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progressed towards a favourable conclusion, however, we should be able to send reinforcements so as to enable the troops in our African Protectorates ultimately to assert their superiority over the troops maintained by the enemy in neighbouring territory.
11. It has recently been stated that an examination of the terms of peace of wars for many years past shows that the victor has in no case acquired permanent possession of hostile territory of which he was not in effective occupation at the time of the cessation of hostilities. This consideration has been put forward as an argument in favour of the increase of our forces in outlying possessions so as to preclude the danger of even temporary occupation of British territory by the enemy in the early stages of a war,
The analogy does not, however, appear to be wholly applicable to the question under consideration, which is not one of the acquisition of foreign territory, but of the retention of our own; and it is believed that there is no case of a victor accepting terms of peace which left part of his own territory in the possession of a vanquished
enemy.
12. The military policy of His Majesty's Government of recent years has been one of concentration. With a view to increasing our power of acting on the offensive at any threatened point, the number of troops locked up in outlying stations and allotted to sedentary garrisons has been considerably reduced. The strategic advantages of this policy are so overwhelming that the increase of outlying garrisons should not be undertaken unless the need can be amply demonstrated.
13. In these circumstances the Colonial Defence Committee are of opinion that it is undesirable to make any departure from the present policy under which the strength of the military forces maintained in the British East and West African possessions is fixed at the minimum force required to insure the maintenance of internal order and to deal with risings of the native population.
14. Under the Articles X and XI of the Berlin Act of 1885 it is provided that the Protectorates of East Africa and Zanzibar, including the Island of Pemba, may be placed under the rule of neutrality during a war.
The question of the desirability, from the point of view of military and naval exigencies, of making use of these articles in relation to the contingency of a war with France was discussed by the Colonial Defence Committee in their Memorandum No. 164 M, dated the 15th November, 1898, in which it was stated:----
**2. From the military point of view, the Committee would anticipate no disadvantage from the neutralisation of Zanzibar and Pemba during a war with France. But the case is different with regard to the coast of British East Africa. The neutralisation of that Protectorate would, by the terms of Article XI of the Berlin Act, deprive Great Britain of the use of Mombasa and Kismayu as bases for warlike operations. We are actually carrying on such operations in Uganda and on the Juba from these ports as bases. We require to use them as such for relieving our Indian troops in the East Africa Protectorate, and it might also be necessary to employ them as bases in the event of an attempt being made to advance from Abyssinia on the upper waters of the Nile. These operations, although they would not actually be directed against the French, could hardly be reconciled with a condition of neutrality, and might form a sufficient ground for that nation declining to accept the restrictions which neutrality would impose. Further, in actual operations against the French between the Nile and the Ubanghi, it might be necessary to cross into the Congo Free Trade Zone from the north or to utilise troops coming up from British East Africa.
"It is, therefore, clearly not to our advantage, from the point of view of our military offensive operations, that British East Africa should be neutralised in a war with France. Such neutralisation might, however, lead to similar action being taken by the French with regard to their territories within the Congo Free Trade Zone, and it remains to be seen whether this would or would not be to our advantage. It would certainly make it impossible for French troops to act from the Ubanghi, which is within the Free Trade Zone. On the other hand, it would be practically impossible for them to operate from there for any material length of time even if the French territory is not neutralised. Military supplies for the Ubanghi are ordinarily landed at Matadi in Congo territory, which in war would be barred by neutrality, and the blockade of the French littoral, the most important part of which is outside the Free Trade Zone, would cut off all connection with the Upper Ubanghi.
"3. From the naval point of view, the ports in British East Africa would not in existing circumstances be utilised as naval bases, so that there would be no disadvantage in their being neutralised. Zanzibar, on the other hand, is the headquarters of the squadron on the East Coast of Africa, and it is important that in war its harbour should be available for naval purposes. It
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