Carl Peters forms the German East Africa…

Carl Peters forms the German East Africa Company on his return  to Europe early in 1885.

The German government under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, fearing the impact on the relations with the British, is initially opposed to these plans and had refused any backing when Peters set out.

Bismarck refuses a second time when Peters returns to Germany in the closing days of the Berlin Congo Conference, demanding an imperial charter.

Peters, however, blackmail the Chancellor successfully by threatening to sell his acquisitions to King Leopold II of Belgium, who is eager to expand his Congo Empire.

As Bismarck's National Liberal allies in the Reichstag parliament are pro-colonial minded anyway, he finally gives in to "the stupid guy" and the charter is made out.

This constitutes the necessary backing for further expansion on the East African mainland in the following years.

Carl Peters was born at Neuhaus an der Elbe in the Kingdom of Hanover, the son of a Lutheran clergyman.

Peters had studied history and philosophy at Göttingen, Tübingen and in Berlin under Heinrich von Treitschke.

In 1879, he had been awarded a gold medal by the Berlin Frederick William University for his dissertation on the 1177 Treaty of Venice and habilitated with a treatise on Arthur Schopenhauer.

Instead of pursuing a university career, Peters had worked with a Dutch family selling sweets in London after his studies, where he had become acquainted with British principles of colonization and imperialism.

When he returned to Berlin, he had founded the Society for German Colonization (Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation), a pressure group for the acquisition of colonies.

In the autumn of 1884, he had proceeded with two companions to East Africa, and concluded in the name of his society treaties with the chiefs of Useguha, Nguru, Ijsagara and Ukami.