FLEET OF HYDRO-AEROPLANES, AUXILIARY TO BAITISH NAVY Among Britain's force of heavier-than-air and gas-buoyed airships, none are capable of rendering more vital service to the fleet than the hydro-aeroplanes, because of their ability to rest on the water instead of having to depend on a sustained flight in the air. On the right is a sergeant of the R. F. C., wearing the new badge of a propeller on his arm. He is saluting two aviation manding one shore of the strait between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Her intrigues there led to the serious controversy with France which brought those countries near the verge of war and which was at last settled, very unsatisfactorily to Germany, at the Algeciras Conference of 1906. Indeed, it was probably his diplomatic defeat in that affair that determined the Kaiser to proceed with the world-war which he provoked eight years later. THE SOUTH AFRICAN DRAMA Most notable of all, however, was the empire-drama of South Africa. It was there, that the German Colonial Empire was founded, when in 1883-84 Prince Bismarck sent Frederick Luederitz to Angra Pequena to organize the colony of German Southwest Africa. It was a costly job, for it brought on the Hottentot war, which cost nearly $80,000,000 and the lives of several thousand Germans, while about 30,000 natives were exterminated. The next step was the acquisition of German East Africa, which extended inland to the boundary of the Congo and thus prevented any connection between British East Africa and British South Africa. When trouble began to brew in South Africa between the Boers and British, the German opportunity seemed to have come. The Kaiser sent his famous message of sympathy and encouragement to Paul Kruger, on the Jameson Raid, and tried to make the Boers feel that Germany was their friend, and that they had an ally on the spot in German Southwest Africa. Again when the Boer-British War came on, neutrality was grossly violated by the Germans in Southwest Africa in aid of the Boers, who were permitted to cross the frontier at will when pursued by the British, and then to return to the war. There were secret negotiations between the Boers and the Germans for a compact between them, to the effect that if the Boers succeeded in expelling the British from South Africa, all the colonies there should be put under German protection and be allied with the German colonies at the west and northeast of them, making practically a great German empire occupying the whole of South Africa. THE SCHEME DEFEATED The leader of the Boers at that time, and the foremost advocate of that scheme, was Louis Botha, probably the ablest man the Boer race has ever produced. He was defeated in that war by Roberts and Kitchener, however, and he accepted the result loyally, and later became the Prime Minister of the British Union of South Africa. As soon as the present war was started, German agents approached him with plans for a revolution. He was to lead the revolution, throw off British government, and declare the union of the former British colonies with the German colonies, in a German South Africa extending from the Cape to the Congo. But Botha said, No. He had accepted the results of the Boer war in good faith, and had sworn allegiance to the British crown, and he meant to keep his word. A few of his former comrades were seduced by the German tempters, and a small insurrection was started. Louis Botha thereupon took the field against them and suppressed them. He then organized the Boers into an army and set forth to conquer German Southwest Africa for the British crown; and did it! There have been few more striking incidents in history than that, in which the very men who were expected by the Germans to betray British South Africa to Germany, instead conquered German Southwest Africa for Great Britain. war. OTHER AFRICAN COLONIES Togoland was easily taken by the British early in the The Kamerun territory fell later, British, French, Belgians and Portuguese participating in the campaign. German East Africa was the last to fall in that continent. The German half of New Guinea, Kaiser Wilhelm's |