African Origins of the Mandates Idea

Abstract

As the Allied troops overran the German colonies the First World War British publicists began to debate whether these territories should be returned to Germany, placed under some sort of international control, or sliced up and annexed by the conquering powers. There was little support for the proposal to hand diem back to Germany. In part this was because of the widely held belief that the Germans were guilty of “atrocities” in Africa no less appalling than those committed in King Leopold's Congo Free State before it was annexed by Belgium in 1908. The real question was whether the German colonies should be annexed or “internationalized.” On the left of the political spectrum the Independent Labor Party urged international administration as a means of uprooting imperialism as a cause of war. On the right the conservative press advocated annexation pure and simple as a means of preventing war by strengthening the British Empire. The mandates system itself was a compromise between these opposing ideas. It was viewed by those on the left as a limited triumph in the cause of internationalization; and by those on the right as annexation in all but name.