Karl Peters

Chapter 666: Karl Peters

Cameroon.

Idenau was a German colony in the Cameroon region, but it had little to do with the German government. It was a German colony opened up by a private colonial organization.

Germany's government-led colony in Cameroon was Douala. Neither was actually a large colonial foothold, but for the moment, Idenau was far larger in scale than Douala.

However, with the Berlin Conference being convened, the German government was pushing to merge Idenau and Douala into a more competitive Cameroon colony, then develop inland.

"After the Berlin Conference, Idenau and its surrounding areas will certainly become Germany's first colony in West Africa. In the future, this place will also represent the Germans' first step in conquering the seas—the starting point for Germany to become the World's Number One Power," Karl Peters said excitedly.

Idenau's administrators did not think there was anything wrong with Karl Peters's words. Ever since Germany defeated France, it had effectively become the new hegemon of the European continent. But a European hegemon could only represent Europe; a world hegemon had to control the seas. If Germany wished to go further, it had to possess vast colonies like Britain's to support it.

"Chancellor Bismarck is simply too timid and overly cautious. Otherwise, after all these years, Germany would not still lag behind countries like Belgium and Italy in terms of colonies. If we had acted ten years earlier, we might have seized colonies even larger than present-day East Africa," Karl Peters said.

Bismarck had never been a man as timid as a mouse. He could even be called rather mad. During his tenure, he launched three large-scale wars of unification, maneuvering in every direction and successively crushing the two great powers of Austria and France. Every step had been extraordinarily bold; one misstep,