page_title: German colonial empire
section_title: Conquest in World War I
hierarchical_section_title: German colonial empire / End of the German colonial empire / Conquest in World War I
caption_attribution_description: English: Air raid of a South African military camp at the railway station Tschaukaib (German Southwest Africa), by k. u. k. Lieutenant Fiedler, 17 Dec 1914 Deutsch: Bombardierung des südafrikanischen Truppenlagers am Bahnhof von Tschaukaib (DSWA) durch k. u. k. Leutnant Fiedler am 17.12.1914
context_page_description: The German colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies and territories of Imperial Germany. Unified in the early 1870s, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts of colonization by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but crucial colonial efforts only began in 1884 with the Scramble for Africa. Claiming much of the left-over uncolonized areas in the Scramble for Africa, Germany managed to build the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French.
  Germany lost control of its colonial empire when the First World War began in 1914, in which all of its colonies were invaded by the Allies during the first weeks of the war. However, a few colonial military units held out in remote areas for a while longer: German South West Africa surrendered in 1915, Kamerun in 1916 and German East Africa in 1918.
  Germany's colonial empire was officially confiscated with the Treaty of Versailles after Germany's defeat in the war and each colony became a League of Nations mandate under the supervision of one of the victorious powers. The German colonial empire ceased to exist in 1919.
context_section_description: In the years before the outbreak of the World War, British colonial officers viewed the Germans as deficient in "colonial aptitude", but "whose colonial administration was nevertheless superior to those of the other European states". Anglo-German colonial issues in the decade before 1914 were minor and both empires, the British and German, took conciliatory attitudes. Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, considered still a moderate in 1911, was willing to "study the map of Africa in a pro-German spirit". Britain further recognized that Germany really had little of value to offer in territorial transactions; however, advice to Grey and Prime Minister H. H. Asquith hardened by early 1914 "to stop the trend of what the advisers considered Germany’s taking and Britain’s giving."
  Once war was declared in late July 1914 Britain and its allies promptly moved against the colonies. The public was informed that German colonies were a threat because "Every German colony has a powerful wireless station — they will talk to one another across the seas, and at every opportunity they [German ships] will dash from cover to harry and destroy our commerce, and maybe, to raid our coasts."  The British position that Germany was a uniquely brutal and cruel colonial power originated during the war; it had not been said during peacetime.
  In the Pacific, Britain's ally Japan declared war on Germany in 1914 and quickly seized several of Germany's island colonies, the Mariana, Caroline and Marshall Islands, with virtually no resistance.
  By 1916 only in remote jungle regions in East Africa did the German forces hold out.  South Africa's J.C. Smuts, now in Britain's small War Cabinet, spoke of German schemes for world power, militarisation and exploitation of resources, indicating Germany threatened western civilisation itself. Smuts' warnings were repeated in the press. The idea took hold that they should not be returned to Germany after the war.
caption: Austrian lieutenant, Paul Fiedler,[43] bombarding a South African military camp at the railway station of Tschaukaib, German South West Africa, December 1914
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:07:20 22:29:27", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "176", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "338", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7103", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF SubSecTime": "765", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1100"}