Africa

it is necessary, however, to deal briefly with the part played by Germany.

She naturally could not be disposed of by the chief rivals as easily as

were Portugal and Liberia. It will be remembered that Dr Nachtigal, while

the proposals for the Berlin conference were under discussion, had planted

the German flag on the coast of Togo and in Cameroon in the month of July

1884. In Cameroon Germany found herself with Great Britain for a neighbour

to the north, and with France as her southern neighbour on the Gabun river.

The utmost activity was displayed in making treaties with native chiefs,

and in securing as wide a range of coast for German enterprise as was

possible. After various provisional agreements had been concluded between

Great Britain and Germany, a ``provisional line of demarcation'' was

adopted in the famous agreement of the 1st of July 1890, starting from the

head of the Rio del Rey creek and going to the point, about 9 deg. 8' E.,

marked ``rapids'' on the British Admiralty chart. By a further agreement of

the 14th of April 1893, the right bank of the Rio del Rey was made the

boundary between the Oil Rivers Protectorate (now Southern Nigeria) and

Cameroon. In the following November (1893) the boundary was continued from

the ``rapids'' before mentioned, on the Calabar or Cross river, in a

straight line towards the centre of the town of Yola, on the Benue river.

Yola itself, with a radius

Germany in West Central Africa.

of some 3 m., was left in the British sphere, and the German boundary

followed the circle eastwards from the point of intersection as it neared

Yola until it met the Benue river. From that point it crossed the river to

the intersection of the 13th degree of longitude with the 10th degree of

north latitude, and then made direct for a point on the southern shore of

Lake Chad ``situated 35 minutes east of the meridian of Kuka.'' By this

agreement the British government withdrew from a considerable section of

the upper waters of the Benue with which the Royal Niger Company had

entered into relations. The limit of Germany's possible extension eastwards

was fixed at the basin of the river Shari, and Darfur, Kordofan and the

Bahr-el-Ghazal were to be excluded from her sphere of influence. The object

of Great Britain in making the sacrifice she did was two-fold. By

satisfying Germany's desire for a part of Lake Chad a check was put on

French designs on the Benue region, while by recognizing the central Sudan

(Wadai, &c.) in the German sphere, a barrier was interposed to the advance

of France from the Congo to the Nile. This last object was not attained,

inasmuch as Germany in coming to terms with France as to the southern and

eastern limits of Cameroon abandoned her claims to the central Sudan. She

had already, on the 24th of December 1885, signed a protocol with France

fixing her southern frontier, where it was coterminous with the French

Congo colony. But to the east German explorers were crossing the track of

French explorers from the northern bank of the Ubangi, and the need for an

agreement was obvious. Accordingly, on the 4th of February 1894, a

protocol—which, some weeks later, was confirmed by a convention— was signed

at Berlin, by which France accepted the presence of Germany on Lake Chad as

a fait accompli and effected the best bargain she could by making the left

bank of the Shari river, from its outlet into Lake Chad to the 10th

parallel of north latitude, the eastern limit of German extension. From

this point the boundary line went due west some 230 m., then turned south,

and with various indentations joined the south-eastern frontier, which had

been slightly extended so as to give Germany access to the Sanga river— a

tributary of the Congo. Thus, early in 1894, the German Cameroon colony had

reached fairly definite limits. In 1908 another convention, modifying the

frontier, gave Germany a larger share of the Sanga, while France, among

other advantages, gained the left bank of the Shari to 10 deg. 40' N.

The German Togoland settlements occupy a narrow strip of the Guinea

coast, some 35 m. only in length, wedged in between the British Gold Coast

and French Dahomey. At first France was inclined to dispute Germany's

claims to Little Popo and Porto Seguro; but in December 1885 the French

government acknowledged the German protectorate over these

Exclusion of Germany from the Niger.

places, and the boundary between French and German territory, which runs

north from the coast to the 11th decree of latitude, was laid down by the

Franco-German convention of the 12th of July 1897. The fixing of the 11th

parallel as the northern boundary of German expansion towards the interior

was not accomplished without some sacrifice of German ambitions. Having

secured an opening on Lake Chad for her Cameroon colony, Germany was

anxious to obtain a footing on the middle Niger for Togoland. German

expeditions reached Gando, one of the tributary states of the Sokoto empire

on the middle Niger, and, notwithstanding the existence of prior treaties

with Great Britain, sought to conclude agreements with the sultan of that

country. But this German ambition conflicted both with the British and the

French designs in West Africa, and eventually Germany had to be content

with the 11th parallel as her northern frontier. On the west the Togoland

frontier on the coast was fixed in July 1886 by British and German

commissioners at 1 deg. 10' E. longitude, and its extension towards the

interior laid down for a short distance. A curious feature in the history

of its prolongation was the establishment in 1888 of a neutral zone wherein

neither power was to seek to acquire protectorates nor exclusive influence.

It was not until November 1899 that, as part of the Samoa settlement, this

neutral zone was partitioned between the two powers and the frontier

extended to the 11th parallel.

The story of the struggle between France and Great Britain in West Africa

may roughly be divided into two sections, the

Anglo-French rivalry in West Africa.

first dealing with the Coast colonies, the second dealing with the struggle

for the middle Niger and Lake Chad. As regards the Coast colonies, France

was wholly successful in her design of isolating all Great Britain's

separate possessions in that region, and of securing for herself undisputed

possession of the upper Niger and of the countries lying within the great

bend of that river. When the British government awoke to the consciousness

of what was at stake France had obtained too great a start. French

governors of the Senegal had succeeded, before the Berlin Conference, in

establishing forts on the upper Niger, and the advantage thus gained was

steadily pursued. Every winter season French posts were pushed farther and

farther along the river, or in the vast regions watered by the southern

tributaries of the Senegal and Niger rivers. This ceaseless activity met

with its reward. Great Britain found herself compelled to acknowledge

accomplished facts and to conclude agreements with France, which left her

colonies mere coast patches, with a very limited extension towards the

interior. On the 10th of August 1889 an agreement was signed by which the

Gambia colony and protectorate was confined to a narrow strip of territory

on both banks of the river for about 200 m. from the sea. In June 1882 and

in August 1889 provisional agreements were made with France fixing the

western and northern limits of Sierra Leone, and commissioners were

appointed to trace the line of demarcation agreed upon by the two

governments. But the commissioners failed to agree, and on the 21st of

January 1895 a fresh agreement was made, the boundary being subsequently

traced by a mixed commission. Sierra Leone, as now definitely constituted,

has a coast-line of about 180 m. and a maximum extension towards the

interior of some 200 m.

At the date of the Berlin conference the present colonies of Southern

Nigeria and the Gold Coast constituted a single colony under the title of

the Gold Coast colony, but on the 13th of January 1886 the territory

comprised under that title was erected into two separate colonies—Lagos and

the Gold Coast (the name of the former being changed in February 1906 to

the colony of Southern Nigeria). The coast limits of the new Gold Coast

colony were declared to extend from 5 deg. W. to 2 deg. E., but these

limits were subsequently curtailed by agreements with France and Germany.

The arrangements that fixed the eastern frontier of the Gold Coast colony

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