German Territorial Demands

[Peter_Suciu]

I came across these maps a while back. I don't know how true, but very interesting:

German demands in 1915:

Germany's Future Vision of the State around 1918:

Germany's idea for Africa. Notice the British get to keep the area where the Boers would have been trouble!

 

[joerookery]

Peter,

Those are cool maps! While I am not familiar with the source, I have seen many maps from the pan German league. This rendition is even more aggressive than theirs! What I have been working on lately that has been surprising is how small these right-wing parties were. Not very many members but big vocal cords. This is an aristocracy and upper bourgeois phenomenon. It does however get huge press.

 

[Peter_Suciu]

I have to wonder why Germany would want the African territories if the nation took so much of East Europe.

The Portuguese had some terrible uprisings, and the Belgians were typically out numbered too. I don't know how you hold down that much of Africa, especially when this looks like their Ottoman allies would need major propping up too. I think Pasha and the other leaders -- especially if Kemal had anything to say -- would say, "thank you but we'll pass on getting Egypt back!"

I see too that the French would get to keep Algeria, the worst hotbed in their empire! :lol:

 

[chrispaulodale]

Very cool maps, but they look like Allied scare mongering to me. Why would you circulate maps through the neutral press showing you wanted to conquer large chunks of neutral countries? Notice southern Holland and Denmark are coloured in as "German". I'm sure if this was Germany's plan the last people they'd want to tell would be the neutral countries. I reckon that's Britain circulating these maps around the neutral press hoping Denmark and Holland would start to see Germany as a threat.

As for the African map, yes, Germany did want an East to West route across Africa (not quite as ambitious as Britian's Cape-Cairo plans). But given the choice would you rather take over the massive expanses of the Belgian Congo, British East Africa and the notoriously poor Portuguese colonies or get diamond rich South Africa which already had a large European population (remember the Boers and Germans were good friends until 1914)?

Again I think it's an interesting map, but not very factual... just my opinions though.

Cheers
Chris

 

[Robert]

I think there is some truth to most of the shown areas, but they mix up official annexiation plans, personal proposals of single agitators and the discussed split-off of independent states (such as Finland, Poland and the Ukrainian). Also, there was always a great confusion about such plans. E.g., the map of 1918 shows mainly Ludendorffs personal opinion which was opposed by the official high command (Reichsleitung). In general, the higher military ranks (and of course the industry) favoured more radical demands to keep up moral. On the other hand, after 1916 the social democrats plans for a peace whithout any annexiations or reparations was quite popular, particularly among the work staff and the lower military ranks.

I guess the German territoral demands were never really defined by the official representation, except for the rather moderate "September program" in 1914 which did not last very long anyway. But for the allies it was shurely quite advantageous to publish whatever the most radical proposals were, regardless of their political relevance.

The african plans for a territory called "Deutsch-Mittelafrika" had their origins in negotiations between Germany and England in 1913. Portugal was almost broke and both states planned to divide the portuguese colonies up. Germany tried to achieve a complete east-west connection, but England prevented this for its own interests. During the war, the old plans were brought up again and extended by parts of the French and Belgian colonies. The project would have probably been persued in case of a victory over these countries. So this may actually be the most correct part of the maps. I remember reading that Mittelafrika would have been sort of a German counterweight to India which was a great prestige object for England at the time.