CHAPTER IV 
GERMAN COLONIZATION IN SOUTHWEST AFRICA 
THE interest of European powers in the colonization of 
Africa was aroused, next to the founding of the Independ- 
ent State of the Congo, by the entrance of Germany into 
Southwest Africa. Great Britain was engaged, at the time 
the International Association of the Congo was formed, in 
taking over the administration of Egypt for financial and 
philanthropic reasons. She was accordingly hardly in a 
position either to participate in, or to oppose successfully, 
other enterprises. ‘““Your father might have upset our 
apple-cart in Egypt, if he had liked,” said a member of the 
British Cabinet once to Herbert Bismarck. “And we ought 
to have been grateful.” Yet Germany was ready and anx- 
ious for colonial expansion; and the Chancellor knew it. 
But he was conservative, and unwilling either to take any 
step until the time was propitious or to assume greater re- 
sponsibilities than his country could bear at the moment. 
Although under strong pressure after 1878 to enter the 
field of colonial politics, Prince Bismarck successfully post- 
poned action until after he had firmly secured the position 
of the new German Empire in Europe, through the adop- 
tion of a sane tariff program and the creation of the Triple 
Alliance of Austria, Italy, and Germany, in 1882. 
Since 1842 the Gesellschaft der Rheinischen Missionen 
had been at work in Great Namaqualand and Hereroland 
in Southwest Africa, and had acquired twelve mission sta- 
tions and considerable property there. In 1863 civil war 
broke out between the Hereros and the Hottentots, in the 
course of which several of the missions were attacked and