German Colonial Empire - Conquest in The First World War

Conquest in The First World War

In the years before the outbreak of the Great War, British colonial officers viewed the Germans as deficient in “colonial aptitude,” but “whose colonial administration was nevertheless superior to those of the other European states.” Anglo-German colonial issues in the decade before 1914 were minor and both empires, the British and German, took conciliatory attitudes. Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, considered still a moderate in 1911, was willing to “study the map of Africa in a pro-German spirit.” Britain further recognized that Germany really had little of value to offer in territorial transactions, however, advice to Grey and Prime Minister H. H. Asquith hardened by early 1914 “to stop the trend of what the advisers considered Germany’s taking and Britain’s giving.”

The 1914 assassination of the Habsburg archduke brought the European nations slithering, as David Lloyd George wrote, "over the brink into the boiling cauldron of war.” On 5 August 1914, Britain decided to carry the struggle to Africa and the Pacific, initiating colonial campaigns with naval might and dominion manpower to conquer Germany's protectorates.

Both in the British Empire and, eventually in the United States, it was feared that Germany eventually would “make a bid for world hegemony” by means of an African conscript army. The Allies felt they had a responsibility to protect the natives from Prussian militarism and German technological developments which would threaten the security of the British Empire. Bringing the war to the Dominions and the protectorates widened the scope of armed conflict. To garner support, the public in Britain and especially in the Dominions was informed that military bases would be built in German colonies, from which “at every opportunity German ships will dash from cover to harry and destroy our commerce ... raid our coasts.” Thus, it was in the interest of the Dominions to destroy Germany’s colonies, thereby ensuring their own safety and the British Empire’s security. The British government portrayed Germany as unworthy to have colonies, that they were unfit to govern native races. The doctrine of Germany’s guilt as a uniquely brutal and cruel colonial power originated during the war, not before.”

By the close of 1916, all was moot; “the German colonies except the one in East Africa had surrendered” to large invading forces. Only in East Africa it would then be two more years before the German flag disappeared from Africa and every German colonial territory was under Allied occupation. South Africa’s J.C. Smuts, now in London, could speak as an expert like no other. This new member of the war cabinet spoke of German schemes for world power, militarization and exploitation of resources. "The Germans, Smuts implied, would endanger western civilization itself. By conjuring up a German 'black peril', Smuts caught the public’s imagination. ... His ideas reverberated throughout the British press" and had the desired effect that, "whatever happens, these colonies can never be returned to Germany, and it follows as an almost inevitable corollary ... they should remain with us ."