WI German Nigeria

Given that Britain had seized Lagos in 1861 before Germany united, and was growing its influence in the area, this probably requires a PoD before the Napoleonic Wars. IMO.
 
Best chance would be an expanded German Kamerun, with (parts of) the Niger Coast going to Germany instead of Britain at the Berlin Conference. But Germany would probably have to surrender all of Togo to Britain to compensate, and they'd still lose it in 1919.
 

Sycamore

Banned
If history otherwise developed roughly along the same line as in OTL, Germany would have lost Nigeria after WW1.

Well, one would presume that there'd be significant butterflies as a direct result of such a divergence, especially in the West African Theatre of WW1. If the Germans had Nigeria, could the Germans have achieved victory in the West African Campaign as well as in the East African Campaign, effectively bringing about victory for the Central Powers in the Sub-Saharan African Theater of WW1? And if so, would the Entente even be capable of dividing Germany's African colonies between them in the aftermath of the war? Or might you see the larger, more powerful of the German African territories becoming nominally independent, or as least provisionally autonomous Class A mandates, instead of merely becoming Class B LoN mandates as they did IOTL?
 
If the Germans had Nigeria would there have even been WWI? More German colonies and ones as populous and potentially profitable as Nigeria would certainly take much of the tension out of Germany.
 
There would definitely be many butterflies, although they are not easy to predict. A war might not even start in 1914 (but maybe another year?). Such a change would influence the life of many people, also people in high places. And having Nigeria would influence the kind of resources Germany had (while Britain would lose them in comparison with OTL).
 
All thigs considered, Germany did quite well in Kamerun during the war. If it's enlarged it might even survive until the end of the war like Tangyanika.
 
AFAIK, the earliest "German" trading establishment in the 19th century was founded by the Hamburg-based merchant Carl Woermann in 1854 in Liberias capital Monrovia. In 1862, a second establishment in Libreville in French Gabon followed. In 1868, a third trading post, this time on a hulk in the estuarry of the Cameroon River.

If, for some obcure reason, the Mayors and Senate of Hamburg had seen fit to declare the protectorate over the lands on the Biafra Bay, everyone would have laughed themselves to death. But the keeping up the claim, the German Empire inheriting it in 1870, and then ...

Nah. In 1868, Hamburg was already part of the North German Federation , with the Prussian King as the one who would decide those things. And Bismarck who would, de facto, day no.

Forget it.
 
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