immediate vicinity of the old French settlements on the West Coast, was
mainly in the hands of British merchants. Over the greater part of the
coastal belts only the British power was known to the native tribes and
chieftains. Many of them (like the Sultan of Zanzibar and the chiefs of
the Cameroons) had repeatedly begged to be taken under British
protection, and had been refused. During the two generations before
1878 the interior of the continent had begun to be known. But except in
the north and north-west, where French explorers and a few Germans had
been active, the work had been mainly done by British travellers. Most
of the great names of African exploration--Livingstone, Burton, Speke,
Baker, Cameron and the Anglo-American Stanley--were British names.
These facts, of course, gave to Britain, already so richly endowed, no
sort of claim to a monopoly of the continent. But they naturally gave
her a right to a voice in its disposal. Only the French had shown
anything like the same activity, or had established anything like the
same interests; and they were far behind their secular rivals.
But these facts bring out one feature which differentiated the
settlement of Africa from that of any other region of the non-European
world. It was not a gradual, but an extraordinarily rapid achievement.
It was based not upon claims established by work already done, but, for
the most part, upon the implicit assumption that extra-European empire
was the due of the European peoples, simply because they were civilised
and powerful. This was the justification, in a large degree, of all the
European empires in Africa. But it was especially so in the case of the
empire which Germany created in the space of three years. This empire
was not the product of German enterprise in the regions included within
it; it was the product of Germany's dominating position in Europe, and
the expression of her resolve to create an external empire worthy of
that position.
Africa falls naturally into two great regions. The northern coast,
separated from the main mass of the continent by the broad belt of
deserts which runs from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, has always been
far more ultimately connected with the other Mediterranean lands than
with the rest of Africa. Throughout the course of history, indeed, the
northern coast-lands have belonged rather to the realms of Western or
of Asiatic civilisation than to the primitive barbarism of the sons of
Ham. In the days of the Carthaginians and of the Roman Empire, all
these lands, from Egypt to Morocco, had known a high civilisation. They
were racially as well as historically distinct from the rest of the
continent. They had been in name part of the Turkish Empire, and any
European interference in their affairs was as much a question of
European politics as the problems of the Balkans. Two countries in this
area fell under European direction during the period with which we are
concerned, and in each case the effects upon European politics were
very great. In 1881 France, with the deliberate encouragement of
Bismarck, sent armies into Tunis, and assumed the protectorate of that
misgoverned region. She had good grounds for her action. Not only had
she large trade-interests in Tunis, but the country was separated from
her earlier dominion in Algeria only by an artificial line, and its
disorders increased the difficulty of developing the efficient
administration which she had established there. Unhappily Italy also
had interests in Tunis. There were more Italian than French residents
in the country, which is separated from Sicily only by a narrow belt of
sea. And Italy, who was beginning to conceive colonial ambitions, had
not unnaturally marked down Tunis as her most obvious sphere of
influence. The result was to create a long-lived ill-feeling between
the two Latin countries. As a consequence of the annexation of Tunis,
Italy was persuaded in the next year (1882) to join the Triple
Alliance; and France, having burnt her fingers, became chary of
colonial adventures in regions that were directly under the eye of
Europe. Isolated, insecure, and eternally suspicious of Germany, she
could not afford to be drawn into European quarrels. This is in a large
degree the explanation of her vacillating action in regard to Egypt.
In Egypt the political influence of France had been preponderant ever
since the time of Mehemet Ali; perhaps we should say, ever since the
time of Napoleon. And political influence had been accompanied by
trading and financial interests. France had a larger share of the trade
of Egypt, and had lent more money to the ruling princes of the country,
than any other country save England. She had designed and executed the
Suez Canal. But this waterway, once opened, was used mainly by British
ships on the way to India, Australia, and the Far East. It became a
point of vital strategic importance to Britain, who, though she had
opposed its construction, eagerly seized the chance of buying a great
block of shares in the enterprise from the bankrupt Khedive. Thus
French and British interests in Egypt were equally great; greater than
those of all the rest of Europe put together. When the native
government of Egypt fell into bankruptcy (1876), the two powers set up
a sort of condominium, or joint control of the finances, in order to
ensure the payment of interest on the Egyptian debt held by their
citizens. To bankruptcy succeeded political chaos; and it became
apparent that if the rich land of Egypt was not to fall into utter
anarchy, there must be direct European intervention. The two powers
proposed to take joint action; the rest of Europe assented. But the
Sultan of Turkey, as suzerain of Egypt, threatened to make
difficulties. At the last moment France, fearful of the complications
that might result, and resolute to avoid the danger of European war,
withdrew from the project of joint intervention. Britain went on alone;
and although she hoped and believed that she would quickly be able to
restore order, and thereupon to evacuate the country, found herself
drawn into a labour of reconstruction that could not be dropped. We
shall in the next chapter have more to say on the British occupation of
Egypt, as part of the British achievement during this period. In the
meanwhile, its immediate result was continuous friction between France
and Britain. France could not forgive herself or Britain for the
opportunity which she had lost. The embitterment caused by the Egyptian
question lasted throughout the period, and was not healed till the
Entente of 1904. It intensified and exacerbated the rivalry of the two
countries in other fields. It made each country incapable of judging
fairly the actions of the other. To wounded and embittered France, the
perfectly honest British explanations of the reasons for delay in
evacuating Egypt seemed only so many evidences of hypocrisy masking
greed. To Britain the French attitude seemed fractious and
unreasonable, and she suspected in every French forward movement in
other fields--notably in the Eastern Soudan and the upper valley of the
Nile--an attempt to attack or undermine her. Thus Egypt, like Tunis,
illustrated the influence of European politics in the extra-European
field. The power that profited most was Germany, who had strengthened
herself by drawing Italy into the Triple Alliance, and had kept France
at her mercy by using colonial questions as a means of alienating her
from her natural friends. It was, in truth, only from this point of
view that colonial questions had any interest for Bismarck. He was, as
he repeatedly asserted almost to the day of his death, 'no colony man.'
But the time was at hand when he was to be forced out of this attitude.
For already the riches of tropical Africa were beginning to attract the
attention of Europe.
The most active and energetic of the powers in tropical Africa was
France. From her ancient foothold at Senegal she was already, in the
late 'seventies, pushing inland towards the upper waters of the Niger;
while further south her vigorous explorer de Brazza was penetrating the
hinterland behind the French coastal settlements north of the Congo
mouth. Meanwhile the explorations of Livingstone and Stanley had given
the world some conception of the wealth of the vast exterior. In 1876
Leopold, King of the Belgians, summoned a conference at Brussels to
consider the possibility of setting the exploration and settlement of
Africa upon an international basis. Its result was the formation of an
International African Association, with branches in all the principal
countries. But from the first the branches dropped all serious pretence
of international action. They became (so far as they exercised any
influence) purely national organisations for the purpose of acquiring
the maximum amount of territory for their own states. And the central
body, after attempting a few unsuccessful exploring expeditions,
practically resolved itself into the organ of King Leopold himself, and
aimed at creating a neutral state in Central Africa under his
protection. In 1878 H. M. Stanley returned from the exploration of the
Congo. He was at once invited by King Leopold to undertake the
organisation of the Congo basin for his Association, and set out again
for that purpose in 1879. But he soon found himself in conflict with
the active French agents under de Brazza, who had made their way into
the Congo valley from the north-west. And at the same time Portugal,
reviving ancient and dormant claims, asserted that the Congo belonged
to her. It was primarily to find a solution for these disputes that the
Berlin Conference was summoned in December 1884. Meanwhile the rush for
territory was going on furiously in other regions of Africa. Not only
on the Congo, but on the Guinea Coast and its hinterland, France was
showing an immense activity, and was threatening to reduce to small
coastal enclaves the old British settlements on this coast. Only the
energy shown by a group of British merchants, who formed themselves
into a National African Company in 1881, and the vigorous action of
their leader, Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Taubman Goldie, prevented the
extrusion of British interests from the greater part of the Niger
valley, where they had hitherto been supreme. In Madagascar, too, the
ancient ambitions of France had revived. Though British trading and
missionary activities in the island were at this date probably greater
than French, France claimed large rights, especially in the north-east
of the island. These claims drew her into a war with the native power
of the Hovas, which began in 1883, and ended in 1885 with a vague
recognition of French suzerainty. Again, Italy had, in 1883, obtained
her first foothold in Eritrea, on the shore of the Red Sea. And
Germany, also, had suddenly made up her mind to embark upon the career
of empire. In 1883 the Bremen merchant, Luderitz, appeared in
South-west Africa, where there were a few German mission stations and
trading-centres, and annexed a large area which Bismarck was persuaded
to take under the formal protection of Germany. This region had
hitherto been vaguely regarded as within the British sphere, but though
native princes, missionaries, and in 1868 even the Prussian government,
had requested Britain to establish a formal protectorate, she had
always declined to do so. In the next year another German agent, Dr.
Nachtigal, was commissioned by the German government to report on
German trade interests on the West Coast, and the British government
was formally acquainted with his mission and requested to instruct its
agents to assist him. The real purpose of the mission was shown when
Nachtigal made a treaty with the King of Togoland, on the Guinea Coast,
whereby he accepted German suzerainty. A week later a similar treaty
was made with some of the native chiefs in the Cameroons. In this
region British interests had hitherto been predominant, and the chiefs
had repeatedly asked for British protection, which had always been
refused. A little later the notorious Karl Peters, with a few
companions disguised as working engineers, arrived at Zanzibar on the
East Coast, with a commission from the German Colonial Society to peg
out German claims. In the island of Zanzibar British interests had long
been overwhelmingly predominant; and the Sultan, who had large and
vague claims to supremacy over a vast extent of the mainland, had
repeatedly asked the British government to take these regions under its
protectorate. He had always been refused. Peters' luggage consisted
largely of draft treaty-forms; and he succeeded in making treaties with
native princes (usually unaware of the meaning of the documents they
were signing) whereby some 60,000 square miles were brought under
German control. The protectorate over these lands had not been accepted
by the German government when the Conference of Berlin met. It was
formally accepted in the next year (1885). Far from being opposed by
Britain, the establishment of German power in East Africa was actually
welcomed by the British government, whose foreign secretary, Earl
Granville, wrote that his government 'views with favour these schemes,
the realisation of which will entail the civilisation of large tracts
over which hitherto no European influence has been exercised.' And when
a group of British traders began to take action further north, in the
territory which later became British East Africa, and in which Peters
had done nothing, the British government actually consulted the German
government before licensing their action. Thus before the meeting of
the Conference of Berlin the foundations of the German empire in Africa
were already laid; the outlines of the vast French empire in the north
had begun to appear; and the curious dominion of Leopold of Belgium in
the Congo valley had begun to take shape.
The Conference of Berlin (Dec. 1884-Feb. 1885), which marks the close
of the first stage in the partition of Africa, might have achieved
great things if it had endeavoured to lay down the principles upon
which European control over backward peoples should be exercised. But
it made no such ambitious attempt. It prescribed the rules of the game
of empire-building, ordaining that all protectorates should be formally
notified by the power which assumed them to the other powers, and that
no annexation should be made of territory which was not 'effectively'
occupied; but evidently the phrase 'effective occupation' can be very
laxly interpreted. It provided that there should be free navigation of
the Congo and Niger rivers, and freedom of trade for alienations within
the Congo valley and certain other vaguely defined areas. But it made
no similar provision for other parts of Africa; and it whittled away
the value of what it did secure by the definite proviso that should
parts of these areas be annexed by independent states, the restriction
upon their control of trade should lapse. It recognised the illegality
of the slave-trade, and imposed upon annexing powers the duty of
helping to suppress it; this provision was made much fuller and more
definite by a second conference at Brussels in 1890, on the demand of
Britain, who had hitherto contended almost alone against the traffic in
human flesh. But no attempt was made to define native rights, to
safeguard native customs, to prohibit the maintenance of forces larger
than would be necessary for the maintenance of order: in short, no
attempt was made to lay down the doctrine that the function of a ruling
power among backward peoples is that of a trustee on behalf of its
simple subjects and on behalf of civilisation. That the partition of
Africa should have been effected without open war, and that the
questions decided at Berlin should have been so easily and peacefully
agreed upon, seemed at the moment to be a good sign. But the spirit
which the conference expressed was not a healthy spirit.
After 1884 the activity of the powers in exploration, annexation and
development became more furious than ever. Britain now began seriously
to arouse herself to the danger of exclusion from vast areas where her
interests had hitherto been predominant; and it was during these years
that all her main acquisitions of territory in Africa were made:
Rhodesia and Central Africa in the south, East Africa and Somaliland in
the East, Nigeria and the expansion of her lesser protectorates in the
West. To these years also belonged the definite, and most unfortunate,
emergence of Italy as a colonising power. She had got a foothold in
Eritrea in 1883; in 1885 it was, with British aid, enlarged by the
annexation of territory which had once been held by Egypt, but had been
abandoned when she lost the Soudan. But the Italian claims in Eritrea
brought on conflict with the neighbouring native power of Abyssinia. In
spite of a sharp defeat at Dogali in 1887, she succeeded in holding her
own in this conflict; and in 1889 Abyssinia accepted a treaty which
Italy claimed to be a recognition of her suzerainty. But the
Abyssinians repudiated this interpretation; and in a new war, which
began in 1896, inflicted upon the Italians so disastrous a defeat at
Adowa that they were constrained to admit the complete independence of
Abyssinia--the sole native state which has so far been able to hold its
own against the pressure of Europe. Meanwhile in 1889 and the following
years Italy had, once more with the direct concurrence of Britain,
marked out a new territory in Somaliland.
The main features of the years from 1884 to 1900 were the rapidity with
which the territories earlier annexed were expanded and organised, more
especially by France. In the 'nineties her dominions extended from the
Mediterranean to the Guinea Coast, and she had conceived the ambition
of extending them also across Africa from West to East. This ambition
led her into a new and more acute conflict with Britain, who, having
undertaken the reconquest of the Egyptian Soudan and the upper valley
of the Nile, held that she could not permit a rival to occupy the upper
waters of the great river, or any part of the territory that belonged
to it. Hence when the intrepid explorer, Marchand, after a toilsome
expedition which lasted for two years, planted the French flag at
Fashoda in 1898, he was promptly disturbed by Kitchener, fresh from the
overthrow of the Khalifa and the reconquest of Khartoum, and was
compelled to withdraw. The tension was severe; no episode in the
partition of Africa had brought the world so near to the outbreak of a
European war. But in the end the dispute was settled by the
Anglo-French agreement of 1898, which may be said to mark the
conclusion of the process of partition. It was the last important
treaty in a long series which filled the twenty years following 1878,
and which had the result of leaving Africa, with the exception of
Morocco, Tripoli, and Abyssinia, completely divided among the chief
European states. Africa was the main field of the ambitions and
rivalries of the European powers during this period; the other fields
may be more rapidly surveyed. In Central Asia and the Near East the
main features of the period were two. The first was the steady advance
of Russia towards the south-east, which awakened acute alarms in
Britain regarding India, and led to the adoption of a 'forward policy'
among the frontier tribes in the north-west of India. The second was
the gradual and silent penetration of Turkey by German influence. Here
there was no partition or annexation, But Germany became the political
protector of the Turk; undertook the reorganisation of his armies;
obtained great commercial concessions; bought up his railways, ousting
the earlier British and French concerns which had controlled them, and
built new lines. The greatest of these was the vitally important
project of the Bagdad railway, which was taken in hand just before the
close of the period. It was a project whose political aims outweighed
its commercial aims. And it provided a warning of the gigantic designs
which Germany was beginning to work out. But as yet, in 1900, the
magnitude of these designs was unperceived. And the problems of the
Middle East were not yet very disturbing. The Turkish Empire remained
intact; so did the Persian Empire, though both were becoming more
helpless, partly owing to the decrepitude of their governments, partly
owing to the pressure of European financial and trading interests. As
yet the empires of the Middle East seemed to form a region
comparatively free from European influence. But this was only seeming.
The influence of Europe was at work in them; and it was probably
inevitable that some degree of European political tutelage should
follow as the only means of preventing the disintegration which must
result from the pouring of new wine into the old bottles.
In the Far East--in the vast empire of China--this result seemed to be
coming about inevitably and rapidly. The ancient pot-bound civilisation
of China had withstood the impact of the West in the mid-nineteenth
century without breaking down; but China had made no attempt, such as
Japan had triumphantly carried out, to adapt herself to the new
conditions, and her system was slowly crumbling under the influence of
the European traders, teachers, and missionaries whom she had been
compelled to admit. The first of the powers to take advantage of this
situation was France, who already possessed a footing in Cochin-China,
and was tempted during the colonial enthusiasm of the 'eighties to
transform it into a general supremacy over Annam and Tonking. As early
as 1874 she had obtained from the King of Annam a treaty which she
interpreted as giving her suzerain powers. The King of Annam himself
repudiated this interpretation, and maintained that he was a vassal of
China. China took the same view; and after long negotiations a war
between France and China broke out. It lasted for four years, and
demanded a large expenditure of strength. But it ended (1885) with the
formal recognition of French suzerainty over Annam, and a further
decline of Chinese prestige.