THE GERMAN RAILWAYS IN AFRICA

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2600, 23 October 1915, Page 12

THE GERMAN RAILWAYS IN AFRICA

AGGRESSIVE LINES THE MENACE IN SOUTH AFRICA (From the "Morning Post,") . In no respect in the present era in Africa- more remarkable than with re* card to the enormous progess that has beeu made during the past decade m railway construction. In future ages tho first years of tho Twentieth Century will bo looked upon as the opening period of that Testloss and irresistible development of the economic resources of Africa which had long been prophesied by the more far-sighted of African pioneers. Eaihvay enterprises in tlie Dark Continent has been duo to three predominating causes—political, strategical, and economic—winch have interacted upon each other until, previous to : -the' outbreak of the present war. it' seemed j>robaljlc that withm a few years the whole of. t-lic continent .would be .traversed by mam' lines of "communication running: from Jiortli to South and from East to 11l tills work of exploitation four nations have been keen rivals—Britain, Germany, and Belcium—ruid it is tho "purpose of tins. article i to show how erreat a work has heen performed by Germany in the raibvay development of her Afncan colonies and to point out tho benefits which other nations may he expected to reap from this lavish expenditure of -German gold.

As Germany ivas a later-comer upon tho field of colonialism, so she was slow to appreciate tlio. enormous importance of, railway development- in Iter African possessions. Geat Britain, the pioneer in African railway construction, had lqiiK.Eho-.nl the way before the German authorities wero prepared to initiate, a .similar policy in their own colonics. T'uo realisation of a port-ion at least of the Meit-ls of that creat Imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, and tlj£ construction of the Psancla Railway proved an incentive to the slower moving Teuton, who when ho at length reolised that in a continent without roads, railways were destined to -be the supreme factors in economic success, entered with feverish anxiety upon the railway scramble, and in half a dozen years made amends for a quarter of a century of economic stagnation.

■ With the passing of Hie German Colonial Empire an invaluable economic tool -will be placed in the hands of those nations fortunate ehoughto secure control of the enormous territories hitherto administered Germany. The potential wealth of the German colonies in Africa has as yet hardly been realised, nor has the enormous value of the excellent railway system already working within the bounds of German Africa been fully understood.' The construction of these railways ha"! cost the Fatherland many million pounds a' hard-earned Germany money, for wliidh up to the present no adequate return has been received, hut which, it was anticipated, would yield a rich Toward for the investor. Great Britain and France seem likely to reap .this economic harvest. '■.y:- Lines of. Expansion. In the , construction, of her African railways Germany, owing to .the peculiar situation of her colonies, has been forced to pursue an expensive policy, unlike Great Britain, she was unable to follow any broad and natural avenues of trade in the building', of her railway systems. Although the ideal of a railway, connecting her three great colonies oil the West and East African coasts was doubtless present in the minds of German statesmen, who looked forward to the ultimate absorption of the': Belgian Congo and' Angola in" the German Colonial Empire, the railways that were actually constructed were designed in the main to serve the immediate needs of the respective German territories. They would, it was true, fit in with the greater schemes of the Teutonic expansionists, but their main object was nevertheless to enable Germans to utiiis'o the vast resources of their own colonies without reference to other needs. Only to a. secondary degree, with oi>9 notable exception, were the-lines designed to fulfil any strategic purpose. The 'German colonies in Africa, forming four compact but widely , separated territories, could not offer the same scop 9 for a great railway system, such, for instance, as was possible in British South Africa or in the closely-connected French- territories of North and West Africa. '■ German railway enterprise,'-therefore, had to _ ho confined in the main to 'the immediate needs of compact wedges of "territory, and'each system was itself peculiar to a, specific colony, presenting different industrial, commercial, and geographical problems. •' It is not fl'Ressary to describe these problems in detail. Without taking account of the smaller colony of Togoland, it may be said that eacli of the three larger territories in AVost and East Africa offered a well-defined and widely differing problem for the solution of the colonial administrator. In tho Kamerun Colony, an enormous wedge of tropical territory almost as largo as Germany and Hungary combined, railway enterprise has lagged behind tho other portions of German Africa-; largely because the commercial future of the railways, was rendered uncertain owing to the fact that much of tho external commerce found its way by well-defined natural avenues, either along tho River Beuue into British Nigeria, or down, the TJbangi and its tributaries into the Belgian Congo. It was by no means certain that the construction of railways would divert this.traffic towards tho western littoral, and in any case, previous to the territorial coup of 1911, when Germany filched nearly 100,000 square miles of territory from France, tlioro was no hurry to waste money upon costly economic experiments, particularly because railway construction throngli large portions of the colony was rondered difficult owing to the presence of ranges of mountains and intervening river valleys. Until Germany was-successful in pushing her territory to the great waterways it seemed better to pursue a cautious railway policy. Good money could not be thrown away upon a country still awaiting the preliminary work of exploitation. Nevertheless, as will lie seen, considerable progress had been made in railway construction.

In the South-West African colony, on the contrary, the whole future depended upon the vigorous prosecution of an aetivo railway policy. Not only did this -jreat expanse of territory, half as largo again as" tho German Empire, possess no internal waterways or natural avenues of traffic, but. it was shut off from tho sea on the west by a sterile coastal belt ranging in width from forty to sixty miles, and from the rest of Africa on tho east by tho inhospitablo Kalahari Desert, aiid on the south by the loss fertile districts of Capo Colony. In order, therefore, that its assigned destiny as a colony for the settlement of a thriving \vhito population '--boukl be achieved, it was essential that the country should be opened out by .the construction of main avenues of traffic. For this' purposo' the two'poi'ts of Swaliopmumi and Luderilzbucht- were connected with an internal railway running from north to south and forming the chief commercial artery of the colony. In German East Africa yet other problems were open for solution, and here it is that the- Germans seemed likely to achieve their greatest success. On the western sido of tho colony was a great- natural highway—in some respects the most wonderful highway oP tho world— stretching from north to.

south, consisting of the four great lakes of Nyasa, Tanganyika, Kivii, and Victoria Nynnzn, all of which were bordered by Herman territory, and extending northwards to Ijakes Kdward and Albert Kyanza. 'It was obvious, therefore, that it would be to the interests of Germany to reach. various points upon this groat highway in order to bring the products of the interior, arid if possible also the tropical riches of tho Congo -regions, to her natural landlocked harbours on tho eastern coast. This-ambition had been realised six months previously to the opening of the war. _ .

South Africa's Cain. 7n considering tho development of the German railway system it will bo well to commcnco at tho oldest or the German colonies — Africa. The addition of this territory -to our Empire will bo a distinct economic gain to British South Africa. _ _ln tenus of money it means tho obtaining of a railway system upon winch at least £s,Goil,ooo—a- not unappreciablo sum —has already been spent. in terms of commerce it denotes the unlc-ing-up of the Union railways with a well-developed system and renders possiblo the const-ruction of other important feeders across undeveloped territories which have hitherto been shut off from direct access to the sea. There are four different railways in South-West- Africa, forming portions of 0110 system. The first railway was that commenced in 1897 across the desert littoral from Swakopmuild to KariEib, and finally completed as far as tho capital at- Windhuk in tho year in 1911. The first portion of tills railway was built oil a narrow gauge, Sai in the year 1909 an arrangement was concluded with tho ■ South-West Africa Company, tho owners of the mines at Otavi, who had constructed a line from Swakopmund to Otavi, whereby tho portion of the original Swakop-immd-Tviiidhuk Railway between that port and Karibib was practically discontinued and a connection was made Between the two railways at Karibib, a distance of thirteen miles, so that all Crafßc to tho capital now passes over the Otavi lino. This arrangement enabled the Government to continuo their railway to" Yv'indhuk on the 3ft. _ bin. gauge, and to complete tho railway system on the same standard. The sccond railway, that from Swakopraund to the rich copper mines at Otavi and Tsumeb, in the north-oast of tho colony, a distance of 356 -miles, -with a branch from Otavi to Gwotfontein, 56 miles, was constructed in the years 1903-6, at a cost- of about one million pounds. Tile third railway, from Windhuk to unliko the others, was primarily intended to serve tho military needs of the colony, and, secondly, to enable the Germans to strike swiftly in the direction of Cape Colony whenever the occasion should arise.

A Scheme of Aggression, This fact became sufficiently apparent when the railway was continued towards tie Cape frontier. ' Although Prince Billow,, in the Roichstag, in December, 1905, stated that the idea that "this railway can be employed not only for transport from the cpast to the_ interior, but that our troops can be easily transported by it from the interior to the coast and then to,other places," as suggested by Herr Lattmann, was "an,infamous calumny and sheer nonsense," there is ho doubt whatever that the railway formed oiio of the many links of aggression in the Pan-German policy. The North-to-South Railway comploted in February, 1912, at a cost of £2,000,000 is 317 miles in length. The fourth railway from the port at Luderitamucht, again to be called by its old Portuguese name of Angra Pequena, was constructed as far as Aus, SS miles, in tTie year 1905, and carried to Keet-manshoop in the year 1908. A branch fromSeeheim to Kalkfontein, about sixty miles from the Capo borders, was completed in the following year, and the total cost of these two sections was £2,100,000.

At tlis opening of ilia present war the Union Government, with_ commendable foresight, realised the importance of this fully developed railway system, with its two feeders running towards tlio coast. The Germans had designed to use it in connection with what they hoped would be a serious rising of the disaffected element ill .British South Africa in order to transport troops into Cape Colony to co-operate with the rebels. But tlieir railways proved a twoedged sword, for- the activity of the Union Government in suppressing the rebellion and the remarkable action tliay took in deciding to extend tlieir own railways into the enemy country completely frustrated tlie Teutonic plans; Dr. Paul Samassa's prophecy, written in 1905, that "in German ' South-AVesfi Africa we have in our hands a strong: trump card from the point of view of Weltpolitik, in consequence of .which England is in peril of losing South' Africa," was completely falsified, for the German railways enabled tho Union troops to carry the war across tho. border, and in conjunction with tlieir motor transport ,to strike a staggering and overwhelming blow at the Germans.