The New Imperialism: Territorial conquest wasn't anything new to Europe.

Even before 1870,

Russia held Siberia and central Asia while France ruled Algeria and Indochina. However, these
conquests were on an intense and unprecedented scale. Rapid global empire building created
unequal relationships between industrialized nation-states and unindustrialized countries.
Although the United States also participated in this new imperialism, it held an "invisible"
empire of trade and influence in the Pacific. What resulted was rivalry among Great Britain,
France, and Germany. And in doing so, these nation-states adapted the resources of
industrialization to their goals.
The Technology of Empire: The new fuel sources helped to shrink the globe. Faster and more
efficient technology allowed Europeans to maintain contact within overseas colonies as well as
produce goods efficiently. Steam, which powered factories, soon powered iron steamships which
allowed easier navigation of uncharted rivers as well as exploration of new terrain, natural
wealth, and resources. For the first time, ocean-going vessels could meet schedules as precisely
and as predictably as railroads could.
Engineering Empire: The advent of new technology caused the transformation of the landscape.
Harbors were deepened to accommodate the new iron- and then steel-hulled ships. the Suez
Canal (1869), joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, therefore making the trip to the East faster
and easier than going around the Cape of Good Hope. Both the Suez Canal and the Panama
Canal were built by the French under the supervision of Ferdinand de Lesseps. Great Britain
purchased a controlling interest in the Suez Canal in 1875 to benefit its trade with India. A
combination of French mismanagement, bankruptcy, and the high incidence of disease among
work crews enabled the U.S. to acquire rights to the Panama project and complete the canal by
1914. In both canals, shorter distances meant quicker travel and thus, higher profits. New types
of firearms produced in the second half of the 19th century include breech-loading rifles,
repeating rifles, and machine guns. The spears of the African warriors and the primitive
weaponry of Chinese rebels were no match. Though steam-powered mail boats shortened the
time for round-trip correspondence, the real revolution in communication came through
electricity. Telegrams could be transmitted in a matter of hours. Europeans could thus
communicate immediately with their distant colonies, dispatching troops, orders, and supplies.
Medical Advances: Advances in medicine allowed imperialism to spread by letting European
men and women to traverse disease-ridden lands. After 1850, quinine pills were discovered to be
effective against malaria. The pills allowed French troops to fight in Algeria in 1830 until its fall
in 1847. David Livingstone and Henry M. Stanley were just two of the many explorers who
explored the terrain and peoples of Africa after malaria had been controlled. Despite the fact that
technology helped European nation-states to conquer unindustrialized countries so quickly, it did
not cause imperialism. It simply aided the spread of imperialism and colonization.
Motives for Empire: What was the cause of this new imperialism? Was it the economic benefit?
Political benefit? Unfortunately, there's no simple answer or explanation. Individuals made their
fortunes overseas under the protection of the state. However, each European nation-state had its
own colonies whose costs outweighed their returns. Yet, this doesn't mean that the Europeans
were simply irrational in their pursuit of empire and glory.
Economics: In modern capitalism, profits, especially great profits, are often predicated on risks.
Portugal and Italy, as smaller nations with limited resources, failed as players in the game in
which the great industrial powers called the shots. Prestige through the acquisition of empire was
one way of keeping alive in the game of imperialism. Imperialism was influenced by business
interests, market considerations, and the pursuit of individual and national fortunes. Not by
accident did the great industrial powers control the scramble and dictate the terms of expansion.
Nor was it merely fortuitous that Great Britain, the nation that provided the model for European
expansion, dedicated itself to the establishment of a profitable worldwide network. Above all, the
search for investment opportunities -whether railroads in China or diamond mines in South
Africa- lured Europeans into a world system that challenged capitalist ingenuity and imagination.
Geopolitics: Some territory was considered important because of its proximity to acquired
colonies or to territory targeted for takeover. Other territory was important because of its
proximity to sea routes. Egypt had significance for Britain because it permitted the British to
protect access to lucrative markets in India through the Suez Canal. In 1879, the British
purchased shares in the canal. In 1882, the British used the deterioration of internal Egyptian
politics to seize control. The third geopolitical reason was the necessity of fueling bases
throughout the world. In turn, the acquisition of territories justified the increase in naval budges
and the size of fleets. As navies grew to protect sea-lanes, armies expanded to police new lands.
However, the down side was the growing influence of military and naval leaders in foreign and
domestic policy making.
Nationalism: In his Crystal Palace speech of 1872, Disraeli tried to rally the British public's
nationalism to support the government's efforts. Though not material, national prestige was
important to all European countries as money was. Portugal was willing to go bankrupt to
maintain its territories. In that way, smaller nations hoped to be taken seriously in the system of
alliances that preserved "the balance of power" in Europe. Western newspapers deliberately
fostered the desire for advancement of national interests. Newspapers forged a national
consciousness whereby individuals learned to identify with collective causes they often did not
fully comprehend. Information conveyed in newspapers shaped opinion, and opinion, in turn,
could influence policy. "Colonial fever" was so high in France in the summer of 1882 that the
government was forced to pursue claims in the Congo Basin and evict the Belgians and
Portuguese through questionable treaty claims rather than risk public censure for appearing weak
and irresolute. However, the same could be done to the people. Under Bismarck, the government
often promoted colonial hysteria through the press in order to advance its own political ends.
However, J.A. Hobson denounced the new imperialism and nationalism in his Psychology of
Jingoism. He recognized jingoism as "inverted patriotism whereby the love of one's own nation
is transformed into hatred of another nation, and into the fierce craving to destroy the individual
members of that other nation". Xenophobia melded with nationalism, both nurtured by the mass
press, to put pressure on foreign policy. Government elites were now accountable to faceless
masses. Even in autocratic states such as Austria-Hungary, public opinion could destroy
individual careers or dissolve the government. The term "jingo" was coined when the British
rallied against Russian attempts to invade Turkey, which failed.
The Search for Territory and Markets: Many western Europeans who read about the distant
regions and its peoples thought of them as simply entries on a map. Few understood the
relationship between the imperial and conquered powers, fewer still understanding the distinctive
qualities of conquered peoples. European empire builders pursued a variety of models: formal
military empires (Africa), informal empires (China), and formal but indirect rule over
hierarchical societies (India). The United States provided a model that relied on hegemonic
influence (indirect control by a dominant country without conquering) as well as outright control.
The Scramble for Africa: Diplomacy and Conflict: In the "mad" event that was the scramble for
Africa which lasted from 1875 to 1912, nearly all of Africa was under European control and the
political boundaries of Africa had been redrawn. In 1898, the French president commented that
"We have behaved like madmen in Africa, having been led astray by irresponsible people called
the 'colonialists'". In certain areas, such as the West African desert zones of the Sudan and the
Sahara, ambitious French military men sought to advance their careers by carving out grand
colonies. The existence of valuable minerals motivated the scramble for the area now called
Zimbabwe, the Zambian-Zairian copper belt, and other areas/ Along the West African coast,
chronic disputes between traders working in a souring economy seemed to demand European
annexation. Uganda and Malawi were created to please missionaries already working there.
Some Europeans seized areas to keep other Europeans from doing the same. Only Ethiopia
escaped Europe's grasp.
The Drive for Markets and Profits: The economic downturn from 1873 to 1896 as well as
Germany's rise as an economic power prompted protectionism and the search for more wealth.
And many favored annexation of African countries just in case they could turn out to be useful.
Even Britain became more protectionist and imperialistic at the end of the 19th century.
Historians generally agree that it was King Leopold II, king of Belgium, that provided the
catalyst for the scramble. Mesmerized by the Congo Basin's wealth after reading a report, he lied
that he would end the slave trade in East Africa. In 1876, he organized the International African
Association. Trading stations that were established along the Congo's rivers coerced much ivory
from the people. Additionally, Swahili was imposed on its people to unify the disparate tribes.
Leopold's lobbying for recognition of the Congo Basin stirred objections from France and
Portugal. However, the Berlin Conference (1884) yielded the Congo Basin to Leopold as well as
settled the ground rules for all other African colonial acquisitions. However, for a international
recognition of a claim, "effective occupation" would be required. Though Leopold certainly did
speed up the process, the scramble would have occurred even without him.
European Agreements and African Massacres: In the disputes over apportioning Africa, the
Europeans were remarkably pacific with each other. Deals where states traded territory were
common, and peace was maintained. Africa was not worth a war to Europeans. yet in every
instance of expansion in Africa, Europeans were ready to shoot Africans. With Hiram Maxim's
invention in 1884 of a machine gun that could fire 11 bullets per second, and with the sale of
modern weapons to Africans banned by the Brussels Convention of 1890, the military advantage
passed overwhelmingly to the imperialists. As British poet Hillaire Belloc observed, "Whatever
happens, we have got/ The Maxim gun, and they have not". It was less of a war than a hunt of
Africans. At the battle of Omdurman in Sudan in 1898, Churchill summarized the five hour fight
in that only 20 Britons and 20 Egyptian allies died compared to 110000 Sudanese. Technology
made African bravery and courage obsolete.
Ethiopia as an Exception: Ethiopia was broken down into its ethnic and regional components,
each of which was fueled by its own "big men", local rulers with little regard for the emperor
who held little more than a grand title. However, the "big men" still pursued a united empire and
increasingly used modern weapons imported from Europe. The Ethiopian emperor, Menelik II,
feared the encroachment of Egypt in the north and Sudan in the west. Despite this, he realized he
could play off his European opponents' power and interests against each other. He gave up
concessions to France and Italy in return for arms. More and more modern weapons flowered
into Ethiopia as Menelik steadily strengthened his military position, both to stop internal unrest
and to block encroachment from without. In 1889, he signed the Treaty of Wichale with Italy,
granting it certain concessions in return for more arms shipments. The Italians were heady with
confident racism but General Oreste Baratieri understood that weapons were weapons no matters
whose hands they were in. However, the prime minister of Italy, Francesco Crispi, wanted a
quick and glorious victory to enhance his reputation. The 18000-man Italian army suffered heavy
losses against the 100000 strong African army. Italy's acceptance of Ethiopia as a sovereign state
with greatly expanded imperial boundaries was soon ratified by France and Britain. After 1896,
Menelik, with his access to modern weapons assured by his country's international recognition,
continued his campaign to extend his control forcefully over the Ethiopian Empire's subordinate
peoples.
Gold, Empire Building, and the Boer War: In South Africa, the British engaged in a long war
over access to the world's largest supply of gold with a group of "Afrikaners"- white settlers who
had emigrated, mostly from the Netherlands, and settled in South Africa during the 18th and
early 19th centuries.
Afrikaner Rule: After the Great Trek (1837-1844), in which a large number of Afrikaners had
withdrawn form British-controlled Colony of the Cape of Good Hope (or Cape Colony), the
British had grudgingly recognized the independence of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal-
the Afrikaner republics in the interior- in a series of formal agreements. The British believed that
the Afrikaners, economically weak and geographically isolated could never pose a challenge to
British preeminence in the region. Two evens of the mid-1880s shattered that. First, in 1884,
Germany- Britain's greatest rival - inserted itself into the region by annexing Namibia as a
colony as part of its imperial adventures/ Aware that the Germans and Afrikaners were as
sympathetic to one another as both were hostile to them worried about the German threat to their
British regional hegemony and economic prospects.
Britain's War in South Africa: British fear of the Germans redoubled in 1886 when, in the
Witwatersrand area of Transvaal Republic, huge deposits of gold were discovered. A group of
rich British diamond-mine owners moved in quickly to develop the gold mines in the
Witwatersrand area, for the gold lay deep in the ground and could be mined only with large
capital investment, which the Afrikaners lacked. The best known of the British investors was
Cecil Rhodes, a politician and financier intent upon expanding his wealth through an expansion
of British power. Rhodes realized that Afrikaner governmental policies on agriculture, tariffs,
and labor control were major impediments to profitable gold production. Therefore, with the help
of members of the British government, they organized an attempt to overthrow the Afrikaner
government led by Dr. L.S. Jameson, Rhodes' lieutenant. It involved the invasion of Transvaal
by British South African police and came to be known as the Jameson Raid. It was faultily
executed and led to Rhodes' utter humiliation. The failure of the Jameson raiders prompted the
British government to send in Alfred Milner, an ardent advocate of expanding the British Empire
and keeping German influence in the region to a minimum. Well aware of the importance of gold
to Britain's financial standing in the world, Milner was determined to push the Afrikaners into
union with the British or war. By 1899, war was inevitable and broke out in October. Although
British expected to win the war by Christmas, the Afrikaners did not cooperate. Inept British
commanders opposed by skillful Afrikaner guerrilla-warfare leaders guaranteed that the Boer
War would drag on. The British eventually sent 350000 troops to South Africa, but the forces
could not decisively defeat the 65000 Afrikaner fighting men. The casualties were due to typhus
epidemics in concentration camps in which the British interred Afrikaner women and children as
they pursued their scorched-earth policies. In April 1902, the British accepted the conditional
surrender of the Afrikaners. The British annexed the Afrikaners to the empire and had the
opportunity of making the gold industry efficient. However, they had to promise the Afrikaners
that no decisions regarding the political role of the black African majority in a future South
Africa would be made before returning political power to the Afrikaners. That crucial concession
ensured that segregation would remain the model for race relation in South Africa throughout the
20th century. By the time World War I broke out in 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia were
politically independent. With the conquest of Africa, the colonial powers had to face the issue of
how their new colonies could be made to pay off; Africans had to face the issue of how they
might regain their political independence.
Imperialism in Asia: At the end of the 19th century, china had been permanently weakened in
Inner Asia, Vietnam had fallen under French colonial rule, Siam had lost half its territories, and
India had long constituted an important part of the British Empire. By contrast, Japan became an
aggressive power, itself an imperialist presence.
India: India was the starting point of all British expansion, and it stood at the center of British
foreign policy. To protect its sea routes to India and to secure its Indian markets, Britain acquired
territories and carved out concessions all over the world. Devised by Prime Minister Benjamin to
flatter an aging monarch, the new title of empress was really a calculated warning to Russia and
to France. Formal British rule in India began in 1861 with the appointment of a viceroy, assisted
by legislative and executive councils. Both the bodies included some Indian representatives.
British rule encountered the four main divisions of the highly stratified Hindu society. Rather
than disrupt the divisive cast system, the British found it to their advantage to maintain the status
quo. Britain's relationship with India originated in the 17th century, when the British East India
Company- a joint-stock venture free of government control- began limited trading in Indian
markets. Britain's relationship with India started in the 17th century, when the British East India
Company- a joint-stock venture free of governmental control- began limited trading in Indian
markets. The need for regulation and protection firmly established British rule by the end of the
18th century. Conquest of the Punjab in 1849 brought the last independent areas of India under
British control. Britain invested considerable overseas capital in India, and in turn India absorbed
1/5 of the total of British exports. The market for Indian cotton, for centuries exported to markets
in Asia and Europe, collapsed under British tariffs, and India became a ready market for cheap
Lancashire cotton. The British also exploited India's agricultural products, salts, and opium.
China: While Britain's thirst for Chinese tea grew, the Chinese demand for English and Indian
textiles slackened. However, British merchants and local Chinese officials, especially in the
entry port of Canton, began to expand their profitable involvement in a contraband trade in
opium. The British prospered as opium was pumped into China at rates faster than tea was
flowing out. Chinese buyers began paying for the drug with silver. Concerned and convinced that
the Chinese people were exchanging their precious metal for British poison, Chinese officials
destroyed British opium on the port of Canton (1839), starting the Opium War (1839-1842).
British expeditionary forces blockaded Chinese ports, besieged Canton, and occupied Shanghai.
Great Britain became the first Western nation to use force to impose its economic interests on
China. The Treaty of Nanking initiated a series of unequal treaties between Europeans and the
Chinese and set the pattern for exacting large indemnities. Defeat was expensive as China had to
pay costs to the winners. Britain, France, Germany, and Japan had managed to establish major
territorial advantages in their spheres of influences, sometimes through negotiation and
sometimes through force. In 1912, more than 50 major Chinese ports had been handed over to
foreign control as "treaty ports". Spheres of influence grew in importance at the beginning of the
20th century, when foreign investors poured capital into railway lines, which needed treaty
protection from competing companies. Railways necessarily furthered foreign encroachment and
opened up new territories to the claims of foreigners. Treaty ports were centers of foreign
residence and trade, where rules of extraterritoriality applied. That meant that foreigners were
exempt from Chinese law enforcement and that, though present on Chinese territory, they could
be judged only by officials of their own countries. The arrangements stirred Chinese resentment
and contributed considerably to growing anti-foreign sentiment. to preserve extraterritoriality
and maintain informal empires, the European powers appointed civilian representatives known as
consuls. They clearly embodied the commercial intentions of Western governments. Consuls
acted as brokers for commerce and interpreted the international commercial law being forged.
The rise of Western influence in China coincided with and benefited from Chinese domestic
problems, including dynastic decline, famine, and successive rebellions. The European powers
were willing to prop up the crumbling structure for their own ends, but the Boxer Rebellion of
1900 made clear to the Western powers their limited ability to control social unrest in China. The
Boxers, named because of the martial rites practiced by their secret society (The Harmonious
Fists), rose up against the foreign and Christian exploitation in north China. At the beginning of
the summer of 1900, the Boxers-with the concealed encouragement of the Chinese government-
killed Europeans and seized the foreign legations in Beijing. An international expeditionary force
of 16000 well-armed Japanese, Russian, British, American, German, French, Austrian, and
Italian troops entered in August to defend the treaty interests of their respective countries.
systematic plunder and slaughter followed. Beijing was sacked. Abandoning earlier discussions
of partitioning china, the international powers accepted the need for a central Chinese
government-even one that had betrayed their interests- that would police a populace plagued by
demographic pressures, famine, discrimination against minorities, excessive taxation, exorbitant
land rents, and social and economic dislocations created by foreign trade. In the previous year
(1899), the United Sates had asserted its claims in China in the Open Door policy. The policy
maintained Chinese sovereignty while establishing equal economic opportunity for foreign
competition in Chinese markets. Europeans and Americans wanted to send bankers to China, not
gunboats. And with these spheres of influence, Westerners protected their financial interests
without incurring the costs and responsibilities of direct rule.
Southeast Asia and Japan: European nations pursued imperialist endeavors elsewhere in Asia,
acquiring territories on China's frontiers and taking over states that had formerly paid tribute to
the Chinese Empire. The French creation of Indochina was the most complex. Composed of five
territories administered separately, only Cochinchina (south Vietnam) was a formal colony; the
other four regions were protectorates-Annam (central Vietnam), Tonkin (northern Vietnam),
Cambodia, and Laos. French power remained strongest in south Vietnam and weakest in the
center, where, as in the north, local government was under a combined French and Vietnamese
rule. The French approach to colonial rule combined hierarchical administration, economic
exploitation, and cultural elitism. They introduced plantation agriculture for coffee and tea;
together with rubber, the plantations were concentrated in the southern region of Indochina.
Because of its economic growth, Hanoi became the capital of the Indo-Chinese Union in 1902.
The French established their dominion in Laos at the expense of Siam (Thailand). The French
provoked a crisis over Laos with the Thai, who hoped for British backing. The British, however,
saw French control over Laos as a balance of power in the region. While the Mekong Delta in
the south continued to export raw materials and crops, political power became more concentrated
in the north in Hanoi. Thailand was the only country in southeast Asa to escape direct control by
the Western powers. Yet it was forced to yield half the territory it once controlled, and to accept
the treaty port system with its tariffs and extraterritoriality. Through government reforms, the
Thai attempted to meet the demands of facing foreign powers without forsaking their traditional
institutions of Buddhist monarchy and monkhood. In the Philippines, Spanish suppression of
nationalist sentiments led to increasingly bitter feelings in the 1870s and 1880s. Separate groups
of educated and poor people who opposed Spanish rule were unified by the Spanish execution of
elite leader Jose Rizal. His martyrdom inspired broadly based resistance. The United States took
control of the Philippines from the Spanish during the Spanish-American war over Cuba. Facing
continued Filipino resistance, the United States opposed Filipino nationalism with its new
colonial rule. American colonialism collaborated with a conservative landowning Filipino
oligarchy that controlled huge sugar plantations. The plantations impeded the development of a
more balanced agriculture that could feed the country's population. American colonial rule, like
colonial regimes elsewhere, fostered an acute Philippine economic dependency on the colonial
power. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 revealed Japan's intentions to compete as an
imperialist power in Asia. The modernized and westernized Japanese army easily defeated the
ill-equipped and poorly led Chinese forces. As a result, Japan gained the island of Taiwan.
Pressing its ambitions on the continent, Japan locked horns with Russia over claims to the
Liaotung peninsula, Korea, and South Manchuria. Following its victory in the Russo-Japanese
War of 1904-1905, Japan expanded into all of those areas, annexing Korea outright in 1910. The
war sent a strong message to the West about the ease with which the small Asian nation had
defeated the Russian giant and contributed to the heightening of anti-imperialist sentiments in
China.
The Imperialism of the United States: At the end of the 19th century, the Untied States,
possessing both the poeople and thes ources for rapid industrial development, turned to the
Caribbean and the Pacific islands in pursuit of markets and investment opportunities. By
acquiring stepping stones of islands across the Pacific Ocean in the Hawaiian Islands and Samoa,
it secured fueling bases and access to lucrative east Asian ports. And by intervening repeatedly in
Central America and building the Panama Canal, the United States had established its hegemony
in the Caribbean by 1914. Growing in economic power and hegemonic influence, both Japan and
the united States h ad joined the club of imperial powers and were making serious claims against
European expansion.