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Beating the British
by five days, the Germans in July of 1884 signed agreements with various chieftains,
establishing a German protectorate along the coast. They spend the next decade
surveying and grabbing the best real estate.
They crush a revolt by the
Abo of Duala (Douala) region in February 1891, and 6 months later saw the Bakweri
of the Mt. Faro area mount a sustained campaign against the invader. Initially
the Bakweri rout the Germans at Buea giving the Germans their first defeat in
Africa. Although this stalls the German advance for 2 years, the Bakweri are inevitably
blown away by modern European firepower.
The Germans push northwards
to Lake Chad where they had visions of grand German steamships plying the mighty
lake. They arrive in 1902, too late, the French and the British having surveyed
the area a year before. The lake proves a disappointment. Although covering a
large area, it is shallow with vast wetlands and marshes.
1902 saw the start of campaign
to subdue the revolt of the Bulu of the interior; after 3 years of heroic struggle
by the Bulu, in April 1905 a peace treaty was signed. Concession companies harvest
rubber, palm oil, ivory and timber using forced labour that even by standards
of the day were considered brutal and repressive. The Basle Mission does good
work with schooling, basic health care and condemning the worst excesses of the
companies. The locals are taxed, disenfranchised and many forced onto marginal
land or reserves.
German Cameroons (Kamerun)
reaches its largest land area in 1911, when France cedes two large tracts of French
Equatorial Africa (about 200,000 sq. km.) in exchange for a small part of what
is now southern Chad and an undertaking by Germany to withdraw it's claim for
the Moroccan port of Agadir. The new territory (Neukamerun) cuts the French territory
in two, making transport between these two only possible via the Congo River.
By 1914 there is a basic
road infrastructure in the south and the rail connects Duala-Edea-Widimenge (300km)
and a line from Duala to the Manenguba Mountains (160km). The northern border
with Nigeria is still only loosely defined, but this state of affairs will only
last until 1916 when French and British forces invade during WW1 and redraw the
map in their favour.
In 1922, a League of Nations
mandate will shave Kamerun to less than it's 1910 boundaries. It gives 80% to
France as a mandated territory. The British receive a mandate over two noncontiguous
areas bordering the Nigeria colony.
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