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Scramble for Africa
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Sub-Sah...
, one of the last regions of the world largely untouched by "informal imperialism" and "civilization", was also attractive to Europe's ruling elites for economic and racial reasons. During a time when Britain's balance of trade showed a growing deficit, with shrinking and increasingly protectionist continental markets due to the Long Depression (1873-1896), Africa offered Britain, Germany, France, and other countries an open market that would garner it a trade surplus: a market that bought more from the metropole than it sold overall." Britain, like most other industrial countries, had long since begun to run an unfavourable balance of trade (which was increasingly offset, however, by the income from overseas investments).
As Britain developed into the world's first post-industrial nation, financial services became an increasingly important sector of its economy. Invisible financial exports, as mentioned, kept Britain out of the red, especially capital investments outside Europe, particularly to the developing and open markets in Africa, predominantly white settler colonies, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.
In addition, surplus capital was often more profitably invested overseas, where cheap labor, limited competition, and abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible. Another inducement to imperialism, of course, arose from the demand for raw materials unavailable in Europe, especially copper, cotton, rubber, tea, and tin, to which European consumers had grown accustomed and upon which European industry had grown dependent.
However, in Africa — exclusive of what would become the Union of South Africa in 1909 — the amount of capital investment by Europeans was relatively small, compared to other continents, before and after the 1884-85 Berlin Conference. Consequently, the companies involved in tropical African commerce were relatively small, apart from Cecil Rhodes's De Beers Mining Company. Rhodes had carved out Rhodesia for himself, as Léopold II would later and with considerably greater brutality exploit the Congo Free State. These observations might detract from the pro-imperialist arguments of colonial lobbies such as the Alldeutscher Verband, Francesco Crispi or Jules Ferry, who argued that sheltered overseas markets in Africa would solve the problems of low prices and over-production caused by shrinking continental markets. However, according to the classic thesis of John A. Hobson, exposed in Imperialism (1902), which would influence authors such as Lenin's (1916), Trotsky or Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), this shrinking of continental markets was a main factor of the global New Imperialism period. Later historians have noted that such statistics only obscured the fact that formal control of tropical Africa had great strategic value in an era of imperial rivalry, while the Suez Canal has remained a strategic location. The 1886 Witwatersrand Gold Rush, which led to the foundation of Johannesburg and was a major factor of the Second Boer War in 1899, accounted for the "conjunction of the superfluous money and of the superfluous manpower, which gave themselves their hand to quit together the country", which is in itself, according to Hannah Arendt, the new element of the imperialist era.
Strategic rivalryWhile tropical Africa was not a large zone of investment, other regions overseas were. The vast interior — between the gold- and diamond-rich Southern Africa and Egypt, had, however, key strategic value in securing the flow of overseas trade. Britain was thus under intense political pressure, especially among supporters of the Conservative Party, to secure lucrative markets such as British Raj India, Qing Dynasty China, and Latin America from encroaching rivals. Thus, securing the key waterway between East and West — the Suez Canal— was crucial. The rivalry between the UK, France, Germany and the other European powers account for a large part of the colonization. Thus, while Germany, which had been unified under Prussia's rule only after the 1866 Battle of Sadowa and the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, was hardly a colonial power before the New Imperialism period, it would eagerly participate in the race. A rising industrial power close on the heels of Britain, it hadn't yet had the chance to control oversea territories, mainly due to its late unification, its fragmentation in various states, and its absence of experience in modern navigation. This would change under Bismarck's leadership, who implemented the Weltpolitik (World Policy) and, after putting in place the bases of France's isolation with the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary and then the 1882 Triple Alliance with Italy, called for the 1884-85 Berlin Conference which set the rules of effective control of a foreign territory. Germany's expansionism would lead to the Tirpitz Plan, implemented by Admiral von Tirpitz, who would also champion the various Fleet Acts starting in 1898, thus engaging in an arms race with Britain. By 1914, they had given Germany the second largest naval force in the world (roughly 40% smaller than the Royal Navy). According to von Tirpitz, this aggressive naval policy was supported by the National Liberal Party rather than by the conservatives, thus demonstrating that the main supports of the European nation states' imperialism were the rising bourgeoisie classes.
Bismarck's RealpolitikGermany began its world expansion in the 1880s under Bismarck's leadership, encouraged by the national bourgeoisie. Some of them, claiming themselves of Friedrich List's thought, advocated expansion in the Philippines and in Timor, other proposed to set themselves in Formosa (modern Taiwan), etc. In the end of the 1870s, these isolated voices began to be relayed by a real imperialist policy, known as the Weltpolitik ("World Policy"), which was backed by mercantilist thesis. In 1881, Hübbe-Schleiden, a lawyer, published Deutsche Kolonisation, according to which the "development of national consciousness demanded an independent oversea policy". Pan-germanism was thus linked to the young nation's imperialist drives. In the beginning of the 1880s, the Deutscher Kolonialverein was created, and got its own magazine in 1884, the Kolonialzeitung. This colonial lobby was also relayed by the nationalist Alldeutscher Verband.
Germany thus became the third largest colonial power in Africa, acquiring an overall empire of 2.6 million square kilometers and 14 million colonial subjects, mostly in its African possessions (Southwest Africa, Togoland, the Cameroons, and Tanganyika). The scramble for Africa led Bismarck to propose the 1884-85 Berlin Conference. Following the 1904 Entente cordiale between France and the UK, Germany tried to isolate France in 1905 with the First Moroccan Crisis. This led to the 1905 Algeciras Conference, in which France's influence on Morocco was compensated by the exchange of others territories, and then to the 1911 Agadir Crisis. Along with the 1898 Fashoda Incident between France and the UK, this succession of international crisis proves the bitterness of the struggle between the various imperialisms, which ultimately led to World War I.
Clash of rival imperialismsWhile de Brazza was exploring the Kongo Kingdom for France, Stanley also explored it in the early 1880s on behalf of Léopold II of Belgium, who would have his personal Congo Free State. While pretending to advocate humanitarianism and denounce slavery, Leopold II used the most inhumane tactics to exploit his newly acquired lands. His crimes were revealed by 1905, but he remained in control until 1908, when he was forced to turn over control to the Belgian government.
France occupied Tunisia in May 1881 (and Guinea in 1884), which partly convinced Italy to adhere in 1882 to the German-Austrian Dual Alliance, thus forming the Triple Alliance. The same year, Britain occupied the nominally Ottoman Egypt, which in turn ruled over the Sudan and parts of Somalia. In 1870 and 1882, Italy took possession of the first parts of Eritrea, while Germany declared Togoland, the Cameroons and South West Africa to be under its protection in 1884. French West Africa (AOF) was founded in 1895, and French Equatorial Africa (AEF) in 1910.
Italy continued its conquest to gain its "place in the sun". Following the defeat of the First Italo–Ethiopian War (1895-96), it acquired Somaliland in 1899-90 and the whole of Eritrea (1899). In 1911, it engaged in a war with the Ottoman Empire, in which it acquired Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (modern Libya). Enrico Corradini, who fully supported the war, and later merged his group in the early fascist party (PNF), developed in 1919 the concept of Proletarian Nationalism, supposed to legitimize Italy's imperialism by a surprising mixture of socialism with nationalism: "We must start by recognizing the fact that there are proletarian nations as well as proletarian classes; that is to say, there are nations whose living conditions are subject...to the way of life of other nations, just as classes are. Once this is realized, nationalism must insist firmly on this truth: Italy is, materially and morally, a proletarian nation." The Second Italo-Abyssinian War (1935-36), ordered by Mussolini, would actually be one of the last colonial wars (that is, intended to colonize a foreign country, opposed to wars of national liberation), occupying Ethiopia for 5 years, which had remained the last African independent territory. The Spanish Civil War, marking for some the beginning of the European Civil War, would begin in 1936.
On the other hand, the British abandoned their splendid isolation in 1902 with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which would enable the Empire of Japan to be victorious during the war against Russia (1904-05). The UK then signed the Entente cordiale with France in 1904, and, in 1907, the Triple Entente which included Russia, thus pitted against the Triple Alliance which Bismarck had patiently assembled.
The American Colonization Society and the foundation of LiberiaThe United States took part, marginally, in this enterprise, through the American Colonization Society (ACS), established in 1816 by Robert Finley. The ACS offered emigration to Liberia ("Land of the Free"), a colony founded in 1820, to free black slaves; emancipated slave Lott Carey actually became the first American Baptist missionary in Africa. This colonization attempt was resisted by the native people.
The American Colonization Society was led by Southerners, and its first president was James Monroe, from Virginia, who became the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. Thus, ironically one of the main proponents of American colonization of Africa was the same man who proclaimed, in his 1823 State of the Union address, the US opinion that European powers should no longer colonize the Americas or interfere with the affairs of sovereign nations located in the Americas. In return, the US planned to stay neutral in wars between European powers and in wars between a European power and its colonies. However, if these latter type of wars were to occur in the Americas, the U.S. would view such action as hostile toward itself. This famous statement became known as the Monroe Doctrine and was the base of United States isolationism during the 19th century.
Although the Liberia colony never became quite as big as envisaged, it was only the first step in the American colonization of Africa, according to its early proponents. Thus, Jehudi Ashmun, an early leader of the ACS, envisioned an American empire in Africa. Between 1825 and 1826, he took steps to lease, annex, or buy tribal lands along the coast and along major rivers leading inland. Like his predecessor Lt. Robert Stockton, who in 1821 established the site for Monrovia by "persuading" a local chief referred to as "King Peter" to sell Cape Montserado (or Cape Mesurado) by pointing a pistol at his head, Ashmun was prepared to use force to extend the colony's territory. In a May 1825 treaty, King Peter and other native kings agreed to sell land in return for 500 bars of tobacco, three barrels of rum, five casks of powder, five umbrellas, ten iron posts, and ten pairs of shoes, among other items. In March 1825, the ACS began a quarterly, The African Repository and Colonial Journal, edited by Rev. Ralph Randolph Gurley (1797-1872), who headed the Society until 1844. Conceived as the Society's propaganda organ, the Repository promoted both colonization and Liberia.
The Society controlled the colony of Liberia until 1847 when, under the perception that the British might annex the settlement, Liberia was proclaimed a free and independent state, thus becoming the first African decolonised state. By 1867, the Society had sent more than 13,000 emigrants. After the American Civil War (1861-1865), when many blacks wanted to go to Liberia, financial support for colonization had waned. During its later years the society focused on educational and missionary efforts in Liberia rather than further emigration.
A succession of crises in the period to World War IThe colonization of the Congo
David Livingstone's explorations, carried on by Henry Morton Stanley excited European imaginations. But at first, Stanley's grandiose ideas for colonization found little support owing to the problems and scale of action required, except from Léopold II of Belgium, who in 1876 had organized the International African Association. From 1879 to 1884, Stanley was secretly sent by Léopold II to the Congo region, where he made treaties with several African chiefs along the Congo River and by 1882 had sufficient territory to form the basis of the Congo Free State. Léopold II personally owned the colony from 1885 and exploited it for ivory and rubber.
While Stanley was exploring Congo on behalf of Léopold II of Belgium, the Franco-Italian marine officer Pierre de Brazza travelled into the western Congo basin and raised the French flag over the newly founded Brazzaville in 1881, thus occupying today's Republic of the Congo. Portugal, which also claimed the area due to old treaties with the native Kongo Empire, made a treaty with Britain on February 26, 1884 to block off the Congo Society's access to the Atlantic.
By 1890 the Congo Free State had consolidated its control of its territory between Leopoldville and Stanleyville and was looking to push south down the Lualaba River from Stanleyville. At the same time the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes (who once declared, "all of these stars... these vast worlds that remain out of reach. If I could, I would annex other planets.") was expanding north from the Limpopo River. Attention was drawn to the land where their expansions would meet: Katanga, site of the Yeke Kingdom of Msiri. As well as being the most powerful ruler militarily in the area, Msiri traded large quantities of copper, ivory and slaves, and rumours of gold reached European ears. The scramble for Katanga was a prime example the period. Rhodes and the BSAC sent two expeditions to Msiri in 1890 led by Alfred Sharpe, who was rebuffed, and Joseph Thomson who failed to reach Katanga. In 1891 Leopold sent four CFS expeditions. The Le Marinel Expedition could only extract a vaguely-worded letter. The Delcommune Expedition was rebuffed. The well-armed Stairs Expedition had orders to take Katanga with or without Msiri's consent; he refused, was shot, and the expedition cut off his head and stuck it on a pole as a 'barbaric lesson' to the people. The Bia Expedition finished off the job of establishing an administration of sorts and a 'police presence' in Katanga.
The half million square kilometres of Katanga came into Leopold's possession and brought his African realm up to 2,300,000 km², about 75 times larger than Belgium. The Congo Free State imposed such a terror regime on the colonized people, including mass killings with millions of victims, and slave labour, that Belgium, under pressure from the Congo Reform Association, ended Leopold II's rule and annexed it in 1908 as a colony of Belgium, known as the Belgian Congo. Estimates of the total death toll vary considerably. As the first census did not take place until 1924, it is difficult to quantify the population loss of the period. Casement's report set it at three million, ascribing the depopulation to four main causes: indiscriminate war, starvation, reduction of births, and tropical diseases. See Congo Free State for further details including numbers of victims.
Suez CanalFerdinand de Lesseps had obtained many concessions from Isma'il Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, in 1854-56, to build the Suez Canal. Some sources estimate the workforce at 30,000, but others estimate that 120,000 workers died over the ten years of construction due to malnutrition, fatigue and disease, especially cholera. Shortly before its completion in 1869, Isma'il Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, borrowed enormous sums from French and English bankers at high rates of interest. By 1875, he was facing financial difficulties and was forced to sell his block of shares in the Suez Canal. The shares were snapped up by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Benjamin Disraeli, who sought to give his country practical control in the management of this strategic waterway. When Isma'il Pasha repudiated Egypt's foreign debt in 1879, Britain and France assumed joint financial control over the country, forcing the Egyptian ruler to abdicate. The Egyptian ruling classes did not relish foreign intervention. The Urabi Revolt broke out against the Khedive and European influence in 1882, a year after the Mahdist revolt. Muhammad Ahmad, who had proclaimed himself the Mahdi, redeemer of Islam, in 1881, led the rebellion and was defeated only by Kitchener in 1898. Britain then assumed responsibility for the administration of the country.
Berlin ConferenceThe occupation of Egypt and the acquisition of the Congo were the first major moves in what came to be a precipitous scramble for African territory. In 1884, Otto von Bismarck convened the 1884-85 Berlin Conference to discuss the Africa problem. The diplomats put on a humanitarian façade by condemning the slave trade, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages and firearms in certain regions, and by expressing concern for missionary activities. More importantly, the diplomats in Berlin laid down the rules of competition by which the great powers were to be guided in seeking colonies. They also agreed that the area along the Congo River was to be administered by Léopold II of Belgium as a neutral area, known as the Congo Free State, in which trade and navigation were to be free. No nation was to stake claims in Africa without notifying other powers of its intentions. No territory could be formally claimed prior to being effectively occupied. However, the competitors ignored the rules when convenient and on several occasions war was only narrowly avoided.
Britain's occupation of Egypt and South AfricaBritain's occupations of Egypt and the Cape Colony contributed to a preoccupation over securing the source of the Nile River. Egypt was occupied by British forces in 1882 (although not formally declared a protectorate until 1914, and never a colony proper); Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda were subjugated in the 1890s and early 1900s; and in the south, the Cape Colony (first acquired in 1795) provided a base for the subjugation of neighbouring African states and the Dutch Afrikaner settlers who had left the Cape to avoid the British and then founded their own republics. In 1877, Theophilus Shepstone annexed the South African Republic (or Transvaal — independent from 1857 to 1877) for the British. The UK consolidated its power over most of the colonies of South Africa in 1879 after the Anglo-Zulu War. The Boers protested and in December 1880 they revolted, leading to the First Boer War (1880-1881). British Prime Minister William Gladstone signed a peace treaty on March 23, 1881, giving self-government to the Boers in the Transvaal. The Second Boer War was fought between 1899 to 1902; the independent Boer republics of the Orange Free State and of the South African Republic (Transvaal) were this time defeated and absorbed into the British empire.
Fashoda IncidentThe 1898 Fashoda Incident was one of the most crucial conflicts on Europe's way of consolidating holdings in the continent. It brought Britain and France to the verge of war but ended in a major strategic victory for Britain, and provided the basis for the 1904 Entente Cordiale between the two rival countries. It stemmed from battles over control of the Nile headwaters, which caused Britain to expand in the Sudan.
The French thrust into the African interior was mainly from West Africa (modern day Senegal) eastward, through the Sahel along the southern border of the Sahara, a territory covering modern day Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Chad. Their ultimate aim was to have an uninterrupted link between the Niger River and the Nile, thus controlling all trade to and from the Sahel region, by virtue of their existing control over the Caravan routes through the Sahara. The British, on the other hand, wanted to link their possessions in Southern Africa (modern South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Zambia), with their territories in East Africa (modern Kenya), and these two areas with the Nile basin. Sudan (which in those days included modern day Uganda) was obviously key to the fulfilment of these ambitions, especially since Egypt was already under British control. This 'red line' through Africa is made most famous by Cecil Rhodes. Along with Lord Milner (the British colonial minister in South Africa), Rhodes advocated such a "Cape to Cairo" empire linking by rail the Suez Canal to the mineral-rich Southern part of the continent. Though hampered by German occupation of Tanganyika until the end of World War I, Rhodes successfully lobbied on behalf of such a sprawling East African empire.
If one draws a line from Cape Town to Cairo (Rhodes' dream), and one from Dakar to the Horn of Africa (now Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia), (the French ambition), these two lines intersect somewhere in eastern Sudan near Fashoda, explaining its strategic importance. In short, Britain had sought to extend its East African empire contiguously from Cairo to the Cape of Good Hope, while France had sought to extend its own holdings from Dakar to the Sudan, which would enable its empire to span the entire continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.
A French force under Jean-Baptiste Marchand arrived first at the strategically located fort at Fashoda soon followed by a British force under Lord Kitchener, commander in chief of the British army since 1892. The French withdrew after a standoff, and continued to press claims to other posts in the region. In March 1899 the French and British agreed that the source of the Nile and Congo Rivers should mark the frontier between their spheres of influence.
Moroccan CrisisAlthough the 1884-85 Berlin Conference had set the rules for the scramble for Africa, it hadn't weakened the rival imperialisms. The 1898 Fashoda Incident, which had seen France and the UK on the brink of war, ultimately led to the signature of the 1904 Entente cordiale, which reversed the influence of the various European powers. As a result, the new German power decided to test the solidity of the influence, using the contested territory of Morocco as a battlefield.
Thus, on March 31, 1905 Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Tangiers and made a speech in favor of Moroccan independence, challenging French influence in Morocco. France's influence in Morocco had been reaffirmed by Britain and Spain in 1904. The Kaiser's speech bolstered French nationalism and with British support the French foreign minister, Théophile Delcassé, took a defiant line. The crisis peaked in mid-June 1905, when Delcassé was forced out of the ministry by the more conciliation minded premier Maurice Rouvier. But by July 1905 Germany was becoming isolated and the French agreed to a conference to solve the crisis. Both France and Germany continued to posture up to the conference, with Germany mobilizing reserve army units in late December and France actually moving troops to the border in January 1906.
The 1906 Algeciras Conference was called to settle the dispute. Of the thirteen nations present the German representatives found their only supporter was Austria-Hungary. France had firm support from Britain, Russia, Italy, Spain, and the U.S. The Germans eventually accepted an agreement, signed on May 31, 1906, where France yielded certain domestic changes in Morocco but retained control of key areas.
However, five years later the second Moroccan crisis (or Agadir Crisis) was sparked by the deployment of the German gunboat Panther, to the port of Agadir on July 1 1911. Germany had started to attempt to surpass Britain's naval supremacy — the British navy had a policy of remaining larger than the next two naval fleets in the world combined. When the British heard of the Panthers arrival in Morocco, they wrongly believed that the Germans meant to turn Agadir into a naval base on the Atlantic.
The German move was aimed at reinforcing claims for compensation for acceptance of effective French control of the North African kingdom, where France's pre-eminence had been upheld by the 1906 Algeciras Conference. In November 1911 a convention was signed under which Germany accepted France's position in Morocco in return for territory in the French Equatorial African colony of Middle Congo (now the Republic of the Congo).
France subsequently established a full protectorate over Morocco, ending what remained of the country's formal independence. Furthermore, British backing for France during the two Moroccan crises reinforced the Entente between the two countries and added to Anglo-German estrangement, deepening the divisions which would culminate in World War I.
Colonial encounterColonial consciousness and exhibitionsThe colonial lobbyIn its early stages imperialism was mainly the act of individual explorers and some adventurous merchantmen. The metropole | |
