British troops enter Togoland and occupy Lomé

In the first days of August 1914 the war reached Africa. British units from the colony of the Gold Coast, today’s Ghana, crossed the border of German Togoland and occupied its capital, Lomé. Contemporary chronicles record this event under the date of 8 August.

The smallest colony, an important radio station

Togoland was a small German colony on the Gulf of Guinea, surrounded by British and French possessions. It had no strong military garrison: it was defended mainly by local soldiers of the colonial police under German officers. The colony did, however, have one valuable installation: a modern radio station at Kamina, about 100 kilometres inland. It linked Berlin with the German colonies in Africa and with ships in the Atlantic.

At the beginning of the war the German governor proposed that the colony should remain neutral. The British rejected the proposal. The Germans concluded that they could not defend the coast, declared Lomé an open city and withdrew their forces inland to defend the radio station. As a result the British units, commanded by Captain Frederick Bryant, occupied the capital without a fight.

The first shot

During the march on Lomé there was a skirmish with the German colonial police. According to British sources, Lance Corporal Alhaji Grunshi of the Gold Coast Regiment then fired, on 7 August, the first shot by a British soldier in the whole of the First World War.

The end of the colony

From the east, from French Dahomey, French troops entered Togoland. The Germans held out for several weeks. On the night of 24/25 August they blew up the radio station at Kamina, and on 26 August they capitulated. Togoland was the first German colony lost in the war. After the war it was divided between Britain and France.