End of the first advance on Yaoundé

On 28 June 1915 the first Allied advance on Yaoundé in German Kamerun came to an end. According to the report of General Charles Dobell, commander of the Anglo-French expedition, only on that day did the German attacks on the withdrawing troops cease, and the Allied posts dug in at Ngwe and on the River Kele at So Dibanga, that is, where the advance had started in April and May. Dobell had decided on 7 June to halt the advance, but the retreat proved harder than the last weeks of the advance.

The lost convoy

Colonel Mayer’s column did not withdraw at once. On 11 June Colonel Rose reached it with reinforcements, and Mayer decided to drive the Germans out of their position on the River Puge first. On 12 June, while Rose’s detachment was outflanking it through the forest, the Germans abandoned the position. On the same day, however, some two hundred German soldiers with machine guns attacked, about 10 km behind the column’s camp, a convoy of 500 porters carrying food, escorted by only 33 soldiers. The porters dropped their loads and fled, and the escort had to withdraw. According to the German account, quoted by the British official history, this was a deliberate counter-attack by three companies on the flank and rear of the column, not a mere raid.

The French were left without food, and the British, who were sharing their rice with them, had enough left for two days. On 14 June Mayer withdrew the whole column to Wum Biagas. The twelve miles (about 19 km) that had taken nineteen days to win were covered in five hours, without interference from the enemy.

Under fire at the rear

Then the Germans set off in pursuit. On 15 June from dawn until early afternoon they attacked the post at So Dibanga, but the French garrison beat them off. That day they also struck at the outposts near Wum Biagas. On 16 June the column marched in torrential rain to Nkonjok, and the French rearguard repulsed attacks all day. On 17 June, on the way to Ngwe, it was helped by Cockburn’s column, which Dobell had sent from Douala with the last available units. Mayer left a strong garrison at Ngwe under Cockburn’s command, and on 18 June he himself went on with the rest of the troops to Edéa, from where the British went by rail to Douala.

The Germans kept up the pressure for more than another week. On 18 June they attacked the outposts near Ngwe, and on 20 June they blocked the road to Edéa. In the fight to clear it Colonel Rose’s detachment lost 23 men, 16 of them from a Gold Coast company. Only on 26 June did Cockburn report that the road was clear, and two days later the attacks ceased. On 1 July the British units left for Edéa, and a French garrison remained at Ngwe.

The balance

According to the British official history, in two months of fighting on the road to Yaoundé the Allies lost 301 killed and wounded, among them 13 Europeans and 83 African soldiers killed, and at least 600 sick. Dobell wrote in his report that in relation to the strength of the column the losses were serious, as 25 per cent of the soldiers had been killed or wounded. The Germans, instead of weakening under the pressure of General Aymerich’s columns from the south-east, had brought up reinforcements and gathered about 1,200 rifles against Mayer.

On 15 June the War Office in London agreed to the postponement of the advance on Yaoundé. In a letter of 23 June Dobell expected that until the end of the rainy season, in mid-November, he would defend the territory occupied and try to cut the Germans off from supplies from the Spanish colony of Guinea, from where, according to his information, they were getting food and ammunition. He considered a new offensive on Yaoundé possible only with large reinforcements, thousands of porters and a new road for motor vehicles. The Allies undertook such an offensive in the autumn, and they took Yaoundé in January 1916.