World's War Events $v Volume 3 - Beginning with the departure of the first American destroyers for service abroad in April, 1917, and closing with the treaties of peace in 1919. by Various
page 51 of 495 (10%)
page 51 of 495 (10%)
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question at the conclusion of peace of acquiring territory for
settlement. There is no appropriate country, and there are no farmers to settle on it." [Sidenote: Germany desires not colonies but strategic positions.] [Sidenote: Central Africa needed to supply raw materials.] [Sidenote: Germany could use natives in war.] German colonial aims are really not colonial, but are entirely dominated by far-reaching conceptions of world politics. Not colonies, but military power and strategic positions for exercising world power in future, are her real aims. Her ultimate objective in Africa is the establishment of a great Central African Empire, comprising not only her colonies before the war, but also all the English, French, Belgian, and Portuguese possessions south of the Sahara and Lake Chad and north of the Zambezi River in South Africa. Toward this objective she was steadily marching even before the war broke out, and she claims the return of her lost African colonies at the end of the war as a starting-point from which to resume the interrupted march. Or, rather, as appears from Count Hertling's recent pronouncement, she claims a reallocation of the world's colonies, so that she may have a share commensurate with her world position. This Central African block, the maps of which are now in course of preparation and printing at the Colonial Office in Berlin, is intended in the first place to supply the economic requirements and raw materials of German industry; in the second and far more important place, to become the recruiting-ground for vast native armies, the great value of which has been demonstrated in the tropical campaigns of this war, and especially in East Africa; while |
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