ABSTRACT
At the Versailles Peace Conference, and in the Press of Colonial Powers with greedy eyes on Germany’s overseas empire, a campaign of vilification of Germany’s record as a Colonial power was carried out with such effect that Germany stood condemned as morally unfit to govern ‘native’ peoples. Up to 1914 both France and Britain cast admiring eyes on Togo, which the Germans called their model colony. Britain had even been prepared to sign treaties with Germany to share Portugal’s colonies between them on the grounds that Portugal was incapable of administering them. Germany’s most striking achievement in Togo, apart from the infrastructure of communications which included an efficient telegraph system, was in the domain of agriculture. The occupation of the southern parts had been achieved largely by treaty, or threat of military action; in the North the resistance of the Konkomba and the Cabrai was put down with the thoroughness of French columns.
