y, and the
Allies came into possession of three Maxim guns, 1,000 rifles and
320,000 rounds of ammunition. It was stated at the time that the
Germans offered such a feeble resistance because many natives, on whom
they had counted, refused to take up arms against the British.

Togoland having fallen to the Allies, it was arranged between the
officials of Great Britain and France that the colony should be
jointly governed, each to control that part of Togoland nearest her
possessions. In a few months' time normal trade was resumed in the
Allies' colony, and since private property had been respected during
the invasion, there was nothing left to show that the country had
recently been the scene of small but decisive conflicts, far-reaching
in their effects.

The action in the African war drama now shifts to the Cameroons
(German Kamerun Colony), which Germany took possession of in 1884. It
has a seacoast of about 200 miles on the Bight of Biafra. To the
northeast and south are the British Protectorate of Nigeria and French
Equatorial Africa. The country is largely mountainous and is 290,000
square miles in extent. Before the war there were less than 2,000
whites among a population of 2,500,000 negroes, principally of the
Bantu race.

The Cameroons, though surrounded by territory of the Allies, was a
more difficult country to conquer than Togoland, owing to its natural
advantages and the difficulties of communication over great distances.
The first moves of the Allies met with disaster. It was in the African
rainy season and misadventures multiplied as the invading troops
marched through a wild and badly mapped country. It was decided
between the Allies that two French columns should move from French
Congo, while British columns entered at different points on the
frontier of Nigeria.

On August 8, 1914, a detachment of mounted infantry of the West
African Frontier Force left Kano and, marching 400 miles in seventeen
days through West Africa, got in touch with the Germans at Tepe, a
frontier station just inside the Cameroons. In the fierce engagement
that followed the Germans were repulsed, losing five officers and
suffering other casualties.

On August 29, 1914, the river station of Garua was attacked, and here
one of the most disastrous battles of the campaign was fought. On
August 31, 1914, Lieutenant Colonel Maclear, commanding the Royal
Dublin Fusiliers and native troops, left their intrenchments 400 yards
from