The Scramble for Africa Simulation 1884 You will represent GERMANY

The 1884 Berlin Conference to partition Africa has been called by the German Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck. You are hosting the conference in your capital city. The goal of the conference is to negotiate and create a process for the partition of Africa into European colonies or spheres of influence. The European powers are interested in gaining access to raw materials and resources for their industrialization. Germany has some control of coastal southwestern Africa and coastal east Africa. Germany desires to maintain control of these areas.

You came into the game late because you were not even a unified country until 1871. You have emerged as the major military power in Europe, and are very industrialized. You desire African colonies for their natural resources and for ports that will support your trade. Your pride as a major power demands that you have colonies like the other major powers and that upstart Belgium has just grabbed a chunk of territory. You had better act fast.

Bismarck wanted to improve Franco-German relations and in particular, encourage French interest in colonialism so that they would forget their desire for revenge after its losses in the Franco-Prussian War (1871). Bismarck encouraged France to expand into Tunisia as a diversion from continental affairs that was likely to embroil her with Italy.

German missionaries in Southwest Africa, Karl Peters in East Africa and German merchants in Togo and Cameroon want the German government's support for their claims in Africa.

German Colonization in Africa Timeline:

1884-85: The German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, made up for Germany's late entry into the Scramble for African territory. He established his nation's credentials as an imperial power by claiming rights to land in Namibia, territory stretching from the British Cape Colony to Portuguese Angola, as well as Cameroon, Togo and, in East Africa, Tanganyika.

The goal of the conference is to negotiate and create a process for the partition of Africa into European colonies or spheres of influence. The European powers are interested in gaining access to raw materials and resources for their industrialization. The Spanish want to maintain a presence on the western coast of Africa. However, the wars for independence in Latin America beginning in the 1820s have left the empire with little monetary funds

You have come to Africa later than the other major colonizers because you have spent most of your earlier efforts in Central and South America. You are a weak country which is primarily interested in areas that would be close to Spain.

Timeline of Spanish Colonization in Africa:

Jun 7, 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas

1521 The Spanish import the first African slaves to the territory that will later become the United States.

1778 Portugal gave Spain rights to Equatorial Guinea in exchange for reaffirming Portugal’s rights to the interior of Brazil.

1821 Venezuela won independence under Simon Bolivar. With the loss of your American colonies, your focus turned more towards the “Old” World.

1850s Spain increases its colony in Equatorial Guinea.

The goal of the conference is to negotiate and create a process for the partition of Africa into European colonies or spheres of influence. The European powers are interested in gaining access to raw materials and resources for their industrialization. Italy desires the Horn of Africa. Italy has also long considered the Ottoman province of Tunisia, where a large community of Tunisian Italians lived, within its economic sphere of influence. However, Italy did not fully consider annexing it until 1879, when it became apparent that Britain and Germany were encouraging France to add Tunisa to its colonial holdings in North Africa. A last minute offer by Italy to share Tunisia between Britain and Germany was refused, and France, confident in German support, ordered its troops in from French Algeria, imposing a protectorate over Tunisia in May 1881 under the Treaty of Bardo. The shock of the "Tunisian bombshell", as it was referred to in the Italian press, and the sense of Italy's isolation in Europe, led it into signing the Triple Alliance in 1882 with Germany and Austria-Hungary.

You come into the race last and have to take what is left.

1869 – Italy gained a strip of land (Aseb) on the Red Sea.

1882 – Italy seized Tunis from the Ottoman Empire in northern Africa.