Bisbee daily review., 1916-04-16
FIGHT FOR GERMAN
 EAST AFRICA LOOMS UP NOW FOR PORTUGAL
Entry of Small European Country Into Great Con- flict Surrounds Only leu tonic Province in Africa.

war between Germany and Portugal
 has centered attention on the struggle
 for Germany's last and greatest col 1ny. German East Africa, now hemmed
 in on four sides-by Portugal's African colony on the South, the Belgian Con go on the West. Britain on the North and Southwest, and British ships along the East-with no communica- ton between the German colony and the home country.
 This is the chief significance of this new war, for there is no chance of
 clash of Germany and Portugal in
 Europe, with Germany occupied in
 more important fields And besides the stake of German East Africa, there is the larger stake of Africa it. self, for these shifts of colonies are gradually determining the future of a whole continent, second only to Asia. greater than North or South America, and three times the size of Europe. Togoland, the German garden spot in Africa, was the first to fall; then the Kameruns: and then German West Africa. Each was a promising colony but Tongoland has been the
 only one that really paid for the i'm mense effort of development. The losses of these colonies were thrilling moves in the far more important game the conquest of Africa as a con tinent-and the struggle for German
 East Africa is the last stage in this greater game.
 England and France are already olx f,-sa I~nu land from Cape Colony northward and from Egypt southwark; and
 France in her great African empire of the Northwest-Algiers, Tunis and
 Morocco The vast French area. in- cluding Sahara, was at first derided. and Lord Salisbury referred to the
 French possessions as the second greatest in Africa-chiefly sand'.
 But with the colonizing of Algiers and
 much of the adjacent country, un- known riches have been developed and an African empire really worthy of the name has gradually developed.
 Seeing this, Italy has more recently gained a foothold in Tripoli. thus completing the Europeon occupation of the Mediterranean fringe of Africa from the French on the vast to the British in the east. Incidentally, too, this European occupation of the MeG- iterranean fringe. gives a European circuit of the whole Mediterranean, with Britain posted at its two gate ways, Gibraltar and Suez, and mid way at Malta.
 East Africa, from Egypt in the north to Cape Colony in the sonth, has been the main field for British devel- opment But all the time one great obstacle has lain across the path of this development: German East Africa stretches like a wall right across the middle of the Continent, a solid German political barrier between the English advance southward from Egypt and northward from the Cape. Cairo to the Cape" has long been dream of British statesmanship.-a real connection between the. rich
 British possession in the north, from
 the Suez southward, and the British
 stretch from Cape Colony up through
 Rhodesia.
 But right in the middle of this
 chain, Germany has held one link German East Africa-and without this link the British chain was broken
 into two detached parts, each a small empire, but not together a vast Brit i ish African Empire, like the French African Empire of the Northwest. That is what gives a meaning to Part ugaPs entrance in the war. as hasten ing the fate of German East Africa, the one link to the British chain from Egypt to the Cape.
 Already British development has reached down from the north and up from the south, close to the edge of this last link. There is a travel route new, but not always on British ter ritory, for midway the chain breaks, and one must go either by the long slender lakes, Tanganyika and Nyassa. or across the Belgian Congo on the west. or the great stretch of German colony lying traight across eastern Africa from the ocean to the central lakes. Once this stretch passes to the Allies or to Britain, and the con tinent of Africa will have her imperial domains pretty well established England in the east from Egypt to Cape Colony; and France in the West, from the Atlantic to the Nile; with spots of territory here and there Italian, Belgian, Portuguese-but all Allied.
 The British military campaign has just opened against German East Africa, with General Shuts. the old Boer leader. in chief command. His force is striking from British East Africa. lying just north of the big Ger man colony. His early movements have been back of Mombassa, where Col. Roosevelt landed for his African trip. He has pressed into the German territory. taking villages and some strategic hills. and reports the Ger man forces falling back to the rail way. One of the German develop n1ents was a little spur of railway across the northeast section of this colony. not far from Mombassa, and from the Interior to the sea.
 The Belgians have meantime de veloped their military campaign on the western flank of the Garman col ! ony. Prostrate as Belgium proper is, through German occupation of most | of the home country. the Belgian col | ony is very much alive. with great