Imperialism, 1850 to 1914

This is Unit Thirteen of Western Civilization Two, part one of two: imperialism from eighteen fifty to nineteen fourteen, the exam's tenth band. Unit twelve ended with confidence and fear, and sent the confidence overseas. This unit is where it went, and its governing idea, which part two pays off, is the anchor's accident with three parts: a monopoly on industrial technology, medicine that let Europeans survive the tropics, and an ideology of race that called conquest a duty. Beneath the three ran the rivalry unit eleven left, with no Concert to restrain it. Part one follows the tools and the motive into India and China, then into Africa, from the Scramble through Berlin to the Congo's severed hands and the Herero's desert, and asks whether any of it paid. Part two takes the empires hollowed rather than conquered, the two states that escaped, and the methods. By the end you will be able to state the three causes and the tools. To describe the economic push. To describe British India and the Opium War. To describe the Scramble and its crimes. And to say whether empire paid.

Four entries on why and how: three unprecedented things at once, the civilizing mission and a king's obsession, the telegraph and quinine, and the guns.

A perfect storm of three.

WC2 1201 The New Imperialism: Eighty Percent of the Globe, and a Perfect Storm

Before nineteen fourteen European powers controlled over eighty percent of the globe, the anchor says. Three unprecedented things made it possible at once: a monopoly on industrial technology, medicine that let Europeans survive the tropics, and an ideology of race that called conquest a duty. A perfect storm, in the anchor's phrase, and the percentages are the anchor's.

A mission stated, a rivalry meant.

WC2 1202 The Civilizing Mission and Leopold's Obsession

The stated justification was the civilizing mission: Christianity and Western civilization for so-called benighted regions. The tangible motive was great-power rivalry after the Congress System died. Leopold the Second of Belgium wanted a Congo colony for status and profit, and his International African Association promised to civilize and aid. The witness says his statements were lies; the Congo's record comes later in this lecture.

Two years to two days.

WC2 1203 Telegraphs and Quinine: Distance and Disease Conquered

A message from England to India and its reply had taken up to two years; the telegraph made it two days, the anchor says. Africa's interior had been the white man's graveyard, malaria killing within a year. From eighteen forty-one daily quinine prevented it, and steamboats then ran up rivers no sail could. The two-years figure is anchor-only.

They have not.

WC2 1204 Gunboats, Breech-Loaders, and the Maxim Gun

Gunboats and gunboat diplomacy opened harbors. Breech-loading rifles of the eighteen sixties were accurate to almost half a mile. The Maxim gun of the eighties, the first automatic machine gun, fired eleven bullets a second, the witness says. Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun, and they have not. The anchor says first machine gun; the Gatling came first.

One entry on the economic push: the raw materials the second industrial revolution wanted, and the fear of an America that had overtaken Europe.

Territory as a counterweight.

WC2 1205 Raw Materials, Mines, and the Fear of America

The second industrial revolution wanted rubber, ores and cotton from outside Europe's older holdings, Canadian nickel, Chilean nitrates, Malaysian tin, and business pressed governments to seize them; Persian oil followed in nineteen-oh-eight. Behind that ran fear: the United States overtook Europe in manufacturing from about eighteen seventy, and territory looked like a counterweight. The anchor calls the fear sometimes hysterical.

Four entries on Britain in Asia: a quarter of the globe and the Company's opium, the war the opium caused, the Sepoy Rebellion, and the Raj with its glass ceiling.

The largest drug cartel in history, the anchor says.

WC2 1206 The Sun Never Set: A Quarter of the Globe, the Company's India, and Opium

Britain held a quarter of the globe after nineteen eighteen, the anchor says: a hundred thousand officials over three hundred million Indians. To eighteen fifty-seven the East India Company governed, all the subcontinent by eighteen forty. Its opium went to China, forty percent of India's exports: the largest drug cartel in world history, in the anchor's phrase. Figures and characterization are the anchor's.

The century of humiliation begins.

WC2 1207 The Opium War: The Nemesis, Hong Kong, the Treaty Ports

When Chinese officials stopped the opium, Britain went to war in eighteen forty. The gunboat Nemesis routed Chinese forces. The Treaty of Nanjing in forty-two ceded Hong Kong and opened five ports; other Europeans followed, and a second war followed from fifty-six. The century of humiliation, China calls it. The Nemesis is anchor-only.

Rumor was enough.

WC2 1208 The Sepoy Rebellion of 1857

In eighteen fifty-seven sepoys received cartridges rumored greased with pig and cow fat; no evidence, but rumor was enough, with aggressive missionaries behind it. Anti-British violence became a civil war. Rebels killed British families; the British massacred villages. Loyal sepoys and British troops restored order. The Mutiny to the British, the Sepoy Rebellion to historians; the witness gives both names.

Exams open, promotion shut.

WC2 1209 The Raj: Direct Rule, Exams, and a Glass Ceiling

The Company was disbanded and London ruled directly, the Raj, with Victoria as Empress of India. Civil service exams opened to anyone, and Satyendranath Tagore passed first in sixty-three, the anchor says, but white officials refused Indian superiors. Resentful educated elites became the first nationalists, founding the Indian National Congress in eighteen eighty-five. Tagore is anchor-only; the Congress is on the witness.

Five entries on Africa: coasts in eighteen fifty and the Scramble, a conference with no Africans present, Leopold's Congo, the Herero and Nama, and the British from Suez to the Boer camps.

Ten percent to ninety.

WC2 1210 Africa in 1850, and the Scramble: Ten Percent to Ninety

In eighteen fifty Europe held only coasts: French Algeria, British and Boer South Africa. Then, the anchor says, European control went from ten percent of Africa in seventy-six to about ninety by nineteen hundred. Profit, raw materials, rivalry and the civilizing mission peaked: the Scramble for Africa, and imperialism an everyday word by the eighties. The percentages are the anchor's.

A collective land grab.

WC2 1211 The Berlin Conference, 1884: No Africans Present

Bismarck called the powers to Berlin in eighteen eighty-four to settle the Congo. European states, the United States and the Ottomans divided Africa into spheres. No Africans were present. The impetus, the anchor says, was tension between the powers more than profit, which was still theoretical: a collective land grab, in its phrase. The witness dates the conference eighty-four to eighty-five.

Hands cut off for rubber.

WC2 1212 Leopold's Congo Free State: Rubber, Hostages, Hands, and 1908

The conference made the Congo Free State Leopold's personal fiefdom. Companies leased it and enforced rubber quotas by raids, floggings, hostage-taking of women and children, and mutilation; the severed hands were photographed. The population halved in twenty-five years, the anchor says. Exposure by journalists and Conrad forced Belgium's parliament to take it in nineteen-oh-eight. The halving is the anchor's figure.

The first, but not the last.

WC2 1213 The Herero and Nama, 1904 to 1905

In German Southwest Africa the Herero and Nama rose in nineteen-oh-four. The German army drove them into the desert and built concentration camps. Over two-thirds died, the anchor says; the witness counts over a hundred thousand. Historians widely term it the century's first genocide, as the anchor frames it: the first, but not the last, in its words.

Cape to Cairo, and the camps.

WC2 1214 Fashoda, Rhodes, the Boer War, Suez, and Egypt

The Suez Canal opened in eighteen sixty-nine; Britain bought Egypt's shares in seventy-five and occupied Egypt in eighty-two. Rhodes pushed north into Rhodesia, dreaming of a Cape-to-Cairo railway. At Fashoda in ninety-eight France backed down. The Boer War, ninety-nine to nineteen-oh-two, ended with British camps where nearly thirty thousand Boers died. Witness-built; the anchor names none of these.

Two entries on the balance sheet: what colonies did to economies and borders, and whether any of it paid.

Plunder economies, borders drawn.

WC2 1215 Plunder Economies, and Borders Drawn

The anchor's term is plunder economies: land expropriated, raw materials shipped out, labor exploited from slavery to subsistence wages, Java's Dutch quotas a semi-slavery in its phrase. Borders split and lumped peoples, and favored groups such as the Tutsi over the Hutu carried the division past independence. Plunder economies is the anchor's characterization.

Prestige paid; the colonies mostly did not.

WC2 1216 Did Empire Pay? Bankrupt Companies and Banquets

Only specific ventures in specific places paid. Companies went bankrupt and governments took them over at rising cost. The French edifice, the anchor says, never profited except in catering for banquets in Paris. The real impetus was jockeying for position among the powers, not the balance sheet. The anchor's judgment; Hobson's answer waits for part two.

Look at what you can now do. You can state the anchor's three causes, monopoly, medicine and ideology, the mission that covered rivalry, the telegraph and quinine, and the Maxim gun. You can describe the raw materials wanted and the fear of America. You can describe the Company's opium, the Nemesis and Hong Kong, the Sepoy Rebellion, and a Raj with exams open and promotion shut. You can describe the Scramble from ten percent to ninety, Berlin with no Africans present, the Congo's hands, the Herero's desert, and the British from Suez to the Boer camps. And you can say that plunder economies enriched few and that prestige, not profit, paid. Part two takes the Ottomans and Persia hollowed rather than conquered, Ethiopia and Japan escaping, Kipling read against Hobson, and the capstone.