September 7, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
End of German Power in Africa 
A Survey of the Past and a Vision of the Future 
By Lewis R. Freeman 
-^-w- XITH practically all of the central railway 
mm/ of German East Africa passed into the hands 
m/m/ of the invaders, with the whole coast at the 
f T mercy of the British Fleet, with the capital, 
Dar-es-Salaam, captured, and with the provisional Govern- 
ment no more than a hunted thing dodging about the 
dwindling area not vet conquered, the imminent collapse 
of all military resistance in the last of Germany's foreign 
colonies makes apposite at this time some discussion of 
the significance of an event which, no matter how much 
it may be overshadowed by «till greater events nearer at 
hand, is still destined to stand as a mile-stone in the 
progress of the British Empire, as a final clinching of 
the last nail in the coffin of the vaulting " iibersee " 
ambitions of the Teuton. 
This greatly-to-be-desired consummation— assuming, 
of course, as was inevitable, that the conquest of this 
carefully-defended region must in any case have taken 
many months of hard campaigning— could not have 
eventuated at a better time. From the very first the 
Germain people— and, indeed, many of the more fanatical 
and less broadly informed of her higher oificials— took the 
conquest of their overseas possessions with the greatest 
equanimity. In fact, it was a German official 4n Wash- 
ington who assured me only last February that the Allies, 
in pouring out their blood and treasure in the conquest of 
Germany's African colonies, were only playing into his 
country's hands. 
" Nothing more to our liking could have been done if 
we had had the ordering of the Alhes' military movements 
ourselves. Thcv— and especially Britain— are expending 
men and money'and shipping (all of which could be turned 
to incalculably greater advantage in pushing the war in 
Europe), to conquer regions which can give them nothing 
they do not have already in abundance, and which we 
will take from them— in Paris, or wherever the Peace 
Treaty chances to be signed— by a stroke of the pen. 
The effort wc expend in resisting attack in these colonies 
was, so far as this war is concerned, lost to us already ; 
that which Great Britain expends could actually be 
applied in strengthening their weakening resistance to 
our advances in all parts of Europe, where their ultimate 
fate must be settled in any event." 
This thesis— like so many other specious argurnentg 
that the Germans have advanced— was all right in itself, 
and only faulty in the matter of the preniise— a German 
miUtary triumph in Europe— upon which it rested. 
Colonial Possessions 
The colonial possessions of Great Britain. France, 
Spain, Holland, Portugal and even the United States, 
have been the more or less fortuitous results of time 
and chance ; that of Germany was the outgrowth of the 
same cold, calculating deliberation which formulated its 
foreign trade policy. Time has already shown that both 
were a menace to the peace, and even to the existence, 
of less cynically inclined nations, and if a certain amount 
of "calculating deliberation" enters into the policy by 
which the Allies put an end, once and for all, to that 
menace Germany has only itself to blame. That a large 
part of Germany's artificially built up foreign trade wil 
go the way of Germany's artificially reared colonial 
Empire becomes more and more probable with every day 
that goes' by. , , x u 
It has been Germany's persistent plaint, both at home 
and abroad, that she attained to national power, or 
rather world-power, too late to secure the foreign colonies, 
and especiallv the tropical colonies, th^t are an absolute 
sine qua non to the " fullness " and self-sufficiency ot a 
modern Empire. This is largely true so far as Asiatic 
possessions and strategic positions on the great trade 
routes of the world are concerned, though it is no justifica- 
tion of the methods (icrmany has employed in her endea- 
vours to secure them. But as regards Africa it is not 
true. The partitioning of a very large piart of this great 
and incalculably rich continent, so well called the " Col- 
onial Annex of "Europe," has almost entirely been carried 
out since Germany began her intrigues in Weltpolitik 
following the defeat of France in 1870. 
And never did a nation have a fairer, a more " sporting, 
chance than that which England, who was already estab- 
lished in that field, gave Germany in Africa. Both 
England and France— the latter country was gamely 
trying to develop colonies in north and north-west Africa, 
to offset the loss of Alsace-Lorraine -figured that there 
was enough, and more than enough, new territory to go 
round, and felt that another shoulder under a corner of 
the " White Man's Burden " might make it lighter for 
all of them. In the middle 'eighties the (German camel 
thrust its head " under the .tent " by founding the 
colonies of Togoland, the Kameruns and Damaraland, 
all on the west coast, and from that time down to the 
outbreak of the war, thirty years later, she never ceased 
to push herself further in at every opportunity. 
The Gaprivi Agreement 
At that time neither England, France, Portugal, or any 
other nation cared especially to occupy the fever-mfested 
swamps of the Guinea Coast, or the sun-baked deserts 
of the south-west coast, where Germany established her 
first footholds, but in relinquishing the Zanzibar hinter- 
land to Germany by the Caprivi Agreement of i88g. 
England gave up the rights not only to an extensive 
.territory of great potential richness, but also— at least 
so far as any one could have seen before Germany com- 
mitted colonial suicide by forcing the present war in 
1914 -to the right-of-way for Rhodes' imperially con- 
ceived scheme for a railway from Alexandria to Capetown 
running in British territory all the way -the famous 
" All-Red Cape-to-Cairo " route. It was hardly set 
down in a treaty, but these concessions were made to 
Germany on the implied understanding that her " sphere " 
was to be confined to South and Central Africa, and that 
North Africa in particular should be avoided. 
In how frank a spirit of unsuspicion these concessions 
were made, how thoroughly sincere were England's 
sentiments of welcome to Germany as a colonial power 
and neighbour, may be judged from the fact that Mr. 
■ Gladstone stated in the House of Commons that he 
thanked God for sending Germany to help to fulfil " the 
great purposes of Providence for the advantage of man- 
kind." It may be illuminative to bracket with this 
statement a remark made by Bismarck several years 
later in commenting upon the coup by which Germany 
received so much in return for so little : " If I had done 
as much mischief to Germany as Gladstone has to Eng- 
land I should never dare look my countrymen in the 
face 'again." Even so long ago as the early nineties 
therefore, we have evidence of the way German national 
gratitude expressed itself. 
The Kaiser— for Germany's colonial policy was now 
his— devoted much attention and energy to the develop- 
ment of his incipient colonies during the next decade and 
a half and it was not until his covetous desire for Morocco, 
which dominates both the Cape and Mediterranean 
routes to AustraUa and the East, and also the routes 
to South America, overcame him that the world 
had evidence that he was not prepared to carry oiit the 
original (ierman agreement and stick to the " sphere 
that had been allotted to that country. His announce- 
ment early in the present century, that in the future he 
would refuse to recognise the authority of any but the 
native ruler of Morocco, came like a thunderbolt out of a 
clear sky, and was one of the principal causes hastening 
the Entente between France and England. 
The Agadir bluff was only a further development of the 
Kaiser's insidiotls North African policy, and thenceforth 
the arrogant cynicism of his foreign policy was written 
clear for all thosje who cared to read. England's prompt 
rally to the side of France— a straw which should have 
