Germans surrender in Togoland
- Category:
- Military operations
- Front:
- Africa
- Date:
- 26 August 1914
- Author:
- Natalia
- Tags:
- Togoland, German colonies, Great Britain, France
On 26 August 1914 the German forces in Togoland surrendered unconditionally to British and French troops. The campaign in Germany’s smallest colony in Africa had lasted less than three weeks. It was the first Allied victory to end in the capture of an entire German possession.
The end of the radio station
From mid-August combined British and French detachments had been advancing north along the railway from Lomé into the interior. Their objective was the great radio station at Kamina, near Atakpamé, which linked Berlin with the colonies in Africa and with ships in the Atlantic. After heavy fighting on the river Chra on 22 August, the Germans knew they could not hold out for long. On the night of 24–25 August they blew up the masts and destroyed the station’s equipment so that it would not fall into enemy hands.
Unconditional surrender
The acting governor, Major Hans-Georg von Doering (the governor, Duke Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg, had been in Germany when war broke out), on 25 August sent envoys to the Allies proposing a surrender on terms. The commander of the Allied forces, the British Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Bryant, demanded unconditional surrender, promising only respect for private property. The next day the Germans accepted this demand. About 200 men of the German colonial police, German and African, were taken prisoner. Allied troops entered Kamina and found the radio station completely destroyed; sources give the date as 26 or 27 August.
The campaign was short and not very bloody. According to various tallies a few dozen people were killed in all, most of them African soldiers serving on both sides.
Significance
Togoland was the first German colony lost in this war. The destruction of Kamina cut the most important link in Germany’s radio communications in Africa, which made it harder to direct warships and raiders in the Atlantic. A few days later the British and French agreed on a provisional division of the colony into two occupation zones. After the war this division was confirmed in the form of League of Nations mandates, and the French part became today’s state of Togo in 1960. We describe the beginning of the campaign in the article British enter Togoland and take Lomé.
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Meanwhile
(04)Elsewhere in the same days.
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- 26 August 1914 · Western FrontGermans occupy DouaiA British chronology records the capture of Douai on 26 August 1914. The first occupation of the town was brief; the Germans entered for good on 1 October.
Related events
(04)The same battle, people or subject.
- 31 August 1914 · AfricaBritain and France partition TogolandAt the end of August 1914 Britain and France divided conquered Togoland into two provisional occupation zones. Lomé went to the British.
- 13 August 1914 · AfricaAllies advance on Kamina in TogolandOn 13 August 1914 British and French troops set out from Lomé into the interior of Togoland. Their objective was the German radio station at Kamina.
- 8 August 1914 · AfricaBritish troops enter Togoland and occupy LoméIn early August 1914 British troops from the Gold Coast entered German Togoland and occupied its capital, Lomé.
- 25 August 1914 · AfricaSkirmish at Tepe. The French enter Kamerun from ChadOn 25 August 1914 the British drove the Germans from the post at Tepe on the Benue, and French troops from Chad attacked the German fort at Kousséri.