The Wahala Cemetery is a

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

near Atakpame in

Togo Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to Ghana–Togo border, the west, Benin to Benin–Togo border, the east and Burkina Faso to Burkina Faso–Togo border, the north. It is one of the le ...

. The cemetery contains a single

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...

(CWGC) gravestone, that of Lieutenant George Masterman Thompson of the 1st Battalion Royal Scots. Thompson's death in the

Togoland Campaign The Togoland campaign (6–26 August 1914) was a French and British invasion of the German colony of Togoland in West Africa, which began the West African campaign of the First World War. German colonial forces withdrew from the capital Lomé ...

made him the first British officer killed in the First World War. Thompson was killed on 22 August 1914 aged 24 while trying to storm the German trenches while in command of French Senegalese troops at Chra Village. He was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palms. A film about the cemetery, ''A Place Called Wahala'' was made in 2021, directed by Jürgen Ellinghaus. It covers the annual

Armistice Day Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark Armistice of 11 November 1918, the armistice signed between th ...

commemoration at the cemetery.,
evoking Wahala's origins and past as a place of deportation and imprisonment under German colonial rule
Film webpage
English version.

References

External links

* * Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries in Togo Tourist attractions in Togo World War I cemeteries Togo–United Kingdom relations {{Togo-struct-stub