French occupied Kamerun 1916, so much for Neukamerun

Germany did their African colonies a little different, They sent settlers and the Kamerun colony was organized around large commercial ventures. In the years leading up to World War I, Germany was able to add considerable territory at the expense of France. After German withdrawl, France was not able to duplicate German success and the colony became a great expense of France. 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.

A note about geography. This is a prewar French issue of Middle Congo overstamped for use in the western French occupied area of wartime Kamerun. The French Middle Congo was not the same as later French Congo or modern Republic of Congo but included the area of the modern Central African Republic and southern Chad.

Todays stamp is issue A1, a 1 Centime stamp issued by the French occupation force in 1916. It was a 17 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents unused. Another overprint of this 1907 Congo issue happened in 1921 after France recieved the official League of Nations mandate over the area. The new overprint just says Cameroun and the stamp magically loses five cents of it’s value.

The earliest inhabitants of the territory of Kamerun were a nomadic pygmy people called the Baka. They were hunter gatherers in the rain forest and very few ever reached 5 feet in height. They tended to stick to the dense rainforest as the much taller neighboring Bantu peoples were mean to them.

Germany was awarded the area under the terms of the Treaty of Berlin. A large German trading and shipping  company named Woermann set up shop. German settlers poured into the interior to set up large farms. It was intended to leave the Baka on reservations. Taking advantage of allowing a large French deployment in Morocco, under the Treaty of Fez, Kamerun was awarded a lot of new territory. This was called Neukamerun and plans were drawn up  to include it in the colonies rapid development. A new Capital, Jaunde, was constructed inland.

When war broke out in Europe, Kamerun hoped that neutrality would hold. This is what the Treaty of Berlin imagined as European colonies were to stick together and remain neutral to what was happening in Europe. This was in hope that there would be inter European aid in the avent of native uprising. France was first to break the treaty by retaking Neukamerun with no fighting. Then the British invaded from the west. All Germans faded up into the northern highlands around Jaunde. They were badly outnumbered but intact and had their families with them. For a while France and Britain didn’t press, assuming the Germans would give up.

Instead the Germans raided neighboring British Nigeria hoping to turn the tide. The Germans were repulsed at the battle of Gurin. The raid scared the British and they sent extra troops into Kamerun, the opposite of what was hoped. German forces and their families withdrew intact into friendly neutral Spanish Rio Mundi, modern Equitorial Guinea. From there they were given passage to Spain and on to Holland and finally home. Interestingly several important native tribal figures evacuated with the Germans and set themselves up permanently in Madrid as visiting dignitaries with ample German funding.

The French tried to replecate the German colony with a French Jewish company taking over the Woermann facilities. They had no colonists though and their atempts to entice Africans into contract labor were not successful and built up much hostility. Neukamerun was never returned to modern Cameroon.

Well my drink is empty. Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.