The European Rivalries
During the latter portion of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, the colonization of Africa by the European Empires was driven by a variety of factors. One of the first was the expansion of the Europeans into other areas of the world. Navies of the day were powered by coal, and coaling stations and supporting naval facilities were important to the communication with other portions of their empires. The British, French, Spanish, and German Empires all had important holdings in the Pacific, and reaching them from the mother country required a support system.
Unlike the colonization of the North American continent, relatively few settlers migrated to Africa to establish a European dominated population. The majority of the African colonies were dominated by their native populations, administered and governed by Europeans. The resources which were exploited by the businesses which operated within the colonies did go to improving the infrastructure of the colonies insofar as it added to the profits and the viability of trade. Natives dug in the mines, harvested the fields, and labored on the roads and railways, but the vast majority of the fruits of their labor went to the empires.
The growing rivalries of the European empires was reflected in the African colonies, which were often seen and used as bargaining chips when other issues were being resolved. Colonies which had large populations were valued by the British and French Empires, which created colonial military units for use during the colonial wars within Africa (and throughout their realms), and during the soon to be launched First World War. The fabled French Foreign Legion was born out of the colonization of Africa, formed to defend the French colony of Algeria in 1831.
The rivalries of the European Empires in Africa contributed significantly to the tensions and intertwining alliances which led to the First World War. The Entente Cordiale, which ended a millennium of imperial rivalry between Great Britain and France, remained in effect when the Triple Alliance of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy collapsed at the outset of World War I. Both England and France went to war in Europe and Africa as allies, but Italy remained neutral at the beginning of the war ending the Triple Alliance. The colonization of Africa also accelerated the naval race between the Germans and Great Britain.
Germany had scarcely been unified when it entered into the race for African empire, but its holdings in Africa made it the third largest of the colonizing nations in terms of territory. In terms of population under German control, about 9% of Africans occupied German colonies, while the British controlled just over 30% of the population of the continent. By 1914 the greatest amount of land in Africa was under the control of the French, but part of that was the unusable Sahara. At the end of the First World War German possessions in Africa, some of which had been lost in the war, were partitioned by the French, British, and Belgians.