4 - The Empire Strikes Back

Summary

After rallying to General de Gaulle in August 1940, FEA and Cameroon focused initially on defensive preparedness. On September 1, 1940, Leclerc requested immediate reinforcements with which to protect Cameroon's vulnerable coastline. Five days later, he announced on Cameroon radio:

Fighting does not mean throwing oneself headlong against an imaginary adversary. Fighting means entering into the struggle with all of one's assets fully prepared to combat for the civilized world against the barbarians. This implies … reinforcing the country's defenses immediately. The process is already underway, and I wish to thank those of you who have been working on this task for the past ten days. It also implies a rapid growth of our military forces. This has already begun, first with the opening of a European recruitment office, next with the creation of the French volunteers from Cameroon. Finally, as of next week, I shall begin recruiting natives.

De Gaulle's man found himself in a delicate position because of Cameroon's unique status as a mandate territory. The League of Nations' rules clearly forbade any recruitment of Cameroonians beyond police work and self-defense. This did not dissuade Leclerc, who concluded his speech with a flourish: “Mangin's African troops ended up standing guard at Mayen, Cameroonian forces will do the same.” Leclerc deliberately conjured up the legacy of France's post-1918 occupation of Germany by African forces, imagining that this time troops from formerly German Cameroon would lead the way.

Aside from those troops already present on Cameroonian and FEA soil in 1940, the region's remarkable military accomplishments would occur in virtual autarky. Recruits were raised and trained on location, in areas like Cameroon that had been German only twenty-four years earlier. To Free French officials, Leclerc's ambitious decision to enroll Africans must have seemed all the more risky given how marginal or extraneous these regions had been to France's recruitment efforts in the Great War, and how fragile and contingent Cameroonian allegiance to France might prove.