Formal Empire in Africa and Asia

ROBINSON and Gallagher’s explanation of Britain’s part in the Scramble for Africa after 1880, which is still the dominating influence in the discussion, is an attempt to discredit the view that changing economic conditions in Europe had any important part to play in the drama. They claim that the proximate cause of the Scramble was the breakdown of informal influence in Egypt which made it necessary for the British to assume control there in order to safeguard the Suez waterway and the routes to the East. France’s exclusion from what hitherto had been a joint financial control of Egypt led her to react violently against Britain in other parts of Africa. Other powers were drawn in and the stock market in African properties was under way. In the process, it is claimed, the British were reluctantly forced to acquire the whole of the Nile Valley as a means of securing their position at Suez. Similarly, they felt it necessary to consolidate their hold on the other area of strategic significance in Africa, the Cape, by going to war with the Boer republics, which the British believed were intent on removing South Africa from imperial control. In West Africa, an area which had economic but not strategic significance, the British asserted themselves on the Lower Niger, but elsewhere conceded large areas of territory, especially to the French, as useful pieces of bait in the diplomatic battle for strategic safety elsewhere in Africa.