The Cause Of Colonialism And The Causes Of Colonialism

For my paper, I decided to look at the causes of colonialism. I really enjoyed reading about the arguments for acquiring colonies and the way different nations went about it. Whether it was Headrick’s Tools of Empire, Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost or one of the many primary sources we read earlier in the semester, I found it fascinating to learn about the causes, not just the results, of the “the second wave of colonialism.” I originally set out to compare and contrast Germany and France in their reasons for empire, but as I got into my research I found the German situation particularly fascinating. In part due to this being a relatively short paper, I decided to focus almost exclusively on Germany. The argument I am making is that Germany’s

Bismarck oversaw this transformation and established a very conservative centralized government. While colonial societies did form, there was no outward attempt to building an overseas empire by Bismarck or any other major government official in the years after unification. Bismarck was preoccupied with maintaining and growing Germany’s position in Europe, realizing any overseas activity put Germany at risk of inciting significant geopolitical tensions in Europe. Bismarck was opposed to colonialism for his entire tenure, with the exception of a roughly eighteen month period from 1884-1885. The intent of this paper is to explore why the man who derided Colonial empires as a waste of resources, established the beginnings of an overseas empire, before reversing course again and attempted to dismantle

The protection was afforded to Southwest Africa to prevent Cecil Rhodes and the Cape Colony from annexing land German businessmen had an established interest in. This action was followed closely by the establishment of protectorates in West Africa, East Africa, and the pacific, all in short order. Even though Bismarck granted protectorate status, it was not done without reservations. Bismarck attempted to use a company model rather than an empire model, where the colonial companies would be responsible for the administration and financing of governmental activities. This was ineffective, requiring state-backed governments to step in, ending Bismarck’s interest in expanding the German sphere