THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE 399

sidered himself a ' no colony man'. All the same, Germany
after her unification took the coastland of South-West Africa
north of the Orange River, the Cameroons and East Africa.
All of these, however, were taken .away from Germany by
the Allies in the Great War of 1914-18. Italy, though late
in entering the field, secured Eritrea, Italian Somaliland,
Libya (1912), and last of all (1936) Abyssinia.

Though France has the lion's share of territory in Africa,
Great Britain is important in point of power. .Besides exten-
sive possessions on the Guinea coast, she owns a solid block
of territory stretching right through the continent from the
Cape of Good Hope to the Mediterranean. The gold mines
of the Transvaal and the diamond mines of Kimberley have
rendered these colonies invaluable. Together with Cape
Colony, Natal, and Orange Free State, they constitute the
Union of South Africa. To these must be added Rhodesia
(acquired by Cecil Rhodes), Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (con-
quered by Kitchner), and the German colonies (S. W. and
E. Africa) won during the Great War. Britain also con-
trols Egypt and has a decisive share in the control of the
Suez Canal (constructed in 1869 by the French engineer,
Ferdinand de Lesseps). This, together with the Cape-to-
Cairo Railway (7000 miles)—the product of the enterprise
of Cecil Rhodes—has given Britain great commercial and
strategic advantages.

The opening up and partition of Asia must be reserved
for another chapter, as it inevitably led to the awakening
of the slumbering East, which is too large and important
a subject to be dealt with here. We might more coherently
proceed in this chapter with the further phases of the Euro-
pean expansion in the West, such as Industrialism and its
attendant reactions : intellectual and political.

Modern industrialism which has given a new trend to