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| First World War - Togoland | ||
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| Click on the links above for details of the campaigns pursued in each territory Return to the main WW1 map | ||
Togoland (now Togo) was a German possession pre-1914 - a long thin country with the British-owned Gold Coast (now Ghana) as a western neighbour, French-owned Dahomey (now Benin) on the east, and the Bight of Benin to the south. Militarily speaking, Togoland had only one asset - a powerful radio station at Kamina, capable of transmitting news of Allied shipping or troop movements to German East or German South West Africa, or to Berlin. | ||
The Machine Gun Section No.1 Company, Gold Coast Regiment © Imperial War Museum | ||
The West African Frontier Force (WAFF) had been formed by the British from units in their various West African colonies: nearly 14,000 from Nigeria, almost 10,000 from the Gold Coast. Sierra Leone contributed about 650 men, The Gambia some 350. To silence the radio station, WAFF forces from the Gold Coast and French troops from Dahomey invaded Togoland on the outbreak of war in August 1914. On 24 August the Kamina station was destroyed, and two days later the Germans surrendered power in Togoland. | ||