German attack on Edéa

On 5 January 1915 German colonial troops attacked Edéa, a town on the Sanaga river in German Kamerun. It was defended by Colonel Mayer’s French garrison, made up mainly of Senegalese tirailleurs. The attack broke down under the defenders’ fire, and the Germans withdrew with heavy losses.

Zimmermann’s counter-offensive

The French had taken Edéa on 26 October 1914. The town became the Allies’ furthest outpost on the railway line that ran from Duala into the interior of the colony. The commander of the German Schutztruppe, Lieutenant-Colonel Carl Zimmermann, wanted to push the enemy back from the railway and from Yaoundé, where he had concentrated his main forces. He decided to deal the French a serious blow.

On 3 January the Germans cut the telegraph line between Duala and Edéa. Two days later they struck almost simultaneously at two points: at the post at Kopongo on the railway line and at Edéa itself. Various sources estimate the strength of the attacking forces at between about 700 and 1,000 men, the vast majority of them African askaris led by German officers.

Two attacks

The Allies learned in good time of the threat to Kopongo and reinforced the post there. The attack, carried out according to some sources by about 150 men, was repulsed without much difficulty. The Germans nevertheless managed to cut the railway track and the telegraph.

At Edéa the fighting was much heavier. The nearness of the forest, the scattered buildings and the uneven ground made the town hard to defend. The French, however, had prepared carefully. They had dug trenches, fortified buildings, including the railway station, and cleared the ground in front of the bush to have a free field of fire. After a march of several hours through the forest, the German companies went into the attack early in the morning and ran into accurate fire. One of them broke into the town, but under fire from the fortified station it lost its commander, Lieutenant Bachmann, and many men. Further attacks also broke down, and the Germans withdrew into the forest.

The outcome

According to the report of General Charles Dobell, commander of the Anglo-French expedition to Kamerun, the Germans left on the battlefield 23 dead Europeans and about 190 African soldiers killed and wounded. The French lost one European sergeant and three tirailleurs killed and eleven wounded. Dobell praised both the preparation of the defence and the accuracy of the French riflemen.

Dobell also observed that this was the first and last attempt by the Germans in Kamerun to carry out an operation on such a large scale. After the defeat at Edéa, Zimmermann went over to the defensive and continued a war of attrition in difficult, forested terrain. The Allies, however, were unable to exploit their victory quickly. Dobell concluded that without reinforcements he could not advance on Yaoundé, and the first attempt to march on the town in the spring of 1915 ended in failure.