Mass deportation of Poles to Tanzania

The problem is getting the Poles to actually move, as they are within their homeland already and among like-minded peoples, and given the choice of being deported to Africa or leaving early for somewhere like the United States, most would travel to the latter. It needs to be made a desirable destination, which, let's face it, is not an easy task, and most of the persons that would get deported there wouldn't really have the resources to succeed and prosper without the support of the State. So I suggest the following as a preliminary:
  • An equivalent of the Homestead Act of 1862 which then set forth the following -
    • The Applicant must either be the head of a family or twenty-one years of age, must have filed a declaration to claim land, must not have committed treason against the Reich or given comfort to those who would oppose it.
    • No claim may exceed 160 acres, nor shall any combination of prior or future claims exceed this amount, the excess not be applicable to the provisions of this Act.
    • An application must be filed with the pertinent information, the application itself costing fifty goldmarks.
    • The application being accepted, the Reich agrees to temporarily cede the land to the applicant for a period of five years, on the basis of the applicant promising in writing to make improvements to the land for the benefit themselves, their new community, Ostafrika, and the Reich.
      • Should after a period of five years the improvements made by the applicant be deemed reasonable, they may file a claim for legal and total possession of the appropriated land, the application itself costing twenty-five goldmarks, after which they may become the legal owner of the claimed acreage.
      • Should after a period of five years the improvements made by the applicant not be deemed sufficient, or if after a period of six months the applicant is not in possession or present on the land, the claim will be considered forfeit, with all rights being reverted back to the Reich.
That could serve as a very decent basis on which to get people moving there, though it may be difficult to limit it to Poles as there certainly may be Germans who might want to take up on the offer as well. There probably would be a boom of applications as well once gold is discovered in the area around Lake Victoria given how "cheap" these applications are, though most may well revert should they bust.

Promises of additional economic, educational, cultural and political rights would also promote movement to the region, especially if they are granted exemptions from the process of Germanization in Ostafrika and other methods of persecution leveled against them by the government or the German people. The Germans might have to still subsidize the colony to get things going, but the influx of colonists and their efforts might in time make it so that subsidies are no longer necessary.


Of course there is the problem of the militancy of the various native Africans that populated Ostafrika, at least in the initial opening years of the 1890's, but that was by and large limited to the south of Ostafrika, whereas I believe most of those who would seek to claim land would concentrate further north, around Lake Victoria and those regions bordering what is now Kenya.

Given the population of Ostafrika was (7,700,000) in 1913, you'd need about (~1,925,000) Poles for them to be a minority of 1/5th of the population. Even under the most optimistic of circumstances I don't see that happening. However, that doesn't mean they couldn't form a separate colony from Ostafrika. In the regions I see as being the main areas of settlement, (~18,600,000) people live there at the present. If we were to use an inexact science and reduce that to the equivalent for 1913, that would make it (~3,195,000); doesn't include Dar es Salaam or it's surrounding areas, but then again I don't think the Poles would want to be near the German head of governance, or they may have been allowed to establish their own administrative center elsewhere. With the native population at that size, you "only" need (~800,000) Poles to get them to the 1/5th mark, still a bit of a stretch but far more doable then the near two million from before. I had to go to the German Wikipedia to find it, but apparently there were (~3,000,000) ethnic Poles, and it may be prudent to include the (~100,000) Kashubians and (~142,000) Masurians in this figure as well, for a total around (~3,242,000). Of that number we'd need close to (~25%) of them to move to Ostafrika to hit the (800,000) mark, but that isn't factoring in the death rate or birth rate of those who arrive there. Again, doable, but a bit of a stretch.

And just in case, this is the area I'm talking about -

sNxIGUE.png
 
The Polish areas may become their own state at the end of WW1, that may or may not include the rest of German Tanzania.
 
With the native population at that size, you "only" need (~800,000) Poles to get them to the 1/5th mark, still a bit of a stretch but far more doable then the near two million from before.
You would need to move 27,586 poles per year over the 29 years Germany holds Tanzania which would be doable and you could use the 100 million marks from the Prussian Settlement Commission to subsidize the colonization and it might be possible to double or triple the level of funding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_Settlement_Commission#Funding
 
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Why would the death toll be any worse then people going to south Africa or Kenya

Because of this.

640px-Tsetse-BKF-2 (1).jpg


This little bugger is one reason why I'm always skeptical of African timelines. If you are wondering why do most of Middle Africa did not have any animal domestication, it's because this insect, the tsetse fly, spread around both nagana (which kills domesticated cattle, horses, and camels) and sleeping sickness (which affects humans and cause epidemiological deaths in the hundreds of thousands). The 1890's also saw the arrival of rinderpest from either Asia or Europe, which caused almost biblical levels of animal deaths throughout the continent. These three diseases, two of which are transmitted by the fly, negated any use of imported animals and made large-scale human colonization only viable in North and South Africa, and some have theorized that both the fly and it's diseases was one reason why many African colonies were money sinks. Without domesticated beasts, most of the land was unproductive and thus needed to be worked by people. With them working outside more than others, exposure to other diseases are heightened.

The only way to really avoid the fly in the pre-1950's age was to go up to any highlands, and many tribes have done that over the millennias. Any newcomer butting into that would face a lot of domestic opposition, as the Mau Mau Uprising has shown to the British. Mass-insecticide attempts such as DDT were attempted, until they were found to case harm in humans. Scientists also found out that African mosquitoes sprayed by DDT were resistant after 5 to 6 years, so there's a chance that continued pesticide use would only result in a more stronger and resistant tsetse fly.

No matter how you work it, you can't avoid the elephant in the room. Any Polish resettlement program in Tanzania would need to answer the problem of animal and human disease caused by the insect, and the destructiveness it causes. If you are plotting this on the late 19th century, then you need to answer the problem of rinderpest, which killed both domesticated and wild cattle. Going up to any highlands is an option, but be prepared to be confronted by angry local tribes, and highlands can't sustain everyone forever. Using insecticide works in the short term, but can also backfire spectacularly later on, like the DDT mosquitoes.

If you are really insistent on making this work, there is one species of cattle that is resistant to the fly and the diseases it carries. However, it mostly lives in Senegal and the Upper Niger and you'd need a good reason to transport it across the continent. And there's no reason why the tsetse wouldn't just evolve to break the cattle's resistance.
 
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Poles of Posen were quite prosperous farmers (this is not Galizia or Congress Poland with overcrowded villages and microscopic farms) , deportations would hurt badly farming in province which was Prussia's breadbasket. And there is no chance Poles would be equally prosperous in Africa so they'll hate Germans for losing their land with mild climate and good farmland and being send to tropical hellhole. They'll dislike natives also because they'll need to compete with them for the most livable areas located in highlands.
 
Poles of Posen were quite prosperous farmers (this is not Galizia or Congress Poland with overcrowded villages and microscopic farms) , deportations would hurt badly farming in province which was Prussia's breadbasket. And there is no chance Poles would be equally prosperous in Africa so they'll hate Germans for losing their land with mild climate and good farmland and being send to tropical hellhole. They'll dislike natives also because they'll need to compete with them for the most livable areas located in highlands.
At least in my scheme I imagined that it those Poles who had little left to lose (i.e. the poor or serf classes), being promised large tracts of land for what seemed a pittance at the time to most, whereas the more well off would not be able to take advantage of it, at least not directly, nor would many want to. I also supposed that the highlands would be favored rather quickly when it becomes apparent that those areas are the easiest to work and live upon, and any difficulties that would arise on the part of native Africans would be handled by German colonial authorities until the Polish colony reached critical mass, rather there were enough of them to form some measure of self-governance and a proper militia for self-defense.

I don't know however where exactly the various highlands are; I guessed they would mainly be along the border of Kenya, but if someone could better pinpoint where they are, I'd be appreciative.

Because of this.
I'll be honest in that I wasn't aware of this, and it does present some serious problems. Now I did suppose that Polish settlement would rather quickly favor the highlands as those are better for the colonizers in just about every respect, and this just further adds onto that. Given the German tract record in suppressing the native Africans both in Sudwestafrika and Ostafrika, as well as their efficiency in doing so (i.e. brutality), I don't imagine eviction from the highlands would be much of an issue, especially if they only do a little at a time or even favor certain tribes. The settlers themselves are going to want to have a cheap labor force to take advantage of as it is, especially if they can't take full advantage of the cattle they are used to having do the heavy lifting.

I suppose this in turn could jump-start efforts to "cure" rinderpest, but then I don't believe that much happened when South Africa got hit; maybe they get moved forward a decade, maybe they don't. With the Tsetse Fly though I imagine they would just go with the tried and partially true method of land clearing, or rather land burning, in an effort to drive back it's effective range and potentially put a barrier around what would be the populated highlands; it wouldn't be easy as it is work intensive and would involve both conscription and forced movement of those native tribes that happen to be in place where its occurring, but it's the most "effective" method for the first couple decades we'd be talking about.

Still, far from easy.
 
So I found a map that should help determine where the main colonization efforts would be placed; it's a bit of a stretch as it is a map concentrating upon coffee cultivation, but as those normally do their best at higher elevations and would center around the more fertile agricultural zones, and I wasn't having much luck reading off topographical maps, it seemed an effective compromise.

CPF5EkZ.png

To some extent I was right, but I neglected to take into account the southern highlands, and there seems to be a strip of land that runs from Kigoma and, based on the present economies of Burundi and Rwanda, goes through them as well. Still, I think that colonization efforts would center around the lands between Arusha and Tanga on this map as, at least compared to the other options shown here, it would be much easier to establish a railroad to the coast (in this case at Tanga) to export cattle or cash crops.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Actually did a couple more calculations, reducing the proposed colony to what are the modern districts of Arusha, Kilimandscharo, Manyara, and Tanga to see how the numbers would change. In the modern age the population of that region is (~6,800,000), and when reduced to match the total population of the colony as it existed in 1913 (and before I had forgotten to account for modern Burundi and Rwanda, and to subtract Zanzibar), meaning the population would be around (~838,000). That in turn means the number of colonists to reach 1/5th would be reduced to around (~210,000), which so far is the most manageable number I have seen yet, or (6.5%) of the Polish population that lived in Germany in 1910. Given a period of two decades, that is when the Germans really started to penetrate into the interior in Ostafrika, I don't think it is that far out of the realm of plausibility.
 
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I suppose this in turn could jump-start efforts to "cure" rinderpest, but then I don't believe that much happened when South Africa got hit; maybe they get moved forward a decade, maybe they don't.

Actually, the disease was subject to inoculation attempts as far back as the 18th century, and the 1890's outbreak in Africa actually kick-started cattle inoculation in the continent, at least in the British colonies of South Africa. If there was any nagana-resistant domesticated cattle in Tanzania, they could be protected once the authorities dig deep into European bovine records.

The main problem was that rinderpest inoculation was almost forgotten during the 19th century, so you'd need an enterprising or kooky German official to be inspired to search through old history, or to swab bile onto living cows.


With the Tsetse Fly though I imagine they would just go with the tried and partially true method of land clearing, or rather land burning, in an effort to drive back it's effective range and potentially put a barrier around what would be the populated highlands

Found a topographical and climate map of Tanzania and one for the range of the tsetse fly.

*snippety-snip*


Land burning and clearing does partially work, but past attempts quickly ran into the problem of soil erosion when the rainy season arrives. While I could see the authorities promoting this initially, the danger of losing fertile highland soil would make them backtrack after a decade or so.

As for the maps, hmm... they're not detailed enough. A better one would be this one or the one below. One more factor is the flies' relation to water, because they don't like too much or too little of it, though they generally prefer being warm and wet.

AH809E14.gif
T_Tanzan_Precip.jpg


Left is a map of tsetse distribution vs cattle presence, and right is the rainfall pattern of Tanzania


Okay, so the highlands are definitely a desirable place for any Polish settlers, but there's also a large swath of the middle that's tsetse-free and suitable for colonization. At best, you might see some German officials pushing for some Polish families to become cattle ranchers, which would relieve some pressure on the highlands, though not indefinitely.

But to truly break the tsetse fly's stranglehold over domesticated beasts, you need the N'dama and Bauole cattle breeds. They are among the only few breeds that are soundly resistant to the tsetse fly and the diseases it carries. One study showed that the larger N'dama respond well to ranching, so they could do well in the middle savanna through cattle ranching. The smaller Bauole tend to herd in smaller groups, thus becoming a personal farm animal or draft beast to any settler.

Trouble is, both breeds live in Senegal and the Upper Niger, and you need a good reason to get them across the continent to Tanzania. Given the late 1800's, nagana resistance isn't well known among the colonizers or to the medical world, much less that of animal science, so the Germans or French wouldn't see the animals' capabilities until some time later. Also, I can't see the French giving away such a potential income source if they do find out.

We need someone, or several someones, who are either German or Polish, who could connect the dots early on and a) delve through history records to inoculate cattle breeds, b) find or discover a nagana-resistant domesticated animal, c) transport them across Africa to the colony, and d) inoculate them against rinderpest.

EDIT: I forgot! We still need to figure out how to deal with sleeping sickness!
 
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There was a lot of emigration from eastern Germany in OTL, by Germans and Poles, but this emigration was directed towards richer and more prosperous places, to Berlin and western Germany and so forth. As far as I'm aware, there was next to no interest in Africa.

The Second Reich is not capable of this. It was authoritarian and frequently illiberal, and its policies towards its Polish minority were unhelpful at best, but it was still a constitutional state. It was simply not interested in engaging in the sort of thorough ethnic cleansing that is being proposed here--it was not Nazi. That the Polish deportations involved Poles of non-German citizenship is indicative of how far it was capable of going.
 
The Second Reich is not capable of this. It was authoritarian and frequently illiberal, and its policies towards its Polish minority were unhelpful at best, but it was still a constitutional state. It was simply not interested in engaging in the sort of thorough ethnic cleansing that is being proposed here--it was not Nazi. That the Polish deportations involved Poles of non-German citizenship is indicative of how far it was capable of going.

There were plans to expulsion and resettlement poles in the polish border strip and in this case they would be "compensated" with land in Africa and money

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Border_Strip
 
There were plans to expulsion and resettlement poles in the polish border strip and in this case they would be "compensated" with land in Africa and money

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Border_Strip

Not only did that occur during the First World War, that occurred during the end of the First World War, when the Second Reich was fast transforming itself into an aggressively nationalist imperial power arguably not qualitatively much different from the Third Reich. A Second Reich doing this in peacetime is entirely separate.
 
There was huge public outrage in Germany after the herero genocide. Ethnical cleansing German East Africa in favor of Poles is a bad political move since I don't think anyone in Germany would support a polish colony when you could have a german colony as in OTL.
 
How would German justify deportations? Germans were used to legal actions so would they create new laws like "speaking Polish in public is crime punished with confiscation of property and deportation to Africa"? Even German actions from OTL like expulsion of Poles and Jews who came from Russian and Austrian Poland or beating Polish children in Września caused public outrage in neighbouring countries. Nazi-like policy against Poles (not really different from "General Plan Ost"-instead of deporting Poles to Siberia where they'll die like flies deport them to Africa where they'll also die like flies) would turn German Empire into pariah state.
 
There were plans to expulsion and resettlement poles in the polish border strip and in this case they would be "compensated" with land in Africa and money

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Border_Strip
Not only did that occur during the First World War, that occurred during the end of the First World War, when the Second Reich was fast transforming itself into an aggressively nationalist imperial power arguably not qualitatively much different from the Third Reich. A Second Reich doing this in peacetime is entirely separate.
How would German justify deportations? Germans were used to legal actions so would they create new laws like "speaking Polish in public is crime punished with confiscation of property and deportation to Africa"? Even German actions from OTL like expulsion of Poles and Jews who came from Russian and Austrian Poland or beating Polish children in Września caused public outrage in neighbouring countries. Nazi-like policy against Poles (not really different from "General Plan Ost"-instead of deporting Poles to Siberia where they'll die like flies deport them to Africa where they'll also die like flies) would turn German Empire into pariah state.
As McDonald and Svetonius have said, deportation and expulsion are not going to work outside of a war environment like the one that existed during the First World War or a particularly nationalist government, hence why I suggested a homesteading scheme. In turn, however, I don't see the scheme as being comparable to the hell that would have been Jewish Madagascar, 'specially if they keep to the highlands.

There was huge public outrage in Germany after the herero genocide. Ethnical cleansing German East Africa in favor of Poles is a bad political move since I don't think anyone in Germany would support a polish colony when you could have a german colony as in OTL.
In terms of ethnic cleansing of the native Africans, it ultimately depends I suppose on when it would transition from a military administration to a civilian one. Based on what I can find there wasn't much of an outcry when it came to the atrocities that came with pacifying East Africa, though that is likely because the atrocities of the Herero Wars overshadowed them and were significantly more publicized; there still was a level of awareness in Berlin however when it came to the colonial military's tendency to use excessive measures, it just doesn't seem to have mattered. If a slew of colonists are being moved into Ostafrika though then there is a strong possibility that the rebellions will be worse and that they may become the focal point of attention even should such measures as concentration camps were not to show up.

As for why a Polish colony, besides trying to meet part of the OP's specifications, it makes sense as a safety valve of sorts for the Polish minority, a way to move dissidents out of the country proper and grant greater opportunities to replace those who've left with proper Germans. That isn't to say it would work like that in practice, that Germans wouldn't make their way to Ostafrika as well, or that even the goal of Germanification of the Corridor would come close to being realized, but then few such enterprises meet all such expectations. Ultimately the Poles would be worked as an anchor for German Ostafrika, Germany needing an established European presence to help maintain their control, the Polish colonists needing Germany to help establish themselves and then maintain their gains. It would be an uncomfortable relationship given recent history, even if the Germanification laws are relaxed or eliminated entirely within the boundaries of Ostafrika, but one of necessity until another power steps in to help maintain the new balance.
 
It would still kill most who try, diseases like Malaria, Sleeping Sickness and tons of other tropical disease will kill the people, crops and livestock in vast numbers that it will be a disaster.
 
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