Allied naval forces captured many of the isolated German colonies, with Samoa, Micronesia, Qingdao, German New Guinea, Togo, and Cameroon falling in the first year of the war. As Austria-Hungary refused to withdraw its cruiser from the German naval base of Qingdao, Japan declared war in 1914 not only on Germany, but also on Austria-Hungary. The cruiser participated in the defense of Qingdao where it was sunk in November 1914. Despite the loss of the last German cruiser in the Indian Ocean, , off the coast of German East Africa in July 1915, German East Africa held out in a long guerilla land campaign. British naval units despatched through Africa under Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Spicer-Simson had won strategic control of Lake Tanganyika in a series of engagements by February 1916, though fighting on land in German East Africa continued until 1918.