How and where the Europeans engaged in imperial expansion is reasonably clear. The question of why they did so is more problematic. A great deal has been written on this subject. While most explanations of European imperialism focus on economics, it is important to realize that domestic political factors also played a role.
Many of the discussions of imperialism can be described as "Marxist." That is, they operate under the theoretical suppositions taught by Karl Marx: that politics is governed by economics, and that history passes through a set pattern of stages (feudal, capitalist, communist). Marxist theories of imperialism suggest that governments undertook overseas expansion because of the interests of their domestic "capitalist" classes, who controlled finance and industry.
Perhaps the most convincing economic argument concerning the rise of new imperialism was that the European industrialized world needed the raw materials that the developing world had in abundance: industrial and precious metals, oil, and rubber. Still, the products extracted from the colonies rarely lived up to what advocates of imperialism had promised. The cost of maintaining the colonies proved to be an enormous drain on the economic and military resources of the home countries. The large pre-1914 growth of the international economy reflected industrial expansion at home and increasing trade among developed countries, not the realization of the profits of imperialism.
The table below, showing the growth in steel output in Germany and Britain, demonstrates how rapidly these economies were growing. Indeed, Germany overtook Britain in industrial power in the 19th century.
|
STEEL OUTPUT (1,000'S OF TONS) |
|||
|
COUNTRY |
1870 |
1880 |
1890 |
|
UK |
334 |
3,636 |
7,787 |
|
Germany |
126 |
2,135 |
17,609 |
|
Exports UK (m.£.) |
200/953m GNP |
264/1,550m GNP |
525/2,514m GNP |
The growing sense of international economic competition among European industrial nations led many advocates of imperialism to pressure their governments to establish exclusive control over the economic life of their colonies. As Germany and the United States reached the industrial levels of Britain, they became more interested in competing with the English for foreign trade and were anxious to find new places to sell their wares. (And Great Britain, of course, wanted to maintain its control over its traditional markets.) So-called "sheltered markets" developed, an economic system wherein a European state would sell manufactured goods to its colony in return for raw materials (as, for example, in British India). This system kept the colony solely dependent on the European state that governed it. This is sometimes called "neomercantilism."
Finally, Marxists claimed, as rates of profit in domestic investment fell, it became more lucrative for businessmen to invest in developing countries where the rates of return could be much higher. Exploding capitalist economies required new outlets for the insatiable cycle of investment and profit. As domestic markets became saturated, colonies were required to keep capitalism on its feet.
This situation was strongly criticized in the influential work of J. A. Hobson, an English Liberal, whose work, Imperialism: A Study, appeared in 1902. Hobson believed that if more of a nation's income was given to workers (as wages) rather than invested abroad, the greater spending power accruing to them would ultimately reduce the need for new markets and would bring an end to imperialism. Hobson was thus an anti-imperialist who generally accepted the economic rationale for imperialism, but believed that it could be circumvented.
The Russian Marxist revolutionary (and later dictator) Vladimir I. Lenin took this analysis one step further in his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), a work central to post-World War II decolonization, and the anti-Western political movements of former colonial states. Lenin argued that imperialism accompanied the final monopolistic stage of capitalism, in which large banks and industries tightened control over production and exchange. But this "highest stage," Lenin argued, would ultimately self-destruct, lead to imperialist wars, and usher in the international revolution of the proletariat.
Although these theories exercised a great deal of influence at the time, economic evidence does not bear them out. Economic expansion in Europe continued to be fueled mostly by trade and expansion within the developed world, not with new colonies. Key industries may very well have benefited from imperial holdings, but few countries could boast that their colonies as a whole provided a net profit to the national economy.
Other economic arguments for imperialism have been offered that can be described as "indirectly Marxian." These focus on the results, as well as the causes, of imperialism. Historians such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler have argued that imperialism created diversions from class conflicts at home. That is, foreign expansion served as a diversion from real social and economic conflict - the result of rapid industrialization - that constituted a threat to the traditional social and political hierarchy. This policy of manipulation by the ruling class was termed "social imperialism," and was most evident in Germany. It is no coincidence that the new scramble for colonies coincided with economic depression (1873-1896) and the growth of socialist parties.
Whereas in Germany foreign adventurism served to divert people's attention away from fundamental reform at home, in Britain, imperialism abroad and comprehensive social reform at home - of the education system, reorganization of defense institutions, and extension of the public health service, all in the name of "national efficiency" - became a central feature of state policy.
It can also be argued that imperialism was the result of rivalries within Europe. Competing countries saw that overseas possessions could give them an edge. As a result of the unification of Germany in 1871, the blow to French prestige after defeat by Prussia, and the new Russian expansionism (in areas formerly belonging to the shrinking Ottoman Empire and the old states in Central Asia), international rivalries and arms races became the preoccupation of the major powers. It became important to have colonies, which functioned as competing zones of influence. As a real addition to a nation's power, colonies were usually of minor importance. But as a matter of prestige, colonies were critical. Leopold II of Belgium implied as much when he delighted that Belgium, on acquiring the Congo, would now have a "piece of the great African cake." France, in particular, psychologically devastated by the loss of the Franco-Prussian War, sought to solace itself with imperial expansion. Bismarck, ever shrewd, had understood the relative unimportance of African colonies, but in the end was forced to enter the scramble for Africa in order to buttress Germany's prestige and in order to quiet domestic political opposition.
Prestige was not the only political justification offered for imperialist expansion. Empire was also often based on strategic interests. In the British case, for example, African colonies were seen as a way of safeguarding maritime trade routes to India. Some theorists contend that imperialism can be explained only by looking at the periphery, that is, at developments within the overseas territories that came under European domination. According to this view, there was a cumulative process of preventive annexation, intended to protect and stabilize the colonial possessions that the European powers already held. As the frontier expanded, resistance from hitherto unconquered regions led to calls for ever-wider expansion.
Often enough, European powers would find themselves drawn into conflicts that had been instigated by a small number of their countrymen in foreign areas, who had been acting in their own adventurous self-interests. A military figure, or a profiteer, naturally enough, would enrage the native inhabitants, who might draw blood, and the European would then turn to his home country for support. The home country, in turn, was forced either to enter the fray or lose face. Inevitably, they chose the former. At the same time, uprisings by native peoples in areas where European powers were already exerting some small influence often had the same effect of bringing greater colonial power to bear.
Imperial struggle and competition were also subtly influenced by the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin. Nations and "races" that did not continually struggle to expand were supposedly fated to wither and succumb to those that did. Social Darwinism and ideologies of racial hierarchy became widespread. In some cases, Europeans considered it their moral duty to bring their culture and morality to the rest of the world. In France, this was referred to as the "civilizing mission," or mission civilisatrice. The British called it the "White Man's Burden," a phrase coined by the poet Kipling in reference to American action in the Philippines. Such ideological justifications for imperialism often necessitated the cultivation of confirming stereotypes. Native populations were characterized as savage and depraved. Even critics of imperialism assumed the inferiority of non-Europeans as fact. Scientific theories of race abounded, and most were used to justify theories of racial superiority. At times, the Social Darwinism implicit in much imperialism could have brutally cruel results, even encouraging efforts to murder whole races, as when German troops in Southwest Africa killed tens of thousands of Hereros from 1904 to 1906 during an insurrection.
READ A BRITISH EXPLORER'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS TRAVELS AND NATIVE PEOPLES
READ A CRITIC'S VIEW OF IMPERIALISM
War came to be regarded as a mechanism of evolution among states. History supposedly confirmed that stronger nations replaced weaker ones. The arms race among the imperialist powers was defended and welcomed with arguments deriving from Social Darwinism. A British imperialist in Africa, Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) and the American President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) were among those who relied most strongly upon the tenets of Social Darwinism.
Of course, this sort of competition for foreign territories was bound to create conflicts among great powers. One example of this was the Fashoda Crisis of 1898 between Britain and France. The two states were already vying for Egypt and Morocco. England had begun to support Egyptian claims to the upper-Nile region (in present-day Sudan), which resulted initially in the disastrous defeat of General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum in 1885. Under a different commander, the English had greater success and moved south to Fashoda, where they ran into French troops who were also trying to claim the upper Nile. This resulted in a standoff. The French eventually withdrew, but this incident raised anti-British feeling in France to a fever pitch.
The British were also involved in armed conflict in southern Africa. The British controlled the Cape Colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Nearby were two small republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, founded by Dutch settlers known as Afrikaaners. The Boers, as the English called the settlers in these republics, were principally farmers. When gold and diamonds were discovered in the Transvaal, Cecil Rhodes, who was prime minister of the Cape Colony, became frustrated with the unwillingness of the Boers to grant him mining rights. Rhodes precipitated a military conflict that came to be known as the Boer War. It lasted from 1899 to 1902 and saw vicious fighting, skillful guerrilla tactics on the part of the Boers, a high number of British casualties, and the introduction of a concentration camp system where Boer farmers were resettled. In the end, superior British numbers won out, resulting in the annexation by the British of the Boer republics into South Africa.
Not all conflict took place in Africa. Besides the wars in Asia, there were also conflicts in the Western Hemisphere. The United States had long been in conflict with Spain regarding influence in the Caribbean and Latin America. Independence movements in Puerto Rico and Cuba provided a convenient excuse to go to war in 1898. The Spanish-American War resulted in Spain's loss of the Philippines and of Puerto Rico, which were annexed by the United States. Cuba was set up as an independent republic. (To what extent can the United States be seen as a product of European imperialism? To what extent has the United States behaved as an imperial power?)
All in all, the final decades of the 19th century saw a dramatic expansion in the amount of territory directly controlled by European powers. In 1800, Europe controlled about 33% of the world's land; by 1914 that number had risen to 84%. The British Empire alone, at its zenith, governed one quarter of the worlds' population.