6.7: The Role of Military Technology in Colonial Domination

Gatling Machine Guns and the Maxim Gun

The British, French, Dutch, Germans, Belgians, and Americans exerted power and dominance over colonized people through the use of military technology.  Britain gained the upper hand using armored steamships during the Opium Wars. They sailed up the Yangtze River and threatened the Grand Canal and Beijing, forcing the Chinese to surrender and agree to unequal treaties. During the 1870s, the British began using Gatling hand-cranked machine guns against the Zulu in Africa and the Bedouin in the Middle East. The Royal Navy used them against the Egyptians in 1882 during Egypt’s civil war. The U.S. used them to support American troops during the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba.

During the 1890s, the British switched to the maxim gun, the first machine gun capable of firing 600 rounds per minute seen in Figure 6.7.1. Guns based on Hiram Maxim's gun design were widely used by the British army during World War I. Hence the term "machine gun war." The British used this to conquer the Ndebele kingdom in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Cecil Rhodes, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony in South Africa from 1890-1895, armed about 750 British troops with maxim guns battle in their attack against 80,000 tribal spearmen and 20,000 riflemen. In one battle, the British used maxim Guns to attack 5,000 Zulu warriors. In 1898 the British killed 20,000 Sudanese warriors with four maxim Guns in a few hours without taking many casualties.

This was the beginning of a period of asymmetrical warfare based on technology that continues into the present. It has forced people who could not stand up to the imperialists’ superior weapons to find other ways to resist. ​Europeans regarded their military success over colonized people as justification of their right to expropriate land and exploit labor. They utilized theories of Social Darwinism and so called "scientific racism" in order to justify treating conquered peoples as less than fully human. They also took advantage of African customs and tribal alliances or animosities to divide and conquer. 

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Maxim machine gun mounted on a Dundonald gun carriage, 1890s, Navy and Army Illustrated, in the Public Domain. 

Telegraph Communications

In addition to weapons and transportation by steamship, Europeans and Americans had the advantage of telegraph communications. Telegraphs using Morse code became widespread in the U.S., Britain, and Europe during the 1850s, but undersea cables were required to connect the colonies. Before telegraphy, a letter from London took about two weeks to reach New York or Alexandria Egypt, a month to reach Bombay on the west coast of India, six weeks to reach Singapore or Calcutta on the East side of India, two months to get to Shanghai and ten weeks to arrive in Sydney, Australia. 

A successful undersea cable line between Britain and the US was completed in 1866, and Britain and India were connected in 1870. Australia was linked to the system in 1872 and a trans-Pacific cable was completed in 1903 linking the U.S. with Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines. Although telegraphy had been pioneered by Americans like Samuel Morse, the British dominated undersea cable. At the end of the 19th century, Britain owned 24 of the world’s 30 cable-laying ships and the British owned and operated 2/3 of the world’s cable. During World War I, British telegraph communications were uninterrupted while the British cut German cables, forcing them to rely on wireless radio wave transmissions that were easy to listen to. Figure 6.7.2 shows a chart of transatlantic undersea telegraph cables that expedited communication with Europe and the Americas. 

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): 1901 Chart of Submarine Telegraph Cable Routes, A.B.C. Telegraphic Code, in the Public Domain.

 

The Oil Industry

Oil initially played a fairly simple role in the Industrial Revolution as a machine lubricant.  However, by the late 19th century, internal combustion engines, which relied on firing cylinders using gasoline or heavy oil (diesel) as fuel, were quickly becoming more efficient, replacing steam-power in transportation. Diesel-fired ship and train engines, for instance, carried less fuel than coal-fired steam engines. Gasoline-powered automobiles quickly became commonplace by the 1920s.

As oil became increasingly central to powering industry and transportation, oil companies became more powerful and were able to project their economic influence to shape the politics of the countries they operated in. This became especially true in the Arabian Peninsula, which until the discovery of oil had been a sparsely-populated desert. Today, about 80% of the world’s readily-accessible oil reserves are located in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the U.S. are the three largest producers.

Oil was first drilled by a Russian engineer on the west side of the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan in 1848. Eleven years later, Edwin Drake drilled for oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859. Figure 6.7.3 shows the first oil well in the United States built by Edwin Drake in 1859. Drake’s drilling techniques transformed Titusville and northwestern Pennsylvania communities into boomtowns. Although Russian fields and refineries in Azerbaijan were industry pioneers, the U.S. took an early lead and by 1880 the Bradford Field in Pennsylvania produced 77% of the world’s oil supply.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\):1890 photograph showing Edwin Drake and the Drake Well in the background, Library of Congress, in the Public Domain.

By 1900 the Russian Empire had taken back the lead in production. By 1910, numerous other countries began oil production as well such as Sumatra, Persia, Peru, Venezuela, and Mexico, as well as Texas, California, and Ohio. In the early twentieth century, the corporations dominating the global oil business were Standard Oil (later Exxon, est. 1870), Royal Dutch Shell (est. 1907),  and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later British Petroleum, est. 1909). 

 

Review Questions

• What is the relationship between colonization and military technology?
• In what year did the U.S. start to produce most of the world's oil supply