German colonial efforts on the Somali coast

Aluula (1885) Warsheikh Baraawe Hobyo Kismayo Buur Gaabo (1886 Hohenzollernhafen)

Claims of the German-East African Society extended on the Somali coast from Aluula to Buur Gaabo

German colonial efforts on the Somali coast were pursued from 1885 to 1890. With the aim of acquiring areas north of Wituland , representatives of the German-East African Society concluded friendship and protection treaties with local rulers in the coastal cities of Somalia in 1885 and 1886. In 1888 and 1890, respectively, the project, which overlapped with British and Italian claims, was abandoned.

Starting position and strategy

Cities of importance on the Somali coast were Mogadishu , Kismaayo , Warsheikh , Merka and Baraawe . They were primarily trading cities, as agriculture was hardly possible in the immediate vicinity due to the lack of cultivation areas. These port cities were under the rule of the Sultanate of Zanzibar . The Somali sultans in the hinterland tried to use the help of German colonialists for their resistance against Zanzibar, while the colonial power of Great Britain, which rivaled Germany, initially supported Zanzibar's expansionist efforts. The British protectorate established in 1884 over the northern Somali coast, in turn, worried the Majerteen sultans in what is now Puntland . The Africa researcher and later consul Gerhard Rohlfs recommended German acquisitions on the Somali coast from 1882 in order to establish trade relations inland.

German colonial agents tried on the one hand to urge Sultan Barghasch ibn Said of Zanzibar to lease or lease his Somali coastal places, and on the other hand to conclude trade agreements and alliances against Zanzibar with the Somali sultans in the hinterland of these coastal places. However, the Italians were also pursuing similar plans.

Northeast Somalia

See also : History of Somalia

Distribution of the clans in Somalia 1977. The majerteen include the three sub-clans Usman Muhammad / Osman Mahmud , Isa Muhammad and Omar Muhammad .

The treaties concluded by representatives of society with Somali rulers were intended to extend German East Africa so far that it would have stretched from the Rovuma River in the south along the entire East African coast to Cape Guardafui in the north. In February 1886 Carl Peters asked the government for a protectorate for the entire Somali coast.

Hörnecke expedition in the Majerteen Sultanate

In Aluula , near Cape Guardafui concluded an expedition group headed by the government builder Gustav HOERNECKE on September 6, 1885 a far-reaching friendship contract with the local Sultan Bogor Osman Mahmud Yusuf (1854-1927) from the communities that the Majerteen for communities family of Darod belong.

The contract, which is written in German and Arabic (not Somali), shows considerable differences between the two language versions. While the German text speaks of a protection treaty with the German Empire and land cessions to the German-East African Society, the Arabic text only mentions a treaty on friendship and support for society in the exploration and utilization of the hinterland.

Sultan Osman's area affected by the treaty was to extend westward from the Cape to Bender Ziada , about 400 kilometers east of Berbera , and south to Cape Ras Assuad (near Hobyo, in the Mudug region ). (The German and Arabic texts differed considerably on this issue. According to the German version, the treaty area extended to the gates of Berbera, which was already British). Inland, the contract area should cover 20 day journeys (around 600 kilometers deep and thus into Ogaden ).

Expedition of others in the Sultanate of Hobyo

While Hörnecke returned to Berlin after signing the contract via Aden and Trieste and two DOAG employees tried in vain to set up the contractually agreed branch in Aluula, Hörnecke's adjutant, Lieutenant Claus von Anderten, had received the order to expand the contract area to the south.

With Osman's father-in-law (or cousin?), Sultan Yusuf Ali Keenadiid von Hobyo (1845–1911), Anderten concluded a similar contract on November 26, 1885, the German and Arabic versions of which differed significantly. According to this union agreement, the sultan placed the coastal area of ​​the Abgal clan, belonging to the Hawiye tribe, south of Hobyo up to the gates of Warsheikh , i.e. H. to about 80 kilometers north of Mogadishu , the society. Inland this time, a depth of 25 days was planned to the borders of the Galla (Oromo) area (about 750 kilometers and thus deep again into Ogaden ).

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  Karl Ludwig Jühlke

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  Somali in German East Africa (Brockhaus illustration from 1887)

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  Joachim von Pfeil

Southwest Somalia

In the south-west of Somalia and on the southern Benadir coast , too , the company's representatives concluded contracts with different wording. The clause that in case of doubt only the German text should be valid is not included in the Arabic text.

Jühlke expedition in Kismaayo

In the summer of 1886, the company sent Karl Ludwig Jühlke to the south of the Benadir coast in order to acquire land up to the northern border of Witus. The area up to the Juba estuary was under the suzerainty of Zanzibar, but this was not recognized in the German-British agreement of 1886 except for Kismayu, which is why Jühlke saw himself entitled to negotiate concessions with Somali tribal princes in this region . On behalf of DOAG , he took possession of Port Durnford, which was regarded as an abandoned area, and renamed it Hohenzollernhafen. Jühlke also passed over the Zanzibari rulers in Kismaayo and negotiated there with Ali ibn Ismail Karim, a sheikh of a Somali tribe at the Juba estuary who was hostile to the Zanzibari rulers, and stylized him as a Somali sultan and a legitimate ruler and negotiating partner . On November 26, 1886, both signed a contract, according to which Kismayo would no longer be under Zanzibari rule and should be leased to the company. Ali had already sold the area from Kismaayo to Witu to Gustav Denhardt by contract dated July 31, 1885 . Shortly after the contract was signed, Jühlke was killed by a Somali on December 1, 1886 in Kismayoo.

Reactions

The German consuls in Zanzibar, Rohlfs and Travers , had already advised that Denhardt's application for protection be accepted quickly in order to forestall Italy. Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was not inclined to support the request without the existence of concrete commercial interests and warned against what he called a "colonial jingo ". In August 1886, Bismarck informed the Italian government about the application for protection without accepting it.

More expeditions

A follow-up expedition under Joachim Graf von Pfeil to Hohenzollerhafen was largely unsuccessful.

Parallel to the station in the southwest, at least one commercial agency was established in northeastern Aluula under the direction of the previous German consul in Aden; in May 1887, Mohamad Said ibn Samantar (?), A relative of Sultan Osman, was appointed as the representative of the company. The German government architect Kurt Hoffmann tried in March 1890 in Aluula to renew the contracts negotiated by Hörnecke with Osman, which he failed under the influence of Great Britain and Italy, which had meanwhile become ruling.

On October 1, 1886, the imperial gunboat SMS Hyäne appeared at Hobyo to explore the Somali coast. The reports of the Navy, to which SMS Möwe also contributed, confirmed the unclear questions of rule and lack of trade interests: The sheikhs of Aluula and Hobyo declined invitations to talks and board visits.

Criticism and end of the project

Brockhaus 1887: Somali coast labeled as property of German East Africa. Society

Colonial map from 1890 with partly unconfirmed borders: The Somali coast (Somal) is marked in yellow as German possession far inland (except for Zanzibari coastal towns)

Taken together, the DOAG had acquired claims to an area that would have included all of Puntland including all of Mudug and Sanaag in the northeast and all of Jubaland or the initially British, later Italian Oltre Giuba, i.e. almost all of what would later become Italian Somaliland . In 1887 Brockhaus' Conversations-Lexikon labeled the entire area between Aluula and Warsheikh as property of the German East African Society on his overview map of Africa , but without drawing it in the same color as German East Africa or the other German properties and protected areas . In the 1887 edition of Andree's General Handatlas , the entire coast from the first acquisitions in German East Africa to Cape Guardafui is color-coded as German possession (regardless of British claims in Kenya).

The German Somaliland was not a colony of its own, but an extension of German East Africa or Wituland. Unlike in East Africa, however, the sovereignty acquired by society, similar to protective agreements between other colonial powers and local rulers, was indirect or restricted. Society had a free hand in matters of trade policy and colonization, and the use of land and resources; the sultans were given a certain share of the profits. The administration was to be carried out jointly with the sultans , of course under German "supervision" and represented by the Reich in terms of foreign and defense policy.

In Germany, however, even colonial advocates expressed doubts about the legal value of the various contracts and the feasibility of the claims. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, in turn, only recognized the claims insofar as they formed diplomatic pressure on other issues, because they concerned areas on which Great Britain and Italy had also raised claims or had their eyes cast. At the same time, however, Bismarck sought to win these two powers as partners for the isolation of France. When the British government signaled concessions regarding German interests in East Africa in 1886, Bismarck immediately dropped the claims.

The German Kaiser had signed letters of protection for the two Somali coastal areas. However, Bismarck demanded it back in 1888, when Germany and Great Britain had reached an agreement on the division of Zanzibar (1886) and the Triple Alliance partner Italy began to establish itself on the Somali coast. Yusuf had signed protectorate treaties with the Italians in December 1888 and Osman in April 1889. The proclamation of a German Benadir protectorate that was being considered for October 1889 did not take place. Bismarck informed Italy that, in his opinion, there were no interests in the whole of Northeast Africa whose importance could be measured against the value of the German-Italian relationship. Finally, in the Helgoland-Zanzibar Treaty of July 1890 , Germany formally gave up all claims to Wituland, Hohenzollernhafen and north of it against Great Britain. Zanzibar became a British protectorate and leased its Somali coastal sites to Italy in 1892 instead of Germany.

consequences

The German colonial movement brought the attempted acquisition of the Somali coast in connection with the personality cult around Carl Peters. This allegedly succeeded in acquiring a closed colonial empire from the Somali Peninsula to Mozambique .

epilogue

Gaps in the British-Italian agreement of May 5, 1894 on the division of Somaliland once again raised hopes for German colonial advocates. Despite their legal shortcomings, the DOAG's contracts seemed to enable the German Reich to intervene. The lack of German stage points on the sea route to East Africa and New Guinea was cited as a motif. Aluula in particular was considered a suitable stopover. The intervention did not take place, however, and instead the imperial navy had a coal station built on the Farasan Islands at the southern end of the Red Sea around 1900 and examined the plan to acquire these islands from the Ottoman Empire . This project, too, was finally abandoned in 1902 because the coal depot remained unused and the Ottoman Empire refused to transfer it.

See also

• German colonial efforts in Southeast Africa
• German Support Association Somalia (1993–1995)
• Sagallo (Russian colonization attempt in northern Somaliland)

Web links

• How East Africa became German
• Map of East Africa from the 1880s by CL Keller (The Somali coast is marked as a contract area of ​​the DOAG "over which German sovereignty has not yet been declared, but is not excluded by the London Agreement." The places Kismaju , Barawa , Merka , Makdischu and Warschekh are marked as Zanzibari. Hohenzollernhafen (Port Dunford) and Halule are marked as stations of the DOAG.)

literature

• Jutta Bückendorf: “Black-white-red over East Africa!” - German colonial plans and African reality. Munster 1997.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Andreas Birken: The Sultanate of Zanzibar in the 19th century. Stuttgart 1971, p. 155.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Rolf Herzog : Reaction of some Somali tribes to early colonial efforts. 1975/77 (PDF; 997 kB)
3. ^ ^{A b c} Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Bismarck and Imperialism . 4th edition, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-423-04187-0 , p. 370 ff.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Photo montage “Dr. Carl Peters acquired a huge colonial empire in East Africa ” , picture collection of the German Colonial Society in the University Library in Frankfurt am Main.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Norbert B. Wagner: Archive of German Colonial Law (PDF; 2 MB). Brühl / Wesseling 2008, pp. 366-370.
6. ^ Fritz Ferdinand Müller: Germany - Zanzibar - East Africa . P. 336.
7. ^ Fritz Ferdinand Müller: Germany - Zanzibar - East Africa . P. 349.
8. ↑ Conrad Weidmann : German men in Africa - Lexicon of the most outstanding German Africa researchers, missionaries, etc. Bernhard Nöhring, Lübeck 1894, p. 58 f. ( Online version ).
9. ↑ Willi A. Boelcke: This is how the sea came to us - The Prussian-German Navy in Übersee 1822 to 1914. Ullstein, Frankfurt a. M. / Berlin / Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-550-07951-6 , p. 201.
10. ^ Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon, Supplement, 13th edition. Leipzig 1887, p. 10ff.
11. ↑ Andrees General Handbook, 2nd edition. Bielefeld / Leipzig 1887, p. 102f., Overview map of Africa ( photographed Africa map ).
12. ^ Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon, Supplement, 13th edition. Leipzig 1887, p. 673.
13. ↑ Chr. Von Bornhaupt: The German efforts on the Somali coast and the Anglo-Italian agreement of May 5, 1894. In: Gustav Meinecke (Ed.): Colonial Yearbook 1895. Berlin 1896, pp. 161–171 ( online ) .
14. ↑ Willi A. Boelcke: This is how the sea came to us. Ullstein, Frankfurt a. M. / Berlin / Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-550-07951-6 , pp. 207, 225ff.