roviding a lightning-conductor, so
the builder of the German Empire sought to divert from that fabric the
revengeful storms that might be expected from the south-west. Other
statesmen were no less anxious than Bismarck to draw away the attention
of rivals from their own political preserves by pointing the way to more
desirable waste domains. In short, the statesmen of Europe sought to
plant in Africa the lightning-conductors that would safeguard the new
arrangements in Europe, including that of Cyprus. The German and British
Governments are known then to have passed on hints to that of France as
to the desirability of her appropriating Tunis. The Republic entered
into the schemes, with results which have already been considered
(Chapter XII.); and, as a sequel to the occupation of Tunis, plans were
set on foot for the eventual conquest of the whole of the North-West of
Africa (except Morocco and a few British, Spanish, and Portuguese
settlements) from Cape Bon to Cape Verde, and thence nearly to the
mouth of the River Niger. We may also note that in and after 1883 France
matured her schemes for the conquest of part, and ultimately the whole,
of Madagascar, a project which reached completion in the year 1885[425].

[Footnote 425: For the French treaty of December 17, 1885, with
Madagascar see Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 2 (1886).]

The military occupation of Egypt by Great Britain in 1882 also served to
quicken the interest of European Powers in Africa. It has been surmised
that British acquiescence in French supremacy in Tunis, West Africa, and
Madagascar had some connection with the events that transpired in Egypt,
and that the perpetuation of British supremacy in the valley of the Nile
was virtually bought by the surrender of most of our political and
trading interests in these lands, the lapse of which under the French
"protective" regime caused much heart-burning in commercial circles.

Last among the special causes that concentrated attention on Africa was
the activity of King Leopold's Association at Brussels in opening up the
Congo district in the years 1879-1882. Everything therefore tended to
make the ownership of tropical Africa the most complex question of the
early part of the eighties.

For various reasons Germany was a little later than France and England
in entering the field. The hostility of France on the west, and, after
1878, that of Russia on the east, made it inadvisable for the new Empire
to give