BRITISH IDENTITY AND THE GERMAN OTHER A Dissertation ...

Anglo-German Colonial Rivalry
The advent of German colonial rivalry, joining Belgian and French, became a thorn in the
flesh for British imperial pretensions, a likelihood foreseen by Bismarck who nevertheless
acceded to popular expansionism during the mid-1880s and, by exploiting Anglo-French disputes
over control of Egypt, gained territorial concessions in West Africa, the Cameroons and
Togoland. 1 These and later German incursions into the hinterlands of East Africa, as well as
intrigues involving the Sultan of Zanzibar within Britain’s perceived sphere of influence, brought
forth angry reactions in the press against the British government’s apparent complacency in
defending its own interests. With the Anglo-German Agreement of 1890, Germany gave up
claims to Uganda and Witu on the East African coast in exchange for Heligoland, a small island
in the North Sea near the mouth of the Elbe and of no strategic importance to Britain. The
frontiers of German and British East Africa were also extended west of Lake Victoria to the
Congo State. The 1890 Agreement, which actually settled territorial disputes in East Africa to
Britain’s advantage, was disparaged as a “policy of surrender” and “a melancholy monument
erected over the grave of our lost opportunities.” 2 Opposition to the Anglo-German Agreement
also focused on the moral consequences of handing 2000 Heligolanders “over to the tender
mercies of German militarism.” 3
1 Kennedy, Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 180.
2 V. Lovett Cameron, “England and Germany in Africa,” pt. 2, Fortnightly Review 48
(July 1890): 129. In a postscript to the article, which was written before the agreement was
signed, the Fortnightly’s editor regretted not having been able to “substitute congratulation for
criticism” of Britain’s “humiliating capitulation.” (pp. 163-4). See also “Progress of the World:
The Anglo-German Agreement,” Review of Reviews 2 (July 1890): 5.
3 “Progress of the World: The Anglo-German Agreement,” 8. The Heligolanders were
given the option of assuming English nationality.
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