Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty


The Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty was an agreement signed on 1 July 1890 between the German Empire and Great Britain.
The accord gave Germany control of the Caprivi Strip, the strategically located island of Heligoland in the North Sea, and the heartland of German East Africa. In return, Germany recognized British authority in Zanzibar. Heligoland was needed to control the new Kiel Canal and the approaches to Germany's North Sea ports. Britain now used Zanzibar as a key link in the British control of East Africa.

Terms

Germany gained the islands of Heligoland in the North Sea, originally part of Danish Holstein-Gottorp but since 1814 a British possession, the so-called Caprivi Strip in what is now Namibia, and a free hand to control and acquire the coast of Dar es Salaam that would form the core of German East Africa.
In exchange, Germany handed over to Britain the protectorate over the small sultanate of Wituland and parts of East Africa vital for the British to build a railway to Lake Victoria, and pledged not to interfere with British actions vis-à-vis the independent Sultanate of Zanzibar. In addition, the treaty established the German sphere of interest in German South West Africa and settled the borders between German Togoland and the British Gold Coast, as well as between German Kamerun and British Nigeria.

Consequences

Britain divested itself of a naval base which covered the approaches to the main German naval bases in the North Sea, but which would be impossible to defend as Germany built up its navy. It immediately declared a protectorate over Zanzibar and, in the subsequent 1896 Anglo-Zanzibar War, gained full control of the sultanate.
The treaty served German chancellor Leo von Caprivi's aims for settlement with the British. After the 1884 Berlin Conference, Germany had already lost the "Scramble for Africa": the German East Africa Company under Carl Peters had acquired a strip of land on the Tanganyikan coast, but had never had any control over the islands of the Zanzibar sultanate; the Germans gave away no vital interest. In return, they acquired Heligoland, strategically placed for control over the German Bight, which, with the construction of the Kiel Canal from 1887 onward, had become essential to Emperor Wilhelm's II plans for expansion of the Imperial Navy. Wilhelm's naval policies aborted an accommodation with the British and ultimately led to a rapprochement between Britain and France, sealed with the Entente cordiale in 1904.
The misleading name for the treaty was introduced by ex-Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who intended to attack his despised successor Caprivi for concluding an agreement that Bismarck himself had arranged during his incumbency. However, Bismarck's nomenclature implied that Germany had swapped an African empire for tiny Heligoland. This was eagerly adopted by imperialists, who complained about "treason" against German interests. Carl Peters and Alfred Hugenberg appealed for the foundation of the Alldeutscher Verband which took place in 1891.