Germans cross into Spanish Guinea

On 17 February 1916 General Charles Dobell, commander of the British and French forces in Kamerun, forwarded an unusual telegram. At the request of the Spanish Governor-General of the island of Fernando Po (today Bioko) he passed on to the government in Berlin a report from the German governor of Kamerun, Karl Ebermaier. Ebermaier reported that lack of ammunition had forced him to leave the colony and take refuge on Spanish territory with his whole force, including the sick and wounded. The units had begun crossing the border on 4 February, and the details of their internment were just being settled. The British chronology of the war records the Germans’ crossing into Spanish Guinea under 17 February, but according to the British official history (Moberly, Togoland and the Cameroons) the last German units had crossed the border as early as 15 February. The date of 17 February is the day on which the news officially left Africa.

The last fighting on the Ntem

Since the fall of Jaunde on 1 January the main German forces had been retreating south towards the border of Spanish Muni (Mbini), the mainland part of Spanish Guinea. The retreat was covered by positions on the river Ntem, called the Campo in its lower course, which for much of its length formed the border. By the beginning of February the pursuit was being conducted almost entirely by the French troops of Colonel Morisson, to whom General Joseph Aymerich had handed over command. The columns of Captain Schmoll and Commandant Mathieu reached the Ntem on 8 and 10 February. The Germans defended the crossings, but during the night of 10–11 February the French crossed the river and on 11 February took Ngoa. On 14 and 15 February the German rearguards defended, as the British official history puts it, “every yard”. At 3 p.m. on 15 February the French entered Banyassa and found that the last Germans had already crossed into Spanish territory. The German study Der Grosse Krieg states that the units fought from 5 to 15 February and crossed the border “in perfect order and closed ranks”.

According to later Spanish reports, about 975 Germans crossed the border, including about 400 civilians, together with about 14,000 Africans, of whom about 6,000 were soldiers. Many askaris came with their families, and with them porters and servants. The most numerous were people of the Yaoundé (Ewondo), regarded as the most loyal soldiers of the German colonial troops (the Schutztruppe). Karl Atangana, the Ewondo chief associated with the German administration, also went with the columns.

The Spanish intern the Germans

Spain was neutral and under the Hague Conventions had to disarm and intern troops that took refuge on its territory. The Allies knew this in advance: in mid-January the governor of Fernando Po assured Dobell in writing that he would intern the German troops, and the British ambassador in Madrid learned that the Spanish had been preparing for such a retreat since September 1915. The Germans, too, were counting on this route. According to accounts gathered by the British, soldiers crossing the river Nyong in January said openly that they were going to Muni, where two camps had been prepared for them, one on Fernando Po and the other near Bata.

The Spanish garrison in Muni was very small, incomparably weaker than the newcomers. The internees were disarmed, and the first camps were set up near Bata. The poor land, however, could not feed so many people, and most of them were soon shipped to Fernando Po. Allied warships checked every ship leaving Bata, examining the internment papers and the presence of a Spanish escort. The Germans were not left in Africa for long: on 16 April 1916 a convoy of two Spanish steamers escorted by a warship sailed from Fernando Po for Cádiz, carrying more than 800 people, including Ebermaier. According to a list of 19 May 1916, 783 people from Kamerun were interned in Spain, mainly in Zaragoza, Pamplona, Aranjuez and Alcalá de Henares.

Cameroonians on Fernando Po

The African soldiers and their families remained on Fernando Po, in camps built in the forest around Santa Isabel (today Malabo) and San Carlos. The governor of Spanish Guinea, Ángel Barrera, wrote to Madrid in September 1916 that the number of internees on the island had reached 15,000, and that from April to June there had not been enough food for them. The British and French feared that an almost intact, disciplined army on an island off the coast of Kamerun might one day return to the fight, and pressed Spain to move the remaining German officers to Europe. According to German studies, hundreds of the interned Cameroonians and several Germans died on the island of disease and exhaustion. The Cameroonians began to return home only in the summer of 1919, after the peace treaty had been signed. In Kamerun the only fighting still going on was by the German garrison of the mountain at Mora in the far north, cut off from the world.