Читать книгу Germany's Vanishing Colonies - Gordon Le Sueur - Страница 5

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The German Empire of to-day may best be described as an enlarged and aggrandised Prussia; its people imbued with Prussian ideals and drawing their aspirations from the fountain of Prussia.

In the Confederation of the German States as constituted in 1814, Prussia, under the Hohenzollern Dynasty, was always the turbulent and disturbing element, by methods peculiarly Prussian, working towards a unity of the German states—a comity of nations welded into one under the hegemony of Prussia.

It was not long before Prussian domination became irksome, and her provocative and arrogant attitude created a war with Denmark in 1864 and with Austria in 1866—the latter, a struggle between Hohenzollern and Hapsburg, culminating in the complete discomfiture of Austria.

The war with Denmark gave Germany the harbour of Kiel, together with the million inhabitants of Schleswig-Holstein, and Prussia emerged from the struggle with Austria the leading Power in the new North German Confederation.

Since then the salt of Prussian militarism has been ploughed into the fertile German fields which produced some of the master-minds in the worlds of Thought, Philosophy and Literature.

In accord with true Prussian methods France was forced into a declaration of war in 1870, with the result that the German octopus settled its tentacles upon the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, an area of 5,605 square miles, with 1,500,000 inhabitants.

A new phase of Empire was then created, and the Germany of to-day was constituted as practically a new nation under the rule of William of Hohenzollern, who was elected the "Deutscher Kaiser," or German Emperor, at Versailles on 18th January, 1871.

Prince Otto von Bismarck became the first Chancellor of the new German Empire, and in his hands the fortunes of the House of Hohenzollern prospered, as he set himself to his fixed and single-minded purpose—that was, to elevate Prussia to the foremost place amongst the continental Powers.

Bismarck's policy was directed towards extension, but it was extension of Prussia (or Germany) in Europe and the consolidation of the portions added to the German Empire. In 1871 he declared "Germany does not want Colonies." He refused to embark upon dazzling adventures in which the risk stirred the imagination, and when an agitation arose in favour of making Germany a sea Power, he confronted it with the words of Frederick the Great: "All far-off acquisitions are a burden to the State." This view he held until the last decade of his career.

Bismarck looked forward, however, to the germanisation of the Low Countries, the absorption of which Cecil Rhodes declared to the German Emperor he believed to be the destiny of Germany.

The spirit of Prussia was even instilled into Austria, and Prussian example was emulated by the House of Hapsburg.

As Prussia set herself to the repression of Danish nationality in Schleswig-Holstein and of French in Alsace-Lorraine, so Austria adopted a policy of eradicating national traits in Hungary.

The national unity aimed at by Bismarck having been established, Germany continued to thrive and grow during the peaceful years following 1871; and the development of the trade of this infant amongst nations is a world's phenomenon.

Yet as with Prussia in the past, so with the greater Germany of to-day, history is a tale of one persistent struggle for possessions.

As is natural during times of peace, the population of Germany increased at an enormous rate, growing from 35,500,000 in 1850 to 66,000,000 in 1912—an average of about 615,000 per annum—while the present increase is roughly 900,000 per annum.

Between the years 1881 and 1890 German emigration amounted to 130,000 annually; but it was only 18,500 in 1913, and this was more than counterbalanced by immigration from Austria, Russia, and Italy.

Over-population soon became a pressing question, and the obvious remedy was expansion of frontiers or new territories for the accommodation of the surplus.

German policy in a very few years became directed towards extension of territories, for it was apparent that emigration to foreign countries and dependencies only strengthened other nations.

An outlet for the surplus population was required; but in view of the need for men to feed the military machine which had founded the German Empire and upon which its strength depended, it was clear that emigration to foreign countries and dependencies was an inexpedient measure of relief, as it would be applied at the expense of the mother country.

In the year 1882 the German Colonisation Society was started, with the object of acquiring Colonies oversea and the establishment of a navy and mercantile marine to form the link binding the isolated territories to the motherland.

The society was formed by merchants and traders with the end in view of extending trade; but to the militarist section the idea of Imperial expansion presented itself, and to that party the Colonies appealed rather from a strategical than a commercial standpoint.

The society received enthusiastic support, and, indeed, all Germany began to look to Colonies which were to be purely German; and with this enlarged horizon, policy settled down to the acquisition of oversea territory, the ambition being naturally accompanied by an aspiration towards a powerful navy, necessary, ostensibly, to keep communications open.

The German Emperor held very determined ideas on the subject of expansion, but the Chancellor, Bismarck, altered his views only so far as to approve of the founding of Trade Colonies under Imperial Protection.

Bismarck was loth to weaken his military machine by the emigration of men; and the German ideal of colonisation was not, therefore, a policy of settlement but one of commercial exploitation; inasmuch as Germany's aim was to develop home industries in order to keep in employment at home the men who formed the material of her armour.

Germans were required to remain Germans; and this object it was hoped to attain by settlements in German Colonies, where compact centres of German kultur could be established to teach the art of order to the remaining peopled kingdoms.

The German view being that the British oversea Empire was acquired "by treachery, violence and fomenting strife," one cannot imagine, especially with her Prussian traditions, a violent disturbance of the "good German conscience" in contemplating means of attaining an object.

In the first Prussian Parliament Bismarck thundered out "Let all questions to the King's Ministers be answered by a roll of drums," and, in sneering at the ballot as "a mere dice-box," he declared: "It is not by speechifying and majorities that the great questions of the day will have to be decided, but by blood and iron."

Prussia had fought for and won her predominance; her greatness was acquired by the sword; and the Bismarck cult has prevailed in that no other means of expansion and nationalisation than by conquest presents itself to the German mind. All negotiations with foreign nations, therefore, have been conducted to the accompaniment of the rattle of the sword in the scabbard.

Speaking of Colonies in his recent bombastic book, General von Bernhardi said: "The great Elector laid the foundation of Prussia's power by successful and deliberately planned wars"; and in justifying the right to make war he says: "It may be that a growing people cannot win Colonies from uncivilised races, and yet the State wishes to retain the surplus population which the mother country can no longer feed. Then the only course left is to acquire the necessary territory by war."

Germany now proposed to tread the same path as England, but she had arrived late in the day and the methods whereby she purposed making up for lost time were not the methods whereby England had established herself.

Behind German colonisation lies no record of great accomplishments inspired by lofty ideals and high aspirations, carried into effect by noble self-sacrifice on the part of her sons; the history conjures up no pageant of romantic emprise nor vista of perilous undertakings in unexplored parts of the globe by the spirits of daring and adventure; it holds no pulse-stirring stories of the blazing of new trails; and scattered over its pages we do not find imprints of the steps of pioneers of true civilisation, nor are its leaves earmarked with splendid memories.

Where England gave of the best of her manhood to establish in daughter states in the four quarters of the globe her ideals of freedom, justice, and fair commerce—that manhood whose inspiration and incentive was their country's honour, but whose guerdon was in many a case a lonely grave or a more imposing monument in the "sun-washed spaces"—the ambassadors of German kultur followed upon a beaten track to seize at the opportune moment the material benefit of the crop where the others had ploughed with the expenditure of their physical energy, sown with the seeds of their intellect, and fertilised with their blood.

Casting about between 1882 and 1884 for territory over which to hoist her flag, Germany found that nearly the whole of the world was occupied; and direct action of conquest not being expedient, Germans were busy seeking to accomplish their aims by secret methods of intrigue, always accompanied by deprecation of the infringement of the vested rights of others.

Active steps for the acquisition of territory began to be taken in 1884.

Under pretext of being interested in the suppression of the slave trade, Germany concerned herself in the affairs of Zanzibar, long subject to the influence of the Portuguese and British; but Germany later abandoned her ambitions in the island on the cession of Heligoland.

Africa was the one continent which had not been partitioned, and Germany's quest of territory brought about the "scramble for Africa."

Germany had annexed portions of the west coast (Togoland and Kamerun), and the vacillating policy of the British Government during 1882-1883 enabled the Germans to annex an enormous tract of territory north of the Orange River, which became known as German South West Africa.

Altogether the German Colonies in Africa acquired in 1884 amounted to over 1,000,000 square miles.

By what is known as the "Caprivi Treaty" of the 1st July, 1890, Great Britain and Germany agreed as to their respective "spheres of influence" in Africa.

Great Britain assumed protection over the Island of Zanzibar, and ceded to Germany in exchange the Island of Heligoland.

This exchange was regarded in Germany generally as a most disadvantageous one; but the possession of Heligoland as a fortress was of inestimable value to Germany—making possible the Borkum-Wilhelmshaven-Heligoland-Brunsbüttel naval position, and the German militarist section craved it in order to forestall France.

The territory of the Sultan of Zanzibar on the mainland of Africa was ceded to Germany, with the harbour of Dar-es-Salaam; and the boundaries were so delimited as to include in German East Africa the mountain of Kilima 'Njaro, the German Emperor being supposed to have expressed a wish to possess the highest mountain in Africa as a mere matter of sentiment.

The Caprivi Treaty also defined the boundaries of South West Africa.

In 1884 Germany had also busied herself in the Pacific, and had hoisted her flag on several islands as well as in North New Guinea, where the Australasian Colonies had established settlements and vainly urged annexation on the British Government.

In 1885 the sum of 180,000 marks was voted by the Reichstag "for the protection" of these new German Colonies.

The opening of 1891 saw Germany with ample territory oversea to accommodate surplus population; while we, secure in our own strength, with amused tolerance, allowed her to climb to "her place in the sun."

It was not the intention of Germany, however, to use the Colonies as dumping grounds, nor to encourage a policy of emigration—but rather to exploit them as supports for home industry.

Many German industries depend upon foreign countries for the import of a continual supply of raw material which cannot be produced in Germany; while part of their necessaries are even obtained from abroad. They also depend to a considerable extent upon foreign countries for the sale of manufactures.

Their prosperity depends upon import and export trade; for while the home industries provide work for masses of the population, all the products cannot be consumed at home and markets have to be found elsewhere if employment is to continue.

It can never be said to be an economic interest to encourage the establishment of industries in Colonies—at least not manufactories of articles made at home.

The establishment of such may be of interest to provide work for those who emigrate; but from the point of view of countries like Germany, whose existence depends on keeping their men at home, it is far preferable to develop every possible industry at home, and retain the Colonies only as markets and producers of raw material.

This Germany proceeded to do. Developing Colonial trade, she extended her home industries. During eight years her Colonial trade rose from scarcely £5,000,000 to £12,000,000, and the effect of the acquisition of Colonies upon her home industries is marked in the fact that she employed in those industries 11,300,000 men in 1907 as against 6,400,000 in 1882.

Germany, moreover, protects even her agriculture against the competition of her own Colonies—shutting out their meat and their grain.

Germany's conception of the idea of Colonies, therefore, was to build up overseas a new Germany composed of daughter states, which would remain essentially German and be the means of keeping her men at home in remunerative employment by providing raw material for the development of her industries.

A continental nation, surrounded by powerful neighbours, it seemed in her case a suicidal policy to scatter her population abroad; and therefore she exploited her Colonies in such a way as to help her to concentrate her people at home, where she required men in time of peace for economic development and in time of war for defence—and offence.

As a natural sequence to the responsibility of oversea dominions, it becomes a question of life and death to keep open the oversea commerce protected by a powerful navy; and this point was strongly urged by the National Party which, advocating colonisation, arose in Germany in 1892.

But with the growth of Germany's oversea trade and her navy, a new and splendid vista unfolded itself—no less than Germany, from her place in the sun, mistress of the world.

To quote von Bernhardi: "The German nation, from the standpoint of its importance to civilisation, is fully entitled not only to demand a place in the sun, but to aspire to an adequate share in the sovereignty of the world far beyond the limits of its present sphere of influence."

Von Treitschke, the neurotic German historian and poet, again "incessantly points his nation towards the war with England, to the destruction of England's supremacy at sea as the means by which Germany is to burst into that path of glory and of world dominion."[A]

"Treitschke dreamed of a greater Germany to come into being after England had been crushed on the sea."[B]

To obtain their object no other means presented itself than the Prussian militarist method.

Bismarck's object—the goal towards which he strove, to so amply secure the position in Europe that it could never be questioned—seemed to have been attained by the machine of militarism, the huge army created and kept in being by national self-sacrifice. So to obtain what was now aimed at, the instrument was to be an invincible fleet which would in defiance of everyone keep sea communications open.

As early as 1896 the "world Power" idea had evolved, and at the celebration in that year of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the German Empire, the Emperor termed it a "world Empire."

On the question of the rights of others the German Emperor was at all events satisfied, for he announced to the German Socialists: "We Hohenzollerns take our crown from God alone, and to God alone we are responsible," which leaves nothing more to be said on that point.

To German minds the domination of the world was a very real ambition and quite in accord with the best Prussian traditions.

In 1905 the German Emperor visited Tangier to impress upon a cynical brother Emperor the right to a place in Moroccan affairs; while in 1911 German diplomacy asserted that Germany was anxious to preserve the independence and integrity of Morocco because of her important interests in the country. As a matter of fact, German trade had steadily lost ground in Morocco and "in 1909 was exactly equal to 1/1500th or one-fifteenth part of one single per cent of her whole foreign trade."[C]

Anent the Agadir crisis in 1911, Von Bernhardi naively admits that it was "only the fear of the intervention of England that deterred us from claiming a sphere of interests of our own in Morocco."

The "sphere of interests" in Morocco consisted in coveting Agadir, the best harbour on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, which would have been of enormous importance to Germany and her Colonies because ordinarily the German fleet would be tied to the North Sea for want of coaling stations.

During Great Britain's time of stress with the South African Republics, in the same way Baron Marshall von Bieberstein declared officially that "the continued independence of the Boer Republics was a German interest."

The interest of Germany, apart from the undoubted hope of making the Republics German Colonies, it might simply be remarked, was that Germany had in contemplation the construction of a railway line from Pretoria to Santa Lucia Bay on the east coast, 800 miles nearer Europe than the port of Cape Town.

German history holds no record of the integrity or independence of her neighbours being either of German interest or concern, and her attitude is in accord with her principle of concealing her real intention by adopting a spirit of deprecation.

This is amply exemplified in the German Emperor's letter to Lord Tweedmouth of 14th February, 1908, stigmatising as "nonsensical and untrue" the idea that the German fleet was being built for any other purpose "than her needs in relation with her rapidly growing trade."

The real obstacle to realisation of the great German dream was British naval supremacy; and all German thought and energy was devoted to the construction of a navy strong enough to challenge that supremacy. When she could do that it was within the bounds of possibility that Germany would indeed be the world Power.

Roughly, the German Colonial Empire is five times as big as Germany, with a population of about 14,000,000 natives; and the question of German Colonial policy is a question of native policy.

It is in Germany's interest that the natives should be as numerous as possible, for it is their labour, intelligence, and industry that makes the Colonial Empire useful and necessary to Germany.

Individual settlers are not encouraged to emigrate, but the plantations, ranches, etc., whence Germany drew her supplies of raw material such as cotton, rubber, wool, etc., are developed by chartered companies and trading firms, and the so-called settlers are the managers of these.

Independent German farmers in her Colonies are few and far between, and the settlements which were to be centres of German kultur have not eventuated. A new Germany has not been created oversea.

There was, moreover, no room in German Colonial expansion for individualism, which has proved such a strength to England but was suppressed in Germany. The individual German is not given scope but subordinated to a system.

The truth seems to be that Germany had not got the class of men she required for her scheme of Colonial development—or exploitation seems the better word.

Germany's requirements were lands for growing raw material by native labour, and markets from which she could not be excluded—and she thought she had found them in her Colonies.

The Colonies cried out for European enterprise and European capital, but they did not want individual settlers.

Under British rule the German has proved a most desirable Colonist, but he has never thriven under his own Colonial administration.

He is by nature extremely assimilative, and in our Colonies he prospers, not only competing with but outstripping the British trader owing to the employment of undercutting methods which do not so readily occur to the British mind, hampered as it usually is by a sense of fair play.

In the eastern province of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, the members of the German Legion who settled after disbandment about King William's Town, Hanover, Stutterheim, etc., have developed into prosperous farmers and merchants.

A sandy waste in the neighbourhood of Cape Town, once thought to be worthless, was subdivided and taken up almost entirely by Germans, and they have turned the land into one of the most productive portions of the Cape Peninsula.

In America the German immigrants have readily assimilated, though in Brazil they have formed separate centres.

In the German Colonies a set-back to development has been the fact that they have never realised the importance of respecting local manners and customs, but the home machinery has been applied in every particular to conditions wholly dissimilar and unsuitable.

In South West Africa, for instance, Dr Bönn of Munich says they "solved the native problem by smashing tribal life."

Being trained and accustomed to obey, moreover, the German cannot act without orders, and lacks initiative and therefore administrative ability.

Compulsory military service has been instituted, and the German Colonial administration is cordially detested except where perhaps it favours ill-treatment and oppression of natives.

Where the British have evolved a system of government which is a comity of commonwealths within a monarchy, and hold their dependencies by the sense of honour and appreciation, to which the attitude of South Africa bears splendid witness, the German's grip was by the claws of militarism and terrorism.

Under the circumstances it is perhaps not surprising that the Germans should fall into the error that the British dependencies would embrace an opportunity of "throwing off the British yoke"; and the assumed disloyalty of British Colonies, with the further assumption, widely distributed, that various peoples under the British flag were capable of being tampered with easily, may well have been one of the most cogent theories leading the German Emperor and his advisers to their fateful decision.

With the extraordinary aptitude of the Germans for intrigue, perhaps the war Lords were not altogether foolish in their conclusions.

There was a chance of seduction, especially with native races in Africa, but it was a very small chance, and, like many another well-laid scheme, this one failed because its authors did not understand the material which was to be used to work it.

It failed in Africa because the African is more than the beast of burden the German Colonists schooled and deluded themselves into thinking. They did not understand the native; and, in a word, the native hates the German, especially the officials.

Their methods of colonisation have good points in matter of detail, routine work, etc.; but if colonisation be regarded as something more than the exploitation of a subject race and the passive holding of its territory, they must be written down a failure, for the extraordinary efficiency of the administrative machinery falls far short of compensating for the rottenness of the policy behind it.

A nation in whom a much-vaunted kultur has produced an ideal of national life whose highest expression is the atmosphere of a penal settlement, is foredoomed to failure as a coloniser.