German border incursions into Portuguese Angola prior to the First World War

This paper aims to assess the effect on Angola of the penetration of its borders by individuals, religious bodies and military forces from neighbouring German South West Africa. It covers the period of the creation of the German colony in 1883 and its attempts at self-sufficiency up to the outbreak of hostilities in 1914. It recounts the ill-starred attempts by Portuguese civil and military authorities to securely occupy the southern region culminating in the successful military occupation of the border area in 1907. It examines the period of the creation and role of the German Angola Bund and of the Joint Portuguese-German Economic Commission to southern Angola and their impact on Portuguese governorgeneral Norton de Matos and on Portuguese policy. The paper catalogues German military aggression in southern Angola prior to 1914. It recounts the circumstances leading to the dispatch to Angola by Lisbon of Portuguese troops and of their defeat by inferior German forces and the ensuing chaos leading to the consequent fall in Portuguese prestige in the entire southern Angolan region.