18.2: Technology

Technology made new imperialism possible by vastly increasing the speed of communication, arming European soldiers with advanced weapons that overwhelmed resistance, and protecting Europeans from tropical diseases. Simply put, technology explains how European dominance grew from about 35% of the globe to over 80% over the course of the nineteenth century. In hindsight, the technological dominance was a historical accident, the circumstantial development of tools and techniques that originated with the Industrial Revolution. At the time, however, most Europeans and Americans considered their technology as proof of their “racial” and cultural superiority.

For the first time, cities in Europe acquired the means to communicate almost instantaneously (via telegraph) with their colonies. Before telegraphs, it could take up to two years for a message and reply to travel between England and India. With the telegraph, a message and reply could make the circuit in just two days. This rapid speed increased the efficiency of governing in the context of global empires.

Europeans could survive in territories thousands of miles from the home country. Except for relatively small territories along the coasts, African had not been colonized by Europeans. The continent was largely impenetrable due to its geography

• few harbors existed for ships
• no navigable rivers (by sail) were found in the continent's interior
• numerous lethal diseases existed to which Europeans had little resistance, especially a particularly virulent form of malaria

Until the second half of the century, Africa was sometimes referred to as the "white man's graveyard". Europeans who traveled there to trade or try to conquer territory often died within a year.

In 1841, British expeditions discovered that daily doses of quinine, a medicine derived from a South American plant, served as an effective preventative measure against the contraction of malaria. Thus, Europeans were able to survive in the interior of Africa at much higher rates following the quinine breakthrough. Once Pasteur's discoveries in bacteriology did occur, it became viable for large numbers of European soldiers and officials to take up permanent residence in the tropical regions of Africa and Asia.

Advances in medicine were joined by those in transportation. The steamboat, with its power to travel both with and against the flow of rivers, enabled Europeans to push into the interior of Africa, and many parts of Asia. Steamboats were soon armed with small cannons, giving rise to the term “gunboat.” When Europeans began steaming into harbors from Hong Kong to the Congo and demanding territory and trading privileges, the term "gunboat diplomacy" was invented.

Figure 18.1.1: A typical small and unarmed steamship on the Congo River in Central Africa. “Steamers” varied greatly in size and armaments.

In addition, major advances in weapons technology resulted in an overwhelming advantage for the Europeans to inflict violence alongside invasion. In the 1860s, the first breech-loading rifles were developed, seeing widespread use in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 in which Prussian infantry utterly overwhelmed Austrian soldiers armed with older muskets. Breech-loaders were incredibly accurate and quick to reload compared to earlier muzzle-loading firearms. A European soldier armed with a modern rifle could fire accurately up to almost half a mile away in any weather, while the inhabitants of Africa and Asia were armed either with older firearms or hand weapons.

Likewise, the first machine gun, the Maxim Gun, was invented in the 1880s. For a few decades, Europeans (and Americans) had a monopoly on this technology. For that relatively brief period, the advantage was decisive in numerous conquests. Smug British soldiers invented a saying that summarized that superiority: “whatever happens, we have got, the Maxim Gun, and they have not…”

Figure 18.1.2: A British soldier with a maxim gun in South Africa.