Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty

(1890)

   Also known as the Anglo-German Heligoland Treaty, the agreement was an attempt to solve territorial disputes in Africa. Heligoland, an island in the North Sea north of the German port of Bremerhaven, was seized by the British in 1807, and kept during the post-1815 peace. In 1890, under the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, Britain ceded Heligoland to Germany in exchange for German recognition of its protectorate of Zanzibar. Some lands in East Africa also changed hands, largely to Britain’s advantage. Lord Salisbury’s government calculated that Heligoland was in wartime indefensible and so of little practical use. Zanzibar was valued as a base for antislavery operations in Africa, as a naval base, and as an entrepôt for British trade in the region. German recognition reduced conflict over the German claims on the continent behind it, which became Tanganyika.

   On the other hand, Germany sought control over Heligoland as a guard for the western end of the Kiel Canal. The agreement represented an instance of cooperation between two increasingly adversarial powers, but the calculations behind it reinforced the perception that Britain and Germany were natural antagonists. The treaty has gone down in history as a small but initial step toward the collision of 1914.

   See also <>; <>.

   FURTHER READING:

    Austen, Ralph A. Northwest Tanzania under German and British Rule: Colonial and Tribal Politics, 1889–1939. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968;

    Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa. New York: Random House, 1991.

   MARK F. PROUDMAN