Challenge: A Larger Place Under the Sun

Following German unification - and particularly after Wilhelm II dismissed Bismark - the drive for colonies began in earnest. Despite gaining some respectable pieces of real estate in Africa, along with some islands in the Pacific and an outpost in China, there was still a feeling in some quarters that this was insufficient. Wilhelm II was greatly jealous of the British Empire for her wealth, the size of her colonies and dominions, and her world wide power and influence. Certainly all readers are aware of what this led to. So, my challenge to you, is.......get Germany a larger share of the white man's burden!
 
Fund a aeries of antarctic expeditions mapping out large swathes of the continent, then claim them. Bonus if the first man at the pole is a German scientist. At the Antarctic Conference, the combined realisation that the Germans have developed the technology to conquer the frozen continent and that it's all but worthless prompts other colonial powers to readily accede.
 
I'm afraid the German Colonial office would be about as excited about that as the Austrians were for Franz Josef Land. Colonies are only impressive if you can exploit them by means of settlement and trade.

How about pressuring the Dutch to sell their side of New Guinea?
 
I'm not sure that would go down well with the neighbours. A meaningful expansion after Bismarck is out of office is much harder than it would have been in the 1880s.
 
What about the proposed break up of the Portugese holdings in Africa? If I remember, Britain and Germany were to divide Angola and Mozambique between themselves. I believe this had to do with Portugal being unable to pay back loans or some such thing. Could this possibly take place prior to 1914? Not necessarily the precise reason behind, just the action itself.
 
What about the proposed break up of the Portugese holdings in Africa? If I remember, Britain and Germany were to divide Angola and Mozambique between themselves. I believe this had to do with Portugal being unable to pay back loans or some such thing. Could this possibly take place prior to 1914? Not necessarily the precise reason behind, just the action itself.

I don't think that was ever seriously considered.

The French also offered Indochina as a territorial concession after the war of 1870, but Bismarck didn't want it. In truth, I don't see any German gov ernment taking it, but the image of German Vietnam is just too strange not to like.
 

raharris1973

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I like German Vietnam-

The French also offered Indochina as a territorial concession after the war of 1870, but Bismarck didn't want it. In truth, I don't see any German gov ernment taking it, but the image of German Vietnam is just too strange not to like.

Interesting divergence indeed. At this time (1871) the actual transfer would yield basically the southern third of Indochina - Cochinchina as a colony and a protectorate treaty over Cambodia. The rest of Vietnam at this time was independent, and Laos was under Siamese control.

First of all, I don't see any reason for this to bother Britain any more than Britain was bothered by the transfer of Alsace-Lorraine in OTL.

The Germans will have to administer the place so they might also take part of the French Navy and merchant marine in their reparations package. One thing about transferring colonies is that I think it sort of invites a revolt. The better prepared the new occupier is, the easier and faster it would be to defeat such a revolt.

The sectarian politics of German Indochina would be quite elaborate. The French missionary interest and missionary lobby were key drivers in French colonization, so one would suppose that Catholic Germans become the new champions of Vietnamese Catholics.

But, German rule will open the door to competing Lutheran missionaries.

The Hamburg based J.C. Goddefroy and sons who dominated the South Seas trade in Samoa and other parts of Polynesia may become investors in Cochinchina enterprises and avoid eventual bankruptcy.

And the first 4 to 5 years of German rule will coincide with Bismarck's anti-Catholic Kulturkampf, making things more convoluted. This could affect Indochina in a couple of ways. He could stop the Kulturkampf at the waters edge and consider Catholicism a useful/necessary tool of German rule in the colonies. Or, the Kulturkampf could be extended, some Vietnamese would become Protestants but really committed Catholics could remove their support for European rule, leaving German rule just upheld by bayonets and money. Catholic rebels could get some nationalistic street cred in Vietnamese culture. Alternatively, Kulturkampf could lead to Buddhist Vietnamese taking advantage of the chance to compete for priviledged positions that Catholics occupied under the French, and there's a "re-balancing" of the local collaborationist elite towards a non-sectarian basis.

But post-kulturkampf I imagine Zentrum would try to revive a pro-Catholic bias to the colonial administration.

Then there's the issue of whether Germany uses Cochinchina and Germany's "men on the spot" in Cochinchina use it as a springboard for expansion as much as the OTL French did.

The Germans could be content with digesting a smaller sphere for awhile, or they could expand with gusto in the 1880s or even earlier.

If similar commercial motives and adventures lead them to expand north at the pace of the French, they could occupy all Indochina by 1885. They might fight a war against China instead of the French. Hainan or Taiwan could be targets of the German fleet staging first from Saigon and then Danang and Haiphong.

Germany in the 1880s will probably be more able to find allies against China than France was. First of all, it had allies (Italy and Austria) who could relish the chance to ride Germany's coat-tails to earn their own treaty ports. Speaking of the Austrians, the German presence in Indochina may lend some impetus to the abortive Austrian enterprise across the sea in Borneo.

Also, in the OTL Franco-Chinese war, the French and Japanese danced around the idea of allying against China. As it turned out they did a cha-cha and early on France wanted it but Japan wasn't sure and later on Japan was more eager but the French less so. Germany with its greater military reputation and more imitation worthy (from a Japanese p.o.v.) domestic institutions might have a much easier time acquiring an alliance with Tokyo early, which would see the Japanese invade Korea at least. Lastly, Germany's "re-insured" and still decent relationship with Russia means there may be a third major anti-Chinese front in Manchuria, Mongolia and Xinjiang.

This add up to a real anti-Chinese dogpile.

Cochinchina would likely not be the lone French colonial cession to Germany if Germany took it in 1870. The Germans would probably want a stopping point or two taken from French possessions on the African coast (Cote D'Ivoire & Djibouti perhaps). They might want or get Tahiti as well. who wouldn't? I see concessions in the western hemisphere as less likely because of the greater odds of complication with the British or US, and the fact that these had been French possessions for a longer period of history.

Pulling back to German Vietnam's development, Vietnamese will have a second culture to European culture to directly borrow from and it would be interesting to see how fast or completely German influences replace French in terms of education, language, science and foodways.
 

raharris1973

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Bismarck wanted less, but got more, than Wilhelm II

Following German unification - and particularly after Wilhelm II dismissed Bismark - the drive for colonies began in earnest.

Bismarck's successors wanted, talked and dreamed about colonies more than Bismarck, but he gained far more colonial acreage in Africa than they were to get in Tsingtao and Micronesia.

I'm not sure that would go down well with the neighbours. A meaningful expansion after Bismarck is out of office is much harder than it would have been in the 1880s.

Carlton is precisely right on this. There was simply much less unclaimed to grab. Antarctica would be a place in the sun, 24/7, all winter long though!

What about the proposed break up of the Portugese holdings in Africa? If I remember, Britain and Germany were to divide Angola and Mozambique between themselves. I believe this had to do with Portugal being unable to pay back loans or some such thing. Could this possibly take place prior to 1914? Not necessarily the precise reason behind, just the action itself.

As I've heard this described in detail, it seems the British made this arrangement to be conciliatory on the surface to the Germans while intending to always loan the Portuguese just enough to stay solvent. That's how diplomatic historian Norman Rich described it at least.

So, my challenge to you, is.......get Germany a larger share of the white man's burden!

But it is still possible to meet this challenge. Granted, Germany's potential for colonial gains was much less after the Bismarck administration (1890 onward) than before.

There's still some ways to gain territory without a major great power war though in the period 1890-1910.

If you look at maps of Africa, in the 1880s most colonies still hugged the coast, not all the African interior was divvied up until 1910 or so. Germany could have added a big chunk of the Sahara to its domains without excessive effort or risk. For instance, imagine a German land corridor between Togoland and Kamerun, encompassing present-day Chad, Niger and parts of Mali. The Germans just would have had to go in and beat the Waddai Sultanate themselves instead of letting the French do it.

Paul Kennedy's the Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism supports this notion of Germany retaining territorial options until the mid 1890s:


“the revival of colonial clashes and sentiments in a much more heightened form than had occurred in the 1880s. The actual causes of the quarrels were not very important, but the way in which they escalated was quite remarkable. Marschall, irritated by London’s general policy, read into a number of minor matters (the refusal to allow Singapore coolies to be recruited for the German New Guinea company’s plantations; opposition to an Asia Minor railway concession; moves into the Cameroons hinterland) a deliberate series of British snubs to which he responded by ceding to France in early 1894 a place on the Upper Niger*- only a few months after an Anglo-German agreement over that region, through which London had hoped to block a French advance on the Nile.”
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*this must be referring to parts of Niger and Mali, if not the interior of Guinea, a lot of land on the map because Britain already held southern Nigeria. This indicates Germany had a good bit of potential to occupy much of the landmass that became French West Africa and Equatorial Africa.


East Africa could have been a little bigger without the Helgoland Zanzibar deal.

Some bits of Indonesia were actually still uncolonized in 1890 as well. Some of the small islands of the archipelago, parts of western New Guinea and even slivers of Celebes and East Borneo were not under Dutch rule yet by that point. The Dutch already did have the most populous and wealthy stuff however.

--With a major war, the opportunities increase, as long as this major war involves Britain beating down France, and Germany getting to scavenge more pieces while Britain gets the "lion's share".
 
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Would it be possible to have Kaiser Wilhelm I, rather than Leopold II of Belgium, set up the 'Congo Free State'?
 
Would it be possible to have Kaiser Wilhelm I, rather than Leopold II of Belgium, set up the 'Congo Free State'?

I thought the whole point of that was to keep the Congo out of the hands of any really big power. However, partitioning the Congo might not be out of the question.
 

raharris1973

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...speaking of North Borneo, it could have belonged to

one of many different colonizers -

it was run by the white rajahs in the middle 19th century, and then in turn an American consul and then and Austro-Hungarian consul until 1880 when the British took control...

In 1865, the United States Consul to Brunei, Charles Lee Moses, obtained a 10-year lease for the territory of North Borneo from the Sultan of Brunei. However, the post-Civil War United States wanted nothing to do with Asian colonies, so Moses sold his rights to the Hong Kong-based American Trading Company of Borneo owned by Joseph William Torrey, Thomas Bradley Harris, Tat Cheong and possibly other Chinese merchants. Torrey began a settlement at the Kimanis River mouth, which he named Ellena. Attempts to find financial backing for the settlement were futile, and disease, death and desertion by the immigrant labourers led to the abandonment of the settlement towards the end of 1866. Harris died in 1866 and Torrey returned to America in 1877, he died in Boston, Massachusetts, in March 1884.

With the imminent termination of the lease at hand in January 1875, Torrey managed to sell his rights to the Consul of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Hong Kong, Baron Von Overbeck. Von Overbeck managed to get a 10-year renewal of the lease from the Temenggong of Brunei, and a similar treaty from the Sultan of Sulu on 22 January 1878. To finance his plans for North Borneo, Overbeck found financial backing from the Dent brothers (Alfred and Edward). However, he was unable to interest his government in the territory. After efforts to sell the territory to Italy for use as a penal colony, Von Overbeck withdrew in 1880, leaving Alfred Dent in control. Dent was supported by Sir Rutherford Alcock, and Admiral Sir Harry Keppel.
 
Germany at one point could have gotten the Philippines if the USA could not. A German fleet was actually in Manila Bay during the Spanish American War.
 
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