What if Germany sold colonies during the land arms race of 1912-1914, or early months of WWI?

At the end of 1913, trade of German Colonies was 443,300,000 marks (about £22m - half the trade of New Zealand in 1913) and an increase of 65,300,000 marks over the previous year. Only South West Africa showed a decline from 73,900,000 to 71,500,000 marks due to rail construction and setting up a brewery.

Because of course the Germans, being Germans, needed to build a brewery in their desert colony. :)
 
What if Berlin becomes increasingly convinced that a general European war is inevitable in the medium-to- near term, its priority is land arms and that its colonies are not retainable and cannot contribute to victory in Europe in the anticipated event of British belligerency or very hostile neutrality?

Accordingly, like Napoleon with Louisiana, they decide to sell of territories that are unlikely to be held in wartime, for resources, like cash, gold or raw materials, that would be useful under wartime or blockade or prewar conditions.

Here are some thoughts on potential customers:

Netherlands for New Guinea and Pacific locations, possibly Sweden or Norway too, consider those guys for Togo or Kamerun or SW Afrika. Additional customer, for any in Africa – Portugal (but does Portugal have the cash?) Netherlands is most likely to have the cash, Denmark too, maybe Sweden, less so Norway (though Norway has shipping). Other customers- Japan for Pacific stuff, China Tsingtao (charge a ransom if you can get it paid). Alternatively, for African locations, or some of them, could be sold to Italy as Bismarck is once rumored to have suggested. Especially East Africa.

To ensure payment, from distant customers, insist on gold or neutral hard currency, that could not be taxed or requisitioned easily in wartime. Nearby, adjacent, customers, like Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Italy are the ideal customers, because payment can come in the form of essential goods. Those countries produce many articles of value to Germany in wartime, export labor (Italy), or can reimport materials (esp. the Dutch).

Could there be any potential affirmative interest on the part of any of these powers if approached with a sudden offer? Any sense of trepidation or danger in the countries given the offer? Any downside for Germany? Also, with selling to adjacent minor powers, it leaves open the possibility of a re-purchase. Now handing overseas interests to others does also make them less willing to fight on Germany’s side if Germany goes to war with Britain, because it will increase their vulnerable assets.

Close to contiguous customers, almost as good – Greece (but can they pay?) , Montenegro? Nah – Bulgaria, nah, cause they’re wanted as a fighting ally. Same w/ Ottomans, although it has a semi-contiguity. Romania? Spain? Some trade could continue via Italy, same but less so with Portugal. Spain not in the market though.


Which neutrals did Germans in spring 1914 think had a prospect of being on their side? Or, which neutrals might at least be willing to pay decent money for any German colonies?

Italy?

Bulgaria?

Ottomans?

Sweden?

Norway?

Denmark?

Netherlands?

Romania?

Greece?

Spain?

USA?

Japan?

China?


--the most conceivable deal, relatively compatible with the buyer’s and seller’s interests and capabilities – and with the buyer in position geographically to take possession, would be a sale of German Pacific and Tsingtao to Netherlands. If the Dutch buy it, the territory can be administered from the DEI and Batavia. The landmasses/populations involved are not too enormous. New Guinea and the Pacific territories would form a contiguous zone with the DEI, with only German Samoa and Tsingtao as outliers.

Estimates of the value of German colonies vary.

In general, the overseas empire is considered a white elephant, but there are often alleged exceptions which were "the profitable colony". If you add up all the exceptions, half the empire might turn a profit.

I've variously heard that Nauru (with its phosphates), Togo (with its tropical produce), Samoa (with I don't know what, but maybe coconut meat/copra horsefeed?) were profitable ones.
Elsewhere I had hear Tanganyika had turned a profit, or if not, was at least a well-run colony. Likewise Tsingtao may not have been profitable for the Germans, I think Japanese merchants did best, but it certainly was an "improved" property with great infrastructure that would "stage" well for any interested buyer.

Bottom line. Who might be interested buyers. If war and blockade have started or are imminent, how can Germany be sure to get paid? If the Germans have two years, 1 year, 6 months, 6 weeks or 1 week to do a liquidation sale, what deal would they try to make, and with whom?

If this happens and is in the administration of Teddy Roosevelt or that "gentleman" Taft, expect the US to grab all of the German Pacific possessions in a cash deal. I doubt that there is much Holland, the next best candidate, offers geo-strategically that competes with a treaty obligated neutral US that results as political fall out.

Kaiser Wilhelm II would be a fool to turn it down. And the US honors its purchases.
 
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If this happens and is in the administration of Teddy Roosevelt or that "gentleman" Taft, expect the US to grab all of the German Pacific possessions in a cash deal. I doubt that there is much Holland, the next best candidate, offers geo-strategically that competes with a treaty obligated neutral US that results as political fall out.

Kaiser Wilhelm II would be a fool to turn it down. And the US honors its purchases.
The Netherlands are right next to Germany, they can be persuaded easily to keep their part of the treaty in case of war a European war, but no such thing is possible with the USA.
 
Any deal with the USA in the Pacific should either include terms of credit for purchase of American goods, or restrictions on the sale of goods to the enemies of Germany in war.
 
The Netherlands are right next to Germany, they can be persuaded easily to keep their part of the treaty in case of war a European war, but no such thing is possible with the USA.

The Netherlands are going to be blockaded and they will be economically powerless and ruined. They actually will contribute zero to Germany's geo-political situation.

British+naval+blockade+of+Germany


let-s-make-a-deal.png


The trouble with a Euro-centric vision of the world is that it does not look at the whole world or think in those terms when it comes to international economic competition.

War is when a state has failed through negotiation and international cooperation or mediation to either pay attention to aggression or to opportunity to advance the welfare of its citizens and its national economic interests.

Wilhelmine Germany made serious mistakes in that regard that alienated many neighbor nations (including the Dutch) who were annoyed by its Pacific shenanigans in 1898 to 1907.

These mistakes were especially serious in 1898 when a personage, named Admiral von Diedrich almost started WW I by crowding the niceties of colonial diplomacy too closely. This was the guy who managed to wrangle Tsingtsao from the Chinese by bluff the previous year. Whatever gave him the idea that he would be able to bluff the hot-headed Dewey, the same way, who was not wrapped too tightly after his own incident with Montojo? Anyway, one more little mistake and Germany would not be talking about selling colonies to anybody. She would be in a very bad way with Anglo-Japanese-American expeditionary fleets descending upon her overseas possessions. As for Spain? Treaty of Paris time, she sells off her Pacific possessions to Washington (or Tokyo)> Japan lands SNLF troops at Tsingtsao while the British march up from South Africa to snap up Tanzania. It will be a miracle if Kaiser Wilhelm II merely loses the nascent overseas empire and avoids a general European war. As for Uncle, you can bet the developing German "special relationship" with Argentina and Ecuador goes bye bye.

The reason I write this, is because of a certain situation that happened in Spain proper in 1870, that led to the Franco-Prussian War in the first place. Then there is the SS Virginius incident and later the Venezuela incident. Germany also did not do herself any favors in American Samoa (!889) or with the Dutch in New Guinea from 1896-1898.

How not to win friends and influence people was a peculiar talent Berlin enjoyed at the time. Madrid shared it, hence 1898.

If someone in Berlin is paying attention globally (mend fences and make friends) then a deal with Washington (keep America quiet) makes a lot more geo-strategic sense than making a deal selling off New Guinea jungle full of head hunters and a few atolls to the Dutch who have no economic use or interest in the real estate. The Americans on the other hand, now with more secure SLOCs to the Philippines and hence China, instantly become the enemy of my enemies: who are Russia, France, Japan and Britain. For the French have just fought a very bloody inconclusive war with China and Britain is worried about her Pacific/China interests with all those darned Americans who show up suddenly danger close. Russia has Americans bumping into her "sphere of influence in northern China" and Japan is really torqued off: hence America becomes my inadvertent overseas friend or at least won't build two hundred destroyers and two hundred troop transports to send 2 million men across the Atlantic to France to kill me. How does Holland help Germany there, again?
 
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NoMommsen

Donor
]
I ruled out Britain and France based off the original post.
Again : why ?

Due to this
What if Berlin becomes increasingly convinced that a general European war is inevitable in the medium-to- near term, its priority is land arms and that its colonies are not retainable and cannot contribute to victory in Europe in the anticipated event of British belligerency or very hostile neutrality?
...
mention of Britain in the OP ?

Both would rather be an incentive to get at least for some time some 'good relations' with the anticipated enemies until own land-armaments have reached some ... 'acceptable' levels.

And selling colonies for maybe some 'bargain'-prizes could/would well serve this.
 
The Netherlands are going to be blockaded and they will be economically powerless and ruined. They actually will contribute zero to Germany's geo-political situation.

Cooperation is most beneficial along the military lines within the context of Dutch neutrality - overlooking this or that minor violation of Netherlands territory, as Greece and China did with the Entente, not properly patrolling Java so that a German squadron can get occasional coaling there. That sort of thing.

In a similar vein, with Denmark the Germans want neutrality but cooperation in the naval sphere, both with respect to the Belts as well as imports from the US, and how the waters and bays of Iceland were patrolled and policed. (One possibility for the blockade running of small tonnage of goods was to land supplies in Reykjavik, then transfer them in national waters to the east coast, where the ship would wait in a bay for lousy weather to run to Norway).

If someone in Berlin is paying attention globally (mend fences and make friends) then a deal with Washington (keep America quiet) makes a lot more geo-strategic sense than making a deal selling off New Guinea jungle full of head hunters and a few atolls to the Dutch who have no economic use or interest in the real estate. The Americans on the other hand, now with more secure SLOCs to the Philippines and hence China, instantly become the enemy of my enemies: who are Russia, France, Japan and Britain. For the French have just fought a very bloody inconclusive war with China and Britain is worried about her Pacific/China interests with all those darned Americans who show up suddenly danger close. Russia has Americans bumping into her "sphere of influence in northern China" and Japan is really torqued off: hence America becomes my inadvertent overseas friend or at least won't build two hundred destroyers and two hundred troop transports to send 2 million men across the Atlantic to France to kill me. How does Holland help Germany there, again?

The Americans had the strongest economy in the world in 1914 - three times the size of Britain or Germany. They hardly needed to deal with any power. If Germany could barter, say, the Marshalls and Truk for some commercial compensation of material value, then that was better than letting Japan have it for free. If Germany could keep Japan out of the war by asking Japan to "safeguard" Tsingtao for Germany during the war, (not formally handed over, just safeguarded winky winky), then that was probably better than having a war with Japan in which the fall of Tsingtao was assured. If handing the British Rabaul helped smooth things over for Austria in the Balkans, then why not give that a shot? The British people might respond positively, and the Australians certainly would, (Aussies being the worst nightmare for German soldiers in the war, along with Canadians). Alternatively, if the Germans could use Tsingtao to arm and train Chinese formations during 1913-1914, then why not?
 
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