QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

“Queensland annexes New Guinea” In his 1968 book Kreuzerkrieg (‘Cruiser War’) author Edwin P Hoyt succinctly outlined both the aspirations and the challenges facing the fledgling German Empire in the Pacific, which led ultimately to the formation of the East Asia Squadron and its breakaway member, the light cruiser Emden .

“Australian politicians were startled by an anonymous article – in reality written by Emil Deckert from Dresden – published in the Allgemeine Zeitung on 27 November 1882. With the title ‘New Guinea’, the article stated that it was the ‘duty of the German nation’ to take over the ‘cultivation of New Guinea’. Although the Colonial Office in London tried to reassure the Australian public … the unease and suspicion remained, particularly in Queensland, the nearest Australian colony to New Guinea. “As a precaution against all eventualities, the Brisbane government proclaimed the annexation of the eastern half of the large island, not claimed by Holland, on 4 April 1883, announced by Governor Kennedy in a telegram to the Colonial Secretary. Although the other Australian colonies gave their full support to Brisbane’s action at a conference in Sydney … the British government did not approve of Queensland’s single-handed action. Rumours about an imminent occupation of New Guinea and other South Sea islands continued to circulate in Australia, so much so that the alleged expedition by ornithologist Otto Finsch on a small steamer bought in Sydney inevitably fuelled new speculation. And, indeed! Finsch did not sail forth to observe and catch exotic birds, but to take possession of the country. He hoisted the German flag in the Bismarck Archipelago – as it was known henceforth – and on the New Guinea coast. He soon received assistance from the corvette Elisabeth , and the gunboat Hyäne . The Australians’ worst fears had come true: a major European power was now the Fifth Continent’s nearest neighbour. “Frightened themselves, in the final analysis, the British only managed to incorporate the south eastern part of New Guinea … into the British Empire at the last minute. Richard Krauel, formerly Germany’s first consul general in Sydney, conducted the negotiations with London about the boundaries of the German and British South Seas possessions in 1885. He gave Herbert von Bismarck, son of the Chancellor, the assurance: ‘Even the Australians have calmed down and now comfort themselves with the thought that Germany has become a Pacific power.’” But this was a rosy view. English globetrotter and historian James Froude: “They saw at their doors, in the intended New Guinea settlement, German soldiers, German fleets, German competition with their own trade, a great rival German influence menacing their wealth, their institutions, their independence.” Following the German seizure of New Guinea, it was now certain that ships of the German Imperial Navy would be plying Australian waters, visitingAustralian ports.

“Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century one could not really call Germany a seafaring nation; the German Empire was scarcely half a century old and none of its component states had depended on the sea for a livelihood. Germany did possess rich agricultural resources, and when the Industrial Revolution began she found that she had manufacturing resources, too, so the creation of the German merchant marine was a slow business, and the establishment of the German navy did not come about until late in the 1870s. In 1875 there was no German navy to speak of, but 15 years later Kaiser Wilhelm I could boast a force of 4,000 men and 20 ships. “The German navy came into being because the Kaiser and Chancellor Bismarck had established the beginnings of German empire. The overseas empire began in Africa, which was ripe for the taking by Europeans in the late years of the century; and once it was established as a series of trading posts, the German traders called for force to protect them and punish the natives who sometimes rose up against the harsh treatment accorded lesser peoples by the colonialists. “In the 1880s, when this problem arose, Bismarck was not overly concerned with these burgeoning colonies, not nearly so much as the merchants of Hamburg and Bremen, and he was not willing to spend vast sums of the government’s money on a navy, no matter how the businessmen howled. Germany’s future lay on the continent of Europe and he could see that future clearly. “Yet even [he] had to admit that the possession of colonies gave strength to the word Empire and that there was value to colonialism above the material, and he was not reluctant to support a reasonable naval force. The youthful German Admiralty arrived at what to Bismarck was an admirable solution to the problem of policing the colonies … [proposing] the creation of a Kreuzergeschwader , a cruiser squadron. The word was to become a household word in Germany…” Unsurprisingly, these developments were viewed with a mix of admiration and apprehension in various quarters, particularly when an unexpected reminder that large bits of Queensland’s nearest neighbours on the islands to the north remained unclaimed by British or Australian interests galvanised local attention. Johannes Voigt resumes the story.

58