Rumour, in the guise of hints given by communicative young attaches or "well-informed" correspondents, ascribes the first beginnings of the plans for the partition of Africa to the informal conversations of statesmen at the time of the Congress of Berlin (1878). Just as an architect safeguards his creation by providing a lightning-conductor, so the builder of the German Empire sought to divert from that fabric the revengeful storms that might be expected from the south-west. Other statesmen were no less anxious than Bismarck to draw away the attention of rivals from their own political preserves by pointing the way to more desirable waste domains. In short, the statesmen of Europe sought to plant in Africa the lightning-conductors that would safeguard the new arrangements in Europe, including that of Cyprus. The German and British Governments are known then to have passed on hints to that of France as to the desirability of her appropriating Tunis. The Republic entered into the schemes, with results which have already been considered (Chapter XII.); and, as a sequel to the occupation of Tunis, plans were set on foot for the eventual conquest of the whole of the North-West of Africa (except Morocco and a few British, Spanish, and Portuguese settlements) from Cape Bon to Cape Verde, and thence nearly to the mouth of the River Niger. We may also note that in and after 1883 France matured her schemes for the conquest of part, and ultimately the whole, of Madagascar, a project which reached completion in the year 1885[425].
The military occupation of Egypt by Great Britain in 1882 also served to quicken the interest of European Powers in Africa. It has been surmised that British acquiescence in French supremacy in Tunis, West Africa, and Madagascar had some connection with the events that transpired in Egypt, and that the perpetuation of British supremacy in the valley of the Nile was virtually bought by the surrender of most of our political and trading interests in these lands, the lapse of which under the French "protective" regime caused much heart-burning in commercial circles.
Last among the special causes that concentrated attention on Africa was the activity of King Leopold's Association at Brussels in opening up the Congo district in the years 1879-1882. Everything therefore tended to make the ownership of tropical Africa the most complex question of the early part of the eighties.
For various reasons Germany was a little later than France and England in entering the field. The hostility of France on the west, and, after 1878, that of Russia on the east, made it inadvisable for the new Empire to give hostages to Fortune, in the shape of colonies, until by alliances it secured its position at home and possessed a fleet strong enough to defend distant possessions. In some measure the German Government had to curb the eagerness of its "colonial party." The present writer was in Germany in the year 1879, when the colonial propaganda was being pushed forward, and noted the eagerness in some quarters, and the distrust in others, with which pamphlets like that of Herr Fabri, Bedarf Deutschland Colonien? were received. Bismarck himself at first checked the "colonials," until he felt sure of the European situation. That, however, was cleared up to some extent by the inclusion of Italy in the compact which thus became the Triple Alliance (May 1882), and by the advent to office of the pacific Chancellor, de Giers, at St. Petersburg a little later. There was therefore the less need officially to curb the colonising instinct of the Teutonic people. The formation of the German Colonial Society at Frankfurt in December 1882, and the immense success attending its propaganda, spurred on the statesmen of Berlin to take action. They looked longingly (as they still do) towards Brazil, in whose southern districts their people had settled in large numbers; but over all that land the Monroe Doctrine spread its sheltering wings. A war with the United States would have been madness, and Germany therefore turned to Polynesia and Africa. We may note here that in 1885 she endeavoured to secure the Caroline Islands from Spain, whose title to them seemed to have lapsed; but Spanish pride flared up at the insult, and after a short space Bismarck soothed ruffled feelings at Madrid by accepting the mediation of the Pope, who awarded them to Spain--Germany, however, gaining the right to occupy an islet of the group as a coaling station.
Africa, however, absorbed nearly all the energy of the German colonial party. The forward wing of that party early in the year 1884 inaugurated an anti-British campaign in the press, which probably had the support of the Government. As has been stated in chapter XII., that was the time when the Three Emperors' League showed signs of renewed vitality; and Bismarck, after signing the secret treaty of March 24, 1884 (later on ratified at Skiernevice), felt safe in pressing on colonial designs against England in Africa, especially as Russia was known to be planning equally threatening moves against the Queen's Empire in Asia. We do not know enough of what then went on between the German and Russian Chancellors to assert that they formed a definite agreement to harry British interests in those continents; but, judging from the general drift of Bismarck's diplomacy and from the "nagging" to which England was thenceforth subjected for two years, it seems highly probable that the policy ratified at Skiernevice aimed at marking time in European affairs and striding onwards in other continents at the expense of the Island Power.
The Anglophobes of the German press at once fell foul of everything British; and that well-known paper the Kölnische Zeitung in an article of April 22, 1884, used the following words:--"Africa is a large pudding which the English have prepared for themselves at other people's expense, and the crust of which is already fit for eating. Let us hope that our sailors will put a few pepper-corns into it on the Guinea coast, so that our friends on the Thames may not digest it too rapidly." The sequel will show whether the simile correctly describes either the state of John Bull's appetite or the easy aloofness of the Teutonic onlooker.
It will be convenient to treat this great and complex subject on a topographical basis, and to begin with a survey of the affairs of East Africa, especially the districts on the mainland north and south of the island of Zanzibar. At that important trade centre, the natural starting point then for the vast district of the Great Lakes, the influence of British and Indian traders had been paramount; and for many years the Sultan of Zanzibar had been "under the direct influence of the United Kingdom and of the Government of India[426]." Nevertheless, in and after 1880 German merchants, especially those of Hamburg, pressed in with great energy and formed plans for annexing the neighbouring territories on the mainland.
Their energy was in strange contrast to the lethargy shown by the British Government in the protection of Anglo-Indian trade interests. In the year 1878 the Sultan of Zanzibar, who held a large territory on the mainland, had offered the control of all the commerce of his dominions to Sir W. Mackinnon, Chairman of the British-India Steam Navigation Company; but, for some unexplained reason, the Beaconsfield Cabinet declined to be a party to this arrangement, which, therefore, fell through[427]. Despite the fact that England and France had in 1862 agreed to recognise the independence of the Sultan of Zanzibar, the Germans deemed the field to be clear, and early in November 1884, Dr. Karl Peters and two other enthusiasts of the colonial party landed at Zanzibar, disguised as mechanics, with the aim of winning new lands for their Fatherland. They had with them several blank treaty forms, the hidden potency of which was soon to be felt by dusky potentates on the mainland. Before long they succeeded in persuading some of these novices in diplomacy to set their marks to these documents, an act which converted them into subjects of the Kaiser, and speedily secured 60,000 square miles for the German tricolour. It is said that the Government of Berlin either had no knowledge of, or disapproved of, these proceedings; and, when Earl Granville ventured on some representations respecting them, he received the reply, dated November 28, 1884, that the Imperial Government had no design of obtaining a protectorate over Zanzibar[428]. It is difficult to reconcile these statements with the undoubted fact that on February 17, 1885, the German Emperor gave his sanction to the proceedings of Dr. Peters by extending his suzerainty over the signatory chiefs[429]. This event caused soreness among British explorers and Indian traders who had been the first to open up the country to civilisation. Nevertheless, the Gladstone Ministry took no effective steps to safeguard their interests.
In defence of their academic treatment of this matter some considerations of a general nature may be urged.
The need of colonies felt by Germany was so natural, so imperious, that it could not be met by the high and dry legal argument as to the priority of Great Britain's commercial interests. Such an attitude would have involved war with Germany about East Africa and war with France about West Africa, at the very time when we were on the brink of hostilities with Russia about Merv, and were actually fighting the Mahdists behind Suakim. The "weary Titan"--to use Matthew Arnold's picturesque phrase--was then overburdened. The motto, "Live and let live," was for the time the most reasonable, provided that it was not interpreted in a weak and maudlin way on essential points.