German East Africa

German East Africa was Berlin's Great Lakes colony over Burundi, Rwanda and the mainland, vast and sprawling, nearly three Germanys wide at 994,996 square kilometres, from 1885 to Versailles in 1919. Abushiri's 1888 revolt fell with British help, London and Berlin dealing in 1890, soldiers came in the late 1880s and stayed as governors, with Bagamoyo first capital and Dar es Salaam after. Peters signed native treaties and won the February 1885 charter, explorers pushing to the Rufiji and Witu. Unlike other empires the Germans never abolished slavery nor its trade, preferring to choke the supply of new recruits while working the old. The colony began with the Kionga Triangle to Mozambique in the remote tropical south, Baumann probing Masailand and Urundi down the fevered Street of Caravans through green highland and dusty lakeshore, fought through the World War, and defeat divided it among Britain, Belgium and Portugal into League mandates.