Protectorates and Twists: Law, History and the Annexation of German New Guinea P.G

Protectorates and Twists: Law, History and the Annexation of German New Guinea P.G. Sack Senior Fellow, Australian National University Introduction The 'annexation' of German New Guinea is frequently mentioned in the rapidly growing body of - more of less 'scholarly' - literature on the history of the Southwest Pacific. There is, however, not a single detailed discussion. Moreover, a comparison between the available accounts discloses not only a surprising degree of vagueness and variation, but also an almost total lack of critical analysis. At first we may be tempted to put this down to a mixture of political prejudice and shoddy workmanship, but it soon becomes apparent that we are, in fact, confronted by the products of a much more general and complex process of ritualisation. There appears to be a universal assumption that an 'annexation' is a formal legal ballet, with a series of prescribed movements, whose actual performance can be taken for granted. Strictly speaking, so it seems, the 'annexation' of German New Guinea is a matter of law and not a matter of history, so that a historical account can and should do no more than to state that this legal event took place. On the other hand, an 'annexation' cannot simply be left as a black, legal hole: in the interests of a well-rounded narrative it must, at least, be covered with a heap of legal jargon and historical trimmings. This problem is doubtless one reason why the process of ritualisation in the accounts of 'annexation' of German New Guinea reaches peaks of surrealistic absurdity. Consider, for instance, the following passage from the Papua New Guinea Handbook, where history has become a petrified chant that has long lost any connection with reality: I "In October 1899, the Germans incorporated the Marianas, Carolines and Marshall Islands (the three groups [sic] of Micronesia) into the administra tion [sic] and the following month, November 8, Bougainville and Buka were included as a result of an agreement with the U.S. and Britain. Nauru was included later." In fact: 1. the date of the relevant German decree relating to the Marianas and Carolines is 18 July 1899 (and that of the relevant agreement with Spain even earlier); 2. the Marshall Islands became German in 1885 but part of German New Guinea only in 1906 (that is, well after the Marianas and Carolines); 3. the relevant German-British agreement (not involving the United States) was dated 14 November 1899 and added the Shortlands, Choiseul and Ysabel to 1. Papua New Guinea Handbook (1974), 13-5. 2 Australian Year Book of International Law the British part of the Solomons and not Buka and Bougainville to German New Guinea; and 4. Nauru became German in 1888. But this passage also illustrates a tendency to present history in general- and not merely activities in minor legal enclaves - as a ritual ballet in its own right. Although history remains - on the surface - an accumulation of facts and figures, they become, taken individually, replaceable. They serve as decorations whose accuracy no longer matters. What counts are the mental images they convey. The aim is no longer truth but explanation. This explanation must transcend historical facts and often enters into the realm of historical 'laws', even if great care is taken to avoid making these 'laws' explicit. In short: the ritualisation of law is coupled with a 'legalisation' of history. In the case of the 'annexation' of German New Guinea the conventional explanatory device is a 'conspiracy theory': Bismarck, who wanted the largest possible sfice of the New Guinea region, was (wrongly) convinced that he could only get it if he kept his intentions secret and created a fait accompli which Britain had to accept. The 'annexation' thus takes the shape of a more or less sophisticated 'good versus evil' game (and it makes little difference if the pro-British 'conspiracy theory' is replaced by a pro-German counterpart, for instance, a 'dog-in-the-manger theory'). The natural focal point for a 'conspiracy theory' is the diplomatic foreplay to the 'annexation'. It reduces the history of the 'annexation' of German New Guinea - if not the history of the division of the entire region between Germany and Britain - to a history of Bismarck's diplomatic conspiracy. The 'conspiracy theory' also combines neatly with the view that the 'annexation' was a matter of law and not a matter of history. The diplomatic game can be directly translated into geometrical dividing lines, drawn, in European capitals, on maps of the Pacific, and the 'annexation' itself either dissolves into thin air or lingers on as a comic or tragic dream in the no-man's land between law and history. Thirty years ago, Marjorie Jacobs published a critical examination of the 'conspiracy theory'. Although the term 'annexation' is the keystone of her paper (,Bismarck and the Annexation of New Guinea'), she says little about the manner in which the 'annexation' was actually carried out. 2 "Throughout November and the early part of December [1884], Bismarck maintained his silence on New Guinea, while in the Pacific, the warships Elisabeth and Hyiine hoisted the German flag at Matupi on 3 November and at various points in the archipelago and on the north coast of New Guinea ... Consequently, the announcement of the German protectorate on 19 December took the British Government by surprise." The implications are that the hoisting of the German flag was the technical, legal means by which a 'protectorate' was established. Grattan avoids the term 'annexation', and settles for a (vague) later date. 3 According to him the Germans "took" the north coast of New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago somehow in December 1884. Grattan does not say 2. Jacobs, M, "Bismarck and the Annexation of New Guinea", (1951) 5 Historical Studies 23. 3. Grattan, C, The Southwest Pacific to 1900: A Modern History (1963), 498. .

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