CAB38-17 — Page 249

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5. For convenience of reference, a summary of the forces maintained by France and Germany in their East and West African possessions and of the British forces in adjacent British Colonies and Protectorates is printed as Appendix II to this Memorandum.

6. The strength of the military forces maintained in the British West African Colonies and Protectorates is considerably inferior to that of the forces which France has at her disposal in her West African possessions. This inferiority has been recognised in arranging for the disposition of the troops in the local Defence Schemes to meet the contingency of a war with France; and provision is made for the evacuation of certain remote areas of British territory, where we could not hope effectively to oppose a French attack without considerable reinforcements sent from the United Kingdom or elsewhere.

The inferiority of the German forces in their West African possessions to the forces available in the neighbouring British Colonies and Protectorates, on the other hand, is so marked that there appears to be little danger of incursions into British territory from that quarter.

7. As regards East Africa the forces in German East Africa are inferior to the total of the forces maintained in the three adjacent British Protectorates, without taking into consideration the troops that could be drawn from Rhodesia and South Africa generally to assist the local forces.

The British forces are, however, distributed over a wide area; and from a study of Captain Hemming's Report (see Appendix I) the General Staff have formed the opinion that the disposition of the troops in German East Africa, and the communications in the southern portion of that Protectorate are so arranged as to facilitate a rapid concentration of the German forces towards the British frontier.

It must be remembered, however, that considerations of the probability of aggression on the part of the Union of South Africa against German South-West Africa would not be without their influence on German action in East Africa.

Further, it is believed that the internal condition of German East Africa is not at present sufficiently tranquil to permit of the withdrawal of any large portion of the local military forces for operations outside the Protectorate.

8. The Colonial Defence Committee are therefore of opinion that the danger of attack on our East African possessions in a war with Germany cannot be regarded as serious.

9. They would further point out that the fate of our African possessions in a war with a European Power will be determined by the ultimate issue of the war, and will therefore depend upon the result of naval and military operations in the main theatre of war and not upon the issue of minor operations in remote regions.

It has been explained in the Colonial Defence Committee's Memorandum No. 417 M, dated the 7th July, 1910, on the general principles of Imperial defence affecting the oversea Dominions and Colonies that the maintenance of our sea supremacy over the naval forces of any combination of naval Powers likely to be arrayed against us is the basis of the system of Imperial defence. So long as British naval supremacy is maintained, the power of reinforcing oversea garrisons will be assured to us and denied to the enemy.

10. Although the French West African possessions are territorially connected with Algeria, where a considerable military force is quartered, the nature of the overland communications between these two places does not permit of the conveyance of reinforcements overland from Algeria to French West Africa. Military reinforce- ments therefore can reach the French and German African Protectorates only

oversea

Owing to the limited strength of our forces available for oversea operations, it is possible that we might not be able in the early stages of a war to spare troops from the main theatre of operations to reinforce our African Protectorates. So long as the strength of the military forces in our African Protectorates is fixed at the minimum required to insure the maintenance of internal order and to deal with risings of the native population, regardless of the strength of the foreign troops in adjacent territory, the possibility of our being for a time inferior to the enemy in those regions must be faced. As the operations in the main theatre of war

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