tight-fisted to ensure that supplies were regularly delivered. 10
For a while it looked as if the Colonial Office might yield to requests from Maxse’s successor, Colonel Terence O’Brien (Governor 1881–8), for the construction of a harbour for local needs. In 1883 the eminent civil engineer John Coode was sent to Heligoland to complete a feasibility study. Knighted for his construction of the breakwater in the treacherous tidal waters off Portland, Dorset, he was an ideal choice of harbour designer. He made a huge, beautifully coloured plan of the Lower Town, on which he showed how east and south piers might be constructed for a cost of some £60,000. 11 Nothing came of it, and ships were still obliged to anchor in the roadstead and land their cargo and passengers in open boats, even in stormy and dangerous weather. At Westminster there were a few calls for the island to be fortified. But more hope came in March 1885 from a report by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Harbours of Refuge. Acknowledging Heligoland’s great value to British fishermen working the Dogger Bank and Heligoland Bight, the Committee observed that the island had the potential to be of even greater importance if a proper graving dock were constructed there for the repair and maintenance of British fishing vessels.
Partly relenting, the Colonial Office grudgingly permitted the construction of one of the piers Coode had recommended. In terms of defending against coastal erosion, as the relentlessly gnawing waves caused the collapse of cliff-tops on the island’s west side, it would do nothing. When Governor O’Neil personally drew charts proving that Sandy Island was vanishing by half an acre every decade, Whitehall’s response was that Sandy Island was a commercial beach resort and thus not its responsibility.
Britain’s reluctance to spend even minimal sums on such improvements was keenly noted by nationalists in the German parliament. Doubtless they were reminded that in the past Britain had been known to abandon unwanted colonies. In the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824, for example, all the British settlements in Sumatra had been handed over to the Netherlands, and Dutch predominance recognised in other occupied islands in the East Indies in exchange for Malacca being handed over to Britain. And had not the Ionian Islands, which had been captured by the British in 1809 and made a British Protectorate in 1815, been annexed to Greece in 1864?
Nationalists within the German government saw their chance in February 1871, when a peace treaty was being negotiated between Germany and France. Their thoughts turned to an extraordinary place called Pondicherry. Known as the ‘Paris of the East’, Pondicherry was the capital of ‘French India’ and consisted of a beautiful enclave of some 115 square miles not far from Madras on the south-east coast of India. 12 Their idea was that Germany should deprive France of Pondicherry in the peace talks, and then offer it to Britain in exchange for Heligoland. It was a bizarre scheme, and it did not get far. On 6 June 1871, when rumours of the Pondicherry scheme were brought to the attention of Parliament, Lord Enfield, a Foreign Office spokesman, declared: ‘No proposal has been received for the cession of Heligoland to Germany, and there is no correspondence on the subject.’ Hansard records the chamber’s approving response to that dismissal with hearty growls of ‘Hear, hear’.
At that time Count Bismarck was vigorously opposed to the acquisition of Heligoland, or indeed of any colony. When the prospect of overseas territories for Germany was urged upon him, he famously replied: ‘I want no colonies. For us colonial enterprises would be just like the silks and sables in Polish noble families, who for the rest have no shirts.’ Colonies were, he was convinced, a meaningless distraction from his ambition of unifying and expanding Germany. Various difficulties in the 1870s had left him no time even
For a while it looked as if the Colonial Office might yield to requests from Maxse’s successor, Colonel Terence O’Brien (Governor 1881–8), for the construction of a harbour for local needs. In 1883 the eminent civil engineer John Coode was sent to Heligoland to complete a feasibility study. Knighted for his construction of the breakwater in the treacherous tidal waters off Portland, Dorset, he was an ideal choice of harbour designer. He made a huge, beautifully coloured plan of the Lower Town, on which he showed how east and south piers might be constructed for a cost of some £60,000. 11 Nothing came of it, and ships were still obliged to anchor in the roadstead and land their cargo and passengers in open boats, even in stormy and dangerous weather. At Westminster there were a few calls for the island to be fortified. But more hope came in March 1885 from a report by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Harbours of Refuge. Acknowledging Heligoland’s great value to British fishermen working the Dogger Bank and Heligoland Bight, the Committee observed that the island had the potential to be of even greater importance if a proper graving dock were constructed there for the repair and maintenance of British fishing vessels.
Partly relenting, the Colonial Office grudgingly permitted the construction of one of the piers Coode had recommended. In terms of defending against coastal erosion, as the relentlessly gnawing waves caused the collapse of cliff-tops on the island’s west side, it would do nothing. When Governor O’Neil personally drew charts proving that Sandy Island was vanishing by half an acre every decade, Whitehall’s response was that Sandy Island was a commercial beach resort and thus not its responsibility.
Britain’s reluctance to spend even minimal sums on such improvements was keenly noted by nationalists in the German parliament. Doubtless they were reminded that in the past Britain had been known to abandon unwanted colonies. In the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824, for example, all the British settlements in Sumatra had been handed over to the Netherlands, and Dutch predominance recognised in other occupied islands in the East Indies in exchange for Malacca being handed over to Britain. And had not the Ionian Islands, which had been captured by the British in 1809 and made a British Protectorate in 1815, been annexed to Greece in 1864?
Nationalists within the German government saw their chance in February 1871, when a peace treaty was being negotiated between Germany and France. Their thoughts turned to an extraordinary place called Pondicherry. Known as the ‘Paris of the East’, Pondicherry was the capital of ‘French India’ and consisted of a beautiful enclave of some 115 square miles not far from Madras on the south-east coast of India. 12 Their idea was that Germany should deprive France of Pondicherry in the peace talks, and then offer it to Britain in exchange for Heligoland. It was a bizarre scheme, and it did not get far. On 6 June 1871, when rumours of the Pondicherry scheme were brought to the attention of Parliament, Lord Enfield, a Foreign Office spokesman, declared: ‘No proposal has been received for the cession of Heligoland to Germany, and there is no correspondence on the subject.’ Hansard records the chamber’s approving response to that dismissal with hearty growls of ‘Hear, hear’.
At that time Count Bismarck was vigorously opposed to the acquisition of Heligoland, or indeed of any colony. When the prospect of overseas territories for Germany was urged upon him, he famously replied: ‘I want no colonies. For us colonial enterprises would be just like the silks and sables in Polish noble families, who for the rest have no shirts.’ Colonies were, he was convinced, a meaningless distraction from his ambition of unifying and expanding Germany. Various difficulties in the 1870s had left him no time even
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