Order for the second advance on Jaunde

On 22 September 1915 General Charles Dobell, commander of the Anglo-French expedition in German Kamerun, issued orders for the second advance on Jaunde, to which the German colonial authorities had moved. The British and French columns were to set off simultaneously on 6 October. In his report Dobell wrote that by 22 September preparations had advanced far enough to allow a move eastwards, which is why some British studies date the start of the second advance to that day. The fighting itself, however, did not begin until two weeks later.

The plan from Duala

The first advance on Jaunde, in the spring and summer of 1915, had ended in a retreat to the Kele river. The new plan was agreed on 25 and 26 August in Duala at a conference between Dobell, the Governor-General of French Equatorial Africa, Martial Merlin, and General Joseph Aymerich. This time all available forces were to strike at Jaunde from two sides. About 2,000 of Aymerich’s soldiers were to advance from the east, from the Bertua–Dume line, in the second half of October. Dobell’s troops were first to secure the Eséka–Wum Biagas line, set up forward bases there, repair the railway to Eséka and the road to Wum Biagas, and only then, around the middle of November, push on to Jaunde. Dobell reckoned that after leaving garrisons in the occupied country he would be able to send about 1,800 British and 1,100 French rifles east of the Kele.

Taught by the experience of the spring, Dobell divided his forces into two columns, each with its own line of supply. Colonel Gorges’s British were to take the road from Edéa through Ngwe to Wum Biagas, the same road on which Mayer’s column had got stuck in the spring. Colonel Mayer’s French were to advance along the railway from So Dibanga to Eséka.

Preparations

In September Dobell’s units fought no major actions, only reconnoitring towards Bare, So Dibanga and Ngwe. Some officers and men were still on sick leave after the exhausting spring campaign. The second half of the Gambia company arrived in Duala, and in October two companies of the West India Regiment, sappers from Sierra Leone, a howitzer and, from England, a motor transport company with several dozen Fords were due to arrive. Carriers, whose shortage had been felt so badly during the first advance, were brought in from the neighbouring British colonies. From the end of August bases were built at Edéa and Ngwe and the road between them was improved so that motor vehicles could use it.

The Germans meanwhile concentrated on a counter-attack against the French columns in the east and in the west contented themselves with minor raids. On 18 September they damaged a railway bridge west of So Dibanga, and during the night of 27/28 September they drove in a British post north of Bare. Nor could Dobell count on support from the north: General Frederick Cunliffe, who at the beginning of September had unsuccessfully stormed Mora, was only just returning with his troops to Nigeria in order to strike from there at Banyo and Tibati.

What came next

On 24 September the British relieved the French at Ngwe, and on 3 October Colonel Rose’s detachment occupied Sakbajeme without a fight. On 6 October both columns moved forward. The British took Wum Biagas on 9 October, and the French drove the Germans out of Eséka on 30 October. Colonel Gorges’s troops entered Jaunde itself on 1 January 1916.