British cross the Kamerun border from Nigeria

On 25 August 1914 British troops from Nigeria crossed the border of German Kamerun. This began the land campaign against one of Germany’s largest colonies in Africa, which was to last a year and a half.

Three columns

The border between Nigeria and Kamerun ran for more than 1,500 kilometres, from Lake Chad in the north to the Gulf of Guinea. The British did not wait for the arrival from Europe of General Charles Dobell, who two days earlier had been appointed commander of the Allied land forces (see General Dobell to command the Kamerun expedition). Colonel C. H. P. Carter, commanding the Nigeria Regiment, sent three columns into the German colony, made up mainly of African soldiers of the West African Frontier Force under British officers.

In the far north, Captain R. W. Fox’s column set out from Maiduguri for the mountain fort of Mora. In the centre, Colonel Maclear’s column headed from the Benue towards the German stronghold of Garua. The same day its mounted troops drove the Germans out of the border post of Tepe. In the south, a column from Ikom on the Cross River was to take the German posts in the river valley, including Nsanakang.

A failed start

The British had numerical superiority, but their units were poorly trained and scattered over a huge area, in difficult terrain of mountains, savannah and equatorial forest. The Germans, though few, defended themselves in well-prepared fortifications. By the end of August all three thrusts had been repulsed: the attack on Mora on 27 August failed, at Garua the British suffered a defeat on 29–31 August, and the column on the Cross River, after taking Nsanakang, was routed by a German counter-attack at the beginning of September.

The setbacks on land led the Allies to concentrate their efforts on the coast. In September Dobell’s expedition captured the port of Duala, and fighting in the interior continued until February 1916.