Togo managed to turn a profit, unique to the German overseas empire. Infrastructure was built and the slave trade was clamped down on. Part of that was a small operation with few Germans. No wonder the French and the British and even the Czechs came sniffing around. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The stamp has a rather bad picture of a coconut grove. They probably didn’t want to show too much detail because it was not really a colony but a mandate area from the League of Nations. The successful farming operations were German and therefore not something for the French to showcase, but here you are.
Todays stamp is issue A6 a one centime stamp issued by the French mandate of Togoland in 1924. It was part of a 37 stamp issue in various denominations that lasted many years in Togo. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents mint.
German interest in the area began when famed German Africa explorer Gustav Nachtigal signed a treaty with local chief Mlapa III that allowed for the trading post at Lomé. It was the first time the German flag had been raised on the African continent. There was a big German interest in farming, but economics were cloaked in the “white man’s burdens” of stamping out slave drives and trading among Africans and Christianizing the area. There were never more than a thousand Germans in Togo but cultivation of cocoa. coffee, and cotton was begun. Roads and even a railroad were completed. The Conference in Berlin settled European claims in the area and there was no German Army presence at all. Given some of the money pit colonies going on around Africa it was quite an accomplishment.
This does not mean that jealousy did not arise. France and Britain marched in at the beginning of WW I. Germans in the colony did not resist. After the war, the German Weimar government argued that the occupation violated the Treaty of Versailles and that Togo should be returned to it. It was not but France and Britain applied to the League of Nations for a mandate to continue the occupation. Interestingly, new nation Czechoslovakia also made an application for a mandate of Togo, but was rejected. The colony went Vichy during World War II and jailed local leader and later President Sylvanus Olympio because as a prominent Afro- Brazilian businessman, he had many ties to British traders. This soured him on the French and even filed the first list of grievances received by the UN about one of it’s mandates.
Post WWII Togo moved toward independence. There had been hope in Togo that the part of Togo mandated to the British would again be part of Togo. This was not to be as Britain incorporated the area into their Gold Coast colony. Olympio was not popular with the French but that did not stop him from being elected the first President. Olympio was on very good terms with West Germany and he wanted to go by their example of not having an army to save precious resources for development. The last German Governor from 1914 was President Olympio’s guest at Togo’s independence ceremonies in 1960.
Colonial politics were still at work. Gold Coast was now independent Ghana and had no interest in returning the old British Togo to Togo. Instead Ghana suggested taking the rest of Togo into Ghana. Things got quite hostile and Olympio finally acquiesced in establishing a 200 man Togo army. This was not enough though. Many Togolese had served in the French Army and has their enlistment terms ended post independence they returned to Togo seeking employment in the Togo Army. This was denied and then in 1962 a group of disgruntled ex French soldiers broke into the Presidential Residence and murdered Olympio. The Ex French sergeant who shot Olympio later himself served as President of Togo from 1967-2005. Olympio’s son tried to return to Togo in 1979 and was quickly attacked and severely injured by the son of his father’s murderer. Quite the blood feud.
Well, my drink is empty and so I will open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.