Read Ebook: Notes and Queries Vol. V Number 130 April 24 1852 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men Artists Antiquaries Genealogists etc. by Various Bell George Editor

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GERMANY AND HER COLONIAL EXPANSION 17

SOUTH WEST AFRICA 36

EAST AFRICA 84

TOGOLAND AND KAMERUN 109

THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 124

KIAU-CHAU 172

GERMANY'S VANISHING COLONIES

GERMANY AND HER COLONIAL EXPANSION

The German Empire of to-day may best be described as an enlarged and aggrandised Prussia; its people imbued with Prussian ideals and drawing their aspirations from the fountain of Prussia.

In the Confederation of the German States as constituted in 1814, Prussia, under the Hohenzollern Dynasty, was always the turbulent and disturbing element, by methods peculiarly Prussian, working towards a unity of the German states--a comity of nations welded into one under the hegemony of Prussia.

It was not long before Prussian domination became irksome, and her provocative and arrogant attitude created a war with Denmark in 1864 and with Austria in 1866--the latter, a struggle between Hohenzollern and Hapsburg, culminating in the complete discomfiture of Austria.

The war with Denmark gave Germany the harbour of Kiel, together with the million inhabitants of Schleswig-Holstein, and Prussia emerged from the struggle with Austria the leading Power in the new North German Confederation.

Since then the salt of Prussian militarism has been ploughed into the fertile German fields which produced some of the master-minds in the worlds of Thought, Philosophy and Literature.

In accord with true Prussian methods France was forced into a declaration of war in 1870, with the result that the German octopus settled its tentacles upon the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, an area of 5,605 square miles, with 1,500,000 inhabitants.

A new phase of Empire was then created, and the Germany of to-day was constituted as practically a new nation under the rule of William of Hohenzollern, who was elected the "Deutscher Kaiser," or German Emperor, at Versailles on 18th January, 1871.

Prince Otto von Bismarck became the first Chancellor of the new German Empire, and in his hands the fortunes of the House of Hohenzollern prospered, as he set himself to his fixed and single-minded purpose--that was, to elevate Prussia to the foremost place amongst the continental Powers.

Bismarck's policy was directed towards extension, but it was extension of Prussia in Europe and the consolidation of the portions added to the German Empire. In 1871 he declared "Germany does not want Colonies." He refused to embark upon dazzling adventures in which the risk stirred the imagination, and when an agitation arose in favour of making Germany a sea Power, he confronted it with the words of Frederick the Great: "All far-off acquisitions are a burden to the State." This view he held until the last decade of his career.

Bismarck looked forward, however, to the germanisation of the Low Countries, the absorption of which Cecil Rhodes declared to the German Emperor he believed to be the destiny of Germany.

The spirit of Prussia was even instilled into Austria, and Prussian example was emulated by the House of Hapsburg.

As Prussia set herself to the repression of Danish nationality in Schleswig-Holstein and of French in Alsace-Lorraine, so Austria adopted a policy of eradicating national traits in Hungary.

The national unity aimed at by Bismarck having been established, Germany continued to thrive and grow during the peaceful years following 1871; and the development of the trade of this infant amongst nations is a world's phenomenon.

Yet as with Prussia in the past, so with the greater Germany of to-day, history is a tale of one persistent struggle for possessions.

As is natural during times of peace, the population of Germany increased at an enormous rate, growing from 35,500,000 in 1850 to 66,000,000 in 1912--an average of about 615,000 per annum--while the present increase is roughly 900,000 per annum.

Between the years 1881 and 1890 German emigration amounted to 130,000 annually; but it was only 18,500 in 1913, and this was more than counterbalanced by immigration from Austria, Russia, and Italy.

Over-population soon became a pressing question, and the obvious remedy was expansion of frontiers or new territories for the accommodation of the surplus.

German policy in a very few years became directed towards extension of territories, for it was apparent that emigration to foreign countries and dependencies only strengthened other nations.

An outlet for the surplus population was required; but in view of the need for men to feed the military machine which had founded the German Empire and upon which its strength depended, it was clear that emigration to foreign countries and dependencies was an inexpedient measure of relief, as it would be applied at the expense of the mother country.

In the year 1882 the German Colonisation Society was started, with the object of acquiring Colonies oversea and the establishment of a navy and mercantile marine to form the link binding the isolated territories to the motherland.

The society was formed by merchants and traders with the end in view of extending trade; but to the militarist section the idea of Imperial expansion presented itself, and to that party the Colonies appealed rather from a strategical than a commercial standpoint.

The society received enthusiastic support, and, indeed, all Germany began to look to Colonies which were to be purely German; and with this enlarged horizon, policy settled down to the acquisition of oversea territory, the ambition being naturally accompanied by an aspiration towards a powerful navy, necessary, ostensibly, to keep communications open.

The German Emperor held very determined ideas on the subject of expansion, but the Chancellor, Bismarck, altered his views only so far as to approve of the founding of Trade Colonies under Imperial Protection.

Bismarck was loth to weaken his military machine by the emigration of men; and the German ideal of colonisation was not, therefore, a policy of settlement but one of commercial exploitation; inasmuch as Germany's aim was to develop home industries in order to keep in employment at home the men who formed the material of her armour.

The German view being that the British oversea Empire was acquired "by treachery, violence and fomenting strife," one cannot imagine, especially with her Prussian traditions, a violent disturbance of the "good German conscience" in contemplating means of attaining an object.

Prussia had fought for and won her predominance; her greatness was acquired by the sword; and the Bismarck cult has prevailed in that no other means of expansion and nationalisation than by conquest presents itself to the German mind. All negotiations with foreign nations, therefore, have been conducted to the accompaniment of the rattle of the sword in the scabbard.

Speaking of Colonies in his recent bombastic book, General von Bernhardi said: "The great Elector laid the foundation of Prussia's power by successful and deliberately planned wars"; and in justifying the right to make war he says: "It may be that a growing people cannot win Colonies from uncivilised races, and yet the State wishes to retain the surplus population which the mother country can no longer feed. Then the only course left is to acquire the necessary territory by war."

Germany now proposed to tread the same path as England, but she had arrived late in the day and the methods whereby she purposed making up for lost time were not the methods whereby England had established herself.

Behind German colonisation lies no record of great accomplishments inspired by lofty ideals and high aspirations, carried into effect by noble self-sacrifice on the part of her sons; the history conjures up no pageant of romantic emprise nor vista of perilous undertakings in unexplored parts of the globe by the spirits of daring and adventure; it holds no pulse-stirring stories of the blazing of new trails; and scattered over its pages we do not find imprints of the steps of pioneers of true civilisation, nor are its leaves earmarked with splendid memories.

Casting about between 1882 and 1884 for territory over which to hoist her flag, Germany found that nearly the whole of the world was occupied; and direct action of conquest not being expedient, Germans were busy seeking to accomplish their aims by secret methods of intrigue, always accompanied by deprecation of the infringement of the vested rights of others.

Active steps for the acquisition of territory began to be taken in 1884.

Africa was the one continent which had not been partitioned, and Germany's quest of territory brought about the "scramble for Africa."

Germany had annexed portions of the west coast , and the vacillating policy of the British Government during 1882-1883 enabled the Germans to annex an enormous tract of territory north of the Orange River, which became known as German South West Africa.

Altogether the German Colonies in Africa acquired in 1884 amounted to over 1,000,000 square miles.

Great Britain assumed protection over the Island of Zanzibar, and ceded to Germany in exchange the Island of Heligoland.

This exchange was regarded in Germany generally as a most disadvantageous one; but the possession of Heligoland as a fortress was of inestimable value to Germany--making possible the Borkum-Wilhelmshaven-Heligoland-Brunsb?ttel naval position, and the German militarist section craved it in order to forestall France.

The territory of the Sultan of Zanzibar on the mainland of Africa was ceded to Germany, with the harbour of Dar-es-Salaam; and the boundaries were so delimited as to include in German East Africa the mountain of Kilima 'Njaro, the German Emperor being supposed to have expressed a wish to possess the highest mountain in Africa as a mere matter of sentiment.

The Caprivi Treaty also defined the boundaries of South West Africa.

In 1884 Germany had also busied herself in the Pacific, and had hoisted her flag on several islands as well as in North New Guinea, where the Australasian Colonies had established settlements and vainly urged annexation on the British Government.

In 1885 the sum of 180,000 marks was voted by the Reichstag "for the protection" of these new German Colonies.

The opening of 1891 saw Germany with ample territory oversea to accommodate surplus population; while we, secure in our own strength, with amused tolerance, allowed her to climb to "her place in the sun."

It was not the intention of Germany, however, to use the Colonies as dumping grounds, nor to encourage a policy of emigration--but rather to exploit them as supports for home industry.

Many German industries depend upon foreign countries for the import of a continual supply of raw material which cannot be produced in Germany; while part of their necessaries are even obtained from abroad. They also depend to a considerable extent upon foreign countries for the sale of manufactures.

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