Chapter LV: Fallout and Aftershocks Part VI - Africa
Chapter LV: Fallout and Aftershocks Part VI - Africa
It was common practice for Africa to be somewhat ignored by the foreign ministries and chancelleries of the world, certainly it was very much the bottom rung for aspiring civil servants in the field. The entire content was a mess of colonies, protectorates and puppets ranging from Algeria, which was considered an integral part of France, through to the handful of independent nations such as Liberia. Despite this all-pervasive colonial influence the concerns of Europe were not that of Africa, all corners of the continent having their own regional issues to concentrate on. Starting in the West the start of the Spanish Civil War was the most obvious issue, while the Monarchist side had rapidly gained control of the Spanish colonies in Equatorial Guniea, Western Sahara and Spanish Morocco their control was far from absolute. Tensions in the region remained high, memories of the Third Rif War were less than ten years old and with the Spanish Army of Africa being sent to the mainland the colonies were lightly garrisoned. The reaction of the administrators of French West Africa was to maintain a low level state of alert along the borders and particularly in French Morocco, while not as tense as their colleague's vigil over the French/Spanish border in Europe it would be maintained throughout the Spanish Civil War as a precaution.
The other issue was the deterioration of Liberia, the nation had been through a most turbulent few years as the depression had hit the country harder than most. When granting the vast rubber concessions to the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company the nation had taken out a vast loan from the company in order to consolidate it's internal and external debt. While this had helped in the short term it had not solved the general high level of indebtedness, something not helped by the government's continued borrowing as the Depression deepened. Eventually the country was forced to enlist League of Nations support to repay the debt, with League observers in the government and controls spending and borrowing in exchange for cash assistance in meeting repayments. The crisis came in the summer when the government was unable to meet even this relaxed payment plan, to raise the funds it decided to vastly increase the export duty on the rubber plantations. For the Firestone management this was intolerable, after working for almost a decade to establish the plantation and waiting for it to mature the duties destroyed the business plan less than a year after they had finally started exporting. The high duties effectively meant they were producing rubber at a higher price than the Far East sources, even after allowing for the higher shipping costs from Malaya. After years of unilateral renegotiation, broken promises and constant low level corruption Firestone gave up, abandoning the operation and leaving the country, save for the small team left to work with the League of Nations to get their loan repaid.
The President of Liberia, Edwin Barclay. Much was expected of Barclay, after his predecessor had rigged the election (receiving 234,000 votes from an electorate of only 15,000) and been forced out over the Forced Labour scandal it was hoped a corner could be turned and Liberia established as a respectable state to do business with. President Barclay would sadly fail to live up such high hopes.
While initially welcomed by the government, who saw an opportunity to re-lease the plantations and clear some of the debt, the problem was that no-one wanted the plantations; given the easy supply of rubber in the Far East from the British and French colonies there was little reason to risk operating in Liberia compared to the legally secure colonies. Worse the country had acquired a most unsavoury reputation after the Forced Labour scandal, a shameful episode almost as rich in irony as it was morally repulsive. Put simply the Liberian government had been involved in the systematic suppression and intimidation of the indigenous tribes, forcing them to work on various public works across the nation and in the Portuguese colonies. The League of Nation's investigation in 1930 had discovered widespread evidence of slavery, hidden behind the euphemism of "domestic servants" and of government involvement extending all the way up to the President's office. The irony of such events occurring in a country founded as a colony for freed slaves is almost too bitter for words, and on a practical level it certainly did it's part in driving out the foreign investors from many nations. The combination of moral repulsion, fear over the unreliable government and the sky high tariffs were sufficient to ward off any new investors in the rubber plantations, the lack of revenue pushing the Liberian economy into a nosedive. As the economic situation deteriorated it provided a focal point for all those opposed to the single-party system, not to mention attracting the attention of those powers who lacked access to the Far East and were less than fussy about how materials were obtained.
South of the Zambezi the focus was very much on South Africa, the immediate question had been not who would win the election but how badly Barry Hertzog's National Party would lose it. That Herztog was in a position to lead the de-merged National Party into an election was surprising, not just because many believed he shouldn't have the leadership, but because even more believed he should be in prison for his actions. The main obstacles between Hertzog and prison were political but sprung from the practical; legally speaking the offence Hertzog could practically be charged with was treason, indeed given the country had been at war the correct offence was high treason. Given the high levels of tension in the country, and the fanaticism of the hard-core Boer elements in the country, putting the former Prime Minister on trial for high treason was considered a most unwise course of action by Smuts and the South African Party leadership. The political judgement was that a successful trial would turn Hertzog into a martyr and give him a nationwide platform to pontificate from, while a failed trial would be a disaster that would threaten to re-start the entire problem. As the case hinged upon whether Hertzog had actively worked against the crown, and he had been very careful to maintain a pretence of legitimacy, the issue was far from clear-cut, thus Smuts was reluctantly forced to let Herztog 'get away with it', legally at least.
The reason he retained leadership of the party was far simpler: no-one else wanted it. The attempted coup, for that is what it was, had severely damaged the National Party, obliterating any hope of attracting the moderate Boer vote and causing even naturally loyal supporters to question the motives. There was more than enough blame to go around and merely changing the leader would not be enough to save the party, indeed it would only infuriate the hardcore elements who would see it as backing down. It was not a position any ambitious politician would wish to inherit and so Hertzog stayed, rallying the party's core vote and trying to prevent an utter rout by encouraging a high turnout of loyalists in the heartland, one last effort before slipping from the limelight after the election. The campaign, a relatively brief four weeks, produced no surprises; the National Party's 'referendum on freedom' campaign vanishing without trace outside their heartlands while Jan Smuts's South African Party candidates had but to turn up to see cheering crowds. The result was something of a formality, the National Party vote holding up in the Free State and Transvaal while the rest of the country returned South African Party, save for the handful of Labour Party MPs from the industrialised socialist strongholds.
Yet for Smuts this landslide victory was the easy part, ascending to the Premiership he inherited the seemingly intractable issue of voting reform. Put simply it was realised by most that the system of selective suffrage was unsustainable in the long run, yet granting universal suffrage would inevitably lead to to the black majority dominating the elections and, it was widely believed, voting along tribal lines. Even for those that were prepared to risk going into perpetual opposition the prospect of a Zulu government, for the Zulus were the most numerous tribe, was enough to kill the idea dead; The Bambatha Rebellion was still fresh in the national memory, indeed there were still sitting MPs who had fought in the Anglo-Zulu War. The pre-hijack Representation of the Natives Act was an attempt to square that particular circle, enfranchising the Black majority but giving them a limited number of MPs to vote for. The long term challenge faced by the Smuts ministry would be to find a more lasting solution while still finding time to run the country.
Baron Lloyd, Secretary of State for India. He had been High Commissioner in Egypt during the 1920s and retained an interest in the region. He would be influential in supporting Dehli's ambitious attempt to gain influence across Africa and the Near East.
Next we turn to the East of the continent where matters were somewhat simpler; everything revolved around the end of the Abyssinian War and the exit of Italy from the continent. In Abyssinia the end of the war was obviously a cause for celebration, but one tempered by the heavy human cost of the war and the extensive damage done to the country. The ill-equipped Ethiopian army had fought bravely but suffered horrendous casualties even before the Italians began using mustard gas, phosgene and worse. While the entry of Britain and the Dominions into the war had stopped the use of chemical weapons, the Italians having no wish to provoke a power with similar capability, they had already taken a terrible toll on the Abyssinian Army. Politically the Imperial House had been undermined by the defection of the Emperor's son in law, Haile Selassie Gugsa the Dejazmach (Guardian of the Gate), who had taken 1,200 of his followers and joined the advancing Italians days after the war broke out. With such turmoil in the higher echelons of society and the forces of law and order absent, the police having been drafted in militia and sent to the front, the British and South African contingent on the ground were in effective control of the country. This very much set the tone for the post-war situation, national pride aside the government acknowledged that Abyssinia would need significant support until the country could rebuild itself, with Britain the only realistic choice.
The British position was somewhat complicated by the conflict between the Foreign Office and India Office, the former believing the matter was solely their domain while the latter claimed a stake in any matter around the Indian Ocean. The cautious Foreign Office was all for leaving the country to it's own devices while the ambitious empire-builders of the Indian Office wanted to extend Dehli's reach into East Africa. Naturally both extremes were untenable; Britain could hardly abandon the country, ignoring the moral case an unstable Abyssinia would destabilise the whole of East Africa. Equally there could be no question of taking over Abyssinia, for all the damage wrought to the country it remained proudly independent and would not easily acquiesce to giving up it's sovereignty, even if British and world opinion could somehow be made favourable to the idea. The natural outcome therefore was a compromise; Britain would guarantee the defence of the Abyssinia and provide assistance and advice in rebuilding, with the clear implication the advice would be infrequent but compulsory. It was also insisted upon that the sole benefit of the Italian invasion, the abolition of slavery, would be retained and be forcefully implemented by the government. That is not to say the relationship was entirely one directional, the British did offer the Abyssinian government a significant incentive for agreeing; a coastline. The former British territory of Jubaland had been transferred to Italy in the mid 1920s as reward for Italy joining the Great War, officially subsumed into Italian Somaliland it had been returned to Britain by the Treaty of Valletta. With it's sparse population it would provide Abyssinia with access to the Indian Ocean without any of the tribal problems a Somalian or Eritrean port would give. In government circles the deal was grudgingly welcomed, while the presence of British 'advisers' was less than ideal, for all the façade of assistance few doubted British influence would dramatically increase, the country would remain independent and her situation strengthened by gaining a port, a prize considered worth the short term sacrifices.
Finally we turn to the North and to Egypt, where Cairo had been rocked by the death of King Fuad I and his replacement by a Regency Council until his young son Farouk came of age. Under the constitution the monarch held significant political power, actual day to day influence as opposed to the seldom used reserve powers of a constitutional monarch, making the members of the Regency Council important political players. King Fuad's original council was soon under intense pressure, the Egyptian parliament attempting to replace them with their preferred candidates, further destabilising the country. In Britain the entire matter was a cause of considerable concern, the young King was known to the British after his study at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and he had not made a good impression. Lazy, greedy and arrogant, the only thing keeping him in the academy was Foreign Office pressure to avoid a scandal and to preserve Anglo-Egyptian relations, even then his habit of petty theft would have got him thrown out eventually had he not been recalled home. The prospect of such a man on the throne of a country as strategically vital as Egypt was obviously unwelcome, especially due to his decidedly ambivalent attitudes to the Italian invasion. Thus it was that the Indian and Foreign Offices found themselves in complete agreement, Farouk could not be allowed to rule and stability would have to be restored, once again Britain would have to intervene and install a more pliant monarch on the Egyptian Throne. Naturally a blatant move, as with the removal of Abbas II during the Great War, would not be a wise move as Egypt was notionally independent, so the strategic cunning of the Indian Office experts was called upon.
The death of King Fuad would be an opportunity for the many factions in Egypt to jockey for power. In the high stakes manoeuvring that followed the British would use the techniques honed over decades of manipulating the princely states and factions of the Raj. It was a most uneven matchup.
Playing upon the ambitions and egos of the Regency Council a reform of the constitution was proposed, to remove the very real power struggle between King and Parliament by increasing the powers of the Prime Minister at the cost of making the monarch more ceremonial. Naturally this played well with Council, composed as it was of three former Prime Ministers who entertained ideas of returning to that office, and was naturally welcomed by the Parliament for the same reason; men never turn down the opportunity of more power for themselves. When the young King was informed, 'unfortunately' in the most tactless way possible, he refused to even contemplate the idea, setting himself on a collision course with the political elite that could only end badly for him. During the following wrangling, which the British representatives made themselves conspicuously absent from, a new constitution was agreed by Parliament that deposed King Farouk and replaced him with his younger sister Princess Fawzia. The appointment of the fourteen year old girl as Queen was both a symbolic gesture, breaking the male line of succession showed that the monarch ruled at Parliament's pleasure, and a cynical choice, choosing a candidate unable to speak out until the new constitution had been firmly established. It also had the effect of splitting the Nationalists, a Queen was very popular with the large female contingent in the movement but an anathema to the religious hardcore at the heart of the movement. Any position on the matter had to be so full of caveats and qualifications, to avoid offending part of the movement, as to render it meaningless. This only added to Nationalist woes, already angry that the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty had been cancelled (indeed never signed) their demand for independence had been undermined by the Abyssinian War. It was obvious Egypt would not have been able to defend herself and had depended upon Britain for survival, that the Italians had advanced no further than Sidi Birrani and that no Italian plane had crossed into Egypt proper had been noticed and approved of by the public. The Nationalist's were left trying to explain how they would have have stopped chemical weapons getting to East Africa without provoking Italy into war, an impossible task and one that did little for their reputation as a serious political movement.
Before leaving Africa we must briefly cover Italian North Africa, although in truth there is little to say. The final Italian defeat had been so rapid that the first much of the country knew of it was when a British patrol appeared in their village rather than an Italian one. The British position was quite simple; to install the exiled Emir Idris as monarch of a united Libya, merging the three provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan into a single country to be ruled by the pro-British Idris. After the decimation of the population by the Italian 'pacification' campaigns of the 1930s the country was sparsely populated and, undeveloped outside the coastal cities. Worse the Italians had focused on 'pacifying' the educated elite, leaving the country desperately short of almost every kind of professional from doctor to engineer to teacher. As with Abyssinia an arrangement was reached, British advice and support on rebuilding the country and a guarantee of protection while domestic matters were solely an internal Libyan matter. This did not come without strings of course, it was expected that certain key military bases would remain in British hands on indefinite lease and it went without saying that any foreign firms hired for reconstruction would be from Britain or her Empire.
Given the clearly stated goal of independence for the country, and the support of the respected Emir Idris, who had led the guerilla campaign against the Italian occupation, the plan was popular among ordinary Libyans and was easily implemented. While much of the plan was ill-defined in particular the exact constitutional position of the King was vague and there were few details on how the provinces would be represented, it did provide a base to start from, allowing a stretched Foreign Office to focus elsewhere while the Libyans sorted their own problems. However only time would tell what would happen once the gratitude at liberation from Italy faded and ambitious rulers began to look beyond domestic politics.
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