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The German Question in French Cameroun, 1919–1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Richard A. Joseph
Richard A. Joseph
Affiliation:
University of Khartoum
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Extract

The study of imperial rivalries is progressing at a rapid rate as more national archives become available and more researchers enter the field. But this progress tends too often to be a linear one, teaching us more about the aspirations, strategies and accomplishments of the rival powers but little about what took place within the actual pieces of territory over which they contested. And this is understandable, because whereas the former domain can be discussed with an increasing degree of precision, the latter tends to be more intractable. After all, colonial possessions were the ‘objects’, things to be fought over and about. The intention of this paper, however, is to look at the other, perhaps more problematic, dimensions of imperial rivalry, viz., the awareness and activities of the inhabitants and residents of one colonial territory with respect to the keen international competition over their country. By inhabitants and residents I mean to include not only the indigenous peoples of Cameroun but also the French administrators who were present in the territory during the interwar period.

Type
Colonialism
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 1975 , pp. 65 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1975

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References

1 For example, the very useful and substantial volumes edited by Prosser Giffbrd and Wm. Roger Louis can be perused in vain to discover some idea of what were the consequences of these rivalries within the colonial territories. Cf. Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967);Google Scholar and France and Britain in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1971).Google Scholar In fact, the articles tend to be either about imperial rivalry or colonial rule.

2 This movement is the subject of a doctoral thesis by this author at Nuffield College, Oxford University, ‘Radical Nationalism in Cameroun: The Case of the Union des Populations du Cameroun (U.P.C.)’, 1973.Google Scholar

3 This non-advocacy of what is the usual objective of anti-colonial movements is discussed by Crowder, Michael in ‘Independence as a Goal in French West African Politics: 1944–60’, in Lewis, William, ed., French-Speaking Africa: The Search for Identity (New York: Walker and Company, 1965).Google Scholar

4 Although the U.P.C. was eventually crushed by French troops, its two goals of independence and reunification were finally achieved, albeit in circumstances favourable to preserving French influence, on January 1, 1960 and October 1, 1962. In June 1972, the process of integrating the anglophone sector under the centralized and absolutist rule of President Ahmadu Ahidjo culminated in the formation of a unitary republic.

5 For a factual but brief discussion of this subject, see Ardener, Edwin, ‘The ”Kamerun Idea”’, West Africa, 06 7, 1958, p. 533Google Scholar; and June 14, 1958, p. 559. For a more compre hensive treatment of the realization of this ‘Idea’, see Johnson, Willard R., The Cameroon Federation: Political Integration in a Fragmentary Society (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

6 Cf. Brutsch, J.-R., ‘Les Traités Camerounais Recueillis, Traduits et Commentés’ Etudes Camerounaises, 47–8 (March–June, 1955), pp. 9–42;Google Scholar and Ardener, S. G., Eye-Witness to the Annexation of Buea (Buea, 1968).Google Scholar

7 For some time before this date these chiefs had petitioned the British Government and Queen Victoria herself to place the Cameroons, which at the time was restricted to the estuary of the Wouri river, under Her Majesty's Government's protection. Cf. Mveng, Engelbert, Histoire du Cameroun (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1963), pp. 276–82;Google Scholar and Wirz, A., ‘La‘Rivière de Cameroun” …’, Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, LX, 219 (1973).Google Scholar

8 The translated version is The German Empire of Central Africa: As the Basis of a New German World Policy (London, 1918).Google Scholar More recent works stressing the importance of this concept in German thinking during World War I are Fischer, Fritz, Griff nach der Weltmacht, 3rd edition (Dusseldorf, 1964);Google Scholar and Stoecker, Helmuth, ‘Bermerkungen über die deutschen Kriegsziele in Afrika südlich der Sahara’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universitat, 13 (1964).Google Scholar

9 See his Preface to Pierre-Alype's, book, La Provocation allemande aux colonies (Paris and Nancy, 1915).Google Scholar

10 Cited by Kaspi, André, ‘French War Aims in Africa 1914–1919’,Google Scholar in Gifford and Louis, eds., France and Britain in Africa, p. 384.Google Scholar This translation and others in this paper are by the author.

11 Communiqué from the Secretary of State in the Foreign Office, von Kiderlen-Wchter, Alfred, on July 17, 1911,Google Scholar cited by Stoecker, H., op. tit., p. 870.Google Scholar For a useful map showing the changing boundaries of Kamerun during this period, see Owona, Adalbert, ‘La naissance du Cameroun (1884–1914)’, Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, XIII, 49 (1973), p. 34.Google Scholar

12 Stoecker, H., op. cit., p. 870.Google Scholar

13 Cited in Kaspi, A., op. cit., p. 390.Google Scholar

14 Epstein, Fritz T., ‘National Socialism and French Colonialism’, Journal of Central European Affairs, III (04 1943), pp. 53–4.Google Scholar

15 A comprehensive study of this movement is presented in Schmokel, Wolfe W., Dream of Empire: German Colonialism 1919–1945 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1964).Google Scholar See also the same author's article, ‘The Hard Death of Imperialism: British and German Colonial Attitudes, 1919–1939’, in Gifford and Louis, eds., Britain and Germany in Africa, pp. 301–35;Google Scholar and Fieber, Hans-Joachim, ‘Die Kolonialgesellschaften—ein Instrument der deutschen Kolonialpolitik in Africa während der Weimarer Republik’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, Sonderheft, IX (1961), pp. 210–19.Google Scholar

16 Cf. Weinberg, Gerhard L., ‘German Colonial Plans and Policies 1938–42’, Geschichte und Gegenwartsbewusstsein: Historische Betrachtungen und Untersuchungen, Festschrift für H. Rothfels (Gottingen 1963), p. 462.Google Scholar

17 Schmokel, W. W., op. cit., pp. 107ff.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 112.

19 Cf. Rudin, Harry R., Germans in the Cameroons 1884–1914 (London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1938);Google ScholarRiiger, Adolf, ‘Die Duala und die Kolonialmacht 1884–1914’, in Stoecker, H., ed., Kamerun unter Deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, Band II (Berlin, 1968), pp. 183–257.Google Scholar

20 Cf. ‘Report on the Work of the Nineteenth Session of the Permanent Mandates Com mission’ (hereafter cited as PMC), 1930, Annex 13, p. 196.

21 Cameroun National Archives, APA 10890, Letter from Marchand to the Colonial Minister, May 24, 1930. (Hereafter the ‘APA’ designation refers to the Cameroun Archives.)

22 APA 10890, Letter from the Colonial Minister to the Commissaire in Yaoundé, Cameroun, October 30, 1930.

23 Archives Nationales (Service d'Outre-Mer), Cameroun A.P. 11/29–30, Letter from Inspector-General of the Colonies Meray to the Colonial Minister, Douala, April 22, 1920. (Hereafter the ‘A.P. II’ designation refers to dossiers on Cameroun held in the French archives in Rue Oudinot, Paris.)

24 A.P. H/29–30, Letter from the Cameroun Governor to the Colonial Minister, March 11, 1920; and the ‘Note de présentation en Conseil d'Administration’ drawn up by the General-Secretariat in Yaounde on October 15, 1926.

25 One ironic consequence of this is that the French Governor had to ask his superiors in Paris to attempt through diplomatic channels to get the Germans to send copies of the expropriation plans. Cf. A.P. 11/29–30,Google Scholar Letter from the Commissaire in Cameroun to the Colonial Minister, March 11, 1920, pp. 6–7.

26 A.P. 11/29–30,Google Scholar ‘Note de présentation en Conseil d'Administration’, 15 October, 1926. While it is true that the Colonial Secretary, Wilhelm Solf, had to defend the Government's policy before the Reichstag against Duala petitions in 1913 and again in May 1914, there is no indication that the Government's expropriation policy was in any danger. Cf. Newbury, C., ‘Partition, Development, Trusteeship: Colonial Secretary Wilhelm Solf's West African Journey, 1913’, in Gilford and Louis, eds., Britain and Germany in Africa, p. 471.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., ‘Note de prfcsentation en Conseil d'Administration’.

28 A.P. II/29–30,Google Scholar ‘Procès-Verbal de la seance du 4 Décembre 1926’.

29 A.P. II/29–30,Google Scholar Letter from the Commissaire to the Colonial Minister, March 11,1920, pp. 5–6.

30 APA 10890, Letter from the Commissaire to the Colonial Minister, May 1, 1928. An interesting aspect of the use of the ‘German question’ by Camerounians in pursuit of their interests—but beyond the scope of this paper—concerns the protest activities of Camerounian exiles in Paris during the interwar years in such nationalist groups as the Ligue de Défense de la Race Nègre and the Union des Travaillews Nègres. In the newspaper of the latter group, entitled Le Cri des Nègres, several articles were written between 1933 and 1936 by a radical named Ebele, under the pseudonym ‘Doualaman’, with such titles as ‘The imperialist intrigues for the possession of Cameroun’, ‘For Cameroun, as for the Saar, a plebiscite is imperative’, ‘A French colonat demands the resurrection of German methods’, etc.

31 APA 10227, ‘Notes sur les Revendications Coloniales Allemandes. Etat Actuel de la question’, 44 pp. In general, Kamerun was a ‘model colony’ of Germany, at least when compared with the atrocities perpetrated elsewhere, for example in South-West Africa. However, the glowing picture of German rule in Kamerun painted by H. R. Rudin is strongly criticized by Stoecker, H. in Kamerun unter Deutscher Kolonialherrschaft, Vol. I (Berlin, 1960), pp. 9–31.Google Scholar See also Wirz, A., Vom Sklavenhandel zum Kolonialen Handel: Wirtschaftsräume und Wirt-schaftsformen in Kamerun vor 1914 (Zürich and Freiburg: Atlantis Verlag, 1972);Google Scholar and Hausen, Karen, Deutsche Kolonialherrschaft in Afrika: Wirtschaftsinteressen und Kolonialverwaltung in Kamerun vor 1914 (Zürich and Freiburg: Atlantis Verlag, 1970).Google Scholar For a number of reasons including French financial difficulties, their physical acomplishments in Cameroun (railroads, ports, buildings, roads, bridges, etc.) were far over-shadowed by those of their German predecessors.

32 Ibid., p. 17.

33 Ibid., p. 38. Significant improvements in the medical services in the territory were made after 1925, including the significant campaign under Dr. Jamot to eradicate sleeping-sickness. Cf. Mveng, E., op. cit., pp. 393–6.Google Scholar

34 See, for example, the discussion of working conditions on the railway construction sites in Cameroun in PMC, Minutes of the Fourth Session, 1924, p. 18.

35 On the pre-war limitations of the Colonial Section of the German Foreign Office and the consequent importance of the commercial pressure groups in determining colonial policy, see Newbury, C., op. cit., p. 456.Google Scholar In the case of Cameroun, the German trading firms had played a very significant part in the establishment of German colonial rule in the territory. Cf. Owona, A., op. cit., pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

36 Nearly all the large-scale German plantations before 1914 were located in what subsequently became the British sector of the Cameroons. In 1922 the British Government attempted to sell these properties but without success. In addition, the French strongly objected to their sale to the former German proprietors, the only interested parties. In 1924 the British Government again put them up for sale but this time ‘without reserve and irrespective of the nationality of the owners’. Consequently, of the 264,000 acres formerly owned by the Germans, 207,000 now reverted to their ownership. Furthermore, by 1938 there were three times as many Germans as British nationals in the territory. The British attitude towards the re-admission of Germans into the Cameroons contrasted greatly with the French unswerving hostility. Cf. Le Vine, V. T., The Cameroons: From Mandate to Independence (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), pp. 119–30.Google Scholar

37 APA 10222, Letter from the Commissaire, June 12, 1925.

38 APA 10222, Letter from the chefde circonscription in Kribi to the Commissaire, July 23, 1925.

39 In Campo, which was located south of Kribi and close to the border with Muni, Rio, the chef de subdivision was already involved in 1925Google Scholar in submitting reports to Yaound*eacute;, based on information provided by several agents, on these questions.

40 APA 10572/N, Letter to the chef de circonscription in Kribi, December 15, 1927.Google Scholar

41 APA 10226, Letter to the Commissaire, November 15, 1928.

42 APA 10222, Letter to the Commissaire, June 11, 1925. The figure of 250 Germans managing plantations in the British sector is inflated, The largest number of total German males in the territory was reached in 1938, and that was 200. Cf. Le Vine, V. T., op. cit., p. 124.Google Scholar

43 APA 10222, Letter of June 12, 1925.

44 These involved, for example, cases of individuals who fled across the border to escape family responsibilities or following family disputes.

45 APA 10222, Letters from Ripert of July 1 and July 6, 1925.

46 APA 10222, Letter from Marchand, August 2, 1925.

47 APA 10222, Report from Ripert, August 2, 1925. The Bamileke people who inhabit this highland region of Cameroun are noted for the numerous associations they form usually for the purpose of providing mutual material and financial aid for their members. Indeed, it would be remarkable if a group of former Bamileke militiamen did not form such a group.

48 Ibid.

49 APA 10226, Report of agent Gabriel Moukong, transmitted by the chef de subdivision of Mbanga, December 22, 1928.Google Scholar

50 APA 10226, Report sent to the Commissaire via the chef de subdivision of Yaoundé, January 1929.

51 APA 10226, Letter to the Colonial Minister, February 18, 1929; and Draft of Letter to the Governor-General of Nigeria, February 1929.

52 APA 10226, Reports from Nkongsamba and Mbanga of March 19 and 20, 1929; and from the Commissioner of Police in Douala, March 14, 1929.

53 APA 10226, Letter from the chef de circonscription of Nkongsamba to the Commissaire, January 14,1933. With all the agents used during the past eight years, it was perhaps becoming difficult to devise new disguises.

54 APA 10572/N, No. 873, Letter from the Commissaire to the Colonial Minister, August 18,1927.

55 APA 10572/N, chef de circonscription of Douala to the Commissaire, September 1, 1930.

56 Ibid.

57 APA 10572/N, Copy of placard and articles.

58 APA 10572/N, Letter from Barben of R. & W. King Ltd. to the Commissaire, November 27, 1932.

59 APA 10572/N. Telegram to chefs de circonscriptions of Douala, Edea, Nkongsamba, Ebolowa, Kribi and Yabassi from the Commissaire, November 26, 1932.

60 APA 10572/N, Prods-verbal against John Livingstone, November 26, 1932.

61 APA 10572/N, Letter to the chef de circonscriplion of Kribi, December 15, 1927.

62 APA 10572/N, Letter to the chefde circonscriplion in Edéa, August 18, 1927.

63 APA 10572/N, Letter to the Colonial Minister, August 18, 1927.

64 APA 10226, Report received in Yaoundé on January 29, 1930.

65 APA 10226, Cortade to the Commissaire, October 25, 1932. Whatever were Rottman's reasons for bringing the pigeons with him, the matter is reminiscent of the cause célèbre in metropolitan France when Jacques Duclos, leader of the French Communist Party, was arrested in 1952 for possessing pigeons which the police believed were to be used to send messages to the Russians although M. Duclos protested that they were for his dinner.

66 The argument can even be made that the French administrators were more effective disseminators of German demands for the return of the colonies among Camerounians. For example, whenever a German individual or Swiss-German missionary from the British sector travelled through the territory, however briefly, French administrators immediately travelled throughout the area inquiring of local chiefs and elders if they had heard of the likely return of the Germans from any of these visitors. Cf. APA 10226, chef de circonscription of Dschang to the Commissaire, February 12,1931; and chef de circonscription in Nkongsamba to the Commissaire, January 4, 1931.

67 A.P. II/29–30,Google Scholar Report by Administrator Réallon of his interview with Prince Alexander Manga Bell, son of the martyred Duala chieftain, and his companion, Elong nya Ngando, Paris, October 14, 1919. This question is discussed in further detail in the article by this author, ‘The Royal Pretender: Prince Douala Manga Bell in Paris, 1919–1922’, Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, II (1974).Google Scholar

68 APA 10226, Woermann Line to chef de circonscription Cortade, 09 11, 1930.Google Scholar

69 APA 10226, Cortade to the Governor, September 17, 1930.

70 A.P. II/28,Google Scholar Commissaire Repiquet to the Colonial Ministry, August 13, 1936.

71 Ibid.

72 A.P. II/29–30,Google Scholar ‘Traduction des documents saisis chez le nommé Mukuri Dikongue, à Akwa’. The director of the Woermann Line, Firmenich, was also drawn into this affair. One of the Camerounians arrested was Sam Bebe Harris, a Woermann employee; and a German member of the firm, referred to as Carloff, was accused by the Administration of having circulated propaganda to the local germanophiles. Another of Carloff's duties was apparently to keep a watch on his German compatriots and Firmenich confided to the authorities that he had also been a ‘victim’ of Carloff who had sent a report to Germany which had prevented him from being admitted to the Nazi party! Cf. A.P. II/29–30,Google Scholar Sûreté, P.V. 104. Cf. Report of Emile Bardalou, Commissioner of Police, Douala, August 28, 1934.

73 A.P. II/29–30,Google Scholar Lefebvre, Chef du Secrétariat-Géneral, ‘Rapport de présentation a M. le Commissaire de la Rèpublique en Conseil d'Administration d'un projet port ant internement de six indigenes’, October 10,1934.

74 The letter is reprinted in Dr. Jacob, E. G., Kolonialitisches Quellenheft: Die Deutsche Kolonialfrage 1918–1935 (Bamberg: Buchers Verlag, 1935), pp. 178–9.Google Scholar

75 A very brief discussion of this pre-nationalist ferment could be found in Le Vine, V. T., op. cit., pp. 111–17.Google Scholar A comprehensive doctoral study of these developments is currently under way by Jonathan Derrick of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

76 A.P. II/29–30,Google Scholar Lefebvre, ‘Rapport de présentation’, op. cit.

77 In the report to the Governor by the head of his Secretariat, a more nuanced position was taken, viz., that the ‘profound malaise’ and the refusal of a section of the population to carry out their administrative obligations accompanied the actions of the K.F.D.G.V. However, in the Decree issued by the Governor condemning the six accused men, the language was changed to read that the group's manoeuvres ‘were followed by a profound malaise…’ A.P. II/29–30,Google Scholar ‘L'Arrêté portant internement de six indigènes pour agitation politique’, October 10, 1934.

78 Ibid., Lefebvre's Report and the Internment Decree of October 10, 1934.

79 ‘Les intrigues imperialistes pour la possession du Cameroun’, Le Cri des Négres, No. 12, December 1934.Google Scholar

80 Moumé-Etia, L., ‘Sites Historiques de Douala’, 2éme partie (Douala: Imprimérie Commerciale du Cameroun, n.d.), p. 1.Google Scholar

81 Ibid.

82 Personal interviews with Chief Ekwalla Esaka and Leopold Moumé-Etia in Douala, 1972.

83 These can be found in A.P. II/28.Google Scholar

84 A.P. II/28,Google Scholar Letter to the Colonial Ministry, n.d.

85 A.P. II/28,Google Scholar Letter to the Colonial Ministry, December 27, 1933.

86 Ibid.

87 A.P. II/28,Google Scholar Director of Political Affairs to the Colonial Minister, n.d. (ca. 1937).

88 There were also economic features to this change in French policy. For example, in June 1938 a halt was put to further rural concessions to Europeans in the territory specifically to counter German propaganda. Cf. Commissaire Boisson to the Colonial Minister, June 1938.

89 Cf. Le Vine, V. T., op. cit., pp. 130–3.Google Scholar

90 The links between French-German rivalry, the pre-World War II reforms and postwar nationalism can be traced in greater detail than space allows here. For example, although Jeucafra was set up by the French because of their imperial conflict with Germany, the organization facilitated the emergence of a national identity by enabling Camerounians from distant parts of the territory to meet and associate for the first time, and play a part in determining the territory's destiny. By 1944, the group was no longer a mere propaganda instrument and, in a lengthy petition to the Commissaire aux Colonies in Algeria, a number of political and economic demands were made on behalf of the territory's inhabitants which were to be taken up by the nationalist organizations formed after the war.