The siege of Mora or siege of Moraberg, between Allied and besieged German troops, took place from August 1914 to February 1916 on and around the Mora mountain in northern Kamerun during the Kamerun campaign of the First World War. After more than a year of siege German forces on the mountain surrendered, following the escape of many German troops to the neutral Spanish colony of Río Muni. It was the second longest siege of the war, behind the Siege of Medina.
In early August 1914 the First World War broke out in Europe, and the Allies began the task of conquering Germany's African colonies. The German West African colony of Togoland was defeated on 26 August, freeing up British and French troops for the invasion of Kamerun. In preparation, British columns had stationed themselves at various intervals along Nigeria's border with the German colony, the northernmost of which, commanded by Captain R. W. Fox, was stationed at Maiduguri, across the border from the German fort at Mora. This Nigerian detachment, consisting of one infantry and one mounted company, had entrenched itself on the frontier while awaiting orders and gathering intelligence on German forces in the region.[1]
The fort at Mora, about 100 miles south of Lake Chad, near the colony's western border with Nigeria, was guarded by a company of Schutztruppen (protection troops) under the command of Captain Ernst von Raben.[4] Initially the garrison consisted of 14 European and 125 African soldiers, most of whom were tough, well-trained Askaris. Von Raben managed to recruit 65 more men before the Allied siege began.[2] On 13 August, the German commander relocated the garrison from the fort on the plain to positions partway up Mora mountain. This gave them a commanding view over the surrounding area and easy access to water. Mora mountain, which would become a fortress during the siege, was approximately 30 miles around at its base and 1,700 feet high.[5] German forces prepared for British attack by heavily fortifying their positions on its steep slopes.[6]
British occupation of Sava
On the morning of 19 August, German sentries detected around 50 mounted British soldiers near Mora. Captain von Raben and 30 of his soldiers descended from the mountain and, after a firefight, forced the British to retreat. The German commander then ordered the destruction of the fort at Sava, to prevent its use by the Allies.[2] British scouts continued to harass German forces in the region. On 20 August, upon receiving orders to attack Mora from Colonel C. H. P. Carter, Captain Fox sent his forces marching towards the town. They arrived on 26 August and occupied positions at Sava, about three kilometers from the German defenses on the mountain. They were joined by 16 French soldiers from French Equatorial Africa. The Allied position was on the road between Mora and Garua, thus preventing any contact between the two German garrisons.[7]
First allied attack
On the night of 27 August, Captain Fox led a detachment of French and British troops to the very top of Mora mountain, in hopes of attacking the German trenches from above.[2] When morning came the Allied forces began to fire down into the German trenches, but found they were beyond effective range. The Allied detachment was then counter-attacked by the Germans, who forced them to retreat back down the mountain. As they made their way down a thick mist fell, causing a group to become disoriented and wander away from the main detachment. When the fog rose, Captain Fox's soldiers saw counter-attacking German troops in the distance wearing red fezzes, and, mistaking them for the similarly uniformed French troops who had gone astray, did not initially engage them. The German force overwhelmed the British, killing three, including a doctor, capturing one, and forcing the rest to retreat back to Sava. The Germans lost one African soldier in this encounter.[1]
Both sides reinforce their positions
After returning from their first attack on the German positions, the British began building defenses on a hill near Sava, closer to Mora mountain, and Captain Fox requested that artillery be brought up from Nigeria. At this time, the small French force under Captain Ferrandi returned to Fort Lamy in French Equatorial Africa. The Allied attack having made them aware of the vulnerabilities of their position on the slopes of the mountain, the Germans relocated to the summit in early September. A German force at Fort Kusseri, under Lieutenant Kallmeyer, withdrew to Mora in late September, further strengthening von Raben's defences.[2] Around 300 French troops under Lieutenant Colonel Brisett were also freed up after the Battle of Kusseri, and joined the British force at Mora, occupying several hills around the mountain. By late October 1914 the Allies had machine guns and artillery in position. The Germans prepared for the imminent siege by sending scavenging parties to gather as much food as possible, in which they were quite successful.
Siege in 1914
German commander at Mora, Major Ernst von Raben
On 29 October, Allied artillery began to pound the German positions while machine guns fired at the Schutztruppen. Two days later a French Senegalese unit attempted to storm the German positions atop the mountain, and was almost completely destroyed.[2] Further waves of French troops continued to charge up the slopes, and were also cut down. One result of this action was that German troops were able to seize supplies from the Allied dead, including ammunition and even machine guns. A short truce ensued for the purpose of burying those who had died in the attacks.
On 4 November, artillery bombarded German forward positions on the north side of Mora. A French infantry attack followed, which resulted in the death of two German officers and three soldiers, and the Allied occupation of the outpost. The remainder of the German force withdrew, but fighting continued throughout the night, until German forces under the command of an African sergeant stormed and retook the position.[3]
As time went on German forces began to run out of supplies, the shortage of food being particularly serious. With the Allied encirclement complete, scavenging parties could no longer venture into the countryside. The horses, donkeys, and camels that had been brought up to the mountain for transportation were slaughtered and eaten. Water sources were unprotected and exposed to machine gun and artillery attacks.[2] Nevertheless, further Allied attempts to dislodge the Germans from their trenches failed.[8]
Christmas truce
On 24 December 1914, after almost four months of siege, the German defenders saw a white flag hoisted over the Allied positions.[8] Cut off from any sources of information, many in the garrison thought it might mean the war in Europe had ended; in fact, the British merely wished to send Sergeant Taylor, who was in German captivity, a few gifts. The German commander, Captain von Raben, also received a parcel of gifts from Captain Fox, containing blankets, cigarettes and even a Christmas tree. The British offered a cease-fire for 24 and 25 December, to which the Germans agreed.[2] British and German officers met several times on these days to exchange gifts. On 1 January 1915, the British raised the white flag once again, and a meeting between von Raben and Fox, who had been acquaintances before the war, was arranged. This time, however, French forces did not comply with the cease-fire, and continued to shell the German positions.[8]
Siege in 1915
In early 1915 the Germans faced extreme thirst, as the dry season was underway and their water sources had been contaminated by cadavers. On 22 January the final cow was slaughtered and rations were cut further.[2] Allied guns continued to target water sources, making it more difficult for the Germans to retrieve what water there was. At the end of April the dry season ended, dashing any Allied hope of thirst forcing a German surrender;[3] the food situation, however, remained desperate. The Germans began sending patrols down the mountain at night to attempt to penetrate the Allied lines and scavenge for food. This was very dangerous work, but yielded some results for the starving force on the mountain.
By mid June the German fortress at Garua had been taken in the Second Battle of Garua, and other German forces were retreating to the center of the colony. The Allies tightened their lines closer around the mountain, but their attacks slowed in the Spring. Realizing the situation in the rest of Kamerun was dire, von Raben offered his African soldiers freedom to leave, but none accepted.[2] Later, Sergeant Batinga led 13 men on a daring night-time raid in which they burned down the British camp at Sava. Further raids in May and June obtained food, guns, ammunition and other supplies while killing ten Allied troops and wounding four.[3]
On 6 August, French forces attempted to take the village of Kilwe, belonging to a tribe that supported the Germans. German forces under Sergeants Weissenberger and Steffens counter-attacked, killing one French soldier and pushing the rest back to their lines. They left a force of a dozen soldiers in the village to prevent another Allied attack. On 1 September, the Allies brought up larger artillery pieces and resumed their bombardment of the positions on the slopes of the mountain. The next day 42 French soldiers again attacked Kilwe and were repulsed, leaving seven dead.[3]
General Frederick Hugh Cunliffe, commander of Allied forces in northern Kamerun, began to push for stronger efforts to defeat the Germans on the Moraberg. On 7 September Allied guns opened a heavy bombardment concentrating on Mora's northernmost outposts, which were commanded by Lieutenant Kallmeyer. The barrage continued throughout the night, followed by a British infantry assault in the morning. The attack fell apart under heavy fire from Kallmeyer's men, with a British captain and 15 African soldiers killed, and five Germans wounded.[3] Two more attempts to storm this German post were undertaken at night, but collapsed in confusion as troops became lost in the darkness. After this series of assaults failed, Cunliffe elected to reduce the size and frequency of infantry attacks and instead concentrate on hammering enemy positions on Mora with increasing amounts of artillery.
Captain von Raben was wounded by a bullet to the head on 30 September, while visiting German forward positions. Due to the lack of adequate medicine at Mora, he was confined to a sickbed while his second in command, Lieutenant Siegfried Kallmeyer, took temporary control of the company. Food stocks continued to dwindle, and on 8 December British troops burned the village of Wudume, which had been supplying food to the Germans.[3][2]
German surrender and aftermath
Assent of an armistice at the siege of Mora, 18 February 1916
In early 1916, the German forces had been under siege for almost a year and a half. Their food stocks had been exhausted, although their munitions were still plentiful (they still had 37,000 rounds of ammunition).[9] On 15 February 1916, Captain Ernst von Raben received a letter from General Cunliffe offering to return the Askaris safely to their homes, and the Europeans to internment in England. At this point, Kamerun had been effectively surrendered to the Allies, as the colonial government and most of the remaining army had fled to the neutral Spanish colony of Río Muni. Realizing their situation was dire, and that any continued resistance would be fruitless, the German commander agreed to capitulate, asking that the British, in addition to safe passage, provide him with £2000 with which to pay his Askaris - which they did.[10] Von Raben surrendered along with the remaining 155 men under his command on 18 February 1916.[9]
The surrender of the German force at Mora signaled the end of German resistance in Kamerun and the beginning of the British and French occupation of the country. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 partitioned the colony between the two powers, creating the new colonies of British Cameroon and French Cameroon.
The siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown and the surrender at Yorktown, began September 28, 1781, and ended on October 19, 1781, at exactly 10:30 am in Yorktown, Virginia. It was a decisive victory by a combined force of the American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington with support from the Marquis de Lafayette and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau and a French naval force commanded by the Comte de Grasse over the British Army commanded by British Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis.
The Battle of Kasserine Pass took place from 18-24 February 1943 at Kasserine Pass, a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west central Tunisia. It was a part of the Tunisian campaign of World War II.
Schutztruppe was the official name of the colonial troops in the African territories of the German colonial empire from the late 19th century to 1918. Similar to other colonial armies, the Schutztruppen consisted of volunteer European commissioned and non-commissioned officers, medical and veterinary officers. Most enlisted ranks were recruited from indigenous communities within the German colonies or from elsewhere in Africa.
The Kingdom of Portugal had been allied with England since 1373, and thus the Republic of Portugal was an ally of the United Kingdom. However, Portugal remained neutral from the start of World War I in 1914 until early 1916. However, in that year and a half there were many hostile engagements between Germany and Portugal. Portugal wanted to meet British requests for aid and protect its colonies in Africa, causing clashes with German troops in the south of Portuguese Angola, which bordered German South West Africa, in 1914 and 1915.
The African theatre of the First World War comprises campaigns in North Africa instigated by the German and Ottoman empires, local rebellions against European colonial rule and Allied campaigns against the German colonies of Kamerun, Togoland, German South West Africa, and German East Africa. The campaigns were fought by German Schutztruppe, local resistance movements and forces of the British Empire, France, Italy, Belgium, and Portugal.
The South African Overseas Expeditionary Force (SAOEF) was a volunteer military organisation in World War I.
Mora is a town in northern Cameroon. Mora has a population of 55,216 making it the 5th biggest city in Far North.
The siege of Leuven was an important siege in the Thirty Years' War in which a Franco-Dutch army under Frederick Henry of Orange and the French Marshals Urbain de Maillé-Brezé and Gaspard III de Coligny, who had invaded the Spanish Netherlands from two sides, laid siege to the city of Leuven, defended by a force of 4,000 comprising local citizen and student militias with Walloons, Germans, Spanish and Irish of the Army of Flanders under Anthonie Schetz, Baron of Grobbendonck. Poor organization and logistics and the spread of sickness among the French, along with the appearance of an Imperial-Spanish relief army of 11,000 under Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand and Ottavio Piccolomini, forced the invading army to lift the siege. This failure allowed the Spanish forces to take the initiative and soon the invaders were forced into a headlong retreat.
The Kamerun campaign took place in the German colony of Kamerun in the African theatre of the First World War when the British, French and Belgians invaded the German colony from August 1914 to March 1916. Most of the campaign took place in Kamerun but skirmishes also broke out in British Nigeria. By the Spring of 1916, following Allied victories, the majority of German troops and the civil administration fled to the neighbouring neutral colony of Spanish Guinea. The campaign ended in a defeat for Germany and the partition of its former colony between France and Britain.
The First Battle of Garua took place from 29 to 31 August 1914 during the Kamerun campaign of the First World War between German and invading British forces in northern Kamerun at Garua. It was the first significant action to take place in the campaign and resulted in the German repulsion of the British force.
The Battle of Nsanakong or Battle of Nsanakang took place between defending British and attacking German forces during the Kamerun campaign of the First World War. The town of Nsanakong had been occupied by the British on 30 August 1914. On 6 September, German forces attacked, driving the British force over the border back into Nigeria.
The Naval operations of the Kamerun campaign were carried out by German and Allied forces during the Kamerun campaign of the First World War from August to September 1914. Naval activity occurred all along the coast of German Kamerun in the Bight of Bonny but most of the action took place in the Wouri estuary. The main event of the campaign were the successful British and French amphibious landings at Duala. The operations carried out by British and French naval forces concluded in securing control over the German colony's entire coastline and the destruction of any German naval vessels that were capable of offering resistance. Allied occupation of the coastline forced the Germans to retreat into the interior of Kamerun where they would meet their defeat in 1916.
The Battle of Kusseri between German and French forces took place from late August to 25 September 1914 in Kusseri, northeastern Kamerun during the Kamerun campaign of World War I. The action resulted in the French capture of the Kusseri fort and the German garrison's retreat to Mora.
The Battle of Gurin took place on 29 April 1915 during the Kamerun campaign of World War I in Gurin, British Nigeria near the border with German Kamerun. The battle was one of the largest of the German forays into the British colony. It ended in a successful British repulsion of the German force.
The Second Battle of Garua took place from 31 May to 10 June 1915 during the Kamerun campaign of the First World War in Garua, German Kamerun. The battle was between a combined French and British force and defending German garrison and resulted in an Allied victory.
The Battle of Ngaundere or Battle of Ngaoundéré was a small engagement fought between German and British forces on 29 June 1915 during the Kamerun campaign of World War I. It resulted in a German defeat and British occupation of the town.
During the Battle of Banjo or Battle of Banyo, British forces besieged German forces entrenched on the Banjo mountain from 4 to 6 November 1915 during the Kamerun campaign of the First World War. By 6 November much of the German force had deserted, while the rest surrendered. The battle resulted in victory for the Allies and breakdown of German resistance in northern Kamerun.
The Second Battle of Jaunde involved the successful British and French assault on the German capital of Jaunde during the Kamerun campaign of the First World War. After the failure of the First Battle of Jaunde during the summer of 1915, the bulk of Allied forces had retreated to the Kele river. Following the Second Duala Conference where Allied commanders discussed the situation, it was decided that another assault should be attempted. Although the columns surrounding Jaunde were not in effective communication with one another, on 1 January 1916, British forces under Colonel Georges occupied the capital. By this time it had been abandoned by the German troops who had fled to the neutral Spanish colony of Río Muni. This Allied victory signaled the end of German resistance in Kamerun apart from the Siege of Mora which would continue for another few months.
Brigadier Frederick Hugh Gordon Cunliffe, was a British Army officer who was one of the main British commanders at the Kamerun campaign during the First World War, and earned a key victory at the Siege of Mora.
Ernst Klaus Iwan Christian Friedrich Alfred von Raben was a German Major who had served as a commander of the Schutztruppe before surrendering at the Siege of Mora.
References
Damis, Fritz. Auf Dem Moraberge – Erinnerungen an Die Kämpfe Der 3. Kompagnie Der Ehemaligen Kaiserlichen Schutztruppe Für Kamerun. 1929. Berlin. German soldiers' collective account of the siege
Strachan, Hew. The First World War. Vol. I: To Arms. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Strachan, Hew. The First World War in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004 ISBN0-199-25728-0
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
France 
German Empire 
Frederick Hugh Cunliffe 
Ernst von Raben 
