Although the conformation of the country is very similar to British Nigeria and other parts of the coasts where gold, tin, and other minerals have been discovered and worked, the Germans have not embarked upon the enterprise of having the country prospected for minerals—a probable cause being that prospecting entails expenditure of money, and to the German this is the negative purpose of a Trade Colony!
Besides being a source of wealth in trade, Togoland was in reality of great strategical value, being connected by cable with Germany and with Dualla in the Kamerun; while Kamina was connected by a powerful wireless installation with Dar-es-Salaam in German East Africa and with Windhoek, the capital of German South West Africa.
On 26th August, 1914, Togoland was occupied by the Gold Coast Regiment of the West African Frontier Force, assisted by a French force from Dahomey.
The Germans destroyed the wireless station at Kamina and asked for terms, but eventually surrendered unconditionally.
Kamerun
Kamerun, on the Gulf of Guinea, south of Togoland, and bounded on the north by British Nigeria and on the south by the French Gaboon (Rio Campo), comprises 291,000 square miles, including 100,000 square miles ceded to Germany out of French Equatorial Africa as the price of the Moroccan Settlement, under the Franco-German agreement of 1911.
The physical features are very similar to Togoland, but much of the interior is mountainous—the foothills and fertile slopes being covered with dense vegetation.
There is the usual German population of officials and merchants—1,871 in number; and a native population of 2,500,000.
While not so prosperous as Togoland, Kamerun has nevertheless been developed on the usual German plan of officialism; but the natives have not proved so tractable. It is possible that the Dualla tribes still feel the disappointment at having their petitions for protection by Great Britain ignored; one German writer, indeed, speaks of the Dualla natives as a hindrance to progress.