CHAPTER VI.
The Story of German South West Africa.
A recently published Blue Book has revived the horrible story of the treatment of the Hereros in Damaraland, which caused such an uproar in Germany fourteen years ago, and such fierce Parliamentary denunciation that it seemed likely at one time to kill the whole "Colonial movement." The story needed recalling and no condemnation of it can be too strong. German rule in South West Africa from 1901 to 1906 was abominable and many of its bad features lingered on until the invasion and conquest of the country by General Botha, despite the altered spirit in German Colonial policy which marked the super-session of General von Trotha, and the presence of Herr Dernburg at the Colonial Office. The evils had bitten too deep, the immunity from wrong-doing enjoyed by the settlers had lasted too long, the demoralisation and destruction had been too general and widespread to permit of rapid change. Substantially, of course, reparation was impossible. It is reputed that from one-third to one-fourth of the Hereros—who, at the time of the German occupation were estimated to number 80,000—perished in, or as the result of, the sanguinary fighting with von Trotha. For the campaign assumed all the character of the struggle between the settlers and the North American Indians, between the settlers and the Australian Aborigines, and at one time between the French and the Kabyles of Algeria—i.e., a war of extermination.
The land of the Hereros was confiscated; their herds were partly seized, partly destroyed; the remnant of the people reduced to pauperism and subjected to the brutalities of forced labour. Nor was there any attempt on the part of those actually governing the country on the spot, or directing affairs from home, still less, of course, on the part of the settlers themselves, to conceal the main purpose which inspired the policy, viz., the substitution of the native owners of the soil by German immigrants and the transformation of free men into a landless proletariat
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