The Treaty of Windsor was a secret colonial declaration between the United Kingdom and Portugal in 1899. It was named after the earlier Treaty of Windsor (1386) though actually signed in London on 14 October 1899 by the British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury and the Portuguese ambassador Soveral.
Anglo-Portuguese relations in Africa had been strained by the 1890 British Ultimatum which had blocked Portugal from joining its colonies in Angola and Mozambique across what later became Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe leading to the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1891, [1] and by an Anglo-German understanding in 1898 that, if Portugal relinquished its African colonies, Germany could expand German South West Africa northwards and German East Africa southwards while Great Britain could expand its South African territory eastwards and control Portugal's Atlantic islands. [2]
The 1899 declaration reaffirmed former treaties between the two countries, including those of 1642 and 1661. Great Britain agreed to defend Portuguese colonies from their "future and present" enemies. Portugal agreed to not declare neutrality officially in the forthcoming Second Boer War and to prevent Boer movement of arms and troops through Lourenço Marques and Mozambique to the Transvaal. [3]
The Second Boer War, also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa.
The Union of South Africa was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange River colonies. It included the territories that were formerly part of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State.
German East Africa was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozambique. GEA's area was 994,996 km2 (384,170 sq mi), which was nearly three times the area of present-day Germany and almost double the area of metropolitan Germany at the time.
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, known as Lord Salisbury, was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times for a total of over thirteen years. He was also Foreign Secretary before and during most of his tenure. He avoided international alignments or alliances, maintaining the policy of "splendid isolation".
Sir Henry Hamilton Johnston was a British explorer, botanist, artist, colonial administrator, and linguist who travelled widely across Africa to speak some of the languages spoken by people on that continent. He published 40 books on subjects related to the continent of Africa and was one of the key players in the Scramble for Africa that occurred at the end of the 19th century.
The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance is the oldest alliance that is still in force by political bilateral agreement. It was established by the Treaty of Windsor in 1386, between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Portugal, though the countries were previously allied via the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373.
The Treaty of Vereeniging was a peace treaty, signed on 31 May 1902, that ended the Second Boer War between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State on the one side, and the United Kingdom on the other.
The British South Africa Company was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expected mineral wealth of Mashonaland but united because of common economic interests and to secure British government backing. The company received a Royal Charter modelled on that of the British East India Company. Its first directors included The 2nd Duke of Abercorn, Rhodes himself, and the South African financier Alfred Beit. Rhodes hoped BSAC would promote colonisation and economic exploitation across much of south-central Africa, as part of the "Scramble for Africa". However, his main focus was south of the Zambezi, in Mashonaland and the coastal areas to its east, from which he believed the Portuguese could be removed by payment or force, and in the Transvaal, which he hoped would return to British control.
Splendid isolation is a term used to describe the 19th-century British diplomatic practice of avoiding permanent alliances from 1815 to 1902. The concept developed as early as 1822, when Britain left the post-1815 Concert of Europe, and continued until the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the 1904 Entente Cordiale with France. As Europe was divided into two power blocs, Britain became aligned with the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire against the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy.
The Treaty of Windsor is a diplomatic alliance signed between Portugal and England on 9 May 1386 in Windsor and sealed by the marriage of King John I of Portugal to Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster. With the victory at the Battle of Aljubarrota, assisted by English archers, John I was recognised as the undisputed King of Portugal, putting an end to the interregnum of the 1383–1385 Crisis. The Treaty of Windsor established a pact of mutual support between the countries.
The bilateral relations between Germany and the United Kingdom span hundreds of years, and the countries have been aligned since the end of World War II.
This is a non-exhaustive chronology of colonialism-related events, which may reflect political events, cultural events, and important global events that have influenced colonization and decolonization. See also Timeline of imperialism.
The 1890 British Ultimatum was an ultimatum by the British government delivered on 11 January 1890 to the Kingdom of Portugal. Portugal had attempted to claim a large area of land between its colonies of Mozambique and Angola including most of present-day Zimbabwe and Zambia and a large part of Malawi, which had been included in Portugal's "Rose-coloured Map". The ultimatum led to the withdrawal of Portuguese forces from areas which had been claimed by Portugal on the basis of Portuguese exploration in the era, but which Britain claimed on the basis of uti possidetis.
The Pink Map, also known as the Rose-Coloured Map, was a map prepared in 1885 to represent the Kingdom of Portugal's claim of sovereignty over a land corridor connecting the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique during the Scramble for Africa. The area claimed included most of modern-day Zimbabwe and large parts of modern-day Zambia and Malawi.
British–Portuguese relations are foreign relations between Portugal and the United Kingdom. The relationship, largely driven by the nations' common interests as maritime countries on the edge of Europe and close to larger continental neighbours, dates back to the Middle Ages in 1373 with the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. The two countries now enjoy a friendly and close relationship. Both countries are members of the Council of Europe and NATO. Portugal is a European Union member and the United Kingdom is a former European Union member.
Charles Theodore Te Water was a South African barrister, diplomat and politician who was appointed as President of the Assembly of the League of Nations. Te Water also served as the South African high commissioner (ambassador) to London between 1929-1939, where he was an influential voice for the appeasement of Germany.
This timeline covers the main points of British foreign policy from 1485 to the early 21st century.
The British South Africa Company's administration of what became Rhodesia was chartered in 1889 by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, and began with the Pioneer Column's march north-east to Mashonaland in 1890. Empowered by its charter to acquire, govern and develop the area north of the Transvaal in southern Africa, the Company, headed by Cecil Rhodes, raised its own armed forces and carved out a huge bloc of territory through treaties, concessions and occasional military action, most prominently overcoming the Matabele army in the First and Second Matabele Wars of the 1890s. By the turn of the century, Rhodes's Company held a vast, land-locked country, bisected by the Zambezi river. It officially named this land Rhodesia in 1895, and ran it until the early 1920s.
The Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1891 was an agreement between the United Kingdom and Portugal which fixed the boundaries between the British Central Africa Protectorate, and the territories administered by the British South Africa Company in Mashonaland and Matabeleland and North-Western Rhodesia and Portuguese Mozambique, and also between the British South Africa Company administered territories of North-Eastern Rhodesia, and Portuguese Angola.
This article covers worldwide diplomacy and, more generally, the international relations of the great powers from 1814 to 1919. This era covers the period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), to the end of the First World War and the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920).