Germany's Vanishing Colonies

by Gordon Le Sueur

There was nothing left but for our Government to bow at the triumph of superior diplomacy, and the position was accepted with a good grace—Lord Granville declaring that in view of the definitions which had been publicly given by the British Government of the limits of Cape Colony, the claim of the German Government could not be contested, and that the British Government was therefore prepared to recognise the rights of the Germans.

There were some very violent expressions of opinion on the part of Britishers who had vested interests in this, the first of Germany's Colonies, for there were many private rights concerned, and it was decided that an Anglo-German Commission should be appointed to inquire into and settle all conflicting claims; but it is not of record that, excepting in regard to the islands, the decisions of the Commission were in favour of the British traders who had for many years been established along the coast of South West Africa.

The result of Luderitz's enterprise, supported by Prussian diplomacy, was, therefore, that the German flag waved over the whole extent of South West Africa from the Orange River to the border of Portuguese Angola, and Angra Pequena assumed the responsibility of the name "Luderitzbucht."

In the meantime Herr Luderitz had established his trading stations at St Lucia Bay on the coast of Zululand, and proceeded to repeat the stratagem he had followed in Angra Pequena by founding trade stations at points inland while he opened negotiations with Dinizulu.

The annexation of South West Africa had, however, caused the British Government to throw off some of their lethargy, and a British warship was dispatched to St Lucia Bay, over which, by virtue of a treaty made with the Zulu King Panda some forty years previously, the British flag was hoisted on the 18th December, 1884.

Danger of the Cape being cut off from the north was, however, still extant in Bechuanaland, where the Boers had annexed the territories known as Stellaland, Goshen, and Rooigrond; but this was eventually saved to Great Britain by vigorous individual action on the part of Cecil Rhodes, who had himself appointed a Commissioner to visit Bechuanaland, where he strenuously opposed the claims of the Transvaal Republic.

These claims were, however, only withdrawn in the following year after an expedition under Sir Charles Warren had proceeded to the disputed areas and persuaded the Boers that Great Britain was this time in real and eager earnest.

Bechuanaland became a British "Protectorate," and the well-laid scheme for a German transcontinental Empire was frustrated.

The boundaries of the territory brought under German sway in South West Africa were defined by what is known as the Caprivi Treaty of the 1st July, 1890, between Germany and Great Britain, and by an agreement between Germany and Portugal. Under the terms of the latter the northern boundary of German South West Africa, between that Colony and Portuguese Angola, was fixed at the Cunene River; while under the Caprivi Treaty the boundary between the Cape Colony and German South West Africa was declared to be the Orange River.

Great Britain retained Walfisch Bay, which became a "district" of the Cape Colony and was placed under the Colonial administration in 1884, and also kept the territory round Lake 'Ngami in northern Bechuanaland.