The partition of Africa

1. The partition of Africa • Between 1880 and 1900 90% of the territory of Africa was appropriated by a handful of European powers. • Britain acquired nearly 5 million square miles of land. • France gained 3.5 million. • Germany, Belgium and Italy shared 2.5 million between them.

3. Britain and the partition of Africa • Before the Partition, Britain's involvement in Africa was on a relatively small scale. • In 1880 there were no plans to extend the British Empire in Africa. • Yet in 1882 in a startling volte face Gladstone, the Prime Minister, ordered the occupation of Egypt. • This turned out to be the starting point of the Partition of Africa.

4. North Africa: the occupation and defence of Egypt • The Ottoman Empire had captured Egypt in 1517 and thereafter had expanded along the North African coast to Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria and Morocco. • But by the late 19th century the Ottoman Empire was in decline. • This worried the British government which feared that Ottoman possessions in North Africa would fall into the hands of rival European powers and thereby threaten British interests in the area.

5. North Africa: the occupation and defence of Egypt • In 1860 British politicians wished that Egypt should have been attached to the Turkish Empire. • The French took a different view. • They encouraged Egypt to break away from the Ottoman Empire and French investors poured money into the country after 1850. • The most dramatic example of French investment was a bold plan to construct the Suez Canal, which opened in 1869.

6. North Africa: the occupation and defence of Egypt • The completion of the Suez Canal led to a large influx of British investment. • British banks offered the Egyptian government enormous loans which were used for economic development. • Between 1863 and 1879 Egypt's foreign debt increased from £3 million to £100 million. • In 1878 an Anglo-French rescue plan emerged. French government officials and British financial experts would take control of the Egyptian economy.

7. North Africa: the occupation and defence of Egypt • The plan restored financial stability. But, in the process, it brought misery to the vast majority of the Egyptian people and led to starvation, increased unemployment, street rioting and, finally, a rebellion in the army. • On 11 June 1882 a national riot in Alexandria led to the death of 50 Europeans. • This prompted the British government to order the formal occupation of Egypt. • By October 1882 Britain became 'the Government of Egypt'.

8. North Africa: the occupation and defence of Egypt • The British quickly ended Anglo-French 'dual control', much to the annoyance of the French, and stayed in Egypt until 1922. • The occupation of Egypt by the British led to bitter recriminations between Britain and France which were to last for over 20 years.

9. West Africa • The British government viewed West Africa with a great deal of detachment once the slave trade was outlawed in 1807. • The only reason Britain remained interested was due to the trade in palm oil. • However the leading forces in the Partition of West Africa were France, Germany and Belgium.

10. West Africa • In 1884 representatives of the major European powers met in Berlin in order to reach a settlement of the boundaries, trade and the rules of occupation of West Africa. • The British gained a monopoly over the palm oil trade on the Niger River and created Nigeria.

11. East Africa • The major British interest in the region was trade with the island of Zanzibar. • East Africa was divided by diplomatic agreement into British and German 'spheres of influence' between 1885 and 1895. • At first, the British government left the administration of East Africa to the British East Africa Company. • This proved beyond it. By 1895 Britain was in formal control of a largely unwanted East African Empire.

12. Southern Africa • The Partition of southern Africa was really a tale of Anglo-Boer rivalry and the ambitions of Cecil Rhodes, a British multi-millionaire who arrived in South Africa in 1870, aged 17, and quickly made a fortune from diamond mining. • He developed a 'big idea' for the expansion of the British Empire. • Standing in the way of Rhodes' 'impossible dream' were the independent Boer republics.

15. Southern Africa • The Boers' insatiable desire for land created a great deal of antagonism, not only with Britain, but also with a large number of African tribal peoples. • The most important were the Zulus, proud people, skilled in war and diplomacy. • The Boers became so frightened of the Zulu threat that they called on the British government. • In 1877 Britain took control of the Transvaal and then issued an ultimatum to the Zulus.

16. Southern Africa • The Zulus choose war and were eventually defeated in 1879 after a valiant struggle. • Shortly after the Zulu defeat the Transvaal asked Britain to restore its independence. • The British refused and the Transvaal responded by attacking and defeating British forces at Majuba Hill in 1881.

19. Concentration camps (1900 - 1902) • The English term “concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during this conflict. The camps had originally been set up by the British Army as “refugee camps" to provide refuge for civilian families who had been forced to abandon their homes for one or other reason related to the war.

20. However, when Kitchener succeeded Roberts as commander-in-chief in South Africa in 29 November 1900, the British Army introduced new tactics in an attempt to break the guerrilla campaign and the influx of civilians grew dramatically as a result. Kitchener initiated plans to…..

21. "flush out guerrillas in a series of systematic drives, organized like a sporting shoot, with success defined in a weekly 'bag' of killed, captured and wounded, and to sweep the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children.... It was the clearance of civilians - uprooting a whole nation - that would come to dominate the last phase of the war."

22. As Boer farms were destroyed by the British under their “Scorched Earth" policy - including the systematic destruction of crops and slaughtering of livestock, the burning down of homesteads and farms, and the poisoning of wells and salting of fields - to prevent the Boers from re-supplying from a home base many tens of thousands of women and children were forcibly moved into the concentration camps. This was not the first appearance of internment camps.

23. The Spanish had used internment in the Ten Years’ War that later led to the Spanish –American War, and the United States had used them to devastate guerrilla forces during the Philippine-American War. But the Boer War concentration camp system was the first time that a whole nation had been systematically targeted, and the first in which some whole regions had been depopulated.

24. Eventually, there were a total of 45 tented camps built for Boer internees and 64 for black Africans. Of the 28,000 Boer men captured as prisoners of war, 25,630 were sent overseas. The vast majority of Boers remaining in the local camps were women and children. Over 26,000 women and children were to perish in these concentration camps.

25. Emily Hobhouse

26. Emily Hobhouse (April 9, 1860 – June 8,1926) was a British welfare campaigner, who is primarily remembered for bringing to the attention of the British public, and working to change, the appalling conditions inside the British concentration camps in South Africa built for Boer women and children during the Second Boer War.

27. Conclusion • The argument that Britain's reasons for becoming involved in the Partition of Africa were a mixture of power politics and economic necessity appears impossible to deny. • This view fits most British actions during the Partition. • It particularly seems to make sense of the events that led up to the occupation of Egypt. • It was a fear that the Suez Canal might fall into the hands of a rival power which lay behind much of what was done.

28. Conclusion • The issue that remains unresolved is the balance between political and economic motives. • Perhaps the judgment whether Britain acted more from a desire to protect and/or increase her power than from a wish to protect and/or add to her wealth will always have to be made depending on the observer's values and prejudices. • Certainly there is plenty of evidence to support both point of views.

29. Conclusion • Any argument which sees the British as a 'reluctant' participant in the Partition is persuasive • The slow and deliberate way in which the British government reacted both to events in Africa and to the activities of rival European powers during the early stages of the Partition certainly adds weight to this interpretation. • However, it must be remembered that there was never any doubt that the vast growth of British investment in north and southern Africa was going to be protected, and therefore too much should not be read into the reluctance.

30. Conclusion • The Victorian 'frame of mind' was never passionate, always appeared reluctant, but in practice never flinched from defending British economic interests whenever and wherever they were felt to be threatened.