The ‘Scramble for Africa’ – Then and Now

When European nations ‘scrambled’ for territory in Africa in the 1800s, the results were catastrophic for its indigenous peoples. A new scramble is now on and the jury is still out on whether Africans will actually benefit this time. Dan McEwen looks at ‘The Scramble for Africa’, then and now.

The 1884 Berlin Conference, as illustrated in "Illustrierte Zeitung"

‘Scrambling’ Everywhere But Africa

Blame Portugal. Ranked 109th by size, little Portugal was the first European country to make it big as a colonial power. Under Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese merchants were well ahead of the curve in the so-called ‘Age of Exploration’. Their trading ships had long been slowly feeling their way along Africa’s west coast and by the mid-1400s, their crews were making fortunes trading in slaves, sugar and gold. 

While Christopher Columbus was famously sailing across the Atlantic in 1492 with visions of Oriental sugarplums dancing in his head, the intrepid Portuguese were defeating the Ottomans in a power struggle for control of the lucrative Arab/Indian trade routes. Victorious, they continued east, becoming the first Europeans to arrive by sea in China and then Japan. So toxic was their contact with the shogunate however, Portuguese traders were expelled in 1639 and Japan sealed itself off in two hundred years of self-imposed isolation from the West!

Another small nation, Holland, replaced the Portuguese, enabling The Dutch East India Company [VOC], to become the largest company to ever have existed in recorded history! Next came the Spanish, venturing westward from their possessions in Central America, laying claim to several Pacific islands, including the Philippines. The French, latecomers to the rush, established outposts in Indochina, Vietnam and on a sprinkling of Polynesian islands before being lapped by the British. Their world-class navy would resort to gunboat diplomacy to forcibly establish colonies in China. Later, the Germans, Americans and Russians likewise bullied their way into the Pacific. 

Back in the western hemisphere, the British and French went head-to-head for supremacy in North America even as Spanish explorers, conquerors and settlers following Columbus’ lead, headed for the Caribbean and Central and South America. In their quest for "gold, glory, and God", in that order. Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec empire in Mexico, at a cost of 240,000 Aztec lives and Francisco Pizarro followed suite, nearly wiping out the Incas by 1572.  

"What happened after Columbus was like a thousand kudzus [weeds] everywhere,” laments author/historian Charles C. Mann.“Throughout the hemisphere, ecosystems cracked and heaved like winter ice.” 

Indeed, the impact of all this “exploration” on native populations was apocalyptic. Between 1492 and 1600, 55 million people, 90% of the indigenous populations in the Americas, died from European diseases like smallpox, measles and influenza. This traumatic population loss caused chaos among the indigenous tribes, making them even easier prey for technologically-advanced European powers. And now it was Africa’s turn.

The First ‘Scramble’

History books call it ‘The Scramble for Africa’, making it sound like an innocuous party game.  Africans call it ’The Rape of Africa’. By the mid 1800s, the European nations were elbowing each other aside in their headlong rush to plant their flag on African soil. Mostly it was about money.

As history professor Ehiedu E.G. Iweriebor at New York’s City University frames it; “The European scramble and the partition and eventual conquest of Africa was motivated by ...the imperatives of capitalist industrialization, including the demand for assured sources of raw materials, the search for guaranteed markets and profitable investment outlets.”

All this ‘scrambling’ made the imperialist governments as nervous as cats that a war would breakout in Europe over some far off colonial territory. To prevent this, wily, old Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of a newly-united Germany, hosted a conference that still stands as an unparalleled act of racial and cultural arrogance. At the 1884 Berlin Conference, six European powers - Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Belgium - sat around a table and divided the so-called “Dark Continent” among themselves, redrawing the map of the continent to create 30 new colonies. 

The 110 million Africans who lived in those colonies were never consulted about the new borders. No Africans were invited to attend the conference and; “African concerns were, if they mattered at all, completely marginal to the basic economic, strategic, and political interests of the negotiating European powers,” says historian/author Thomas Pakenham. Between 1870 and 1914, “A motley band of explorers, politicians, evangelists, mercenaries, journalists and tycoons blinded by romantic nationalism or caught up in the scramble for loot, markets and slaves,” increased European control of African territory from 10 per cent in 1870 to almost 90 percent by 1914. Resistance was futile. 

Although most African rulers bitterly contested being handed over to unknown foreign powers, they were no match for rapid-fire rifles, gatling guns and field artillery. Their many battles frequently turned into one-sided massacres. Despite a stunning defeat at Isandlwana, British redcoats rallied and crushed the two million-strong Zulu nation in nine weeks. The Boers conducted a campaign of genocide against the natives who resisted their occupation, driving 24,000 of them into the desert to starve. As many as 300,000 Namibians died in a famine engineered by the German colonizers to bring them to heel. Eight million inhabitants of the Congo were exterminated by their Belgium overseers through a barbarous system of forced labor dedicated to supplying rubber for European vehicle tires. [Ethiopia and Liberia were the only countries not colonized - Ethiopia defeated an inept Italian army at Adwa in 1896, and Liberia became a country that some of the Black populations of the Americas moved to.]

From ‘Civilizing’ to Conquering

The motives the colonizers ascribed to this flagrant land-grab were rooted in a bedrock belief in their racial supremacy over the non-white, 'lesser' races of the world. “The French colonial ideology explicitly claimed that they were on a "civilizing mission" to lift the benighted natives out of backwardness to the new status of civilized French Africans.” But it was the British who proved especially adept at this pernicious snobbery, believing they had some higher calling to drag their Africa colonies into the modern world. Like the Spanish, they had a slogan: ‘Commerce, Christianity and Civilization.’ [Note its money first, civilizing last, just like the Spanish.] And it seems they still believe that. In 2014, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was unapologetic in his defense of the country’s tarnished record. “The days of Britain having to apologize for its colonial history are over. We should celebrate much of our past rather than apologize for it.” 

Tragically for Africa, it wasn’t just the Brits. “Almost without exception... [the colonization of Africa] is a story of the rankest greed enforced by disgusting levels of violence against the native Africans. In colony after colony, all the brave talk about white man’s civilization and justice and religion turned out to hypocritical garbage,” accuses professor Patrick Bond at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban.

Still other African scholars contend the partitioning of tribal lands into those 30 colonies had the most enduring affects on the African peoples. A 2016 study found that, “by splitting ethnicities across countries, the colonial border design has spurred political violence. Ethnic partitioning is systematically linked to civil conflict, discrimination by the national government, and instability. The study, which included more than 85,000 households across 20 African countries found that “members of partitioned groups have fewer household assets, poorer access to utilities, and worse educational outcomes, as compared to individuals from non-split ethnicities in the same country.” Furthermore, conflicts in partitioned lands are deadlier and last longer.

After World War Two, the victors assumed that decolonization would solve all these problems, and between 1945 and 1960, three dozen new states in Asia and Africa achieved autonomy or outright independence from their European colonial rulers. Alas, in state after state, the transition to independence led to violence, political turmoil, and organized revolts that only added to the misery of endemic poverty, hunger and disease. Tellingly, a comparison of 18 African countries found that only six saw economic growth after achieving independence.

Regrettably, most of the continent’s 54 countries remain devastated by; “...crippling rates of poverty, hunger, and disease.” 62% of Africans have no access to standard sanitation facilities. Only 43% have access to electricity and the internet. According to the World Health Organization, sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest under-5 mortality rate in the world. Yet there’s a cautious optimism that Africa’s fortunes are finally about to change for the better.

The New Scramble

By the usual standards of measurement, Africa is poised on the cusp of greatness. In 2019, six of the world’s 15 fastest growing economies were in Africa. The continent has a booming population of 1.3 billion and will soon outnumber the Chinese. This brings with it a “demographic dividend”: the average age in Africa is 19, meaning there’s a huge and growing pool of labor at a time when labor forces in more advanced countries are aging fast. Importantly, a major impediment to economic development is finally being addressed.

The continent’s colonial-era infrastructure remains one of the biggest drags on economic growth. “Africa’s new national states were so small and economically weak that they could not, without giant loans, even begin to embark on the policies of national development they eagerly promised,” writes investigative journalist Lee Wengaf. No nation had the economic wherewithal resources to take on the kind of major projects – highways, railroads, power dams and sea ports – needed to compete in the global marketplace. “Hobbled with weak infrastructures...and insufficient capital to technologically advance, these economies fell increasingly behind.” 

China is changing all that. The bottomless pockets of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have already shelled out billions in funding for 200 major infrastructure projects that promise to truly modernize the continent. Beijing’s willingness to invest in Africa long-term is particularly embarrassing to those ‘civilizing” European powers who never quite got around to it. Governments and businesses from all around the world are rushing to strengthen diplomatic, strategic and commercial ties. From 2010 to 2016, more than 320 embassies were opened in African nations. Facebook and Google are madly laying rings of cables around the continent to improve internet connectivity. 

However, to many, the new scramble looks a lot like the old one. The Financial Times commented that China’s pattern of operation in Africa, “draws comparisons with Africa’s past relationship with European colonial powers, which exploited the continent’s natural resources but failed to encourage more labor-intensive industry.”

Dylan Yachyshen of the Foreign Policy Research Institute agrees, warning that; “Accompanying its ambitious infrastructure projects, Chinese state banks made massive loans to African states, employing debt-trap diplomacy that renders states subservient to Chinese interests if they cannot pay. Though China has not established colonies, the trajectory of its activity in Africa parallels that of the infancy of the ‘Scramble for Africa’.”

Iranian-American journalist and historian John Ghazvinian put it much more forcefully in Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil. “Foreign oil companies have conducted some of the world’s most sophisticated exploration and production operations…but the people of the Niger Delta have seen none of the benefits. While successive military regimes have used oil proceeds to buy mansions in Mayfair...many in the Delta live as their ancestors would have done hundreds, even thousands of years ago.”

What is to be done? Patrick Lumumba, a lawyer specializing in African laws argues persuasively that the continent’s nations must unite in a pan-African economic union similar to the EU with a single passport, a single currency and a single army as essential prerequisites for African nations to take control of their own destinies.

“We [African nations] are weak politically, we are economically weak, socially we are disorganized, culturally and spiritually we are confused. As long as we remain as we are Africa will be re-colonized in the next 25 years.” 

What do you think of the ‘Scramble for Africa’? Let us know below.

Now, read Dan’s article on the lessons from World War I here.

How the Triple Entente Formed in World War I: Part 2 – The Stormy 1870s

World War I is of course one of the most important wars in modern history, and of the key geo-political aspects of the war was the formation of the Triple Entente between Britain, France, and Russia. These Great Powers with overlapping interests were not necessarily natural allies in World War One, but the nature of international affairs in the preceding decades pushed them together.

Here, Bilal Junejo continues a series looking at how the Triple Entente was formed by considering what happened in the 1870s. In particular, Otto von Bismarck’s approach to diplomacy, Frances’s search for an alliance, the role of Russia, and how the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 led to the Congress of Berlin - and many implications.

Read part one in the series on the origins of Germany here.

The taking of the Grivitsa redoubt by Russia during the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War.

Otto von Bismarck’s was “a being high-uplifted above the common run”.[1] His were a mind and genius that would not rest upon the laurels of mere conquest, but rather continue to exert themselves till their ready devotion of much cogitation to the morrow’s actions had revealed the most magisterial means of fortifying excellence freshly achieved with princely permanence — to the total exclusion of anything even remotely akin to misplaced complacency and consequent reverie. Aware with becoming keenness of how the precious is inherently precarious, he was determined that the singular tenacity which had marked his erection of the new German Empire should now be rivaled, if not surpassed, only by that which would inform his preservation thereof. It was the ambivalent fortune of the Second Reich that its formidable founder also served for an unbroken spell of nineteen years as its first Chancellor; for whilst he achieved much in the course of that fateful period, he also bequeathed to his successors a legacy for whose onerous preservation they were equipped to exude neither the ability nor the vision. To this day, it remains near impossible to say what conduced more to the eventual undoing of Hohenzollern Prussia and her dominions — that Bismarck should have been Chancellor before Wilhelm II, or that Wilhelm II should have been Kaiser after Bismarck.

Bismarck’s first and foremost priority in the wake of victory over France was to ensure that she — the humiliated neighbor whose lasting enmity he had so easily and rashly earned — should not meet with success in the endeavor upon which she was certain to embark for the purpose of securing an ally to wage a war of revenge. The shock of Sedan[2] had been a sobering lesson in the pitfalls of pride, and its digestion was not rendered any easier by the facility with which a jubilant Prussia proclaimed the terms of surrender and humiliation at Frankfurt[3] for their incorporation in the annals of the world. Gone were the days when all her neighbors would tremble at the mere thought of the Sun King, and all Europe would scatter at the merest sight of Napoleon Bonaparte. Now was she reduced to a shadow of her former self, vanquished and retiring, destined to forever grapple with memories that served as a constant and invidious reminder of all that had been, but was no more. It was nothing less than a desire for revenge that could animate her spirit henceforth, and nothing else that could chart the course of her future exertions. Newly deprived of the power she had for so long been accustomed to wield in the face of these upstarts from across the Rhine, she would redress this unbecoming inferiority to the nascent Reich with the succor of another’s superiority to, or at least equality with, her malicious and meticulous foe.

This resolution had, amidst all the hope it happily renewed and vigor that it justly roused, commended itself to the people of France despite the burden of a hurdle that, in the circumstances, was part and parcel of it. Since the Franco-Prussian War had been but a bilateral confrontation, it was obvious to all — and to none more so than France herself — that a war waged for mere vengeance would be the pursuit of Paris alone, as no other European power had at the time cause for even contemplating conflict with Germany, let alone actually doing to her what she had just done to France. The French had, therefore, to look for a Power with whom they could, at the very least, share interests, if not passions. To put it in words a trifle blunter, that Power need not view the destruction of Germany as an end in itself, so long as it could be counted upon to regard a considerable weakening of German power to be the means of achieving some other end, even if that end was one which France would not necessarily feel inclined to share. The French were looking for what might be called negative unity, which is unity stemming from bonds that are forged to surmount a common obstacle, rather than to secure a common end.

A French ally

But what Power would that be? A glance at the map of Europe in 1871, in conjunction with the barest modicum of geopolitical sense, would and did suffice to yield the ambivalent answer. Since Germany lay in the center of the Continent, and to the immediate east of France, it made sense to have an ally who would be both willing and able to engage Germany on any front so long as it was not her western, where a resolute French were already baying for blood. A simultaneous engagement on two fronts would automatically halve German strength before each adversary. But which front would that be? It was not as if there were a lot of options from which to make a leisurely choice. To the south of Germany lay the sprawling dominions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose Habsburg rulers had already dissolved their sour memories of Sadowa[4] in the tonic of Bismarck’s blandishments, which somehow never ceased to work wonders for the health of his diplomacy. To the north lay the serene Baltic, and around it a host of Scandinavian mediocrities. The only front that remained was the eastern, where possible salvation for the pusillanimous successors of Bonaparte lay in the arms and armies of the Tsar of Russia. Here was finally a Power not only ideally situated on Germany’s border, but also believed to be possessed of military strength sufficient, should its possessors be commensurately provoked, to arouse both German alarm and French approbation. Since actual confrontation had not yet taken place, perceptions mattered more than did reality, and it was more important for diplomatic purposes what Germany and France believed to be the magnitude of Russian strength, rather than what it actually was — “an imposing phantom”[5], as subsequent events would prove beyond dispute and not long after.

But these were happenings yet to come. At the beginning of the 1870s, with the purported pursuing of Russia — and the attendant, if rather erroneous, surmise that hers was a friendship to court and an enmity to shun — the talk of many a chancellery in Europe, both France and Germany, albeit each in her own way, could be expected to do the needful. But how was Russia herself inclined to act just then? On whose side, if on anyone’s, did she wish to be? What were her ambitions, and what were her fears?

Russia enters the picture

It so happened that at the very moment when France would have almost prostrated herself before Russia for the sake of settling scores with her parvenu neighbor, the Tsar Alexander II, who reigned and ruled from 1855 to 1881, showed himself ready to evince not even the slightest interest in reciprocating the sycophantic sentiments of a nation that, in concert with Great Britain, had humiliated his own in the Crimea only a decade and a half prior to when the author of the Ems Telegram would resolve that similar scathe should be meted out to the would-be myrmidons of Marianne as well. Unsurprising Russian neutrality during the Franco-Prussian War had been one of the principal factors that contributed to the decisive victory achieved by Bismarck in the crucial winter of 1870-71. The Treaty of Paris (1856), by dint of which both France and Great Britain had dealt a united and decisive blow to the Tsar’s overweening pretensions (principally by stipulating Russian demilitarization of the Black Sea), now proved sufficient to ensure that for the fairly immediate future, poor France, whilst still reeling from the shame of Frankfurt, would have to grapple with the strictures inherent in the new diplomatic order of Europe on her own. Even though the Treaty of Paris had been in the main an Anglo-French enterprise, the price that, in retrospect, it came to exact from the French was disproportionately greater, for it was Bismarck’s tacit acquiescence in Russian remilitarization of the Black Sea (in 1870) that Russia would repay in the form of benevolent neutrality during the Franco-Prussian War.

A telling account of the consequences that, in 1865, had been made inevitable by the diplomatic folly exhibited with abandon in lovely Lutetia was furnished, to the immeasurable fortune of posterity, by the arresting wits of the eminent English philosopher, John Stuart Mill (1806-73). Reflecting in the manner of a thoughtful contemporary, even as the third Napoleon fell like the first, on what had come to pass, both by way of gain and loss, Mill was moved to observe that in the matter of making international treaties:

“Nations should be willing to abide by two rules. They should abstain from imposing conditions which, on any just and reasonable view of human affairs, cannot be expected to be kept. And they should conclude their treaties as commercial treaties are usually concluded — only for a term of years.

If these principles are sound, it remains to be considered how they are to be applied to past treaties, which, though containing stipulations which, to be legitimate, must be temporary, have been concluded without such limitation, and are afterwards violated, or, as by Russia at present, repudiated, on the assumption of a right superior to the faith of engagements.

It is the misfortune of such stipulations, even if as temporary arrangements they might have been justifiable, that if concluded for permanency they are seldom to be got rid of without some lawless act on the part of the nation bound by them. If a lawless act, then, has been committed in the present instance, it does not entitle those who imposed the conditions to consider the lawlessness only, and to dismiss the more important consideration, whether, even if it was wrong to throw off the obligation, it would not be still more wrong to persist in enforcing it. If, though not fit to be perpetual, it has been imposed in perpetuity, the question when it becomes right to throw it off is but a question of time. No time having been fixed, Russia fixed her own time, and naturally chose the most convenient. She had no reason to believe that the release she sought would be voluntarily granted on any conditions which she would accept; and she chose an opportunity which, if not seized, might have been long before it occurred again, when the other contracting parties were in a more than usually disadvantageous position for going to war.”[6]

It is even more as a lawyer than as an amateur historian that I declare — though the stature of one as great as Mill hath scarce any need of my declaration to rest assured of its greatness — the ready accord of my own reason with the celebrated counsel of that perspicacious man. Even when it comes to the conclusion of a simple contract, be it for purposes commercial or otherwise, the law recognizes the possibility of there arising, without the fault of either contracting party, the frustration of their contract. This is the unforeseen termination of a contract as the result of a supervening event that either renders its performance impossible or illegal or prevents its main purpose from being achieved.[7]

This is precisely why no commercial contract worth its name is ever concluded for an indefinite period. A contract, which is but an exchange of promises, is born in, and because of, certain conditions prevailing at the time that it is made. Since the promises whose execution, in the course of time, the contract envisages owe their very raison d’être to those conditions, it would make little, if any, sense to prolong the duration of the contract beyond the period for which those conditions can reasonably be expected to last. Obligations that outlive the conditions in which they were assumed invariably bode ill for the future welfare of the parties that undertook them in the first place. The selfsame considerations apply, and as exactly, in the case of international treaties.

Bismarck’s diplomacy

Bismarck had no need of a jurist’s manual to teach him these fundamental truths of human life on our motley planet. Instinctively aware of how to extract the most whilst offering the least, he was about to embark on a series of daring diplomatic maneuvers that would pay solemn, if silent, homage to the exhortations of his erudite contemporary, and yield rich dividends into the bargain. Convinced of his opportunity to engage Russia on Germany’s side, he was determined not to surrender that opportunity to France, and it is the ultimate testament to his diplomatic genius that this is precisely the state of affairs that he, despite many a contretemps, was able to sustain continuously until the very moment of his unceremonious dismissal from the chancellorship by a wayward Wilhelm II in 1890.

Bismarck’s first major move was to secure the diplomatic arrangement that history remembers by the rather pompous name of Dreikaiserbund (which is German for the Three Emperors’ League). Based upon agreements concluded in May and June 1873 — following a preliminary meeting of the German Emperor, Austro-Hungarian Emperor and Russian Tsar in Berlin in September 1872 — it, despite its significance as indicated by the propinquity it bore to the war just fought with France, was little more than a vague understanding that emphasized the importance of monarchical solidarity in the face of subversive movements (this was an era of burgeoning nationalism in Europe and around the world).[8] In substance, it was at least better than the “sublime mysticism and nonsense”[9] of the Holy Alliance, which had cherished as its sole aim the sustained perpetuation of moribund regimes; but it proved far less durable than the somewhat similar Triple Entente that it anticipated, and the advent of which it precipitated by its own eventual dissolution.

The dissolution was in spite of Bismarck. He had been wise not to seek a formal treaty where none would have been forthcoming, but the absence of definite obligations also meant that far greater room for diplomatic maneuver existed for each member of the Dreikaiserbund than was desirable for the health and longevity of it. With the Tsar eagerly fanning the flames of Panslavism in the Balkans — to the joy of many a Slav braving the yoke of Hapsburg and Ottoman imperialism and yearning for liberation, but to the calculated wrath of both Vienna and the Sublime Porte — in the hope of distracting domestic attention from real issues at home to alleged dangers abroad, it was all the Iron Chancellor could do to bring Austria and Russia together at the same table, without the added burden of committing each to the definite restraints inherent in a formal treaty or alliance. For a time, Russia acquiesced in the workings of this tripartite arrangement, not only because it knew that Germany alone (who had a major interest in the preservation of her only dependable friend in Europe) possessed the power to induce Austria to adopt a less confrontational attitude against Russia in the Balkans, but also because this would help her to convince France that her diplomatic options were not limited (and thus assist her in procuring more favorable terms in the case of an eventual alliance with her erstwhile foe). Most unfortunately, however, for even this incipient goodwill from St Petersburg, events in the Balkans soon decided against the rebarbative continuation of such an affable arrangement.

Bulgarian conflict

In 1875, conflict broke out in Bulgaria. Subjected to the Porte’s alien rule for the past five hundred years, Bulgaria had not been slow to appreciate the rise of nationalism in the farrago of nineteenth century Europe and the competing ambitions of her many peoples, any more than she had been in recognizing a growing opportunity to wrest independence from her oppressors in times that were only growing more favorable by the day. The Porte had been equally quick of perception, and judging that prevention was better than cure, took the bold step of sowing the discord between moderate and extremist that has ever furnished the principal prop and pillar of the policy entitled divide et impera. In this case, in the year 1870, the step was taken in the form of an edict that authorized the establishment of a Bulgarian Excharcate (i.e. a separate branch of the Eastern Orthodox Church).[10] The wily Porte had probably calculated that such a move could be counted upon to flatter the clergy, appease the moderates, and isolate the extremists — all to the advantage, however ephemeral, of a regime that was decaying, and which could not hope to survive the resolution of those internal Slavonic squabbles that were as internecine as they were endemic in the Balkan peninsula.

On this occasion, however, the Sultan’s turned out to be an egregious miscalculation. The new Excharcate, so far from offering any gratitude to the Sultan by rallying their people behind the Ottoman throne, chose instead to view the Porte’s latest concession as a sign of not magnanimity but abject weakness; and it decided not altogether implausibly that the time had come to try conclusions with the imperious House of Osman. The reasoning that underlay the timing of this Bulgarian unrest stemmed from a realization that Russia, the sanctimonious champion of independence for the South Slavs, would in the wake of her recent denunciation of the Treaty of Paris be in an unusually favorable position to assist the Bulgar nation in its quest for the categoric expulsion of Ottoman rule from Bulgarian soil. It was, therefore, for five years that matters smoldered and men seethed, till the advent of that day when Russia, armed by what it thought was the sanction of an amorphous and taciturn Dreikaiserbund, ventured to bestow its definite approbation of the Bulgar cause on the Bulgar people, unflinching in its determination to efface that record of shame to which she herself had made many an unwitting contribution since the time of the Holy Alliance.

Russia enters the fray

Affronted beyond measure by what it saw as the brazen ingratitude of the Bulgars and the unwarrantable presumption of their Russian sponsors, the ruthless forces of the Porte resolved to call the latter’s bluff by unleashing such a wave of savagery and destruction on the former as could not fail to elicit a response from the Tsar and his truculent court, who were already awaiting a suitable pretext for intervention from the frigid banks of the Neva. Fired with the enthusiasm to champion and secure for the Bulgars those very rights that she had never exhibited the slightest sorrow in denying to the Slavs rotting in her own Polish backyard, Russia entered the Balkan fray without a qualm and proceeded with the serene confidence of a somnambulist to vindicate Santayana’s solemn warning, albeit not given in as many words by any at the time, that “those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it”.

Russia should have remembered that ever since the time of the “loud-sounding nothing” that had been the Holy Alliance, and of which she had been the principal proponent, hers had not been a position from which she could hope to threaten or thrash the Porte without bringing down upon her skull the redoubtable bludgeon of the Royal Navy. But as has almost always been the case with people who do not know the limits of their ambitions, the Tsar and his advisers spurned the toil of logic, and sought in its stead the meretricious gratification that is the certain and ruinous promise of frivolous braggadocio and inflated estimations of one’s own prowess and possibilities. Whilst their mettlesome forces did eventually manage to arrive at the very gates of Constantinople, and from there compel the Sultan to append his signature to a shameful document of capitulation, they had reckoned without the opposition of those who were more ably placed than was the decrepit empire of the Ottomans to check this alarming aggrandizement in Russian fortune on the shores of those very waters that flowed without choice into the vital maritime routes of international trade, the lynchpin of which had lain in the Suez Canal since its opening to all traffic on 17 November 1869. It would be pertinent to remember that in the very year when the Bulgars finally embarked upon their crusade to reclaim the freedom they had lost of yore, Great Britain — principally at the instigation of her justly renowned Tory statesman, Benjamin Disraeli, whose second and final premiership had spanned with a remarkable prescience the fateful years from 1874 to 1880 — acquired a holding interest at 40% of the Suez Canal Company’s equity (making her the single largest shareholder), under the auspices of a loan to the tune of four million pounds sterling rendered by the astute acumen of Lord Rothschild and his illustrious bank. Since Disraeli was still in office at the time the ominous cloud of Russian ambition was beginning to darken the horizon at Suez, he was determined that no manner of artifice or bluster emanating from the halls of that “icy Muscovite” and “overgrown barbarian of the East” should be allowed to wreck what had to up to that point in time been the most signal achievement of his formidable premiership.

When such were the considerations to uphold at a time of great diplomatic uncertainty, it was not to be expected that an apprehensive government in London would find much to allay their fears of Russian intentions in the treaty that announced to the world not only the cessation of hostilities between Turkey and Russia, but also the imminent end of all that Great Britain had been so sedulous to uphold by way of solution to the Eastern Question for the past eighty years. The Treaty of San Stefano, concluded on 3 March 1878 and upon the ashes of Ottoman pride, had pledged the signatories to honor the creation of a large autonomous state of Bulgaria that would include present-day Macedonia and also cherish an outlet to the Aegean Sea. It had also enlarged the size of both Serbia and Montenegro, confirmed the independence of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania, furnished Russia with sizeable gains in the Caucasus, and provided for the payment of a large indemnity by Turkey to the victors.

British considerations

With the new state of Bulgaria thus poised to become a Russian satellite that would secure to her patron easy access by land to the Aegean (and thence the Mediterranean), and the slow but steady disintegration of the empire that had for near six centuries held sway over the junction of three continents, Great Britain could discern no cause for assurance in the uncomfortable realization that an eventual elimination of the Ottoman presence at Constantinople and in its environs could make no contribution in the region to either British security or Russian maturity. There was no reason to suppose that an assertive Russia, already buoyed by fresh triumphs, would in any way prove as submissive to British demands as the effete Ottoman Empire had thus far proven to be.

And Great Britain was not alone in the entertainment of her apprehensions. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, which was itself gradually buckling under the pressure of that clamor for self-determination being made by her own Slavonic population that could only receive fresh impetus in the event of Russia’s ascendancy in the Balkans and Asia Minor, was already beginning to nurture serious reservations regarding the Dreikaiserbund into which she had entered so willingly at the behest of Bismarck. If Germany was not going to restrain Russia from furthering the portentous cause of Panslavism in the Balkans, even when Great Britain was willing to challenge her all on her own, then there could be no reason why Austria should foolishly continue to remain a party to that useless agreement called the Dreikaiserbund. And Austrian withdrawal would spell the end of Bismarck’s bargaining leverage over Russia, whose own on the other hand would increase dramatically over Germany, who could never cease to feel the searing glare of French hatred on her back.

The Dreikaiserbund had arrived at a decisive precipice. It was the moment to decide whether, being adjudged redundant, it would be pushed to certain death; or whether, deemed imperative, it would be retained still by dint of adequate compromise. Since no signatory required the Bund as direly as did the Germany of Bismarck, that sagacious statesman prudently chose the latter course.

Congress of Berlin

It was to this end that he opened the Congress of Berlin in June 1878 (a mere three months after San Stefano). Continuing into July, the Congress, to which delegates from all the major countries of Europe brought the succor of their good offices, was not likely, despite the best endeavors of Bismarck, to cut much, if any, ice with Russia — for two important reasons.

First, the Congress had been convened for the express purpose of revising the pledges of San Stefano, which was the apple of a myopic Russian eye. The only reason the Tsar even agreed to send his representative to the Congress was that he expected Bismarck, who was both an ostensible ally and the host, to argue the case for Russia in the face of implacable British and Austrian opposition. But the Congress was also as much Bismarck’s opportunity as it was the Tsar’s hope. As host, he could create the clever impression of being the “honest broker” between Russia and Great Britain, and as such, leave it to the former to address the claims of the latter in what was supposed to be an impartial forum. If what Great Britain sought by way of settlement was already in accord with Germany’s interests, then all Bismarck had to do was to make Russia confess to her ambitious designs in the Balkans before the Congress, give suitable air to the British answer, and then maintain he would uphold the unanimous, or at least majority, decision rendered by the Congress. With Russia in no position to confront Great Britain on the seas alone, Bismarck would achieve the desired result without in any obvious way betraying the spirit of the Dreikaiserbund.

The second reason that the Congress was more or less predestined to go against Russia was the fact that of all the important countries who sent their delegates there, Great Britain was the only one who sent not only her Foreign Secretary, but also Prime Minister! Benjamin Disraeli had chosen to attend in person because he did not want his Foreign Secretary, Lord Salisbury, to achieve the primary credit for the fruits of the Congress’s deliberations. The fact that Disraeli prioritized the Congress so highly shows not only how catastrophic it would have been for Great Britain not to achieve her objectives, but also how certain Disraeli was of achieving what he had so long sought for his country. Upon returning home, he would triumphantly announce that he had returned from Berlin with “peace with honor” (a phrase that would later be borrowed by another Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, upon his return from Germany exactly sixty years later, but with far less commendable consequences).

Coming, as it did, so soon in the wake of the triumph that had been the Treaty of San Stefano, the Congress unsurprisingly proved to be an unmitigated disaster for Russia. Its principal accomplishments were that an autonomous principality of Bulgaria was created; a province of Eastern Roumelia, nominally Turkish but with a Christian Governor was established south of Bulgaria, with the result that British fear of Russian access to the Aegean via Bulgaria was satisfactorily addressed, especially since the Christian Governor could be counted upon to pacify the Christian population of what was nominally still a Turkish province; the independence of Serbia and Montenegro, in accordance with San Stefano, was confirmed, with both states receiving territorial compensation; the independence of Romania was also confirmed, the Romanians obtaining northern Dobruja in return for ceding Bessarabia to Russia; Russia was confirmed in possession of the Caucasus; Austria-Hungary received the right to occupy Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar; and Great Britain received the right to occupy the strategically important island of Cyprus. Although Eastern Roumelia eventually united with Bulgaria, the main lines of the settlement lasted for thirty years.[11]

Implications

This was the end of the Dreikaiserbund — at least, until 1881, when the Tsar was assassinated, and his successor, Alexander III, negotiated a much more formal and precise Dreikaiserbund Alliance with both Germany and Austria. But even then, Russia could never forget the humiliating lessons of the Congress, her nationalist press having memorably remarked at the time how it had been nothing but “a coalition of Europe against Russia under the leadership of Prince Bismarck”.[12]

Bismarck did not forget the sobering experience of having to mediate between Vienna and St Petersburg at an international forum either. Shortly after the Congress, he entered into a formal but secret alliance with Austria, the Dual Alliance of 1879, in which he solemnly pledged to assist Austria if she were ever to be attacked by Russia in future. The decade that had started off with Bismarck seeking to cement a triumvirate of sorts of the three great eastern autocracies had ended in the alienation of one, and the advent of a formal alliance between the other two against the third.

In the next part, we shall review the exertions of Bismarck during the 1880s. We shall look at how he managed to sustain his relations with both Russia and Austria even after, and in spite of, the unpleasant developments that had taken place towards the end of the 1870s. It was a feat of pure skill and ardor that can be easily neither forgotten nor emulated.

What do you think were the impacts of the 1870s? Let us know below.

[1] Said originally of Arthur Balfour by Winston Churchill, in the latter’s famous book Great Contemporaries (first published by Thornton Butterworth Ltd in 1937)

[2] The Battle of Sedan (1-2 September 1870), which marked the surrender and capture of the French Emperor, Napoleon III

[3] The Treaty of Frankfurt (10 May 1871), which formally ended the Franco-Prussian War

[4] The Battle of Sadowa (3 July 1866)

[5] Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (Simon and Schuster Paperbacks 1994) 140

[6] Quoted in The Times, on 2 January 1939, page 15

[7] Definition of ‘frustration of a contract’ in the Oxford Dictionary of Law

[8] A. W. Palmer, A Dictionary of Modern History 1789-1945 (Penguin 1964) 110

[9] A description rendered by Lord Castlereagh, British Foreign Secretary 1812-22. Ibidem, 155

[10] A. W. Palmer, A Dictionary of Modern History 1789-1945 (Penguin 1964) 60-61

[11] Ibidem, 46

[12] Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (Simon and Schuster Paperbacks 1994) 157

The United States and King Leopold II's bloody acquisition of the Congo

The Belgian colonization of the Congo was one of the worst examples of exploitative behavior from a European colonial power. Here we look at Belgian King Leopold II and the USA’s role in his acquisition of the West-Central African territory of the Congo.

The story of King Leopold II of Belgium and his obsessive quest for an African colony is a tale of greed, devastation, and woe. It is a journey into the darkness of humankind, with brutality and hypocrisy the sole victors. King Leopold’s Congolese experiment took several decades to develop and implement as this clever but devious King slowly and carefully maneuvered himself to manipulate many, including the people of the Congo, the international community, and even his own subjects. Motivated by desire, greed, envy, his own ego, and several other interested parties, a colony was established which would have tragic and lasting consequences for the native population. 

A young Leopold in 1853. He would later become an ambitious, greedy King.

Leopold was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1835, and he came to power when he became King in 1865. By the time he became King, two things interested him greatly: territory and money - by which I mean financial gain. The combination of these would prove to be of great significance in his later life, along with that of millions of others. He became very jealous of the Great European Powers around him; of their riches, their power, and most importantly, of their colonies. He was very ambitious but equally frustrated. Belgium was too weak for him and his ambitions. Petit pays, petit gens (small country, small people) goes the phrase; however, the country that Belgium had gained independence from in the 1830s, the Netherlands, had a sizeable empire. He wanted such an empire for himself too. The Congo was one of the areas in Africa that was not recognized by all major powers as belonging to a European Power in the 1870s, and it promised many treasures, such as ivory and rubber, ready to be harvested at the cost of the native people there. Nonetheless, before Leopold could stake his claim on the land, he would have to manipulate several European nations to recognize his claim over it. But he also wanted the support of the United States.

And why the USA? After all, in the 1870s the USA was still quite inward-looking and trying to grow internally. The answer is that even at this time, the United States was fast becoming the most powerful and richest nation on earth, and to have its recognition of Leopold’s claim to the Congo would go a long way to convincing his European rivals. It was in that light that Leopold began his great quest.

One of Leopold’s early moves was to contact the United States’ ambassador to Belgium, one General Henry Shelton Sanford. He commissioned Sanford to acquire the services of the famous British-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley, like Leopold, was extremely ambitious, and also had an egotistical and ambitious streak about him. By the time Leopold had secured his service, Stanley had already crossed the Congo, and had famously found the British missionary David Livingstone in 1871. In addition, Stanley had written about his escapades in Africa, presenting himself as something of a 19th century hero and celebrity. Acquiring the services of possibly the best explorer in the world was something of a coup for Leopold.

Ambassador Sanford’s involvement would go much further. It now became his responsibility to convince the President of the United States of Leopold’s claim and plans for the Congo. If the US could recognize this claim, Leopold would be in a very powerful position. But what would the US get in return for this recognition? Leopold promised the US that its citizens would be able to buy land in the Congo, and that US goods there would be free of all customs duties. Furthermore, Stanley had been touting himself as ‘born and bred’ in the United States, meaning that an American had not only played a role in discovering the Congo, but that one would continue to play a role in the territory. This was important to the United States as it was growing in stature and being recognized as a significant power in the international community.

Sanford’s own personal motivation was purely financial as he would stand to gain a great deal from this trade. As such, he lobbied the executive branch for recognition, despite Leopold omitting the fact that he had a monopoly on all trade there – and had no intention of giving it up. Although Sanford’s business affairs in the past bordered on poor to sketchy, and he owed his prominence in large part due to his inheritance, he saw this as too good an opportunity to pass away. He reasoned that any failure as a businessperson would be countered by his success as an accomplice of Leopold’s. He had already succeeded in acquiring Stanley’s services, and his involvement led to the United States recognizing the Congo as a colony of Belgium. Sanford even received royal praise from Leopold for his work, something that he actually valued more than the money itself.

Another key person in lobbying the President in favor of Belgium’s claim was Senator John Tyler Morgan. His wish was for the African-American population to return to Africa after the abolition of slavery in the USA. Morgan was very fearful of an African-American uprising, following demands for equality and liberty. He had also quickly seen an opportunity to send the black population back to Africa to work with the Congolese in enhancing trade, and as a place to sell any surplus cotton.

After the President of the United States agreed to recognize the Congo as being under King Leopold’s rule, it helped Leopold in petitioning European Powers to do the same. 

Leopold offered the French droit de preference, first right of refusal, should Leopold go bankrupt in his efforts to colonize the Congo. The French were extremely concerned about Leopold going bankrupt as they felt the colony would then fall into the hands of the British, their closest rivals, in part due to explorer Stanley’s Welsh origins. Because of this, the French were relatively easy to convince. Leopold also promised them the same trade agreement as the USA, but omitted to tell them of the one he had already agreed with the US. The French then recognized Leopold’s claim.

Leopold’s claim to the Congo was more formally agreed in the 1884 Berlin Conference, and the Congo Free State was declared the following year. Leopold and Belgium now had their part of the wider European Scramble for Africa.

The way for Leopold to go forward and colonize the Congo was clear. With recognition from important international powers, King Leopold II of Belgium had successfully manipulated the international community in to giving him permission to acquire the Congo - and fulfil his greedy ambitions. The effects of this recognition were to prove devastating…

By J Parker

Do you agree that the USA had a key role in allowing King Leopold II to capture the Congo? Thoughts below…

You can read about another European attempt at colonizing Africa in our article on the Italian colonization of Libya in issue 1 of our magazine History is Now. Click here to download the app and to subscribe for free for 2 months to the magazine.