Historical origins and etymology.

The first appearance of the word "warlord" dates to 1856, when used by American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson in a highly critical essay on the aristocracy in England, "Piracy and war gave place to trade, politics and letters; the war-lord to the law-lord; the privilege was kept, whilst the means of obtaining it were changed."  During World War One the term appeared in China as "Junfa" (軍閥), taken from the Japanese "gunbatsu", which was taken in turn from the German. It was not widely used until the 1920s, when it was used to describe the aftermath of the 1911 Revolution, when provincial military leaders launched the period that would come to be known in China as the Warlord Era. In China, "Junfa" is applied retroactively to describe the leaders of regional armies who threatened or used violence to expand their rule, including those who rose to lead and unify kingdoms.

Conceptions of warlordism.

Although warlords were present historically in either pre-modern states or "weak state" societies, and in countries designated "fragile states" or "failed states" in modern times, there is a tremendous degree of variance in the political, economic and societal organization, structure and institutions in states where warlordism exists. There is also a divergence of opinion within the field of political science as to what specifically constitutes warlordism, particularly in the context of the historical setting.

Cooperative warlord politics vs. ungoverned warlordism.

There are two major functional distinctions when considering warlords and their relationship with a state. The first is one in which the warlord functions within the political framework through a degree of bargaining with the state regime so that the warlord, sometimes individually and sometimes in a coalition with other warlords, is acting with the explicit consent of or at least in accord with the regime. This can be viewed as "cooperative warlord politics". The other is one in which the warlord is operating independently of the state and is viewed as a rebel, insurgent or strategic political competitor of the regime. This is commonly viewed as "ungoverned warlordism". Warlords can also fall into a hybrid category, temporarily joining a warlord coalition in collusion with the regime or defecting for political expedience—transitioning from one paradigm to the other based upon strategic interests.

Warlordism as the dominant political order of pre-state societies.

The other major consideration in categorizing warlords is through the lens of history. Warlordism was a widespread, dominant political framework that ordered many of the world's societies until the modern state became globally ubiquitous. Often warlord governance in pre-modern state history was constructed along tribal or kinship lines and was congruent with early perceptions of "nation". In colonial empires warlords served in both cooperative political capacities and as leaders of rebellions. In modern states the presence of warlords is often seen as an indicator of state weakness or failure. American historian David G. Herrmann noted, "Warlordism is the default condition of humanity."

Economics of warlordism.

Economist Stergios Skaperdas views warlordism as a default—albeit inefficient—competitive economic model that emerges in states where state capacity is low, but that innately evolves into an institution governing political order that uses violence or the threat of it to secure its access to "rent"-producing resources. It may actually have a stabilizing effect on a region. In both cases there is an inherent inefficiency in the model, as "resources are wasted on unproductive arming and fighting." However, the functionality is often sustainable because it presents citizens with no choice but to accept rent levies in exchange for protection. Charles Tilly, an American political scientist and sociologist, theorized that organized crime can function as a means for war and state making. He argues that the monopoly of crime by the state—in this case being the warlords—is in order to receive protection from external rivals as well as internal political rivals.  Political scientist Jesse Driscoll uses the term "redistribution politics" to classify the bargaining process between warlords and the regime in states where cooperative warlord politics prevails, and when that bargaining leads to accords or informal arrangements concerning the extraction of rent—which can refer to natural resources, territory, labor, revenue or privilege. In his study of warlordism in Georgia and Tajikistan, Driscoll cites "land reform, property ownership and transfers, privatization in non-transparent closed-bid settings, complex credit swaps cemented via marriages, money laundering, price fixing schemes, and bribery", as principal sources of exchange in redistribution politics.

Understanding warlordism in the context of European feudalism.

Noted theorist Max Weber suggested that classic feudalism in pre-modern-state Europe was an example of warlordism, as the state regime was unable to "exercise a monopoly on the use of force within its territory" and the monarch relied on the commitment of loyal knights and other nobility to mobilize their private armies in support of the crown for specific military campaigns. As noted French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville and political scientists such as E. J. Hobsbawm and Theda Skocpol observed in their analyses of the Ancien Régime, the French Revolution and democratization in Europe, that commitment was contingent upon a bargaining process in which the king or queen had to guarantee additional territory, revenue, status or other privileges, meaning that these early European states were weak and the relationship between the crown and feudal lords constituted the form of interdependent warlordism known as cooperative warlord politics.  Under the feudal system of Europe, nobility—whether feudal lords, knights, princes or barons—were warlords in that they served as regional leaders who exercised military, economic and political control over subnational territories and maintained private armies to maintain that status. While their political power to exercise social order, welfare and regional defense within their territory was derived from hereditary rights or edicts from the monarch, their military strength afforded them independence and strength to negotiate for privileges. Should the feudal lord or other noble withdraw his support from the king, either in rebellion or to form an alliance with a rival kingdom, that feudal lord or noble was now ascribing to the political order of ungoverned warlordism.

Warlordism in the contemporary world.

Within political science there is a growing body of research and analysis on warlordism that has emerged within weak states that have gained independence as a result of the collapse of empire. Warlord states are disproportionately concentrated within two regions—the former European colonies of Africa and the former Soviet republics of Eurasia.

Cooperative warlord politics.

While warlords are commonly viewed as regional leaders who threaten the sovereignty of a state, there are a number of states where the central government functions in collusion with warlords to achieve its goal of exercising its sovereignty over regions that would otherwise fall outside its control. In such decentralized states, particularly those where armed groups challenge national sovereignty, warlords can serve as useful allies of a central government that is unable to establish a monopoly over the use of force within its national territory.

The Philippines.

As political scientist Dr. Ariel Hernandez documented, one example is the Philippines, where successive presidential administrations—at least since Ferdinand Marcos secured power in 1965—have "franchised violence to regional warlords" to counter the inroads of communist insurgents, Islamic rebels and organized criminal gangs. This has led to the formation of at least 93 "Partisan Armed Groups", armed militias loyal to regional warlords who, in exchange for their loyalty and willingness to use their private armies to quell the threats from these opposition groups, are granted a degree of autonomy within designated regions, the exclusive right to use violence and the right "to profit from the 'economy of violence' that they establish in their own areas".

Afghanistan.

Warlordism in Afghanistan—another state where the central government is unable to extend political, military or bureaucratic control over large swaths of territories outside the capital—functions cooperatively within the framework of the state, at times. The warlords, with their established militias, are able to maintain a monopoly of violence within certain territories. They form coalitions with competing warlords and local tribal leaders to present the central government with a challenge, and often the state will bargain to gain access to resources or "rent", loyalty from the warlord and peace in the region.  In exchange for peaceful coexistence, the warlord coalitions are granted special status and privileges, including the right to maintain "de facto" political rule within the agreed-upon territory, exert force to retain their monopoly over violence and extract rent and resources. "By limiting access to these privileges, members of the dominant warlord coalition create credible incentives to cooperate rather than fight among themselves."  In the case of Afghanistan, the state-warlord bargaining sometimes extends beyond these informal accords and elevates to the status of political clientelism, in which the warlords are appointed to formal government positions, such as regional governor; a title which provides them political legitimacy. It has been shown that during the state-warlord bargaining phase, warlords in Afghanistan have a high motivation to prolong war to create political instability, expose weakness of the central state, prompt regional criticism against the government and continue economic extraction.

Post-Soviet republics.

In his study of warlordism in Georgia and Tajikistan, political scientist Jesse Driscoll emphasizes how the collapse of the Soviet Union precipitated the entification of militant, independence-seeking nationalist movements within the republics—particularly within the Central Asian and Caucasus regions—resulting in armed conflict and civil war. Many strongmen warlords had previously served in the Soviet military, police units or intelligence services and had experience operating within highly organized bureaucracies. These warlords formed well-structured militias that not only established political and economic control over territories, but institutionalized bureaucracies to establish and maintain their monopolies over violence and rent and "incentivizing the behavior of citizens within a particular geographical space". Driscoll termed this warlordism "Militia Coalition Politics". A truce was reached without any disarmament of militias; instead, the warlord coalitions reached a non-violent "order producing equilibrium", and eventually agreed upon a warlord-friendly civilian figurehead to assume head-of-state duties to demonstrate the legitimacy as a sovereign state to the rest of the world. This opened up Georgia and Tajikistan as states eligible to receive international aid, which thereafter became a major source of "rent" for the warlords, providing them with resources to increase their power and influence over these societies. As Driscoll observed, the "warlords colluded to create a state".

Ungoverned warlordism, or warlords as "stationary bandits".

One political theory, pioneered by American economist Mancur Olson, posits that warlords can function as stationary bandits. In some African states, warlord politics can be a product of endowment-rich, extractable resources. Some nations, including Liberia and Sierra Leone, have had stationary bandits who use extraction of resources such as diamonds, cobalt and timber ("conflict resources") in order to increase their political power. They often enforce their right to these resources by claiming to be protecting the people. These warlords, or stationary bandits, often partner with compliant foreign firms and create symbiotic relationships to yield greater power for the warlords and a source of wealth for external firms. The result is a political system in which a dominant coalition of warlords strips and distributes valuable assets in exchange for bureaucratic services and security from foreign firms.  Stationary bandits can amass power because of their economic connections with foreign firms. Oftentimes warlords will exert violence on a particular region in order to gain control. Once in control, these warlords can expropriate the property or resources from the people and land and redistribute the riches in exchange for monetary value. When people live in a particular region dominated by a warlord, they can choose to flee or live within the political structure the warlords have created. If the warlords provide protection against external threats of violence, the people will be likely to stay and continue living and working in that region, even though they are being extorted. The trade-off becomes protection for extraction, and this political framework is common in periphery regions of countries which do not have a strong central government.

Contemporary examples of warlordism.

Afghanistan.

Present-day Afghanistan is a multiethnic, multilingual country occupied by distinct and often competing tribal societies, where national borders were defined only following decolonization in 1919, when the British signed the Treaty of Rawalpindi.  The territory, which sits at the crossroads of the Silk Road, has been conquered and occupied by powerful neighboring civilizations throughout history and had no lasting central government prior to the termination of Britain's military presence in Afghanistan following the relinquishment of the British Raj and Partition of India and Pakistan.  Historically, power in Afghanistan has been decentralized and governance resigned locally to ethnic tribal leadership. Tribal leaders act as local warlords, representing either a tribal confederacy, a tribal kinship group or a smaller tribal lineage grouping, and are expected to provide security, justice and social services to their respective constituencies. There are four dominant ethnic tribes in Afghanistan (Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks), as well as a number of lesser tribes. The Pashtuns are the largest and most dominant ethnic tribe in the country, whose name translates to "Land of the Pashtuns".  One of the lingering geopolitical crises stemming from British colonialism is the challenge to Pashtun society posed by the Durand Line, the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan demarcated by the British, which bisects the traditional tribal territory of the Pashtuns. Pashtuns are the prominent ethnic group in Eastern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan, and the Durand Line serves to split their territory between two nation states. The severing of their tribal lands is viewed by Pashtun leaders as a threat to their dominance within Afghanistan, emboldening rival ethnic tribes, and has provoked cross-border tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. While having significant political, economic and social impact on Afghanistan, the intervention of the Soviet Union (1979–89), Afghan Civil War (1989–96), Taliban Regime (1996–2001) and United States invasion and occupation (2001–present) have not noticeably disrupted the primacy of ethnic tribal authority, and thus the power and influence of warlords, in ordering Afghan society. Although the United States and its coalition allies have expended a considerable amount of time, effort and resources attempting to foment the centralization of government and consolidation of power in the state with its seat of power in Kabul, tribal warlords continue to maintain political influence and power throughout the country outside of Kabul.  While most warlords have power vested in them through traditional tribal customs, some hold formal regional government positions, but in both cases cooperation with the central government remains voluntary and reliant on incentives. Beginning in 2008, as it became increasingly evident that the central government in Kabul was incapable of extending its power and control to much of the country, the US military and diplomatic corps began exploring the option of engaging ethnic tribal warlords in negotiations, a strategy that has continued through the Obama administration.

Russian Civil War and Chechen conflicts.

Warlordism was widespread in Civil War-era Russia (1918–22). Many territories were not under the control of either the Red government in Petrograd (later in Moscow) or the White governments in Omsk and Rostov. These territories were controlled by warlords of various political colors. The Cossack ataman Semyonov held territories in the Transbaikalia region, and the "Bloody Baron" Ungern von Sternberg was the dictator of Mongolia for a short time. Note that White generals such as Kolchak or Denikin are not considered warlords, because they created a legitimate, though troubled, government and military command.  The term "warlord" was frequently used when Russian and Chechen conflicts were reignited in the 1990s.

Liberia.

Liberia's former president Charles Taylor was indicted as a diamond-embezzling warlord who aided and abetted African rebels who committed heinous atrocities against millions of African people. After seizing power from President Samuel Doe in a rebellion, Taylor won elections in 1997. His critics say that he bullied and bought his way to power, and once he obtained it he established himself as one of the most brutal and murderous warlords in Africa.  During his term of office Taylor was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as a result of his involvement in the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002). His close friends included the late Col. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya; the conservative former ruler of Ivory Coast, Félix Houphouët-Boigny; the President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré; and a plethora of businessmen—local and foreign—who were bent on making money in Liberia and disregarded UN disapproval. Taylor was detained by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2006 after a period of enforced exile in Nigeria. He was found guilty in April 2012 of all 11 charges levied by the Special Court, including terror, murder and rape. In May 2012 he was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Historical examples of warlordism.

China.

The modern era of warlordism in China commenced with the 1911 Wuchang uprising and Xinhai Revolution, when China's last Imperial Dynasty, the Qing, disintegrated and was replaced by the Republic of China (ROC), led by Yuan Shikai until his death in 1916. A period of provincial and local rule under military strongmen, known as the Warlord era lasted until the Kuomintang (KMT; Chinese Nationalist Party) consolidated its rule over much of the country under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in 1928.  Among the prominent leaders called warlords were Yan Xishan in Shanxi province, Feng Yuxiang, and Wu Peifu, who had reputations as reformers; Zhang Zuolin, who ruled in Manchuria until the Japanese invasion of 1931; and a number of local warlords with nasty reputations, such as Zhang Zongchang. Although Chiang Kai-shek ascended with legitimacy into his role of leadership of the KMT by succeeding Sun Yat-sen and was recognized by foreign nations, Chiang was accused by some of being a warlord because of his rise by military campaign. The two-year Northern Expedition campaign (1926–28) not only defeated the Beiyang Army but also toppled the Beiyang government. Chiang additionally conquered and conscripted the forces of rival warlords in the Central Plains War of 1930. This war essentially ended the Warlord Period in spite of the continuing autonomy of several provinces.  The invasion of China by the Japanese Imperial Army (1936–45) and the conflict between forces loyal to the KMT and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) led by Mao Zedong (1928–49) divided rule of China until the victory of the PLA and founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Mongolia.

After the fall of the Mongol Empire, Mongolia was divided between the Eastern and Western Mongols. At the time of disintegration, many warlords tried to enthrone themselves or rule the khanate jointly; however, there had been powerful "de facto" leaders in all parts of the Mongol Empire before. The empire and the states that emerged from it were born and shaped in part from the heavy influence of roving bandits. These warlords, such as Genghis Khan and his immediate successors, conquered nearly all of Asia and European Russia Roving bandits, contrary to the concept of stationary bandits offered by Mancur Olson, extract from region to region and stay mobile. Warlords in Mongolia could be characterized by this title because of the Mongol Empire's lack of definitive borders and consistent expansion and conquest during the 13th and 14th centuries.

Vietnam.

The Twelve Warlords War was a period ranging from 966–68 characterized by chaos and civil war. The reason this period received the title of "Twelve Warlords War", or Anarchy of the 12 Warlords, is because of the struggle for power after the illegitimate succession to the throne by Dương Tam Kha after the death of Ngô Quyền. The ensuing two years were marked by local warlords rebelling in order to seize power within their local governments and challenging the Dương court. As a result, the country fractured into 12 regions, each led by a warlord. This resulted in conflicts and war among the regional warlords, who all sought to expand their territory and enhance their power.

Europe.

Warlordism in Europe is usually connected to various mercenary companies and their chieftains, which often were "de facto" power-holders in the areas where they resided. Such free companies would arise in a situation when the recognized central power had collapsed, such as in the Great Interregnum in Germany (1254–78) or in France during the Hundred Years' War after the Battle of Poitiers; and in the Kingdom of Scotland during the Wars of Scottish Independence.  Free company mercenary captains, such as Sir John Hawkwood, Roger de Flor of Catalan Company or Hugh Calveley, could be considered warlords. Several condottieri in Italy can also be classified as warlords. Ygo Gales Galama was a famous Frisian warlord, and so was his cousin Pier Gerlofs Donia, who was the leader of the Arumer Zwarte Hoop.  The Imperial commanders-in-chief during the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I did hold the title "Kriegsherr", of which the direct translation was "warlord", but they were not warlords in the sense of the word today. Other warlords could be found in the British Isles during the Middle Ages and up into the Early Modern period; such examples include Brian Boru of Ireland and Guthrum of the Danelaw, who was the commander of the Great Heathen Army and nearly conquered all of England, Alfred of Anglo-Saxon England, first man to unify the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Europe, although it would not be completed until Edward the Elder's reign, in which he conquered the last remnants of the Danelaw.

Other examples.

Other countries and territories with warlords include, Iraq, Burma (Wa State), Russia (Chechnya), the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, the Philippines, Pakistan (Pashtun Tribal Areas), Syria and Tajikistan (Gorno-Badakhshan). Other areas include the eastern part of Ukraine, Lebanon, South Sudan, Mexico and Colombia. Notable warlords include Ashoka, Attila, Khalid ibn al-Walid, Mahmud of Ghazni, Saladin, Genghis Khan, Timur (Tamerlane) and Aurangzeb.

References.

Further reading

A warlord is a leader able to exercise military, economic, and political control over a subnational territory within a sovereign state due to their ability to mobilize loyal armed forces. These armed forces, usually considered militias, are loyal to the warlord rather than to the state regime. Warlords have existed throughout much of history, albeit in a variety of different capacities within the political, economic, and social structure of states or ungoverned territories.

军阀可以定义为军人以武力为后盾,割据一方,以保有并扩张自己的权位,忽视国家的秩序法律。以下为军阀的定义:


Extent.

The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows:

Name.

Modern names.

Current names of the sea are usually equivalents of the English name "Black Sea", including these given in the countries bordering the sea:  Such names have not yet been shown conclusively to predate the 13th century.  In Greece, the historical name "Euxine Sea" holds a different meaning (see below), is still widely used:

Historical names and etymology.

The principal Greek name "Póntos Áxeinos" is generally accepted to be a rendering of Iranian word ("dark colored"), compare Avestan ("dark colored"), Old Persian (color of turquoise), Middle Persian / ("blue"), and New Persian ("blue"), as well as Ossetic ("dark gray"). The ancient Greeks, most likely those living to the north of the Black Sea, subsequently adopted the name and altered it to. Thereafter, Greek tradition refers to the Black Sea as the "Inhospitable Sea",, which is first attested in Pindar (). The name was considered to be "ominous" and was later changed into the euphemistic name "Hospitable sea",, which was also for the first time attested in Pindar. This became the commonly used designation for the sea in Greek. In contexts related to mythology, the older form remained favored.  It has been erroneously suggested that the name was derived from the color of the water, or was at least related to climatic conditions. Black or dark in this context, however, referred to a system in which colors represent the cardinal points of the known world. Black or dark represented the north; red the south; white the west; and green or light blue for the east. The symbolism based on cardinal points was used on multiple occasions and is therefore widely attested. For example, the "Red Sea", a body of water reported since the time of Herodotus (–) in fact designated the Indian Ocean, together with bodies of water now known as the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. According to the same explanation and reasoning, it is therefore considered to be impossible for the Scythians, who principally roamed in present-day Ukraine and Russia, to have given the designation because they lived to the north of the sea, which would, therefore, be a southern body of water for them. The name could have only been given by people who were aware of both the northern "black/dark" and southern "red" seas; it is therefore considered probable it was given its name by the Achaemenids (550–330 BC).  Strabo's "Geographica" (1.2.10) reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often simply called "the Sea" ( ). He also thought the Black Sea was called "inhospitable" before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. (7.3.6) The name was changed to "hospitable" after the Milesians had colonized the Pontus region of the southern shoreline, making it part of Greek civilization.  In Greater Bundahishn, a sacred Zoroastrian text written in Middle Persian, the Black Sea is called. A 1570 map of Asia titled from Abraham Ortelius's labels the sea ("Great Sea", compare Latin ).  English-language writers of the 18th century often used the name "Euxine Sea" ( or ) to refer to the Black Sea. Edward Gibbon, for instance, calls the sea by this name throughout "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". During the Ottoman Empire period, the Black Sea was called either or, both meaning "the Black Sea" in Ottoman Turkish.  In the tenth-century geography book, which was written in Persian by an unknown author, the Black Sea is called "Georgian Sea", "Sea of Georgians" (). "The Georgian Chronicles" used the name (), which means the "Sea of Speri", named after the Kartvelian tribe Speris or Saspers. The modern names of the Black Sea (,, etc.), originated in the 13th century.

Geology and bathymetry.

The Black Sea is divided into two depositional basins—the Western Black Sea and Eastern Black Sea—separated by the Mid-Black Sea High, which includes the Andrusov Ridge, Tetyaev High, and Archangelsky High, extending south from the Crimean Peninsula. The basin includes two distinct relict back-arc basins which were initiated by the splitting of an Albian volcanic arc and the subduction of both the Paleo- and Neo-Tethys Oceans, but the timings of these events remain uncertain. Arc volcanism and extension occurred as the Neo-Tethys Ocean subducted under the southern margin of Laurasia during the Mesozoic. Uplift and compressional deformation took place as the Neotethys continued to close. Seismic surveys indicate that rifting began in the Western Black Sea in the Barremian and Aptian followed by the formation of oceanic crust 20 million years later in the Santonian. Since its initiation, compressional tectonic environments led to subsidence in the basin, interspersed with extensional phases resulting in large-scale volcanism and numerous orogenies, causing the uplift of the Greater Caucasus, Pontides, Southern Crimean Peninsula and Balkanides mountain ranges.  During the Messinian salinity crisis in the neighboring Mediterranean Sea, water levels fell but without drying up the sea.  The ongoing collision between the Eurasian and African plates and westward escape of the Anatolian block along the North Anatolian Fault and East Anatolian Faults dictates the current tectonic regime, which features enhanced subsidence in the Black Sea basin and significant volcanic activity in the Anatolian region. These geological mechanisms, in the long term, have caused the periodic isolations of the Black Sea from the rest of the global ocean system.  The large shelf to the north of the basin is up to wide and features a shallow apron with gradients between 1:40 and 1:1000. The southern edge around Turkey and the eastern edge around Georgia, however, are typified by a narrow shelf that rarely exceeds in width and a steep apron that is typically 1:40 gradient with numerous submarine canyons and channel extensions. The Euxine abyssal plain in the centre of the Black Sea reaches a maximum depth of just south of Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula.  The littoral zone of the Black Sea is often referred to as the Pontic littoral or Pontic zone.  The area surrounding the Black Sea is commonly referred to as the "Black Sea Region". Its northern part lies within the "Chernozem belt" (black soil belt) which goes from eastern Croatia (Slavonia), along the Danube (northern Serbia, northern Bulgaria (Danubian Plain) and southern Romania (Wallachian Plain)) to northeast Ukraine and further across the Central Black Earth Region and southern Russia into Siberia.

Oil and natural gas.

The Black Sea contains oil and natural gas resources but exploration in the sea is incomplete. As of 2017, 20 wells are in place. Throughout much of its existence, the Black Sea has had significant oil and gas-forming potential because of significant inflows of sediment and nutrient-rich waters. However, this varies geographically. For example, prospects are poorer off the coast of Bulgaria because of the large influx of sediment from the Danube River which obscured sunlight and diluted organic-rich sediments. Many of the discoveries to date have taken place offshore of Romania in the Western Black Sea and only a few discoveries have been made in the Eastern Black Sea.  During the Eocene, the Paratethys Ocean was partially isolated and sea levels fell. During this time sand shed off the rising Balkanide, Pontide and Caucasus mountains trapped organic material in the Maykop Suite of rocks through the Oligocene and early Miocene. Natural gas appears in rocks deposited in the Miocene and Pliocene by the paleo-Dnieper and pale-Dniester rivers, or in deep-water Oligocene-age rocks. Serious exploration began in 1999 with two deep-water wells, Limanköy-1 and Limanköy-2, drilled in Turkish waters. Next, the HPX (Hopa)-1 deepwater well targeted late Miocene sandstone units in Achara-Trialet fold belt (also known as the Gurian fold belt) along the Georgia-Turkey maritime border. Although geologists inferred that these rocks might have hydrocarbons that migrated from the Maykop Suite, the well was unsuccessful. No more drilling happened for five years after the HPX-1 well. Then in 2010, Sinop-1 targeted carbonate reservoirs potentially charged from the nearby Maykop Suite on the Andrusov Ridge, but the well-struck only Cretaceous volcanic rocks. Yassihöyük-1 encountered similar problems. Other Turkish wells, Sürmene-1 and Sile-1 drilled in the Eastern Black Sea in 2011 and 2015 respectively tested four-way closures above Cretaceous volcanoes, with no results in either case. A different Turkish well, Kastamonu-1 drilled in 2011 did successfully find thermogenic gas in Pliocene and Miocene shale-cored anticlines in the Western Black Sea. A year later in 2012, Romania drilled Domino-1 which struck gas prompting the drilling of other wells in the Neptun Deep. In 2016, the Bulgarian well Polshkov-1 targeted Maykop Suite sandstones in the Polshkov High and Russia is in the process of drilling Jurassic carbonates on the Shatsky Ridge as of 2018.

Hydrology.

The Black Sea is a marginal sea and is the world's largest body of water with a meromictic basin. The deep waters do not mix with the upper layers of water that receive oxygen from the atmosphere. As a result, over 90% of the deeper Black Sea volume is anoxic water. The Black Sea's circulation patterns are primarily controlled by basin topography and fluvial inputs, which result in a strongly stratified vertical structure. Because of the extreme stratification, it is classified as a salt wedge estuary.  The Black Sea only experiences water transfer with the Mediterranean Sea, so all inflow and outflow occurs in the Bosporus and Dardanelles. Inflow from the Mediterranean has a higher salinity and density than the outflow, creating the classical estuarine circulation. This means that the inflow of dense water from the Mediterranean occurs at the bottom of the basin while the outflow of fresher Black Sea surface-water into the Marmara Sea occurs near the surface. The outflow is 16 000 m/s (around 500 km/year) and the inflow is 11 000 m/s (around 350 km/year), acc to Gregg (2002).<br> The following water budget can be estimated:  The southern sill of the Bosporus is located at -36.5 m below present sea level (deepest spot of the shallowest cross-section in the Bosporus, located in front of Dolmabahçe Palace) and has a wet section of around 38 000 m2. Inflow and outflow current speeds are averaged around 0.3 to 0.4 m/s, but much higher speeds are found locally, inducing significant turbulence and vertical shear. This allows for turbulent mixing of the two layers. Surface water leaves the Black Sea with a salinity of 17 psu and reaches the Mediterranean with a salinity of 34 PSU. Likewise, an inflow of the Mediterranean with salinity 38.5 PSU experiences a decrease to about 34 psu.  Mean surface circulation is cyclonic and waters around the perimeter of the Black Sea circulate in a basin-wide shelfbreak gyre known as the Rim Current. The Rim Current has a maximum velocity of about 50–100 cm/s. Within this feature, two smaller cyclonic gyres operate, occupying the eastern and western sectors of the basin. The Eastern and Western Gyres are well-organized systems in the winter but dissipate into a series of interconnected eddies in the summer and autumn. Mesoscale activity in the peripheral flow becomes more pronounced during these warmer seasons and is subject to interannual variability.  Outside of the Rim Current, numerous quasi-permanent coastal eddies are formed as a result of upwelling around the coastal apron and "wind curl" mechanisms. The intra-annual strength of these features is controlled by seasonal atmospheric and fluvial variations. During the spring, the Batumi eddy forms in the southeastern corner of the sea.  Beneath the surface waters—from about 50–100 meters—there exists a halocline that stops at the Cold Intermediate Layer (CIL). This layer is composed of cool, salty surface waters, which are the result of localized atmospheric cooling and decreased fluvial input during the winter months. It is the remnant of the winter surface mixed layer. The base of the CIL is marked by a major pycnocline at about and this density disparity is the major mechanism for isolation of the deep water.  Below the pycnocline is the Deep Water mass, where salinity increases to 22.3 PSU and temperatures rise to around 8.9 °C. The hydrochemical environment shifts from oxygenated to anoxic, as bacterial decomposition of sunken biomass utilizes all of the free oxygen. Weak geothermal heating and long residence time create a very thick convective bottom layer.  The Black Sea undersea river is a current of particularly saline water flowing through the Bosporus Strait and along the seabed of the Black Sea. The discovery of the river announced on August 1, 2010, was made by scientists at the University of Leeds and is the first of its kind in the world. The undersea river stems from salty water spilling through the Bosporus Strait from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea, where the water has a lower salt content.

Hydrochemistry.

Because of the anoxic water at depth, organic matter, including anthropogenic artifacts such as boat hulls, are well preserved. During periods of high surface productivity, short-lived algal blooms form organic rich layers known as sapropels. Scientists have reported an annual phytoplankton bloom that can be seen in many NASA images of the region. As a result of these characteristics the Black Sea has gained interest from the field of marine archaeology as ancient shipwrecks in excellent states of preservation have been discovered, such as the Byzantine wreck Sinop D, located in the anoxic layer off the coast of Sinop, Turkey.  Modelling shows the release of the hydrogen sulfide clouds in the event of an asteroid impact into the Black Sea would pose a threat to health—or even life—for people living on the Black Sea coast.  There have been isolated reports of flares on the Black Sea occurring during thunderstorms, possibly caused by lightning igniting combustible gas seeping up from the sea depths.

Ecology.

Marine.

The Black Sea supports an active and dynamic marine ecosystem, dominated by species suited to the brackish, nutrient-rich, conditions. As with all marine food webs, the Black Sea features a range of trophic groups, with autotrophic algae, including diatoms and dinoflagellates, acting as primary producers. The fluvial systems draining Eurasia and central Europe introduce large volumes of sediment and dissolved nutrients into the Black Sea, but the distribution of these nutrients is controlled by the degree of physiochemical stratification, which is, in turn, dictated by seasonal physiographic development.  During winter, strong wind promotes convective overturning and upwelling of nutrients, while high summer temperatures result in a marked vertical stratification and a warm, shallow mixed layer. Day length and insolation intensity also controls the extent of the photic zone. Subsurface productivity is limited by nutrient availability, as the anoxic bottom waters act as a sink for reduced nitrate, in the form of ammonia. The benthic zone also plays an important role in Black Sea nutrient cycling, as chemosynthetic organisms and anoxic geochemical pathways recycle nutrients which can be upwelled to the photic zone, enhancing productivity.  In total, Black Sea's biodiversity contains around one-third of Mediterranean's and is experiencing natural and artificial invasions or Mediterranizations.

Phytoplankton.

The main phytoplankton groups present in the Black Sea are dinoflagellates, diatoms, coccolithophores and cyanobacteria. Generally, the annual cycle of phytoplankton development comprises significant diatom and dinoflagellate-dominated spring production, followed by a weaker mixed assemblage of community development below the seasonal thermocline during summer months and surface-intensified autumn production. This pattern of productivity is also augmented by an "Emiliania huxleyi" bloom during the late spring and summer months.

Ecological effects of pollution.

Since the 1960s, rapid industrial expansion along the Black Sea coast line and the construction of a major dam has significantly increased annual variability in the N:P:Si ratio in the basin. In coastal areas, the biological effect of these changes has been an increase in the frequency of monospecific phytoplankton blooms, with diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 2.5 and non-diatom bloom frequency increasing by a factor of 6. The non-diatoms, such as the prymnesiophytes (coccolithophore), sp., and the Euglenophyte are able to out-compete diatom species because of the limited availability of Si, a necessary constituent of diatom frustules. As a consequence of these blooms, benthic macrophyte populations were deprived of light, while anoxia caused mass mortality in marine animals.  The decline in macrophytes was further compounded by overfishing during the 1970s, while the invasive ctenophore "Mnemiopsis" reduced the biomass of copepods and other zooplankton in the late 1980s. Additionally, an alien species—the warty comb jelly ()—was able to establish itself in the basin, exploding from a few individuals to estimated biomass of one billion metric tons. The change in species composition in Black Sea waters also has consequences for hydrochemistry, as Ca-producing coccolithophores influence salinity and pH, although these ramifications have yet to be fully quantified. In central Black Sea waters, Si levels were also significantly reduced, due to a decrease in the flux of Si associated with advection across isopycnal surfaces. This phenomenon demonstrates the potential for localized alterations in Black Sea nutrient input to have basin-wide effects.  Pollution reduction and regulation efforts have led to a partial recovery of the Black Sea ecosystem during the 1990s, and an EU monitoring exercise, 'EROS21', revealed decreased N and P values, relative to the 1989 peak. Recently, scientists have noted signs of ecological recovery, in part due to the construction of new sewage treatment plants in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria in connection with membership in the European Union. populations have been checked with the arrival of another alien species which feeds on them.

Terrestrial.

In the past, the range of the Asiatic lion extended from South Asia to the Balkans, possibly up to the Danube. Places like Turkey and the Trans-Caucasus were in this range. The Caspian tiger occurred in eastern Turkey and the Caucasus, at least. The "lyuti zver" (Old East Slavic for "fierce animal") that was encountered by Vladimir II Monomakh, Velikiy Kniaz of Kievan Rus' (which ranged to the Black Sea in the south), may have been a tiger or leopard, rather than a wolf or lynx, due to the way it behaved towards him and his horse.

Climate.

Short-term climatic variation in the Black Sea region is significantly influenced by the operation of the North Atlantic oscillation, the climatic mechanisms resulting from the interaction between the north Atlantic and mid-latitude air masses. While the exact mechanisms causing the North Atlantic Oscillation remain unclear, it is thought the climate conditions established in western Europe mediate the heat and precipitation fluxes reaching Central Europe and Eurasia, regulating the formation of winter cyclones, which are largely responsible for regional precipitation inputs and influence Mediterranean Sea Surface Temperatures (SST's).  The relative strength of these systems also limits the amount of cold air arriving from northern regions during winter. Other influencing factors include the regional topography, as depressions and storms systems arriving from the Mediterranean are funneled through the low land around the Bosporus, Pontic and Caucasus mountain ranges acting as waveguides, limiting the speed and paths of cyclones passing through the region.

Islands.

Some islands in the Black sea belong to Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine:

History.

Mediterranean connection during the Holocene.

The Black Sea is connected to the World Ocean by a chain of two shallow straits, the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. The Dardanelles is deep and the Bosporus is as shallow as. By comparison, at the height of the last ice age, sea levels were more than lower than they are now.  There is also evidence that water levels in the Black Sea were considerably lower at some point during the post-glacial period. Some researchers theorize that the Black Sea had been a landlocked freshwater lake (at least in upper layers) during the last glaciation and for some time after.  In the aftermath of the last glacial period, water levels in the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea rose independently until they were high enough to exchange water. The exact timeline of this development is still subject to debate. One possibility is that the Black Sea filled first, with excess freshwater flowing over the Bosporus sill and eventually into the Mediterranean Sea. There are also catastrophic scenarios, such as the "Black Sea deluge theory" put forward by William Ryan, Walter Pitman and.

Deluge hypothesis.

The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea circa 5600 BC due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus Strait. The hypothesis was headlined when "The New York Times" published it in December 1996, shortly before it was published in an academic journal. While it is agreed that the sequence of events described did occur, there is debate over the suddenness, dating, and magnitude of the events. Relevant to the hypothesis is that its description has led some to connect this catastrophe with prehistoric flood myths.

Recorded history.

The Black Sea was a busy waterway on the crossroads of the ancient world: the Balkans to the west, the Eurasian steppes to the north, the Caucasus and Central Asia to the east, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia to the south, and Greece to the south-west.  The oldest processed gold in the world was found in Varna, Bulgaria, and Greek mythology portrays the Argonauts as sailing on the Black Sea. The land at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Colchis, (now Georgia), marked for the Greeks the edge of the known world.  The steppes to the north of the Black Sea have been suggested as the original homeland () of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, (PIE) the progenitor of the Indo-European language family, by some scholars such as Marija Gimbutas; others move the homeland further east towards the Caspian Sea, yet others to Anatolia.  Greek presence in the Black Sea began at least as early as the 9th century BC with colonization the Black Sea's southern coast. By 500 BC, permanent Greek communities existed all around the Black Sea and a lucrative trade network connected the entirety of the Black Sea to the wider Mediterranean. While Greek colonies generally maintained very close cultural ties to their founding polis, Greek colonies in the Black Sea began to develop their own "Black Sea Greek" culture, know today as Pontic. The coastal community of Black Sea Greeks remained a prominent part of the Greek World for centuries.  The Black Sea became a virtual Ottoman Navy lake within five years of Genoa losing the Crimean Peninsula in 1479, after which the only Western merchant vessels to sail its waters were those of Venice's old rival Ragusa. This restriction was challenged by the Russian Navy from 1783 until the relaxation of export controls in 1789 because of the French Revolution.  The Black Sea was a significant naval theatre of World War I and saw both naval and land battles during World War II.

Archaeology.

Ancient trade routes in the region are currently being extensively studied by scientists, as the Black Sea was sailed by Hittites, Carians, Colchians, Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Cimmerians, Scythians, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Varangians, Crusaders, Venetians, Genoese, Georgians, Tatars and Ottomans.  Perhaps the most promising areas in deepwater archaeology are the quest for submerged prehistoric settlements in the continental shelf and for ancient shipwrecks in the anoxic zone, which are expected to be exceptionally well preserved due to the absence of oxygen. This concentration of historical powers, combined with the preservative qualities of the deep anoxic waters of the Black Sea, has attracted increased interest from marine archaeologists who have begun to discover a large number of ancient ships and organic remains in a high state of preservation.

Modern use.

Commercial and civic use.

According to NATO, the Black sea is a strategic corridor that provides smuggling channels for moving legal and illegal goods including drugs, radioactive materials, and counterfeit goods that can be used to finance terrorism.

Navigation.

Ports and ferry terminals.

According to the International Transport Workers' Federation 2013 study, there were at least 30 operating merchant seaports in the Black Sea (including at least 12 in Ukraine).

Merchant fleet and traffic.

According to the International Transport Workers' Federation 2013 study, there were around 2,400 commercial vessels operating in the Black Sea.

Fishing.

Anchovy: the Turkish commercial fishing fleet catches around 300,000 tons per year on average, and fishery carried out mainly in winter and the highest portion of the stock is caught between November and December.

Hydrocarbons exploration.

Since the 1980s, the Soviet Union started offshore drilling for petroleum in the sea's western portion (adjoining Ukraine's coast). Independent Ukraine continued and intensified that effort within its exclusive economic zone, inviting major international oil companies for exploration. Discovery of the new, massive oilfields in the area stimulated an influx of foreign investments. It also provoked a short-term peaceful territorial dispute with Romania which was resolved in 2011 by an international court redefining the exclusive economic zones between the two countries.

Holiday resorts and spas.

In the years following the end of the Cold War, the popularity of the Black Sea as a tourist destination steadily increased. Tourism at Black Sea resorts became one of the region's growth industries. The following is a list of notable Black Sea resort towns:

Modern military use.

International and military use of the Straits.

The 1936 Montreux Convention provides for free passage of civilian ships between the international waters of the Black and the Mediterranean Seas. However, a single country (Turkey) has complete control over the straits connecting the two seas. Military ships are separate categories from civilian ships and they can only pass through the straits if the ship is belonging to a Black Seapower. Other military ships have the right to pass through the straits if they are not in a war against Turkey and they can stay in the Black Sea basin for a limited time. The 1982 amendments to the Montreux Convention allow Turkey to close the Straits at its discretion in both wartime and peacetime.  The 1936 Montreux Convention governs the passage of vessels between the Black, the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and the presence of military vessels belonging to non-littoral states in the Black Sea waters.  In December 2018, the Kerch Strait incident took place. The Russian Navy and Coast guard took control of three ships belonging to their counterparts. The ships were trying to enter the Black Sea

The Black Sea is a body of water and marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean between Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Western Asia. It is supplied by a number of major rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Southern Bug, Dniester, Don, and the Rioni. The watersheds of many countries drain into the Black Sea beyond the six that immediately border it.

黑海(英语:Black Sea)是欧亚大陆的一个陆间海,被欧洲、高加索和安那托利亚半岛所包围。黑海通过土耳其海峡之后进入另一个陆间海—马摩拉海,通过达达尼尔海峡后与地中海的爱琴海区域相联。西亚和东欧被这一系列水体分隔开来。黑海在北面通过刻赤海峡与亚速海相连。流入黑海的主要河流有多瑙河和第聂伯河。沿海国家有土耳其、保加利亚、罗马尼亚、乌克兰、俄罗斯和格鲁吉亚。沿海重要城市有伊斯坦布尔、布尔加斯、瓦尔纳、康斯坦察、图尔恰、敖德萨、塞瓦斯托波尔、巴统等。


Origins.

German unification.

Until their 1871 unification, the German states had not concentrated on the development of a navy, and this essentially had precluded German participation in earlier imperialist scrambles for remote colonial territory – the so-called "place in the sun". Germany seemed destined to play catch-up. The German states prior to 1870 had retained separate political structures and goals, and German foreign policy up to and including the age of Otto von Bismarck concentrated on resolving the "German question" in Europe and securing German interests on the continent. However, by 1891 they were mostly united under Prussian rule. They also sought a more clear cut "German" state, and saw colonies as a good way to achieve that.

Scramble for colonies.

Many Germans in the late 19th century viewed colonial acquisitions as a true indication of having achieved nationhood. Public opinion eventually arrived at an understanding that prestigious African and Pacific colonies went hand-in-hand with dreams of a High Seas Fleet. Both aspirations would become reality, nurtured by a press replete with "Kolonialfreunde" [supporters of colonial acquisitions] and by a myriad of geographical associations and colonial societies. Bismarck and many deputies in the "Reichstag" had no interest in colonial conquests merely to acquire square miles of territory.  In 1844 Rhenish Aristocrats attempted to set up a German colony in the independent state of Texas. about 7400 settlers were involved. Around half of them died, the venture was a complete failure. A constant lack of supplies and land didn't help, and the next year Texas joined the United States.  In essence, Bismarck's colonial motives were obscure as he had said repeatedly "... I am no man for colonies" and "remained as contemptuous of all colonial dreams as ever." However, in 1884 he consented to the acquisition of colonies by the German Empire, in order to protect trade, safeguard raw materials and export markets and take advantage of opportunities for capital investment, among other reasons. In the very next year Bismarck shed personal involvement when "he abandoned his colonial drive as suddenly and casually as he had started it" as if he had committed an error in judgment that could confuse the substance of his more significant policies. "Indeed, in 1889, [Bismarck] tried to give German South-West Africa away to the British. It was, he said, a burden and an expense, and he would like to saddle someone else with it."  Before this, Germans had traditions of foreign sea-borne trade dating back to the Hanseatic League; a tradition of German emigration that existed (eastward in the direction of Russia and Transylvania and westward to the Americas); and North German merchants and missionaries showed interest in overseas engagements. The Hanseatic republics of Hamburg and Bremen sent traders across the globe. These trading houses conducted themselves as successful "Privatkolonisatoren" [independent colonizers] and concluded treaties and land purchases in Africa and the Pacific with chiefs and or other tribal leaders. These early agreements with local entities later formed the basis for annexation treaties, diplomatic support and military protection by the German government.

Acquisition of colonies.

The German Colonial empire got its start around 1884, and in those years they acquired several territories: German East Africa, German South-West Africa, German Cameroon, and Togoland in Africa. Germany was also active in the Pacific, annexing a series of islands that would be called German New Guinea. The northeastern region of New Guinea was called Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, the Bismarck Archipelago to the islands east, this also contained two larger islands named New Mecklenburg and New Pomerania, they also acquired the Northern Solomon Islands. These islands were given the status of protectorate.

Company land acquisitions and stewardship.

The rise of German imperialism and colonialism coincided with the latter stages of the "Scramble for Africa" during which enterprising German individuals, rather than government entities, competed with other already established colonies and colonialist entrepreneurs. With the Germans joining the race for the last uncharted territories in Africa and the Pacific that had not yet been carved up, competition for colonies thus involved major European nations and several lesser powers.  The German effort included the first commercial enterprises in the 1850s and 1860s in West Africa, East Africa, the Samoan Islands and the unexplored north-east quarter of New Guinea with adjacent islands. German traders and merchants began to establish themselves in the African Cameroon delta and the mainland coast across from Zanzibar. At Apia and the settlements Finschhafen, Simpsonhafen and the islands Neu-Pommern and Neu-Mecklenburg, trading companies newly fortified with credit began expansion into coastal landholding. Large African inland acquisitions followed — mostly to the detriment of native inhabitants. In eastern Africa the imperialist and "man-of-action" Karl Peters accumulated vast tracts of land for his colonization group, "emerging from the bush with X-marks [affixed by unlettered tribal chiefs] on documents... for some 60 thousand square miles of the Zanzibar Sultanate’s mainland property." Such exploratory missions required security measures that could be solved with small private, armed contingents recruited mainly in the Sudan and usually led by adventurous former military personnel of lower rank. Brutality, hanging and flogging prevailed during these land-grab expeditions under Peters’ control as well as others as no-one "held a monopoly in the mistreatment of Africans."  As Bismarck was converted to the colonial idea by 1884, he favored "chartered company" land management rather than establishment of colonial government due to financial considerations. Although temperate zone cultivation flourished, the demise and often failure of tropical low-land enterprises contributed to changing Bismarck's view. He reluctantly acquiesced to pleas for help to deal with revolts and armed hostilities by often powerful rulers whose lucrative slaving activities seemed at risk. German native military forces initially engaged in dozens of punitive expeditions to apprehend and punish freedom fighters, at times with British assistance. The author Charles Miller offers the theory that the Germans had the handicap of trying to colonize African areas inhabited by aggressive tribes, whereas their colonial neighbours had more docile peoples to contend with. At that time, the German penchant for giving muscle priority over patience contributed to continued unrest. Several of the African colonies remained powder kegs throughout this phase (and beyond). The transition to official acceptance of colonialism and to colonial government thus occurred during the last quarter of Bismarck's tenure of office.

Growth.

In the first years of the 20th-century shipping lines had established scheduled services with refrigerated holds and agricultural products from the colonies, exotic fruits and spices, were sold to the public in Germany. The colonies were romanticized. Geologists and cartographers explored what were the unmarked regions on European maps, identifying mountains and rivers, and demarcating boundaries. Hermann Detzner and one Captain Nugent, R.A., had charge of a joint project to demarcate the British and German frontiers of Cameroon, which was published in 1913. Travelers and newspaper reporters brought back stories of black and brown natives serving German managers and settlers. There were also suspicions and reports of colonial malfeasance, corruption and brutality in some protectorates, and Lutheran and Roman Catholic missionaries dispatched disturbing reports to their mission headquarters in Germany.  German colonial diplomatic efforts remained commercially inspired, "the colonial economy was thriving... and roads, railways, shipping and telegraph communications were up to the minute." Overhaul of the colonial administrative apparatus thus set the stage for the final and most promising period of German colonialism. Bernhard Dernburg's declaration that the indigenous population in the protectorates "was the most important factor in our colonies" was affirmed by new laws. The use of forced, unpaid labor went on the books as a criminal offense. Governor Wilhelm Solf of Samoa would call the islanders ""unsere braunen Schützlinge"" [our brown charges], who could be guided but not forced. Heinrich Schnee in East Africa proclaimed that "the dominant feature of my administration [will be]... the welfare of the natives entrusted into my care." Idealists often volunteered for selection and appointment to government posts, while others with an entrepreneurial bent labored to swell the dividends at home for the Hanseatic trading houses and shipping lines. Subsequent historians would commend German colonialism in those years as "an engine of modernization with far-reaching effects for the future." The native population was forced into unequal treaties by the German colonial governments. This led to the local tribes and natives losing their influence and power and eventually forced some of them to become slave laborers. Although slavery was partially outlawed in 1905 by Germany, this caused a great deal of resentment and led eventually to revolts by the native population. The result was several military and genocidal campaigns by the Germans against the natives. Political and economic subjugation of Herero and Nama was envisioned. Both the colonial authorities and settlers were of the opinion that native Africans were to be a lower class, their land seized and handed over to settlers and companies, while the remaining population was to be put in reservations; the Germans planned to make a colony inhabited predominately by whites: a "new African Germany".  The established merchants and plantation operators in the African colonies frequently managed to sway government policies. Capital investments by banks were secured with public funds of the imperial treasury to minimize risk. Dernburg, as a former banker, facilitated such thinking; he saw his commission to also turn the colonies into paying propositions. Every African protectorate built rail lines to the interior, every colony in Africa and the Pacific established the beginnings of a public school system, and every colony built and staffed hospitals. Whatever the Germans constructed in their colonies was made to last. Dar es Salaam evolved into "the showcase city of all of tropical Africa," Lomé grew into the "prettiest city in western Africa", and Tsingtao, China was, "in miniature, as German a city as Hamburg or Bremen". For indigenous populations in some colonies native agricultural holdings were encouraged and supported.

End of the German colonial empire.

Conquest in World War I.

In the years before the outbreak of the World War, British colonial officers viewed the Germans as deficient in "colonial aptitude", but "whose colonial administration was nevertheless superior to those of the other European states". Anglo-German colonial issues in the decade before 1914 were minor and both empires, the British and German, took conciliatory attitudes. Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, considered still a moderate in 1911, was willing to "study the map of Africa in a pro-German spirit". Britain further recognized that Germany really had little of value to offer in territorial transactions; however, advice to Grey and Prime Minister H. H. Asquith hardened by early 1914 "to stop the trend of what the advisers considered Germany’s taking and Britain’s giving."  Once war was declared in late July 1914 Britain and its allies promptly moved against the colonies. The public was informed that German colonies were a threat because "Every German colony has a powerful wireless station — they will talk to one another across the seas, and at every opportunity they [German ships] will dash from cover to harry and destroy our commerce, and maybe, to raid our coasts." The British position that Germany was a uniquely brutal and cruel colonial power originated during the war; it had not been said during peacetime.  In the Pacific, Britain's ally Japan declared war on Germany in 1914 and quickly seized several of Germany's island colonies, the Mariana, Caroline and Marshall Islands, with virtually no resistance.  By 1916 only in remote jungle regions in East Africa did the German forces hold out. South Africa's J.C. Smuts, now in Britain's small War Cabinet, spoke of German schemes for world power, militarisation and exploitation of resources, indicating Germany threatened western civilisation itself. Smuts' warnings were repeated in the press. The idea took hold that they should not be returned to Germany after the war.

Confiscation.

Germany's overseas empire was dismantled following defeat in World War I. With the concluding Treaty of Versailles, Article 22, German colonies were transformed into League of Nations mandates and divided between Belgium, the United Kingdom, and certain British Dominions, France and Japan with the determination not to see any of them returned to Germany — a guarantee secured by Article 119.  In Africa, the United Kingdom and France divided German Kamerun (Cameroons) and Togoland. Belgium gained Ruanda-Urundi in northwestern German East Africa, the United Kingdom obtained by far the greater landmass of this colony, thus gaining the "missing link" in the chain of British possessions stretching from South Africa to Egypt (Cape to Cairo), and Portugal received the Kionga Triangle, a sliver of German East Africa. German South-West Africa was taken under mandate by the Union of South Africa. In terms of the population of 12.5 million people in 1914, 42 percent were transferred to mandates of Britain and its dominions. 33 percent to France, and 25 percent to Belgium.  In the Pacific, Japan gained Germany's islands north of the equator (the Marshall Islands, the Carolines, the Marianas, the Palau Islands) and Kiautschou in China. German Samoa was assigned to New Zealand; German New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and Nauru went to Australia as mandates.  British placement of surrogate responsibility for former German colonies on white-settler dominions was at the time determined to be the most expedient option for the British government — and an appropriate reward for the Dominions having fulfilled their "great and urgent imperial service" through military intervention at the behest of and for Great Britain. It also meant that British colonies now had colonies of their own — which was very much influenced at the Paris proceedings by W.M. Hughes, William Massey, and Louis Botha, the prime ministers of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The principle of "self-determination" embodied in the League of Nations covenant was not considered to apply to these colonies and was "regarded as meaningless". To "allay President [Woodrow] Wilson's suspicions of British imperialism", the system of "mandates" was drawn up and agreed to by the British War Cabinet (with the French and Italians in tow), a device by which conquered enemy territory would be held not as a possession but as "sacred trusts". But "far from envisaging the eventual independence of the [former] German colonies, Allied statesmen at the Paris Conference regarded 1919 as the renewal, not the end, of an imperial era." In deliberations the British "War Cabinet had confidence that natives everywhere would opt for British rule"; however, the cabinet acknowledged "the necessity to prove that its policy toward the German colonies was not motivated by aggrandizement" since the Empire was seen by America as a "land devouring octopus" with a "voracious territorial appetite".

Epilogue.

President Wilson saw the League of Nations as "'residuary trustee' for the [German] colonies" captured and occupied by "rapacious conquerors". The victors retained the German overseas possessions and did so with the belief that Australian, Belgian, British, French, Japanese, New Zealand, Portuguese and South African rule was superior to Germany's. Several decades later during the collapse of the then existing colonial empires, Africans and Asians cited the same arguments that had been used by the Allies against German colonial rule — they now simply demanded "to stand by themselves".  In the 1920s, some individuals and the German Colonial Society fought for the idea of colonialism. Settlement in Africa was not popular and was not a focus for Hitler. Established in 1936, the Reichskolonialbund under Franz Ritter von Epp absorbed all colonial organizations and was meant to raise pro-colonial sentiments, public interest in former German colonies, and take part in political agitation. However, with the onset of World War II the organization entered a decline, before being disbanded by decree in 1943 for "activity irrelevant to the war".  There are hardly any special ties between modern Germany and its former colonies; for example, there is no postcolonial league comparable to the British Commonwealth of Nations or French Francophonie. In stark contrast with French and English, both of which are widely spoken across the continent by those of both African and European ancestry, the German language is not a significant language in Africa even within former colonies—although it is spoken by a significant minority of the population of Namibia. Germany cooperates economically and culturally with many countries in Africa and Asia, independent of colonial history.

Administration and colonial policies.

Colonial governments.

Bismarck's successor in 1890, Leo von Caprivi, was willing to maintain the colonial burden of what already existed, but opposed new ventures. Others who followed, especially Bernhard von Bülow, as foreign minister and chancellor, sanctioned the acquisition of the Pacific Ocean colonies and provided substantial treasury assistance to existing protectorates to employ administrators, commercial agents, surveyors, local "peacekeepers" and tax collectors. Kaiser Wilhelm II understood and lamented his nation's position as colonial followers rather than leaders. In an interview with Cecil Rhodes in March 1899 he stated the alleged dilemma clearly: "... Germany has begun her colonial enterprise very late, and was, therefore, at the disadvantage of finding all the desirable places already occupied."  The German colonists included people like Carl Peters who brutalized the local population.  Nonetheless, Germany did assemble an overseas empire in Africa and the Pacific Ocean (see List of former German colonies) in the last two decades of the 19th century; "the creation of Germany's colonial empire proceeded with the minimum of friction." The acquisition and the expansion of colonies were accomplished in a variety of ways, but principally through mercantile domination and pretexts that were always economic. Agreements and treaties with other colonial powers or interests followed, and fee simple purchases of land or island groups. Only Togoland and German Samoa became profitable and self-sufficient; the balance sheet for the colonies as a whole revealed a fiscal net loss for the empire. Despite this, the leadership in Berlin committed the nation to the financial support, maintenance, development and defence of these possessions.

German colonial population.

The Pennsylvania Dutch who emigrated to America in the 17th and 18th centuries were religious refugees from the Thirty Years War which devastated the German states 1616-1648 rather than colonial settlers. Germantown, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1684 and 65,000 Germans landed in Philadelphia alone between 1727 and 1775, and more at other American ports. More than 950,000 Germans immigrated to the US in the 1850s and 1,453,000 in the 1880s, but these were personal migrants, unrelated to the German Empire (created 1871) and later colonial plans. The Empire's colonies were primarily commercial and plantation regions and did not attract large numbers of German settlers. The vast majority of German emigrants chose North America as their destination and not the colonies – of 1,085,124 emigrants between 1887 and 1906, 1,007,574 headed to the United States. When the imperial government invited the 22,000 soldiers mobilized to subdue the Hereros to settle in German South-West Africa, and offered financial aid, only 5% accepted.  The German colonial population numbered 5,125 in 1903, and about 23,500 in 1913. The German pre–World War I colonial population consisted of 19,696 Germans in Africa and the Pacific colonies in 1913, including more than 3,000 police and soldiers, and 3,806 in Kiaochow (1910), of which 2,275 were navy and military staff. In Africa (1913), 12,292 Germans lived in Southwest Africa, 4,107 in German East Africa and 1,643 in Cameroon. In the Pacific colonies in 1913 there were 1,645 Germans. After 1905 a ban on marriage was enacted forbidding mixed couples between German and native population in South-West Africa, and after 1912 in Samoa.  After World War I, the military and "undesired persons" were expelled from the German protectorates. In 1934 the former colonies were inhabited by 16,774 Germans, of whom about 12,000 lived in the former Southwest African colony. Once the new owners of the colonies again permitted immigration from Germany, the numbers rose in the following years above the pre–World War I total.

Medicine and science.

In her African and South Seas colonies, Germany established diverse biological and agricultural stations. Staff specialists and the occasional visiting university group conducted soil analyses, developed plant hybrids, experimented with fertilizers, studied vegetable pests and ran courses in agronomy for settlers and natives and performed a host of other tasks. Successful German plantation operators realized the benefits of systematic scientific inquiry and instituted and maintained their own stations with their own personnel, who further engaged in exploration and documentation of the native fauna and flora.  Research by bacteriologists Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich and other scientists was funded by the imperial treasury and was freely shared with other nations. More than three million Africans were vaccinated against smallpox. Medical doctors the world over benefited from pioneering work into tropical diseases and German pharmaceutical discoveries "became a standard therapy for sleeping sickness and relapsing fever. The German presence (in Africa) was vital for significant achievements in medicine and agriculture.

Rebellions and genocide.

Exposés followed in the print media throughout Germany of the Herero rebellions in 1904 in German South-West Africa (Namibia today) where in military interventions between 50% to 70% of the Herero population perished, known as the Herero and Namaqua Genocide. The subduing of the Maji Maji uprising in German East Africa in 1905 was prominently published. "A wave of anti-colonial feeling began to gather momentum in Germany" and resulted in large voter turnouts in the so-called "Hottentot election" for the "Reichstag" in 1906. The conservative Bülow government barely survived, but in January 1907 the newly elected "Reichstag" imposed a "complete overhaul" upon the colonial service.  Bernhard Dernburg, a former banker from Darmstadt, was appointed as the new secretary of the revamped colonial office. Entrenched incompetents were screened out and summarily removed from office and "not a few had to stand trial. Replacing the misfits was a new breed of efficient, humane, colonial civil servant, usually the product of Dernburg's own creation, the... Colonial Institute at Hamburg." In African protectorates, especially Togoland and German East Africa, "improbably advanced and humane administrations emerged." However, Togoland saw its own share of bloodshed. The Germans used forced labor and harsh punishment to keep the Africans in line. Although the lack of any true war led some in Europe to call Togoland Germany's "model colony."  During the Herero genocide Eugen Fischer, a German scientist, came to the concentration camps to conduct medical experiments on race, using children of Herero people and multiracial children of Herero women and German men as test subjects. Together with Theodor Mollison he also experimented upon Herero prisoners. Those experiments included sterilization, injection of smallpox, typhus as well as tuberculosis. The numerous cases of mixed offspring upset the German colonial administration, which was concerned with maintaining "racial purity". Eugen Fischer studied 310 multiracial children, calling them "Rehoboth bastards" of "lesser racial quality". Fischer also subjected them to numerous racial tests such as head and body measurements, and eye and hair examinations. In conclusion of his studies he advocated genocide of alleged "inferior races", stating that "whoever thinks thoroughly the notion of race, can not arrive at a different conclusion". Fischer's (at the time considered) scientific actions and torment of the children were part of a wider history of abusing Africans for experiments, and echoed earlier actions by German anthropologists who stole skeletons and bodies from African graveyards and took them to Europe for research or sale. An estimated 3000 skulls were sent to Germany for study. In October 2011, after 3 years of talks, the first skulls were due to be returned to Namibia for burial. Other experiments were made by Doctor Bofinger, who injected Herero who were suffering from scurvy with various substances including arsenic and opium. Afterwards he researched the effects of these substances by performing autopsies on dead bodies.

Social Darwinism.

Social Darwinism is the theory, "that human groups and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin had perceived in plants and animals in nature." According to numerous historians, an important ideological component of German nationalism as developed by the intellectual elite was Social Darwinism. It gave an impetus to German assertiveness as a world economic and military power, aimed at competing with France and the British Empire for world power. German colonial rule in Africa 1884-1914 was an expression of nationalism and moral superiority that was justified by constructing an image of the natives as "Other". German colonization was characterized by the use of repressive violence in the name of ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’. Germany's cultural-missionary project boasted that its colonial programs were humanitarian and educational endeavors. Furthermore, the wide acceptance among intellectuals of social Darwinism justified Germany's right to acquire colonial territories as a matter of the ‘survival of the fittest’, according to historian Michael Schubert.  Colonial German physicians and administrators tried to make a case for increasing the native population, in order to also increase their numbers of laborers. Eugene Fischer, an anthropologist at the University of Freiburg, agreed with that notion saying that they should only be supported as necessary and as they prove to be useful. Once their use is gone Europeans should, "allow free competition, which in my (Fischer's) opinion means their demise.".

Legacy.

Continuity thesis.

In recent years scholars have debated the "continuity thesis" that links German colonialist brutalities to the treatment of Jews, Poles and Russians during World War II. Some historians argue that Germany's role in southwestern Africa gave rise to an emphasis on racial superiority at home, which in turn was used by the Nazis. They argue that the limited successes of German colonialism overseas led to a decision to shift the main focus of German expansionism into Central and Eastern Europe, with the Mitteleuropa plan. German colonialism, therefore, turned to the European continent.  While a minority view during the "Kaiserzeit", the idea developed in full swing under Erich Ludendorff and his political activity in the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Poland. Subsequently, after the defeat of Russia during World War I, Germany acquired vast territories with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and created several administrative regions like Ober Ost. Here also the German settlement would be implemented, and the whole governmental organization was developed to serve German needs while controlling the local ethnically diverse population. While the African colonies were too isolated and not suitable for mass settlement of Germans, areas in Central and Eastern Europe offered better potential for German settlement. Other scholars, are skeptical and challenge the continuity thesis. Additionally, however, only one former colonial officer gained an important position in the Nazi administrative hierarchy.

Impact.

Unlike other colonial empires such as the British, French or Spanish, Germany left very few traces of its own language, institutions or customs in its former colonies. As of today, no country outside Europe uses German as an official language, although in Namibia, German is a recognized national language and there are numerous German placenames and architectural structures in the country. A small German ethnic minority also resides in the country.

The German colonial empire () constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies and territories of Imperial Germany. Unified in the early 1870s, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts of colonization by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but crucial colonial efforts only began in 1884 with the Scramble for Africa. Claiming much of the left-over uncolonized areas in the Scramble for Africa, Germany managed to build the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French.

德意志帝国殖民地( 或 )由霍亨索伦王朝的德意志帝国在19世纪后期建立。德国统一之前,一些德意志政权也曾经短暂建立过殖民地。