Myth-Making for the Empire
GERMANY’S COLONY IN CHINA 1897–1914
» YIXU LU
My topic is the role of China in the German Germany as a senile state, sunk in decadence. popular imagination in the decades around the A shift in this perspective was largely brought turn of the twentieth century. The focus will about by the efforts of the pioneering geographer be on Qingdao (Tsingtau), Germany’s ‘model Ferdinand von Richthofen, whose writings colony’, as it was widely celebrated in political stressed the enormous economic potential to be discourses and popular literature at the time. It unlocked in China by Western intervention. Von existed from 1897 till 1914, was lavishly supported Richthofen saw China as a pre-industrial nation, by the German Naval Office, and sustained an needing only to profit from Western know-how emotional charge that was out of proportion to to make the transition to modernity.1 In the its very modest size and economic performance. wake of the Sino-Japanese war of 1895, there was I shall illustrate in what way the discourses on acute rivalry among Western powers to acquire Qingdao can be seen as part of a myth-making a colonial outpost in China. The German Naval process for the German Empire under Emperor Office had been on the lookout for a base in East Wilhelm II (fig. 1). Asia since the middle of the 1890s, and Admiral On 14 November 1897 marines of the East Alfred von Tirpitz, the relevant secretary of state, Asian cruiser squadron under the command had personally intervened to have the choice fall of Rear Admiral Otto von Diderichs occupied on the site of Qingdao. Kiautschou Bay on the northern coast of Thus, Qingdao was from the outset a focal China. On 14 November 1914, the seventeenth point of various ambitions. Although the colony anniversary of the occupation, Alfred Meyer- was never to achieve the exalted goals its Waldeck, Governor of the German protectorate, founders cherished, the city remained an icon left the city of Qingdao with his staff as Japanese of German culture in the midst of Asia. In the prisoners of war. In these 17 years, Qingdao following, I shall analyse the image of Qingdao in had embodied lofty symbolic values in German German popular discourses during the seventeen public discourse, and these became more intense years of its existence and — above all — in the through the colony’s downfall. drama of its downfall. I shall show how the The foundation of Qingdao was the fulfilment unique status of Qingdao derived from the fact of a long-cherished wish on the part of German that it was a convenient instrument for the explorers and bureaucrats. The dream of an staging of Kaiser Wilhelm’s ‘Weltpolitik’. For this (above) industrialised China, one created by the German made possible the transfiguration of the city after Detail, fig. 4, p. 65, Map of spirit, had been current since the 1860s. Earlier its inevitable capitulation in November 1914. Qingdao circa 1906. in the century, China had been perceived within
60 Humanities Australia The unique status of Qingdao had its (left) origin in a coincidence of images of Germany Fig. 1. Head and as a ‘world power’, committed to realising shoulders portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II by ‘world politics’, and of the demands for the Court Photographer creation of a German battle fleet. The murder T. H. Voigt of of two German missionaries in Shandong on Frankfurt, 1902. 1 November 1897 provided the longed-for pretext IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, IWM NON- for action. On 14 November, the Kaiser ordered COMMERCIAL LICENSE HTTPS://WWW.IWM.ORG. German troops to occupy Kiautschou Bay. From UK/COLLECTIONS/ITEM/ the outset, the creation of Qingdao had its OBJECT/205124138 theatrical aspects. A letter from Wilhelm to the Foreign Secretary von Bülow on 7 November testifies to the Kaiser’s hectic frame of mind at the occupation of Chinese territory:
Hundreds of German merchants will rejoice in their awareness that at long last the German Empire has gained a firm foothold in Asia. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese will tremble when they feel the iron fist of the German Empire upon their necks, and the entire German people will be happy that its government has done a virile deed.2 Those times are past when Germans left to The vision of the Chinese masses trembling one neighbour the earth, another the sea beneath the iron fist of Germany is indicative and kept the heavens, where pure doctrine of Wilhelm’s propensity for mythical thought reigns, for themselves. […] In short, we and bombastic utterances, and I shall address wish to put no other nation in the shade, this issue shortly. The Kaiser issued a personal but we also demand our place in the sun.4 decree that ‘atonement’ for the murder of the On the basis of this cliché — ‘our place in the missionaries should be demanded in the form sun’ — Qingdao henceforth becomes the symbol of the ceding of Chinese territory: ‘Go with all of Wilhelmenian ‘world politics’. Ironically, it was speed to Kiautschou with the whole squadron, not to survive the events of 1914. occupy suitable positions and localities and The founding of the first and only German compel the Chinese in whatever way you will colony in China did, in fact, represent something to make atonement’.3 new, namely the only tangible result of Wilhelm But in the Reichstag there was no longer any II’s ‘Weltpolitik’ — a most ambitious if very talk of atonement when von Bülow informed diffuse set of doctrines.5 One of Wilhelm’s senior the members of the occupation of Kiautschou. officers, Alfred Graf von Waldersee — later to Rather, it was seen as the triumphant entry command the Western allied troops in China of Germany as a colonial power onto the in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising — was world stage: sceptical of the worth of the Chinese colony, Germany now stands at the inception and, indeed, of what ‘world politics’ might mean, of its development into an international confiding in his diary of 13 July 1900: ‘We are world power. Taking possession of supposed to be engaging in “world politics”. If I Kiautschou Bay represents the first only knew what they were meant to be.’6 In fact, initiative in securing a firm basis for our they meant a good deal more than protecting trade and industry to exploit China, and I German trade with China, as becomes clear if we hope this will bring us rich rewards from look at other speeches of the Kaiser regarding the those lands where our goods are sold. […] occupation of Qingdao, for example:
Humanities Australia 61 Let it be clear to any European out there, of strategic ports, so that the outbreak of the that the good German has planted his First World War saw it hopelessly isolated. In shield — with its emblem of the Imperial the year 1907 there was even a public debate in eagle — firmly on the ground so as to Germany on the question of whether it would protect anyone who seeks his protection. not be better — given what the colony was […] But should anyone make so bold as costing — to return it to China. So what was to infringe upon our rights or seek to Qingdao good for? It was good for morale — in diminish them, then we shall defend them other words: it could represent. with a mailed fist!7 This brings us to the issue of just what constitutes political myth. I cannot begin to sift The warlike tone that Wilhelm here adopts the enormous literature on the topic, so offer reveals a somewhat paranoid attitude towards here a minimalist approach. In the words of the other colonial powers, especially England. For anthropologist Pierre Maranda, myths — at their these powers were busy trying to carve up China most fundamental — ‘display the structured, to their own advantage. Thus, the celebrated predominantly culture-specific, and shared, ‘model colony’ of Qingdao was from the outset semantic systems which enable the members embedded in a power play in the service of the of a culture area to understand each other […] ambitions of the German Empire. It bore a heavy More strictly, myths are stylistically definable symbolic burden which did not cease to exist discourses that express the strong components when Japanese and British troops conquered the of semantic systems.’8 It is important here to colony in November 1914. Qingdao always had note that the emphasis is on ‘semantic systems’, a function in a discourse of power, whether real rather than the more conventional one on or imaginary.
THE OFFICIAL RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLONY PROCLAIMED THAT THIS WAS THE INCEPTION OF A GRANDIOSE EXPANSION OF THE EMPIRE.
The official rhetoric surrounding the ‘narratives’. The semantic system in question foundation of the colony proclaimed that this here is that of German nationalism in the wake was the inception of a grandiose expansion of of the foundation of the Reich in 1870. Such the Empire. Qingdao was seen as the beginning semantic systems produce ‘discourses’ which of a fresh push towards imperial equality often take the form of past-tense narratives, but with France and Britain. The acquisition of this is not essential. The same semantic system Qingdao was thus part of a wider discourse can produce discourses that are in conflict with in which Germany sought to catch up with one another. The consistency required of a single the other European powers by becoming a coherent narrative need not be present in a major colonial nation and world power in its nexus of mythical elements. A contrasting myth own right. However, the enormous rhetorical to that of the ‘model colony’ was to emerge in and financial expenditure attending the 1900. For the great assertion of German military foundation of Qingdao simply dwarfed its power in China came with the suppression of the concrete achievements. It never realised the Boxer Uprising and the appointment of Alfred expectations that it would become a flourishing Graf von Waldersee as supreme commander of trade centre. It was designated a ‘free port’, but the allied troops. The following quotation from a the Chinese customs still collected tax on all prestigious German paper, the Kölnische Zeitung, goods leaving the protectorate. This dampened anticipating Waldersee’s appointment, throws trade considerably and forced the colonial some ‘strong components’ of the semantic administration to integrate it into the Chinese system of German nationalism into stark relief: imperial custom system a couple of years later. So if the decision has in fact been made It was developed as a naval harbour, but no in favour of General Field-Marshal Count attempt was made to integrate it into a network Waldersee, this would alone guarantee […]
62 Humanities Australia final victory since the powers representing (left) the civilisation of the West must triumph Fig. 2. Hermann in this campaign against the culture of the Knackfuß, Völker Europas, wahrt eure East which has sunk into barbarism […] heiligsten Güter If a German leader is considered worthy (“Peoples of Europe, of leading the forces of civilisation to this guard your dearest goods”) 1895. inevitable victory, so is this an honour that 9 IMAGE: PUBLIC DOMAIN the German nation will be sure to value. VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, CC PUBLIC DOMAIN Some very strong components of the semantics MARK 1.0. of German nationalism are here on display, but the discourse has not taken on the form of a consternation in Germany when they made conventional mythical narrative. I have argued such a poor showing against the Japanese. But elsewhere that there is a strong tendency in the the elements of mythical systems need not be German press at the time of the Boxer Uprising invariable in their semantics. By 1900, following to make the German mission in China into a the murder of the German envoy, von Ketteler, replay of the German military successes of 1870 in Beijing by a Manchu soldier, the ‘Yellow Peril’ against France, thus grafting the hoped-for assumes a Chinese guise. Thus, Wilhelm exhorts triumphs in China onto the foundation-myth of troops embarking for China on 27 July 1900 with the Reich.10 The Kölnische Zeitung then supplies, a speech that was to become justly notorious. It a few days later, a more conventional piece of reads in one version: mythical narrative: ‘The armed White Man has Across the seas, great tasks await the marched into China and has forced the Yellow newly arisen German Empire […] Tasks Man to his knees’.11 The stark simplifications here to which the old [Holy] Roman Empire leave out of account that the vast majority of the of the German Nation was not equal population of China was quite unaware of the can now be successfully completed by presence of Western troops on a small segment the new German Empire. […] You well of one province. Moreover, the victory celebrated know that you will be fighting a cunning, here was more in the nature of a skirmish than courageous, well-armed, cruel foe. When a decisive, pitched battle in European terms. But you encounter him, so be aware: Quarter to set the seal on this largely imaginary triumph, is not to be given. No prisoners are to be the paper takes over from Waldersee’s telegram taken. […] Just as a thousand years ago of 5 November this happy formula: ‘The German the Huns under King Attila made a name flag is flying on the Great Wall of China’12 — a for themselves which resonates mightily mythical emblem of a sweeping and decisive even today in history and legend, so may victory that — in mundane reality — had simply the name of Germans in China by your failed to occur. deeds gain such fame that never again In the examples I have given here, we may shall a Chinese dare to look sideways at discern a triangle of communication. The myth- a German.13 making process circulates between the German leadership, the print media and the popular There is more than one version of the speech, imagination. In 1895, the Kaiser drafted a graphic but all versions conclude with the slogan: which was transformed into a lithograph by the ‘Clear the way for Culture — once and for all!’14 artist Hermann Knackfuß (fig. 2) and presented The ‘Yellow Peril’ may have changed its guise, as a gift to a number of royal families in Europe but the German civilising mission — here in including the Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. its most bloodthirsty terms — is a constant The threat embodied by the Buddha in this in the nationalist discourse. Notice also the picture was aroused by the triumph of Japanese tendency for one myth to overlay another. military in the Sino-Japanese war. Chinese forces Just as Waldersee’s suppression of the Boxer had been equipped with German armaments, remnants could be seen as a re-enactment of the notably Krupp gunboats, and there was some German triumphs of 1870, so here the imminent
Humanities Australia 63 destruction of the Chinese is to recapitulate the the political myth of German heroism in the face conquests of the Huns, who are transformed by of a demonised enemy produced its own factual Wilhelm’s overwrought rhetoric into honorary refutation. But this did little to dampen popular proto-Germans. Such imaginative distortions fervour which demanded signal victories against of history are the common currency of political ferocious odds. Wilhelm may have appalled myth. That the Huns had, in fact, devastated his inner circle and foreign observers with his large tracts of German lands had apparently bombastic rants and unpredictability, but by and slipped the Kaiser’s mind. large he was on a popular wavelength. Germany At this point it is as well to remind ourselves wanted its ‘place in the sun’ and in this lay the of the triangle of communication I spoke of Kaiser’s main strength. earlier. To quote from Christopher G. Flood, a (far right) prominent writer on political myth: Fig. 3. Main gate of former Chinese Mythmaking is a communication process munitions depot, which involves reception as well as (re) taken over by the production. To state that a narrative Imperial German Navy, Kiautschou is mythopoeic is merely to judge the Bay, Shandong properties of the discourse itself without peninsula, 1898. reference to how that discourse is received IMAGE: ATTRIBUTION by an audience. But to be the expression SHAREALIKE 3.0 GERMANY, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE of a myth the telling of a given narrative […] needs to be perceived as being faithful to […] the correct interpretation of a story The German forces in Qingdao played a which a social group already accepts or very minor role in the suppression of the Boxer subsequently comes to accept as true. […] Uprising. These hostilities mainly took place Conversely, the narrative will be described in the Imperial province of Chili, whereas the as myth […] in the pejorative sense by province of Shandong, surrounding the German those who consider the account to be colony, saw some armed combat around the factually untrue or significantly distorted construction of the Shandong railway. Moreover, in its selection and/or interpretation of Qingdao’s representative role was a long way relevant true facts.15 from the blood and thunder of the Boxer Wilhelm’s mythicising tirades did not stand skirmishes. For the mythical function of Qingdao alone, as they do today on the pages of history was to transform a piece of China into ‘German textbooks. Rather, they resonated with most of mother earth’. This it did with great success. the German print media, the landed aristocracy Although Qingdao had become the most and the populace at large. There were, of expensive project of German colonialism course, some dissenting voices. In the historical and was, indeed, a financial disaster, within context we are addressing, the disbelievers the symbolic world of German writing the were the Social Democrats. They annoyed the city remained a shining example of German government in the Parliament to the extent progressiveness and efficiency. Critical remarks that Wilhelm dreamed of dissolving it and to the effect that, with the 110 million marks in ruling autocratically. In an aggressive attempt subsidies that had been expended up till 1908 to subvert the nationalist myth-making that on Qingdao even the Mark Brandenburg could was instigated by the leadership, reinforced by have been turned into the most beautiful garden the patriotic press and accepted uncritically by on earth, did nothing to weaken the myth of the popular imagination, the Social Democrats the exemplary colony. This is shown by the used their paper Vorwärts to print the following obituary for Qingdao after it had fallen ‘Hunnenbriefe’ — ‘letters from the Huns’. These in November 1914: were letters home from common soldiers setting Tsingtau was the defiant and impressive forth German atrocities against the Chinese in exemplary achievement of the genuine the course of the mopping-up campaign. Thus, German spirit, particularly imposing in the
64 Humanities Australia (left) Fig. 4. Map of Qingdao circa 1906
IMAGE: PUBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, CC PUBLIC DOMAIN MARK 1.0
(below) Fig. 5. Present day Qingdao
IMAGE: PIXABAY, CC0 CREATIVE COMMONS
drab environs of Chinese backwardness was the entry port for the German spirit, and causing especial offence to foreign for German education, for the German idea powers. […] Tsingtau became an in the world.16 exemplary exhibition of ‘Germanness’ From today’s perspective, we may term the [Deutschtum] in the Far East, a place of consciously crafted and widely disseminated pilgrimage for admiring Chinese, Japanese, image of Qingdao as the triumph of the domestic English and Americans. A spotlessly clean over the exotic. Under the political and financial city with that German order[…], Tsingtau protection of the Imperial Naval Office there remains a crowning achievement of the arose a miniature Germany on the coast of German naval administration […] and it
Humanities Australia 65 Shandong. The favourable climatic conditions rickshaw-depot was established offering clean and the opportunity of creating both the city lodgings, laundries, baths and even a canteen for and the landscape anew favoured the creation the rickshaw pullers to provide them with garlic- of a ‘paradise’ that was made to reflect ‘genuine free meals so as not to offend the noses of their Germanness’ [echtes Deutschtum]. This was European passengers. For Qingdao, still a naval taken so far that the Chinese surroundings base, had also become a health resort for tourists were largely lost to sight. Here German and Europeans stationed in China. ‘mother earth’ was cultivated. The capacity of A lecture delivered in January 1915 by Otto the Chinese workforce to adapt to German Franke, who was first a diplomat in China and orderliness guaranteed that there were scarcely then a professor of sinology at the Colonial any concessions required to the Asian context. Institute in Hamburg, is typical of many The following text may be seen as emblematic retrospective evocations of Qingdao that portray of the theatrical production of Qingdao in the it as a monument to benevolent colonialism: service of German nationalist expansion: Thus, Kiautschou became what it was In this milieu, supported by the prestige always meant to be: a base for German of concentrated military power on land trade, an entry-portal for German culture, and sea, the German entrepreneur in East not destined for conquest and subjugation Asia finds native German soil deutsche[ but for an amicable approach to the Muttererde]. Here he can soak up new Chinese people. […] this honest German national strength and by this means cultural labour, with Tsingtau as its centre, preserve his Germanness [Deutschtum] serving the interests of both lands — and become bound more closely to it.17 Tsingtau had a rosy future ahead of it.19
In Germany’s interactions with China in these The wealthy Chinese, mainly Mandarins, years we may see the contrasting faces of who had taken up residence there as a refuge colonialism. The aftermath of the Boxer Uprising from turbulent times in the new Republic of saw many innocent civilians die in the course China since 1911, would have had no grounds of Count Waldersee’s campaign of vengeance. for disputing this. That the German cultural In Qingdao, a more benevolent aspect of and educational mission was competing with colonialism could be seen. In a submission from those of other European nations was typical of the Naval Office to the Parliament in 1907 we changing Western attitudes to China. read: ‘The new city boasts a network of broad The immediate cause of the downfall of roads, has drainage for storm water and sewage, Qingdao so early in World War I was a treaty fresh running water and electric lighting, between Britain and Japan that was chiefly churches, hospitals and schools for Europeans directed against Russian expansion in the Far and Chinese’.18 The Naval Office also discovered East. German relations with the British navy in a gentler German cultural mission than Wilhelm Chinese waters had been cordial, but, once war had preached at the height of the Boxer crisis. broke out, Japan chose to honour the treaty as The idea of a peaceful ‘cultural mission’ was a means of getting at the rich coal reserves in floated first in 1907 in the course of a debate the province of Shandong and thus the story of in the Parliament on the prospect of handing Qingdao devolved into tragedy. The persistence Qingdao back to China. The ‘remainers’ argued of Qingdao in German war propaganda and in that German language and culture will pave other patriotic writings in the years that followed the way for German products and ‘economic its fall allows us to see how the discourse of penetration’ of China. Whilst schools and cultural and economic progress was interwoven hospitals for the Chinese were left to the with a discourse of sacrifice. In what follows missionaries, the colonial administration did I shall concentrate on the mythicising of the fall establish in 1908, in cooperation with the of the colony. Chinese government, an educational institute Although it was obvious to the German to prepare graduates for entry into Peking government that the alliance between Britain University. On a more mundane level, a and Japan made the situation of the colony
66 Humanities Australia untenable once hostilities commenced, there was At this moment came a greeting from no question of a peaceful surrender. The East our Emperor: ‘May God protect you in Asian squadron under the command of the your fierce struggle. My thoughts are Graf von Spee was in the South Pacific when with you. Wilhelm.’ These words in such war broke out and was obliged to flee to South a dark hour called forth a profound joy in America — only to be defeated there by a British all our hearts: Although at home battles fleet. In spite of Qingdao’s hopeless plight, Berlin were raging on three fronts, we were still rejected Japan’s ultimatum requiring Germany present in their thoughts.22 to vacate the colony. On 22 August, one day In the fictionalised reportFrom Qingdao to the before the expiry of the Japanese ultimatum, Falkland Islands that appeared in 1917 the author the governor of Qingdao Alfred Meyer-Waldeck sets out to reproduce the thoughts and feelings received the following telegram from the Kaiser: of the Germans in Qingdao at the beginning of ‘May God protect you in the fierce struggle that the war: awaits you. My thoughts are with you. Wilhelm.’ The governor answered: ‘I pledge we shall fulfil When the World War broke out, a our duty to the last man.’20 depressive mood took hold in Tsingtau We do not know how Berlin understood […] We were condemned to inactivity! Meyer-Waldeck’s promise. Reason would have And when in future years stories would urged a rapid surrender so that none of the be told of what those on the home front around 4000 Germans in Qingdao was obliged had fought for and how they had suffered, to die a hero’s death. But heroism was the then we would have to sit silently and watchword of the time, and so the besieged listen, and we could only confess: I was troops were obliged to pursue a scorched earth not part of the great conflict of nations. tactic. On 27 October, two months after Japan My heart’s blood may have glowed for the had blockaded Qingdao, cutting it off from the holy cause, but I was forbidden to sacrifice world, the Germans confined there received the it. But then rumours began to circulate last telegram from the Emperor: ‘With me, the that something was not quite right with whole German fatherland gazes proudly on the Japan. […] In the middle of the month heroes of Qingdao, who are fulfilling their duty there came the confirmation: Japan had in accord with the promise of their governor.’21 delivered an ultimatum to the German In view of the fact that Berlin could send nothing Empire […] In an instant all our cares were in the way of reinforcements to relieve the banished! No one could now doubt that situation in Qingdao, the question arises as to there would be a fight to the death. But the sense of Wilhelm’s telegram: What did the our hearts were uplifted in the knowledge Kaiser expect of his soldiers there? One thing is that the conflict would also rage about clear: the Kaiser’s choice of words is once more Tsingtau — the struggle of the German tinged with theatricality: the fall of Qingdao spirit against a world of envious, vile foes was to be placed in the service of mobilising who had taken up the sword purely for the emotions on the home front. The colony was sake of their purse.23 to die a hero’s death. This was to be its final There is no mention of the fact that Qingdao was representation, its last contribution to German completely isolated and in an untenable position. imperial myth-making. The skilful portrayal of the Japanese ultimatum One of the first obituaries for the lost colony as an unavoidable natural phenomenon serves appeared in December 1914. It was the printed the purpose of enabling the discourse of sacrifice, version of a lecture delivered in the Concordia which is the point of this piece of propaganda. Club in Shanghai by a man who claimed to It has the obvious function of installing the have fought there. In this text, the complete German capitulation as its complete opposite surrender of the colony is played down and the in the pantheon of German heroism. It reaches theatrical effect of the first telegram from the its culmination in a lament on the scorched Kaiser is magnified: earth policy:
Humanities Australia 67 With the expense of their last energy, the for a strategy of defence that did not involve heroic garrison fought for the fame and the garrison in a fight from house to house, honour of German arms. That the position from street to street. Nor did he implement of Tsingtau was not tenable had been clear the ‘scorched earth’ policy rigorously. Bridges, since the day on which Japan had begun its batteries and railway installations were indeed siege with the expenditure of vast means. destroyed, but important structures, such as […] But worse was to come! The Germans the Governor’s Residence and the Imperial were compelled to destroy their own Courthouse, remained intact, so did the villas creation. The watchword was: let nothing and shops, as witnessed by the first British usable fall into the hands of the aggressor! correspondent to be allowed to enter Qingdao With a cruel sense of satisfaction, the after the surrender: ‘The city appeared as if a besieged garrison set about supporting typhoon had passed through it. Its wide asphalt and completing the work of the Japanese streets, fronted by beautiful four and five-storey artillery.24 buildings of German architecture, were vacant.’26 So the Germans had destroyed everything that The author of this book was far from being could be used for the purposes of war, but they the inventor of such discourses of sacrifice. had stopped short of destroying the architecture Emotional expressions of heroic sacrifice can that was the ‘model colony’s’ real pride. already be found in the telegram that Wilhelm II But enough blood had been spilt to justify sent to the Reichstag on 14 November 1914: the discourse of sacrifice in the obituaries The heroic defence of this model creation for Qingdao. The echo in the German press of German culture, the result of several left nothing to be desired. While the liberal- years of devoted exertions, gives us a new conservative Kölnische Zeitung lamented the and honourable proof of that faithfulness destruction of a ‘green island’ in the perilous unto death that the German people has waves of violence and revolution,27 the centrist demonstrated so many times already in Frankfurter Zeitung mourned the loss of the this titanic struggle against a world of ‘beautiful, flourishing, expanding centre of trade hatred, envy and pillage. May God grant that German industriousness had conjured that your struggle has not been in vain! forth from the yellow sand’ and of the ‘model Wilhelm Imperator Rex.25 exhibition of the adventurous spirit of our Imperial Navy’.28 Indeed, the fallen Qingdao is In fact, ‘faithfulness unto death’ was not now being praised as the ‘real’ Qingdao — the demanded of most of the defenders of Qingdao. perfect symbol of the German national spirit: The governor, Meyer-Waldeck, had opted ‘The colony that had been shot to pieces and (right) hunted to death became a torch that glowed Fig. 6. Men of the more brightly, was more an incarnation of the German Garrison German spirit than Qingdao at peace could ever at Tsing-tau, from 29 The Illustrated have been.’ War News, No. 15, Since Qingdao had held out for 73 days of Nov. 18, 1914—II siege against an enemy that was vastly superior IMAGE: PUBLIC in numbers and equipment, expectations on DOMAIN VIA PROJECT GUTENBERG
68 Humanities Australia Qingdao fades out of history until its rediscovery the wealthy Mandarins — tolerated as ‘honorary by the scholars. Europeans’, but still alien and despised. All In conclusion, we may say that the various of these ‘others’ were generated within the discourses that focus on Qingdao are exemplary overarching myth that Qingdao was but the for the theatricality of German politics in the first fruit of a massive expansion of the German epoch of Wilhelm II and their dependence on Empire. It was not — and so it transformed into political myth. They are clearly influenced by the one of the first sacrifices to German militarism bombastic style of government that the Kaiser in the mighty conflicts of World War I. Myths affected. In a sense, everything about Qingdao of empire were by no means confined to had, from the outset, been theatre. It was the Germany’s brief colonisation of a very small part standard bearer of a nebulous kind of ‘world of China. But I suggest that Qingdao offers us politics’ that left the world outside Germany a microcosm of Western colonial attitudes. It is quite unmoved and, in Germany’s internal tempting to ask how many of them still persist politics, was chiefly responsible for a better today, when colonialism has become such a financing of the war fleet. In addition, Qingdao pejorative word. ¶ provided an emotional point of intersection for the Kaiser and the German nation. In this way, YIXU LU faha is Head of the Qingdao became a looking glass for ‘genuine School of Languages and Cultures Germanness’ in East Asia.30 As Qingdao, from and member of the China Studies Centre at the University of the outset, was chiefly there torepresent , it Sydney. After obtaining her BA is understandable that this aspect was only from Peking University, Lu spent enhanced by its fall for the duration of the war. seven years as a postgraduate at While the outcome of the siege was inevitable, the Universität Regensburg, it nonetheless lasted for more than two months. Germany, specialising in German Literature and This was a positive factor in creating the legend Modern European history. She came to Australia as a of the martyrdom of the colony. The famous Postdoctoral Fellow, and has taught at the Universities of Adelaide and Melbourne and at UTS. ‘place in the sun’ was a shining example to the She has been a research fellow of the Alexander von German people, even as it was overcome by Humboldt-Foundation (2002, 2008, 2012) and held superior forces. a guest professorship at the Chinese Ocean Empires need myths — as do democracies University, Qingdao (2007–09). She was awarded and dictatorships. Myths reinforce the selfhood the Jakob und Wilhelm Grimm-Preis for her of communities, and national myths thrive on distinguished contribution to research, teaching and creating, and then rejecting as inferior, versions international collaboration in German Studies by the German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD) in of the alien ‘other’. Germany’s interaction with 2014. Her main research interests are modern China over these few decades brought forth, German literature and history, 18th–20th century under the pressure of political forces that far German literature, German colonialism and exceeded these two countries, contrasting nationalism, Greek myth in German literature and colonialist discourses. Let us consider some of contemporary German culture and society. the guises in which these created the Chinese ‘other’. In the early years of the colony, there 1. Cf. Jürgen Osterhammel, ‘Forschungsreise were the Chinese workers, an alien underclass und Kolonialprogramm. Ferdinand von paid starvation wages, having no rights and Richthofen und die Erschließung Chinas im forbidden to mix with Europeans. The Boxer 19. Jahrhundert’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 69 Uprising then called forth the demonised (1987), 150–95 (p. 183). Chinese: fanatical, savage, a threat to all Western 2. Quoted by Wolfgang J. Mommsen, War der Kaiser an allem schuld? Wilhelm II. und die order and stability. These, in turn, produced preußisch-deutschen Machteliten (Berlin: Ullstein, the innocent victims of Waldersee’s campaign, 2005), p. 95. commemorated by the Social Democrats. Later 3. Cf. Volker Schult, ‘Auf dem Weg zur Weltmacht? came the eager recipients of German culture, Des Kaisers Admiral: Otto von Diederichs learning Western attitudes and know-how in zwischen Pazifik und Atlantik’, International Quarterly for Asian Studies 36 (2005), 125–58 Qingdao’s preparatory college. Then there were (p. 126).
Humanities Australia 69 4. Kaiserreich und Erster Weltkrieg 1871/1918, ed. 17. K. Romberg, ‘Die politische und kulturelle by Rüdiger vom Bruch and Björn Hofmeister Bedeutung des deutschen Kiautschougebietes: (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000), p. 268. Ein erlebtes Kapitel politischer Theorie’, 5. Cf. Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers. How Koloniale Monatsblätter 2 (February 1914), p. 59. Europe Went to War in 1914 (London: Penguin, 18. Klaus Mühlhahn, Herrschaft und Widerstand 2013), p. 151. in der Musterkolonie’ Kiautschou. Interaktionen 6. Denkwürdigkeiten des General-Feldmarschalls zwischen China und Deutschland 1897-1914 Alfred Grafen von Waldersee. Vol 2: 1888–1900, (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2000), p. 229. ed. by Heinrich Otto Meisner (Stuttgart and 19. Otto Franke, ‘Deutschland und China vor, in Berlin: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1922), p. 449. und nach dem Kriege’ (Lecture delivered on 7. Cf. Reden des Kaisers: Ansprachen, Predigten und 29 January 1915 in Bonn am Rhein) (Hamburg: Trinksprüche Wilhelms II, ed. by Ernst Johann L. Friederichsen & Co., 1915), pp. 16–17. (Munich: dtv, 1966) pp. 74–5. 20. Kurt Schultze-Jena, Der Kampf um Tsingtau. 8. Mythology. Selected Readings, ed. by Pierre Vortrag gehalten im Club Concordia zu Schanghai Maranda (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), am 28. Dezember 1914, (Shanghai: Verlag von pp. 12–13. Max Nössler und Co., 1915), p. 12. 9. Kölnische Zeitung, 9 August 1900. 21. Schultze-Jena, p. 12. 10. Yixu Lu, ‘German Colonial Fiction on China: 22. Schultze-Jena, pp. 4–5. The Boxer Uprising of 1900’, German Life and 23. Hugo Waldeyer, Von Tsingtau zu den Letters, 59 (2006), 98–99. Falklandinseln. Eine Erzählung von den 11. Kölnische Zeitung, 3 November 1900. Heldenkämpfen um Tsingtau und der ruhmreichen Fahrt des deutschen Kreuzergeschwaders im 12. Kölnische Zeitung, 5 November 1900. Weltkriege 1914 (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler 13. Quoted by Wolfgang J. Mommsen, War der und Sohn, 1917), pp. 47–48. Kaiser an allem schuld? Wilhelm II. und die 24. Waldeyer, p. 129. preußisch-deutschen Machteliten (Berlin: Ullstein, 2005), p. 95. 25. Quoted from Kriegstagebuch der Belagerung von Tsingtau vom 23. Juli bis 29. November, published 14. The Kaiser’s speech exists in more than one anonymously (Tientsin: Tageblatt für Nord- version. The official version is much less China A.G., 1915), pp. 36–37. inflammatory than those noted down by reporters on the occasion. Cf. Reden des Kaisers, 26. Edwin Hoyt, The Fall of Tsingtao (London: pp. 90–91 and War der Kaiser an allem schuld?, Arthur Baker Limited, 1975), p. 141. p. 104. 27. Kölnische Zeitung, 8 November 1914. 15. Christopher G. Flood, Political Myth. 28. Frankfurter Zeitung, 17 November 1914. A Theoretical Introduction (New York and 29. Wertheimer, pp. 24–25. London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 43–4. 30. Wertheimer, pp. 24–25. 16. Fritz Wertheimer, Deutschland und Ostasien (Stuttgart und Berlin, 1914), pp. 22–23.
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