Niger-Benue-Lake Chad expedition
The German Niger-Benue-Chad expedition , then Niger - Benue - Tsadsee expedition called, was carried out in the appropriate space from 1902 to 1903.
prehistory
With the acquisition of the colony of Cameroon by the German Reich in 1884, a huge area in West Africa came under German rule on paper , but in fact only the coastal strip was accessible to the German economy, as the traffic-related conditions were solely due to the 200 –300 km deep jungle belt with many swamps and watercourses soon behind the coast made an economic development of the hinterland of Cameroon almost impossible. Only caravans of local traders connected the north with the coast of Cameroon. So they looked for other ways to get into the hinterland of the colony. One idea was to use the large Niger River, which flows through Nigeria to the west of Cameroon , and to reach northern Cameroon via its largest tributary, the Benue, and to open shipping there via the rivers. However, in order to explore this traffic-technical possibility and the economic possibilities in the area of North Cameroon, an expedition to the area in question was necessary.
In 1898 Ernst Vohsen requested that the board of directors of the German Colonial Society approve a grant of 25,000 marks for a Niger-Benue-Tschadsee expedition , which should be made available to a committee to be set up to send a trade expedition into the hinterland of Cameroon .
At this point in time, however, in 1898, the north of Cameroon was not yet under German rule. It was not until the battle of Miskin-Maroua in January 1902 that it was finally possible to achieve military suzerainty and to consolidate German rule. The residences Adamaua and German Tschadseeländer were established in northern Cameroon. But the first head of the provisional administration, Lieutenant Joseph Graf Fugger von Glött , was murdered by a local in February 1903.
history
Participants and start of the trip
The report DIE DEUTSCHE NIGER-BENUE-TSADSEE-EXPEDITION 1902-1903 , published in Berlin in 1904 , written by the expedition leader, the businessman Fritz Bauer, reads about the beginning of the expedition and its participants:
The journey on the Niger-Benue. On August 8, 1902 at 1:30 a.m., the small steamer "Swale", owned by the Liverpool company John Holt & Comp. proper, anchor in Brass on the Niger estuary and steamed into Akassa Creek. On board was the German Niger-Benue-Tsadsee expedition, consisting of the reporter, as leader [Fritz Bauer, leader of the expedition], the qualified mountain engineer Walter Edlinger, as mineralogist, and the businessman Wilhelm von Waldow, as assistant . Herr von Waldow, like myself, had been on the African west coast since the beginning of March; During these months we had carried out commercial and economic studies in the lower and central Niger.
The stay in the coastal stretches of West Africa is undoubtedly not one of the most pleasant experiences, and since it had now come to an end and we were finally on our way to the deeper interior, the atmosphere on board was the most lively. In addition, Mr. Edlinger, who had just joined us and brought us the latest news and greetings from our clients, the German Niger - Benue - Tsadsee Committee, had a fresh sense of humor that was not yet under the depressing influence who had suffered from African malaria, told of the last days of his stay in Berlin.
Results
The foreword of the report DIE DEUTSCHE NlGER-BENUE-TSADSEE-EXPEDITION 1902–1903 states the results of the expedition:
FOREWORD.
The German Niger-Benue-Tsadsee Committee hereby presents the report of the leader of the expedition to the German Niger-Benue-Tsadsee areas to the public.
For a long number of years the colonial society has been striving to remove the areas in the Cameroon hinterland that came into German possession through the German-English Agreement of November 15, 1893 and the Franco-German Agreement of March 15, 1899, to make it usable for our trade and our industry. The efforts only took shape in 1899, when the funds for an expedition to investigate the economic conditions on the Niger and Benue, as well as the Benue and Tsadsee areas falling within the German sphere of interest, could be made liquid.
The results can be briefly summarized as follows:
1. The expedition has through touring the Niger-Benues and the German Tsadsee areas , through detailed studies of the natural products of the country, the existing trade relations, such as the needs of the natives and their production, through the establishment of collections of native fabrics, samples, weapons , Jewelry, pearls to assess their taste, the documents created on which a commercial activity in these areas can be.
2. It has provided exhaustive information on the water conditions and navigability of the Niger-Benue at the various times of the year and has determined the types of ships that are most suitable for navigation.
3. It has examined the countries south of the Benue both geographically and in terms of mining, and has provided completely new information for the topography of the northeastern, previously unknown part of our colony and mapped it.
4. As far as agriculture is concerned, it has found out that the areas visited are suitable for tobacco and cotton growing due to their soil, their climate and their intelligent, dense population, and that the latter are more suitable than any other of our colonial areas to become of the utmost importance for our domestic industry.
5. It has established that the obligations which the Niger Shipping Act, which forms part of the international Congo Act, imposes on the riparian states for international shipping are loyally fulfilled by the British Government.
6. In particular, it has contributed to the fact that the transit regulations, which regulate the question of the free movement of goods between the sea and the German Benue-Tsadsee area, are regulated in an ordinance that corresponds to the agreements made between the German Empire and England and therefore in have been done in a sense favorable to our interests.
7. By negotiating with the local British government organs, she has agreed the terms and conditions for a land acquisition for the establishment of a customs, trading and shipping station in Warri, at a point accessible to larger sea-going vessels, and everything for them by means of agreements with the chief of Garua Preparation of a German trading post there.
Complemented by a liberal legislation of the British administration with regard to the establishment of customs warehouses and the acquisition of water plots for the construction of factories and combustion stations on the river banks, the Niger Benue appears today actually free for shipping and trade, and is therefore free As from the points above, the proof of the existence of the preconditions for the successful start of a German economic activity in our Benue-Tsadsee areas is to be regarded as provided. It is now up to the German entrepreneurship to make use of the results of the expedition.
Berlin 1904.
The chairman of the German Niger-Benue-Tsadsee Committee
Ernst Vohsen
End of the expedition
In July 1903 the expedition reached its starting point and returned to Germany. The leader of the expedition, Fritz Bauer, wrote about his own end of the expedition: “Discussions with the English authorities in Lokoja and Old Calabar held me back for two months on the coast, where I got from one place to another by means of the steamers that regularly sail here. At the beginning of October [1903] I finished the rest of the business and was able to start my journey home to Europe. "
Result of the expedition
The ultimate goal of the expedition, the economic development of North Cameroon by the German economy, was not achieved by the expedition. At that time, at the beginning of the 20th century, the German economy was not yet interested in the colonies. When interest grew years later, plantation management for tropical goods such as palm oil , rubber , coffee , cocoa and bananas was promising, plants that thrive and were successfully cultivated in southern Cameroon. These economically usable plants do not thrive in the north of the country.
See also
literature
- Fritz Bauer : The German Niger-Benue-Tsadsee Expedition 1902–1903. Reimer, Berlin 1904. ( Digitized in the Internet Archive)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Koloniale Rundschau , year 1919, pages 99–100