Risked World War For Deadly Jungle.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 18, 1912:
Germany Finds New African District, Won by Agadir Threat, an Accursed Land.
INFECTED WITH DISEASES
Mosquitos and Flies Make Life Unendurable to Man and Beast — Exploitation Is Impossible.
Special Correspondence The New York Times.
    BERLIN, Aug. 7.— Germany sent a warship to Agadir last Summer, brought nearer, perhaps, than is generally realized the possibility of war, unsettled European politics, and lost the services of von Lindequist, the able Colonial Secretary — and all for a strip of African jungle land swamp, which is in part uninhabitable by whites, cursed with mosquitos, tsetse-flies, and all tropical diseases, with all the most accessible section already stripped of caoutchouc and big game, and with well-armed natives occupying the most desirable districts.
    All these conditions are described in the report just issued by the Colonial Office, covering the territory which Germany has christened "New Kamerun." The report, which must be unpleasant reading for the Foreign Secretary, Herr von Kiderlen-Waechter, and others, goes far toward justifying von Lindequist, who resigned his office because he was unwilling to become an accomplice in the settlement with France on such a basis.
    A prominent feature of the report is the admission that the alleged immunity of whites from the sleeping sickness does not exist, and that a great part of those dwelling in the eastern portion of the territory are infected, some of whom have died in the past year. The southern half of New Kamerun suffers terribly from humidity and smallpox. Blood diseases are most prevalent. The so-called Sanga projection of the southernmost district of the ceded territory is more subject to inundations than any territory in the world.
    All tropical diseases are present in their severest forms, and the report declares that the "permanent residence of whites in this district is regarded by well-informed persons as impossible. Even a stay of a few months is described as murderous." The mosquitos are unbearable.
    The eastern part of the cession is more habitable, but is infected throughout with sleeping sickness, with which the great proportion of all the natives is infected. A discouraging feature is the fact that the sleeping sickness is spreading westward, and has already reached the Dschua Territory, half way toward Spanish Guinea, and threatens a further extension.
    The whole territory along, the Sanga and Ubangi Rivers is the breeding place of a disease for which no cure has been discovered.
    The climatic conditions in the northern district are somewhat more favorable for whites, although the terrific heat from December to February makes day travel almost impossible. Sand storms are prevalent.
    The presence in this district of the "Glossina palpalis," the carrier of the sleeping sickness, has not been definitely established, but the colonial officials fear that it is there.
    The report says, moreover, that the fact that the natives do not raise cattle, despite the easy connection with the cattle districts further-north, appears to be evidence of the presence of the deadly tsetse-fly.
    The Colonial Office is plainly unable to give much assurance of the possibilities of the economic exploitation of New Kamerun. In addition to the unfitness of the country for whites, another hindrance is the difficulty of getting labor.
    Altogether the official report makes the impression that Germany's new colony, concerning which the Government premised so much and for which so much was risked, is for the greater part an unhealthful tropical swamp, of which possibly the greatest part can never be developed or profitably exploited.
    Colonial Office issued a statement in defense of the Government's course, and therein denied the truth of the manifold statement about New Kamerun, which the present report substantiates in the greater part. Von Lindequist refused to sign the November report and resigned.