Sept. 22
Principle of Effective Occupation
Definition: European powers claiming territory had to visibly occupy it, putting "boots on the ground" and establishing a physical presence.
Basis for Claim: Required engaging in treaties or agreements with local rulers, or conquering local populations.
Impact: Transformed the "Scramble for Africa" into a literal race, as claims without physical ratification could be lost to other European powers.
Brussels Act of 1890
Context: Supplementary agreement to the Berlin Conference.
Official Purpose: To curtail slave trading within Africa.
Practical Effect: Significantly reduced the ability of African societies and states to access modern military technology.
Ban on Modern Weapons: Prohibited the importation of modern weapons to Africa.
Military Technology Revolution: This ban was enforced during a period of rapid advancement in military technology, which most African powers could not access.
Fashoda Incident (1898)
Significance: A rare example of near-conflict between European powers over African territory, highlighting the general cooperation during the Scramble.
Location: South Sudan, Fashoda.
Participants: A large British force (thousands of troops with machine guns, artillery, riverboats) and a small French force (120 troops, only about a dozen French).
Events: The British force advanced up the Nile, conquering parts of Sudan. A small French expedition reached Fashoda from Brazzaville after months of overland march, arriving just before the British.
Outcome: The French backed down easily due to the overwhelming numerical and technological disparity (approximately 20:1 ratio in favor of the British).
Importance: Despite being a major news story in Europe at the time, on the ground, actual combat was highly unlikely due to the imbalance of forces. It underscores how cooperation, not conflict, largely defined European engagement in the Scramble.
Exceptions to European Occupation: Ethiopia and Liberia
Only Unconquered Territories: Ethiopia and Liberia were the only two parts of Africa not occupied or conquered by European powers during this period.
Ethiopia (Abyssinia)
Location: Horn of Africa.
Nature: An ancient African empire (Christian for nearly 1800-2000 years) with various kingdoms under its rule, an expansionist empire larger than many contemporary African states.
Reason for Independence: Successfully defended itself against Italian invasion.
Battle of Adwa (1896): The Ethiopian army, led by Emperor Menelik II, decisively defeated the invading Italian army.
Unique Success: This was the only instance of an African power successfully defending its full sovereignty against a European invader during the Scramble for Africa.
Liberia
Location: West Africa.
Establishment: Became a republic in 1847, settled by African Americans from 1821.
Origin: Established as a settlement for formerly enslaved and free African Americans from the United States.
Government: Modeled on the United States, with a president, congress, and militia.
Indigenous Populations: Before the Americo-Liberian settlement, the region had various indigenous communities and small-scale, decentralized societies, often organized around elements like the Oro secret society.
"Independence" as a Settler Colony: The independence of Liberia is deceptive.
Conquest by Americo-Liberians: Americo-Liberian militias engaged in a series of wars against indigenous Liberians from 1821 to the 1890s, conquering territories.
No Rights for Indigenous People: Indigenous Liberians had no rights, could not vote, and were under the rule of the Americo-Liberian settler colonial entity.
Protection by the U.S.: Liberia was not a European colony, nor officially a U.S. colony, but it remained under the protection of the United States.
Reasons for the Scramble
Complex theories combining economic and strategic motivations.
Economic Theories
Vladimir Lenin's View: Explained the Scramble as a capitalist need for new areas of investment. This later proved inaccurate as European investment in Africa remained limited.
Later Scholarship: Focused more on the extraction of raw materials and resources for European industries (e.g., olive oil, groundnuts from West Africa).
Strategic Theories (Choke Points)
Definition: Focus on European powers seeking to control narrow areas crucial for international shipping and transport infrastructure.
Suez Canal (1869): Its opening drastically shortened shipping routes between Europe and Asia by cutting out the long journey around Africa. Britain's occupation of Egypt in 1882 was primarily to control the Suez Canal.
Other Choke Points: Control over Bab el-Mandeb (between Red Sea and Indian Ocean) and the passage around South Africa also remained strategically important.
Critique: While important, this theory does not explain the conquest of regions like West Africa, which had no strategic choke points but were rich in raw materials.
Conclusion: A combination of both economic and strategic factors likely drove the Scramble, with neither being entirely correct or incorrect alone.
Facilitating Factors (Not Direct Causes)
European Nationalism
Period: Late 19th century, marked by extreme patriotism and national competition.
New Powers: Newly united countries like Germany and Italy sought to establish colonial empires to affirm their status as major powers, emulating older colonial powers like Britain and France.
Germany: Hosted the Berlin Conference, reflecting its new interest in acquiring overseas territories.
Italy: Followed a similar colonial ambition.
Older Powers: France, motivated by its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (circa 1870), sought to compensate for perceived decline by conquering vast territories, such as the Sahara Desert.
Racism and Social Darwinism
Intensity: Late 19th century was a period of intense European racism, particularly among Northern Europeans.
Racial Hierarchy: Europeans viewed themselves at the top of a perceived racial hierarchy, seeing non-European peoples, particularly Africans, as inferior or "less than human."
Motivation: This dehumanizing perspective facilitated brutal conquest and exploitation, making it easier to justify taking land, property, and lives.
Evangelical Christianity
Missionary Activity: Christian missionaries from Europe and the Americas had long been active in parts of Africa, primarily coastal areas, but with limited success in mass conversion.
Support for Conquest: Some missionaries became supportive of colonial conquest as a means to "facilitate Christian conversion" of African populations, seeing it as a way to expand their influence.
Technology
Enabling Factor: Technological advancements were crucial facilitators of the Scramble; without them, extensive European occupation would have been impossible.
Pre-1870 Limitations: European presence in Africa was limited to coastal colonies (e.g., Lagos), settler territories (Far South and North), and Algeria (French). The interior was largely inaccessible due to tropical diseases and powerful African states.
Overcoming Obstacles: Technologies from about 1850 onwards overcame these two major obstacles.
Transportation
Steam Engines: Steam trains and steamboats enabled deeper access into Africa's interior for both military projection and raw material extraction.
Railroads: Construction of railroads into the interior was a significant part of the Scramble.
Steamboats: Used on major rivers like the Congo and Niger, often involving clearing these rivers for navigation.
Tropical Medicine
Malaria Understanding: It wasn't until the 1890s (around 1895) that medical researchers understood malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes, not "bad air."
Prophylaxis and Treatment: This knowledge led to the development of drugs for prevention and treatment, as well as practices like using mosquito nets and draining standing water.
Impact: Transformed West Africa from being known as the "white man's grave" (e.g., British garrison in Bathurst, Gambia, experienced 150\% mortality in early 1800s) into a more habitable region for Europeans.
Communication
Telegraph: Rapidly sped up communication for European powers, allowing for faster coordination of military campaigns and reactions to rebellions.
Africans generally lacked access to this technology, putting them at a disadvantage.
Weapons Technology
Massive Disparity: A satirical poem of the period, by Hilaire Belloc, famously stated: "Whatever happens, we have got / The Maxim gun, and they have not." This encapsulated the technological gap.
Charter Companies
Function: Businesses chartered by European governments, primarily for the extraction of raw materials.
Role in Scramble: Crucial in initiating the conquest and administration of territories.
Private Armies: Companies like the British South Africa Company (BSAC) and the Royal Niger Company (RNC) raised their own private armies to conquer territories.
Transition: Often, these companies found it too expensive to concurrently conquer, rule, and extract wealth, leading to their buyout by imperial governments that then took direct control.
Weapons Technology in Detail
Old Technology (Muskets)
Early Guns: Guns like the "Dane gun" (musket) and flintlock had been in Africa for centuries (1650s onwards), representing a military revolution in their time.
Percussion Cap Musket: A more reliable firing mechanism than flintlock but loaded similarly.
Loading: Loaded from the muzzle end, making reloading slow.
Accuracy/Range: Inaccurate and short-ranged (effective at 50-70 meters), especially with poor ammunition.
Obsolete Design: By the 1800s, these designs were 200 years old, though still prevalent in parts of Africa.
Second Industrial Revolution & Modern Firearms
Period: Mid-1800s (circa 1850 onwards) in Europe and North America.
Characteristics: Focused on steel, chemicals, and precision engineering (unlike the first industrial revolution's focus on textiles).
Revolution: Led to a rapid and dramatic revolution in firearms design and production.
Single-Shot Breech Loading Rifles
Example: Martini-Henry.
Mechanism: Loaded from the breech (the opposite end of the barrel from where the bullet exits), significantly faster to load than muskets.
Rifling: Barrels had grooves (rifling) for greater accuracy and longer range.
Rate of Fire: Faster than muskets, but still required loading each bullet individually.
Range: Effective up to a couple of hundred meters.
Magazine-Fed Rifles
Example: Lee-Metford.
Mechanism: Featured a magazine holding multiple rounds, allowing the operator to cycle new rounds into the chamber without manual loading after each shot.
Impact: Tremendously increased the rate of fire compared to single-shot rifles.
Obsolescence: New weapons were invented so rapidly that earlier models (like single-shot breech loaders) quickly became obsolete in Europe, often smuggled to Africa as surplus.
Machine Guns
Definition: Machines that fire continuously with a single trigger pull.
Early Versions (Manually Driven): Gatling gun (1850s-$1860s) required a hand crank to operate; used extensively in the American Civil War.
Maxim Gun (1880s): The first modern, gas-powered machine gun (patented 1886).
Mechanism: Utilized the energy from the propellant charge exploding and spring action to automatically load and fire successive rounds.
Rate of Fire: Theoretically hundreds of rounds per minute, though practically limited by barrel overheating (hence water-cooled barrels).
Impact: Horrifically deadly in open-air battles. First used in battle in Africa (e.g., present-day Uganda, Southern Rhodesia).
Breech Loading Artillery
Advancements: Cannons, like other firearms, transitioned from muzzle-loading to breech-loading and featured improved ammunition and rifled barrels.
Range: Increased to several thousand meters.
Disparity: African powers generally lacked these advanced weapons. If they had guns, they were typically muskets or, at best, recently obsolete single-shot breech-loading rifles. This created a "massive gap" in firepower capabilities.
Battle of Adwa (1896)
Rarity: An exception to the typical outcome of colonial battles, where a small European force with advanced weaponry could defeat a much larger African force.
Forces Involved:
Italian invading army: ~20,000 troops (half or more were Eritrean Askari troops, but equipped and trained similarly), led by General Oreste Baratieri.
Ethiopian army: ~100,000 troops, led by Emperor Menelik II.
Ethiopian Armament:
Modernization Efforts: Menelik II, a modernizer, maintained diplomatic relations outside Africa (partially due to Ethiopia's Christian identity) and made concerted efforts to acquire modern weapons for his army.
Weaponry: Most Ethiopian troops had single-shot breech-loading rifles (not the absolute latest, but effective and similar in range to magazine-fed rifles). They also possessed some artillery and even a few machine guns.
Firepower Equivalence: Unusually, the Ethiopians were not at a significant firepower disadvantage; they may have even had a slight advantage as Italian artillery was smaller and less effective than Ethiopian artillery.
Italian Armament: Italian troops carried magazine-fed, breech-loading rifles (the latest technology of 1896) but had limited heavy artillery and few machine guns.
Organizational Disadvantage (Ethiopian):
Feudal Structure: The army was a feudal-type organization, with levies called up from subordinate kingdoms, not professional, trained troops.
Logistical Support: Had no logistical support; lived off the land, meaning large concentrations of troops quickly depleted local food sources, preventing long stays.
Luck: Menelik II was planning to disband his army due to food shortages the very day the battle occurred; Italian forces attacked just in time to catch them together.
Terrain and Tactics:
Italian Advance: The Italian army, advancing from Eritrea, fragmented into separate brigades (2,000 men each) in the mountainous terrain while searching for the Ethiopians; some units got lost.
Ethiopian Counterattack: The Ethiopians capitalized on the separated Italian units, concentrating their forces to defeat them piecemeal.
Outcome: Over half of the Italian forces were killed, marking a massive defeat and disgrace for Italy.
Repercussions: Led to political crises in Italy and, for some historians, contributed to an enduring desire for revenge that eventually influenced the rise of fascism and Italy's later invasion of Ethiopia.
Principle of Effective Occupation
Definition: European powers claiming territory had to visibly occupy it, putting "boots on the ground" and establishing a physical presence.
Basis for Claim: Required engaging in treaties or agreements with local rulers, or conquering local populations.
Impact: Transformed the "Scramble for Africa" into a literal race, as claims without physical ratification could be lost to other European powers.
Brussels Act of 1890
Context: Supplementary agreement to the Berlin Conference.
Official Purpose: To curtail slave trading within Africa.
Practical Effect: Significantly reduced the ability of African societies and states to access modern military technology.
Ban on Modern Weapons: Prohibited the importation of modern weapons to Africa.
Military Technology Revolution: This ban was enforced during a period of rapid advancement in military technology, which most African powers could not access.
Fashoda Incident (1898)
Significance: A rare example of near-conflict between European powers over African territory, highlighting the general cooperation during the Scramble.
Location: South Sudan, Fashoda.
Participants: A large British force (thousands of troops with machine guns, artillery, riverboats) and a small French force (120 troops, only about a dozen French).
Events: The British force advanced up the Nile, conquering parts of Sudan. A small French expedition reached Fashoda from Brazzaville after months of overland march, arriving just before the British.
Outcome: The French backed down easily due to the overwhelming numerical and technological disparity (approximately 20:1 ratio in favor of the British).
Importance: Despite being a major news story in Europe at the time, on the ground, actual combat was highly unlikely due to the imbalance of forces. It underscores how cooperation, not conflict, largely defined European engagement in the Scramble.
Exceptions to European Occupation: Ethiopia and Liberia
Only Unconquered Territories: Ethiopia and Liberia were the only two parts of Africa not occupied or conquered by European powers during this period.
Ethiopia (Abyssinia)
Location: Horn of Africa.
Nature: An ancient African empire (Christian for nearly 1800-2000 years) with various kingdoms under its rule, an expansionist empire larger than many contemporary African states.
Reason for Independence: Successfully defended itself against Italian invasion.
Battle of Adwa (1896): The Ethiopian army, led by Emperor Menelik II, decisively defeated the invading Italian army.
Unique Success: This was the only instance of an African power successfully defending its full sovereignty against a European invader during the Scramble for Africa.
Liberia
Location: West Africa.
Establishment: Became a republic in 1847, settled by African Americans from 1821 to 1821 onwards.
Origin: Established as a settlement for formerly enslaved and free African Americans from the United States.
Government: Modeled on the United States, with a president, congress, and militia.
Indigenous Populations: Before the Americo-Liberian settlement, the region had various indigenous communities and small-scale, decentralized societies, often organized around elements like the Oro secret society.
"Independence" as a Settler Colony: The independence of Liberia is deceptive.
Conquest by Americo-Liberians: Americo-Liberian militias engaged in a series of wars against indigenous Liberians from 1821 to the 1890s, conquering territories.
No Rights for Indigenous People: Indigenous Liberians had no rights, could not vote, and were under the rule of the Americo-Liberian settler colonial entity.
Protection by the U.S.: Liberia was not a European colony, nor officially a U.S. colony, but it remained under the protection of the United States.
Reasons for the Scramble
Complex theories combining economic and strategic motivations.
Economic Theories
Vladimir Lenin's View: Explained the Scramble as a capitalist need for new areas of investment. This later proved inaccurate as European investment in Africa remained limited.
Later Scholarship: Focused more on the extraction of raw materials and resources for European industries (e.g., olive oil, groundnuts from West Africa).
Strategic Theories (Choke Points)
Definition: Focus on European powers seeking to control narrow areas crucial for international shipping and transport infrastructure.
Suez Canal (1869): Its opening drastically shortened shipping routes between Europe and Asia by cutting out the long journey around Africa. Britain's occupation of Egypt in 1882 was primarily to control the Suez Canal.
Other Choke Points: Control over Bab el-Mandeb (between Red Sea and Indian Ocean) and the passage around South Africa also remained strategically important.
Critique: While important, this theory does not explain the conquest of regions like West Africa, which had no strategic choke points but were rich in raw materials.
Conclusion: A combination of both economic and strategic factors likely drove the Scramble, with neither being entirely correct or incorrect alone.
Facilitating Factors (Not Direct Causes)
European Nationalism
Period: Late 19th century, marked by extreme patriotism and national competition.
New Powers: Newly united countries like Germany and Italy sought to establish colonial empires to affirm their status as major powers, emulating older colonial powers like Britain and France.
Germany: Hosted the Berlin Conference, reflecting its new interest in acquiring overseas territories.
Italy: Followed a similar colonial ambition.
Older Powers: France, motivated by its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (circa 1870), sought to compensate for perceived decline by conquering vast territories, such as the Sahara Desert.
Racism and Social Darwinism
Intensity: Late 19th century was a period of intense European racism, particularly among Northern Europeans.
Racial Hierarchy: Europeans viewed themselves at the top of a perceived racial hierarchy, seeing non-European peoples, particularly Africans, as inferior or "less than human."
Motivation: This dehumanizing perspective facilitated brutal conquest and exploitation, making it easier to justify taking land, property, and lives.
Evangelical Christianity
Missionary Activity: Christian missionaries from Europe and the Americas had long been active in parts of Africa, primarily coastal areas, but with limited success in mass conversion.
Support for Conquest: Some missionaries became supportive of colonial conquest as a means to "facilitate Christian conversion" of African populations, seeing it as a way to expand their influence.
Technology
Enabling Factor: Technological advancements were crucial facilitators of the Scramble; without them, extensive European occupation would have been impossible.
Pre-1870 Limitations: European presence in Africa was limited to coastal colonies (e.g., Lagos), settler territories (Far South and North), and Algeria (French). The interior was largely inaccessible due to tropical diseases and powerful African states.
Overcoming Obstacles: Technologies from about 1850 onwards overcame these two major obstacles.
Transportation
Steam Engines: Steam trains and steamboats enabled deeper access into Africa's interior for both military projection and raw material extraction.
Railroads: Construction of railroads into the interior was a significant part of the Scramble.
Steamboats: Used on major rivers like the Congo and Niger, often involving clearing these rivers for navigation.
Tropical Medicine
Malaria Understanding: It wasn't until the 1890s (around 1895) that medical researchers understood malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes, not "bad air."
Prophylaxis and Treatment: This knowledge led to the development of drugs for prevention and treatment, as well as practices like using mosquito nets and draining standing water.
Impact: Transformed West Africa from being known as the "white man's grave" (e.g., British garrison in Bathurst, Gambia, experienced 150\% mortality in early 1800s) into a more habitable region for Europeans.
Communication
Telegraph: Rapidly sped up communication for European powers, allowing for faster coordination of military campaigns and reactions to rebellions.
Africans generally lacked access to this technology, putting them at a disadvantage.
Weapons Technology
Massive Disparity: A satirical poem of the period, by Hilaire Belloc, famously stated: "Whatever happens, we have got / The Maxim gun, and they have not." This encapsulated the technological gap.
Charter Companies
Function: Businesses chartered by European governments, primarily for the extraction of raw materials.
Role in Scramble: Crucial in initiating the conquest and administration of territories.
Private Armies: Companies like the British South Africa Company (BSAC) and the Royal Niger Company (RNC) raised their own private armies to conquer territories.
Transition: Often, these companies found it too expensive to concurrently conquer, rule, and extract wealth, leading to their buyout by imperial governments that then took direct control.
Weapons Technology in Detail
Old Technology (Muskets)
Early Guns: Guns like the "Dane gun" (musket) and flintlock had been in Africa for centuries (1650s onwards), representing a military revolution in their time.
Percussion Cap Musket: A more reliable firing mechanism than flintlock but loaded similarly.
Loading: Loaded from the muzzle end, making reloading slow.
Accuracy/Range: Inaccurate and short-ranged (effective at 50-70 meters), especially with poor ammunition.
Obsolete Design: By the 1800s, these designs were 200 years old, though still prevalent in parts of Africa.
Second Industrial Revolution & Modern Firearms
Period: Mid-1800s (circa 1850 onwards) in Europe and North America.
Characteristics: Focused on steel, chemicals, and precision engineering (unlike the first industrial revolution's focus on textiles).
Revolution: Led to a rapid and dramatic revolution in firearms design and production.
Single-Shot Breech Loading Rifles
Example: Martini-Henry.
Mechanism: Loaded from the breech (the opposite end of the barrel from where the bullet exits), significantly faster to load than muskets.
Rifling: Barrels had grooves (rifling) for greater accuracy and longer range.
Rate of Fire: Faster than muskets, but still required loading each bullet individually.
Range: Effective up to a couple of hundred meters.
Magazine-Fed Rifles
Example: Lee-Metford.
Mechanism: Featured a magazine holding multiple rounds, allowing the operator to cycle new rounds into the chamber without manual loading after each shot.
Impact: Tremendously increased the rate of fire compared to single-shot rifles.
Obsolescence: New weapons were invented so rapidly that earlier models (like single-shot breech loaders) quickly became obsolete in Europe, often smuggled to Africa as surplus.
Machine Guns
Definition: Machines that fire continuously with a single trigger pull.
Early Versions (Manually Driven): Gatling gun (1850s-$1860s) required a hand crank to operate; used extensively in the American Civil War.
Maxim Gun (1880s): The first modern, gas-powered machine gun (patented 1886).
Mechanism: Utilized the energy from the propellant charge exploding and spring action to automatically load and fire successive rounds.
Rate of Fire: Theoretically hundreds of rounds per minute, though practically limited by barrel overheating (hence water-cooled barrels).
Impact: Horrifically deadly in open-air battles. First used in battle in Africa (e.g., present-day Uganda, Southern Rhodesia).
Breech Loading Artillery
Advancements: Cannons, like other firearms, transitioned from muzzle-loading to breech-loading and featured improved ammunition and rifled barrels.
Range: Increased to several thousand meters.
Disparity: African powers generally lacked these advanced weapons. If they had guns, they were typically muskets or, at best, recently obsolete single-shot breech-loading rifles. This created a "massive gap" in firepower capabilities.
Battle of Adwa (1896)
Rarity: An exception to the typical outcome of colonial battles, where a small European force with advanced weaponry could defeat a much larger African force.
Forces Involved:
Italian invading army: ~20,000 troops (half or more were Eritrean Askari troops, but equipped and trained similarly), led by General Oreste Baratieri.
Ethiopian army: ~100,000 troops, led by Emperor Menelik II.
Ethiopian Armament:
Modernization Efforts: Menelik II, a modernizer, maintained diplomatic relations outside Africa (partially due to Ethiopia's Christian identity) and made concerted efforts to acquire modern weapons for his army.
Weaponry: Most Ethiopian troops had single-shot breech-loading rifles (not the absolute latest, but effective and similar in range to magazine-fed rifles). They also possessed some artillery and even a few machine guns.
Firepower Equivalence: Unusually, the Ethiopians were not at a significant firepower disadvantage; they may have even had a slight advantage as Italian artillery was smaller and less effective than Ethiopian artillery.
Italian Armament: Italian troops carried magazine-fed, breech-loading rifles (the latest technology of 1896) but had limited heavy artillery and few machine guns.
Organizational Disadvantage (Ethiopian):
Feudal Structure: The army was a feudal-type organization, with levies called up from subordinate kingdoms, not professional, trained troops.
Logistical Support: Had no logistical support; lived off the land, meaning large concentrations of troops quickly depleted local food sources, preventing long stays.
Luck: Menelik II was planning to disband his army due to food shortages the very day the battle occurred; Italian forces attacked just in time to catch them together.
Terrain and Tactics:
Italian Advance: The Italian army, advancing from Eritrea, fragmented into separate brigades (2,000 men each) in the mountainous terrain while searching for the Ethiopians; some units got lost.
Ethiopian Counterattack: The Ethiopians capitalized on the separated Italian units, concentrating their forces to defeat them piecemeal.
Outcome: Over half of the Italian forces were killed, marking a massive defeat and disgrace for Italy.
Repercussions: Led to political crises in Italy and, for some historians, contributed to an enduring desire for revenge that eventually influenced the rise of fascism and Italy's later invasion of Ethiopia.