<P> This competition was sharpened by the Long Depression of 1873--1896, a prolonged period of price deflation punctuated by severe business downturns, which put pressure on governments to promote home industry, leading to the widespread abandonment of free trade among Europe's powers (in Germany from 1879 and in France from 1881). </P> <P> The Berlin Conference of 1884--1885 sought to destroy the competition between the powers by defining "effective occupation" as the criterion for international recognition of a territory claim, specifically in Africa . The imposition of direct rule in terms of "effective occupation" necessitated routine recourse to armed force against indigenous states and peoples . Uprisings against imperial rule were put down ruthlessly, most spectacularly in the Herero Wars in German South - West Africa from 1904 to 1907 and the Maji Maji Rebellion in German East Africa from 1905 to 1907 . One of the goals of the conference was to reach agreements over trade, navigation, and boundaries of Central Africa . However, of all of the 15 nations in attendance of the Berlin Conference, none of the countries represented were African . </P> <P> The main dominating powers of the conference were France, Germany, Great Britain and Portugal . They remapped Africa without considering the cultural and linguistic borders that were already established . At the end of the conference, Africa was divided into 50 different colonies . The attendants established who was in control of each of these newly divided colonies . They also planned, noncommittally, to end the slave trade in Africa . </P> <P> In Britain, the age of new imperialism marked a time for significant economic changes . Because the country was the first to industrialize, Britain was technologically ahead of many other countries throughout the majority of the nineteenth century . However, by the end of the nineteenth century, other countries such as Germany, the United States, Russia, and Italy soon matched Britain in technological and thus, economic, power . After several decades of monopoly, the country was battling to maintain a dominant economic position while other powers became more involved in international markets . In 1870, Britain contained 31.8% of the world's manufacturing capacity while the United States contained 23.3% and Germany contained 13.2% . By 1910, Britain's manufacturing capacity had dropped to 14.7% while that of the United States had risen to 35.3% and that of Germany to 15.9% . As countries like Germany and America became more economically successful, they began to become more involved with imperialism, resulting in the British struggling to maintain the volume of British trade and investment overseas . </P>

New imperialism in europe was dominated by what countries