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V. The First German Colony and its Diplomatic Consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

William Osgood Aydelotte
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Extract

In April 1884 Prince Bismarck, chancellor of Germany, suddenly broke away from his long maintained anti-colonial policy, and inaugurated the German colonial empire by placing Angra Pequena under German protection. Angra Pequena was a small harbour in the middle of the unoccupied territory that later became the first German colony, South-West Africa, a long coastal stretch which England did not particularly desire and had several times refused to annex. It had only one really good harbour, Walfisch Bay, which England already possessed. Furthermore, the senior members of the second Gladstone ministry, which was in power in 1884, were generally opposed to new colonial adventures. In such circumstances, it was to be expected that Bismarck's new departure would meet with little or no opposition from the British Government, and that the formation of the comparatively modest German colonial empire would not cause a ripple in the cordial diplomatic relations existing between the two countries at that time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , 1937 , pp. 291 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1937

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References

1 Ger[man] W[hite] B[ook], A[ngra] P[equena], No. I. Lüderitz to German foreign office, 16 November 1882. [Reichsarchiv, Auswärtiges Amt, Kolonial-Abtheilung, Acta secreta betr. die Handelsfactorei des Kaufmanns F. A. E. Lüderitz in Angra Pequena.] Verm[ischtes] Südwestafrika I. Promemoria by Hatzfeldt, the foreign secretary, 17 January 1883.

2 Gar. W.B. A.P. No. 2. Instructions to Count Herbert Bismarck, 4 February 1883. Full version may be found in Verm. Südwestafrika I.

3 Verm. Südwestafrika in. Münster to Bismarck, 6 June 1884.

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75 G.P. IV Nos. 753, 755, 760. Memoranda by Count Herbert Bismarck, 24 September and 5 October 1884; Count Herbert Bismarck to Prince Bismarck, 7 March 1885.

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