Play as · WW1 1914 · L1 · French colony

Ubangi-Shari - August 1, 1914

Ubangi-Shari in 1914 is a landlocked colony inside French Equatorial Africa, administered from Bangui through river posts and concession districts rather than a dense territorial state. The Ubangi River is the principal road: steamers connect Bangui downstream to the Congo and Brazzaville, while tracks north and west become slower, seasonal and dependent on porters. Company agents seek rubber and ivory under concession arrangements whose coercive record has already discredited French rule. The 1911 Morocco-Congo settlement then transferred western districts to German Kamerun as Neukamerun, moving an imperial frontier across communities and commercial routes with little local consultation. War offers France a chance to reverse that loss, but it does not make the ceded population automatically French. Begin by separating military objectives from concession claims. Map navigable reaches, food markets, reliable chiefs and recent abuses. A column that takes a German post after stripping villages for carriers may recover the colour on the map while destroying the administration needed behind it.

Starting position

Your forces are small colonial detachments, African tirailleurs, police and hastily raised carriers. They must support attacks westward while guarding Bangui, river depots and the northern approaches. Rainforest and tributaries conceal movement but make ammunition and medical evacuation dependent on canoes, bridges and local pilots. Sleeping sickness, malaria and dysentery can remove more men than German fire. Establish paid porter rotations, maximum loads, rest camps and named medical inspections before authorizing an advance. Purchase cassava and grain at posted rates instead of allowing every detachment to requisition independently. The commercial temptation is acute: a military escort can become a concession company’s debt collector once it leaves headquarters. Ban company agents from issuing operational orders and create a complaint route through mission stations and district officers. Protect the Ubangi flotilla, because a lost steamer or fuel depot can halt several fronts. Cooperation with Middle Congo and Chad should coordinate schedules and intelligence, not simply export Ubangi-Shari’s scarce labour to whichever neighbour asks first.

What turns the campaign

French and Belgian advances against Kamerun will gradually retake the 1911 cessions, producing a succession of occupation problems. Decide in advance whether German tax records, appointed intermediaries and labour contracts remain valid. Immediate cancellation may create a vacuum; automatic enforcement makes France responsible for obligations it has not examined. Form mixed boundary commissions with interpreters who know where farms, hunting grounds and kinship routes cross the treaty line. Screen prisoners and refugees individually instead of classifying whole settlements as German collaborators. Farther north, the French presence remains thin and memories of violent conquest are recent. Pulling every trained officer toward Neukamerun invites raiding and revolt elsewhere. Leave mobile courts and supply officers behind the columns, and require commanders to report civilian losses as carefully as captured weapons. Paris will demand troops for distant theatres, but this colony cannot provide unlimited tirailleurs and porters while feeding local operations. Set quotas by district capacity and protect soldiers’ family allotments, or desertion and hidden harvests will become rational survival.

Signature challenge