Such considerations came to an end with the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm II, whose Weltpolitik policy supposed the entertaining of a High Seas Fleet along with prestigious Pacific and African territories.
Many reasons can explain such a choice: the need to concentrate on the completion of German unity a tradition of German expansion and trade in Eastern Europe and North Sea and Realpolitik statements: Bismarck indeed believed that letting the French continue their colonial expansion would divert them from the Alsace-Lorraine question and European matters, even if he managed to obtain some reserved areas to Germany during the 1885 Berlin Conference. History German entry in the Scramble for AfricaĮven if the unification of Germany arrived just before the Scramble for Africa reached its peak, then German Reichskanzler Otto von Bismarck didn't engage his country from a colonialist perspective.
