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The Cameroons & Nigerian Artillery During An Attack On Mountain Hill Camp During WWI

Cameroon

Context:

The Kamerun Campaign – This was part of the confrontation between Britain, France and Belgium on one hand and Germany on the other. The former nations invaded Kamerun (Cameroon), which was then a German colony, in August 1914.

By February 1916, most German military and civilian personnel had fled to Rio Muni, the neutral colony of Spanish Guinea, which today forms the continental portion of Equatorial Guinea.

As was the case in the Middle Eastern theatre, Britain and France shared the spoils of war by agreeing to divide Kamerun along what was called the “Picot Provisional Partition Line” with Britain taking approximately one fifth of the colony situated on the Nigerian border. France acquired Douala and most of the central plateau.

The campaign officially ended the following month, March 1916.

Addendum:

At a meeting on February 23 1916, George Picot “who knew nothing of the lands and peoples he was dividing” drew a line with a heavy pencil” which Sir Charles Strachey, the representative of the Colonial Office, was constrained to accept. As one of Strachey’s colleagues later observed: “If only you had not had a pencil in your hand at the time.”

Thanks for reading, OldNaija.com

Excerpt from The First World War: Volume I: To Arms by Hew Strachan, published by Oxford University Press in 2001.

Cite this article as: Teslim Omipidan. (February 22, 2019). The Cameroons & Nigerian Artillery During An Attack On Mountain Hill Camp During WWI. OldNaija. Retrieved from https://oldnaija.com/2019/02/22/the-cameroons-nigerian-artillery-during-an-attack-on-mountain-hill-camp-during-wwi/

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