Editing Cecil Rhodes (section)

=== "Cape to Cairo Red Line" ===
[[File:Flag of Cecil Rhodes' Cape to Cairo.svg|thumb|left|150px|Rhodes' personal flag symbolising his "Cape to Cairo" dream]]
[[File:Colonial Africa 1913 map.svg|thumb|right|upright|Map showing almost complete British control of the Cape to Cairo route, 1913<br />{{Legend|#fbc5c0|British control}}]]
{{main|Cape to Cairo Railway|Cape to Cairo Road}}
One of Rhodes's dreams was for a "red line" on the map from the Cape to Cairo (on geo-political maps, British dominions were always denoted in red or pink). Rhodes had been instrumental in securing southern African states for the Empire. He and others felt the best way to "unify the possessions, facilitate governance, enable the military to move quickly to hot spots or conduct war, help settlement, and foster trade" would be to build the "Cape to Cairo Railway".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/13/travel/an-african-journey-from-the-cape-to-cairo.html|title=An African Journal, From the Cape to Cairo|newspaper=The New York Times|author=Barbara Crossette|date=13 November 1983 |access-date=25 September 2018}}</ref>

This enterprise was not without its problems. [[French Third Republic|France]] had a conflicting strategy in the late 1890s to link its colonies from west to east across the continent<ref>William Roger Louis, and Prosser Gifford, eds. ''France and Britain in Africa: imperial rivalry and colonial rule'' (Yale University Press, 1971).</ref> and the Portuguese produced the "[[Pink Map]]",<ref>{{cite web|url=https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/545-the-mapa-cor-de-rosa-a-portuguese-empire-that-never-was|title=The Mapa Cor-de-rosa: A Portuguese Empire That Never Was
|date=20 December 2011
|publisher=Think Big|access-date=25 September 2018}}</ref> representing their claims to sovereignty in Africa. Ultimately, [[Belgium]] and [[German Empire|Germany]] proved to be the main obstacles to the British objective until the United Kingdom conquered and seized [[Tanganyika (territory)|Tanganyika]] from the Germans as a [[League of Nations mandate]] in [[World War I]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/tanganyika.htm|title=Tanganyika Mandate|access-date=25 September 2018}}</ref>