alternatehistory.com

News of Premier Goering’s offensive reached Berlin and Lisbon at roughly the same time, causing a great deal of confusion in the former and panic in the latter. In one case high ranking German diplomat Georg von Kratzendorff had been having dinner with the Portuguese at his country villa when a motorcycle courier roared up with a Portuguese diplomat in the sidecar clutching the railing for dear life; once he had been revived with a tall glass of champagne and reassured that the “maniac” would not be driving him back to Berlin the diplomat informed the ambassador and von Kratzendorff of the invasion, resulting in one of history’s most awkward pauses as both Portuguese diplomats slowly realized by von Kratzendorff’s dropped jaw(followed by his dropped glass, as the junior diplomat mournfully remarked) and his hasty dash for the motorcycle sidecar which promptly raced back towards Berlin that he—and Germany—had been left in the dark.

The problem Berlin faced was that Africa was a long way away, the country was still struggling to find its feet after Black Monday, and no one had the appetite for taking on Goering, a hero of the First Weltkrieg who was still popular amongst many of the common people back in Germany. Not only that, but German rule in Indochina was rapidly collapsing in the face of a popular Syndicalist uprising armed and equipped by Britain, France and the Bharatiya Commune. Goering’s supporters in Berlin claimed he was simply taking “necessary and wise pre-emptive steps to stop a continent wide Indochina”. With the effective collapse of Portuguese resistance—-and Lisbon’s decision to negotiate rather than risk drawing Berlin into direct conflict with them—Goering was able to present the victory as a fait accompli.

The terms of the Treaty of Maputo were harsh; Portugal was forced to surrender all of Angola and Mozambique as punishment for assisting “anti European uncivilized elements which sought to destroy the products created by the white man’s burden”. Goering also sought to take the remaining minor Portuguese territories in Africa, but threats of an outright blockade—Mittleafrika’s small surface navy had been wiped out by the Portuguese fleet— and German unwillingness to support his demands meant that went nowhere.

The annexation of the additional lands created just as many headaches, though, as it solved. True, the original band of insurgents was effectively crushed once they lost their safe havens in Angola and Mozambique, but nationalist movements in the former Portuguese colonies, who had never really fully been suppressed by Lisbon, promptly began agitating against Goering’s rule. To make matters worse, unrest was in the rise in Kikuyuland. The murder of an English settled missionary, Dr. Andrew Morgan, by nationalist rebels in May of 1937 had led to the heavily militarized local English settler militias conducted reprisal attacks against the Kikuyu populace. The Goering administration, which supported the English settlers, ignored the reprisal attacks, focusing on trying to hunt down the Kikiyu rebels. Following the Portuguese surrender things began heating up even more as Goering poured troops into the region.

By the summer of 1940 nationalist feeling was on the rise across Africa—not just in Mittleafrika, but in the Saharan territories of National France, Morocco, and Ethiopia. The Commune of France and it’s allies stood poised to strike Germany directly, and many agitators had made their way into Africa itself. The continent was a tinderbox—all that was needed was a spark.....