Читать книгу (101 things to know when you go) ON SAFARI IN AFRICA - Patrick Brakspear - Страница 18

During the late 1800s, exploration was combined with conquest, and Europeans became the rulers of most of the African continent. Until the 19th century the French had played a smaller role in Africa than the British, but their defeat in the Napoleonic Wars made them look to Africa to extend their influence. North Africa became a theatre for Anglo-French rivalry that nearly brought the two countries to the brink of war in southern Sudan. There were few French explorers but there was a growing interest in using North Africa to play the Germans off against the British. It was this that triggered what became known as the "Scramble for Africa".

Britain tried not to play a part in this early scramble, being more of a trading empire rather than a colonial empire; however, it soon became clear it had to gain its own African empire to maintain the balance of power.

By the end of the century the French had conceived a type of colonial rule which was highly centralised and made little effort to involve local rulers. This contrasted with the British colonial style which, in northern Nigeria, took the form of indirect rule through the local Emirs and chiefs.

Despite the missionaries and the search for new trading outlets, Europeans in the first eighty years of the 19th century were not driven by any desire to rule and administer Africa. Leading African merchants worked on equal terms with European traders in the 1860s, and even enjoyed the attention of Queen Victoria.

In the second half of the 19th century the piecemeal patchwork of alliances, trading colonies, protectorates and understandings, yielded to sweeping changes imposed by the Europeans. No longer content with improvising as they went along, the British and the French were determined to put things in order and establish a clear administrative hierarchy with Europeans at the top and Africans below.

Meanwhile, some of the oldest trading nations in Europe abandoned Africa and new players emerged. The Dutch and Danes left the continent whereas Germany, Italy and Belgium moved in.

Elsewhere, the mineral wealth of the continent fixated and dazzled European adventurers. Soon casual commercial dealings were replaced by systematic exploitation and control. At the beginning of the 19th century the European grasp of African geography was confined mainly to the coast, but by the end of the century Europeans were straddling the continent with railways and roads. Now it was possible for them to take control - politically and commercially.

Paradoxically, Britain, the staunch advocate of free trade, emerged, prior to WW1, with not only the largest overseas empire due to its long-standing presence in India, but also the greatest gains in the "Scramble for Africa", reflecting its advantageous position at its inception. Between 1885 and 1914 Britain controlled nearly 30% of Africa's population, compared to 15% for France, 9% for Germany, 7% for Belgium and 1% for Italy.

The “Scramble for Africa” had the effect of defusing and displacing tensions between the European powers. Eventually however, the trade-offs and alliances could not disguise the fact that Imperial Germany was on a collision course with Britain and France. This interaction soon disintegrated into the chaos, death and destruction of World War I.

Although Britain emerged among the war's victors, and its rule expanded into new areas, the heavy costs of the war undermined its capacity to maintain the vast empire. The British had suffered millions of casualties and liquidated assets at an alarming rate. This led to debt accumulation, upending of capital markets and manpower deficiencies in the staffing of far-flung imperial posts in Asia and the African colonies. Nationalist sentiment grew in both old and new Imperial territories, fuelled in part by having participated as Empire troops in the war.

The rise of anti-colonial nationalist movements in the subject territories and the changing economic situation of the world in the first half of the 20th century challenged an imperial power now increasingly preoccupied with issues nearer home. The Empire's end began with the onset of the Second World War, when a deal was reached between the British government and the leaders of the Indian independence movement. In this deal the Indians would co-operate and remain loyal during the war, after which they would be granted independence. Following India's lead, nearly all of Britain's other colonies would become independent over the next two decades.

The end of the Empire gathered speed after Britain's efforts during World War II left the country all but exhausted and found its former allies disinclined to support the colonial status quo. The Empire was increasingly regarded as an unnecessary drain on public finances by politicians and civil servants, if not by the general public.

World War II can be best described as a pyrrhic victory to the British Empire. The economic costs of WWII were far greater for the British Empire than those of WWI. Britain was heavily bombed and the war cost the Empire almost its entire merchant fleet. World War II fatally undermined Britain's already weakened commercial and financial leadership and heightened the importance of the Dominions (British overseas territories including Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and the United States as a source of military assistance.

In the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, post-war decolonisation was accomplished with almost unseemly haste in the face of increasingly powerful, and sometimes mutually conflicting, nationalist movements, with Britain rarely fighting to retain any territory.

The end of Britain's Empire in Africa came with exceptional rapidity, leaving the newly-independent states ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of sovereignty. Ghana's independence (1957) after a ten-year nationalist political campaign was followed by that of Nigeria and Somaliland (1960), Sierra Leone and Tanganyika (1961), Uganda (1962), Kenya and Zanzibar (1963), The Gambia (1965), Botswana (formerly Bechuanaland) and Lesotho (formerly Basutoland) in 1966 and Swaziland (1968).

British withdrawal from the southern and eastern parts of Africa was complicated by the region's white settler populations. Kenya had already provided an example in the Mau Mau uprising of violent conflict exacerbated by white landownership and reluctance to concede majority rule. White minority rule in South Africa remained a source of bitterness within the Commonwealth until the Union of South Africa left the Commonwealth in 1961. It was not until 1994 that South Africa was able to discard the shackles of apartheid and gain “one man one vote” for all South Africans.

Although the white-dominated Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland ended in the independence of Malawi, formerly Nyasaland, and Zambia, formerly Northern Rhodesia, in 1964, Southern Rhodesia's white minority, a self-governing colony since 1923, declared independence from Britain with their Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) rather than submit to equality with black Africans. The support of South Africa's apartheid government kept the Rhodesian regime in place until 1979, when agreement was reached for majority rule in an independent, newly named, Zimbabwe.

The French colonial empire had begun to fall apart during the Second World War, when various parts of their empire were occupied by foreign powers. French defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam in 1954 was soon followed by war in the French colony of Algeria in North Africa. This culminated in independence for Algeria in 1962 with all of the other French colonies in Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo) being granted independence in 1960.

The Belgian Congo, along with the smaller Belgian colony of Ruanda-Urundi (later split into the separate states of Rwanda and Burundi) followed a similar peaceful path to independence in the early 1960s.

Only Portugal attempted to subdue the emerging nationalist movements in its African colonies of Mozambique and Angola, but without success, finally losing control in 1974.

Source: Wikipedia – British Empire