The Scramble for Africa was the invasion, conquest, and colonisation of most of Africa by seven Western European powers, which were driven by the Second Industrial Revolution during the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the era of "New Imperialism". Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom were the contending powers.
The 1884-1885 Berlin Conference regulated European colonisation and trade in Africa, and is seen as emblematic of the "scramble". In the last quarter of the 19th century, there were considerable political rivalries between the European empires, which provided the impetus for the colonisation. The later years of the 19th century saw a transition from "informal imperialism" – military influence and economic dominance – to direct rule.
With the decline of the European colonial empires in the wake of the two world wars, most African colonies gained independence during the Cold War, and decided to keep their colonial borders in the Organisation of African Unity conference of 1964 due to fears of civil wars and regional instability, placing emphasis on pan-Africanism.
Background
By 1841, businessmen from Europe had established small trading posts along the coasts of Africa, but they seldom moved inland, preferring to stay near the sea. They primarily traded with locals. Large parts of the continent were essentially uninhabitable for Europeans because of their high mortality rates from tropical diseases such as malaria. In the middle of the 19th century, European explorers mapped much of East Africa and Central Africa.
As late as the 1870s, Europeans controlled approximately 10% of the African continent, with all their territories located near the coasts. The most important holdings were Angola and Mozambique, held by Portugal; the Cape Colony, held by the United Kingdom; and Algeria, held by France. By 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia remained outside European control, with the former eventually being occupied by Italy in 1936 and the latter having strong connections with the United States.
Technological advances facilitated European expansion overseas. Industrialization brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication, especially in the forms of steamships, railways and telegraphs. Medical advances also played an important role, especially medicines for tropical diseases, which helped control their adverse effects. The development of quinine, an effective treatment for malaria, made vast expanses of the tropics more accessible for Europeans.
Causes
Africa and global markets
Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the last regions of the world which was largely untouched by "informal imperialism", was attractive to business entrepreneurs. During a time when Britain's balance of trade showed a growing deficit, with shrinking and increasingly protectionist continental markets during the Long Depression (1873–1896), Africa offered Britain, Germany, France, and other countries an open market that would garner them a trade surplus: a market that bought more from the colonial power than it sold overall.
Surplus capital was often more profitably invested overseas, where cheap materials, limited competition, and abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible. Another inducement for imperialism arose from the demand for raw materials, especially ivory, rubber, palm oil, cocoa, diamonds, tea, and tin. Additionally, Britain wanted control of areas of the southern and eastern coasts of Africa for stopover ports on the route to Asia and its empire in India. But, excluding the area that became the Union of South Africa in 1910, European nations invested relatively limited amounts of capital in Africa.
Pro-imperialist colonial lobbyists such as the Alldeutscher Verband, Francesco Crispi and Jules Ferry, argued that sheltered overseas markets in Africa would solve the problems of low prices and overproduction caused by shrinking continental markets. John A. Hobson argued in Imperialism that this shrinking of continental markets was a key factor of the global "New Imperialism" period. William Easterly, however, disagrees with the link made between capitalism and imperialism, arguing that colonialism is used mostly to promote state-led development rather than corporate development. He has said that "imperialism is not so clearly linked to capitalism and the free markets... historically there has been a closer link between colonialism/imperialism and state-led approaches to development."
Strategic rivalry
While tropical Africa was not a large zone of investment, other overseas regions were. The vast interior between Egypt and the gold and diamond-rich Southern Africa had strategic value in securing the flow of overseas trade. Britain was under political pressure to build up lucrative markets in India, Malaya, Australia and New Zealand. Thus, it wanted to secure the key waterway between East and West – the Suez Canal, completed in 1869. However, a theory that Britain sought to annex East Africa during 1880 onwards, out of geo-strategic concerns connected to Egypt (especially the Suez Canal), has been challenged by historians such as John Darwin (1997) and Jonas F. Gjersø (2015).
The scramble for African territory also reflected concern for the acquisition of military and naval bases, for strategic purposes and the exercise of power. The growing navies, and new ships driven by steam power, required coaling stations and ports for maintenance. Defence bases were also needed for the protection of sea routes and communication lines, particularly of expensive and vital international waterways such as the Suez Canal.
Colonies were seen as assets in balance of power negotiations, useful as items of exchange at times of international bargaining. Colonies with large native populations were also a source of military power; Britain and France used large numbers of British Indian and North African soldiers, respectively, in many of their colonial wars (and would do so again in the coming World Wars). In the age of nationalism there was pressure for a nation to acquire an empire as a status symbol; the idea of "greatness" became linked with the "White Man's Burden", or sense of duty, underlying many nations' strategies.
In the early 1880s, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was exploring the region along the Congo River for France, at the same time Henry Morton Stanley explored it on behalf of the Committee for Studies of the Upper Congo, backed by Leopold II of Belgium, who would have it as his personal Congo Free State. Leopold had earlier hoped to recruit Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, but turned to Henry Morton Stanley when the former was recruited by the French government. France occupied Tunisia in May 1881, which may have convinced Italy to join the German-Austrian Dual Alliance in 1882, thus forming the Triple Alliance. The same year, Britain occupied Egypt (hitherto an autonomous state owing nominal fealty to the Ottoman Empire), which ruled over Sudan and parts of Chad, Eritrea, and Somalia. In 1884, Germany declared Togoland, the Cameroons and South West Africa to be under its protection; and France occupied Guinea. French West Africa was founded in 1895 and French Equatorial Africa in 1910. In French Somaliland, a short-lived Russian colony in the Egyptian fort of Sagallo was briefly proclaimed by Terek Cossacks in 1889.
Germany's Weltpolitik (World Policy)
Germany, divided into small states, was not initially a colonial power. In 1862, Otto von Bismarck became Minister-President of the Kingdom of Prussia, and through a series of wars with both Austria in 1866 and France in 1870 was able to unify all of Germany under Prussian rule. The German Empire was formally proclaimed on 18 January 1871. At first, Bismarck disliked colonies but gave in to popular and elite pressure in the 1880s. He sponsored the 1884–85 Berlin Conference, which set the rules of effective control of African territories and reduced the risk of conflict between colonial powers. Bismarck used private companies to set up small colonial operations in Africa and the Pacific.
Pan-Germanism became linked to the young nation's new imperialist drives. In the beginning of the 1880s, the Deutscher Kolonialverein was created, and published the Kolonialzeitung. This colonial lobby was also relayed by the nationalist Alldeutscher Verband. Weltpolitik (world policy) was the foreign policy adopted by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890, intending to transform Germany into a global power through aggressive diplomacy, and the development of a large navy. Germany became the third-largest colonial power in Africa, the location of most of its 2.6 million square kilometres of colonial territory and 14 million colonial subjects in 1914. The African possessions were Southwest Africa, Togoland, the Cameroons, and Tanganyika. Germany tried to isolate France in 1905 with the First Moroccan Crisis. This led to the 1905 Algeciras Conference, in which France's influence on Morocco was compensated by the exchange of other territories, and then to the Agadir Crisis in 1911.
Italy's expansion
After fighting alongside France during the Crimean War (1853–1856), the Kingdom of Sardinia sought to unify the Italian peninsula, with French support. Following a war with Austria in 1859, Sardinia, under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel II and Giuseppe Garibaldi, was able to unify most of the peninsula by 1861, establishing the Kingdom of Italy.
Following unification, Italy sought to expand its territory and become a great power, taking possession of parts of Eritrea in 1870 and 1882. In 1889–90, it occupied territory on the south side of the Horn of Africa, forming what would become Italian Somaliland. In the disorder that followed the 1889 death of Emperor Yohannes IV, General Oreste Baratieri occupied the Ethiopian Highlands along the Eritrean coast, and Italy proclaimed the establishment of a new colony of Eritrea, with its capital moved from Massawa to Asmara. When relations between Italy and Ethiopia deteriorated, the First Italo-Ethiopian War broke out in 1895; Italian troops were defeated as the Ethiopians had numerical superiority, better organization, and support from Russia and France. In 1911, Italy engaged in a war with the Ottoman Empire, in which it acquired Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, that together formed what became known as Italian Libya. In 1919 Enrico Corradini developed the concept of Proletarian Nationalism, which was supposed to legitimise Italy's imperialism by a mixture of socialism with nationalism:
We must start by recognizing the fact that there are proletarian nations as well as proletarian classes; that is to say, there are nations whose living conditions are subject...to the way of life of other nations, just as classes are. Once this is realised, nationalism must insist firmly on this truth: Italy is, materially and morally, a proletarian nation.
The Second Italo-Abyssinian War (1935–1936), ordered by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, was the last colonial war (that is, intended to colonise a country, as opposed to wars of national liberation), occupying Ethiopia—which had remained the last independent African territory, apart from Liberia. Italian Ethiopia was occupied by fascist Italian forces in World War II as part of Italian East Africa though much of the mountainous countryside had remained out of Italian control due to resistance from the Arbegnoch. The occupation is an example of the expansionist policy that characterized the Axis powers as opposed to the Scramble for Africa.
Portugal's Pink Map plan
Portugal had the oldest official presence in Africa out of all the European powers. The Portuguese were officially involved in African affairs as early as 1415, when King John I captured the Moroccan city of Ceuta. Owing to the initiative of Prince Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese pushed south along the west African coast, discovered the Cape Verde archipelago, which was uninhabited, and reached Guinea, where commercial treaties were signed with local rulers to exchange manufactured European commodities such as cloth for gold, ivory and slaves. Cape Verde was settled during the reign of Afonso V. During the reign of John II, the Portuguese built the fortress of Elmina in West Africa, settled São Tomé and Príncipe, and established contacts with the Kingdom of Kongo in 1483, while Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Vasco da Gama would first explore the region that now corresponds to Mozambique when he discovered the sea route to India.
Portugal built several establishments around the African coast and made some progress inland in the following centuries. A fortress was built at Sofala in 1505 and another at Mozambique Island in 1507, while the city of Luanda was founded in 1576. After the Battle of Pungo Andongo in 1671, the Kingdom of Ndongo was fully annexed into Portuguese Angola. Ndongo was the first African state to be annexed by Europeans. Throughout the 16th century, independent Portuguese traders and adventurers infiltrated the interior of Mozambique, and in the 1570s Portugal established forts at Sena and Tete several hundred kilometres up the navigable Zambezi river. Around the Zambezi river, Portugal established the unique prazo system of estate-holders, whereby prazeiros were awarded a lease over a parcel of land to administer in exchange for maintaining a contingent of troops and enforcing Crown rule. Zumbo was the largest of the Portuguese town in the Zambezi for a brief period in the 18th century, though it was isolated and at the end of a long line of communication.
After the Independence of Brazil, Portugal sought to protect, develop and expand its remaining overseas territories in order to compensate for lost territory, tax and trade revenue, and international standing. Portugal’s greatest challenges throughout the 19th century would prove to be the scarcity of means and foreign encroachment. Between 1861 and 1875, the United Kingdom contested Portuguese claims over the Maputo Bay, considered the "Key to South Africa", though the president of France Patrice de MacMahon ruled in favour of Portugal in international arbitration. The Lisbon Geographical Society meanwhile promoted the "Pink Map", which called for the occupation of all territory between Angola and Mozambique, though this clashed with British claims, particularly Cecil Rhodes Cape to Cairo Railway plan. Portugal’s dispute with King Leopold II of Belgium over the control of the Congo estuary in particular motivated German chancellor Otto von Bismark to call the Berlin Conference in 1884, though Bismark aimed to solve European disputes along the Congo and elsewhere in Africa. Portugal saw its claims to the west bank of the Congo confirmed, though any and all claims based on simple discovery and just diplomatic or commercial relations with the native powers were rejected.
History and characteristics
Colonization before World War I
Congo
David Livingstone's explorations, carried on by Henry Morton Stanley, excited imaginations with Stanley's grandiose ideas for colonisation; but these found little support owing to the problems and scale of action required, except from Leopold II of Belgium, who in 1876 had organised the International African Association. From 1869 to 1874, Stanley was secretly sent by Leopold II to the Congo region, where he made treaties with several African chiefs along the Congo River and by 1882 had sufficient territory to form the basis of the Congo Free State.
While Stanley was exploring the Congo on behalf of Leopold II of Belgium, the Franco-Italian marine officer Pierre de Brazza travelled into the western Congo Basin and raised the French flag over the newly founded Brazzaville in 1881, thus occupying today's Republic of the Congo. Portugal, which also claimed the area because of old treaties with the Kingdom of Kongo, made a treaty with Britain on 26 February 1884 to block off Leopold's access to the Atlantic.
By 1890 the Congo Free State had consolidated control of its territory between Leopoldville and Stanleyville and was looking to push south down the Lualaba River from Stanleyville. At the same time, the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes was expanding north from the Limpopo River, sending the Pioneer Column (guided by Frederick Selous) through Matabeleland, and starting a colony in Mashonaland.
Tippu Tip, a Zanzibari Arab based in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, also played a major role as a "protector of European explorers", ivory trader and slave trader. Having established a trading empire within Zanzibar and neighbouring areas in East Africa, Tippu Tip would shift his alignment towards the rising colonial powers in the region and at the proposal of Henry Morton Stanley, Tippu Tip became a governor of the "Stanley Falls District" (Boyoma Falls) in Leopold's Congo Free State, before being involved in the Congo–Arab War against Leopold II's colonial state.
To the west, in the land where their expansions would meet, was Katanga, the site of the Yeke Kingdom of Msiri. Msiri was the most militarily powerful ruler in the area and traded large quantities of copper, ivory and slaves—and rumours of gold reached European ears. The scramble for Katanga was a prime example of the period. Rhodes sent two expeditions to Msiri in 1890 led by Alfred Sharpe, who was rebuffed, and Joseph Thomson, who failed to reach Katanga. Leopold sent four expeditions. First, the Le Marinel expedition could only extract a vaguely worded letter. The Delcommune expedition was rebuffed. The well-armed Stairs expedition was given orders to take Katanga with or without Msiri's consent. Msiri refused, was shot, and his head was cut off and stuck on a pole as a "barbaric lesson" to the people. The Bia River expedition finished the job of establishing an administration of sorts and a "police presence" in Katanga. Thus, the half million square kilometres of Katanga came into Leopold's possession and brought his African realm up to 2,300,000 square kilometres (890,000 sq mi), about 75 times larger than Belgium. The Congo Free State imposed such a terror regime on the colonized people, including mass killings and forced labour, that Belgium, under pressure from the Congo Reform Association, ended Leopold II's rule and annexed it on 20 August 1908 as a colony of Belgium, known as the Belgian Congo.
The brutality of King Leopold II in his former colony of the Congo Free State was well documented; up to 8 million of the estimated 16 million native inhabitants died between 1885 and 1908. According to Roger Casement, an Irish diplomat of the time, this depopulation had four main causes: "indiscriminate war", starvation, reduction of births and diseases. Sleeping sickness ravaged the country and must also be taken into account for the dramatic decrease in population; it has been estimated that sleeping sickness and smallpox killed nearly half the population in the areas surrounding the lower Congo River. Estimates of the death toll vary considerably. As the first census did not take place until 1924, it is difficult to quantify the population loss of the period. The Casement Report set it at three million. William Rubinstein writes: "More basically, it appears almost certain that the population figures given by Hochschild are inaccurate. There is, of course, no way of ascertaining the population of the Congo before the twentieth century, and estimates like 20 million are purely guesses. Most of the interior of the Congo was literally unexplored if not inaccessible."
A similar situation occurred in the neighbouring French Congo, where most of the resource extraction was run by concession companies, whose brutal methods, along with the introduction of disease, resulted in the loss of up to 50% of the indigenous population according to Hochschild. The French government appointed a commission headed by de Brazza in 1905 to investigate the rumoured abuses in the colony. However, de Brazza died on the return trip, and his "searingly critical" report was neither acted upon nor released to the public. In the 1920s, about 20,000 forced labourers died building a railroad through the French territory.
Egypt, Sudan, and South Sudan
Suez Canal
To construct the Suez Canal, French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps had obtained many concessions from Isma'il Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan in 1854–56. Some sources estimate the workforce at 30,000, but others estimate that 120,000 workers died over the ten years of construction from malnutrition, fatigue, and disease, especially cholera. Shortly before its completion in 1869, Khedive Isma'il borrowed enormous sums from British and French bankers at high rates of interest. By 1875, he was facing financial difficulties and was forced to sell his block of shares in the Suez Canal. The shares were snapped up by Britain, under Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who sought to give his country practical control in the management of this strategic waterway. When Isma'il repudiated Egypt's foreign debt in 1879, Britain and France seized joint financial control over the country, forcing the Egyptian ruler to abdicate and installing his eldest son Tewfik Pasha in his place. The Egyptian and Sudanese ruling classes did not relish foreign intervention.
Mahdist War
During the 1870s, European initiatives against the slave trade caused an economic crisis in Northern Sudan, precipitating the rise of Mahdist forces. In 1881, the Mahdist revolt erupted in Sudan under Muhammad Ahmad, severing Tewfik's authority in Sudan. The same year, Tewfik suffered an even more perilous rebellion by his Egyptian army in the form of the Urabi revolt. In 1882, Tewfik appealed for direct British military assistance, commencing Britain's administration of Egypt. A joint British-Egyptian military force entered the Mahdist War. Additionally the Egyptian province of Equatoria (located in South Sudan) led by Emin Pasha was also subject to an ostensible relief expedition of Emin Pasha against Mahdist forces. The British-Egyptian force ultimately defeated the Mahdist forces in Sudan in 1898. Thereafter, Britain seized effective control of Sudan, which was nominally called Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
Berlin Conference (1884–1885)
The occupation of Egypt and the acquisition of the Congo were the first major moves in what came to be a precipitous scramble for African territory. In 1884, Otto von Bismarck convened the 1884–1885 Berlin Conference to discuss the African problem. While diplomatic discussions were held regarding ending the remaining slave trade as well as the reach of missionary activities, the primary concern of those in attendance was preventing war between the European powers as they divided the continent among themselves. More importantly, the diplomats in Berlin laid down the rules of competition by which the great powers were to be guided in seeking colonies. They also agreed that the area along the Congo River was to be administered by Leopold II as a neutral area in which trade and navigation were to be free. The Berlin Conference transformed Africa's colonization from informal economic penetration to systematic political control through its 'effective occupation' principle. No nation was to stake claims in Africa without notifying other powers of its intentions. No territory could be formally claimed before being effectively occupied. However, the competitors ignored the rules when convenient, and on several occasions war was only narrowly avoided (see Fashoda Incident). The Swahili coast territories of the Sultanate of Zanzibar were partitioned between Germany and Britain, initially leaving the archipelago of Zanzibar independent until 1890, when that remnant of the Sultanate was made into a British protectorate with the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty.
Britain's administration of Egypt and South Africa
Britain's administration of Egypt and the Cape Colony contributed to a preoccupation over securing the source of the Nile river. Egypt was taken over by the British in 1882, leaving the Ottoman Empire in a nominal role until 1914, when London made it a protectorate. Egypt was never an actual British colony. Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda were subjugated in the 1890s and early 20th century; and in the south, the Cape Colony (first acquired in 1795) provided a base for the subjugation of neighbouring African states and the Dutch Afrikaner settlers who had left the Cape to avoid the British and then founded their republics. Theophilus Shepstone annexed the South African Republic in 1877 for the British Empire, after it had been independent for 20 years. In 1879, after the Anglo-Zulu War, Britain consolidated its control of most of the territories of South Africa. The Boers protested, and in December 1880 they revolted, leading to the First Boer War. British Prime Minister William Gladstone signed a peace treaty on 23 March 1881, giving self-government to the Boers in the Transvaal. The Jameson Raid of 1895 was a failed attempt by the British South Africa Company and the Johannesburg Reform Committee to overthrow the Boer government in the Transvaal. The Second Boer War, fought between 1899 and 1902, was about control of the gold and diamond industries; the independent Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic were this time defeated and absorbed into the British Empire.
The French thrust into the African interior was mainly from the coasts of West Africa (present-day Senegal) eastward, through the Sahel along the southern border of the Sahara. Their ultimate aim was to have an uninterrupted colonial empire from the Niger River to the Nile, thus controlling all trade to and from the Sahel region by their existing control over the caravan routes through the Sahara. The British, on the other hand, wanted to link their possessions in Southern Africa with their territories in East Africa and these two areas with the Nile basin.
The Sudan (which included most of present-day Uganda) was the key to the fulfilment of these ambitions, especially since Egypt was already under British control. This "red line" through Africa is made most famous by Cecil Rhodes. Along with Lord Milner, the British colonial minister in South Africa, Rhodes advocated such a "Cape to Cairo" empire, linking the Suez Canal to the mineral-rich South Africa by rail. Though hampered by the German occupation of Tanganyika until the end of World War I, Rhodes successfully lobbied on behalf of such a sprawling African empire.
Britain had sought to extend its East African empire contiguously from Cairo to the Cape of Good Hope, while France had sought to extend its holdings from Dakar to the Sudan, which would enable its empire to span the entire continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. If one draws a line from Cape Town to Cairo (Rhodes's dream), and one from Dakar to the Horn of Africa (the French ambition), these two lines intersect somewhere in eastern Sudan near Fashoda, explaining its strategic importance.
A French force under Jean-Baptiste Marchand arrived first at the strategically located fort at Fashoda, soon followed by a British force under Lord Kitchener, commander in chief of the British Army since 1892. The French withdrew after a standoff and continued to press claims to other posts in the region. The Fashoda Incident ultimately led to the signature of the Entente Cordiale of 1904, which guaranteed peace between the two.
Anglo-French Agreement
In 1890, both the United Kingdom and France were able to reach a diplomatic solution over a colonial dispute that would guarantee freedom of trade for the British Empire while allowing France to expand their influence in North Africa. In exchange for France recognizing Britain's protectorate over Zanzibar, the British Empire recognized France's claim to Madagascar as well as their sphere of influence in North Africa stretching down to the border region of Sokoto. However, finely demarcating this border was difficult to do without a large map.
Moroccan Crises
Although the Berlin Conference had set the rules for the Scramble for Africa, it had not weakened the rival imperialists. As a result of the Entente Cordiale, the German Kaiser decided to test the solidity of such influence, using the contested territory of Morocco as a battlefield. Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Tangier on 31 March 1905 and made a speech in favour of Moroccan independence, challenging French influence in Morocco. France's presence had been reaffirmed by Britain and Spain in 1904. The Kaiser's speech bolstered French nationalism, and with British support, the French foreign minister, Théophile Delcassé, took a defiant line. The crisis peaked in mid-June 1905 when Delcassé was forced out of the ministry by the more conciliation-minded premier Maurice Rouvier. But by July 1905 Germany was becoming isolated, and the French agreed to a conference to solve the crisis.
The 1906 Algeciras Conference was called to settle the dispute. Of the thirteen nations present, the German representatives found their only supporter was Austria-Hungary, which had no interest in Africa. France had firm support from Britain, the U.S., Russia, Italy, and Spain. The Germans eventually accepted an agreement, signed on 31 May 1906, whereby France yielded certain domestic changes in Morocco but retained control of key areas.
However, five years later the Second Moroccan Crisis (or Agadir Crisis) was sparked by the deployment of the German gunboat Panther to the port of Agadir in July 1911. Germany had started to attempt to match Britain's naval supremacy—the British navy had a policy of remaining larger than the next two rival fleets in the world combined. When the British heard of the Panther's arrival in Morocco, they wrongly believed that the Germans meant to turn Agadir into a naval base on the Atlantic. The German move was aimed at reinforcing claims for compensation for acceptance of effective French control of the North African kingdom, where France's pre-eminence had been upheld by the 1906 Algeciras Conference. In November 1911, a compromise was reached under which Germany accepted France's position in Morocco in return for a slice of territory in the French Equatorial African colony of Middle Congo.
France and Spain subsequently established a full protectorate over Morocco on 30 March 1912, ending what remained of the country's formal independence. Furthermore, British backing for France during the two Moroccan crises reinforced the Entente between the two countries and added to Anglo-German estrangement, deepening the divisions that would culminate in the First World War.
Dervish resistance
The Dervish Movement (Somali: Dhaqdhaqaaqa Daraawiish) was an armed resistance movement between 1899 and 1920, which was led by the Muslim poet and militant leader Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, also known as Sayyid Mohamed, who called for independence from the British and Italian colonisers and for the defeat of Ethiopians. The Dervish movement attracted approximately 25,000 youth from different clans over 1899 and 1905, acquired firearms and then attacked the Ethiopian garrison at Jigjiga overrunning it. Giving them their first military victory. The Dervish movement then declared the colonial administration in British Somaliland as their enemy.