The Dominion. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1915. GERMANY PAYING THE PRICE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2630, 27 November 1915, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1915. GERMANY PAYING THE PRICE

Germany's largest dependency is about to pass into the keeping of Great Britain. General Smuts, according to a message from Pretoria,

received the other day, was then expected to leave for East Africa with a force of_ 26,000 men, his object being to • drive out the Germans and take possession of the country. That success will attend the new campaign from the Union may be considered as assured. The army,'which will proceed to the north, compared with the German and native forces estimated to be within German terri'tbry, should prove sufficiently powerful to beat down all combinations and all forms of opposition. General Botha and his Ministers evidently believe in the doctrine that what is worth doing at all is worth doing well. They guard against any possible surprise, against any likelihood of- being overcome by mere weight of numbers- When. General Botha undertook the urgent duty' of clearing the , Germans out of the South-West, his, army of invasion was divided into four, and afterwards into three, separate forces, each of them operating from' different directions, and widely apart from the others. But he took care, and wisely, that each distinct army should be from four to five times stronger than the entire combined strength of the enemy. General Smuts, in the north, will command, a much less formidable army than did General Botha in the' West. But he will have assistance from a considerable British force, which already has had sundry successes against the Germans, par-, tieularly in the neighbourhood ' of Victoria Nyanza. The latter is the largest lake in Africa, and is of interest at the present junoture in the world's affairs, for the reason that upon its waters floats part of the British Navy. . In July last it was officially announced that a combined military and naval expedition had destroyed the enemy's base and wireless station on tho, lake, and that invaluable service had been rendered by the guns of H.M.S. Nyanza and of H.M.S. Winifred.

East Africa, though possessing a greater areaj than the lost territories in tho West, was less valuable to Germany than the latter for purposes of' strategy and intrigue- Tho South-West is contiguous to the Cape Province, and _ was ' a convenient centre from which could be radiated Germanism, in all its manifold forms throughout the Union. With their surprising naivete—termed by some critics, stupidity—German writers and speakers, from the Kaiser downwards, freely and openly disclosed and discussed their many insolent schemes for taking possession of portions of tho British Empire. X)r, Samassa, an authority distinguished in Berlin,.ten years ago, wrote that "in German South-West Africa we have in our hands a strong trump card from tho point of view of world-policy. In consequcnce of this card England is in danger of losing South Africa." But observations of

this kind have Jong been comriion in German publications. Nor was Toutonic greed and ambition confined to vainglorious boastings concerning tho future. The Kaiser's agents, for many years, wore particularly active in South Africa, probably over since von Weber began his scheming in 1879 to win over the Boer settlers to tho eido of Germany, to set them .ftgivlnst thfl liDglinJi, (ind to Gov.w»iae the.aauntr};. by. ft steady

I stream of immigrants from the Fatherland. It was in 1884 that the two immense South African territories were acquired by Germany. In that year Bismarck was moro than usually active in all that concerned, and did not concern, his country, and readers of the Life may rccall Gladstone, rendered indignant by the Chancellor's pertinacity in North Africa, declaring: "As to Bismarck, it is a case of sheer audacity, or whioh ho has an unbounded stock." That quality in Bismarck which aroused tho wrath of _ Gladstone continued to distinguish with ever-increasing clearness German doings in Africa, both North and South. Germany's intriguing was largely responsible for the Boer War, and entirely responsible for the Free State rebellion. Happily, German intriguing is usually as short-sighted as it is crude, and everywhere on the African continent. to tho present time, its results have been failure-

Tho territory about to bo wrested from Germany has an area about the same as tho combined areas of the Caj»3 Province and tho Transvaal, and is about equal to those of Victoria and New South Wales. There is a largo native population, but

comparatively few white occupants, the majority being Germans. For reasons not-difficult to discover, the Germans are ill-adapted for the role of colonisers; their forte is the rule of tho rifle. _ Few, if any, self-re-specting whites of non-Germanic birth have settled in German-held territory, and the native populations seem to have been more or less always simmering with rebellion. In the West ! the Germans for years fought with, and never subdued, the Hereros. In the East there was an Ara-b insurrection which took two years to suppress, and later the n.v tiyes of the interior rose in rebellion, and another two years were occTipied in restoring them to a somblance of In both territories the Germans raised native contingents to assist them in maintaining order, iand to fight the British. But the German-drilled native soldiers in the I East will probably prove to be just as frail a reed as they showed themselves to be in the West, so far as concerns fighting on behalf of the Germans. For several years after obtaining a footing on the cast coast of Africa, Berlin devoted much attention to the increasing and strengthening of the over-sea dependencies. The Sultan of Zanzibar gave up his possessions on the mainland, with the island of, Mafia, to Germany, in return for a large sum or money, the day not having arrived when tho Kaiser could seize what lands he desired by force of arms. It was at this time that Great Britain, evidently in the hopeless endeavour to placate Germany, ceded the island of Heligoland for the territory of Yitu, then claimed' by Germany, and now part of British East Africa, The map of Africa, like the map of Europe, is likely, to undergo in the near future extensive and interesting alterations, in which Germany will most certainly be the chief loser* She has already lost_ practically- all her overseas possessions—she is paying the price of her outrages on civilisation—but there is a heavier reckoning ■ against her still to como.