Why weren’t Germany and Italy as aggressive in overseas colonization compared to countries like Britain, France, Portugal and Spain?
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Both Germany and Italy only became nations during in the 19th century. Both actually had their unification in 1871.
They both tried to get in on the colonization game, but at that point all the “good stuff” was already taken.
They both did manage to commit some crimes against humanity and stole some land while they were at it, but it was hard to catch up the great powers with their head start.
There were also some sane people like Bismarck in Germany who didn’t oppose colonization on moral grounds but though that it would not be worth the cost and effort to exploit them and that much of it was just useless vanity.
Germany famously traded Zanzibar for Heligoland with the British because they felt that the smaller island close to Germany’s shores was worth more than the bigger far away African island.
Unfortunately sanity did not prevail and the German Kaiser eventually decided that he needed his place in the sun (i.e. colonies) and that was one of the major contributing factors that led to WWI.
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