#37 Colonisation Renewed: The Struggle for Global Dominance in the 19th Century
Colonisation didn’t go out of fashion in the 19th century, instead, it remained the preferred overseas policy of the dominant European governments. As the Ottoman Empire waned after 1815, France had lost her Empire during the Napoleonic wars, so she set out to renew her Empire in North Africa starting with Algeria which she took from the Ottomans in 1830. At the same time, Russia continued consolidating its huge land area in Siberia. There was a sharp focus on China from all the major States. By the end of the century, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the USA were all invading China demanding their spheres of influence.
In the 1880s, there was an explosion of activity, and new invasions focused largely on Africa. The discoveries of gold and diamonds in Southern Africa led directly to the Berlin Conference in 1884. Competitive colonialism was kept under control, land was apportioned and annexed as follows:
Britain and France each received approximately 4,000,000 square miles
Portugal received 750,000 square miles
Belgian received the whole of today’s Congo
Italy and Spain received small but substantial areas
German territory was half as large again as the new German Empire in Europe
Maps showing Africa in 1880 and 1913. By Somebody500, CC BY-SA 4.0 retrieved from Wikipedia.
The example of Congo ought to be widely known. It was heralded by Leopold of Belgium as a land for peace, Christianity, and commerce. As we know, it rapidly degenerated into murder, mutilation, and theft. This bestiality was Europe's barbarism at its worst.
The new nation-states of Japan, Belgium, Italy, and Germany were keen to lay their hands on as much territory as they were able. Both the invasions of China and African continents are dealt with at some length in earlier blogs.
Britain and France financed the digging of the Suez Canal. Their limited co-operation only went so far. When the loans were not repaid, both countries feared the other would invade Egypt and take control of the canal. They were right; Britain defeated Egyptian forces and took control. The colonial competition was barely held in check.
The major difference, colonies wise during this period, was the intervention of the two new great powers: Germany and the USA. The question that must have gone through many minds at this stage of history was how to 'play the game', what to do next. How was Britain going to maintain her status as a dominant world power? This blog looks at Britain’s struggle for global dominance exiting the 19th century.
The struggle for Global Dominance in the 19th Century
Momentaufnahme von Europa und Halbasien 1914 translates to “Snapshot of Europe and Half-Asia in 1914”. “Print shows a map of Europe at the time of World War I with each country depicted as caricatures of their military, attitudes, or customs, in some cases as civilians or animals, for instance, England is represented by a military officer astride a small bulldog with a venomous snake striking from behind, also with numerous battleships in tow; Russia is depiced as a large bear surrounded by scenes of civil strife as it attacks a lion and a double-headed eagle representing Austria; France is a soldier fleeing the large bullets coming from Germany who is depicted as a mountain climber with a fierce eagle. Spain may be a dozing soldier or political figure and Portugal is a soldier listening for the sounds of war; Italy is a reclining semi-nude female figure; a scimitar, moon, and star represent the middle eastern region.” Image retrieved from Library of Congress.
Before 1815, there had been no global world power. Today in the 21st century we have become used to living with a single dominant power. We are so used to this fact that no one questions it. It is possible that ancient China might have decided to become such a power; she had the technical shipbuilding knowledge, but she showed no interest. A world power needed a superior military force, a vibrant economy to support its military might, a navy able to travel across the world, and some purpose that encompassed the world. Britain had all these factors by 1815 and she had defeated all the other completing powers at the battle of Trafalgar. Britain's defeat of Napoleon finally left her as the only mighty colonial power standing with a newly industrialising economy.
Map showing European and US colonies in 1914. By Andrei nacu, retrieved from Wikipedia.
We now know that a dominant global power must have the arrogance that goes with believing that they are somehow special, blessed by God over all other powers. Global power goes together with high-minded nationalism which asserts that her people are a ‘race’ apart from all competitors. God blesses her democracy. Britain had this global role for 130 years from 1815 to 1945. Her rulers and some of her people did believe that they were special.
The multitude of wars fought between 1914 and 1945 was - in some part - an attempt to both assert and at the same time maintain that world role. All that time, Britain had been a relatively small island nation, only able to maintain the fiction of global power through technologically having a superior navy with an ability to mobilise military forces in her colonies, which were paid for out of the colonial taxes.
In the 19th century, there were solid material reasons to assume that global dominance. Not least that Britain controlled the largest geographical area and number of people in her colonies in the world.
Between 1815 and 1914, the European nations ceased to be at war with each other in Europe itself, as if this was the natural order. The lack of fighting was the calm before the storm; the wars between 1914 and 1945 would rip Europe apart as if to make up for the lost years of the 19th century! Instead, war was exported to the rest of the world before 1914:
In India, the first half of the 19th century involved wars created by the East India Company conquering the various ancient kingdoms that made up the political web of the continent.
In China, the invasions began in the 1840s and continued through the rest of the century.
In Egypt and the Middle East countries, the Suez Canal was dug and then wars carried out to defend the area from other Europeans, and locals called the Mahidis.
In Crimea in the Caucasus, the British fought the Russians who were encroaching on Ottoman lands.
In Afghanistan, two wars were fought to defend India against supposed encroachment by Russia
In Africa, wars became commonplace especially in the south as Britain established new colonies.
Wars in the Mediterranean remained an Ottoman affair, but that empire was declining and the threats to the Europeans diminished as the century progressed. The weakness of the Ottoman Empire reflected the weakening of the Silk Route, as other trades become more important.
When examined like this, Britain was constantly establishing her dominance through war throughout the century. Consequently, she developed her means of war, primarily through her artillery and warship technology.
Britain had been the dominant economy for most of the 19th century; she controlled the world’s trading currency, the pound sterling, through the City of London, as already explained. Over the century she consolidated her colonial possessions and grabbed a large part of the African continent in the 1880s. She developed her naval forces so that they controlled the sea lanes of world trade and finally attempted to control the peace in Europe with intense diplomacy. All of this was done despite her small size in terms of geography and population.
Wars had to be paid for. The wars in India were paid out of Indian taxes. In the Chinese invasion in the 1840s, the British used Indian soldiers, paid for by Indian taxes. The British made a handsome profit out of their invasion of China. China paid Britain for losing with silver coin. The British then lost nearly all this loot by paying for their invasion of Afghanistan in 1839. The Mahdist Wars of 1881–1899 were paid out of dues paid from ships to cross the Suez Canal. Only funding for the Crimean and African wars came from the British Exchequer.
Indian Contingent on board 'Czarewitch', 1884. Indian Army troops en route to Sudan to help defend remaining Anglo-Egyptian outposts. Retrieved from the National Army Museum.
Britain was intensely proud of this achievement. She believed firmly in her racial superiority over all other peoples including Europeans. Britain’s class and racial superiority was a formidable, if rigid, entity. Those who led the nation were a small coterie who had all been to the same privileged schools and universities. The army officers, lawyers, colonial officers, doctors, and the entire professional class, likewise, went through the same educational system. They even set up similar school systems in the 20th century in the colonies to train another level of privileged elites.
This internally coherent and arrogant group of men were all set to lose the empire in the century following. One of the key problems was that they failed to educate their people. By the end of the century:
Britain had only 9000 university students compared to almost sixty thousand in Germany. Germany produced three thousand graduate engineers every year, while in England and Wales only 350 graduated in all branches of science, technology and mathematics with first and second class honours...
- Source: Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire: An Economic History of Britain since 1750. Wiedenfeld and Nicolson 1968, page 152.
Britain failed to develop systematic education and training to create new middle and lower-level technical and craft skills. The British tradition of training on the job may have been appropriate in the early 19th century but was singularly inappropriate to master the new technologies. There were plenty of warnings from educationalists and official government enquiries. The government of the day failed to take effective action. We may now wonder why this was so 150 years later when it was common knowledge that both the USA and Germany were catching up fast.
There are two possible answers:
1. The British attitude to its people.
2. The British higher classes tended to seek profit from overseas investments.
The British elite ruling classes did not see it as their duty to look after the welfare of their own people. Except for the Poor Law, there was no provision for people’s welfare. Hobsbawm has neatly summed up the lot of working peoples:
“Stunted and debilitated by a century of imperialism…" he starts, “by 1870, 11 or 12 year old boys from upper class public schools were on average 5 inches taller than boys from industrial schools... Ours was a country filled with a stoic mass of those destined to live all their lives on a bare uncertain subsistence... underfed, badly housed, badly clothed"
Variations in life expectancy between the classes told the tale well enough. In 1841, females had an expectancy of 42 years, and men 41. Fifty years later, despite huge improvements in urban public health, the comparative figures were 48 years for women and 44 for men. By 1951, the same figures came 72 years for women and 66 years for men. In the 19th century, the poor had no access to government and no vote; they were left to work and die.
It was not until the Boer War when 70% of recruits were rejected on health grounds, and the first scientific examination of the population was performed in 1899 by Rowntree, that anyone in government began to take notice.
The British governing classes were concerned to obtain labour at the cheapest possible price. From the late 18th century through the 19th century the infrastructure of canals, roads and railways needed a huge number of labourers. Slave labour was not an option; bonded labour could have been used, but cheap Irish labour was available in the numbers required. Irish Navvies built the infrastructure on the mainland. Irish labour came across to England in huge numbers. Irish labourers were desperate for money to pay their rents back home. Once the potato crop was in the ground, young Irish men were willing to enter the British labour market for at least six months at a time. Irish land was owned by Britain's aristocracy in large estates. Very often these landlords were non-resident in Ireland; some were members of the British parliament. They used others to collect their rents often. Irish land was in short supply and rents were high. There were no money-earning opportunities except as labourers in Britain. The system that developed enabled the labourers to receive their wages and send their rent money home in an English town that was close by. As an exploitative system, it bears few equals.
In these circumstances educating the population was not considered necessary.
The second explanation concerns the British higher classes tending to seek profit from overseas. British firms sought a higher rate of profit in overseas investment. British colonial possessions in the 19th century offered plenty of opportunities for profitable investment in mining and plantations, providing raw materials. The Empire provided well-established and relatively secure sheltered channels for shipping, finance, and communications. The City of London had enormous strength in financial services through overseas portfolio investment, which dominated the money of Britain’s small elite. In Germany and the USA, by contrast, the rapidly expanding capital requirements of their economy led to far more rapid growth.
Both these facts go some way to explain why the foremost ‘great nation’ was falling behind by 1900.
Further Reading
On 19th century colonisation:
See Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians: The Climax of Imperialism in the Dark Continent, St Martin’s Press 1961.
William Dalrymple, White Mughals; Return of a King, and The Last Mughal are rich works worth reading.
World atlases, now out of fashion, illustrate cartographically the vast changes at the end of the 19th century.
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