18 
EUROPE AND AFRICA 
a great African state, or she will be in a century or two but 
a second-rate power.” Russia undertook a remarkable 
colonial expansion in Central Asia to secure control of the 
trade and the trade routes there. Japan fought a great war 
to insure the fulfillment of her economic destiny in Korea 
and on the Chinese mainland. And in Germany, where 
Bismarck had successfully introduced a policy of protec- 
tion, because “under free trade we were gradually bleeding 
to death,” colonization was determined upon definitely in 
1884, as necessary to insure the economic independence and 
future of the Empire. 
The African possessions of European states in 1870 were 
neither extensive nor particularly valuable. For the most 
part they were confined to seaport towns and the adjacent 
territory, which were being used as ports of call and trading 
centers, rather than as bases for colonial expansion. There 
had been no attempt to mark definitely the boundaries of 
any of these colonies or to stake out special claims. The 
different nations had merely built forts and trading factories 
at certain favorable points and permitted their influence 
to extend gradually into the interior without any definite 
purpose or plan of expansion. An exception was made in 
Algeria and Cape Colony; but, before 1870, none of the 
European powers had seriously considered the founding of 
great colonial states in Africa. 
The French possessed a strong hold on Algeria at the 
north and had established along the west side three small 
colonies, on the Senegal River, at Mellicouri, and on the 
Ivory Coast. In addition they had begun explorations on 
the Gaboon River and started a settlement at Obock on the 
East Coast. The British controlled a struggling colony at 
the Cape of Good Hope, had secured substantial holdings 
and openings for trade at Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold 
Coast, and Lagos on the west side, and had pushed up the