight delaying actions on the route north to Kamina, where the Kamina Funkstation (wireless transmitter) linked the government in Berlin to Togoland, the Atlantic and South America.
The main British and French force from the neighbouring colonies of Gold Coast and Dahomey (part of French West Africa) advanced from the coast up the road and railway, as smaller forces converged on Kamina from the north. The German defenders delayed the invaders for several days at the Affair of Agbeluvoe (affair, an action or engagement not of sufficient magnitude to be called a battle) and the Affair of Khra but surrendered the colony on 26 August 1914. In 1916, Togoland was partitioned by the victors and in July 1922, British Togoland and French Togoland were established as League of Nations mandates.
Background Togoland, 1914 The German Empire had established a protectorate over Togoland in 1884, which was slightly larger than Ireland and had a population of about one million people in 1914. A mountain range with heights of over runs south-west to north-east and restricts traffic between the coast and hinterland. South of the high ground the ground rises from coastal marshes and lagoons to a plateau about high, covered in forest, high grass and scrub, where farmers had cleared the forest for palm oil cultivation. The climate was tropical, with more rainfall in the interior and a dry season in August.
Half of the border with Gold Coast ran along the Volta river and a tributary and in the south, the border for was beyond the east bank. The Germans had made the southern region one of the most developed colonies in Africa, having built three metre-gauge railway lines and several roads from Lomé, the capital and main city. There was no port and ships had to lie off Lomé and transfer freight via surfboat. In 1905, a metal wharf equipped with a railway branch was inaugurated by the Germans to receive and trans-ship cargo directly onto trains.
The Lomé–Aného railway ran along the coast from Aného to Lomé, the Lomé–Blitta railway connected Lomé and Blitta, serving Atakpamé and the Lomé–Kpalimé railway, ran from Lomé to Kpalimé. Roads had been built from Lomé to Atakpamé and Sokodé, Kpalimé to Kete Krachi and from Kete Krachi to Mango; in 1914 the roads were reported to be fit for motor vehicles. German military forces in Togoland were exiguous; there were no German army units, (paramilitary police) under the command of Captain Georg Pfähler and about with military training. In total the Germans would manage to raise 1,500 paramilitary police, reservists, and levies to face the invasion.
The colony was adjacent to Allied territory, with French Dahomey on its northern and eastern borders and the British Gold Coast to the west. Dobell called the capital, Lomé and the wireless station at Kamina, about inland and connected to the coast by road and rail, the only places of military significance. Kamina was near the town of Atakpamé and had been completed in June 1914. The transmitter was a relay station for communication between Germany, its overseas colonies, the Imperial German Navy and South America. The Admiralty wished to prevent the station from being used to co-ordinate German attacks on shipping in the Atlantic. At the outbreak of war the Governor of Togoland, Duke Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg, was in Germany and his deputy, Major Hans-Georg von Doering was the acting Governor.
Gold Coast, 1914 Sir Hugh Clifford, the Governor of the Gold Coast, Lieutenant-General Charles Dobell, commander of the West African Frontier Force (WAFF) and Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Rose, commander of the Gold Coast Regiment, were absent during July 1914. William Robertson was the acting-Governor and Captain Frederick Bryant was acting-Commandant of the Gold Coast Regiment. The Gold Coast Regiment had one pioneer company, seven infantry companies, with a machine-gun each; a battery of four QF 2.95-inch Mountain Guns, amounting to including and about 330 reservists. There were four "Volunteer Corps" with about 900 men and and customs officers. The Defence Scheme for the Gold Coast (1913) provided for war against the French in neighbouring Ivory Coast and the Germans in Togoland; in the event of war with Germany, the colony was to be defended along Lake Volta and the north-eastern frontier, against raiding, the most that the Germans in Togoland were thought capable of. The plan also provided for an offensive across the lake into the north of Togoland, before making a thrust south to the more populated portion of the colony.
On 29 July 1914, a Colonial Office telegram arrived at Accra, ordering the adoption of the precautionary stage of the Defence Scheme and Robertson forwarded the information to Bryant the next day. Bryant dispensed with the Scheme, which had not been revised after the wireless station at Kamina was built and by 31 July, had mobilised the Gold Coast Regiment along the southern, rather than the northern, border with Togoland. In London, on 3 August, Dobell proposed that if war was declared, an advance would begin along the coast road from Ada to Keta and thence to Lomé, which was less than from the border. Bryant had reached the same conclusion as Dobell and had already organised small expeditionary columns at Krachi and Ada and assembled the main force at Kumasi, ready to move in either direction.
Prelude
Anglo–French preparations
On 5 August, a day after Britain declared war on Germany, the Allies cut the German sea cables between Monrovia and Tenerife, leaving the radio station at Kamina the only connexion between the colony and Germany. The acting-Governor of Togoland, Doering sent a telegram to Robertson proposing neutrality, in accordance with articles X and XI of the Congo Act, which stated that colonies in the Congo Basin were to remain neutral in the event of a conflict in Europe. Doering also appealed for neutrality because of the economic interdependence of the West African colonies and their common interest in dominating local populations. On 6 August, the Cabinet in London refused the offer of neutrality.
Bryant, on his own initiative, after hearing that the French in Dahomey wished to co-operate, sent Captain Barker and the District Commissioner of Keta to Doering, with a demand the surrender of the colony and gave him to reply. The next morning the British intercepted a wireless message from Doering that he was withdrawing from the coast to Kamina and that Lomé would be surrendered if attacked. A similar proposal for neutrality from Doering had been received by the Governor of Dahomey, who took it for a declaration of war and ordered an invasion. A French contingency plan to seize Lomé and the coast had been drafted in ignorance of the wireless station at Kamina, only from the Dahomey border.
British contingent The British raised about 1,285 troops during the campaign. The main column under Colonel Bryant included 558 soldiers, 3 guns and 2,000 carriers, Captain Elgee's column invading from the west was made up of 3 companies ( troops) and Lieutenant Bellew's column in the north had 104 soldiers and armed police (20 mounted). Another 143 armed police were in assorted columns advancing into Togoland from the north and west. The British contingent amounted to 1,100 soldiers, 185 armed police and at least the 2,000 carriers in Col. Bryant's column.
French contingent The French force comprised 1,265 troops of whom 618 soldiers formed the two main columns in the south, 250 men in Captain Marchand's column and 368 in Major Maroix's column that contained 360 carriers and two guns. In the north and north-east 92 armed police (), 150 African auxiliaries and 405 African cavalry armed with lances, bows and rifles, invaded Togoland in another four columns. The Entente total for the campaign was infantry and cavalry with at least 2,360 carriers.
Advance to Kamina
Capture of Lomé
Late on 6 August, French police occupied customs posts near Athiémè and next day Major Jean Maroix, the commander of French military forces in Dahomey, ordered the capture of Agbanake and Aného. Agbanake was occupied late on 7 August, the Mono River was crossed and a column under Captain François Marchand took Aneho early on 8 August. The moves were unopposed and Togolese civilians helped to see off the Germans by burning down the Government House at Sebe. The approximately and Askari retreated inland, impressing civilians and calling up reservists as they moved north.
Repairs began on the Lomé–Aného railway and the French advanced to Porto Seguro (now Agbodrafo) and Togo before stopping the advance, once it was clear that Lomé had been surrendered to British forces. The British invasion had begun late on 7 August; the British emissaries returned to Lomé by lorry, to find that the Germans had left for Kamina and given Rudolf Clausnitzer, the Bezirksamtmann of Lomé (equivalent to a British District officer), discretion to surrender the colony up to Khra, inland, to prevent a naval bombardment of Lomé. On 8 August, the emissaries took command of fourteen British soldiers and police from Aflao; a telegraph operator arrived by bicycle and repaired the line to Keta and Accra.
The British flag was raised and on 9 August, parties of troops arrived, having marched in exhausting heat. Over the border, Bryant had arranged to move the main force by sea and embarked on the Elele on 10 August. Three other companies had been ordered to Kete Krachi, to begin a land advance to Kamina. Elele arrived off Lomé on 12 August and the force disembarked through the surf. Arrangements were made with the French for a converging advance towards Atakpamé by the British and the French from Aného, a French column under Maroix from Tchetti in the north and the British column at Kete Krachi (Captain Elgee). Small British forces on the northern border were put under the command of Maroix and ordered to move south, as about cavalry were ordered across the northern border from Senegal and Niger, to advance on Mango from The British force at Lomé comprised police and volunteers, who were preparing to advance inland when Bryant received news of a German foray to Togblekove.
Skirmish at Bafilo
The skirmish of Bafilo took place between a company of French troops and German in north-east Togoland on 13 August. The French had crossed the border between French Dahomey and Togoland from and were engaged by German in the districts of Mango and Sokodé–Bafilo. The French company retreated after facing greater resistance than expected.
Advance from Lomé After the capture of Lomé on the coast, Bryant was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, made commander of all Allied forces in the operation and landed at Lomé on 12 August, with the main British force of soldiers, carriers, police and volunteers. As preparations began for the advance northwards to Kamina, Bryant heard that a German party had travelled south by train the day before. The party had destroyed a small wireless transmitter and railway bridge at Tabligbo, about to the north. Bryant detached half an infantry company on 12 August and sent another companies forward the next day, to prevent further attacks. By the evening, "I" Company had reached Tsévié; scouts reported that the country south of Agbeluvhoe was clear of German troops and the main force had reached Tabligbo.