German Intrigue in Africa
The recent rebellion within the Union of South Africa may be viewed as the culminating point of forty years of intrigue in South Africa, for German emissaries have been at work in the country seeking to undermine British authority since the ’seventies of the last century.
“Would to God,” exclaimed Karl Mauch, the traveller and explorer, on his return to Germany from the Transvaal in 1873, “that this fine country might soon become a German colony.” A year or two later Bismarck was urged by Germans in the country to send a “steady stream of Germans through Delagoa Bay to secure future domination over the Transvaal, and so pave the way for a great German Empire in Africa.” When in 1884 the German flag was hoisted over Angra Pequena the perfervid Treitschke went into ecstasies of delight. This was but a beginning to the advocate of a greater Germany. He postulated a “natural tendency for a Teutonic population to take over South Africa,” and painted in rosy colours a picture of a great confederation of German possessions in Africa. South-West Africa was regarded as a point d’appui; its real value lay in its proximity to the coveted lands in the possession of the “dis-affected” Boers. With his usual prescience Sir Bartle Frere saw the danger, and warned the Boers that “the little finger of Germany might be heavier than the loins of the British Government.” When the Anglo-Boer war broke out a Press campaign was inaugurated in Germany in favour of the “downtrodden Boers,” and it is highly probable that the Kaiser’s famous telegram sent to President Kruger after the Jameson raid was not the impulsive message it was thought to be at the time, but part of a carefully planned scheme of conspiracy against England.
As far back as July of 1895, Die Grenzboten, an important political weekly published in Berlin, wrote as follows: “For us the Boer States, with the coasts that are their due, signify a great possibility. Their absorption in the British Empire would mean a blocking-up of our last road towards an independent agricultural colony in a temperate climate.” The same newspaper wrote two years later: “The possession of South Africa offers greater advantages in every respect than the possession of Southern Brazil. If we look at the map, our German colonies appear very good starting points for attack.” In the same year the following appeared in the Koloniales Jahrbuch: “The importance of South Africa as a land which can receive an unlimited number of white immigrants must rouse us to the greatest exertions in order to secure there the supremacy of the Teuton race. The greater part of the population of South Africa is of Low German descent. We must constantly lay stress upon the Low German origin of the Boers, and we must, before all, stimulate their hatred against Anglo-Saxondom.”
More remarkable still is the speech made in the Reichstag by the unsentimental Herr Lattman, when discussing the railway line from Luderitzbucht to Keetmanshoop. “The line,” he boldly stated, “is not of very great importance for the transport of war material or for commercial purposes, but it gives us the solution of a much more important problem, namely, the position of the colony if war should break out between us and Great Britain. In this case the line would facilitate considerably our attack on Cape Colony.”
That a Pan-German propaganda has been carried on in South Africa for some time is now evident, and, as recent events have made abundantly clear, the seduction of men of “Low German descent” from their allegiance to the Union Government, was a main part of the propaganda. Happily, the majority of the Dutch Africanders were too wise to attach any importance to the specious promises of a Republic, and with their fellow citizens of British extraction they have played an honourable part in the breaking up of the German rule in South-West Africa.