The Expansion of Europe Part 5

These facts, of course, gave to Britain, already so richly endowed, no sort of claim to a monopoly of the continent. But they naturally gave her a right to a voice in its disposal. Only the French had shown anything like the same activity, or had established anything like the same interests; and they were far behind their secular rivals.

But these facts bring out one feature which differentiated the settlement of Africa from that of any other region of the non-European world. It was not a gradual, but an extraordinarily rapid achievement.

It was based not upon claims established by work already done, but, for the most part, upon the implicit a.s.sumption that extra-European empire was the due of the European peoples, simply because they were civilised and powerful. This was the justification, in a large degree, of all the European empires in Africa. But it was especially so in the case of the empire which Germany created in the s.p.a.ce of three years. This empire was not the product of German enterprise in the regions included within it; it was the product of Germany's dominating position in Europe, and the expression of her resolve to create an external empire worthy of that position.

Africa falls naturally into two great regions. The northern coast, separated from the main ma.s.s of the continent by the broad belt of deserts which runs from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, has always been far more ultimately connected with the other Mediterranean lands than with the rest of Africa. Throughout the course of history, indeed, the northern coast-lands have belonged rather to the realms of Western or of Asiatic civilisation than to the primitive barbarism of the sons of Ham. In the days of the Carthaginians and of the Roman Empire, all these lands, from Egypt to Morocco, had known a high civilisation. They were racially as well as historically distinct from the rest of the continent. They had been in name part of the Turkish Empire, and any European interference in their affairs was as much a question of European politics as the problems of the Balkans. Two countries in this area fell under European direction during the period with which we are concerned, and in each case the effects upon European politics were very great. In 1881 France, with the deliberate encouragement of Bismarck, sent armies into Tunis, and a.s.sumed the protectorate of that misgoverned region. She had good grounds for her action. Not only had she large trade-interests in Tunis, but the country was separated from her earlier dominion in Algeria only by an artificial line, and its disorders increased the difficulty of developing the efficient administration which she had established there. Unhappily Italy also had interests in Tunis. There were more Italian than French residents in the country, which is separated from Sicily only by a narrow belt of sea. And Italy, who was beginning to conceive colonial ambitions, had not unnaturally marked down Tunis as her most obvious sphere of influence. The result was to create a long-lived ill-feeling between the two Latin countries. As a consequence of the annexation of Tunis, Italy was persuaded in the next year (1882) to join the Triple Alliance; and France, having burnt her fingers, became chary of colonial adventures in regions that were directly under the eye of Europe. Isolated, insecure, and eternally suspicious of Germany, she could not afford to be drawn into European quarrels. This is in a large degree the explanation of her vacillating action in regard to Egypt.

In Egypt the political influence of France had been preponderant ever since the time of Mehemet Ali; perhaps we should say, ever since the time of Napoleon. And political influence had been accompanied by trading and financial interests. France had a larger share of the trade of Egypt, and had lent more money to the ruling princes of the country, than any other country save England. She had designed and executed the Suez Ca.n.a.l. But this waterway, once opened, was used mainly by British s.h.i.+ps on the way to India, Australia, and the Far East. It became a point of vital strategic importance to Britain, who, though she had opposed its construction, eagerly seized the chance of buying a great block of shares in the enterprise from the bankrupt Khedive. Thus French and British interests in Egypt were equally great; greater than those of all the rest of Europe put together. When the native government of Egypt fell into bankruptcy (1876), the two powers set up a sort of condominium, or joint control of the finances, in order to ensure the payment of interest on the Egyptian debt held by their citizens. To bankruptcy succeeded political chaos; and it became apparent that if the rich land of Egypt was not to fall into utter anarchy, there must be direct European intervention. The two powers proposed to take joint action; the rest of Europe a.s.sented. But the Sultan of Turkey, as suzerain of Egypt, threatened to make difficulties. At the last moment France, fearful of the complications that might result, and resolute to avoid the danger of European war, withdrew from the project of joint intervention. Britain went on alone; and although she hoped and believed that she would quickly be able to restore order, and thereupon to evacuate the country, found herself drawn into a labour of reconstruction that could not be dropped. We shall in the next chapter have more to say on the British occupation of Egypt, as part of the British achievement during this period. In the meanwhile, its immediate result was continuous friction between France and Britain. France could not forgive herself or Britain for the opportunity which she had lost. The embitterment caused by the Egyptian question lasted throughout the period, and was not healed till the Entente of 1904. It intensified and exacerbated the rivalry of the two countries in other fields. It made each country incapable of judging fairly the actions of the other. To wounded and embittered France, the perfectly honest British explanations of the reasons for delay in evacuating Egypt seemed only so many evidences of hypocrisy masking greed. To Britain the French att.i.tude seemed fractious and unreasonable, and she suspected in every French forward movement in other fields--notably in the Eastern Soudan and the upper valley of the Nile--an attempt to attack or undermine her. Thus Egypt, like Tunis, ill.u.s.trated the influence of European politics in the extra-European field. The power that profited most was Germany, who had strengthened herself by drawing Italy into the Triple Alliance, and had kept France at her mercy by using colonial questions as a means of alienating her from her natural friends. It was, in truth, only from this point of view that colonial questions had any interest for Bismarck. He was, as he repeatedly a.s.serted almost to the day of his death, 'no colony man.'

But the time was at hand when he was to be forced out of this att.i.tude.

For already the riches of tropical Africa were beginning to attract the attention of Europe.

The most active and energetic of the powers in tropical Africa was France. From her ancient foothold at Senegal she was already, in the late 'seventies, pus.h.i.+ng inland towards the upper waters of the Niger; while further south her vigorous explorer de Brazza was penetrating the hinterland behind the French coastal settlements north of the Congo mouth. Meanwhile the explorations of Livingstone and Stanley had given the world some conception of the wealth of the vast exterior. In 1876 Leopold, King of the Belgians, summoned a conference at Brussels to consider the possibility of setting the exploration and settlement of Africa upon an international basis. Its result was the formation of an International African a.s.sociation, with branches in all the princ.i.p.al countries. But from the first the branches dropped all serious pretence of international action. They became (so far as they exercised any influence) purely national organisations for the purpose of acquiring the maximum amount of territory for their own states. And the central body, after attempting a few unsuccessful exploring expeditions, practically resolved itself into the organ of King Leopold himself, and aimed at creating a neutral state in Central Africa under his protection. In 1878 H. M. Stanley returned from the exploration of the Congo. He was at once invited by King Leopold to undertake the organisation of the Congo basin for his a.s.sociation, and set out again for that purpose in 1879. But he soon found himself in conflict with the active French agents under de Brazza, who had made their way into the Congo valley from the north-west. And at the same time Portugal, reviving ancient and dormant claims, a.s.serted that the Congo belonged to her. It was primarily to find a solution for these disputes that the Berlin Conference was summoned in December 1884. Meanwhile the rush for territory was going on furiously in other regions of Africa. Not only on the Congo, but on the Guinea Coast and its hinterland, France was showing an immense activity, and was threatening to reduce to small coastal enclaves the old British settlements on this coast. Only the energy shown by a group of British merchants, who formed themselves into a National African Company in 1881, and the vigorous action of their leader, Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Taubman Goldie, prevented the extrusion of British interests from the greater part of the Niger valley, where they had hitherto been supreme. In Madagascar, too, the ancient ambitions of France had revived. Though British trading and missionary activities in the island were at this date probably greater than French, France claimed large rights, especially in the north-east of the island. These claims drew her into a war with the native power of the Hovas, which began in 1883, and ended in 1885 with a vague recognition of French suzerainty. Again, Italy had, in 1883, obtained her first foothold in Eritrea, on the sh.o.r.e of the Red Sea. And Germany, also, had suddenly made up her mind to embark upon the career of empire. In 1883 the Bremen merchant, Luderitz, appeared in South-west Africa, where there were a few German mission stations and trading-centres, and annexed a large area which Bismarck was persuaded to take under the formal protection of Germany. This region had hitherto been vaguely regarded as within the British sphere, but though native princes, missionaries, and in 1868 even the Prussian government, had requested Britain to establish a formal protectorate, she had always declined to do so. In the next year another German agent, Dr.

Nachtigal, was commissioned by the German government to report on German trade interests on the West Coast, and the British government was formally acquainted with his mission and requested to instruct its agents to a.s.sist him. The real purpose of the mission was shown when Nachtigal made a treaty with the King of Togoland, on the Guinea Coast, whereby he accepted German suzerainty. A week later a similar treaty was made with some of the native chiefs in the Cameroons. In this region British interests had hitherto been predominant, and the chiefs had repeatedly asked for British protection, which had always been refused. A little later the notorious Karl Peters, with a few companions disguised as working engineers, arrived at Zanzibar on the East Coast, with a commission from the German Colonial Society to peg out German claims. In the island of Zanzibar British interests had long been overwhelmingly predominant; and the Sultan, who had large and vague claims to supremacy over a vast extent of the mainland, had repeatedly asked the British government to take these regions under its protectorate. He had always been refused. Peters' luggage consisted largely of draft treaty-forms; and he succeeded in making treaties with native princes (usually unaware of the meaning of the doc.u.ments they were signing) whereby some 60,000 square miles were brought under German control. The protectorate over these lands had not been accepted by the German government when the Conference of Berlin met. It was formally accepted in the next year (1885). Far from being opposed by Britain, the establishment of German power in East Africa was actually welcomed by the British government, whose foreign secretary, Earl Granville, wrote that his government 'views with favour these schemes, the realisation of which will entail the civilisation of large tracts over which hitherto no European influence has been exercised.' And when a group of British traders began to take action further north, in the territory which later became British East Africa, and in which Peters had done nothing, the British government actually consulted the German government before licensing their action. Thus before the meeting of the Conference of Berlin the foundations of the German empire in Africa were already laid; the outlines of the vast French empire in the north had begun to appear; and the curious dominion of Leopold of Belgium in the Congo valley had begun to take shape.

The Conference of Berlin (Dec. 1884-Feb. 1885), which marks the close of the first stage in the part.i.tion of Africa, might have achieved great things if it had endeavoured to lay down the principles upon which European control over backward peoples should be exercised. But it made no such ambitious attempt. It prescribed the rules of the game of empire-building, ordaining that all protectorates should be formally notified by the power which a.s.sumed them to the other powers, and that no annexation should be made of territory which was not 'effectively'

occupied; but evidently the phrase 'effective occupation' can be very laxly interpreted. It provided that there should be free navigation of the Congo and Niger rivers, and freedom of trade for alienations within the Congo valley and certain other vaguely defined areas. But it made no similar provision for other parts of Africa; and it whittled away the value of what it did secure by the definite proviso that should parts of these areas be annexed by independent states, the restriction upon their control of trade should lapse. It recognised the illegality of the slave-trade, and imposed upon annexing powers the duty of helping to suppress it; this provision was made much fuller and more definite by a second conference at Brussels in 1890, on the demand of Britain, who had hitherto contended almost alone against the traffic in human flesh. But no attempt was made to define native rights, to safeguard native customs, to prohibit the maintenance of forces larger than would be necessary for the maintenance of order: in short, no attempt was made to lay down the doctrine that the function of a ruling power among backward peoples is that of a trustee on behalf of its simple subjects and on behalf of civilisation. That the part.i.tion of Africa should have been effected without open war, and that the questions decided at Berlin should have been so easily and peacefully agreed upon, seemed at the moment to be a good sign. But the spirit which the conference expressed was not a healthy spirit.

After 1884 the activity of the powers in exploration, annexation and development became more furious than ever. Britain now began seriously to arouse herself to the danger of exclusion from vast areas where her interests had hitherto been predominant; and it was during these years that all her main acquisitions of territory in Africa were made: Rhodesia and Central Africa in the south, East Africa and Somaliland in the East, Nigeria and the expansion of her lesser protectorates in the West. To these years also belonged the definite, and most unfortunate, emergence of Italy as a colonising power. She had got a foothold in Eritrea in 1883; in 1885 it was, with British aid, enlarged by the annexation of territory which had once been held by Egypt, but had been abandoned when she lost the Soudan. But the Italian claims in Eritrea brought on conflict with the neighbouring native power of Abyssinia. In spite of a sharp defeat at Dogali in 1887, she succeeded in holding her own in this conflict; and in 1889 Abyssinia accepted a treaty which Italy claimed to be a recognition of her suzerainty. But the Abyssinians repudiated this interpretation; and in a new war, which began in 1896, inflicted upon the Italians so disastrous a defeat at Adowa that they were constrained to admit the complete independence of Abyssinia--the sole native state which has so far been able to hold its own against the pressure of Europe. Meanwhile in 1889 and the following years Italy had, once more with the direct concurrence of Britain, marked out a new territory in Somaliland.

The main features of the years from 1884 to 1900 were the rapidity with which the territories earlier annexed were expanded and organised, more especially by France. In the 'nineties her dominions extended from the Mediterranean to the Guinea Coast, and she had conceived the ambition of extending them also across Africa from West to East. This ambition led her into a new and more acute conflict with Britain, who, having undertaken the reconquest of the Egyptian Soudan and the upper valley of the Nile, held that she could not permit a rival to occupy the upper waters of the great river, or any part of the territory that belonged to it. Hence when the intrepid explorer, Marchand, after a toilsome expedition which lasted for two years, planted the French flag at Fashoda in 1898, he was promptly disturbed by Kitchener, fresh from the overthrow of the Khalifa and the reconquest of Khartoum, and was compelled to withdraw. The tension was severe; no episode in the part.i.tion of Africa had brought the world so near to the outbreak of a European war. But in the end the dispute was settled by the Anglo-French agreement of 1898, which may be said to mark the conclusion of the process of part.i.tion. It was the last important treaty in a long series which filled the twenty years following 1878, and which had the result of leaving Africa, with the exception of Morocco, Tripoli, and Abyssinia, completely divided among the chief European states. Africa was the main field of the ambitions and rivalries of the European powers during this period; the other fields may be more rapidly surveyed. In Central Asia and the Near East the main features of the period were two. The first was the steady advance of Russia towards the south-east, which awakened acute alarms in Britain regarding India, and led to the adoption of a 'forward policy'

among the frontier tribes in the north-west of India. The second was the gradual and silent penetration of Turkey by German influence. Here there was no part.i.tion or annexation, But Germany became the political protector of the Turk; undertook the reorganisation of his armies; obtained great commercial concessions; bought up his railways, ousting the earlier British and French concerns which had controlled them, and built new lines. The greatest of these was the vitally important project of the Bagdad railway, which was taken in hand just before the close of the period. It was a project whose political aims outweighed its commercial aims. And it provided a warning of the gigantic designs which Germany was beginning to work out. But as yet, in 1900, the magnitude of these designs was unperceived. And the problems of the Middle East were not yet very disturbing. The Turkish Empire remained intact; so did the Persian Empire, though both were becoming more helpless, partly owing to the decrepitude of their governments, partly owing to the pressure of European financial and trading interests. As yet the empires of the Middle East seemed to form a region comparatively free from European influence. But this was only seeming.

The influence of Europe was at work in them; and it was probably inevitable that some degree of European political tutelage should follow as the only means of preventing the disintegration which must result from the pouring of new wine into the old bottles.

In the Far East--in the vast empire of China--this result seemed to be coming about inevitably and rapidly. The ancient pot-bound civilisation of China had withstood the impact of the West in the mid-nineteenth century without breaking down; but China had made no attempt, such as j.a.pan had triumphantly carried out, to adapt herself to the new conditions, and her system was slowly crumbling under the influence of the European traders, teachers, and missionaries whom she had been compelled to admit. The first of the powers to take advantage of this situation was France, who already possessed a footing in Cochin-China, and was tempted during the colonial enthusiasm of the 'eighties to transform it into a general supremacy over Annam and Tonking. As early as 1874 she had obtained from the King of Annam a treaty which she interpreted as giving her suzerain powers. The King of Annam himself repudiated this interpretation, and maintained that he was a va.s.sal of China. China took the same view; and after long negotiations a war between France and China broke out. It lasted for four years, and demanded a large expenditure of strength. But it ended (1885) with the formal recognition of French suzerainty over Annam, and a further decline of Chinese prestige.

Ten years later a still more striking proof of Chinese weakness was afforded by the rapid and complete defeat of the vast, ill-organised empire by j.a.pan, the youngest of the great powers. The war gave to j.a.pan Formosa and the Pescadores Islands, and added her to the list of imperialist powers. She would have won more still--the Liao-tang Peninsula and a sort of suzerainty over Korea--but that the European powers, startled by the signs of China's decay, and perhaps desiring a share of the plunder, intervened to forbid these annexations, on the pretext of defending the integrity of China. Russia, France and Germany combined in this step; Britain stood aloof. j.a.pan, unwillingly giving way, and regarding Russia as the chief cause of her humiliation, began to prepare herself for a coming conflict. As for unhappy China, she was soon to learn how much sincerity there was in the zeal of Europe for the maintenance of her integrity. In 1896 she was compelled to permit Russia to build a railway across Manchuria; and to grant to France a 'rectification of frontiers' on the south, and the right of building a railway through the province of Yunnan, which lies next to Tonking. The part.i.tion of China seemed to be at hand. Britain and America vainly urged upon the other powers that China should be left free to direct her own affairs subject to the maintenance of 'the open door' for European trade. The other powers refused to listen, and in 1897 the beginning of the end seemed to have come. Germany, seizing on the pretext afforded by the murder of two German missionaries, stretched forth her 'mailed fist,' and seized the strong place and admirable harbour of Kiao-chau, the most valuable strategic position on the Chinese coast. That she meant to use it as a base for future expansion was shown by her lavish expenditure upon its equipment and fortification. Russia responded by seizing the strong place of Port Arthur and the Liao-Tang Peninsula, while every day her hold upon the great province of Manchuria was strengthened. Foreseeing a coming conflict in which her immense trading interests would be imperilled, Britain acquired a naval base on the Chinese coast by leasing Wei-hai-Wei. Thus all the European rivals were cl.u.s.tered round the decaying body of China; and in the last years of the century were already beginning to claim 'spheres of influence,' despite the protests of Britain and America. But the outburst of the Boxer Rising in 1900--caused mainly by resentment of foreign intervention--had the effect of postponing the rush for Chinese territory. And when Britain and j.a.pan made an alliance in 1902 on the basis of guaranteeing the status quo in the East, the overwhelming naval strength of the two allies made a European part.i.tion of China impracticable; and China was once more given a breathing-s.p.a.ce. Only Russia could attack the Chinese Empire by land; and the severe defeat which she suffered at the hands of j.a.pan in 1904-5 removed that danger also. The Far East was left with a chance of maintaining its independence, and of voluntarily adapting itself to the needs of a new age.

The last region in which territories remained available for European annexation consisted of the innumerable archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean. Here the preponderant influence had been in the hands of Britain ever since the days of Captain Cook. She had made some annexations during the first three quarters of the century, but had on the whole steadfastly refused the requests of many of the island peoples to be taken under her protection. France had, as we have seen, acquired New Caledonia and the Marquesas Islands during the previous period, but her activity in this region was never very great. The only other European power in possession of Pacific territories was Spain, who held the great archipelago of the Philippines, and claimed also the numerous minute islands (nearly six hundred in number) which are known as Micronesia. When the colonial enthusiasm of the 'eighties began, Germany saw a fruitful field in the Pacific, and annexed the Bismarck Archipelago and the north-eastern quarter of New Guinea. Under pressure from Australia, who feared to see so formidable a neighbour established so near her coastline, Britain annexed the south-eastern quarter of that huge island. During the 'nineties the part.i.tion of the Pacific Islands was completed; the chief partic.i.p.ators being Germany, Britain, and the United States of America.

The entry of America into the race for imperial possessions in its last phase was too striking an event to pa.s.s without comment. America annexed Hawaii in 1898, and divided the Samoan group with Germany in 1899. But her most notable departure from her traditional policy of self-imposed isolation from world-politics came when in 1898 she was drawn by the Cuban question into a war with Spain. Its result was the disappearance of the last relics of the Spanish Empire in the New World and in the Pacific. Cuba became an independent republic. Porto Rico was annexed by America. In the Pacific the Micronesian possessions of Spain were acquired by Germany. Germany would fain have annexed also the Philippine Islands. But America resolved herself to a.s.sume the task of organising and governing these rich lands; and in doing so made a grave breach with her traditions. Her new possession necessarily drew her into closer relations with the problems of the Far East; it gave her also some acquaintance with the difficulty of introducing Western methods among a backward people. During these years of universal imperialist excitement the spirit of imperialism seemed to have captured America as it had captured the European states; and this was expressed in a new interpretation of the Monroe doctrine, put forth by the Secretary of State during the Venezuela controversy of 1895. 'The United States,' said Mr. Olney, 'is practically sovereign on this continent (meaning both North and South America), 'and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition.' No such gigantic imperial claim had ever been put forward by any European state; and it const.i.tuted an almost defiant challenge to the imperialist powers of Europe. It may safely be said that this dictum did not represent the settled judgment of the American people. But it did appear, in the last years of the century, as if the great republic were about to emerge from her self-imposed isolation, and to take her natural part in the task of planting the civilisation of the West throughout the world. Had she frankly done so, had she made it plain that she recognised the indissoluble unity and the common interests of the whole world, it is possible that her influence might have eased the troubles of the next period, and exercised a deterrent influence upon the forces of disturbance which were working towards the great catastrophe. But her traditions were too strong; and after the brief imperialist excitement of the 'nineties, she gradually relapsed once more into something like her old att.i.tude of aloofness.

It is but a cursory and superficial view which we have been able to take of this extraordinary quarter of a century, during which almost the whole world was part.i.tioned among a group of mighty empires, and the political and economic unity of the globe was finally and irrefragably established. Few regions had escaped the direct political control of European powers; and most of these few were insensibly falling under the influence of one or other of the powers: Turkey under that of Germany, Persia under that of Russia and Britain. No region of the earth remained exempt from the indirect influence of the European system. The civilisation of the West had completed the domination of the globe; and the interests of the great world-states were so intertwined and intermingled in every corner of the earth that the balance of power among them had become as precarious as was the European balance in the eighteenth century. The era of the world-states had very definitely opened. It remained to be seen in what spirit it was to be used, and whether it was to be of long duration. These two questions are one; for no system can last which is based upon injustice and the denial of right.

At this point we may well stop to survey the new world-states which had been created by this quarter of a century of eager compet.i.tion.

First among them, in extent and importance, stood the new empire of France. It covered a total area of five million square miles, and in size ranked third in order, coming after the older empires of Russia and Britain. It had been the result of the strenuous labours of three-quarters of a century, dating from the first invasion of Algiers; it included also some surviving fragments of the earlier French Empire.

But overwhelmingly the greater part of this vast dominion had been acquired during the short period which we have surveyed in this chapter; and its system of organisation and government had not yet had time to establish itself. It had been built only at the cost of strenuous labour, and many wars. Yet the French had shown in its administration that they still retained to the full that imaginative tact in the handling of alien peoples which had stood them in good stead in India and America during the eighteenth century. Once their rule was established the French had on the whole very little trouble with their subjects; and it is impossible to praise too highly the labours of civilisation which French administrators were achieving. So far as their subjects were concerned, they may justly be said to have regarded themselves as trustees. So far as the rest of the civilised world was concerned, the same praise cannot be given; for the French policy in the economic administration of colonies was definitely one of monopoly and exclusion. The French Empire fell into three main blocks.

First, and most important, was the empire of Northern Africa, extending from Algiers to the mouth of the Congo, and from the Atlantic to the valley of the Nile. Next came the rich island of Madagascar; lastly the eastern empire of Annam and Tonking, the beginnings of which dated back to the eighteenth century. A few inconsiderable islands in the Pacific and the West Indies, acquired long since, a couple of towns in India, memories of the dreams of Dupleix, and the province of French Guiana in South America, which dated back to the seventeenth century, completed the list. For the most part a recent and rapid creation, it nevertheless had roots in the past, and was the work of a people experienced in the handling of backward races.

Next may be named the curious dominion of the Congo Free State, occupying the rich heart of the African continent. Nominally it belonged to no European power, but was a recognised neutral territory.

In practice it was treated as the personal estate of the Belgian king, Leopold II. Subject to closer international restrictions than any other European domain in the non-European world, the Congo was nevertheless the field of some of the worst iniquities in the exploitation of defenceless natives that have ever disgraced the record of European imperialism. International regulations are no safeguard against misgovernment; the only real sanction is the character and spirit of the government. For the Congo iniquities Leopold II. must be held guilty at the bar of posterity. When he went to his judgment in 1908 this rich realm pa.s.sed under the direct control of the Belgian government and parliament, and an immediate improvement resulted.

The least successful of the new world-states was that of Italy. Its story was a story of disaster and disappointment. It included some two hundred thousand square miles of territory; but they were hot and arid lands on the inhospitable sh.o.r.es of the Red Sea and in Somaliland.

Italy had as yet no real opportunity of showing how she would deal with the responsibilities of empire.

The most remarkable, in many respects, of all these suddenly acquired empires was that of Germany. For it was practically all obtained within a period of three years, without fighting or even serious friction. It fell almost wholly within regions where Germany's interests had been previously negligible, and British trade predominant. Yet its growth had not been impeded, it had even been welcomed, by its rivals. This easily-won empire was indeed relatively small, being not much over one million square miles, little more than one-fifth of the French dominions. But it was five times as large as Germany itself, and it included territories which were, on the whole, richer than those of France. The comparative smallness of its area was due to the fact that Germany was actually the last to enter the race. She took no steps to acquire territory, she showed no desire to acquire it, before 1883; if she had chosen to begin ten years earlier, as she might easily have done, or if she had shown any marked activity in exploring or missionary work, without doubt she could have obtained a much larger share of African soil.

These rich lands afforded to their new masters useful supplies of raw materials, which were capable of almost indefinite expansion. They included, in East and South-West Africa, areas well suited for white settlement; but German emigrants, despite every encouragement, refused to settle in them. An elaborately scientific system of administration, such as might be expected from the German bureaucracy, was devised for the colonies; officials and soldiers have from the beginning formed a larger proportion of their white population than in any other European possessions. Undoubtedly the government of the German colonies was in many respects extremely efficient. But over-administration, which has its defects even in an old and well-ordered country, is fatal to the development of a raw and new one. Although Germany has, in order to increase the prosperity of her colonies, encouraged foreign trade, and followed a far less exclusive policy than France, not one of her colonies, except the little West African district of Togoland, has ever paid its own expenses. In the first generation of its existence the German colonial empire, small though it is in comparison with the British or the French, actually cost the home government over 100,000,000 pounds in direct outlay.

The main cause of this was that from the first the Germans showed neither skill nor sympathy in the handling of their subject populations. The uniformed official, with his book of rules, only bewilders primitive folk, and arouses their resentment. But it was not only official pedantry which caused trouble with the subject peoples; still more it was the ruthless spirit of mere domination, and the total disregard of native rights, which were displayed by the German administration. The idea of trustees.h.i.+p, which had gradually established itself among the rulers of the British dominions, and in the French colonies also, was totally lacking among the Germans. They ruled their primitive subjects with the brutal intolerance of Zabern, with the ruthless cruelty since displayed in occupied Belgium. This was what made the rise of the German dominion a terrible portent in the history of European imperialism. The spirit of mere domination, regardless of the rights of the conquered, had often shown itself in other European empires; but it had always had to struggle against another and better ideal, the ideal of trustees.h.i.+p; and, as we have seen, the better ideal had, during the nineteenth century, definitely got the upper hand, especially in the British realms, whose experience had been longest. But the old and bad spirit reigned without check in the German realms. And even when, in 1907, it began to be seriously criticised, when its disastrous and unprofitable results began to be seen, the ground on which it was challenged in discussions in Germany was mainly the materialist ground that it did not pay.

The justification for these a.s.sertions is to be found in the history of the princ.i.p.al German colonies. In the Cameroons the native tribes, who had been so ready to receive European government that they had repeatedly asked for British protection, were driven to such incessant revolts that the annals of the colony seem to be annals of continuous bloodshed: forty-six punitive expeditions were chronicled in the seventeen years from 1891--long after the establishment of the German supremacy, which took place in 1884. The record of East Africa was even more terrible for the ferocity with which constant revolts were suppressed. But worst of all was the story of South-West Africa. There were endless wars against the various tribes; but they culminated in the hideous Herero war of 1903-6. The Hereros, driven to desperation by maltreatment, had revolted and killed some white farmers. They were punished by an almost complete annihilation. The spirit of this hideous slaughter is sufficiently expressed by the proclamation of the governor, General von Trotha, in 1904. 'The Herero people must now leave the land. Within the German frontier every Herero, with or without weapon, with or without cattle, will be shot. I shall take charge of no more women and children, but shall drive them back to their people, or let them be shot at.' Ten thousand of these unhappy people, mainly old men, women and children, were driven into the desert, where they perished. There is no such atrocious episode in the history of European imperialism since Pizarro's slaughter of the Incas; if even that can be compared with it.

The causes of these ceaseless and ruinous wars were to be found partly in the total disregard of native custom, and in the hide-bound pedantry with which German-made law and the Prussian system of regimentation were enforced upon the natives; but it was to be found still more in the a.s.sumption that the native had no rights as against his white lord.

His land might be confiscated; his cattle driven away; even downright slavery was not unknown, not merely in the form of forced labour, which has been common in German colonies, but in the form of the actual sale and purchase of negroes. Herr Dernburg, who became Colonial Secretary in 1907, himself recorded that he met in East Africa a young farmer who told him that he had just bought a hundred and fifty negroes; he also described the settlers' pleasing practice of sitting beside the wells with revolvers, in order to prevent the natives from watering their cattle, and to force them to leave them behind; and he noted that officials nearly always carried negro whips with them. These practices, indeed, were condemned by the German Government itself, but only after many years, and mainly because they were wasteful. Government representatives have told the Reichstag, as Herr Schleitwein did in 1904, that they must pursue a 'healthy egoism,' and forswear 'humanitarianism and irrational sentimentality.' 'The Hereros must be forced to work, and to work without compensation and for their food only. ... The sentiments of Christianity and philanthropy with which the missionaries work must be repudiated with all energy.' This is what is called Realpolitik.

Is it too much to say that the appearance of the spirit thus expressed was a new thing in the history of European imperialism? Is it not plain that if this spirit should triumph, the ascendancy of Europe over the non-European world must prove to be, not a blessing, but an unmitigated curse? Yet the nation which had thus acquitted itself in the rich lands which it had so easily acquired was not satisfied; it desired a wider field for the exhibition of its Kultur, its conception of civilisation.

From the beginning it was evident that the colonial enthusiasts of Germany had no intention of resting satisfied with the considerable dominions they had won, but regarded them only as a beginning, as bases for future conquests. The colonies were not ends in themselves, but means for the acquisition of further power; and it was this, even more than the ruthlessness with which the subject peoples were treated, which made the growth of the German dominions a terrible portent. For since the whole world was now portioned out, new territories could only be acquired at the cost of Germany's neighbours. This was, indeed, at first the programme only of extremists; the ma.s.s of the German people, like Bismarck, took little interest in colonies. But the extremists proved that they could win over the government to their view; the German people, most docile of nations, could be gradually indoctrinated with it. And because this was so, because the ugly spirit of domination and of unbridled aggressiveness was in these years gradually mastering the ruling forces of a very powerful state, and leading them towards the catastrophe which was to prove the culmination of European imperialism, it is necessary to dwell, at what may seem disproportionate length, upon the development of German policy during the later years of our period.

Filled with pride in her own achievements, believing herself to be, beyond all rivalry, the greatest nation in the world, already the leader, and destined to be the controller, of civilisation, Germany could not bring herself to accept a second place in the imperial sphere. She had entered late into the field, by no fault of her own, and found all the most desirable regions of the earth already occupied.

Now that 'world-power' had become the test of greatness among states, she could be content with nothing short of the first rank among world-states; if this rank could not be achieved, she seemed to be sentenced to the same sort of fate as had befallen Holland or Denmark: she might be ever so prosperous, as these little states were, but she would be dwarfed by the vast powers which surrounded her. But the German world-state was not to be the result of a gradual and natural growth, like the Russian, the British or the American world-states. The possibility of gradual growth was excluded by the fact that the whole world had been part.i.tioned. Greatness in the non-European world must be, and might be, carved out in a single generation, as supremacy in Europe had been already attained, by the strong will, efficient organisation, and military might of the German government.

It was natural, perhaps inevitable, that a nation with the history of the German nation, with its ruling ideas, and with its apparently well-tried confidence in the power of its government to achieve its ends by force, should readily accept such a programme. The date at which this programme captured the government of Germany, and became the national policy, can be quite clearly fixed: it was in 1890, when Bismarck, the 'no colony man,' was driven from power, and the supreme direction of national affairs fell into the hands of the Emperor William II. An impressionable, domineering and magniloquent prince, inflated by the hereditary self-a.s.surance of the Hohenzollerns, and sharing to the full the modern German belief in German superiority and in Germany's imperial destiny, William II. became the spokesman and leader of an almost insanely megalomaniac, but terribly formidable nation. During the first decade of his government the new ambitions of Germany were gradually formulated, and became more distinct. They were not yet very apparent to the rest of the world, in spite of the fact that they were expounded with vigour and emphasis in a mult.i.tude of pamphlets and books. The world was even ready to believe the Emperor's a.s.sertion that he was the friend of peace: he half believed it himself, because he would have been very ready to keep the peace if Germany's 'rights' could be attained without war. But many episodes, such as Kiao-Chau, and the Philippines, and the ceaseless warfare in the German colonies, and the restless enterprises of Pan-German intrigue, provided a commentary upon these pretensions which ought to have revealed the dangerous spirit which was conquering the German people.

It is difficult, in the midst of a war forced upon the world by German ambition, to take a sane and balanced view of the aims which German policy was setting before itself during these years of experiment and preparation. What did average German opinion mean by the phrase Weltmacht, world-power, which had become one of the commonplaces of its political discussions? We may safely a.s.sume that by the ma.s.s of men the implications of the term were never very clearly a.n.a.lysed; and that, if they had been a.n.a.lysable, the results of the a.n.a.lysis would have been widely different in 1890 and in 1914, except for a few fanatics and extremists. Was the world-power at which Germany was aiming a real supremacy over the whole world? In a vague way, no doubt, important bodies of opinion held that such a supremacy was the ultimate destiny of Germany in the more or less distant future; and the existence of such a belief, however undefined, is important because it helped to colour the att.i.tude of the German mind towards more immediately practical problems of national policy. But as a programme to be immediately put into operation, world-power was not conceived in this sense by any but a few Pan-German fanatics; and even they would have recognised that of course other states, and even other world-powers, would certainly survive the most successful German war, though they would have to submit (for their own good) to Germany's will. Again, did the demand for world-power mean no more than that Germany must have extra-European territories, like Britain or France? She already possessed such territories, though on a smaller scale than her rivals.

Did the claim mean, then, that her dominions must be as extensive and populous as (say) those of Britain? Such an aim could only be obtained if she could succeed in overthrowing all her rivals, at once or in succession. And if she did that, she would then become, whatever her intentions, a world-power in the first and all-embracing sense. It is probably true that the German people, and even the extreme Pan-Germans, did not definitely or consciously aim at world-supremacy. But they had in the back of their minds the conviction that this was their ultimate destiny, and in aiming at 'world-power' in a narrower sense, they so defined their end as to make it impossible of achievement unless the complete mastery of Europe (which, as things are, means the mastery of most of the world) could be first attained. Certainly the ruling statesmen of Germany must have been aware of the implications of their doctrine of world-power. They were aware of it in 1914, when they deliberately struck for the mastery of Europe; they must have been aware of it in 1890, when they began to lay numerous plans and projects in all parts of the world, such as were bound to arouse the fears and suspicions of their rivals.

It is necessary to dwell for a little upon these plans and projects of the decade 1890-1900, because they ill.u.s.trate the nature of the peril which was looming over an unconscious world. It would be an error to suppose that all these schemes were systematically and continuously pursued with the whole strength of the German state. They appealed to different bodies of opinion. Some of them were eagerly taken up for a time, and then allowed to fall into the background, though seldom wholly dropped. But taken as a whole they showed the existence of a restless and insatiable ambition without very clearly defined aims, and an eagerness to make use of every opening for the extension of power, which const.i.tuted a very dangerous frame of mind in a nation so strong, industrious, and persistent as the German nation.

In spite of the disappointing results of colonisation in Africa, the German colonial enthusiasts hoped that something suitably grandiose might yet be erected there: if the Belgian Congo could somehow be acquired, and if the Portuguese would agree to sell their large territories on the east and west coasts, a great empire of Tropical Africa might be brought into being. This vision has not been abandoned: it is the theme of many pamphlets published during the course of the war, and if Germany were to be able to impose her own terms, all the peoples of Central Africa might yet hope to have extended to them the blessings of German government as they have been displayed in the Cameroons and in the South-West.

In the 'nineties there seemed also to be hope in South Africa, where use might be made of the strained relations between Britain and the Boer Republics. German South-West Africa formed a convenient base for operations in this region: it was equipped with a costly system of strategic railways, far more elaborate than the commerce of the colony required. There is no doubt that President Kruger was given reason to antic.i.p.ate that he would receive German help: in 1895 (before the Jameson Raid) Kruger publicly proclaimed that the time had come 'to form ties of the closest friends.h.i.+p between Germany and the Transvaal, ties such as are natural between fathers and children'; in 1896 (after the Jameson Raid) came the Emperor's telegram congratulating President Kruger upon having repelled the invaders 'without recourse to the aid of friendly powers'; in 1897 a formal treaty of friends.h.i.+p and commerce was made between Germany and the Orange Free State, with which the Transvaal had just concluded a treaty of perpetual alliance. And meanwhile German munitions of war were pouring into the Transvaal through Delagoa Bay. But when the crisis came, Germany did nothing. She could not, because the British fleet stood in the way.

South America, again, offered a very promising field. There were many thousands of German settlers, especially in southern Brazil: the Pan-German League a.s.siduously laboured to organise these settlers, and to fan their patriotic zeal, by means of schools, books, and newspapers. But the Monroe Doctrine stood in the way of South American annexations. Perhaps Germany might have been ready to see how far she could go with the United States, the least military of great powers.

But there was good reason to suppose that the British fleet would have to be reckoned with; and a burglarious expedition to South America with that formidable watchdog at large and unmuzzled was an uninviting prospect.

In the Far East the prospects of immediate advance seemed more favourable, since the Chinese Empire appeared to be breaking up. The seizure of Kiao-chau in 1897 was a hopeful beginning. But the Anglo-j.a.panese alliance of 1902 formed a serious obstacle to any vigorous forward policy in this region. Once more the British fleet loomed up as a barrier.

Yet another dream, often referred to by the pamphleteers though never brought to overt action by the government, was the dream that the rich empire of the Dutch in the Malay Archipelago should be acquired by Germany. Holland herself, according to all the political ethnologists of the Pan-German League, ought to be part of the German Empire; and if so, her external dominions would follow the destiny of the ruling state. But this was a prospect to be talked about, not to be worked for openly. It would naturally follow from a successful European war.

A more immediately practicable field of operations was to be found in the Turkish Empire. It was here that the most systematic endeavours were made during this period: the Berlin-Bagdad scheme, which was to be the keystone of the arch of German world-power, had already taken shape before our period closed, though the rest of the world was strangely blind to its significance. Abstractly regarded, a German dominion over the wasted and misgoverned lands of the Turkish Empire would have meant a real advance of civilisation, and would have been no more unjustifiable than the British control of Egypt or India. This feeling perhaps explained the acquiescence with which the establishment of German influence in Turkey was accepted by most of the powers. They had yet to realise that it was not pursued as an end in itself, but as a means to further domination.

But neither the great Berlin-Bagdad project, nor any of the other dreams and visions, had been definitely put into operation during the decade 1890-1900. Germany was as yet feeling the way, preparing the ground, and building up her resources both military and industrial.

Perhaps the main result which emerged from the tentative experiments of these years was that at every point the obstacle was the sprawling British Empire, and the too-powerful British fleet. The conviction grew that the overthrow of this fat and top-heavy colossus was the necessary preliminary to the creation of the German world-state.

This was a doctrine which had long been preached by the chief political mentor of modern Germany, Treitschke, who died in 1896. He was never tired of declaring that Britain was a decadent and degenerate state, that her empire was an unreal empire, and that it would collapse before the first serious attack. It would break up because it was not based upon force, because it lacked organisation, because it was a medley of disconnected and discordant fragments, wors.h.i.+pping an undisciplined freedom. That it should ever have come into being was one of the paradoxes of history; for it was manifestly not due to straightforward brute force, like the German Empire; and the modern German mind could not understand a state which did not rest upon power, but upon consent, which had not been built up, like Prussia, by the deliberate action of government, but which had grown almost at haphazard, through the spontaneous activity of free and self-governing citizens. Treitschke and his disciples could only explain the paradox by a.s.suming that since it had not been created by force, it must have been created by low cunning; and they invented the theory that British statesmen had for centuries pursued an undeviating and Machiavellian policy of keeping the more virile states of Europe at cross-purposes with one another by means of the cunning device called the Balance of Power, while behind the backs of these tricked and childlike nations Britain was meanly snapping up all the most desirable regions of the earth. According to this view it was in some mysterious way Britain's fault that France and Germany were not the best of friends, and that Russia had been alienated from her ancient ally. But the day of reckoning would come when these mean devices would no longer avail, and the pampered, selfish, and overgrown colossus would find herself faced by hard-trained and finely tempered Germany, clad in her s.h.i.+ning armour.

Then, at the first shock, India would revolt; and the Dutch of South Africa would welcome their German liberators; and the great colonies, to which Britain had granted a degree of independence that no virile state would ever have permitted, would shake off the last shreds of subordination; and the ramshackle British Empire would fall to pieces; and Germany would emerge triumphant, free to pursue all her great schemes, and to create a lasting world-power, based upon Force and System and upon 'a healthy egoism,' not upon 'irrational sentimentalities' about freedom and justice.

These were the doctrines and calculations of Realpolitik. They were becoming more and more prevalent in the 'nineties. They seem definitely to have got the upper hand in the direction of national policy during the last years of the century, when Germany refused to consider the projects of disarmament put forward at the Hague in 1899, when the creation of the German navy was begun by the Navy Acts of 1898 and 1900, and when the Emperor announced that the future of Germany lay upon the water, and that hers must be the admiralty of the Atlantic. At the moment when the conquest of the world by European civilisation was almost complete, two conceptions of the meaning of empire, the conception of brutal domination pursued for its own sake, which has never been more clearly displayed than in the administration of the German colonies, and the conception of trustees.h.i.+p, which had slowly emerged during the long development of the British Empire, stood forth already in sharp ant.i.thesis.

The dreadful antic.i.p.ation of coming conflict weighed upon the world.

France, still suffering from the wounds of 1870, was always aware of it. Russia, threatened by German policy in the Balkans, was more and more clearly realising it. But Britain was extraordinarily slow to awaken to the menace. As late as 1898 Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was advocating an alliance between Britain, Germany, and America to maintain the peace of the world; and Cecil Rhodes, when he devised his plan for turning Oxford into the training-ground of British youth from all the free nations of the empire, found a place in his scheme for German as well as for American students. The telegram to President Kruger in 1896 caused only a pa.s.sing sensation. The first real illumination came with the extraordinary display of German venom against Britain during the South African war, and with the ominous doubling of the German naval programme adopted in the midst of that war, in 1900. But even this made no profound impression. The majority of the British people declined to believe that a 'great and friendly nation,' or its rulers, could deliberately enter upon a scheme of such unbridled ambition and of such unprovoked aggression.

VIII

THE BRITISH EMPIRE AMID THE WORLD-POWERS, 1878-1914