Mittelafrika
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Mittelafrika is the name created for a geostrategic region in central and east Africa. Much like Mitteleuropa, it articulated Germany's foreign policy aim, prior to World War I, of bringing the region under German domination. The difference being that Mittelafrika would presumably be an agglomeration of German colonies in Africa, while Mitteleuropa was conceptualised as a geostrategic buffer zone between Germany and Russia to be filled with puppet states.
German strategic thinking was that if the region between the colonies of German East Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania minus the island of Zanzibar), German South-West Africa (Namibia minus Walvisbaai), and Kamerun could be annexed, a contiguous entity could be created covering the breadth of the African continent from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Given the richness in natural resources of the Belgian Congo alone, this region would accrue considerable wealth to the colonising power through the exploitation of natural resources, as well as contributing to another German aim of economic self-sufficiency.
The concept dates back to the 1890s, when then Chancellor of Germany, Leo von Caprivi, gained the Caprivi Strip in the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty. This addition to German South-West Africa attached the colony to the Zambezi River. British and German imperialists competed to get Portugal to cede the colonies of Angola and Mozambique to them and competed over the region which is now comprised of Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi. Cecil Rhodes, on behalf of the British, successfully colonised the latter region (named Rhodesia, after Rhodes), while the Germans and British each preferred that Angola and Mozambique remain Portuguese colonies, rather than risk them falling into the hands of their colonial rival.
Germany's aspirations in Mittelafrika were incorporated into Germany's aims in World War I insofar as Germany expected to be able to gain the Belgian Congo if it were to defeat Belgium in Europe. The full realisation of Mittelafrika depended on a German victory in World War I in the European theatre, where Britain would be forced to negotiate and cede its colonies in Rhodesia to Germany when faced with a German-dominated Europe across the English Channel. In the course of the actual war, German aspirations in Mittelafrika were never matched by events in the African theatre. The German colonies were at very different levels of defence and troop strength when the war began in Europe, and were not in a position to fight a war due to a lack of materiel.
[edit] References
Fischer, Fritz, Germany's Aims in the First World War, Scranton, PA, W W Norton & Co, Inc., 1968 ISBN 0393097986
