German East Africa
German East Africa Schutzgebiet Deutsch-Ostafrika | |||||||||||
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| 1885–1919 | |||||||||||
Flag
 Coat of arms
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 German East Africa in black, other contemporary German colonies in red | |||||||||||
| Status | Colony of the German Empire | ||||||||||
| Capital | Bagamoyo (1885-1890) Dar-es-Salaam (1890-1918) | ||||||||||
| Emperor | |||||||||||
• 1871-1888 | William I | ||||||||||
• 1888-1888 | Frederick III | ||||||||||
• 1888-1918 | William II | ||||||||||
| Governor | |||||||||||
• 1885-1891 | Karl Peters (German East Africa Company) | ||||||||||
• 1912-1919 | Heinrich Albert Schnee | ||||||||||
| Historical era | New Imperialism | ||||||||||
| 27 February 1885 | |||||||||||
| 1 July | |||||||||||
• Maji Maji Rebellion | 21 October | ||||||||||
• Surrender to Britain | 25 November | ||||||||||
| 28 June 1919 | |||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||
| 1913 | 995,000 km2 (384,000 sq mi) | ||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||
• 1913 | 7,700,000 | ||||||||||
| Currency | Rupie | ||||||||||
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German East Africa (German: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in East Africa, including what is now Burundi, Rwanda and Tanganyika (the mainland part of present Tanzania). It measured 994,996 km² (384,170 mi²) in size or nearly three times the size of re-united Germany today. It came into existence during the 1880s and ended during World War I, when the area was taken over by the British and Belgians as League of Nations mandate teritories.
Foundation
The colony's story begins with Karl Peters, an adventurer who founded the "Society for German Colonization" and had signed some treaties with native chiefs of the mainland across from Zanzibar. On March 3, 1885, the German government announced that it had granted an imperial charter (secretly, on February 17) to Peters' company, and intended to establish a protectorate in East Africa. Peters then recruited a variety of specialists who fanned out across the country, south to the Rufiji River and north to Witu, near Lamu on the coast.
When the Sultan of Zanzibar protested (as he considered himself the ruler of the mainland), Bismarck sent five warships (including Stosch, Gneisenau and Prinz Adalbert), which arrived August 7 and trained their guns on the Sultan's palace. The net result was that the British and Germans agreed to divide the mainland into spheres of influence, and without British support the Sultan had to go along.
The Germans quickly established their rule over Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam and Kilwa. The Abushiri Revolt started in 1888 and was put down (with British help) in the following year. In 1890, London and Berlin concluded the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, a deal that gave Heligoland to Germany, and defined the limits of German East Africa (the exact borders remained ill-defined until 1910).
Between 1891 and 1894, the Hehe — led by Chief Mkwawa — resisted German expansion, but were eventually defeated because other tribes were in favour of the newcomers. After a period of guerrilla warfare, Mkwawa himself was cornered and committed suicide in 1898.
The Germans were always few in number in the colony, relying on native chiefs to keep order, collect the taxes and start commercial farms for cash crops, such as cotton, coffee and sesame. In 1899 German Schutztruppen ('Protectorate' Troops) consisted of 2,212 local soldiers and 195 officers.[1]
The Maji Maji Rebellion occurred in 1905, and was put down by the governor, Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen. But scandal soon followed, with stories of corruption and brutality, and in 1907 Chancellor Bülow appointed Bernard Dernburg to reform the colonial administration, which became a model of colonial efficiency and commanded extraordinary loyalty among the natives during the First World War.
First World War
The story of German East Africa in the First World War is essentially the history of the colony's military commander, General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. A vibrant and young officer, he spent the war harrying the forces of the British Empire, tying down with his band of 3,000 Europeans & 11,000 native levies, called Askaris (an originally Arabic word for 'soldier' adopted from Osmanli Turkish in European successor colonies), a British/Imperial army 300,000 strong, which was at times commanded by the former Second Boer War commander Jan Smuts. One of his greatest victories was at the Battle of Tanga (3–5 November, 1914), where he beat a British force more than eight times the size of his own.
Lettow-Vorbeck's masterful mix of guerrilla warfare and daring raids ended up costing the British war effort massive resources and upwards of 60,000 casualties. Nonetheless, weight of numbers, especially after forces coming from Belgian Congo had attacked from the West, and dwindling supplies, forced Lettow-Vorbeck into a grudging withdrawal. Ultimately, Lettow-Vorbeck fought his tiny force out of German East Africa and into Mozambique, then into Northern Rhodesia where he agreed a ceasefire three days after the end of the war, on receiving news that Germany had surrendered (see Von Lettow-Vorbeck Memorial for details.)
Heralded after the war as one of their few heroes, the Germans celebrated Lettow-Vorbeck's Schutztruppe as the only German force in the First World War not to have been defeated in open combat - although they often retreated when outnumbered. The Askari colonial troops that had fought in the East African campaign were later given pensions by the Weimar Republic. One can read about this in Von Lettow-Vorbeck's book My Reminiscences of East Africa, alternately titled in German HEIA SAFARI! Deutschlands Kampf in Ostafrika. More accessibly, one can read Byron Farwell's The Great War in Africa, 1914–1918 and Battle for the Bundu, The First World War in East Africa (1974) by Charles Miller.
The German raider SMS Königsberg also fought off the coast of East Africa. She was eventually scuttled in the Rufiji delta in July 1915.
The Treaty of Versailles broke up the colony, giving the western area to Belgium as Ruanda-Urundi, the small Kionga Triangle south of the Rovuma River to Portugal to become part of Mozambique, and the remainder to Britain, which named it Tanganyika.
Postage stamps
The first postage stamps issued for German East Africa came in 1893, as surcharges in pesa values on regular German stamps, along with the inscription "Deutsch-Ostafrika." In 1900, Germany issued the "Yachts," a common design used for all of Germany's colonies, featuring the Kaiser's yacht Hohenzollern. In German East Africa they were denominated in pesas and rupees (64 pesas to a rupee), and inscribed "DEUTSCH-OSTAFRIKA". In 1905 new stamps were printed in "hellers," 100 hellers to a rupee. Germany continued to print stamps even as things went badly in the war, issuing a 1-rupee watermarked Yacht in 1916 (genuine uses of this stamp are extremely rare, worth US$20,000 or more). Most types of German East Africa stamp sell for under US$10, but the high denominations and early overprints up to US$100.
After the colony was occupied by Belgian and British troops, each issued its own provisional stamps. In 1916, the Belgians overprinted stamps of Belgian Congo in several ways, first with "RUANDA" and "URUNDI," although these were never actually used. A second series was overprinted with the dual-language "EST AFRICAIN ALLEMAND / OCCUPATION BELGE / DUITSCH OOST AFRIKA / BELGISCHE BEZETTUNG." In 1922 these stamps received surcharges ranging from 5c to 50c.
Initially, in 1916, the British overprinted stamps of the Nyasaland Protectorate with "N.F.", for "Nyasaland Force," then in 1917 switched to the overprint "G.E.A." on stamps of East Africa and Uganda. The same overprint appeared on stamps inscribed "East Africa and Uganda Protectorates," but these were issued after the establishment of Tanganyika, and are considered part of Tanganyika's postal history.
German place-names
- Bismarckburg (Kasanga)
- Kaiser-Wilhelm-Spitze (Kilimanjaro)
- Weidmannsheil (Tabora)
See also
References and external links
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- The coins and bank notes of German East Africa
- Schnee, Dr.Heinrich, (former Governor of German East Africa), German Colonization, Past and Future - The Truth about the German Colonies, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1926.
- Bullock, A.L.C., Germany's Colonial Demands, Oxford University Press, 1939.
- Wikified article on German East Africa based on the 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica
- East, John William. "The German Administration in East Africa: A Select Annotated Bibliography of the German Colonial Administration in Tanganyika, Rwanda and Burundi from 1884 to 1918." [London? 1989] 294 leaves. 1 reel of microfilm (negative.) Thesis submitted for the fellowship of the Library Association, London, November 1987."
- The New Student's Reference Work/German East Africa
- ^ Sievers Hahn: Afrika. 2nd Edition, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig, 1903. Page 324.
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