Scramble for Africa
Read this article to learn how the economic imperatives of industrialization led European nations to expand their imperial control into Africa. It features a "causes" section that discusses the impetus for each colonizing power's desire to partition a whole continent.
Colonialism on the Eve of World War I
German Cameroon, painting by R. Hellgrewe, 1908
During
the New Imperialism period, by the end of the 19th century, Europe
added almost 9,000,000 square miles (23,000,000 km2) – one-fifth of the
land area of the globe – to its overseas colonial possessions. Europe's
formal holdings now included the entire African continent except
Ethiopia, Liberia, and Saguia el-Hamra, the latter of which would be
integrated into Spanish Sahara. Between 1885 and 1914, Britain took
nearly 30% of Africa's population under its control; 15% for France, 11%
for Portugal, 9% for Germany, 7% for Belgium and 1% for Italy. Nigeria alone contributed 15 million subjects, more
than in the whole of French West Africa or the entire German colonial
empire. In terms of surface area occupied, the French were the marginal
leaders but much of their territory consisted of the sparsely populated
Sahara.
The political imperialism followed the economic
expansion, with the "colonial lobbies" bolstering chauvinism and
jingoism at each crisis in order to legitimise the colonial enterprise.
The tensions between the imperial powers led to a succession of crises,
which finally exploded in August 1914, when previous rivalries and
alliances created a domino situation that drew the major European
nations into World War I.