Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 44, Number 238, 19 July 1919 — Page 10

PAGE TWELVE

THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM, SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1919.

CHANGE IN AFRICAN TERRITORY IMPORTANT EFFECT OF TREATY

By FRANK H. 8IM0NDS Copyright, 119. by T"ie McClur Nwpaper Syndicate) The attention of the world has been o concentrated upon European asects of the Treaty of Versailles, that he provisions of this document affectng . Africa have provoked relatively ittle comment, yet, in point of fact, he African detail Is not impossibly of nore importance for the, future than ill the territorial changes, so far as Sermany herself is concerned, on the European map. When the war came, Germany had instructed on African soil, an empire 3f more than a million square miles, Ive times the area of the German empire in Europe, with a population of learly thirteen millions. Nor did Gernan ambition pause at what had been

accomplished. Her two great colon-

es of tropical Africa, the Kamerun

ind German East Africa, were to be

round at ion stones In a grandiose edl See. which was to span the Dark Con

tinent If there was to be a Mittel-

europa, as a result of the victories of

3erman arms on the European front

lere, there was Just as surely to be x Mlttel Africa, crossing the African

continent from the Atlantic to the

Eastern Ocean and In addition, Ger

man Southwest Africa waa to advance

northward to Join this central terri

tory, while it also extended southward

to Include the union of South Africa.

In German calculation Belgium was to surrender her Congo. Did not Bern

hardt, long before the war In his mem'

orable volume suggest that the mere possession of this colony, -might deprive Belgium ot her neutrality?

France, already forced to yield half of

ber Congo, as "compensation" for her Moroccan acaulaltlons. was to com

plete the surrender ot this great cal

ony. These French and Belgian ces

sions' -would unite the Kamerun with German Bast Africa. Moreover, the

Germans had constructed a railroad

(from the Indian Ocean to-iyake TanCanyQca, which was to be the back-

Ibonev or this ooean-vo-oceaix empire, i Dreamed of Vast Empire

; But thte was. only cna of the Ger-

ftnan dreams, when the war came,

land Turkoj ofoed th kaiser, then the (Germans prdmlied to the sultan the return ot tils lights In Egypt Britain Vas to be erJsted, Turkey was nominally to corn back, but actually Germany was to isticceed the British. In thl region, too, German supremacy was to be assured, beyond the challenge of seapiwer, by pushing a branch of the Bagdad railway southward from Aleppo. A new railroad, borrowing; existing lines as far as the edge of the desert was to extend across the Sues canal. Joining Caire and Alexandria M'ith Damascus and Aleppo and thus fsith Constantinople and Berlin. And, once in Egtfpt, Germany dreamed of following this-example of the Arabs, and sweeping westward on the Mediterranean shore until she reached Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, borrowing the mantle of the prophet to sover the ambitions of the Hohenzollern. In the German mind, Africa, with relatively small exceptions, was to be German terrtory, French, Belgian, Italian and Portuguese colonies, were to be seized and Germany was to acquire an Inexhaustible reservoir, alike of men for future wars, and of raw materials for future trade conflicts. Looking backward now over more than a quarter of a century, one can see how Germany has treasured and fostered the African dream. One can also see the successive disappointments. When Britain conquered the

Boer Republics all Germany felt a

sense of resentment, revealed In the

Kaiser's message to Krueger, since

one of the chosen fields of German ex

mansion was thus preempted. When

France finally began to occupy Moroc

co, after her great bargain with Britain, following the Fashoda crises, German resentment was disclosed in three separate attempts to block the absorption of the last remaining field

ooen for German expansion.

And now Germany loses not alone the dreams for the future, but the

reality of the moment when the war came. By the treaty of peace she is deprived of every foot of her African

holdings. More than tnia, to mane as

surance doubly sure, she Is compelled to surrender such claims as she had

upon France for equal opportunities in Morocco, claims based upon the successful manoeuvres of her diplomats at Algeciras, and afterwards, during the Moroccan clashes, while, Britain acquires with the consent of the world, the United States expressly assenting, a protectorate in Egypt, which gives her that free hand she has lacked hitherto. Africa Closed to German. Henceforth, then, Africa is closed to the German. He renounces his claims In Morocco, commercial claims, not territorial, although he has always cherished the hope, expressed in the Agadir time quite forcibly, of transforming them into territorial claims. He signs away his position in Egypt. He renounces his agreement with Britain by which, when Portugal consented to part with her African estates. Germany was to acquire a large fraction. As France was compelled to retire from America, after Montcalm had lost Quebec, Germany is now to leave Africa. But the elimination of Germany is only one of the African changes which will follow the present settlement. Actually Germany cedes her colonies to the allies not to any one nation. But the allies have already sketched the ultimate division of these territories in secret understandings and treaties. Thus France is to recover all of her lost Congo lands, ceded to Germany in the Agadir time and in addition all of German Gamerun save a narrow strip along. the frontier of British Nigeries. Ports, railways, German investments and Improvements ot all sorts pass to France, with a good harbor, into the bargain. In addition. Togo, is divided between France and Britain, insuring to France a material extension of the narrow coast line of Dahomey and a valuable railroad into the hinterland. Finally all the allies have agreed that France may, If she can, acquire from Spain and Spanish holdings on the coast of Morocco facing Algeciras and fronting on the Straits of Gibraltar. This means, in fact, that France has the consent of the world to suppress the annoying and even dangerous Spanish strip In Morocco, thus completing her Moroccan acquisitions, pro

vided she can bring Spain to an agreement.

France Realizes Aspirations For France, then, the new partition

ot Africa means the realization of the

aspirations ot nearly a century and the elimination of the German peril In Africa as well as In Europe. By the Agadir manoeuvre Germany thrust a wedge between French Congo lands and those about Lake Chad. By the

successive Moroccan affairs Germany hampered and restricted French domination in the Shereeian Empire. But now French territory extends uninterruptedly from the Bay of Algiers to

the banks of lower Congo and at no distant date we may see the French flag flying from the Tripolitan fron

tier to the southern Pillar of Heresies.

In thus clearing her hands In Mo

rocco, France acquires one of the great colonial prizes of the world, a new reservoir of troops, a vast fertile

land, with great mineral resources and she rounds off her northern African empire. By obtaining her lost territories along the Congo and the Uban-

ghi ana, in addition, the German Kamerun, she acquires a great tropical estate, at the moment when all the

world is at last appreciating the enor

mous value of tropical colonies. French rule thus seems firmly established in northwest and west Africa. Already in thjs recent war, France drew from these lands more than half a million fighting men, In addition to several hundred thousand laborers. In Algers and Tunis a million Europeans have already settled and Latin civilization has already been restored over vast regions. On French Africa, Germany has always looked with covetous eyes. It will be recalled that German statesmen declined to give the pledge demanded by Sir Edward Grey, when the world

war was breaking, that they would respect the integrity of French colonial territory, It Britain stayed out of the war and France was beaten. Now( there Is an end of the German menace, the perpetual demand for "compensation," the Innumerable "incidents" and crisis, by which Germany preserved at home and abroad the legend that

she had claims upon her neighbors'

colonies, because she was stronger than they were.

Belgium Escapes Peril Belgium, like France, escapes from

the same peril. Belgian Congo has always been the object of German Scheming. Bounded by German territory alike on the east and the west, after Germany had pushed her tenacles eastward to the Ubanghi, in the Agadir time, Belgium could see the steady advance of German strategic railroads, approaching her African estates, as they pushed up to her European frontiers, for the same military purpose. And when Belgium had been conquered, no German even con

sidered the possibility that Belgian Congo would be returned to Its owners. Now, with Britain and France as neighbors, Belgium can rest secure, in Africa, while in Europe, too, she has found new guarantees against German aggression. Great, however, as have been the French gains In Africa, it is Britain who makes the real profit. Two-thirds of the German colonial territory falls to her. In addition to half of the Togo and a relatively small slice of the Kamerun, she acquires all of German East Africa and of German Southwest Africa. The dream of Cecil Rhodes is thus realized and the "all red" strip of British territory extends without Interruption fro mthe Cape to Cairo. While the German base of Intrigue, propaganda and manoeuvre in Southwest Africa is abolished, the eastern half of the great African continent is henceforth British and the Cape-to-

Cairo railway can march on British territory from one end of Africa to the other. . In extinguishing German rule In the south, Britain has fortified her position in the union of South Africa. In annexing German East Africa she has eliminated a possible base for future German submarine attacks upon the Suez route to India. Moreover, in obtaining world recognition of her protectorate in Egypt, at the moment when her armies held Mesopotamia and Arabia, she has at last become complete mistress of the most vital communication lane for her empire in i the world. In the last war the Sum

Canal was never out, Egypt was never actually invaded, but German-led Turkish troops reached the Canal and German agents succeeded in stirring up rebellion in Egypt Itself. Criticism Unwarranted. Criticism of this vast British gain as representing an imperialistic spirit Is, moreover, totally unwarranted. During all the years that Germany was building up her African estate, Britain viewed German acquisitions without jealousy. Germany's right to colonies was never questioned, and in the case of the Portuguese Colonies Britain agreed that, when at last as was inevitable Portugal was compelled to sell them, the larger part should go to Germany. Even in the case of the Kamerun, Britain was willing Germany should obtain from France compensation on the Ubanghi for French gains in Morocco. Drovidrt

only German greed should not impossible concessions. The German has himself solely to blame for the fact that in the end he has lost his whole African empire. Neither the French nor the British sought to extend their domains at his expense. Neither conceived or nourished grandiose schemes for creating a still vaster African Empire by annexing German lands. Rivalry there was between the German and the Briton, between the Frenchman and the Briton, competition, which in the case of France and Britain led to tense moments and acute crises. But both Britain and France recognized German right to a place In the African sun. German Brutality Seen By contrast the German regarded his own considerable holdings as important solely as bases for the acquistion of the lands of his neigbors. He was constructing maps and plans, .inspiring rebellions and disorders in British and French territories alike. The same spirit that was revealed In Pan-Germanism In Europe, was disclosed in the whole African chapter of German history. And, in the end, selfpreservation, demanded that the French and the British should make an end to the intolerable conditions incident to German conduct in Africa. Nor can one fail to take note of the methods of German colonization.

In modern history there is no page more soiled. In German southwest Africa almost the entire native population was exterminated, after a war provoked by German brutality, conducted In the manner later used In Europe. To the very last in all of her colonies Germany continued to employ

memoas wnicn make the history of the campaigns which ended In the occupation of her colonies by French, British. Belgian and Portuguese troops a record of almost unexampled horrors. In Africa Germany had a great chance. She possessed a million square miles of territory. Her treaties with Britain, affecting Portugal, held

out the promise of great Increases. It might easily have been possible to reach a basis of bargaining with

France, provided she had been willing to consider the most moderate of concessions In Alsace-Lorraine, to extin

guish that everlasting danger spot

Even In the case of the Belgian Congo, she might eventually have had the

approval of the European powers to

a suDstantlal increase in territory in

this direction, provided Belgium were willing to part with what' many Bel

gians regarded as a dangerous posses' felon.

But in Africa, as in Europe, Ger

many knew only one method. She knew only one way. She bullied

r ranee, Belgium, Portugal, sne men

aced the security of the British em

Fire ny fomenting rebellion in the Boer states, she threatened the peace of Europe by three dramatic ventures

in Morocco. And, finally, in that por

tion of Africa which was hers, she dis

played a brutality and a disregard for the most elemental considerations of humanity and decency unparalleled in

the not over nice history of the white

race in Africa. Her African subjects welcomed the allied Invaders with path etlo enthusiasm; to turn them back to German rule again, with the cer

tainty of reprisals, was always Impossible. Nor was it less Impossible to undertake to erect Independent countries out of the African Jungle and bestow upon the natives that gift

of Independence for which they were totally unfitted.

Italy's Colonial Gains It remains to mention Italian gains

in Africa. At the moment when she entered the war, Italy held Tripoli,

acquirea as a result or her still recent conflict with Turkey, Erithrea,

that thin strip of coast land between Abyssinia and the Red Sea and a more considerable area in Somallland. But in the case of Tripoli, France held much of .the hinterland, including the

caravan route between Ghat and Ghadames, while both France and Britain

held territories adjoining Italy's east

ern colonies.

By the terms of a secret agreement

between Italy, France and Britain It was provided that Italy should receive compensation if her partners In

creased their African holdings. This

promise has led to many debates In

the Paris conference and certain modi

cations of frontiers have been foreshadowed, although these fall far

short of satisfying Italian expectations. Tripoli Unprosperous

From France Italy is to receive the

territory necessary to make her com

plete master of the Ghadames-Chat

caravan route; from Britain she is to

receive certain lands on the border be

tween Egypt and Tripoli, and both

France and Britain are prepared to

make concessions on the Red Sea and

Somallland.- But Italy is asking for

French Jibuti, the port at the entrance

to the Red Sea, the starting place of the railroad which goes back into Abyssinia, and this the French decline to cede.

The real Italian disappointment,

however, must be ascribed to the fact that , Italy came to Africa too late.

Her natural line or expansion would have followed the whole north coast

of Africa, was the scene of success

ful Roman colonization. But France acquired Algiers, Tunis and finally

Morocco, while Britain took Egypt. Pushed by her natural instinct to claim some part of the African world, Italy went to Abyssinia and harvested only defeat and disaster. She then

went to Tripoli and there again found, not the prosperity France easily restored in Tunis, and Britain In Egypt,

but only costly campaigns and military operation to regain the territories conquered five years ago and evacuated during the present war, when German and Turkish intrigues raised the Arabs of the interior. That Tripoli can ever be prosperous, in the sense that French and British North African colonies are prosperous, is Impossible, that it can ever be a source of profit to Italy Is exceeedingly unlikely. Nor Is there much more hope along the Red Sea or in Somaliland. In both regions Italy will make material increases, but for the most part, what she gains will be desert districts, unsuited to European colonization, incapable of any great industrial or agricultural development. Extinguish Spanlth Rule As for Spain, the Versailles docu

ment unmistakably foreshadows the

ultimate extinction of Spanish rule In the Insignificant strip .of Moroccan

soil, which is all that survives of four

centuries of Spanish effort on the

south shore of the Mediterranean. And In this strip, Spanish armies are now, as always, closely besieged behind the walls of their fortified towns, while the cost of the venture In men and money annually increases. To extinguish Spanish rule, France would pay liberally, but Spanish pride prevents such a transaction. The fact that Tangier, which was a naturalized town and zone and Spanish Morocco, were used by the Germans as bases

for raising the natives In the French

region, the fact that disorder In Spanish Morocco leads to disturbances In the French districts, make it almost

imperative that France should com-! ulete her north African empire by the

acquisition of the Spanish zone and of Tangier. Beyond question, we shall see many changes In the map of Africa in the next few years, exchanges of territory between France and Britain, perhaps the cession by the French of the tiny fraction of their old Indian empire in return for British cessions In Gambia and elsewhere along the west coast. Spanish Africa and Portuguese Africa will disappear, not by war, but by purchase, since in both instances the present owners are incapable of developing their colonies and in their hands they interfere with the necessary development of French and Britlsh colonies. In the larger sense the treaty of Versailles divides Africa between the French and the British, although It assigns a relatively insignificant part

to Italy and confirms Belgium in the occupation of a vast central area. Only

Abyssinia remains Independent and in ; h natur nt thtnn it will Womi'

more and more a dependency of the .

A t LtOtl OUU VJ W " v frontiers march for so many miles, p Mlttelafrika, like Mitteleuropa dlsappears from the calculations of states-, men and Africa, like the Americas, be-: comes closed territory to colonial ad-i venturers, and International rivalries.!

Seven-pound electromagnet which will lift fifteen times Its own weight J has been Invented for many uses about machine shops. ?

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Pohlmeyer, Downing & Go. Funeral Directors 15 N. 10th St. Phone 1S35

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The Moon combines more quality in every way than any other Light Six on the market today that's the reason we took the agency for this territory. Once you see the beautiful lines of this car and experience the thrill of riding behind its powerful six-cylinder motor you will love it. We are in position to make a limited number of deliveries now and advise you to see us if you desire immediate possession of a thoroughly modern

Quality Throughout Equipment Foot rail; robe straps; tool kit carried in front door; jack: tire pump; trouble light connection; light cord; tonneau light; ammeter; oil gauge ; lighting and ignition switches with patented lock; storm curtains that open with doors. Motor driven horn. Body Beautifully designed with high radiator, full bevel lined type. Instrument board, front and rear, black walnut; wide doors with concealed hinges, comfortable driver's position with spacious leg room, clear running board with deep one-piece stamped crown fenders.

Transmission Brown-Lipe unit construction with motor and clutch, selective sliding gear type, three speeds forward aud reverse. Radiator Fedders, honeycomb, nickel-silver shell. Water pump circulation. Battery Exide, six volts. Starter and Ignition Delco system; two-unit. Bendiz drive. Steering Gear" Worm and gear type; 18-inch steering wheel with corrugated rim. Tires 4-inch demountable rims, extra rim on rear. Rugged tread tires on rear wheels. Upholstering High-grade genuine tan Spanish leather throughout; plaited type. Top One-man, California style top of "NeverLeak" material. Bevel plate glass lights. Curtains carried in pockets of top. Windfchield Two-piece, both halves ventilating.

Frame Pressed steel, especially designed for Hotchkiss drive; with deep strangle in front to enable short turning radius. Rear tire carrier integral with frame. Wheelbase 118 inches. Front Axle TImken I-beam, drop forge, special heat treated. Rear Axle Timken pressed steel, spiral gears. Brakes Internal and external, 14-inch drums. Propeller Shaft Tubular, with two Spicer universal joints. Springs Front, semi-illiptic, 39 inches. Rear, semi-llliptic, 54 inches. Clutch Borg & Beck, dry plate type. Motor Continental Unit Power Plant; six cylinders, 34x4 inches, cast en bloc. New type cylinder heads, removable; pressed steel oil pan; enclosed valves; lublication pump and constant level splash.

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Phone 2411

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