Читать книгу Germany's Vanishing Colonies - Gordon Le Sueur - Страница 6

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Ever since her acquisition of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, vitally important to her in view of her interests in the East, Great Britain had been unquestionably the supreme Power in the south of the African Continent.

With the passing of the Dutch East India Company, Holland had ceased to be a South African Power; while the Portuguese had lost their status. The latter in reality only held an area along the coast of her possessions, a great proportion of the interior, which undoubtedly had once been beneficially occupied by Portuguese, having reverted to savagedom.

The southern point of Portuguese South East Africa extended to and included Delagoa Bay and Lourenço Marquez, while the southern boundary of their western Colony was about the 22° S.

From the days of its earliest history the Cape Colony was subject to attacks by natives, and the constant raids by hordes of Kafirs caused the Colony to extend its borders and absorb and settle the Hinterland.

THE GERMAN COLONIES IN AFRICA, 1914. (Reproduced by permission of The Times.)

Up to 1883 the natural course of beneficial occupation and development had been towards the east and north-east borders, over the more fertile and naturally resourceful portions of the country, rather than west and north-west, where a comparatively arid zone intervened.

Towards the Orange and Vaal Rivers the hardiest race of pioneers the world has ever seen, the "Voor-trekking" Boers, pressed onwards to escape from subjection to any form of government excepting their own patriarchal control. Their story hardly comes within the scope of this modest work; but it is indissolubly connected with the making of South Africa, and a brief sketch of their history may be permissible.

The exodus of the Boers, who were composed of farmers of not only Dutch but French and English origin, commenced with the Great Trek of 1836, and they spread out ever seeking freedom from restraint. They came into collision with the Zulus under Dingaan, by whom a number of them were treacherously massacred, but whom they finally severely defeated and Dingaan fled.

Dissensions arose amongst the Boers shortly after, and a number trekked on and established a separate settlement, with Potchefstroom as capital. Those who remained occupied Natal and established a Republic.

Here, however, they did not find peace, for Sir George Napier, in command of the British forces at the Cape, dispatched a contingent to drive them out. This contingent the Boers nearly annihilated.

A settler, Dick King, then made his memorable ride from Durban to Grahamstown, covering the distance of 375 miles in nine days, and reinforcements were sent up.

Natal was, in 1843, declared to be a British Colony, with the result that a fresh exodus of Boers occurred across the Drakensberg Mountains into Griqualand.

For forty years the Boers wandered, but wherever they tried to settle they were pressed on—being continually told that they could not shake off their allegiance, although no step was taken to reclaim them or the country they won.

So far from receiving protection from the Cape Government, the latter even armed the Griquas against the Boers, and sent a military force to the assistance of the natives. And so they were harried until they were allowed to establish their Republics of the Transvaal and Free State, until overtaken by the destiny which Providence had marked out for them.

In 1881 an attempt was made by Great Britain to annex the Transvaal, but after General Colley's defeat and death at Majuba the independence of the Transvaal was acknowledged under British suzerainty.

The western border of the Transvaal Republic marched on Bechuanaland and the Kalahari Desert, and in 1882 the Transvaal completed a convention with the Portuguese Government under which the former was granted a concession to build a railway from the capital, Pretoria, to Delagoa Bay on the east coast.

The delimited boundary of the Cape Colony was the Orange River, but as early as 1793 a Dutch expedition from the Cape took possession of Walfisch Bay, Angra Pequena, as well as Possession, Ichaboe, and other islands on the south-west coast in the name of the Dutch East India Company, while Namaqualand and Damaraland had been traversed from end to end by British and Dutch traders and explorers.

British statesmen, however, neglected the south-west, though the islands were annexed at different times between 1861 and 1867, and Walfisch Bay in 1878. In 1874 the islands were incorporated in the Cape Colony.

The mainland on the south-west, however, remained an open field as far as actual occupation went, in spite of its being tacitly acknowledged a British "sphere of influence."

Until the "scramble for Africa" no one would have regarded with anything but ridicule the idea that an enormous tract of country, comprising Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, would have been lost to Great Britain; yet British statesmen at home, feeling secure in the country's position, refused to encourage anything but a policy of gradual absorption.

In 1867 the Home Government was strongly urged by the Government of the Cape to annex Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, but declined to undertake the responsibility.

In the following year the residents of the territory, including numerous German missionaries, urged that the country might be declared British and be subject to British administration; but the proposal was met with disfavour.

In the year 1877 that great-minded Imperialist, Sir Bartle Frere, then Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, advised by the Executive Council at the Cape, made a strong recommendation that as a first step an Order in Council should be passed, empowering the Cape Parliament to legislate for the purpose of annexing the coast up to the Portuguese boundary; and that in the meanwhile no time should be lost in hoisting the British flag at Walfisch Bay. This latter step was assented to, and it was shortly afterwards carried into effect; but Sir Bartle Frere's larger proposals were negatived.

Sir Bartle Frere subsequently renewed his representations on the subject, but the Imperial Government continued of opinion that no action should be taken.[D]

The British Imperial Government was satisfied that there could be no possible danger in delay, and were disturbed at the unsettled state of the native territories of the Cape Colony and the recurrence of native disturbances which have been a prevailing element in the existence of the Colony.

The Imperial Government finally decided that it was unnecessary to extend their possessions beyond the then boundaries, that the Orange River should be maintained as the north-western boundary of the Cape Colony, and that the Government would give no encouragement to schemes for the extension of British jurisdiction over Great Namaqualand and Damaraland.

Up to 1883 the only assent to petitions from the Cape Government, from residents in Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, and from the natives of those territories, was for the annexation of the islands off the coast, and of Walfisch Bay and a very small portion of the country immediately surrounding it.

The danger of Germany stepping in was never disturbing to the minds of the British statesmen, and they were merely concerned with weighing the advantages of embracing the occasion.

German diplomacy had, however, been at work in its insidious way; and although active operations under Bismarck's policy of forming "Trade Colonies" were not undertaken by the German Government until well into 1884, the promoters and originators of the German Colonisation Society had been busy ever since the first conception of the Colonial idea in Germany.

During the years preceding 1884, indeed, representatives of the Bremen and Hamburg merchants had made many not unsuccessful efforts to worm themselves into the trading centres in Southern Africa.

Ambassadors of German commerce set out as pioneers of the new movement, and as early as August, 1883, the Standard newspaper published a communication from its special correspondent in Berlin—headed "The First German Colony"—reporting that a Bremen firm had "acquired" the Bay of Angra Pequena (Luderitzbucht) on the south-west coast of Africa.

The article proceeds that "the German Press, which was disappointed by the Reichstag last year (re the Samoa Bill), expresses great satisfaction at the consent of the German Government to protect the infant Colony and to allow the German flag to be hoisted over it. The semi-official Post declares that this is the most practicable kind of colonisation, because it avoids international difficulties. In spite of the statement ... that the German Government avoids giving any encouragement to immigration, the Post is convinced that if Germans will promote the increase of German manufacturing industry by founding commercial Colonies, they will not lack the powerful protection of the Imperial Government."

There the whole of Bismarck's ex-territorial policy lies in a nutshell: the continued expansion of Germany from within by means of trade with purely German dominions.

Beyond this the German Government expressed no intention of actually annexing territory, though it was a straw which showed very clearly the direction in which the wind set.

It was an inexpedient policy for the Government to proceed to declaring Protectorates over areas not in actual occupation by other Powers yet coming within their "spheres of influence," and the subterfuge resorted to was the establishment of trade centres by merchants who would claim the protection of the German flag; albeit it could not be seriously argued that the mere foundation of a trading station could constitute territorial acquisition in any part of the world where Germany as a Power had not the least claim.

For many years there had in Germany been advocates of colonisation schemes with a considerably wider horizon, who had formulated ideas of expansion and pressed their views upon the German Government and public. Foremost amongst these was Herr Ernst von Weber, and the enunciation of his higher ambitions for his country, in a remarkable article published in 1879, not only attracted considerable attention in South Africa but induced Sir Bartle Frere again to draw the attention of the Home Government to the avouched plan for a German Colony in South Africa.

Herr von Weber in his article pointed to the attractive prospect and noble ambition by which Englishmen might be inspired to found a new Empire in the African continent, "possibly more valuable and more brilliant than even the Indian Empire."

Von Weber argued that it was the duty of Germany to protest against steps taken by England to realise this ambition; urging in support that Germans had a peculiar interest in the "Boer" territories—"for here dwell a splendid race of people nearly allied to us (Germans)."

After going into the history of the Boers, the writer of the article states quite seriously that the Transvaal Boers had "the most earnest longing that the German Empire, which they properly regard as their parent and mother country, should take them under its protection."

As a matter of fact, except in Government circles in the coterie of continental intriguers who surrounded and misled Paul Kruger, the German is barely tolerated by the Boers, and vervluchste Deutscher (cursed German) is as common a descriptive as verdomde Rooinek (damned Englishman).[E]

In the first place, to the Boers every German is a Jew—a gentleman, in his mind, associated with a watch with defective parts or a "last year's ready reckoner."

Next, the Boer, while proud of his ancestry, strongly disclaims any loyalty to a European Power; and although a Dutch dialect is in almost universal use, he would indignantly repudiate a suggestion that he is bound by any ties to Holland, even after he has been fully persuaded of the actual existence of that country.

The Boer trekkers, besides those of Dutch origin, included the descendants of many noble French families, and their numbers were supplemented by English immigrants who were sent out to the eastern province of the Cape Colony in 1820. Many of these trekked with the Boers owing to dissatisfaction at being denied political and civil rights; and of the original 3053 immigrants who landed in 1820, only 438 remained a few years later, on their original grants in the Cape Colony.

While the Boers protested and fought against annexation by great Britain, it was merely because of repugnance to restraint and certainly not out of any love for Germany.

After expatiating on the richness of the mineral resources of the Transvaal, von Weber points to the possibilities of the country if Delagoa Bay were acquired.

In spite of claiming the Boers as kindred, however, he shows the cloven hoof by stating that "a constant mass immigration of Germans would gradually bring about a decided numerical preponderance of Germans over the Dutch population, and of itself would by degrees effect the germanisation of the country in a peaceful manner."

He goes on to recommend that Germany ought "at any price," in order to forestall England, to get possession of points on both the west and east coasts of Africa, where factories could be established, branches of which, properly fortified, could be gradually pushed farther and farther inland and so by degrees form a wide network of German settlements.

That these views were not held by Herr von Weber alone in Germany must have been apparent to our Foreign and Colonial Offices, but the only steps taken were to ask the British ambassador in Berlin for a report; and this, when received, assured the Government that the plan had no prospect of success, because the German Government felt more the want of soldiers than of Colonies, and consequently discouraged emigration—while the German Government's disinclination to acquire distant dependencies had been marked in the rejection of the Samoa Bill.

The possibility of a reversal of feeling did not occur to anyone apparently, and the British Government was therefore quite satisfied that "the plan had no prospect of success"; and having intimated the same to Sir Bartle Frere, abandoned interest in the matter.

To the Prussian militarist section in Germany Ernst von Weber's exhortation irresistibly appealed. A glance at the map of South Africa will show how feasible it was for Germany not only to curtail the expansion of British territory from the south, but to secure the dominion of the greater part of the continent for Germany.

It was a great ideal and came near to consummation by insidious working of German Government agents, bountifully assisted in their object by the vacillation and indifference of the British Colonial and Foreign Offices.

In the south-west was a huge area of which no actual annexation had been proclaimed, yet to the mind of our statesmen amply secured by being understood to be within the "sphere of British influence." Between it and the Transvaal Republic lay another unprotected area stretching across the Kalahari so-called "desert" and including Bechuanaland, the happy hunting-ground of missionaries and Matabele raiders. South-east of the Transvaal, stretching to the coast, was another unoccupied region comprising Tongaland and part of Zululand, with an excellent harbour on the east coast at St Lucia Bay.

Give any Power Great Namaqualand and Damaraland on the west coast, add Bechuanaland in the interior and a working agreement with the Transvaal Republic with access to the east coast at St Lucia Bay, then the Cape Colony was shut in by very circumscribed borders for ever from her Hinterland; while a dream of "Africa all Red" was smothered in its genesis, and its record filed away for future reference in the archives of the might have been.

But a belt across the southern portion of the continent did not comprise the sum-total of the Prussian ambition. There was an enormous and fabulously rich extent of country stretching up to and beyond the Zambezi, occupied only by marauding savages under the rule of Lo Bengula, King of the Amandebele—and now known as Rhodesia.

With a distinct vision of the prize offering, the German set out with the mailed fist wrapped in cotton wool to stalk his prey delicately.

In 1883 while German traders were busy establishing a footing in Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, diplomacy and intrigue had been at work in the Transvaal. The Boer Government had concluded an agreement with the Portuguese whereby they obtained an outlet to the east coast by a railway to Delagoa Bay, and the Boers had begun to occupy portions of Bechuanaland, separating the Transvaal and Namaqualand.

Boer Republics were proclaimed over the territories of several Bechuana chiefs, and overtures were made by German emissaries from the Transvaal to Lo Bengula for a concession over the territory under his sway.