John Kirk Quotes
How easy it would be to govern this country and make it rich, but how uphill work it is to influence a native ruler pulled by all interested consuls and traders. This ought to be a British protectorate …
John Kirk, 1832-1922, British Physician & East Africa Agent & Consul-General to Zanzibar, Letter to Sir William Mackinnon about Zanzibar, March 13, 1884
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor. He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, but gave the English response to the Morocco crisis.
I will never again listen to the advice of the French … nor of anyone except the British Government.
As a young man, upon the death of his father in 1856, he tried to sieze the throne from his older brother upon the advice of the French. The British Consul with a detachment of Royal Marines put down the coup, but saved his life by not turning him over to his brother. Later he assumed the throne and tended to follow the British line.
There were many Americans and Mexicans who believed that the conquest of all of Mexico was well under way, our having earlier obtained Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, California, and Arizona.
The French army had crossed the border invading Tunisia. The Bey appealed to the English and others who had signed the Treaty of Berlin guaranteeing the independence of Tunisia. However, the Bey did not realize that the English and the French had already made a deal whereby France would invade Tunisia and England would take Cypress.
The basic treaty sold some of Ethiopia’s colonial territory (Eritrea and Tigray) to Italy in exchange for arms. Italy had tried to conquer the area but lost 500 men in the Battle of Dogali. However, after this peace treaty, Italy maintained that Article 17 of the treaty gave them the right to declare Ethiopia an Italian Protectorate which they did. However, there were two different versions of the treaty that the Italians had drawn up—one in Italian, the other in Aramaic. Britain, Belgium and Germany supported Italy; France, Turkey and Russia supported Ethiopia. Menelik then, to make matters clear, repudiated the treaty in 1893. Italy send an invasion force that was soundly thrashed by the Ethiopians setting the stage for the Italian attack on Ethiopia in World War II years later. Parties to International treaties thereafter have paid close attention to the different language versions.
The slave trade had been banned in the rest of East Africa but was legal in Zanzibar. The British Navy had great difficulty interdicting slave ships who would claim they were participating in the legal slave trade. The British decided that Zanzibar should ban slavery, but the Sultan and his advisors did not wish to give up their own personal involvement. Kirk was sent to deal with the Sultan, who under threat of naval embargo, signed the Frere Treaty. The slave market was thus closed.
1st Baron & 1st Marquis Curzon of Kedleston
This telegram was one of the more bizarre episodes leading up to WWII. The “solution” that Rothermore was praising was the German Army seizing and occupying a large part of Czechoslovakia – the Sudetenland -- in violation of the WWI Peace Treaty that Germany had signed. Further, Rothermere knew perfectly well that England and France were bound by treaty to come to the military aid of Czechoslovakia and war between Britain and Germany could break out at any moment. Yet he sent the telegram encouraging Hitler in his aggression. The Daily Mail, Rothermore’s very conservative newspaper supported English Fascist Oswald Mosley and wrote articles favorable to Mussolini and Hitler. There was a small but powerful part of English Aristocracy who were pro German and pro Fascist including the King, Edward, Duke of Windsor {584507} who was persuaded to abdicate and relegated to the Bahamas where his views were not so public. The Daily Mail catered to that part of the English Aristocracy.
The king knew the whites had designs on his kingdom. See Mwanga.
She was advocating the then relatively new concept of Foreign Aid.
This size standing army which alarmed so many at the beginning of the 20th century, looked very small when compared with the standing army of America a century later. For earlier American Politician’s views on a standing army, see {592824}, {631687}, {622888}, and {641008}.
Sir John Kirk, GCMG, KCB, FRS was a physician, naturalist, companion to explorer David Livingstone, and British administrator in Zanzibar, where he was instrumental in ending the slave trade in that country.
