The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 Part 39

[Footnote 424: In saying this I do not underrate the achievements of explorers like Stanley, Thomson, Cameron, Schweinfurth, Pogge, Nachtigall, Pinto, de Brazza, Johnston, Wissmann, Holub, Lugard, and others; but apart from the first two, none of them made discoveries that can be called epoch-marking.]

The last epoch-marking work carried through by an individual was accomplished by a Scottish explorer, whose achievements almost rivalled those of Livingstone. Joseph Thomson, a native of Dumfriesshire, succeeded in 1879 to the command of an exploring party which sought to open up the country around the lakes of Nya.s.sa and Tanganyika. Four years later, on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society, he undertook to examine the country behind Mombasa which was little better known than when Vasco da Gama first touched there. In this journey Thomson discovered two snow-capped mountains, Kilimanjaro and Kenia, and made known the resources of the country as far inland as the Victoria Nyanza.

Considering the small resources he had at hand, and the cruel and warlike character of the Masai people through whom he journeyed, this journey was by far the most remarkable and important in the annals of exploration during the eighties. Thomson afterwards undertook to open a way from the Benue, the great eastern affluent of the Niger, to Lake Chad and the White Nile. Here again he succeeded beyond all expectation, while his tactful management of the natives led to political results of the highest importance, as will shortly appear.

These explorations and those of French, German, and Portuguese travellers served to bring nearly the whole of Africa within the ken of the civilised world, and revealed the fact that nearly all parts of tropical Africa had a distinct commercial value.

This discovery, we may point out, is the necessary preliminary to any great and sustained work of colonisation and annexation. Three conditions may be looked on as essential to such an effort. First, that new lands should be known to be worth the labour of exploitation or settlement; second, that the older nations should possess enough vitality to pour settlers and treasure into them; and thirdly, that mechanical appliances should be available for the overcoming of natural obstacles.

Now, a brief glance at the great eras of exploring and colonising activity will show that in all these three directions the last thirty years have presented advantages which are unique in the history of the world. A few words will suffice to make good this a.s.sertion. The wars which constantly devastated the ancient world, and the feeble resources in regard to navigation wielded by adventurous captains, such as Hanno the Carthaginian, grievously hampered all the efforts of explorers by sea, while mechanical appliances were so weak as to cripple man's efforts at penetrating the interior. The same is true of the mediaeval voyagers and travellers. Only the very princes among men, Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, Cabot, Cabral, Gilbert, and Raleigh, could have done what they did with ships that were mere playthings. Science had to do her work of long and patient research before man could hopefully face the mighty forces and malignant influences of the tropics. Nor was the advance of knowledge and invention sufficient by itself to equip man for successful war against the ocean, the desert, the forest, and the swamp.

The political and social development of the older countries was equally necessary. In order that thousands of settlers should be able and ready to press in where the one great leader had shown the way, Europe had to gain something like peace and stability. Only thus, when the natural surplus of the white races could devote itself to the task of peacefully subduing the earth rather than to the hideous work of mutual slaughter, could the life-blood of Europe be poured forth in fertilising streams into the waste places of the other continents.

The latter half of the eighteenth century promised for a brief s.p.a.ce to inaugurate such a period of expansive life. The close of the Seven Years' War seemed to be the starting point for a peaceful campaign against the unknown; but the efforts of Cook, d'Entrecasteaux, and others then had little practical result, owing to the American War of Independence, and the great cycle of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. These in their turn left Europe too exhausted to accomplish much in the way of colonial expansion until the middle of the nineteenth century. Even then, when the steamship and the locomotive were at hand to multiply man's powers, there was, as yet, no general wish, except on the part of the more fortunate English-speaking peoples, to enter into man's new heritage. The problems of Europe had to be settled before the age of expansive activity could dawn in its full radiance. As has been previously shown, Europe was in an introspective mood up to the years 1870-1878.

Our foregoing studies have shown that the years following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, brought about a state of political equilibrium which made for peace and stagnation in Europe; and the natural forces of the Continent, cramped by the opposition of equal and powerful forces, took the line of least resistance--away from Europe.

For Russia, the line of least resistance was in Central Asia. For all other European States it was the sea, and the new lands beyond.

Furthermore, in that momentous decade the steamship and locomotive were constantly gaining in efficiency; electricity was entering the arena as a new and mighty force; by this time medical science had so far advanced as to screen man from many of the ills of which the tropics are profuse; and the repeating rifle multiplied the power of the white man in his conflicts with savage peoples. When all the advantages of the present generation are weighed in the balance against the meagre equipment of the earlier discoverers, the nineteenth century has scant claim for boasting over the fifteenth. In truth, its great achievements in this sphere have been practical and political. It has only fulfilled the rich promise of the age of the great navigators. Where they could but wonderingly skirt the fringes of a new world, the moderns have won their way to the heart of things and found many an Eldorado potentially richer than that which tempted the cupidity of Cortes and Pizarro.

In one respect the European statesmen of the recent past tower above their predecessors of the centuries before. In the eighteenth century the "mercantilist" craze for seizing new markets and shutting out all possible rivals brought about most of the wars that desolated Europe. In the years 1880-1890 the great Powers put forth sustained and successful efforts to avert the like calamity, and to cloak with the mantle of diplomacy the eager scrambles for the unclaimed lands of the world.

For various reasons the attention of statesmen turned almost solely on Africa. Central and South America were divided among States that were nominally civilised and enjoyed the protection of the Monroe Doctrine put forward by the United States. Australia was wholly British. In Asia the weakness of China was but dimly surmised; and Siam and Cochin China alone offered any field for settlement or conquest by European peoples from the sea. In Polynesia several groups of islands were still unclaimed; but these could not appease the land-hunger of Europe. Africa alone provided void s.p.a.ces proportionate to the needs and ambitions of the white man. The opening of the Suez Ca.n.a.l in 1869 served to bring the east coast of that continent within easy reach of Europe; and the discoveries on the Upper Nile, Congo, and Niger opened a way into other large parts. Thus, by the year 1880, everything favoured the "part.i.tion of Africa."

Rumour, in the guise of hints given by communicative young attaches or "well-informed" correspondents, ascribes the first beginnings of the plans for the part.i.tion of Africa to the informal conversations of statesmen at the time of the Congress of Berlin (1878). Just as an architect safeguards his creation by providing a lightning-conductor, so the builder of the German Empire sought to divert from that fabric the revengeful storms that might be expected from the south-west. Other statesmen were no less anxious than Bismarck to draw away the attention of rivals from their own political preserves by pointing the way to more desirable waste domains. In short, the statesmen of Europe sought to plant in Africa the lightning-conductors that would safeguard the new arrangements in Europe, including that of Cyprus. The German and British Governments are known then to have pa.s.sed on hints to that of France as to the desirability of her appropriating Tunis. The Republic entered into the schemes, with results which have already been considered (Chapter XII.); and, as a sequel to the occupation of Tunis, plans were set on foot for the eventual conquest of the whole of the North-West of Africa (except Morocco and a few British, Spanish, and Portuguese settlements) from Cape Bon to Cape Verde, and thence nearly to the mouth of the River Niger. We may also note that in and after 1883 France matured her schemes for the conquest of part, and ultimately the whole, of Madagascar, a project which reached completion in the year 1885[425].

[Footnote 425: For the French treaty of December 17, 1885, with Madagascar see Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 2 (1886).]

The military occupation of Egypt by Great Britain in 1882 also served to quicken the interest of European Powers in Africa. It has been surmised that British acquiescence in French supremacy in Tunis, West Africa, and Madagascar had some connection with the events that transpired in Egypt, and that the perpetuation of British supremacy in the valley of the Nile was virtually bought by the surrender of most of our political and trading interests in these lands, the lapse of which under the French "protective" regime caused much heart-burning in commercial circles.

Last among the special causes that concentrated attention on Africa was the activity of King Leopold's a.s.sociation at Brussels in opening up the Congo district in the years 1879-1882. Everything therefore tended to make the ownership of tropical Africa the most complex question of the early part of the eighties.

For various reasons Germany was a little later than France and England in entering the field. The hostility of France on the west, and, after 1878, that of Russia on the east, made it inadvisable for the new Empire to give hostages to Fortune, in the shape of colonies, until by alliances it secured its position at home and possessed a fleet strong enough to defend distant possessions. In some measure the German Government had to curb the eagerness of its "colonial party." The present writer was in Germany in the year 1879, when the colonial propaganda was being pushed forward, and noted the eagerness in some quarters, and the distrust in others, with which pamphlets like that of Herr Fabri, _Bedarf Deutschland Colonien?_ were received. Bismarck himself at first checked the "colonials," until he felt sure of the European situation. That, however, was cleared up to some extent by the inclusion of Italy in the compact which thus became the Triple Alliance (May 1882), and by the advent to office of the pacific Chancellor, de Giers, at St. Petersburg a little later. There was therefore the less need officially to curb the colonising instinct of the Teutonic people.

The formation of the German Colonial Society at Frankfurt in December 1882, and the immense success attending its propaganda, spurred on the statesmen of Berlin to take action. They looked longingly (as they still do) towards Brazil, in whose southern districts their people had settled in large numbers; but over all that land the Monroe Doctrine spread its sheltering wings. A war with the United States would have been madness, and Germany therefore turned to Polynesia and Africa. We may note here that in 1885 she endeavoured to secure the Caroline Islands from Spain, whose t.i.tle to them seemed to have lapsed; but Spanish pride flared up at the insult, and after a short s.p.a.ce Bismarck soothed ruffled feelings at Madrid by accepting the mediation of the Pope, who awarded them to Spain--Germany, however, gaining the right to occupy an islet of the group as a coaling station.

Africa, however, absorbed nearly all the energy of the German colonial party. The forward wing of that party early in the year 1884 inaugurated an anti-British campaign in the press, which probably had the support of the Government. As has been stated in chapter XII., that was the time when the Three Emperors' League showed signs of renewed vitality; and Bismarck, after signing the secret treaty of March 24, 1884 (later on ratified at Skiernevice), felt safe in pressing on colonial designs against England in Africa, especially as Russia was known to be planning equally threatening moves against the Queen's Empire in Asia. We do not know enough of what then went on between the German and Russian Chancellors to a.s.sert that they formed a definite agreement to harry British interests in those continents; but, judging from the general drift of Bismarck's diplomacy and from the "nagging" to which England was thenceforth subjected for two years, it seems highly probable that the policy ratified at Skiernevice aimed at marking time in European affairs and striding onwards in other continents at the expense of the Island Power.

The Anglophobes of the German press at once fell foul of everything British; and that well-known paper the _Kolnische Zeitung_ in an article of April 22, 1884, used the following words:--"Africa is a large pudding which the English have prepared for themselves at other people's expense, and the crust of which is already fit for eating. Let us hope that our sailors will put a few pepper-corns into it on the Guinea coast, so that our friends on the Thames may not digest it too rapidly."

The sequel will show whether the simile correctly describes either the state of John Bull's appet.i.te or the easy aloofness of the Teutonic onlooker.

It will be convenient to treat this great and complex subject on a topographical basis, and to begin with a survey of the affairs of East Africa, especially the districts on the mainland north and south of the island of Zanzibar. At that important trade centre, the natural starting point then for the vast district of the Great Lakes, the influence of British and Indian traders had been paramount; and for many years the Sultan of Zanzibar had been "under the direct influence of the United Kingdom and of the Government of India[426]." Nevertheless, in and after 1880 German merchants, especially those of Hamburg, pressed in with great energy and formed plans for annexing the neighbouring territories on the mainland.

[Footnote 426: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1886), p. 2.]

Their energy was in strange contrast to the lethargy shown by the British Government in the protection of Anglo-Indian trade interests. In the year 1878 the Sultan of Zanzibar, who held a large territory on the mainland, had offered the control of all the commerce of his dominions to Sir W. Mackinnon, Chairman of the British-India Steam Navigation Company; but, for some unexplained reason, the Beaconsfield Cabinet declined to be a party to this arrangement, which, therefore, fell through[427]. Despite the fact that England and France had in 1862 agreed to recognise the independence of the Sultan of Zanzibar, the Germans deemed the field to be clear, and early in November 1884, Dr.

Karl Peters and two other enthusiasts of the colonial party landed at Zanzibar, disguised as mechanics, with the aim of winning new lands for their Fatherland. They had with them several blank treaty forms, the hidden potency of which was soon to be felt by dusky potentates on the mainland. Before long they succeeded in persuading some of these novices in diplomacy to set their marks to these doc.u.ments, an act which converted them into subjects of the Kaiser, and speedily secured 60,000 square miles for the German tricolour. It is said that the Government of Berlin either had no knowledge of, or disapproved of, these proceedings; and, when Earl Granville ventured on some representations respecting them, he received the reply, dated November 28, 1884, that the Imperial Government had no design of obtaining a protectorate over Zanzibar[428].

It is difficult to reconcile these statements with the undoubted fact that on February 17, 1885, the German Emperor gave his sanction to the proceedings of Dr. Peters by extending his suzerainty over the signatory chiefs[429]. This event caused soreness among British explorers and Indian traders who had been the first to open up the country to civilisation. Nevertheless, the Gladstone Ministry took no effective steps to safeguard their interests.

[Footnote 427: _The Part.i.tion of Africa_, by J. Scott Keltie (1893), pp.

157, 225.]

[Footnote 428: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1886), p. 1.]

[Footnote 429: _Ibid_. pp. 12-20.]

In defence of their academic treatment of this matter some considerations of a general nature may be urged.

The need of colonies felt by Germany was so natural, so imperious, that it could not be met by the high and dry legal argument as to the priority of Great Britain's commercial interests. Such an att.i.tude would have involved war with Germany about East Africa and war with France about West Africa, at the very time when we were on the brink of hostilities with Russia about Merv, and were actually fighting the Mahdists behind Suakim. The "weary t.i.tan"--to use Matthew Arnold's picturesque phrase--was then overburdened. The motto, "Live and let live," was for the time the most reasonable, provided that it was not interpreted in a weak and maudlin way on essential points.

Many critics, however, maintain that Mr. Gladstone's and Lord Granville's diplomatic dealings with Germany in the years 1884 and 1885 displayed most lamentable weakness, even when Dr. Peters and others were known to be working hard at the back of Zanzibar, with the results that have been noted. In April 1885 the Cabinet ordered Sir John Kirk, British representative at Zanzibar, and founder of the hitherto unchallenged supremacy of his nation along that coast, forthwith to undo the work of a lifetime by "maintaining friendly relations" with the German authorities at that port. This, of course, implied a tacit acknowledgment by Britain of what amounted to a German protectorate over the mainland possessions of the Sultan. It is not often that a Government, in its zeal for "live and let live," imposes so humiliating a task on a British representative. The Sultan did not take the serene and philosophic view of the situation that was held at Downing Street, and the advent of a German squadron was necessary in order to procure his consent to these arrangements (August-December 1885.)[430]

[Footnote 430: J. Scott Keltie, _The Part.i.tion of Africa_, ch. xv.]

The Blue Book dealing with Zanzibar (Africa, No. 1, 1886) by no means solves the riddle of the negotiations which went on between London and Berlin early in the year 1885. From other sources we know that the most ardent of the German colonials were far from satisfied with their triumph. Curious details have appeared showing that their schemes included the laying of a trap for the Sultan of Zanzibar, which failed owing to clumsy baiting and the loquacity of the would-be captor. Lord Rosebery also managed, according to German accounts, to get the better of Count Herbert Bismarck in respect of St. Lucia Bay (see page 528) and districts on the Benue River; so that this may perhaps be placed over against the losses sustained by Britain on the coast opposite Zanzibar. Even there, as we have seen, results did not fully correspond to the high hopes entertained by the German Chauvinists[431].

[Footnote 431: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, vol. iii.

pp. 135, 144-45. Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1886), pp. 39-45, 61 _et seq_.; also No. 3 (1886), pp. 4, 15.]

In the meantime (June 1885) the Salisbury Cabinet came into office for a short time, but the evil effects of the slackness of British diplomacy were not yet at an end. At this time British merchants, especially those of Manchester, were endeavouring to develop the mountainous country around the giant cone of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where Mr. (now Sir) Harry Johnston had, in September 1884, secured some trading and other rights with certain chiefs. A company had been formed in order to further British interests, and this soon became the Imperial British East Africa Company, which aspired to territorial control in the parts north of those claimed by Dr. Peters' Company. A struggle took place between the two companies, the German East Africa Company laying claim to the Kilimanjaro district. Again it proved that the Germans had the more effective backing, and, despite objections urged by our Foreign Minister, Lord Rosebery, against the proceedings of German agents in that tract, the question of ownership was referred to the decision of an Anglo-German boundary commission.

Lord Iddesleigh a.s.sumed control of the Foreign Office in August, but the advent of the Conservatives to power in no way helped on the British case. By an agreement between the two Powers, dated November 1, 1886, the Kilimanjaro district was a.s.signed to Germany. From the northern spurs of that mountain the dividing line ran in a north-westerly direction towards the Victoria Nyanza. The same agreement recognised the authority of the Sultan of Zanzibar as extending over the island of that name, those of Pemba and Mafia, and over a strip of coastline ten nautical miles in width; but the ownership of the district of Vitu north of Mombasa was left open[432]. (See map at the close of this volume.)

[Footnote 432: Banning, _op. cit._ pp. 45-50; Parl. Papers, Africa, No.

3 (1887), pp. 46, 59.]

On the whole, the skill which dispossessed a sovereign of most of his rights, under a plea of diplomatic rearrangements and the advancement of civilisation, must be p.r.o.nounced unrivalled; and Britain cut a sorry figure as the weak and unwilling accessory to this act. The only satisfactory feature in the whole proceeding was Britain's success in leasing from the Sultan of Zanzibar administrative rights over the coast region around Mombasa. The gain of that part secured unimpeded access from the coast to the northern half of Lake Victoria Nyanza. The German Company secured similar rights over the coastline of their district, and in 1890 bought it outright. By an agreement of December 1896, the River Rovuma was recognised by Germany and Portugal as the boundary of their East African possessions.

The lofty hopes once entertained by the Germans as to the productiveness of their part of East Africa have been but partially realised[433].

Harsh treatment of the natives brought about a formidable revolt in 1888-89. The need of British co-operation in the crushing of this revolt served to bring Germany to a more friendly att.i.tude towards this country. Probably the resignation, or rather the dismissal, of Bismarck by the present Emperor, in March 1890, also tended to lessen the friction between England and Germany. The Prince while in retirement expressed strong disapproval of the East African policy of his successor, Count Caprivi.

[Footnote 433: See the Report on German East Africa for 1900, in our _Diplomatic and Consular Reports_.]

Its more conciliatory spirit found expression in the Anglo-German agreement of July 1, 1890, which delimited the districts claimed by the two nations around the Victoria Nyanza in a sense favourable to Great Britain and disappointing to that indefatigable treaty-maker, Dr.

Peters. It acknowledged British claims to the northern half of the sh.o.r.es and waters of that great lake and to the valley of the Upper Nile, as also to the coast of the Indian Ocean about Vitu and thence northwards to Kismayu.

On the other hand, Germany acquired the land north of Lake Nya.s.sa, where British interests had been paramount. The same agreement applied both to the British and German lands in question the principle of free or unrestricted transit of goods, as also between the great lakes. Germany further recognised a British Protectorate over the islands held by the Sultan of Zanzibar, reserving certain rights for German commerce in the case of the Island of Mafia. Finally, Great Britain ceded to Germany the Island of Heligoland in the North Sea. On both sides of the North Sea the compact aroused a storm of hostile comment, which perhaps served to emphasise its fairness[434]. Bismarck's opinion deserves quotation:--

Zanzibar ought not to have been left to the English. It would have been better to maintain the old arrangement. We could then have had it at some later time when England required our good offices against France or Russia. In the meantime our merchants, who are cleverer, and, like the Jews, are satisfied with smaller profits, would have kept the upper hand in business. To regard Heligoland as an equivalent shows more imagination than sound calculation. In the event of war it would be better for us that it should be in the hands of a neutral Power. It is difficult and most expensive to fortify[435].

[Footnote 434: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 6 (1890).]

[Footnote 435: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, vol. iii.

p. 353. See, too, S. Whitman, _Personal Reminiscences of Prince Bismarck_, p. 122.]

The pa.s.sage is instructive as showing the aim of Bismarck's colonial policy, namely, to wait until England's difficulties were acute (or perhaps to augment those difficulties, as he certainly did by furthering Russian schemes against Afghanistan in 1884-85[436]), and then to apply remorseless pressure at all points where the colonial or commercial interests of the two countries clashed.

[Footnote 436: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History_, vol. iii.

pp. 124, 133: also see p. 426 of this work.]

The more his policy is known, the more dangerous to England it is seen to have been, especially in the years 1884-86. In fact, those persons who declaim against German colonial ambitions of to-day may be asked to remember that the extra-European questions recently at issue between Great Britain and Germany are trivial when compared with the momentous problems that were peacefully solved by the agreement of the year 1890.

Of what importance are Samoa, Kiao-chow, and the problem of Morocco, compared with the questions of access to the great lakes of Africa and the control of the Lower Niger? It would be unfair to Wilhelm II., as also to the Salisbury Cabinet, not to recognise the statesmanlike qualities which led to the agreement of July 1, 1890--one of the most solid gains peacefully achieved for the cause of civilisation throughout the nineteenth century.