The Scramble For Chobe (II)

This instrument further coincided with an agreement over the boundary between then Portuguese Angola and German South West Africa, which recognised Germany’s claims to the territory that “runs in a straight line to the east till it reaches the cataracts of Catima [Katima Mulilo] on the Zambesi.”

Before 1890, however, Germany’s territorial claims into South West Africa and beyond were not matched by an effective administration on the ground. Initially, the imperial Government under the aging Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had expected the German Colonial Company of South West Africa or “DKG” (Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft) to take the lead in developing the area.