IMPERIAL EXPANSION AFTER 1760

Why?

Money?

Religion?

Balance of Power Politics? An Elite Game

Geo-Politics: East Asia, Central Asia, Africa

Europeans: 75% of Earth's Surface by 1914

India: The Great Game

Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires?

Where is it?

The Great Game: a buffer state

Boundaries--drawn by imperial powers

First Afghan War 1839-1842

• Dost Mohammed--unstable!
• Shah Shuja
• General Elphinstone's death march
• 16,000 dead or captured
• Reprisals--Kabul levelled.

Orientalism

• Ungovernable--"wild tribes"
• Fanatics of Algiers (Delacroix)
• Cruel

  Women

Indian "Mutiny" of 1857, or

The First Indian War of Independence

Second Afghan War 1878-1880

• Russian influence in Kabul
• Ayub Khan
• More military disasters
• Battle of Kandahar (memorial in Glasgow, Scotland)

 India

• Indian National Congress 1885
• Muslim League 1906
• Road to Democracy?

China: Qing Dynasty 1644-1912

Western Expansion in China

• Opium Wars

Foreign Presence

• Missionaries
• Shipping
• Taxation

Taiping Rebellion 1851-1864

Boxer Rebellion 1898-1900

China

Dr. Sun Yat Sen (d. 1925)

Chinese Revolution 1911

• Democratic Ideals
• Christianity and Modernity

Republic of China 1912

Benefits of Imperialism from the Imperial Point of View

• Spain--the true Catholic faith
• Britain--training in self-government and rule of law
• France--the civilizing mission of French culture
• USA: democracy and freedom
• All--"civilization"
• "Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization"
• Missionary Idealism vs. Realities of Military Occupation
  • Oberlin Memorial Arch

Africa: legacy of the Slave Trade

The Suez Canal: Egypt and Ottoman Empire

• "Which Came First, the Bible or the Flag?"
• Spread of Christianity...Appeal to Africans

The Scramble for Africa

 The Spanish American War...1898

• Cuban Independence Movement
• Puerto Rico
• Phillipines

Expansion in Middle East

• Encircling Persia (Iran)
• Internal Combustion Engine
• Royal Navy (diesel vs. coal)
• 1907 Anglo-Russian Agreement

Islam and Christianity

The Ottoman Empire

• Christians and Jews treated well
• European Anti-Semitism
• "The Sick Man of Europe"

1914: Power Struggles in Europe are Global

Questions for Review:

What were the elements of the European balance of power?

How did the struggle for power work beyond the boundaries of Europe?

What benefits did imperialists believe they brought to their colonial subjects?

Why was the Suez Canal so important to the rulers of Great Britain?

What set off the "scramble for Africa?"

What were the interests of the great powers in the Middle East?

How did the relationship of the great powers to China differ from those in South Asia and Africa?