lines towards and along _the Russian frontier_, there must be put the
fact that although, by this means, Germany acquired the power to effect
a great and speedy concentration of troops on the frontier itself, her
locomotives and rolling stock would not be able to cross into Russia and
run on the railways there because of _the difference in gauge_. On the
eastern frontier the question as to how an invasion in large force could
be effected was, consequently, quite different from that which would
present itself on the western frontiers, where the railway gauges of
Belgium, Luxemburg and France were the same as those of Germany.
It was certain that whenever, in the event of war, German troops were
able to enter Russian territory, Russia would withdraw into the interior
or else destroy such of her locomotives and rolling stock as the enemy
might otherwise utilise for his own purpose. If, therefore, the Germans
wanted to use the existing Russian lines, they would either have to
build, in advance, locomotives and rolling stock capable of running
thereon, or they would have to convert the Russian gauge of 5 feet to
the German gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches, so that German trains could run
on the other side of the frontier. As already remarked on page 61, the
reduction of the broader gauge into a narrower one would involve fewer
engineering difficulties than an expansion of the German gauge into the
Russian gauge; yet even the former procedure, if carried out over any
considerable length of line, would take up a good deal of time, and
this would be still more the case if the Russians, when they retreated,
destroyed the railway track and bridges behind them, as they might
confidently be expected to do.
Dependence, again, on the existing lines across the frontier would,
apart from questions of conversion and reconstruction, still give
Germany only a very small number of railway routes into Russia, and
these, also, at points where the opposition offered might be especially
active.
What, in these circumstances, Germany evidently planned to do as soon
as her troops crossed the frontier, in the event of a war with Russia,
was to supplement the strategical lines on her own side of that frontier
by military light railways which, laid on the ordinary roads, or on
clearances to be effected, on Russian territory, would render her
independent of the ordinary railways there, while offering the further
advantage (1) that the laying of these narrow-gauge military lines--in
rough and ready fashion, yet in a way that would answer the purposes of
the moment--could be effected in shorter time than the gauge-conversion
and the reconstruction of the Russian trunk lines would take; and (2)
that these military railways could be built from any points along
the frontier which were capable of being reached direct from the
German strategical lines, and offered either an existing road or the
opportunity of making one for the purpose.
In the light of this assumption, one can understand more clearly the
reason for those short lines which, branching out from the German
strategical railways that run parallel to the Russian frontier though
some miles from it, are carried to the frontier and there suddenly stop.
It was, presumably, from such terminal points as these that the laying
of the military railways on Russian territory would begin.
As regards the type of railways to be employed and the preparations made
in advance for supplying and constructing them, we have the testimony of
Mr. Roy Norton, an American writer, who says in "The Man of Peace"--one
of the "Oxford Pamphlets, 1914-15," published by the Oxford University
Press:--
On February 14 of this year (1914) I was in Cologne, and
blundered, where I had no business, into what I learned was
a military-stores yard. Among other curious things were tiny
locomotives loaded on flats which could be run off those cars
by an ingenious contrivance of metals, or, as we call them in
America, rails. Also there were other flats loaded with sections
of tracks fastened on cup ties (sleepers that can be laid on the
surface of the earth) and sections of miniature bridges on other
flats. I saw how it was possible to lay a line of temporary
railway, including bridges, almost anywhere in an incredibly
short space of time, if one had the men.... Before I could
conclude my examination I discovered that I was on _verboten_
ground; but the official who directed me out told me that what I
had seen were construction outfits.
Mr. Norton further quotes the following from a letter he had just
received from a Hollander who was a refugee in Germany at the outbreak
of the war, and reached home on August 30, 1914:--
Never, I believe, did a country so thoroughly get ready
for war. I saw the oddest spectacle, the building of a railway
behind a battle-field. They had diminutive little engines and
rails in sections, so that they could be bolted together, and
even bridges that could be put across ravines in a twinkling.
Flat cars that could be carried by hand and dropped on the
rails, great strings of them. Up to the nearest point of battle
came, on the regular railway, this small one.... It seemed to
me that hundreds of men had been trained for this task, for in
but a few minutes that small portable train was buzzing backward
and forward on its own small portable rails, distributing food
and supplies.... I've an idea that in time of battle it would
be possible for those sturdy little trains to shift troops to
critical or endangered points at the rate of perhaps twenty
miles an hour.... A portable railway for a battle-field struck
me as coming about as close to making war by machinery as
anything I have ever heard of.
One may thus reasonably conclude, in regard to the Russo-German
frontier, (1) that the broader gauge of the Russian railways would
itself offer no real obstacle to the German troops whenever the time
came for their invading Russian territory; (2) that in this eventuality
the Germans would be able, by reason of the preparations made by them in
advance, to lay down along the ordinary Russian roads lines of military
light railways already put together in complete sections of combined
rails and sleepers, which sections would only require to be fastened
the one to the other to be at once ready for use; and (3) that these
portable military railways, to be built on Russian territory, were
designed both to supplement and to render still more efficient Germany's
network of strategical railways along her eastern frontier.
In _southern Silesia_ many improvements in the rail communication with
Austria were made in 1900-10. New connections were established with the
frontier railways, offering alternative routes from interior points,
while various lines which stopped short of the frontier were extended to
it and linked up with Austrian lines on the other side.
In her relations with _France_, Germany's efforts to improve still
further her rail communications to the eastern and north-eastern
frontiers of that country have been continuous since the war of 1870-1,
on which campaign she started with a great advantage over the French
since she was able to concentrate her troops on those frontiers by
nine different routes, namely, six in North Germany, and three in
South Germany, whereas France herself had then only three available.
The course adopted by Germany has been (1) to secure a larger number
of routes to the French frontier, South Germany's three lines, for
instance, being increased to six; (2) to provide double track, or to
substitute double for single track, for lines leading to the frontier
and having a strategical importance; (3) to construct lines which
cross transversely those proceeding direct to the French frontiers,
thus allowing of intercommunication and transfer of traffic from one
to another; and (4) improvement of the interior network of lines,
with a view to facilitating military transport services in time of
war. "Altogether," says Joesten, "we have nineteen points at which
our railways cross the Rhine, and sixteen double-track lines for the
transport of our troops from east to west, as against the nine which
were alone available for concentration in 1870."
While showing all this activity on the immediate frontiers of France,
Germany was no less zealous in providing alternative routes for a fresh
invasion of French territory, the adoption of this further policy being
obviously inspired by the energy that France was herself showing in the
strengthening of her north-east frontier against invasion.
One such alternative route was represented by _Luxemburg_. Not only
did Germany have lines of her own on the north, south, and east of
Luxemburg, but the lines within the Grand Duchy itself had passed under
German control; and if Germany thought fit to disregard her treaty
obligations, and use the lines for strategical purposes, Luxemburg was
powerless to prevent her from so doing.
Another alternative route was by way of _Belgium_; and the various
developments of Germany's railway policy on the Belgian frontier since
1908 point in an unmistakable manner to deliberate preparation on her
part for an invasion of that country, whether for the purpose of passing
through it, as a means of reaching a more vulnerable part of French
territory than the strongly fortified north-east corner, or in pursuance
of designs against Belgium itself.
The full story of Germany's activity in this direction will be found in
a series of articles from the _Fortnightly Review_ reproduced by the
author, Mr. Demetrius C. Boulger, in "England's Arch-Enemy: A Collection
of Essays forming an Indictment of German Policy during the last sixteen
years" (London, 1914).[53]
The story opens with the establishment by Germany, about the year 1896,
of a camp at Elsenborn, ten miles north-east of Malmédy, a town situate
close to the Belgian frontier and four miles from the Belgian town of
Stavelot. The camp was begun on a small scale, and at the outset the
establishment of it on the site in question was declared by the Prussian
authorities to have no strategical significance. It steadily developed,
however, in size and importance, and its position, character and
surroundings all suggested that it was designed for aggressive rather
than defensive purposes.
At first the camp was reached from Hellenthal, a station, fourteen miles
away, on a light railway connected with the lines in the Eifel district,
between Cologne and Treves (Trier), on the Moselle; but in 1896 a light
railway was constructed from Aix-la-Chapelle parallel with the Belgian
frontier as far as St. Vith, a distance of fifty miles, the main purpose
of this line being stated to be the securing of a better connection,
from Sourbrodt, for the camp at Elsenborn. The line was, nevertheless,
extended to Trois Vièrges (Ger. Uflingen), where it connected both
with the railway system of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg and with the
main lines of the Belgian System from Pepinster, via Spa, Stavelot,
Trois Ponts and Gouvy, to Trois Vièrges. From Trois Ponts there is a
direct route to Liége, while Gouvy, situate only a few miles from Trois
Vièrges, is the junction both for Libramont, on the main line from
Brussels to Metz and Alsace, and for the further junction of Beatrix,
the central point of a Belgian line running parallel with the French
frontier from Dinant to Luxemburg.
The single-track line from Aix-la-Chapelle along the Belgian frontier,
supplemented by a light-railway branch from Weismes to Malmédy, met all
the traffic requirements of a scantily-populated and primitive district,
devoid alike of industries and of local resources, and offering very
little traffic; but in 1908 the Prussian Government suddenly decided
to double the line, first as far as Weismes, and then to St. Vith,
notwithstanding that there was no apparent justification for such a
procedure. The widening involved, also, the reconstruction of a high
embankment originally designed for one set of metals, a fact which
showed that only a few years previously--since when the local traffic
had not materially increased--there was no idea that a double-track
line would ever be wanted. Still more significant was the fact that, in
addition to the second set of metals, sidings were provided on such a
scale at the stations _en route_, in localities possessing only a dozen
or so of cottages, that, in the aggregate, trains containing a complete
Army Corps could have been accommodated on them. At one station three
sidings, each about 500 yards long, were supplied, and at another a
perfect network of sidings was constructed, including two which were at
least half a mile long and were, also, equipped with turntables.[54]
The provision, more especially, of sidings such as these at local
stations where the trains were few and far between and the ordinary
merchandise was represented by some occasional coal trucks, could have
but one purpose. They were obviously designed--in conjunction with
the substitution of double for single track--to permit of a large
body of troops, whether from Aix-la-Chapelle (an important point of
concentration for the Prussian Army, on mobilisation), or elsewhere,
being assembled in the immediate neighbourhood of Weismes, the junction
of the branch line to Malmédy, for an invasion of Belgium. The doubling
of the rails as far as Weismes was completed by May, 1909. It was
afterwards continued to St. Vith, and so on to Trois Vièrges.
We have thus far, however, got only the first chapter of the story. The
second opens with the further attempt of the Prussian Government to
secure an extension of the Weismes-Malmédy line as a "light railway"
across the frontier to Stavelot, three miles east of Trois Ponts, thus
giving a shorter route from Aix-la-Chapelle and the camp at Elsenborn
to Liége, Namur, Louvain and Brussels, and a second route to Gouvy for
Libramont, Bertrix and the north of France.
As the result of the influence they were able to bring to bear on them,
the Germans succeeded in persuading the Belgian Government, not only to
agree to the Weismes-Malmédy branch being continued to Stavelot, but
themselves to build the greater part of this connecting link, and even
to cut, on the north of Stavelot, a tunnel without which that town would
have remained inaccessible by rail.
Once more there could be no suggestion that this connecting link, opened
in October, 1913, was wanted in the interests of the ordinary traffic,
the needs of which were adequately met by the diligence running twice
a day between Malmédy and Stavelot. What was really aimed at was a
rail connection with the Belgian system by means of which the troops
concentrated in those extensive sidings on the Aix-la-Chapelle-St.
Vith line could be poured into Belgium in a continuous stream for the
achievement of designs on Belgium or--operating from either the Belgian
or the Luxemburg frontier--on France.
In helping to provide this connection, Belgium, as subsequent events
were to show, was in a position akin to that of a man forced to dig
the grave in which he is to be buried after being shot; but Belgium,
we are told, "yielded in this and other matters because she could not
resist without support, and no support was forthcoming." There certainly
was an attempt to lull possible suspicions by the designation of the
Malmédy-Stavelot link as a "light railway." It was, also, evident that
the physical conditions of the Weismes-Malmédy branch, with which it
was to connect, would not permit of any heavy traffic along it. But
the so-called "light railway" was built with the same gauge as the
main-line systems on each side of the frontier; the powers obtained in
respect to it allowed of trains being run at a speed of forty miles an
hour, as against the recognised speed of sixteen miles an hour on light
railways proper; while no sooner had the link been established than
Germany discarded the defective Weismes-Malmédy branch for the purposes
of military transport, and built a new line from Malmédy to Weywertz,
a station to the north or north-east of Weismes. This Malmédy-Weywertz
branch would, it was understood, be used exclusively for military
traffic, and the station at Weywertz was, in due course, provided with
its own extensive platforms and network of sidings for the accommodation
of troop trains.
We now come to the third chapter of the story; and here we learn that
what was happening in the immediate proximity of the German-Belgian
frontier was but part of a much wider scheme, though one still designed
to serve the same purpose--that, namely, of ensuring the invasion of
Belgium by German troops with the greatest facility and in the least
possible time.
From Weywertz, the new junction for Stavelot and the Belgian railways
in general, the Germans built a line to Jünkerath, a station north of
Gerolstein, on the line from Cologne to Treves. Then from Blankenheim,
immediately north of Jünkerath, and from Lissendorf, on the south
of the same station, there were opened for traffic, in July, 1912,
new double-track lines which, meeting at Dümpelfeld, on the existing
Remagen-Adenau line, gave a through route for troops from the Rhine,
across the Eifel district to Weywertz, and so on to Stavelot for
destinations (in war-time) throughout Belgium, Luxemburg, or along the
northern frontier of France.
This direct route to Belgium offered the further advantage that it
avoided any necessity for troops from the Rhine to pass through
Cologne, where much congestion might otherwise occur. It also left
the Aix-la-Chapelle-Weywertz route free for troops from Cologne and
Westphalia, while a further improvement of the facilities for crossing
the Rhine made Remagen still more accessible for troops from all parts
of Central Germany destined for Belgium--and beyond.
Reference to the Prussian State Railways official map shows, also, (1)
a new line from Coblenz which joins, at Mayen, the existing railway
from Andernach, on the Rhine, to Gerolstein, in the Eifel, whence the
Belgian border can be reached either via Jünkerath and Weywertz or
via Lammersweiler and the Luxemburg station of Trois-Vièrges; (2) the
extension to Daun, also on the Andernach-Gerolstein route, of a short
branch on the Coblenz-Treves Railway which previously terminated at
Wittlich; and (3) several other small lines in the Eifel district,
offering additional facilities for the concentration of troops on the
Belgian frontier.
So the Malmédy-Stavelot "light railway"--especially in view of this
series of new German lines all leading thereto--had become a railway
of the greatest strategical importance; and the fourth chapter of the
story (though one upon which it is not proposed to enter here) would
show how this network of strategical lines, developed with so much
energy and thoroughness, was brought into operation in 1914 immediately
on the outbreak of war, and, from that time, constituted one of the
main arteries for the passage of German troops to and from Belgium and
Northern France.
In regard to _Holland_, one finds a new line of railway from Jülich--a
station reached from Düren, on the main line between Cologne and
Aix-la-Chapelle--to Dalheim, the German frontier station on the direct
line from Cologne via Rheydt to Roermond, a Dutch station on the right
bank of the Meuse (which is here crossed by two bridges), and thence
through the Belgian stations of Moll and Herenthals and across the flat
expanse of the Campine to Antwerp.
This line obviously offers an alternative route for the transport of
troops from Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle to Dalheim; but of still greater
significance is the information given by the writer of the _Fortnightly
Review_ articles as to the changes carried out at Dalheim itself,
transforming that place from "an unimportant halting-place" into "a
point of concentration of great strategical importance" on the frontiers
of Holland.
Inasmuch as the line from Dalheim to Roermond and on to Antwerp was
already a double one, the alterations made at Dalheim were confined
to a liberal provision of railway sidings in order that, as we have
seen was done on the Belgian frontier, a large body of troops could
be concentrated for a possible invasion, in this instance, either of
Holland itself, or of Belgium by the alternative route across the
south-eastern corner of Dutch territory.
One of the Dalheim sidings, about a quarter of a mile in length,
situate on a high embankment; and, in order that it could be reached
without interfering with other traffic, a bridge over which the main
line runs east of Dalheim station was widened to allow of the laying
across it of a third pair of rails. Other sidings adjoining Dalheim
station have no fewer than ten pairs of parallel rails, and there
are still others on the west of the same station, towards the Dutch
frontier. At Wegberg and Rheydt, east of Dalheim, further sidings were
provided which, like those at Dalheim, would not possibly be required
for other than military reasons.
Summing up the situation in regard alike to the Belgian and the Dutch
frontiers, Mr. Boulger remarks, in his article of February, 1914:--
Thus on an arc extending from Treves to Nijmegen (excluding
from our purview what is called the main concentration on the
Saar, behind Metz), the German War Department has arranged for a
simultaneous advance by fourteen separate routes across Holland,
Belgium and the Grand Duchy.
In view of all these facts, there is no possible room for doubt as to
the prolonged and extensive nature of the preparations made by Germany
for the war she instigated in 1914; but the particular consideration
with which we are here concerned is that of seeing to what extent those
preparations related either to the construction of strategical lines of
railway or to the adaptation of existing lines to strategical purposes.
Leaving Belgium and Holland, and looking at the Prussian State lines in
_Schleswig-Holstein_, one finds on the official map the indication of
a new line (partly built and partly under construction in 1910) which,
starting from Holtenau, at the mouth of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal in the
Baltic, continues the short distance to Kiel, then turns to the west,
connects with the Neumünster-Vandrup main line to Denmark, crosses the
canal, and so on to Husum, a junction on the Altona-Esbjerg west-coast
route. This new line would evidently be of strategical advantage in
moving troops from Kiel either for the defence of the Kaiser Wilhelm
Canal or to resist invasion by sea on the north of the waterway. Then
the existing line from Kiel through Eckernförde to Flensburg, on the
Neumünster-Vandrup route to Denmark, and giving through connection from
Kiel to Tondern and Hoyer on the west coast--has been "nationalised,"
and so added to the Prussian State system; while from two stations just
to the north of Flensburg there are short new lines which, meeting at
Torsbüll, continue to the Alsener Sund, on the west of the Little Belt,
and may--or may not--be of value in improving Prussia's strategical
position in this corner of the Baltic, and in immediate proximity to the
Danish island of Fünen.
Finally a large number of additions have been made in recent years to
the State Railway systems in the interior of Germany; and, although a
good proportion of these may have been provided to meet the increased
economic and social needs of the German people, many of them must
be regarded as strategical lines designed to facilitate (1) the
mobilisation of troops on the outbreak of war; (2) their concentration,
by routes covering all parts of the Empire, as arranged long in advance;
and (3) their speedy transfer across country from one frontier to
another, should several campaigns be fought at the same time.
The resort by Germany to strategical railways in Africa and elsewhere,
as a means of furthering her Weltpolitik, will be dealt with in the two
chapters that follow.
FOOTNOTES:
[52] "Gesammelte Schriften." Berlin, 1891, etc.
[53] The articles which here specially come into question are--"The
Menace of Elsenborn" (published in the _Fortnightly_, July, 1908); "An
Object Lesson in German Plans" (February, 1910); and "A Further Object
Lesson in German Plans" (February, 1914).
[54] They were "hydraulic turntables," according to Major
Stuart-Stephens. See _The English Review_ for June, 1915.
CHAPTER XIX
A GERMAN-AFRICAN EMPIRE
Strategical railways in South-West Africa were built by Germany as
a means towards the achievement of her designs on British South
Africa; but these, in turn, were only part of a still greater plan
having for its purpose the transformation of Africa as a whole into a
German-African Empire which should compare in value, if not in glory,
with that of the Indian Empire itself.
Colonisation societies began to be formed in Germany as early as 1849;
though in the first instance the aims of their promoters were directed
mainly to such parts of the world as Brazil, Texas, the Mosquito Shore,
Chili and Morocco. All such places as these, however, offered the
disadvantage that Germans going there could only become foreign settlers
under the more or less civilised Powers already in possession.[55]
In the 60's and 70's of the nineteenth century attention in Germany
began to be diverted, rather, to Africa as a land where vast expanses,
possessing great prospects and possibilities, and not yet controlled by
any civilised Power, were still available not only for colonisation but
for acquisition. So it was that successive German travellers explored
many different parts of Africa and published accounts of their journeys
designed, not merely as contributions to geographical science, but,
also, to impress a then somewhat apathetic German public with the
importance of their acquiring a "footing" on the African continent.
In 1873 a German Society for the Exploration of Equatorial Africa was
founded. This was followed in 1876 by the German African Society, and
subsequently these two bodies were combined under the name of the Berlin
African Society.
Not long after this, evidence was forthcoming that something far more
than the settling of German colonists in Africa and the securing of a
"footing" on African soil by Germany was really being kept in view.
In 1880 Sir Bartle Frere, at that time Governor of the Cape and High
Commissioner for South Africa, forwarded to Lord Kimberley a translation
of an article which had just been contributed to the _Geographische
Nachrichten_ by Ernst von Weber; and, in doing so he informed the
Colonial Secretary that the article contained "a clear and well-argued
statement in favour of the plan for a German colony in South Africa
which was much discussed in German commercial and political circles
even before the Franco-German War, and is said to have been one of the
immediate motives of the German mission of scientific inquiry which
visited southern and eastern Africa in 1870-71."
Von Weber's proposals[56] pointed, however, to the creation, not simply
of "a German colony" in South Africa, but of a German Empire in Africa.
"A new Empire," he wrote, "possibly more valuable and more brilliant
than even the Indian Empire, awaits in the newly-discovered Central
Africa that Power which shall possess sufficient courage, strength and
intelligence to acquire it"; and he proceeded to show (1) why Germany
should be this Power, and (2) the means by which she might eventually
secure control of the whole country.
The establishment of trading settlements was to ensure for the Germans
a footing in the districts north of the Transvaal, and this was to
be followed by the flooding of South Africa generally with German
immigrants. The Boers spread throughout South Africa were already allied
to the Germans by speech and habits, and they would, he thought, be
sure to emigrate to the north and place themselves under the protection
of the German colonies there, rather than remain subject to the hated
British. In any case, "a constant mass-immigration of Germans would
gradually bring about a decided numerical preponderance of Germans over
the Dutch population, and of itself would effect the Germanisation of
the country in a peaceful manner. It was," he continued, "this free,
unlimited room for annexation in the north, this open access to the
heart of Africa, which principally inspired me with the idea, now more
than four years ago, that Germany should try, by the acquisition of
Delagoa Bay and the subsequent continued influx of German immigrants
into the Transvaal, to secure future dominion over the country, and
so pave the way for the foundation of a German-African Empire of the
future."
The procedure to be followed was (1) the acquiring of territory in
Africa by Germany wherever she could get it, whether in the central or
in the coastal districts; (2) co-operation with the Boers as a step
towards bringing them and their Republics under German suzerainty; and
(3) the overthrow of British influence, with the substitution for it of
German supremacy.
These ideas gained wide acceptance in Germany; they became a leading
factor in the colonial policy of the Imperial Government, and they
reconciled the German people, more or less, to the heavy burdens which
the developments of that policy were to involve.
GERMAN SOUTH-WEST AFRICA
The first steps towards the attainment of the aspirations entertained
were taken by Herr Adolf Lüderitz, a Bremen merchant who, acting under
the auspices of the German Colonial Society, and having received from
the Imperial Foreign Office assurances of its protection, established
a trading settlement, in April, 1883, in the bay of Angra Pequeña,
situate between Namaqualand and Damaraland on the west coast of Africa,
and about 150 miles north of Orange River, the northern boundary of
Cape Colony. Acquiring from a Hottentot chief a stretch of territory
215 miles in extent in the Hinterland of Angra Pequeña, Lüderitz
raised the German flag in the settlement, which thus became Germany's
first colony. Further concessions of territory were obtained, and in
September, 1884, Germany announced that the west coast of Africa, from
26 degrees S. latitude to Cape Frio, excepting Walfisch Bay (declared
British in 1878), had been placed under the protection of the German
Emperor. A treaty made between England and Germany in 1890 defined the
limits of the German South-West African Protectorate as bounded on the
south by the Orange River and Cape Colony, on the north by Portuguese
Angola, on the west by the Atlantic, and on the east by British
Bechuanaland, with the so-called "Caprivi Strip," giving Germany access
from the north-east corner of her Protectorate to a point on the Zambezi
River north of Victoria Falls.[57] The total area comprised within these
boundaries was about 322,200 square miles.
At the outset, the new Protectorate aroused little enthusiasm in Germany
as a colony where her surplus population could hope to settle and
prosper under the German flag instead of going to foreign countries,
as so many thousands of Germans were then doing. On a coast-line of
900 miles there was no good natural harbour except the one at Walfisch
Bay, owned by the British. Swakopmund and Lüderitzbucht, on which the
German colonists would have to rely, were then little better than open
roadsteads. Considerable expanses of the territory itself consist of
drought-stricken desert. The rainfall in Damaraland and Namaqualand
averages only about three inches a year. In certain districts a period
of five or six years has been known to pass without any rain at all.
A record of rainfall on some parts of the coast has shown a total of
one-fifth of an inch in the course of twelve months. At Walfisch Bay the
British settlement imports its fresh water from Capetown. On the higher
of the series of plateaux rising gradually to the Kalahari desert the
climatic conditions are more favourable, and the better rainfall in the
north-east allows of good crops being grown, while various sections are
favourable for stock-raising. In later years, also, various deposits
of copper were found in the district of Otavi, some 400 miles from
Swakopmund, and diamond fields, which yielded nearly £1,000,000 worth of
stones in the first year, were discovered east of Lüderitzbucht in 1908.
But in Germany the Protectorate was regarded as a desirable acquisition
mainly, if not exclusively, because of the advantages it was expected to
afford as a base for the eventual creation of a German-African Empire.
THE HERERO RISING
The attainment of this higher purpose seemed likely to be furthered as
the result of the steps taken to suppress the risings of the Hereros
and the Hottentots between the years 1903 and 1907. Not only did the
reinforcements sent out from Germany assume such proportions that at one
time the Germans are said to have had no fewer than 19,000 men under
arms in the Protectorate, but the troops took with them a plentiful
supply of pom-poms, mountain guns, field guns and Maxims of various
kinds, the _Revue Militaire des Armées Étrangères_ being led to remark
thereon that "the German columns had an unusually large proportion of
artillery, roughly two batteries to three companies of mounted infantry;
and it is difficult to believe that so many guns were necessary,
especially as the Hereros had no artillery at all.[58] Probably,"
the _Revue_ continued, "the artillery could have been dispensed with
altogether; and had this been done, the columns would have been rendered
more mobile."
The military measures taken appeared to be in excess of requirements
even when allowance was made for the fact that the campaign was fought
in difficult country and that the Germans themselves lost about 5,000
men; but the real significance of the policy adopted lay in the keeping
of a considerable proportion of the German expeditionary force in the
colony after the rising had, with German thoroughness, been effectively
crushed.
This procedure attracted attention and adverse comment even in Germany,
where doubts were already being entertained as to whether good value was
being received for the £30,000,000 which the suppression of the troubles
had cost. It was, however, made clear that the still considerable
body of German troops left in the colony was being kept on hand there
in case of the opportunity arising for its employment in another
direction--that, namely, of achieving Germany's aspirations in regard
to the conquest of British South Africa, and the final elimination of
British influence from Africa in general.
Evidence both as to the nature of these continued aspirations and as to
the further purpose it was hoped the troops on the spot might effect was
forthcoming in various directions.
In a book of 416 pages, published in 1905, under the title of "Das
neue Südafrika," Dr. Paul Samassa emphasised the part which the German
people had taken in the settlement of South Africa; pointed to the
close relationship and affinity of feeling between Germans and Boers;
encouraged the idea of their mutually looking forward to the opening up
of South Africa as "a land of settlement for the German race," and said,
further:--
German South-West Africa is, to-day, a strong tramp card in
our hands, from the point of view of Weltpolitik. In England
much has been said of late as to what a good thing it would
be for that country if our fleet were annihilated before it
became dangerous.... On our side we might cool these hot-heads,
and strengthen the peace party in England, if we reminded them
that, whatever the loss to ourselves of a war with that country,
England would run a greater risk--that of losing South Africa.
We have in German South-West Africa to-day about 12,000 troops,
of whom one-half will remain there for a considerable time. In
the event of a war between Germany and England the South African
coast would naturally be blockaded by England; and there would
then be nothing left for our troops to do but to go on to Cape
Colony--for their food supplies.
In so doing they could, he argued, count upon the support of the Boers,
of whom there were 14,000 opposed to the English at the end of the
South African war. As against this possible concentration of German
troops and Boers there was the fact that the English garrison in South
Africa did not exceed 20,000. So, he added, the people in England could
consider "what an incalculable adventure a war with Germany might be,
notwithstanding the superiority of the English fleet."
Speaking in the Reichstag in February, 1906, Herr Ledebour called
attention to the fact that Major von François, who at one time was
in command of German South-West Africa, had declared, in his book,
"Nama und Damara," issued three months previously, that fewer than one
thousand troops would suffice to maintain order in the colony; and Herr
Ledebour added:--"For two years imaginative Pan-German politicians
have been disseminating the idea that a large force must be maintained
in South-West Africa for the purpose of exercising in the sphere of
Weltpolitik pressure upon England, with the eventual object of invading
Cape Colony."
There is the testimony, also, of "An Anglo-German," who, in the course
of an article on "German Clerks in British Offices," published in _The
London Magazine_ for November, 1910, tells the following story:--
During a recent stay in Germany I was introduced by a man
I know to be one of the chief functionaries of the Commerce
Defence League[59] to a friend of his who had just returned
from German South-West Africa. On a subsequent meeting I entered
into conversation with this gentleman, and made inquiries about
German progress in that part of the world. He answered my
questions without reserve. Little headway was being made, and
little was looked for. Men and money were being freely expended,
without present return. The only good harbour (Walfisch Bay) is
a British possession, as likewise are all the islands of any
value which are dotted along the coast.
"Why then," was my inevitable query, "do the Germans persist
in their occupation of the country?"
He smiled craftily.
"We Germans look far ahead, my friend," he replied. "We
foresee a British débácle in South Africa, and we are on the
spot. Thanks to the pioneers of our excellent League, our
plans are all matured. The League finances the scheme and the
Imperial Government supplies the military forces. By cession--or
otherwise--Walfisch Bay will before long be German territory;
but in the meantime British Free Trade opposes no obstacle to
us, and we can pursue our purpose unmolested."
"But what is that purpose?" I asked, with the object of
leading him on.
"Surely you are not so blind as to need enlightenment!" was
his reply. "Germany has long regarded South Africa as a future
possession of her own. When the inevitable happens, and Great
Britain finds her hands full elsewhere, we are ready to strike
the moment the signal is given, and Cape Colony, Bechuanaland,
Rhodesia--all frontier States--will fall like ripe apples into
our grasp."
In order, however, that Germany might be prepared thus to take action
at a moment's notice, two things were essential, in addition to having
troops on the spot, namely, (1) that the colony should possess railways
within striking distance alike of the Cape, of Bechuanaland and of
Rhodesia; and (2) that the military preparations as a whole should be so
complete as to be ready for any emergency.
RAILWAYS IN G.S.W. AFRICA
Railways were indispensable on account, not only of the considerable
distances to be covered, but, also, of the sand-belts and stretches of
desert across which the transport of troops and stores would be a matter
of great difficulty without the help of railways. They were, in fact, a
vital part of the whole scheme.
Following on Germany's annexation of Damaraland and Great Namaqualand,
and her conversion of them into the Protectorate of German South-West
Africa, a party of German engineers and surveyors landed at Swakopmund
with the design of planning a line of railway to be constructed from
that point to Windhoek, and thence across the Kalahari desert to the
Transvaal. About the same time, also, Germans and Boers were alike
working to secure as much of Bechuanaland as they could, without
attracting too much attention to their proceedings. A realisation
of these further aims might have been of great value to Germany in
facilitating the attainment of her full programme in respect to
Africa; but the scheme was frustrated by Great Britain's annexation of
Bechuanaland in September, 1885, the result of the step thus taken being
to drive a wedge of British territory between German South-West Africa
and the Boer Republics.
So the railway in question got no further east than Windhoek, the
capital of the colony, a distance inland of 237 miles.
Having failed in one direction, Germany tried another. Under a
concession granted to them in 1887 by the Government of the Transvaal
Republic, a group of Dutch, German and other capitalists, constituting
the Netherlands South African Railway Company, built a railway from
Delagoa Bay to Pretoria; and the new aim of Germany was, apparently,
to make use of this line, and so get access to the Transvaal--and
beyond--from the east coast instead of from the west.
Confirmation of this fact is to be found in "A Brief History of the
Transvaal Secret Service System, from its Inception to the Present
Time," written by Mr. A. E. Heyer, and published at Cape Town in 1899.
The writer had held a position in the Transvaal which enabled him to
learn many interesting facts concerning the working of the system in
question. Among other things he tells how, at Lisbon, every effort
was made to obtain a port in Delagoa Bay, and how, "aided by Germany,
Dr. Leyds approached Lisbon over and over again with a view to get
Delagoa Bay ceded to the Transvaal"; though the Doctor got no more
from the Portuguese authorities than a reminder that, under the London
Convention of 1884, the South African Republic could conclude no treaty
or engagement with any foreign State or nation (except the Orange Free
State) until such treaty or engagement had been submitted to the Queen
of England for her approval.
That Germany, in giving her "aid" in these matters to the Transvaal
Republic, was inspired by a regard for the furthering of her own
particular schemes is beyond all reasonable doubt; but Mr. Heyer shows,
also, that when the negotiations with Portugal were unsuccessful, there
was elaborated a scheme under which Germany and the Transvaal were to
get what they wanted by means of a _coup de main_. Mr. Heyer says on
this subject:--
I have before me a copy of a document, dated Pretoria,
August 24, 1892 (the original of which is still in a certain
Government office in Pretoria), wherein a Pretoria-Berlin
scheme is detailed, namely, "How a few regiments of Prussian
Infantry could be landed at Delagoa Bay and force their way into
Transvaal territory, and, 'once in,' defy British suzerainty,
and for all time 'hang the annoying question of her paramountcy
on the nail.'" The name of Herr von Herff, then German Consul
at Pretoria, appears on the document. Any one reading this
cleverly-planned "Descent on Delagoa" would be readily convinced
as to how very easily a German raid on Delagoa territory could
be successfully accomplished.
This project, also, proved abortive, and, in default of Delagoa Bay,
Germany had still to regard her South-West African Protectorate, with
its railways and its armed forces, as the base from which British
interests were to be wiped out--sooner or later--from the Cape to Cairo.
At the time of the outbreak of war in 1914, the principal railways in
German South-West Africa--apart from some minor lines which do not come
into consideration--were as follows:--
-----------------+---------------+-------------------
| 2 ft. GAUGE. | 3 ft. 6 in. GAUGE.
RAILWAY. | Miles. | Miles.
-----------------+---------------+-------------------
Northern | 121 | 119½
Otavi | 425 | --
Southern | -- | 340½
North-to-South | -- | 317
-----------------+---------------+-------------------
Total | 546 | 777
-----------------+---------------+-------------------
Granting that the Northern Railway was needed to afford a means of
communication between Swakopmund and the capital of the colony, and that
the original purpose of the Otavi line was to provide an outlet for the
copper obtained from the mines in that district, it is, nevertheless,
the fact that the Southern and the North-to-South lines were designed to
serve what were mainly or exclusively strategical purposes.
When the building of the first section of the Southern line--from
Lüderitzbucht to Aus--was under consideration in the Reichstag, one
of the members of that body, Herr Lattmann, recommended that the vote
should be passed without being referred to a committee; and in support
of his recommendation he said:--
This way of passing the vote would be of particular
importance for the whole nation, since the railway would not
then have to be regarded from the point of view of provisioning
our troops, or with regard to the financially remunerative
character of the colony, but because a much more serious
question lies behind it, namely, what significance has the
railway in the event of complications between Germany and other
nations? Yes, this railway can be employed for other purposes
than for transport from the coast to the interior; our troops
can be easily conveyed by it from the interior to the coast and
thence to other places. If, for example, a war had broken out
with England we could send them into Cape Colony.
From Aus the line was extended in 1908 to Keetmanshoop, a distance
inland of 230 miles from Lüderitzbucht. Situate in the _Bezirk_
(district) of South-West Africa nearest to Cape Province, Keetmanshoop,
with the railway as a source of supply from the chief harbour of the
colony, developed into the leading military station of German South-West
Africa.
At Keetmanshoop all the chief military authorities were stationed. It
became the headquarters of the Medical Corps, the Ordnance Department,
the Engineer and Railway Corps, and the Intelligence Corps of the
Southern Command. It was the point of mobilisation for all the troops
in that Command. It had a considerable garrison, and it had, also, an
arsenal which a correspondent of the _Transvaal Chronicle_, who visited
the town about two years before the outbreak of war in 1914 and gathered
much information concerning the military preparations which had then
already been made,[60] described as four times as large, and, in regard
to its contents, four times as important, as the arsenal at Windhoek.
Those contents included--47 gun carriages; fourteen 16-pounders;
eighteen ambulances; 82 covered convoy vehicles; 3,287 wheels, mostly
for trek ox-wagons; three large transportable marquees used as magazines
and containing 28,000 military rifles; huge quantities of bandoliers,
kits, etc.; three further magazines for ammunition, and large stores
of fodder; while further military supplies were constantly arriving
by train from Lüderitzbucht, whither they were brought from Germany
by German ships. In the arsenal workshops was a staff of men actively
engaged on the making of, among other military requirements, 1,000
saddles and water bags for the Camel Corps kept available for crossing
the desert between the furthest limit of the railway and the Cape
Province border.
It was, also, in this south-eastern district, and in immediate
proximity, therefore, to Cape Province and Bechuanaland, that the
military forces kept in the colony had all their principal manoeuvres.
Of still greater importance, from a strategical standpoint, was the
branch of this Southern Railway which, starting from Seeheim, forty
miles west of Keetmanshoop, continued in a south-easterly direction
to Kalkfontein, eighty miles north of Raman's Drift, on the Orange
River, and less than ninety miles from Ukamas, where the Germans had
established a military post within five miles of Nakob, situate on the
Bechuanaland border, only forty miles from Upington, in Cape Province.
From Kalkfontein the branch was to be continued another thirty miles to
Warmbad, and so on to Raman's Drift--a convenient point for the passage
of the Orange River into Cape Province territory by an attacking force.
At Seeheim, the junction of this branch line, a Service Corps was
stationed; Kalkfontein was the headquarters of the Camel Corps of 500
men and animals; and at Warmbad there was a military post and a military
hospital.
The North-to-South line allowed of an easy movement of troops between
the military headquarters at Keetmanshoop and Windhoek, or vice versâ.
According to the original estimates this line was not to be completed
before 1913. Special reasons for urgency--as to the nature of which it
would be easy to speculate--led, however, to the line being opened for
traffic on March 8, 1912. From Windhoek, also, troops were supplied to
Gobabis, situate 100 miles east of the capital and about forty miles
west of the Bechuanaland frontier. Gobabis became a German military
station in 1895. Provided with a well-equipped fort, it became the chief
strategical position on the eastern border of German South-West Africa.
A railway connecting Gobabis with Windhoek was to have been commenced in
1915.
From Windhoek, as already told, there is rail communication with
Swakopmund.
Grootfontein, the terminus, on the east, of the Swakopmund-Otavi line,
had been a military station since 1899. Its special significance lay
in the fact that it was the nearest point of approach by rail to the
"Caprivi Strip," along which the German troops, conveyed as far as
Grootfontein by rail, were to make their invasion of the adjoining
British territory of Rhodesia. Troop movements in this direction would
have been further facilitated by a link at Karibib connecting the
Swakopmund-Otavi-Grootfontein line with the one to Windhoek and thence
to the military headquarters at Keetmanshoop. Karibib was itself a
military base, in addition to having large railway offices and workshops.
With, therefore, the minor exceptions, the system of railways in German
South-West Africa had been designed or developed in accordance with
plans which had for their basis an eventual attack on British territory
in three separate directions--(1) Cape Province, (2) Bechuanaland and
(3) Rhodesia. The Southern and the North-to-South lines had, also, been
built exclusively with the standard Cape gauge of 3 ft. 6 in., so that,
when "der Tag" arrived, and German succeeded British supremacy in South
Africa, these particular lines could be continued in order to link up
with those which the Germans would then expect to take over from Cape
Province. Keetmanshoop was eventually to be converted from a terminus to
a stopping-place on a through line of German railway from Lüderitzbucht
to Kimberley, the effect of which, it was pointed out, would be to
shorten the distance from Europe to Bulawayo by 1,300 miles as compared
with the journey via the Cape. Surveys had been made for extensions (1)
from Keetmanshoop, via Hasuur, to the Union frontier near Rietfontein,
and (2) from Kalkfontein, on the southern branch, to Ukamas, also on the
frontier and in the direction of Upington, in Union territory. Each of
these additions would have carried the original scheme a stage further,
though it was not, apparently, thought wise to make them before "der
Tag" actually arrived.
On these various railways the Government of German South-West Africa
had expended, so far as the available figures show, a total of,
approximately, £8,400,000, defrayed in part from Imperial funds and
in part from the revenue of the Protectorate. This total includes the
amount paid by the Government to the South-West Africa Company for
their line from Swakopmund to the Company's mines at Otavi and Tsumeb,
but it does not include the cost of the original narrow-gauge Government
line from Swakopmund to Windhoek, of which the section between
Swakopmund and Karibib was abandoned when the Swakopmund-Otavi line, via
Karibib, was taken over, the remaining section from Karibib to Windhoek
being then converted into the Cape 3 ft. 6 in. gauge. On most of the
open lines no more than two or three trains a week were run, and on some
of the branches there was only one train in the week.[61]
MILITARY PREPARATIONS
Further details as to the elaborate nature of the preparations made for
the realisation of Germany's dreams of conquest in Africa are supplied
by Mr. J. K. O'Connor in a pamphlet published at Capetown, towards the
end of 1914, under the title of "The Hun in our Hinterland; or the
Menace of G.S.W.A." Mr. O'Connor made a tour through German South-West
Africa a few months before the outbreak of the war, assuming the rôle
of a journalist in search of data concerning the agricultural resources
of the territory. He obtained much information which had other than an
agricultural interest.
He ascertained, for instance, that the German troops then in the
territory consisted of Mounted Infantry, Field Artillery, Machine Gun
Divisions, Intelligence Divisions, an Engineer and Railway Corps, Field
Railway Divisions, an Etappen-Formation, a Camel Corps, a Police Force
and a Reserve, representing altogether--apart from natives--a trained
European force of approximately 10,000 men, whose duties and location in
the event of war had all been assigned to them in advance.
He found that the railways had been supplemented by a strong transport
service of natives, who had an abundant supply of oxen and mules for
their wagons.
He tells how (in addition to the military stations already mentioned)
the Germans had established throughout the territory a network of
block-houses, strengthened by forts at intervals and supplemented by
magazines and storehouses at central points; while 1,600 miles of
telegraph and telephone wires, together with the "Funken-telegraph,"
placed all these stations and outposts in touch with one another as well
as with the military headquarters and the various towns.[62]
He says concerning Keetmanshoop that its conversion into the chief
military station in the territory was "the first move in the German
game."
He points to the fact that "Das Koloniale Jahrbuch," published by
authority, laid it down that the Boers in British South Africa must be
constantly reminded of their Low-German origin; that German ideas must
be spread among them by means of German schools and German churches, and
he declares:--"For thirty years Teuton ideas have been foisted upon the
Boer population of British South Africa. For thirty years, under the
guise of friendship, Germany has plotted and planned for the elimination
of the Anglo-Saxon element from South Africa."
Mr. O'Connor further writes:--
From what I was able to gather it was evident that the
military plans of the Germans were completed for an invasion of
the Union territory, and that they were only awaiting the day
when Peace would spread her wings and soar from the embassies of
Europe. It was not anticipated, however, that that would be in
August, 1914.
They were confident of success, and from the conversations
that took place between officers and myself it was evident that
the possession of the African continent was the greatest desire
of the Teutons.
The smashing up of France and Great Britain were only
incidents that would lead to the whole continent of Africa
becoming a German possession; and it was considered that as
Germany would accomplish this, despite her late entrance upon
the stage as a Colonial Power, she would have more to show for
her thirty years as such a Power than could either England or
France, who had started colonising centuries before her.
The great aim became to break France and England, for the
purpose of acquiring their African possessions; and, having
broken these Powers, Germany would have turned her attention to
the African possessions of smaller Powers who, having neither
England nor France to rely upon, would have been compelled to
relinquish their possessions, and, by so doing, would have made
Germany the supreme Power in Africa.
Summing up the conclusions at which he arrived, as the result of all
that he saw for himself and all that he had heard from responsible
German officers during the course of his tour, Mr. O'Connor says:--
From the day the Germans set their feet upon South-West
African soil they have prepared themselves for a raid into
British territory. For years the Reichstag has voted two million
pounds per annum for the purpose. Had these millions been spent
on the development of South-West Africa it would, to-day, be a
colony of which any country might be proud. But what can they
show for this expenditure? Nothing but a military camp.
It is evident, then, that this territory has not been
regarded by the Berliners as a colony, but as a jumping-off
ground for an invasion of British South Africa.
Here we have simply an amplification of ideas which, as we have seen,
had long been entertained in Germany; though they were ideas it was now
being sought to reduce to practice by a resort, in advance, to every
step that could possibly be taken for ensuring their realisation. Any
suggestion that the system of strategical railways which had been built,
and the elaborate military preparations which had been effected, were
merely precautions against a further possible rising of the natives
would have been absurd.
RAIL CONNECTION WITH ANGOLA
What Mr. O'Connor says in regard to Germany's attitude towards the
African possessions of the smaller Powers gives additional significance
to a report published in the _Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten_ of May 31,
1914, concerning a project for building a line of railway along the
coast of German South-West Africa to connect with Portuguese Angola.
This was to be the first of a series of lines which "after lengthy
discussions with the Imperial Government," were to be carried out in
German South-West Africa by a syndicate of prominent shipping and
banking houses in Germany, controlling an initial capital of 50,000,000
marks (£2,500,000). It was further reported that in the early part of
1914 the Governor of German South-West Africa made a tour through the
northern part of the Protectorate, going as far as Tiger Bay, in Angola,
"in connection with possible railway construction in the near future."
Angola was certainly an item on the German list of desirable
acquisitions in Africa. It has been in the occupation of Portugal since
the middle of the fifteenth century; but the point of view from which it
was regarded by advocates of German expansion may be judged from some
remarks made in the _Kölnische Zeitung_ by a traveller who returned to
Germany from Angola in June, 1914:--
The game is worth the candle. An enormous market for
industrial products, rich and virgin mineral treasures, a
fruitful and healthy country equally suitable for agriculture,
cattle-breeding and immigration, and the finest harbours on the
west coast--that is the prize that awaits us.
A territory offering these advantages, having an area estimated at
484,000 square miles, and extending inland for a distance of 1,500
miles, might be coveted for its own sake; but its possession would
have been of still greater value to Germany (1) as a continuation,
northwards, of German South-West Africa, and (2) as the starting point
for a chain of communications, under German control, extending right
across the African continent, from west to east.
The coast-railway spoken of by the _Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten_ was
to link up German South-West Africa with Angola, in which country,
also, the Germans hoped to obtain extensive mining and agricultural
concessions, thus forwarding their established policy of peaceful
penetration by means of commerce and railways, and establishing economic
interests which might be expected to lead to political developments in
due course, and so prepare the way for an eventual seizure of "the prize
that awaits us."
The Germans had also sought to finance the completion eastwards of the
Lobito Bay or Benguela Railway, to which reference will be made later
on in connection with the development of the Katanga district of the
Belgian Congo; but the condition they advanced, namely that the control
of the line should be left in their hands, coupled with their adoption
of suspicious lines of policy in other directions,[63] led to their
railway proposals being declined by the Portuguese, with thanks.
GERMAN EAST AFRICA
Then, in order to understand the full scope of the aspirations Germany
was cherishing towards the African Continent, one must take into account
her railways on the east coast no less than those on the west coast,
since these, also, formed an essential part of the general scheme.
The line which stretches right across German East Africa, from
Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of the Protectorate, to Kigoma, on Lake
Tanganyika, and north of Ujiji, has a total length of 1,439 miles;
and if the economic development of a territory estimated as having a
total area of 384,000 square miles had been the sole aim in view, the
Tanganyikabahn would have well deserved to rank as a notable enterprise
in German colonial expansion, and one calling for commendation rather
than criticism. The question arises, however, whether, in addition to
the development of German East Africa itself, the railway in question
was not intended, also, to facilitate the realisation of Germany's
designs against Central Africa as part of her aforesaid scheme for the
eventual conquest of the African continent.
The feverish haste with which the second and third sections of the
railway were built sufficed, in itself, to give rise to suspicions of
ulterior designs. The first section, from Dar-es-Salaam to Morogo (136½
miles), was constructed by a syndicate of German bankers acting under a
State guarantee of interest, and the work, begun in February, 1905, was
completed in September, 1907. The second section, from Morogo to Tabora
(526½ miles), was to have been completed by July 1, 1914; but in 1910,
the Reichstag voted a special credit both for the earlier completion of
this second section--which was thus finished by February 26, 1912--and
for surveys for the third section, from Tabora to Kigoma (776 miles).
Such, again, was the celerity with which the work on this third section
was pushed forward that, although the date fixed for the completion of
the line was April 1, 1915, through rail communication from the Indian
Ocean to Lake Tanganyika was established by February 1, 1914--that is to
say, one year and two months in advance of time.
We here come to the two-fold question (1) Why was the railway extended
at all for the 776 miles from Tabora to Lake Tanganyika, considering
that this portion of the German Protectorate offered, in itself, the
prospect of no traffic at all for the line[64]; and (2) why was it
necessary that such haste should be shown in the completion of the
undertaking?
"THE OTHER SIDE OF TANGANYIKA"
To the first of these questions the reply is (1) that the traffic on
which the western section of the Tanganyikabahn was mainly to rely for
its receipts was traffic originating in or destined for the Belgian
Congo; (2) that the control it was hoped to secure over Belgian trade
was, in combination with the strategical advantages offered by the
railway, to be the preliminary to an eventual annexation by Germany of
the Belgian Congo itself; and (3) that like conditions were to lead, if
possible, to the final realisation of von Weber's dream of 1880.
"That we are directing our gaze to the other side of Tanganyika," said
the _Kolonial Zeitung_ of April 4, 1914, in referring to the completion
of the railway to Kigoma--an event which occasioned a great outburst of
enthusiasm in Germany--"goes, of course, without saying."
There certainly is much on "the other side of Tanganyika" to which
Germany might look with feelings of envy. In regard to mineral wealth,
alone, the resources of the South-eastern section of the Belgian Congo
could not fail to make a strong appeal to her.
The great copper belt in the Katanga district,[65] commences about 100
miles north-west of the British South African post, Ndola (situate
twelve miles south of the Congo border), and extends thence, in a
north-westerly direction, for a distance of 180 miles, with an average
breadth of twenty-five miles. "In the not far distant future, when the
many problems of development are solved, the Katanga copper belt,"
says Mr. J. B. Thornhill,[66] "will be one of the controlling factors
in the copper supply of the world." In the report of the British South
Africa Company for the year ending March 31, 1914, it was stated that
the copper-mining industry in Katanga had attained to considerable
dimensions; that furnaces with a capacity of 1,000 tons of copper per
month were at work, and that further large additions to the plant were
being made.
Katanga has, also, a tin belt, and coal, gold, iron and other minerals
are found there, besides.
In the German territory on the eastern side of Lake Tanganyika there
are, indeed, minerals; but they are found in no such abundance as in the
Belgian territory on the western side of the lake. German East Africa
can, however, produce in great abundance the wheat, the rice and the
other food supplies necessary for the workers in Katanga mines, and
the German view has been that the eastern and the western sides of the
lake should be regarded as complementary the one to the other, and that
the Tanganyikabahn should convey these food supplies to the lake, for
transfer to the other side by steamer, and bring back the products of
the mines for distribution, via the German east coast route and the
Indian Ocean, among the markets of the world. In the same way it was
hoped that all goods and necessaries likely to be imported into the
Katanga and Mweru districts from Europe would reach their destination
via this German East Africa Central Railway; and German business houses
were strongly advised to establish branches in those districts,[67] so
that, apparently, Germany would eventually control the trade as well as
the transport of "the other side of Tanganyika."
The development of the south-western section of Germany's east-coast
Protectorate had, in itself, become a matter of vital importance ("eine
Lebensfrage"[68]); but the Belgian Congo was the only quarter to which
that section could look for markets for its produce. The possibility
of securing sufficient traffic for the Central Railway to ensure its
financial success may have been a secondary consideration; but the
railway itself was to serve a most important purpose, economically, by
helping Germany to capture the Tanganyika and trans-Tanganyika trade,
and by making her East Africa colony more prosperous; politically, by
strengthening her hold on the Belgian Congo through the increase of her
commercial interests there; and strategically, by affording her the
means of effecting a speedy concentration of troops in Central Africa,
should the occasion for so doing arise.
This last-mentioned purpose was to be further attained by the projected
construction of what would have been a purely strategical line from
Tabora, on the Tanganyikabahn, to Mwanza, on the southern shores of the
Victoria Nyanza, whence German troops would--in case of need--be in a
position to make a rear attack on British East Africa.
CENTRAL AFRICA
Germany's hopes of thus strengthening her position in Central Africa
by means of the Tanganyikabahn received, however, a serious set-back
through the activity and enterprise of Belgian and British interests in
providing, opening up or projecting alternative transport routes which
threatened (1) to divert a large proportion of the traffic she had
expected to secure for the East Africa Central line; (2) to diminish
greatly the prospect of her achieving the commercial and political aims
she cherished in regard to the Belgian Congo; (3) to make it still
more difficult for German East Africa to emerge from a position of
comparative isolation, and (4) to impede greatly the realisation of
Germany's aspirations in regard alike to Central Africa and the African
Continent.
It is the more necessary that the bearing of all these facts on the
general situation should be understood because they tend to indicate
the critical nature of the position into which the said aspirations had
drifted, and the imperative necessity by which Germany may, by 1914,
have considered she was faced for adopting some bold course of action if
she were still to look forward to the possibility of those aspirations
being realised.
The principle originally adopted by King Leopold in his efforts to
develop the Congo State was that of supplementing navigation on the
Congo by railways wherever these were necessary either to overcome the
difficulties presented by rapids or to supply missing links in the chain
of communication to or from the west coast. The same policy was followed
by the Belgian Government when they assumed control, and the last of
these links--the line, 165 miles long, from Kabalo to Albertville,
connecting the Congo with the Tanganyika--was opened in March, 1915.
One reason, in fact, given in Germany for the express speed at which
the Tanganyikabahn was completed to Kigoma was an alleged fear that
the Belgians might capture the trade and transport of the territory in
question by getting to the lake first.
This combined river and rail transport still left it necessary for
traffic from the Congo basin to the west coast to follow the winding
course of that river, with a number of transhipments; and if the route
in question had been the only competitor of the Tanganyikabahn, Germany
would have had less cause for uneasiness. Meanwhile, however, the
Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Bas-Congo had built a line--forming a
continuation of the Rhodesian Railways--from the boundary of Northern
Rhodesia, at Elizabethville, to Kambove (Katanga); and a continuation of
this line to Bukama, on the Lualaba, a navigable tributary of the Congo,
was (1) to give shorter and better access to the Congo for products
from Katanga, and (2) to establish combined rail and water transport
between the entire railway system of South Africa and the mouth of the
Congo. Already the minerals from Katanga were finding their outlet to
the sea on the east coast via the Rhodesian Railways and the Portuguese
port of Beira, instead of via the Tanganyikabahn and the German port of
Dar-es-Salaam. The former had, indeed, become the recognised route for
this important traffic in preference to the latter. The line between
Kambove and Bukama had not been completed when war broke out in 1914;
but the provision of this through route, and the various facilities
it would offer, rendered still more uncertain the prospect of Germany
getting control of the trans-Tanganyika traffic for her own lines.
There were other important railway schemes, besides.
From Bukama rail communication is to be continued right across Central
Africa to Matadi, to which point the Congo is navigable for large
vessels from its mouth, less than a hundred miles distant. This line,
in addition to avoiding the great bend of the Congo, will open up and
develop the vast and promising territory in the northern districts of
the Belgian Congo, south of that river.
Another scheme which is to be carried out is a line from Kambove, in the
Southern Katanga, to the south-western boundary of the Belgian Congo,
and thence across Portuguese territory to the present eastern terminus
of the Lobito Bay Railway. This will give to the mining interests of
Katanga direct rail communication, by the shortest possible route, with
a port on the west coast, while the connection at Kambove with the
Rhodesian and South African systems will make the line a still more
important addition to the railways of Africa for the purposes alike of
development in the central districts and as a shorter route to and from
Europe. German financiers were at one time desirous of undertaking the
extension eastward of the Lobito Bay Railway--mainly, as it seemed, with
a view to furthering German interests in Portuguese territory (see page
314); but the Kambove-Lobito Bay line is now to be constructed with
British capital.
Finally there is the Cape-to-Cairo Railway which, passing through the
Katanga mining districts, is likely to divert still more of the traffic
Germany had counted upon alike for her Tanganyikabahn and as a means
towards the attainment of her political aspirations in Central Africa.
Whilst these various developments were proceeding, there were still
others, in the Cameroons, to which attention may now be directed.
THE CAMEROONS, LAKE CHAD AND THE SUDAN
Anticipations of the great results for Germany which would follow from
the building of railways in the Cameroons began to be entertained about
the year 1897. The main objective of the schemes brought forward seems
to have been, however, not simply the internal economic development of
an already vast area, but the carrying of lines of communication to the
furthest limits of that area in order, apparently, to extend German
interests and influence to territories beyond.
One of these schemes was for the building of a line of railway from
Duala, the chief port of the Cameroons, to Lake Chad (otherwise Tsâd), a
sheet of water some 7,000 square miles in extent which, situate on the
western borders of the Sudan, constitutes the extreme northern limits
of German territory in this direction, while the shores of the lake are
occupied jointly by Germany, England and France.
The proposed line was to have an estimated total length of about 1,000
kilometres (621 miles). In September, 1902, the German Imperial
Government granted to a Kamerun-Eisenbahn-Syndikat a concession for
building the line; an expedition sent out by the syndicate made a survey
of the route in 1902-3; and a Kamerun-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, with a
capital of 17,000,000 marks (£850,000), was formed by a group of bankers
and others in Germany to build the first section.
In December, 1903, the German Emperor, at his reception of the President
of the Reichstag, gave his blessing to all such enterprises by declaring
that an essential condition ("eine Lebensbedingung") for the welfare of
Germany's colonies in Africa was that the building of railways should
be taken earnestly in hand. In 1905 the prospects of the proposed line
seemed so hopeful that the early commencement of construction was
announced as probable; but various difficulties arose, including much
trouble in regard to labour, and the line did not get beyond the end of
its first stage, a distance of only 160 km. (100 miles) from the coast.
Although the scheme was thus not fully carried out, there was no doubt
as to the nature of the purposes it had been designed to serve. In his
official and detailed account of the proposed undertaking[69]--a book
of exceptional merit from the point of view of the clearness and of the
exhaustive data with which "the case for the line" is presented--the
director of the syndicate says:--
My opinion is that only a great railway--one that unites
the Sudan with the Atlantic, and that extends from Lake Chad to
the west coast of Africa--will be in a position both to develop
fully the economic interests of the Cameroons and to assure to
Germany a means of access to the richest territory that Central
Africa possesses.
Had the line been completed as far as Lake Chad, it would have been a
powerful competitor of British railways via the Nile or the Red Sea for
the traffic of the Sudan, with its vast commercial possibilities; and,
had it been found the better route, it might have established German
commercial supremacy in this part of Central Africa, with the inevitable
political developments to follow. "The German Tsâdsee-Eisenbahn," the
director of the syndicate further wrote, "will, especially when it has
been completed, be for the whole of Central Africa a _Kulturwerk_ of the
first importance."
The Germanisation of Lake Chad, combined with an eventual acquiring
by Germany of French interests in the Sahara and North Africa, would
further have permitted the continuation of the Tsâdsee-Eisenbahn from
that lake to Algeria along the route already projected in France for a
Trans-African line linking up the Mediterranean alike with the Congo
and with the Rhodesian and other British railways in South Africa, via
Lake Chad--a line which, it is said, would offer no great technical
difficulty in construction.[70]
THE CAMEROONS AND THE CONGO
Another ambitious scheme was for the building of a Mittellandbahn which,
crossing the Njong, would eventually link up the chief port of the
Cameroons with a navigable tributary of the Congo. Here, again, the line
as actually constructed has not been carried a greater distance than
about 300 km. (186 miles). At one time, in fact, the original project
seemed to have been abandoned; but quite recently it has been brought
forward again under conditions which have a distinct bearing on what has
already been said concerning Germany and Central Africa.
From the views expressed by Emil Zimmermann in his "Neu-Kamerun,"[71]
one gathers that in 1913 Germany was regarding with some degree of
concern alike the outlook for her Tanganyikabahn, on which over
£7,000,000 had been spent, and the prospective set-back to her
aspirations in regard to the Belgian Congo; and Herr Zimmermann, in
giving an account of the additions made to her Cameroons possessions
at the expense of France, under the agreement of November 4, 1911,
following on the Agadir crisis, makes certain overtures to Belgium,
and follows them up with a distinct threat, should she refrain from
responding to them.
Belgium and Germany, he says, in effect, are the two dominant Powers
in Central Africa; and he is of opinion that it will be to their mutual
interest to co-operate in the development of that great territory.
Belgium, however, he finds to be faced by the need for a great outlay
of money (1) on account of necessary improvements of her Congo rail and
river communication, to meet expanding traffic requirements, and (2) in
order to develop her Katanga territory. She cannot herself command the
necessary capital, but Germany could assist her to raise it, and would
do so--provided Belgium undertook that traffic from her Tanganyika and
Mweru districts, and, also, from points east of the Middle Congo, should
reach the sea by "its natural outlet," that is to say, by the German
East African Central Railway.
Should Belgium refuse to agree to these proposals, and should she, by
her high tariffs, continue to impede the flow of traffic to German
territory, then it would be open to Germany to construct lines of
railway from the west coast either to navigable tributaries of the Congo
or to the Congo itself, and so divert the traffic from the Belgian
Congo at certain important points, to the serious prejudice of Belgian
interests.
Apart from what might be done in the way of extending the Duala-Njong
line to the said navigable tributaries of the Congo, as originally
projected, Herr Zimmermann says that, under the treaty of November 4,
1911, Germany has the right to continue her Cameroons railways across
French territory (France having reciprocal rights as regards German
territory); and he points out how she could exercise this power, to the
detriment of Belgium, should that country not accept her proposals in
regard to the Congo basin and Central Africa. He specially mentions the
fact that when the boundaries of the 100,000 square miles of territory
added, at the expense of France, to the German Cameroons (then already
191,000 square miles in extent), were fixed by virtue of the treaty of
1911, the wedge-like strip on the south of Spanish Muni was so defined
as to leave at the eastern point thereof a gap between the Spanish
territory and the French Cameroons wide enough for either a road or a
railway; and he emphasises the fact that, by taking advantage of the
facilities thus open to her, Germany could, under the treaty of 1911,
construct a railway 1,000 km. (621 miles) long from Muni Bay through
the said gap and cross French territory to the junction of the Sangha
with the Congo. Alternatively, and by arrangement with France, the
line could start from Libreville. "What such a railway, tapping the
Congo-Sangha-Ubangi traffic at its most favourable point, would mean,
can," Herr Zimmermann remarks, "be left to the Belgians themselves to
say."
He does not suggest that such schemes as these would in themselves be
of great value to Germany; but he thinks they might have a powerful
influence, both politically and economically, on the solution of the
Tanganyika problem in Germany's favour. In fact, he considers that since
the 1911 treaty Germany has practically controlled the situation in
Central Africa; and from all he says it is a reasonable assumption that
the Agadir crisis, the concession of territory exacted from France, and
the undertaking as to the carrying of German Cameroon railways across
French territory, had far more to do with German designs on the Belgian
Congo and Central Africa than is generally supposed.
In another work, published a year later,[72] the same writer, adopting
now a distinctly different tone, endeavoured to appease an "Anti-Central
Africa agitation" which, he tells us, had developed in Germany and
was protesting alike against the "danger" of acquiring any more
"Congo-swamps" and against the "boundless German plans" in Africa.
He further sought to soothe the suspicions which, he found, had been
excited in Belgium and elsewhere as to the nature of Germany's plans in
Africa. Germany, he declared, had no annexation projects in view. Her
aspirations were purely economic. Kamerun, thanks to the German-French
treaty of 1911 (which, he reiterated, had changed the whole situation),
could now take a considerable share in the development of Central
Africa, and was the more entitled so to do since she had, in Duala, "one
of the best harbours on the west coast of Africa."
OFFICIAL ADMISSIONS
As against, however, affirmations such as these, there is the
undisputable evidence of no less an authority than the German Foreign
Minister himself as to the real nature of Germany's designs on the
Belgian Congo.
In the second Belgian Grey Book, published in August, 1915, under the
title of "Correspondance Diplomatique relative à la Guerre de 1914-15,"
there is given (pp. 2-3) a letter from the Belgian Minister in Berlin,
Baron Beyens, to his Government, recording, under date April 2, 1914,
a conversation which the French Ambassador in Berlin informed him he
had had quite recently (and, therefore, only about four months before
the outbreak of war) with the German Foreign Minister. Herr von Jagow
suggested to him that Germany, France and England should arrive at an
agreement on the construction and linking up of railways in Africa. M.
Gambon replied that in this case Belgium ought to be invited to confer
with them, as she was constructing some new railways on the Congo. He
also expressed the view that any conference held on the subject should
meet at Brussels. To this Herr von Jagow responded, "Oh no; for it is
at the expense of Belgium that our agreement should be made. Do you
not think," he added, "that King Leopold placed too heavy a burden on
the shoulders of Belgium? Belgium is not rich enough to develop that
vast possession. It is an enterprise beyond her financial resources and
her means of expansion." The French Ambassador dissented, but Herr von
Jagow went on to affirm that the great Powers were alone in a position
to colonise, and that the small Powers were destined to disappear or
to gravitate towards the orbit of the large ones. In the words of the
Belgian Minister:--
Il développa l'opinion que seules les grandes Puissances
sont en situation de coloniser. Il dévoila même le fond de sa
pensée en soutenant que les petits États ne pourraient plus
mener, dans la transformation qui s'opérait en Europe au profit
des nationalités les plus fortes, par suite du développement des
forces économiques et des moyens de communication, l'existence
indépendante dont ils avaient joui jusqu'à présent. Ils étaient
destinés à disparaître ou à graviter dans l'orbite des grandes
Puissances.
"DER TAG" AND ITS PROGRAMME
The story here presented of Germany's aims in Africa has taken us over
almost the entire African Continent. It now only remains to be seen how
those aims were to be realised, not merely as the outcome of Pan-German
dreams and advocacy, but as the result of many years of scheming,
plotting and actual preparation, all directed to the wiping out of the
influence in Africa of other Powers, great as well as small, and the
final realisation of Germany's long-cherished purpose.
According to conversations Mr. O'Connor had with military officers in
German South-West Africa just before the outbreak of war in 1914, the
programme under which Germany hoped to become "the supreme power in
Africa" when "der Tag" so long looked forward to should arrive was, in
effect, as follows:--
Belgium was to be disposed of "at one gulp." This would make it an easy
matter for Germany to take over the Belgian Congo.
France would be paralysed; and, being paralysed, she would not be able
to prevent Germany from succeeding to the whole of her possessions in
Africa.
The Dervishes would stir up a rebellion in Egypt,[73] and other
rebellions were anticipated in Ireland and India.
While England was fully occupied in these directions the Afrikanders
were to rise _en masse_ and declare British South Africa an Afrikander
Republic.
The forces in German East Africa would make a sudden raid into British
East Africa. Having annexed that territory and got possession of the
railway, they would next invade Rhodesia from the east, in co-operation
with troops from German South-West Africa advancing to the Zambezi, via
the Caprivi Strip, from the railway terminus at Grootfontein.
Meanwhile German columns would have moved (1) from the military station
at Gobabis into Bechuanaland, crossing the desert of Kalahari, to effect
the capture of Vryburg; and (2) from Keetmanshoop, and other points
served by the Seeheim branch, into northern Cape Province, via Raman's
Drift, Schuit Drift and the south-east corner of the territory.
Rhodesia having been seized, more troops would be available to proceed
to the assistance of the Afrikander forces operating in the Cape
Province, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State--a "rising" on the
part of the Afrikanders as soon as they saw a good opportunity for one
being taken for granted. In return for the services thus rendered by her
to the Afrikanders in establishing their Republic, Germany would take a
portion of the Transvaal, as well as part of the Zululand coast.
With Belgium and France effectively crushed, and the power of Great
Britain in South Africa broken down, those countries would no longer
be in a position to prevent Germany from annexing Portuguese Angola;
and this she was to do next. She would "allow" the Afrikander Republic
to take Delagoa Bay; but the Republic itself was to come under the
"guardianship" of Germany. The word "suzerainty," Mr. O'Connor says, was
not mentioned, "guardianship" being preferred; but, with the exception
of Italian Somaliland--about which nothing was said--practically the
whole of Africa was either to belong to Germany or to be brought
directly or indirectly under her control.
THE OBJECTIVE OF THE WORLD-WAR
Since the outbreak of the World-War in 1914 there has been much
speculation as to the real objective and purpose of Germany in bringing
it about.
Do the facts stated in the present chapter afford any help towards a
solution of this problem?
We have seen the nature of the aims cherished by Germany towards Africa,
the practical and persistent efforts she made during a long series of
years for their attainment, and the substantial expenditure she incurred
in the hope of at last securing the prize she considered was awaiting
her.
We have seen how the purpose of Germany in Africa was less to develop
colonies for their own sake than to regard them as points from which to
absorb or to control neighbouring territories.
We have seen how the development of rival railways in Central Africa had
recently threatened the supremacy Germany hoped to gain and may, indeed,
have suggested to her the need for early vigorous effort, if she wished
still to secure the realisation of her aims.
We have seen what, in the view of the German Foreign Minister, should be
the fate of small Powers which stand in the way of the aggrandisement of
great ones.
We have seen, also, how, in the opinion of officers serving in
German South-West Africa, the real purpose of the war to which they
were looking forward, and for which they were preparing, was the
German annexation of Africa, and how the "smashing up" of France and
Great Britain, the overthrow of Belgium, the seizure of Portuguese
possessions, and the virtual absorption of the proposed new Boer
Republics were to be the preliminaries to a final transformation of
the whole African Continent into a German possession--the "new Empire"
which, in the words of von Weber, was to be "possibly more valuable and
more brilliant than even the Indian Empire."
May one not conclude, in face of these and of all the other facts which
have here been narrated, that one, at least, of the main objectives
of Germany (apart from minor ones) in provoking the Great War was no
less a prize than the African Continent;[74] and that when she invaded
Belgium and France she did so less with the object of annexing the
former country, and of creating another Alsace-Lorraine in the latter
than of having "something in her hand" with which to "bargain"--in the
interests of her projects in Africa--when the time came for discussing
the terms of peace, assuming that she had not already attained her
purpose at the outset by the sheer force of what she thought would be
her irresistible strength?
If this conclusion should seem to be warranted, on the basis of what
has already been told, it may certainly be regarded as confirmed by the
fact that, down to the moment when these lines are being written, any
suggestions coming from German sources as to possible terms of peace
have invariably included proposals for the concession to Germany of
territory in Africa as "compensation" for the surrender of territory she
has herself occupied in Belgium and France.
Thus, in a despatch published in _The Times_ of September 4, 1915, a
statement was reproduced from the Chicago _Tribune_ giving, on the
authority of "a writer in close touch with the German Embassy," the
terms on which Germany would be prepared to agree to peace. These terms
included the following:--
The cession of the Belgian Congo to Germany, as compensation
for the evacuation of Belgium.
The cession of African colonial territory to Germany by
France, as compensation for the evacuation of Northern France.
Then, also, on October 24, 1915, the _New York American_ published a
long interview with Professor Hans Delbrück on the terms of peace which
Germany hoped to secure if "President Wilson and the Pope" would consent
to act as mediators. The interview (which had been approved by the
German censor) included the following passage:--
It is quite possible that peace could be secured by ceding
to Germany such colonies as Uganda by England and the French
and Belgian Congos as a ransom for the evacuation by Germany of
Northern France and Belgium.
Such concessions, if one can conceive the possibility of their being
made--would still leave Germany far from the attainment of her full
African programme; but the fact of these proposals being put forward at
all as "terms of peace" is quite in keeping with the whole course of
Germany's policy in Africa, and points clearly to what may, in fact,
have been her chief objective in the war itself.
Any moral reflections either on the said policy or on the "programme" by
means of which it was to have been carried out would be beyond the scope
of the present work.
What we are here concerned in is the fact that Germany's dreams of
an African Empire, given expression to by von Weber in 1880, and the
subject of such continuous effort ever since, were, in the possibilities
of their realisation, based primarily on the extension and utilisation
of such facilities for rail-transport as she might be able either to
create or to acquire.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] See Vol. III. of "The Story of Africa," by Robert Brown. London,
1894.
[56] "The Germans and Africa," by Evans Lewin, Librarian of the Royal
Colonial Institute. London, 1915.
[57] Under the terms of the treaty of July 1, 1900, Germany was to have
"free access" from her South-West Africa Protectorate to the Zambezi
River "by a strip which shall at no point be less than twenty English
miles in width."
[58] The Hereros (Damaras) are not a warlike people, and although,
at the time of the rising, many of them were armed with Mausers and
Lee-Enfields, it has been said of them that they were not of much
account with the rifle, their "natural weapon" being the assegai. A
German White Book on the rebellion stated that the cause of the outbreak
was the spirit of independence which characterised the Hereros, "to
whom the increasing domination of the Germans had become insupportable,
and who believed themselves stronger than the whites." According to Mr.
H. A. Bryden ("The Conquest of German South-West Africa," _Fortnightly
Review_, July, 1915) the real causes were the abuses of the white
trader, the brutal methods of certain officials, and the seizure and
occupation of tribal lands. The war developed into one of practical
extermination for the natives concerned. Of the Hereros between 20,000
and 30,000 were either killed outright or driven into the Kalahari
desert to die of starvation. The Hottentots also lost heavily.
[59] The Commerce Defence League, as explained by the writer of the
article, is an organisation of German traders which gives subsidies to
German clerks so that they can take up appointments at nominal salaries
in foreign countries, on the understanding that they are to report to
the League as to the business methods, etc., of those countries and on
openings for German trade or industry therein, the League acting on such
information and dividing among its subscribers the profits derived from
the agencies opened or the competitive businesses started.
[60] See _South Africa_, November 14, 1914.
[61] "Memorandum on the Country known as German South-West Africa.
Compiled from such information as is at present available to the
Government of the Union of South Africa." Pretoria, 1915.
[62] The colony was also in wireless-telegraphic communication, via
Togoland, with Berlin.
[63] For details of so-called "invasions" of Portuguese territory by
German political agents, posing as engineers and prospectors, see an
article on "The Invasion of Angola," by Mr. George Bailey, in the issue
of "United Empire: The Royal Colonial Institute Journal," for October,
1915.
[64] "Le Chemin de Fer du Tanganyika et les progrès de l'Afrique
orientale allemande." Par Camille Martin. Renseignements coloniaux, No.
3. Supplément de _l'Afrique française_, Mars, 1914. Paris.
[65] A region on the Belgian Congo about 115,000 square miles in extent
and one of the best watered districts in Africa, lying nearly in the
centre of the African continent, and equidistant, therefore, from the
Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
[66] "Adventures in Africa under the British, Belgian and Portuguese
Flags." London, 1915.
[67] "Welches Interesse hat Deutschland an der Erschliessung des Congo?"
Von Emil Zimmermann. _Koloniale Rundschau_, Mai, 1911. Berlin.
[68] "Die Eroberung des Tanganyika-Verkehrs." Von Emil Zimmermann.
_Koloniale Rundschau_, Jan., 1911. Berlin.
[69] "Kamerun und die Deutsche Tsâdsee-Eisenbahn." Von Carl René,
Director des Kamerun-Eisenbahn-Syndikats. 251 pp. Mit 37 Textbildern
und 22 Tafeln nach Original-Aufnahmen der Kamerun-Eisenbahn-Expediton,
1902-3. Berlin, 1905.
[70] "Bulletin de la Société de Geographie et d'Etudes coloniales de
Marseilles." Tome XXXVI, No. 1. Ie Trimestre, 1912.
[71] "Neu-Kamerun; Reiseerlebnisse und wirtschaftspolitische
Untersuchungen." Von Emil Zimmermann. 135 pp. Map. Berlin, 1913.
[72] "Was ist uns Zentralafrika?" Von Emil Zimmermann. 57 pp. Berlin,
1914.
[73] How Egypt was to be invaded and captured by the Germans and Turks,
in combination, with the help of the railways in Asia Minor, will be
told in the following Chapter.
[74] Should there still be any doubt on this point, it will be removed
by the frank admission of _Die Neue Zeit_, even whilst the Great War
is still in progress, that Germany undertook the war with "the main
object of extending her colonial possessions." As quoted in the _Daily
Express_ of October 8, 1915, _Die Neue Zeit_ further said:--"Herr Paul
Rohrbach favours the acquisition of the whole of Central Africa, but
opines that this territory, vast as it is, will not be adequate to
furnish Germany with all the elbow room she may require within the next
half-century. Professor Delbrück, while agreeing with Herr Rohrbach,
as to the importance of Central Africa, as well as of Angola and the
whole of British East Africa, further emphasises the necessity for the
acquisition of the Sudan and the southern part of the Sahara, now in
the possession of France. We are quite in agreement with these eminent
leaders that we must found an "India" of our own, and that the greater
part of the African continent must furnish the requisite territory.
Once well established in this new empire, we shall link ourselves with
Asiatic Turkey, and also with China, reconstructing the political and
economic foundations of both on a scientific German basis."
CHAPTER XX
DESIGNS ON ASIATIC TURKEY
Just as avowedly strategical lines in Africa were to lead the way to the
creation of a German African Empire, so, in turn, was that system of
economic-political-strategical lines comprised within the scheme of what
is known as the "Baghdad Railway" designed to ensure the establishment
of a German Middle-Asian Empire, bringing under German control the
entire region from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, and providing
convenient stepping-off places from which an advance might be made on
Egypt in the one direction and India in the other.
The conception of this further programme was spread over (1) the period
during which Germany's aspirations were limited to the inheritance of
Turkey's possessions in Asia; and (2) the period when such inheritance
began to be regarded as a means to the realisation of still greater aims
in the domain of Weltpolitik.
For more than half a century Asiatic Turkey has been looked upon as
Germany's Land of Promise. Anatolia was thought a most desirable
territory for her surplus population. The development, under German
influence, of that territory as a whole--especially with a revival
of the Babylonian system of irrigation--was considered to offer vast
possibilities of commercial prosperity. Wheat, cotton and tobacco,
especially, might be raised in prodigious quantities, and there was the
prospect, also, of a petroleum industry rivalling that of Baku itself.
Turkey was a decadent nation, and as soon as "the Sick Man" succumbed
to his apparently inevitable fate--or even before, should circumstances
permit--Germany was ready to step into his shoes.
That these aspirations had, indeed, long been cherished is a fact
capable of ready proof.
In 1848 Wilhelm Roscher, the leading expounder of the historical school
of political economy in Germany, selected Asia Minor as Germany's share
in the Turkish spoils, whenever the division thereof should take place;
and Johann Karl Robertus (1805-1875), the founder of the so-called
scientific socialism in Germany, expressed the hope that he would live
long enough to see Turkey fall into the hands of Germany, and, also, to
see German soldiers on the shores of the Bosporus.
Coming to a more recent period, we find that Dr. Aloys Sprenger, the
German orientalist, published, in 1886, a pamphlet on "Babylonia, the
richest land in the past, and the most promising field for colonisation
in the present,"[75] in which, after dealing with the history, physical
conditions and resources of Babylonia, he predicted that, before the end
of the century, not only Babylonia but Assyria, which was inseparable
from it, would, if not formally annexed, at least come under the control
of some European Power. Assyria and Syria, he declared, were even better
adapted for colonisation than Babylonia. He continued:--
The Orient is the only territory on earth which has not yet
been taken possession of by some aspiring nation. It offers the
finest opportunities for colonisation, and if Germany, taking
care not to let the opportunity slip, should act before the
Cossacks come along, she would, in the division of the world,
get the best share.... The German Kaiser, as soon as a few
hundred thousand armed German colonists bring these promising
fields into cultivation, will have in his hand the fate of Asia
Minor, and he can--and will--then become the Protector of Peace
for the whole of Asia.
Dr. Karl Kaerger, traveller and economist, lamented, in his "Kleinasien;
ein deutsches Kolonisationsfeld" (Berlin, 1892), the enormous loss
sustained by Germany in the migration of so many of her people and of so
much capital to Anglo-Saxon lands; but there were, he affirmed, only two
countries to which German settlers could go with any hope of retaining
alike their nationality and their commercial relations with the
_Mutterland_. Those countries were--Africa and Asia Minor. He had been
especially impressed, during the course of his travels, by the prospects
and possibilities of Anatolia, and he recommended the establishment
there of large German companies which would organise schemes of
colonisation and land cultivation on a large scale. The colonies so
established should be self-governing, free from all taxation for ten
years, have the right of duty-free importation of necessaries, and enjoy
various other privileges, while Turkey, in return for the concessions
she thus made to the settlers, would be assured "the protection of
Germany against attack." Not only hundreds of thousands, but millions,
of colonists could find a second home on those wide expanses. Germany
herself would gain a dual advantage--an economical one, and a political
one. Concerning the latter, Dr. Kaerger observed:--
If the German Empire, while maintaining her friendship with
Austria and Italy--which, under all circumstances, the political
situation in Europe undoubtedly requires--can direct the stream
of her emigration to the fertile territories of Turkey, and if
she can conclude with that country a closer customs convention,
then the entire economic, and with it, also, the political
future of Germany will rest on a broader and a firmer basis
than if the present streams of hundreds of thousands of her
people, and millions of capital, continue to pass in increasing
proportions, year by year, to countries which are economically
hostile to us.
Dr. Kaerger was especially concerned lest Germany might be anticipated
by Russia or England in the realisation of her own designs on Asia
Minor. Should, he declared, either of those countries acquire any
further territory from Turkey, or increase in any way Turkey's
dependence upon them, the result would be the most serious disturbance
of the prevailing situation in Europe that had occurred since 1870.
The development of all these ideas went so far that in 1895 the
_Alldeutscher Blätter_ recommended that Germany should establish a
Protectorate over the Turkish possessions in Asia Minor; and in the
following year the _Alldeutscher_ _Verband_ published a manifesto on
"German claims to the Inheritance of Turkey" ("Deutschlands Anspruch an
das türkische Erbe"), making a formal statement of Germany's alleged
rights to the Turkish succession.
Germany had by this time already secured a footing on the soil of
Asiatic Turkey by virtue of the _Anatolian Railway_. The first
section--a length of about seventy miles, extending from Haidar Pacha
(situate on the north-eastern coast of the Sea of Marmara, and opposite
Constantinople) to Ismidt--was built in 1875 by German engineers to
the order of the Turkish Government. It was transferred in 1888 to a
German syndicate, nominees of the Deutsche Bank. Under the powers then
conferred upon them, the syndicate opened an extension, on the east, to
Angora, in 1892, and another, on the south, to Konia, in 1896, the total
length of line being thus increased to 633 miles.
As the result of the visit of the German Emperor to Constantinople in
1898, followed by negotiations between the Porte and the director of
the Deutsche Bank, authority was given to a new German Company--the
Imperial Ottoman Baghdad Railway Company--under conventions of 1889,
1902 and 1903, to continue the existing Anatolian Railway from Konia to
the Persian Gulf, via Adana, Nisibin, Mosul and Baghdad. This extension
was to constitute the main line of the _Baghdad Railway_ proper; but the
Company also acquired control over most of the branch railways already
in operation. One of these was the French Smyrna--Afium Karahissar line,
which constitutes the direct trade route between Smyrna and places
served by the Anatolian railway, and has, also, a branch to Panderma, on
the southern shores of the Sea of Marmara. Another was the short line
from Adana to Mersina, giving access to the Mediterranean. This meant
the substitution of German for French interests, while the course taken
by the Anatolia-Baghdad Railway from the Bosporus to Adana shut off the
possibility of an extension of the British line from Smyrna via Aidin to
Egerdir (west of Konia) into the interior.
Then in 1911 the Company acquired the right to build a _new port at
Alexandretta_, with quays, docks, bonded warehouses, etc., and to
construct thence a short line of railway connecting with the Baghdad
main line at Osmanieh, east of Adana. By these means the Germans
acquired the control over, if not an actual monopoly of, the traffic
between one of the most important ports on the eastern sea-board of the
Mediterranean--a port where a trade valued at three and a half million
sterling is already being done--and the vast extent of territory in Asia
Minor designed to be served by the Baghdad Railway.
From Muslimiyeh, a little town on the north of Aleppo, there is a short
branch connecting the Baghdad Railway with the _Hedjaz line_ from
Damascus to Medina, which is eventually to be carried on to Mecca;
while from Rayak, north of Damascus, a branch built in a south-westerly
direction was to be carried to within a short distance of the Egyptian
frontier.
From the junction for the Aleppo branch, the main line was to continue
across the Mesopotamian plain to Baghdad (whence a branch to Khanikin,
on the Persian frontier was projected) and so on to Basra, for the
Persian Gulf.
Thus the scheme for what passes under the title of the Baghdad Railway
embraces three separate and distinct regions of Asiatic Turkey--(1)
Anatolia, (2) Syria and (3) Mesopotamia. In other words, whereas in
their first phase, German aspirations for Turkish territory were based
on the economic advantages of settlement in Anatolia--a region in
itself large enough to accommodate all the Germans who were likely
to want to settle there--in the second phase those aspirations were
based on an extension of the Baghdad Railway towards Egypt in the
one direction and the Persian Gulf in the other. This dual extension
became the more noticeable, also, inasmuch as for the passage of the
Taurus range of mountains a total of nearly 100 miles of blasting and
tunnelling would have to be carried out, the cost of construction on
certain sections of the line rising to between £35,000 and £40,000 a
mile. The extension, therefore, was likely to be a costly business, the
total length of the Baghdad Railway proper, apart from the Anatolian
system, being, as projected, about 1,350 miles, of which, however,
only about 600 miles were, in June, 1915, available for traffic.[76]
Admitting the desirability of opening up Mesopotamia to commercial and
agricultural development, it may, nevertheless, be asked, were there
other motives--and motives to which still greater weight might have been
attached--for this expansion of the earlier designs?
Abdul Hamid's reason for granting the concession is said to have been
that the extension of the line to the Persian Gulf would greatly
strengthen the military position of Turkey, since it would enable her to
effect a speedy transfer of troops between the Bosporus and the Gulf, or
intermediate places, as against the many months that might be occupied
by marching on foot across plains and mountains.
Germany's reasons for seeking to construct the Baghdad Railway, its
branches and connections, to the full extent of the programme laid
down, were, not simply the development of new trade routes, as certain
inspired representations have sought to make the world believe, and not
simply the gain of various other economic advantages, but (1) a desire
to increase German influence over Turkey; to strengthen her military
and other resources with a view to employing them eventually in the
advancement of Germany's own interests; and to ensure the realisation
of that eventual Protectorate over Turkey which would convert the
country into practically a German province; and (2) the furthering
of Germany's aims against Great Britain in the belief that she, too,
was a decadent country whose possessions, when we could no longer
defend them effectively, Germany would be the more likely to secure
for herself if, with a concentration of Turkish forces to assist her,
she were established within striking distance of some of the most
vulnerable points of the British Empire, ready to take instant advantage
of any favourable opportunity that might present itself, whether in a
prospective break-up of that Empire or otherwise.
Of evidence concerning Germany's efforts to obtain increasing influence
over Turkey there is no lack.
We have, in the first place, the fact that in 1882 a German military
mission, of which General the Baron Colmar von der Goltz was the
principal member, undertook the training of the Turkish Army according
to the principles of German military science, with the result that the
Turkish Army became a more efficient instrument for the attainment, not
only of her own aims or purposes, but those, also, of Germany herself.
The Kaiser, although the supreme head of the Lutheran Church, and
although having no Mohammedan subjects of his own, sought to pose as the
champion of Mohammedans in general and the Defender of _their_ Faith.
During his visit to Damascus in November, 1898, he declared--"May the
Sultan, may the three hundred million Mohammedans living who, scattered
throughout the earth, honour in his person their Caliph, rest assured
that at all times the German Kaiser will be their friend."[77]
Whenever political trouble threatened to fall upon Turkey, as the result
of such occurrences as the Armenian and Macedonian atrocities or the
insurrection in Crete, it was Germany who became her champion as against
the other Powers of Europe.
Everything possible was done to push German trade in Turkey and to
establish closer commercial relations with her. There came a time when
every city of importance in the Turkish Empire was declared to be
"overrun with German bankers, German clerks and German bagmen."
Not only, too, were German engineers active in seeking to get
concessions for new railways, and not only were German financiers
equally active in endeavouring to control existing ones, but, as Dr.
Charles Sarolea points out, in his book on "The Anglo-German Problem,"
there are, in the agreements between the Baghdad Railway Company and the
Porte, financial clauses which must ultimately place Turkey entirely at
the mercy of her professed champion. "In Turkey Germany alone would rule
supreme"; and the aspirations for a German Protectorate over Turkey,
with the Sultan as a vassal of Germany, would then be realised.
Writing on the position as he found it in 1903, M. André Chéradame said
in "La Question d'Orient":--
More and more the Germans seem to regard the land of
the Turks as their personal property. All the recent German
literature relating to Turkey affords proof of the tendency. An
ordinary book of travels is entitled, "In Asia Minor, by German
Railways." In his "Pan-Germanic Atlas" Paul Langhams gives a
map of "German Railways in Asia Minor." So it is, indeed, a
matter of the organised conquest of Turkey. Everywhere and in
everything, Turkey is being encircled by the tentacles of the
German octopus.
Coming, next, to the nature of _Germany's aims against England_ and the
part which the Baghdad Railway was to play in their attainment, we have
the frank confessions of Dr. Paul Rohrbach, an authority on the subject
of Germany's Weltpolitik, and a traveller who has paid four visits to
Asia Minor. In "Die Baghdadbahn" (2nd. edition, 1911) he tells us that
Ludwig Ross, a professor at Halle who was well acquainted with Anatolia,
was the first to point to Asia Minor as a desirable place for German
settlement. At the outset economic considerations were alone concerned,
and in Bismarck's day Germany's relations to England played only a minor
rôle in her foreign politics; but in proportion as Germany's interests
were developed and her soil no longer provided sufficient food for her
people or sufficient raw products for her manufactures, she had to look
abroad for the supply of her surplus needs. In so doing, however, her
interests abroad might be endangered by the British Fleet. Hence the
necessity for a German Fleet; and, although the German sea-power might
not be strong enough, by itself, to attack and conquer England, it
could bring certain considerations home to English policy. Dr. Rohrbach
continues:--
If it came to a matter of war with England, it would be for
Germany simply a question of life and death. The possibility
of a successful issue for Germany depends exclusively on one
consideration, namely, on whether or not we can succeed in
bringing England herself into a dangerous position. That end
can in no way be obtained by means of a direct attack across
the North Sea; any idea of a German invasion of England being
possible is a mere phantasy. One must seek, therefore, another
combination in order to assail England at some vulnerable spot;
and here we come to the point where the relations of Germany to
Turkey, and the conditions prevailing in Turkey, are found to
be of decisive importance for German foreign policy. There is,
in fact, only one means possible by which Germany can resist a
war of aggression by England, and that is the strengthening of
Turkey.
England can, from Europe, be attacked by land and mortally
wounded only in one place--Egypt. If England were to lose Egypt
she would lose, not only her control over the Suez Canal and her
connexions with India and the Far East, but, presumably, also,
her possessions in Central and East Africa. The conquest of
Egypt by a Mohammedan Power, such as Turkey, might, in addition,
have a dangerous effect on her 60,000,000 Mohammedan subjects in
India, besides being to her prejudice in Afghanistan and Persia.