Rumour, in the guise of hints given by communicative young attaches or "well-informed" correspondents, ascribes the first beginnings of the plans for the partition of Africa to the informal conversations of statesmen at the time of the Congress of Berlin (1878). Just as an architect safeguards his creation by providing a lightning-conductor, so the builder of the German Empire sought to divert from that fabric the revengeful storms that might be expected from the south-west. Other statesmen were no less anxious than Bismarck to draw away the attention of rivals from their own political preserves by pointing the way to more desirable waste domains. In short, the statesmen of Europe sought to plant in Africa the lightning-conductors that would safeguard the new arrangements in Europe, including that of Cyprus. The German and British Governments are known then to have passed on hints to that of France as to the desirability of her appropriating Tunis. The Republic entered into the schemes, with results which have already been considered (Chapter XII.); and, as a sequel to the occupation of Tunis, plans were set on foot for the eventual conquest of the whole of the North-West of Africa (except Morocco and a few British, Spanish, and Portuguese settlements) from Cape Bon to Cape Verde, and thence nearly to the mouth of the River Niger. We may also note that in and after 1883 France matured her schemes for the conquest of part, and ultimately the whole, of Madagascar, a project which reached completion in the year 1885[425].

[Footnote 425: For the French treaty of December 17, 1885, with Madagascar see Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 2 (1886).]

The military occupation of Egypt by Great Britain in 1882 also served to quicken the interest of European Powers in Africa. It has been surmised that British acquiescence in French supremacy in Tunis, West Africa, and Madagascar had some connection with the events that transpired in Egypt, and that the perpetuation of British supremacy in the valley of the Nile was virtually bought by the surrender of most of our political and trading interests in these lands, the lapse of which under the French "protective" regime caused much heart-burning in commercial circles.

Last among the special causes that concentrated attention on Africa was the activity of King Leopold's Association at Brussels in opening up the Congo district in the years 1879-1882. Everything therefore tended to make the ownership of tropical Africa the most complex question of the early part of the eighties.

For various reasons Germany was a little later than France and England in entering the field. The hostility of France on the west, and, after 1878, that of Russia on the east, made it inadvisable for the new Empire to give hostages to Fortune, in the shape of colonies, until by alliances it secured its position at home and possessed a fleet strong enough to defend distant possessions. In some measure the German Government had to curb the eagerness of its "colonial party." The present writer was in Germany in the year 1879, when the colonial propaganda was being pushed forward, and noted the eagerness in some quarters, and the distrust in others, with which pamphlets like that of Herr Fabri, Bedarf Deutschland Colonien? were received. Bismarck himself at first checked the "colonials," until he felt sure of the European situation. That, however, was cleared up to some extent by the inclusion of Italy in the compact which thus became the Triple Alliance (May 1882), and by the advent to office of the pacific Chancellor, de Giers, at St. Petersburg a little later. There was therefore the less need officially to curb the colonising instinct of the Teutonic people. The formation of the German Colonial Society at Frankfurt in December 1882, and the immense success attending its propaganda, spurred on the statesmen of Berlin to take action. They looked longingly (as they still do) towards Brazil, in whose southern districts their people had settled in large numbers; but over all that land the Monroe Doctrine spread its sheltering wings. A war with the United States would have been madness, and Germany therefore turned to Polynesia and Africa. We may note here that in 1885 she endeavoured to secure the Caroline Islands from Spain, whose title to them seemed to have lapsed; but Spanish pride flared up at the insult, and after a short space Bismarck soothed ruffled feelings at Madrid by accepting the mediation of the Pope, who awarded them to Spain—Germany, however, gaining the right to occupy an islet of the group as a coaling station.

Africa, however, absorbed nearly all the energy of the German colonial party. The forward wing of that party early in the year 1884 inaugurated an anti-British campaign in the press, which probably had the support of the Government. As has been stated in chapter XII., that was the time when the Three Emperors' League showed signs of renewed vitality; and Bismarck, after signing the secret treaty of March 24, 1884 (later on ratified at Skiernevice), felt safe in pressing on colonial designs against England in Africa, especially as Russia was known to be planning equally threatening moves against the Queen's Empire in Asia. We do not know enough of what then went on between the German and Russian Chancellors to assert that they formed a definite agreement to harry British interests in those continents; but, judging from the general drift of Bismarck's diplomacy and from the "nagging" to which England was thenceforth subjected for two years, it seems highly probable that the policy ratified at Skiernevice aimed at marking time in European affairs and striding onwards in other continents at the expense of the Island Power.

The Anglophobes of the German press at once fell foul of everything British; and that well-known paper the Koelnische Zeitung in an article of April 22, 1884, used the following words:—"Africa is a large pudding which the English have prepared for themselves at other people's expense, and the crust of which is already fit for eating. Let us hope that our sailors will put a few pepper-corns into it on the Guinea coast, so that our friends on the Thames may not digest it too rapidly." The sequel will show whether the simile correctly describes either the state of John Bull's appetite or the easy aloofness of the Teutonic onlooker.

It will be convenient to treat this great and complex subject on a topographical basis, and to begin with a survey of the affairs of East Africa, especially the districts on the mainland north and south of the island of Zanzibar. At that important trade centre, the natural starting point then for the vast district of the Great Lakes, the influence of British and Indian traders had been paramount; and for many years the Sultan of Zanzibar had been "under the direct influence of the United Kingdom and of the Government of India[426]." Nevertheless, in and after 1880 German merchants, especially those of Hamburg, pressed in with great energy and formed plans for annexing the neighbouring territories on the mainland.

[Footnote 426: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1886), p. 2.]

Their energy was in strange contrast to the lethargy shown by the British Government in the protection of Anglo-Indian trade interests. In the year 1878 the Sultan of Zanzibar, who held a large territory on the mainland, had offered the control of all the commerce of his dominions to Sir W. Mackinnon, Chairman of the British-India Steam Navigation Company; but, for some unexplained reason, the Beaconsfield Cabinet declined to be a party to this arrangement, which, therefore, fell through[427]. Despite the fact that England and France had in 1862 agreed to recognise the independence of the Sultan of Zanzibar, the Germans deemed the field to be clear, and early in November 1884, Dr. Karl Peters and two other enthusiasts of the colonial party landed at Zanzibar, disguised as mechanics, with the aim of winning new lands for their Fatherland. They had with them several blank treaty forms, the hidden potency of which was soon to be felt by dusky potentates on the mainland. Before long they succeeded in persuading some of these novices in diplomacy to set their marks to these documents, an act which converted them into subjects of the Kaiser, and speedily secured 60,000 square miles for the German tricolour. It is said that the Government of Berlin either had no knowledge of, or disapproved of, these proceedings; and, when Earl Granville ventured on some representations respecting them, he received the reply, dated November 28, 1884, that the Imperial Government had no design of obtaining a protectorate over Zanzibar[428]. It is difficult to reconcile these statements with the undoubted fact that on February 17, 1885, the German Emperor gave his sanction to the proceedings of Dr. Peters by extending his suzerainty over the signatory chiefs[429]. This event caused soreness among British explorers and Indian traders who had been the first to open up the country to civilisation. Nevertheless, the Gladstone Ministry took no effective steps to safeguard their interests.

[Footnote 427: The Partition of Africa, by J. Scott Keltie (1893), pp. 157, 225.]

[Footnote 428: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1886), p. 1.]

[Footnote 429: Ibid. pp. 12-20.]

In defence of their academic treatment of this matter some considerations of a general nature may be urged.

The need of colonies felt by Germany was so natural, so imperious, that it could not be met by the high and dry legal argument as to the priority of Great Britain's commercial interests. Such an attitude would have involved war with Germany about East Africa and war with France about West Africa, at the very time when we were on the brink of hostilities with Russia about Merv, and were actually fighting the Mahdists behind Suakim. The "weary Titan"—to use Matthew Arnold's picturesque phrase—was then overburdened. The motto, "Live and let live," was for the time the most reasonable, provided that it was not interpreted in a weak and maudlin way on essential points.

Many critics, however, maintain that Mr. Gladstone's and Lord Granville's diplomatic dealings with Germany in the years 1884 and 1885 displayed most lamentable weakness, even when Dr. Peters and others were known to be working hard at the back of Zanzibar, with the results that have been noted. In April 1885 the Cabinet ordered Sir John Kirk, British representative at Zanzibar, and founder of the hitherto unchallenged supremacy of his nation along that coast, forthwith to undo the work of a lifetime by "maintaining friendly relations" with the German authorities at that port. This, of course, implied a tacit acknowledgment by Britain of what amounted to a German protectorate over the mainland possessions of the Sultan. It is not often that a Government, in its zeal for "live and let live," imposes so humiliating a task on a British representative. The Sultan did not take the serene and philosophic view of the situation that was held at Downing Street, and the advent of a German squadron was necessary in order to procure his consent to these arrangements (August-December 1885.)[430]

[Footnote 430: J. Scott Keltie, The Partition of Africa, ch. xv.]

The Blue Book dealing with Zanzibar (Africa, No. 1, 1886) by no means solves the riddle of the negotiations which went on between London and Berlin early in the year 1885. From other sources we know that the most ardent of the German colonials were far from satisfied with their triumph. Curious details have appeared showing that their schemes included the laying of a trap for the Sultan of Zanzibar, which failed owing to clumsy baiting and the loquacity of the would-be captor. Lord Rosebery also managed, according to German accounts, to get the better of Count Herbert Bismarck in respect of St. Lucia Bay (see page 528) and districts on the Benue River; so that this may perhaps be placed over against the losses sustained by Britain on the coast opposite Zanzibar. Even there, as we have seen, results did not fully correspond to the high hopes entertained by the German Chauvinists[431].

[Footnote 431: Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History, vol. iii. pp. 135, 144-45. Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1886), pp. 39-45, 61 et seq.; also No. 3 (1886), pp. 4, 15.]

In the meantime (June 1885) the Salisbury Cabinet came into office for a short time, but the evil effects of the slackness of British diplomacy were not yet at an end. At this time British merchants, especially those of Manchester, were endeavouring to develop the mountainous country around the giant cone of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where Mr. (now Sir) Harry Johnston had, in September 1884, secured some trading and other rights with certain chiefs. A company had been formed in order to further British interests, and this soon became the Imperial British East Africa Company, which aspired to territorial control in the parts north of those claimed by Dr. Peters' Company. A struggle took place between the two companies, the German East Africa Company laying claim to the Kilimanjaro district. Again it proved that the Germans had the more effective backing, and, despite objections urged by our Foreign Minister, Lord Rosebery, against the proceedings of German agents in that tract, the question of ownership was referred to the decision of an Anglo-German boundary commission.

Lord Iddesleigh assumed control of the Foreign Office in August, but the advent of the Conservatives to power in no way helped on the British case. By an agreement between the two Powers, dated November 1, 1886, the Kilimanjaro district was assigned to Germany. From the northern spurs of that mountain the dividing line ran in a north-westerly direction towards the Victoria Nyanza. The same agreement recognised the authority of the Sultan of Zanzibar as extending over the island of that name, those of Pemba and Mafia, and over a strip of coastline ten nautical miles in width; but the ownership of the district of Vitu north of Mombasa was left open[432]. (See map at the close of this volume.)

[Footnote 432: Banning, op. cit. pp. 45-50; Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 3 (1887), pp. 46, 59.]

On the whole, the skill which dispossessed a sovereign of most of his rights, under a plea of diplomatic rearrangements and the advancement of civilisation, must be pronounced unrivalled; and Britain cut a sorry figure as the weak and unwilling accessory to this act. The only satisfactory feature in the whole proceeding was Britain's success in leasing from the Sultan of Zanzibar administrative rights over the coast region around Mombasa. The gain of that part secured unimpeded access from the coast to the northern half of Lake Victoria Nyanza. The German Company secured similar rights over the coastline of their district, and in 1890 bought it outright. By an agreement of December 1896, the River Rovuma was recognised by Germany and Portugal as the boundary of their East African possessions.

The lofty hopes once entertained by the Germans as to the productiveness of their part of East Africa have been but partially realised[433]. Harsh treatment of the natives brought about a formidable revolt in 1888-89. The need of British co-operation in the crushing of this revolt served to bring Germany to a more friendly attitude towards this country. Probably the resignation, or rather the dismissal, of Bismarck by the present Emperor, in March 1890, also tended to lessen the friction between England and Germany. The Prince while in retirement expressed strong disapproval of the East African policy of his successor, Count Caprivi.

[Footnote 433: See the Report on German East Africa for 1900, in our Diplomatic and Consular Reports.]

Its more conciliatory spirit found expression in the Anglo-German agreement of July 1, 1890, which delimited the districts claimed by the two nations around the Victoria Nyanza in a sense favourable to Great Britain and disappointing to that indefatigable treaty-maker, Dr. Peters. It acknowledged British claims to the northern half of the shores and waters of that great lake and to the valley of the Upper Nile, as also to the coast of the Indian Ocean about Vitu and thence northwards to Kismayu.

On the other hand, Germany acquired the land north of Lake Nyassa, where British interests had been paramount. The same agreement applied both to the British and German lands in question the principle of free or unrestricted transit of goods, as also between the great lakes. Germany further recognised a British Protectorate over the islands held by the Sultan of Zanzibar, reserving certain rights for German commerce in the case of the Island of Mafia. Finally, Great Britain ceded to Germany the Island of Heligoland in the North Sea. On both sides of the North Sea the compact aroused a storm of hostile comment, which perhaps served to emphasise its fairness[434]. Bismarck's opinion deserves quotation:—

Zanzibar ought not to have been left to the English. It would have been better to maintain the old arrangement. We could then have had it at some later time when England required our good offices against France or Russia. In the meantime our merchants, who are cleverer, and, like the Jews, are satisfied with smaller profits, would have kept the upper hand in business. To regard Heligoland as an equivalent shows more imagination than sound calculation. In the event of war it would be better for us that it should be in the hands of a neutral Power. It is difficult and most expensive to fortify[435].

[Footnote 434: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 6 (1890).]

[Footnote 435: Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History, vol. iii. p. 353. See, too, S. Whitman, Personal Reminiscences of Prince Bismarck, p. 122.]

The passage is instructive as showing the aim of Bismarck's colonial policy, namely, to wait until England's difficulties were acute (or perhaps to augment those difficulties, as he certainly did by furthering Russian schemes against Afghanistan in 1884-85[436]), and then to apply remorseless pressure at all points where the colonial or commercial interests of the two countries clashed.

[Footnote 436: Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History, vol. iii. pp. 124, 133: also see p. 426 of this work.]

The more his policy is known, the more dangerous to England it is seen to have been, especially in the years 1884-86. In fact, those persons who declaim against German colonial ambitions of to-day may be asked to remember that the extra-European questions recently at issue between Great Britain and Germany are trivial when compared with the momentous problems that were peacefully solved by the agreement of the year 1890. Of what importance are Samoa, Kiao-chow, and the problem of Morocco, compared with the questions of access to the great lakes of Africa and the control of the Lower Niger? It would be unfair to Wilhelm II., as also to the Salisbury Cabinet, not to recognise the statesmanlike qualities which led to the agreement of July 1, 1890—one of the most solid gains peacefully achieved for the cause of civilisation throughout the nineteenth century.

Among its many benefits may be reckoned the virtual settlement of long and tangled disputes for supremacy in Uganda. We have no space in which to detail the rivalries of French and British missionaries and agents at the Court of King M'tesa and his successor M'wanga, or the futile attempt of Dr. Peters to thrust in German influence. Even the Anglo-German agreement of 1890 did not end the perplexities of the situation; for though the British East Africa Company (to which a charter had been granted in 1888) thenceforth had the chief influence on the northern shores of Victoria Nyanza, the British Government declined to assume any direct responsibility for so inaccessible a district. Thanks, however, to the activity and tact of Captain Lugard, difficulties were cleared away, with the result that the large and fertile territory of Uganda (formerly included in the Khedive's dominions) became a British Protectorate in August 1894 (see Chapter XVII).

The significance of the events just described will be apparent when it is remembered that British East Africa, inclusive of Uganda and the Upper Nile basin, comprises altogether 670,000 square miles, to a large extent fertile, and capable of settlement by white men in the more elevated tracts of the interior. German East Africa contains 385,000 square miles, and is also destined to have a future that will dwarf that of many of the secondary States of to-day.

The prosperity of British East Africa was greatly enhanced by the opening of a railway, 580 miles long, from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza in 1902. Among other benefits, it has cut the ground from under the slave-trade, which used to depend on the human beast of burden for the carriage of all heavy loads[437].

[Footnote 437: For the progress and prospects of this important colony, see Sir G. Portal, The British Mission to Uganda in 1893; Sir Charles Elliot, British East Africa (1905); also Lugard, Our East African Empire; Sir H. Johnston, The Uganda Protectorate.]

The Anglo-German agreement of 1890 also cleared up certain questions between Britain and Germany relating to South-West Africa which had made bad blood between the two countries. In and after the year 1882 the attention of the colonial party in Germany was turned to the district north of the Orange River, and in the spring of the year 1883 Herr Luederitz founded a factory and hoisted the German flag at Angra Pequena. There are grounds for thinking that that district was coveted, not so much for its intrinsic value, which is slight, as because it promised to open up communications with the Boer Republics. Lord Granville ventured to express his doubts on that subject to Count Herbert Bismarck, whom the Chancellor had sent to London in the summer of 1884 in order to take matters out of the hands of the too Anglophil ambassador, Count Muenster. Anxious to show his mettle, young Bismarck fired up, and informed Lord Granville that his question was one of mere curiosity; later on he informed him that it was a matter which did not concern him[438].

[Footnote 438: Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History, vol. iii. p. 120.]

It must be admitted, however, that the British Government had acted in a dilatory and ineffective manner. Sir Donald Currie had introduced a deputation to Lord Derby, Colonial Minister in the Gladstone Cabinet, which warned him seriously as to German aims on the coast of Damaraland; in reply to which that phlegmatic Minister stated that Germany was not a colonising Power, and that the annexation of those districts would be resented by Great Britain as an "unfriendly act[439]." In November 1883 the German ambassador inquired whether British protection would be accorded to a few German settlers on the coast of Damaraland. No decisive answer was given, though the existence of British interests there was affirmed. Then, when Germany claimed the right to annex it, a counter-claim was urged from Whitehall (probably at the instigation of the Cape Government) that the land in question was a subject of close interest to us, as it might be annexed in the future. It was against this belated and illogical plea that Count Bismarck was sent to lodge a protest; and in August 1884 Germany clinched the matter by declaring Angra Pequena and surrounding districts to be German territory. (See note at the end of the chapter.)

[Footnote 439: See Sir D. Currie's paper on South Africa to the members of the Royal Colonial Institute, April 10, 1888 (Proceedings, vol. xix. p. 240).]

In this connection we may remark that Angra Pequena had recently figured as a British settlement on German maps, including that of Stieler of the year 1882. Walfisch Bay, farther to the north, was left to the Union Jack, that flag having been hoisted there by official sanction in 1878 owing to the urgent representations of Sir Bartle Frere, the Governor of Cape Colony. The rest of the coast was left to Germany; the Gladstone Government informed that of Berlin that no objection would be taken to her occupation of that territory. Great annoyance was felt at the Cape at what was looked on as an uncalled for surrender of British claims, especially when the Home Government failed to secure just treatment for the British settlers. Sir Charles Dilke states in his Problems of Greater Britain that only the constant protests of the Cape Ministry prevented the authorities at Whitehall from complying with German unceasing requests for the cession of Walfisch Bay, doubtless as an item for exchange during the negotiations of 1889-90[440].

[Footnote 440: Op. cit. vol. i. p. 502.]

We may add here that in 1886 Germany defined the northern limits of "South-West Africa"—such was the name of the new colony—by an agreement with Portugal; and in 1890 an article of the Anglo-German agreement above referred to gave an eastward extension of that northern border which brought it to the banks of the River Zambesi.

The British Government took a firmer stand in a matter that closely concerned the welfare of Natal and the relations of the Transvaal Republic to Germany. In 1884 some German prospectors sought to gain a footing in St. Lucia Bay in Zululand and to hoist the German flag. The full truth on this interesting matter is not yet known; it formed a pendant to the larger question of Delagoa Bay, which must be briefly noticed here.

Friction had arisen between Great Britain and Portugal over conflicting claims respecting Delagoa Bay and its adjoining lands; and in this connection it may be of interest to note that the Disraeli Ministry had earlier missed an opportunity of buying out Portuguese claims. The late Lord Carnarvon stated that, when he took the portfolio for colonial affairs in that Ministry, he believed the purchase might have been effected for a comparatively small sum. Probably the authorities at Lisbon were aroused to a sense of the potential value of their Laurenco Marquez domain by the scramble for Africa which began early in the eighties; and it must be regretted that the British Government, with the lack of foresight which has so often characterised it, let slip the opportunity of securing Delagoa Bay until its value was greatly enhanced. It then agreed to refer the questions in dispute to the arbitration of General MacMahon, President of the French Republic (1875). As has generally happened when foreign potentates have adjudicated on British interests, his verdict was wholly hostile to us. It even assigned to Portugal a large district to the south of Delagoa Bay which the Portuguese had never thought of claiming from its native inhabitants, the Tongas[441]. In fact, a narrative of all the gains which have accrued to Portugal in Delagoa Bay, and thereafter to the people who controlled its railway to Pretoria, would throw a sinister light on the connection that has too often subsisted between the noble theory of arbitration and the profitable practice of peacefully willing away, or appropriating, the rights and possessions of others. Portugal soon proved to be unable to avail herself of the opportunities opened up by the gift unexpectedly awarded her by MacMahon. She was unable to control either the Tongas or the Boers.

[Footnote 441: Sir C. Dilke, Problems of Greater Britain, vol. i. pp. 553-556.]

England having been ruled out, there was the chance for some other Power to step in and acquire St. Lucia Bay, one of the natural outlets of the southern part of the Transvaal Republic. It is an open secret that the forerunners of the "colonial party" in Germany had already sought to open up closer relations with the Boer Republics. In 1876 the President of the Transvaal, accompanied by a Dutch member of the Cape Parliament, visited Berlin, probably with the view of reciprocating those advances. They had an interview with Bismarck, the details of which are not fully known. Nothing, however, came of it at the time, owing to Bismarck's preoccupation in European affairs. Early in the "eighties," the German colonial party, then beginning its campaign, called attention repeatedly to the advantages of gaining a foothold in or near Delagoa Bay; but the rise of colonial feeling in Germany led to a similar development in the public sentiment of Portugal, and indeed of all lands; so that, by the time that Bismarck was won over to the cause of Teutonic Expansion, the Portuguese refused to barter away any of their ancient possessions. This probably accounts for the concentration of German energies on other parts of the South African coast, which, though less valuable in themselves, might serve as points d'appui for German political agents and merchants in their future dealings with the Boers, who were then striving to gain control over Bechuanaland. The points selected by the Germans for their action were on the coast of Damaraland, as already stated, and St. Lucia Bay in Zululand, a position which President Burgers had striven to secure for the Transvaal in 1878.

In reference to St. Lucia Bay our narrative must be shadowy in outline owing to the almost complete secrecy with which the German Government wisely shrouds a failure. The officials and newspaper writers of Germany have not yet contracted the English habit of proclaiming their intentions beforehand and of parading before the world their recriminations in case of a fiasco. All that can be said, then, with certainty is that in the autumn of 1884 a German trader named Einwold attempted to gain a footing in St. Lucia Bay and to prepare the way for the recognition of German claims if all went well. In fact, he could either be greeted as a Mehrer des Reichs, or be disowned as an unauthorised busybody.

We may here cite passages from the Diary of Dr. Busch, Bismarck's secretary, which prove that the State took a lively interest in Einwold's adventure. On February 25, 1885, Busch had a conversation with Herr Andrae, in the course of which they "rejoiced at England's difficulties in the Sudan, and I expressed the hope that Wolseley's head would soon arrive in Cairo, nicely pickled and packed." Busch then referred to British friction with Russia in Afghanistan and with France in Burmah, and then put the question to Andrae, "'Have we given up South Africa; or is the Lucia Bay affair still open?' He said that the matter was still under consideration[442]."

[Footnote 442: Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History, vol. iii. p. 132.]

It has since transpired that the British Government might have yielded to pressure from Berlin, had not greater pressure been exercised from Natal and from British merchants and shipowners interested in the South African trade. Sir Donald Currie, in the paper already referred to, stated that he could easily have given particulars of the means which had to be used in order to spur on the British Government to decisive action. Unfortunately he was discreetly reticent, and merely stated that not only St. Lucia Bay, but the whole of the coast between Natal and the Delagoa Bay district was then in question, and that the Gladstone Ministry was finally induced to telegraph instructions to Cape Town for the despatch of a cruiser to assert British claims to St. Lucia Bay. H.M.S. Goshawk at once steamed thither, and hoisted the British flag, by virtue of a treaty made with a Zulu chief in 1842. Then ensued the usual interchange of angry notes between Berlin and London; Bismarck and Count Herbert sought to win over, or browbeat, Lord Rosebery, then Colonial Minister. In this, however, he failed; and the explanation of the failure given to Busch was that Lord Rosebery was too clever for him and "quite mesmerised him." On May 7, 1885, Germany gave up her claims to that important position, in consideration of gaining at the expense of England in the Cameroons[443]. Here again a passage from Busch's record deserves quotation. In a conversation which he had with Bismarck on January 5, 1886, he put the question:—

"Why have we not been able to secure the Santa Lucia Bay?" I asked. "Ah!" he replied, "it is not so valuable as it seemed to be at first. People who were pursuing their own interests on the spot represented it to be of greater importance than it really was. And then the Boers were not disposed to take any proper action in the matter. The bay would have been valuable to us if the distance from the Transvaal were not so great. And the English attached so much importance to it that they declared it was impossible for them to give it up, and they ultimately conceded a great deal to us in New Guinea and Zanzibar. In colonial matters we must not take too much in hand at a time, and we already have enough for a beginning. We must now hold rather with the English, while, as you know, we were formerly more on the French side[444]. But, as the last elections in France show, every one of any importance there had to make a show of hostility to us."

[Footnote 443: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 6 (1885), p. 2.]

[Footnote 444: He here referred to the Franco-German agreement of Dec. 24, 1885, whereby the two Powers amicably settled the boundaries of their West African lands, and Germany agreed not to thwart French designs on Tahiti, the Society Isles, the New Hebrides, etc. See Banning, Le Partage politique de l'Afrique, pp. 22-26.]

This passage explains, in part at least, why Bismarck gave up the nagging tactics latterly employed towards Great Britain. Evidently he had hoped to turn the current of thought in France from the Alsace-Lorraine question to the lands over the seas, and his henchmen in the Press did all in their power to persuade people, both in Germany and France, that England was the enemy. The Anglophobe agitation was fierce while it lasted; but its artificiality is revealed by the passage just quoted.

We may go further, and say that the more recent outbreak of Anglophobia in Germany may probably be ascribed to the same official stimulus; and it too may be expected to cease when the politicians of Berlin see that it no longer pays to twist the British lion's tail. That sport ceased in and after 1886, because France was found still to be the enemy. Frenchmen did not speak much about Alsace-Lorraine. They followed Gambetta's advice: "Never speak about it, but always think of it." The recent French elections revealed that fact to Bismarck; and, lo! the campaign of calumny against England at once slackened.

We may add that two German traders settled on the coast of Pondoland, south of Natal; and in August 1885 the statesmen of Berlin put forth feelers to Whitehall with a view to a German Protectorate of that coast. They met with a decisive repulse[445].

[Footnote 445: Cape Colony, Papers on Pondoland, 1887, pp. 1, 41. For the progress of German South-West Africa and East Africa, see Parl. Papers, Germany, Nos. 474, 528, 2790.]

Meanwhile, the dead-set made by Germany, France, and Russia against British interests in the years 1883-85 had borne fruit in a way little expected by those Powers, but fully consonant with previous experience. It awakened British statesmen from their apathy, and led them to adopt measures of unwonted vigour. The year 1885 saw French plans in Indo-China checked by the annexation of Burmah. German designs in South Africa undoubtedly quickened the resolve of the Gladstone Ministry to save Bechuanaland for the British Empire.

It is impossible here to launch upon the troublous sea of Boer politics, especially as the conflict naturally resulting from two irreconcilable sets of ideas outlasted the century with which this work is concerned. We can therefore only state that filibustering bands of Boers had raided parts of Bechuanaland, and seemed about to close the trade-route northwards to the Zambesi. This alone would have been a serious bar to the prosperity of Cape Colony; but the loyalists had lost their confidence in the British Government since the events of 1880, while a large party in the Cape Ministry, including at that time Mr. Cecil Rhodes, seemed willing to abet the Boers in all their proceedings. A Boer deputation went to England in the autumn of 1883, and succeeded in cajoling Lord Derby into a very remarkable surrender. Among other things, he conceded to them an important strip of land west of the River Harts[446].

[Footnote 446: For the negotiations and the Convention of February 27, 1884, see Papers relating to the South African Republic, 1887.]

Far from satisfying them, this act encouraged some of their more restless spirits to set up two republics named Stellaland and Goshen. There, however, they met a tough antagonist, John Mackenzie. That devoted missionary, after long acquaintance with Boers and Bechuanas, saw how serious would be the loss to the native tribes and to the cause of civilisation if the raiders were allowed to hold the routes to the interior. By degrees he aroused the sympathy of leading men in the Press, who thereupon began to whip up the laggards of Whitehall and Downing Street. Consequently, Mackenzie, on his return to South Africa, was commissioned to act as British Resident in Bechuanaland, and in that capacity he declared that country to be under British protection (May 1884). At once the Dutch throughout South Africa raised a hue and cry against him, in which Mr. Rhodes joined, with the result that he was recalled on July 30.

His place was taken by a statesman whose exploits raised him to a high place among builders of the Empire. However much Cecil Rhodes differed from Mackenzie on the native question and other affairs, he came to see the urgent need of saving for the Empire the central districts which, as an old Boer said, formed "the key of Africa." Never were the loyalists more dispirited at the lack of energy shown by the Home Government; and never was there greater need of firmness. In a sense, however, the action of the Germans on the coast of Damaraland (August-October 1884) helped to save the situation. The imperious need of keeping open the route to the interior, which would be closed to trade if ever the Boers and Germans joined hands, spurred on the Gladstone Ministry to support the measures proposed by Mr. Rhodes and the loyalists of Cape Colony. When the whole truth on that period comes to be known, it will probably be found that British rule was in very grave danger in the latter half of the year 1884.

Certainly no small expedition ever accomplished so much for the Empire, at so trifling a cost and without the effusion of blood, as that which was now sent out. It was entrusted to Sir Charles Warren. He recruited his force mainly from the loyalists of South Africa, though a body named Methuen's Horse went out from these islands. In all it numbered nearly 5000 men. Moving quickly from the Orange River through Griqualand West, he reached the banks of the Vaal at Barkly Camp by January 22, 1885, that is, only six weeks after his arrival at Cape Town. At the same time 3000 troops took their station in the north of Natal in readiness to attack the Transvaal Boers, should they fall upon Warren. It soon transpired, however, that the more respectable Boers had little sympathy with the raiders into Bechuanaland. These again were so far taken aback by the speed of his movements and the thoroughness of his organisation as to manifest little desire to attack a force which seemed ever ready at all points and spied on them from balloons. The behaviour of the commander was as tactful as his dispositions were effective; and, as a result of these favouring circumstances (which the superficial may ascribe to luck), he was able speedily to clear Bechuanaland of those intruders[447].

[Footnote 447: Sec Sir Charles Warren's short account of the expedition, in the Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute for 1885-86, pp. 5-45; also Mackenzie's Austral Africa, vol. ii. ad init., and John Mackenzie, by W.D. Mackenzie (1902).]

On September 30 it became what it has since remained—a British possession, safeguarding the route into the interior and holding apart the Transvaal Boers from the contact with the Germans of Damaraland which could hardly fail to produce an explosion. The importance of the latter fact has already been made clear. The significance of the former will be apparent when we remember that Mr. Rhodes, in his later and better-known character of Empire-builder, was able from Bechuanaland as a base to extend the domain of his Chartered Company up to the southern end of Lake Tanganyika in the year 1889.

It is well known that Rhodes hoped to extend the domain of his company as far north as the southern limit of the British East Africa Company. Here, however, the Germans forestalled him by their energy in Central Africa. Finally, the Anglo-German agreement of 1890 assigned to Germany all the hinterland of Zanzibar as far west as the frontier of the Congo Free State, thus sterilising the idea of an all-British route from the Cape to Cairo, which possessed for some minds an alliterative and all-compelling charm.

As for the future of the vast territory which came to be known popularly as Rhodesia, we may note that the part bordering on Lake Nyassa was severed from the South Africa Company in 1894, and was styled the British Central Africa Protectorate. In 1895 the south of Bechuanaland was annexed to Cape Colony, a step greatly regretted by many well-wishers of the natives. The intelligent chief, Khama, visited England in that year, mainly in order to protest against the annexation of his lands by Cape Colony and by the South Africa Company. In this he was successful; he and other chiefs are directly under the protection of the Crown, but parts of the north and east of Bechuanaland are administered by the British South Africa Company. The tracts between the Rivers Limpopo and Zambesi, and thence north to the Tanganyika, form a territory vaster and more populous than any which has in recent years been administered by a company; and its rule leaves much to be desired.

* * * * *

It is time now to turn to the expansion of German and British spheres of influence in the Bight of Guinea and along the course of the Rivers Niger and Benue. In the innermost part of the Bight of Guinea, British commercial interests had been paramount up to about 1880; but about that time German factories were founded in increasing numbers, and, owing to the dilatory action of British firms, gained increasing hold on the trade of several districts. The respect felt by native chiefs for British law was evinced by a request of five of the "Kings" of the Cameroons that they might have it introduced into their lands (1879). Authorities at Downing Street and Whitehall were deaf to the request. In striking contrast to this was the action of the German Government, which early in the year 1884 sent Dr. Nachtigall to explore those districts. The German ambassador in London informed Earl Granville on April 19, 1884, that the object of his mission was "to complete the information now in possession of the Foreign Office at Berlin on the state of German commerce on that coast." He therefore requested that the British authorities there should be furnished with suitable recommendations for his reception[448]. This was accordingly done, and, after receiving hospitality at various consulates, he made treaties with native chiefs, and hoisted the German flag at several points previously considered to be under British influence. This was especially the case on the coast to the east of the River Niger.

[Footnote 448: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1885), p. 14.]

The British Government was incensed at this procedure, and all the more so as plans were then on foot for consolidating British influence in the Cameroons. On that river there were six British, and two German firms, and the natives had petitioned for the protection of England; but H.M.S. Flint, on steaming into that river on July 20, found that the German flag had been hoisted by the officers of the German warship Moewe. Nachtigall had signed a treaty with "King Bell" on July 12, whereby native habits were to remain unchanged and no customs dues levied, but the whole district was placed under German suzerainty[449]. The same had happened at neighbouring districts. Thereupon Consul Hewitt, in accordance with instructions from London, established British supremacy at the Oil Rivers, Old and New Calabar, and several other points adjoining the Niger delta as far west as Lagos.

[Footnote 449: Ibid. p. 24.]

For some time there was much friction between London and Berlin on these questions, but on May 7, 1885, an agreement was finally arrived at, a line drawn between the Rio del Rey and the Old Calabar River being fixed on as the boundary of the spheres of influence of the two Powers, while Germany further recognised the sovereignty of Britain over St. Lucia Bay in Zululand, and promised not to annex any land between Natal and Delagoa Bay[450]. Many censures were lavished on this agreement, which certainly sacrificed important British interests in the Cameroons in consideration of the abandonment of German claims on the Zulu coast which were legally untenable. Thus, by pressing on various points formerly regarded as under British influence, Bismarck secured at least one considerable district—one moreover that is the healthiest on the West African coast. Subsequent expansion made of the Cameroons a colony containing some 140,000 square miles with more than 1,100,000 inhabitants.

[Footnote 450: Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 6 (1885), p. 2.]

It is an open secret that Germany was working hard in 1884-85 to get a foothold on the Lower Niger and its great affluent, the Benue. Two important colonial societies combined to send out Herr Flegel in the spring of 1885 to secure possession of districts on those rivers where British interests had hitherto been paramount. Fortunately for the cause of Free Trade (which Germany had definitely abandoned in 1880) private individuals had had enough foresight and determination to step in with effect, and to repair the harm which otherwise must have come from the absorption of Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues in home affairs.

In the present case, British merchants were able to save the situation, because in the year 1879 the firms having important business dealings with the River Niger combined to form the National African Company in order to withstand the threatening pressure of the French advance soon to be described. In 1882 the Company's powers were extended, largely owing to Sir George Taubman Goldie, and it took the name of the National African Company. Extending its operations up the River Niger, it gradually cut the ground from under the French companies which had been formed for the exploitation and ultimate acquisition of those districts, so that after a time the French shareholders agreed to merge themselves in the British enterprise.

This important step was taken just in time to forestall German action from the side of the Cameroons, which threatened to shut out British trade from the banks of the River Benue and the shores of Lake Chad. Forewarned of this danger, Sir George Goldie and his directors urged that bold and successful explorer, Mr. Joseph Thomson, to safeguard the nation's interests along the Benue and north thereof. Thomson had scarcely recovered from the hardships of his epoch-marking journey through Masailand; but he now threw himself into the breach, quickly travelled from England to the Niger, and by his unrivalled experience alike of the means of travel and of native ways, managed to frame treaties with the Sultans of Sokoto and Gando, before the German envoy reached his destination (1885). The energy of the National African Company and the promptitude and tact of Mr. Thomson secured for his countrymen undisputed access to Lake Chad and the great country peopled by the warlike Haussas[451].

[Footnote 451: This greatest among recent explorers of Africa died in 1895. He never received any appropriate reward from the Court for his great services to science and to the nation at large.]

Seeing that both France and Germany seek to restrict foreign trade in their colonies, while Great Britain gives free access to all merchants on equal terms, we may regard this brilliant success as a gain, not only for the United Kingdom, but for the commerce of the world. The annoyance expressed in influential circles in Germany at the failure of the plans for capturing the trade of the Benue district served to show the magnitude of the interests which had there been looked upon as prospectively and exclusively German. The delimitation of the new British territory with the Cameroon territory and its north-eastern extension to Lake Chad was effected by an Anglo-German agreement of 1886, Germany gaining part of the upper Benue and the southern shore of Lake Chad. In all, the territories controlled by the British Company comprised about 500,000 square miles (more than four times the size of the United Kingdom).

It is somewhat characteristic of British colonial procedure in that period that many difficulties were raised as to the grant of a charter to the company which had carried through this work of national importance; but on July 10, 1886, it gained that charter with the title of the Royal Niger Company. The chief difficulties since that date have arisen from French aggressions on the west, which will be noticed presently.

In 1897 the Royal Niger Company overthrew the power of the turbulent and slave-raiding Sultan of Nupe, near the Niger, but, as has so often happened, the very success of the company doomed it to absorption by the nation. On January 1, 1900, its governing powers were handed over to the Crown; the Union Jack replaced the private flag; and Sir Frederick Lugard added to the services which he had rendered to the Empire in Uganda by undertaking the organisation of this great and fertile colony. In an interesting paper, read before the Royal Geographical Society in November 1903, he thus characterised his administrative methods: "To rule through the native chiefs, and, while checking the extortionate levies of the past, fairly to assess and enforce the ancient tribute. By this means a fair revenue will be assured to the emirs, in lieu of their former source of wealth, which consisted in slaves and slave-raiding, and in extortionate taxes on trade. . . . Organised slave-raiding has become a thing of the past in the country where it lately existed in its worst form." He further stated that the new colony has made satisfactory progress; but light railways were much needed to connect Lake Chad with the Upper Nile and with the Gulf of Guinea. The area of Nigeria (apart from the Niger Coast Protectorate) is about 500,000 square miles[452].

[Footnote 452: The Geographical Journal, January 1, 1904, pp. 5, 18, 27.]

The result, then, of the activity of French and Germans in West Africa has, on the whole, not been adverse to British interests. The efforts leading to these noteworthy results above would scarcely have been made but for some external stimulus. As happened in the days of Dupleix and Montcalm, and again at the time of the little-known efforts of Napoleon I. to appropriate the middle of Australia, the spur of foreign competition furthered not only the cause of exploration but also the expansion of the British Empire.

* * * * *

The expansion of French influence in Africa has been far greater than that of Germany; and, while arousing less attention on political grounds, it has probably achieved more solid results—a fact all the more remarkable when we bear in mind the exhaustion of France in 1871, and the very slow growth of her population at home. From 1872 to 1901 the number of her inhabitants rose from 36,103,000 to 38,962,000; while in the same time the figures for the German Empire showed an increase from 41,230,000 to 56,862,000. To some extent, then, the colonial growth of France is artificial; at least, it is not based on the imperious need which drives forth the surplus population of Great Britain and Germany. Nevertheless, so far as governmental energy and organising skill can make colonies successful, the French possessions in West Africa, Indo-China, Madagascar, and the Pacific, have certainly justified their existence[453]. No longer do we hear the old joke that a French colonial settlement consists of a dozen officials, a restaurateur, and a hair-dresser.

[Footnote 453: See La Colonisation chez les Peuples modernes, by Paul Leroy-Beaulieu; Discours et Opinions, by Jules Ferry; La France coloniale (6th edit. 1893), by Alfred Rambaud; La Colonisation de l'Indo-Chine (1902), by Chailley-Bert; L'Indo-Chine francaise (1905), by Paul Doumer (describing its progress under his administration); Notre Epopee coloniale (1901), by P. Legendre; La Mise en Valeur de notre Domaine coloniale (1903), by C. Guy; Un Siecle d'Expansion coloniale (1900), by M. Dubois and A. Terrier; Le Partage de l'Afrique (1898), by V. Deville.]

In the seventies the French Republic took up once more the work of colonial expansion in West Africa, in which the Emperor Napoleon III. had taken great interest. The Governor of Senegal, M. Faidherbe, pushed on expeditions from that colony to the head waters of the Niger in the years 1879-81. There the French came into collision with a powerful slave-raiding chief, Samory, whom they worsted in a series of campaigns in the five years following. Events therefore promised to fulfil the desires of Gambetta, who, during his brief term of office in 1881, initiated plans for the construction of a trans-Saharan railway (never completed) and the establishment of two powerful French companies on the Upper Niger. French energy secured for the Republic the very lands which the great traveller Mungo Park first revealed to the gaze of civilised peoples. It is worthy of note that in the year 1865 the House of Commons, when urged to promote British trade and influence on that mighty river, passed a resolution declaring that any extension of our rule in that quarter was inexpedient. So rapid, however, was the progress of the French arms on the Niger, and in the country behind our Gold Coast settlements, that private individuals in London and Liverpool began to take action. Already in 1878 the British firms trading with the Lower Niger had formed the United African Company, with the results noted above. A British Protectorate was also established in the year 1884 over the coast districts around Lagos, "with the view of guarding their interests against the advance of the French and Germans[454]."

[Footnote 454: For its progress see Colonial Reports, Niger Coast Protectorate, for 1898-99. For the Franco-German agreement of December 24, 1885, delimiting their West African lands, see Banning, Le Partage politique de l'Afrique, pp. 22-26. For the Anglo-French agreement of August 10, 1889, see Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 3 (1890).]

Meanwhile the French were making rapid progress under the lead of Gallieni and Archinard. In 1890 the latter conquered Segu-Sikoro, and a year later Bissandugu. A far greater prize fell to the tricolour at the close of 1893. Boiteux and Bonnier succeeded in leading a flotilla and a column to the mysterious city of Timbuctu; but a little later a French force sustained a serious check from the neighbouring tribes. The affair only spurred on the Republic to still greater efforts, which led finally to the rout of Samory's forces and his capture in the year 1898. That redoubtable chief, who had defied France for fifteen years, was sent as a prisoner to Gaboon.

These campaigns and other more peaceful "missions" added to the French possessions a vast territory of some 800,000 square kilometres in the basin of the Niger. Meanwhile disputes had occurred with the King of Dahomey, which led to the utter overthrow of his power by Colonel Dodds in a brilliant little campaign in 1892. The crowned slave-raider was captured and sent to Martinique.

These rapid conquests, especially those on the Niger, brought France and England more than once to the verge of war. In the autumn of the year 1897, the aggressions of the French at and near Bussa, on the right bank of the Lower Niger, led to a most serious situation. Despite its inclusion in the domains of the Royal Niger Company, that town was occupied by French troops. At the Guildhall banquet (November 9), Lord Salisbury made the firm but really prudent declaration that the Government would brook no interference with the treaty rights of a British company. The pronouncement was timely; for French action at Bussa, taken in conjunction with the Marchand expedition from the Niger basin to the Upper Nile at Fashoda (see Chapter XVII.), seemed to betoken a deliberate defiance of the United Kingdom. Ultimately, however, the tricolour flag was withdrawn from situations that were legally untenable. These questions were settled by the Anglo-French agreement of 1898, which, we may add, cleared the ground for the still more important compact of 1904.

* * * * *

The limits of this chapter having already been passed, it is impossible to advert to the parts played by Italy and Portugal in the partition of Africa. At best they have been subsidiary; the colonial efforts of Italy in the Red Sea and in Somaliland have as yet produced little else than disaster and disappointment. But for the part played by Serpa Pinto in the Zambesi basin, the role of Portugal has been one of quiescence. Some authorities, as will appear in the following chapter, would describe it by a less euphonious term; it is now known that slave-hunting goes on in the upper part of the Zambesi basin owned by them. The French settlement at Obock, opposite Perim, and the partition of Somaliland between England and Italy, can also only be named.

The general results of the partition of Africa may best be realised by studying the map at the close of this volume, and by the following statistics as presented by Mr. Scott Keltie in the Encyclopoedia Britannica:—

Square Miles. French territories in Africa (inclusive of the Sahara) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,804,974 British (inclusive of the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies, but exclusive of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan—610,000 square miles) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,713,910 German. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 933,380 Congo Free State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900,000 Portuguese. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 790,124 Italian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188,500

These results correspond in the main to the foresight and energy displayed by the several States, and to the initial advantages which they enjoyed on the coast of Africa. The methods employed by France and Germany present a happy union of individual initiative with intelligent and persistent direction by the State; for it must be remembered that up to the year 1880 the former possessed few good bases of operation, and the latter none whatever. The natural portals of Africa were in the hands of Great Britain and Portugal. It is difficult to say what would have been the present state of Africa if everything had depended on the officials at Downing Street and Whitehall. Certainly the expansion of British influence in that continent (apart from the Nile valley) would have been insignificant but for the exertions of private individuals. Among them the names of Joseph Thomson, Sir William Mackinnon, Sir John Kirk, Sir Harry Johnston, Sir George Goldie, Sir Frederick Lugard, John Mackenzie, and Cecil Rhodes, will be remembered as those of veritable Empire-builders.

Viewing the matter from the European standpoint, the partition of Africa may be regarded as a triumph for the cause of peace. In the years 1880-1900, France, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Italy, and Belgium came into possession of new lands far larger than those for which French and British fleets and armies had fought so desperately in the eighteenth century. If we go further back and think of the wars waged for the possession of the barrier towns of Flanders, the contrast between the fruitless strifes of that age and the peaceful settlement of the affairs of a mighty continent will appear still more striking. It is true, of course, that the cutting up of the lands of natives by white men is as indefensible morally as it is inevitable in the eager expansiveness of the present age. Further, it may be admitted that the methods adopted towards the aborigines have sometimes been disgraceful. But even so, the events of the years 1880-1900, black as some of them are, compare favourably with those of the long ages when the term "African trade" was merely a euphemism for slave-hunting.

* * * * *

NOTE.—The Parliamentary Papers on Angra Pequena (1884) show that the dispute with Germany was largely due to the desire of Lord Derby to see whether the Government of Cape Colony would bear the cost of administration of that whole coast if it were annexed. Owing to a change of Ministry at Cape Town early in 1884, the affirmative reply was very long in coming; and meantime Germany took decisive action, as described on p. 524.



CHAPTER XIX

THE CONGO FREE STATE

"The object which unites us here to-day is one of those which deserve in the highest degree to occupy the friends of humanity. To open to civilisation the only part of our globe where it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness which envelops entire populations, is, I venture to say, a crusade worthy of this century of progress."—KING LEOPOLD II., Speech to the Geographical Congress of 1876 at Brussels.

The Congo Free State owes its origin, firstly, to the self-denying pioneer-work of Livingstone; secondly, to the energy of the late Sir H.M. Stanley in clearing up the problems of African exploration which that devoted missionary had not fully solved, and thirdly, to the interest which His Majesty, Leopold II., King of the Belgians, has always taken in the opening up of that continent. It will be well briefly to note the chief facts which helped to fasten the gaze of Europe on the Congo basin; for these events had a practical issue; they served to bring King Leopold and Mr. Stanley into close touch with a view to the establishment of a settled government in the heart of Africa.

In 1874 Mr. H.M. Stanley (he was not knighted until the year 1899) received a commission from the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph to proceed to Central Africa in order to complete the geographical discoveries which had been cut short by the lamented death of Livingstone near Lake Bangweolo. That prince of explorers had not fully solved the riddle of the waterways of Central Africa. He had found what were really the head waters of the Congo at and near Lake Moero; and had even struck the mighty river itself as far down as Nyangwe; but he could not prove that these great streams formed the upper waters of the Congo.

Stanley's journey in 1874-1877 led to many important discoveries. He first made clear the shape and extent of Victoria Nyanza; he tracked the chief feeder of that vast reservoir; and he proved that Lake Tanganyika drained into the River Congo. Voyaging down its course to the mouth, he found great and fertile territories, thus proving what Livingstone could only surmise, that here was the natural waterway into the heart of "the Dark Continent."

Up to the year 1877 nearly all the pioneer work in the interior of the Congo basin was the outcome of Anglo-American enterprise. Therefore, so far as priority of discovery confers a claim to possession, that claim belonged to the English-speaking peoples. King Leopold recognised the fact and allowed a certain space of time for British merchants to enter on the possession of what was potentially their natural "sphere of influence." Stanley, however, failed to convince his countrymen of the feasibility of opening up that vast district to peaceful commerce. At that time they were suffering from severe depression in trade and agriculture, and from the disputes resulting from the Eastern Question both in the Near East and in Afghanistan. For the time "the weary Titan" was preoccupied and could not turn his thoughts to commercial expansion, which would speedily have cured his evils. Consequently, in November 1878, Stanley proceeded to Brussels in order to present to King Leopold the opportunity which England let slip.

Already the King of the Belgians had succeeded in arousing widespread interest in the exploration of Africa. In the autumn of 1876 he convened a meeting of leading explorers and geographers of the six Great Powers and of Belgium for the discussion of questions connected with the opening up of that continent; but at that time, and until the results of Stanley's journey were made known, the King and his coadjutors turned their gaze almost exclusively on East Africa. It is therefore scarcely appropriate for one of the Belgian panegyrists of the King to proclaim that when Central Africa celebrates its Day of Thanksgiving for the countless blessings of civilisation conferred by that monarch, it will look back on the day of meeting of that Conference (Sept. 12, 1876) as the dawn of the new era of goodwill and prosperity[455]. King Leopold, in opening the Conference, made use of the inspiring words quoted at the head of this chapter, and asked the delegates to discuss the means to be adopted for "planting definitely the standard of civilisation on the soil of Central Africa."

[Footnote 455: L'Afrique nouvelle. Par. E. Descamps, Brussels, Paris, 1903, p. 8.]

As a result of the Conference, "The International Association for the Exploration and Civilisation of Africa" was founded. It had committees in most of the capitals of Europe, but the energy of King Leopold, and the sums which he and his people advanced for the pioneer work of the Association, early gave to that of Brussels a priority of which good use was made in the sequel[456]. The Great Powers were at this time distracted by the Russo-Turkish war and by the acute international crisis that supervened. Thus the jealousies and weakness of the Great Powers left the field free for Belgian activities, which, owing to the energy of a British explorer, were definitely concentrated upon the exploitation of the Congo.

[Footnote 456: For details see J. de C. Macdonell, King Leopold II., p. 113.]

On November 25, 1878, a separate committee of the International Association was formed at Brussels with the name of "Comite d'Etudes du Haut Congo." In the year 1879 it took the title of the "International Association of the Congo," and for all practical purposes superseded its progenitor. Outwardly, however, the Association was still international. Stanley became its chief agent on the River Congo, and in the years 1879-1880 made numerous treaties with local chiefs. In February 1880 he founded the first station of the Association at Vivi, and within four years established twenty-four stations on the main river and its chief tributaries. The cost of these explorations was largely borne by King Leopold.

The King also commissioned Lieutenant von Wissmann to complete his former work of discovery in the great district watered by the River Kasai and its affluents; and in and after 1886 he and his coadjutor, Dr. Wolf, greatly extended the knowledge of the southern and central parts of the Congo basin[457]. In the meantime the British missionaries, Rev. W.H. Bentley and Rev. G. Grenfell, carried on explorations, especially on the River Ubangi, and in the lands between it and the Congo. The part which missionaries have taken in the work of discovery and pacification entitles them to a high place in the records of equatorial exploration; and their influence has often been exerted beneficially on behalf of the natives. We may add here that M. de Brazza did good work for the French tricolour in exploring the land north of the Congo and Ubangi rivers; he founded several stations, which were to develop into the great French Congo colony.

[Footnote 457: H. von Wissmann, My Second Journey through Equatorial Africa, 1891. Rev. W.H. Bentley, Pioneering on the Congo, 2 vols.]

Meanwhile events had transpired in Europe which served to give stability to these undertakings. The energy thrown into the exploration of the Congo basin soon awakened the jealousy of the Power which had long ago discovered the mouth of the great river and its adjacent coasts. In the years 1883, 1884, Portugal put forward a claim to the overlordship of those districts on the ground of priority of discovery and settlement. On all sides that claim was felt to be unreasonable. The occupation of that territory by the Portuguese had been short-lived, and nearly all traces of it had disappeared, except at Kabinda and one or two points on the coast. The fact that Diogo Cam and others had discovered the mouth of the Congo in the fifteenth century was a poor argument for closing to other peoples, three centuries later, the whole of the vast territory between that river and the mouth of the Zambesi. These claims raised the problem of the Hinterland, that is, the ownership of the whole range of territory behind a coast line. Furthermore, the Portuguese officials were notoriously inefficient and generally corrupt; while the customs system of that State was such as to fetter the activities of trade with shackles of a truly mediaeval type.

Over against these musty claims of Portugal there stood the offers of "The International Association of the Congo" to bring the blessings of free trade and civilisation to downtrodden millions of negroes, if only access were granted from the sea. The contrast between the dull obscurantism of Lisbon and the benevolent intentions of Brussels struck the popular imagination. At that time the eye of faith discerned in the King of the Belgians the ideal godfather of a noble undertaking, and great was the indignation when Portugal interfered with freedom of access to the sea at the mouth of the Congo. Various matters were also in dispute between Portugal and Great Britain respecting trading rights at that important outlet; and they were by no means settled by an Anglo-Portuguese Convention of February 26 (1884), in which Lord Granville, Foreign Minister in the Gladstone Cabinet, was thought to display too much deference to questionable claims. Protests were urged against this Convention, by the United States, France, and Germany, with the result that the Lisbon Government proposed to refer all these matters to a Conference of the Powers; and arrangements were soon made for the summoning of their representatives to Berlin, under the presidency of Prince Bismarck.

Before the Conference met, the United States took the decisive step of recognising the rights of the Association to the government of that river-basin (April 10, 1884)—a proceeding which ought to have secured to the United States an abiding influence on the affairs of the State which they did so much to create. The example set by the United States was soon followed by the other Powers. In that same month France withdrew the objections which she had raised to the work of the Association, and came to terms with it in a treaty whereby she gained priority in the right of purchase of its claims and possessions. The way having been thus cleared, the Berlin Conference met on November 15, 1884. Prince Bismarck suggested that the three chief topics for consideration were (1) the freedom of navigation and of trade in the Congo area; (2) freedom of navigation on the River Niger; (3) the formalities to be thenceforth observed in lawful and valid annexations of territories in Africa. The British plenipotentiary, Sir Edward Malet, however, pointed out that, while his Government wished to preserve freedom of navigation and of trade upon the Niger, it would object to the formation of any international commission for those purposes, seeing that Great Britain was the sole proprietory Power on the Lower Niger (see Chapter XVIII.)[458]. This firm declaration possibly prevented the intrusion of claims which might have led to the whittling down of British rights on that great river. An Anglo-French Commission was afterwards appointed to supervise the navigation of the Niger.

[Footnote 458: See Protocols, Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 4 (1885), pp. 119 et seq.]

The main question being thus concentrated on the Congo, Portugal was obliged to defer to the practically unanimous refusal of the Powers to recognise her claims over the lower parts of that river; and on November 19 she conceded the principle of freedom of trade on those waters. Next, it was decided that the Congo Association should acquire and hold governing rights over nearly the whole of the vast expanse drained by the Congo, with some reservations in favour of France on the north and Portugal on the south. The extension of the principle of freedom of trade nearly to the Indian Ocean was likewise affirmed; and the establishment of monopolies or privileges "of any kind" was distinctly forbidden within the Congo area.

An effort strictly to control the sale of intoxicating liquors to natives lapsed owing to the strong opposition of Germany and Holland, though a weaker motion on the same all-important matter found acceptance (December 22). On January 7, 1885, the Conference passed a stringent declaration against the slave-trade:—". . . these regions shall not be used as markets or routes of transit for the trade in slaves, no matter of what race. Each of these Powers binds itself to use all the means at its disposal to put an end to this trade, and to punish those engaged in it."

The month of February saw the settlement of the boundary claims with France and Portugal, on bases nearly the same as those still existing. The Congo Association gained the northern bank of the river at its mouth, but ceded to Portugal a small strip of coast line a little further north around Kabinda. These arrangements were, on the whole, satisfactory to the three parties. France now definitively gained by treaty right her vast Congo territory of some 257,000 square miles in area, while Portugal retained on the south of the river a coast nearly 1000 miles in length and a dominion estimated at 351,000 square miles. The Association, though handing over to these Powers respectively 60,000 and 45,000 square miles of land which its pioneers hoped to obtain, nevertheless secured for itself an immense territory of some 870,000 square miles.

The General Act of the Berlin Conference was signed on February 26, 1885. Its terms and those of the Protocols prove conclusively that the governing powers assigned to the Congo Association were assigned to a neutral and international State, responsible to the Powers which gave it its existence. In particular, Articles IV. and V. of the General Act ran as follows:—

Merchandise imported into these regions shall remain free from import and transit dues. The Powers reserve to themselves to determine, after the lapse of twenty years, whether this freedom of import shall be retained or not.

No Power which exercises, or shall exercise, sovereign rights in the above mentioned regions shall be allowed to grant therein a monopoly or favour of any kind in matters of trade. Foreigners, without distinction, shall enjoy protection of their persons and property, as well as the right of acquiring and transferring movable and immovable possessions, and national rights and treatment in the exercise of their professions.

Before describing the growth of the Congo State, it is needful to refer to two preliminary considerations. Firstly, it should be noted that the Berlin Conference committed the mistake of failing to devise any means for securing the observance of the principles there laid down. Its work, considered in the abstract, was excellent. The mere fact that representatives of the Powers could meet amicably to discuss and settle the administration of a great territory which in other ages would have provoked them to deadly strifes, was in itself a most hopeful augury, and possibly the success of the Conference inspired a too confident belief in the effective watchfulness of the Powers over the welfare of the young State to which they then stood as godfathers. In any case it must be confessed that they have since interpreted their duties in the easy way to which godfathers are all too prone. As in the case of the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, so in that of the Conference of Berlin of 1885, the fault lay not in the promise but in the failure of the executors to carry out the terms of the promise.

Another matter remains to be noted. It resulted from the demands urged by Portugal in 1883-84. By way of retort, the plenipotentiaries now declared any occupation of territory to be valid only when it had effectively taken place and had been notified to all the Powers represented at the Conference. It also defined a "sphere of influence" as the area within which one Power is recognised as possessing priority of claims over other States. The doctrine was to prove convenient for expansive States in the future.

The first important event in the life of the new State was the assumption by King Leopold II. of sovereign powers. All nations, and Belgium not the least, were startled by his announcement to his Ministers, on April 16, 1885, that he desired the assent of the Belgian Parliament to this proceeding. He stated that the union between Belgium and the Congo State would be merely personal, and that the latter would enjoy, like the former, the benefits of neutrality. The Parliament on April 28 gave its assent, with but one dissentient voice, on the understanding stated above. The Powers also signified their approval. On August 1, King Leopold informed them of the facts just stated, and announced that the new State took the title of the Congo Free State (L'Etat independant du Congo)[459].

[Footnote 459: The Story of the Congo Free State, by H.W. Wack (New York, 1905), p. 101; Wauters, L'Etat independant du Congo, pp. 36-37.]

Questions soon arose concerning the delimitation of the boundary with the French Congo territory; and these led to the signing of a protocol at Brussels on April 29, 1887, whereby the Congo Free State gave up certain of its claims in the northern part of the Congo region (the right bank of the River Ubangi), but exacted in return the addition of a statement "that the right of pre-emption accorded to France could not be claimed as against Belgium, of which King Leopold is sovereign[460]."

[Footnote 460: The Congo State, by D.C. Boulger (London, 1896), p. 62.]

There seems, however, to be some question whether this clause is likely to have any practical effect. The clause is obviously inoperative if Belgium ultimately declines to take over the Congo territory, and there is at least the chance that this will happen. If it does happen, King Leopold and the Belgian Parliament recognise the prior claim of France to all the Congolese territory. The King and the Congo Ministers seem to have made use of this circumstance so as to strengthen the financial relations of France to their new State in several ways, notably in the formation of monopolist groups for the exploitation of Congoland. For the present we may remark that by a clause of the Franco-Belgian Treaty of Feb. 5, 1895, the Government of Brussels declared that it "recognises the right of preference possessed by France over its Congolese possessions, in case of their compulsory alienation, in whole or in part[461]."

[Footnote 461: Cattier, Droit et Administration de l'Etat independent du Congo, p. 82.]

Meanwhile King Leopold proceeded as if he were the absolute ruler of the new State. He bestowed on it a constitution on the most autocratic basis. M. Cattier, in his account of that constitution sums it up by stating that

The sovereign is the direct source of legislative, executive, and judiciary powers. He can, if he chooses, delegate their exercise to certain functionaries, but this delegation has no other source than his will. . . . He can issue rules, on which, so long as they last, is based the validity of certain acts by himself or by his delegates. But he can cancel these rules whenever they appear to him troublesome, useless, or dangerous. The organisation of justice, the composition of the army, financial systems, and industrial and commercial institutions—all are established solely by him in accordance with his just or faulty conceptions as to their usefulness or efficiency[462].

[Footnote 462: Cattier, op. cit. pp. 134-135.]

A natural outcome of such a line of policy was the gradual elimination of non-Belgian officials. In July 1886 Sir Francis de Winton, Stanley's successor in the administration of the Congo area, gave place to a Belgian "Governor-General," M. Janssen; and similar changes were made in all grades of the service.

Meanwhile other events were occurring which enabled the officials of the Congo State greatly to modify the provisions laid down at the Berlin Conference. These events were as follows. For many years the Arab slave-traders had been extending their raids in easterly and south-easterly directions, until they began to desolate the parts of the Congo State nearest to the great lakes and the Bahr-el-Ghazal.

Their activity may be ascribed to the following causes. The slave-trade has for generations been pursued in Africa. The negro tribes themselves have long practised it; and the Arabs, in their gradual conquest of many districts of Central Africa, found it to be by far the most profitable of all pursuits. The market was almost boundless; for since the Congress of Vienna (1815) and the Congress of Verona (1822) the Christian Powers had forbidden their subjects any longer to pursue that nefarious calling. It is true that kidnapping of negroes went on secretly, despite all the efforts of British cruisers to capture the slavers. It is said that the last seizure of a Portuguese schooner illicitly trading in human flesh was made off the Congo coast as late as the year 1868[463]. But the cessation of the trans-Atlantic slave-trade only served to stimulate the Arab man-hunters of Eastern Africa to greater efforts; and the rise of Mahdism quickened the demand for slaves in an unprecedented manner. Thus, the hateful trade went on apace, threatening to devastate the Continent which explorers, missionaries, and traders were opening up.

[Footnote 463: A.J. Wauters, L'Etat independent du Congo, p. 52.]

The civilising and the devastating processes were certain soon to clash; and, as Stanley had foreseen, the conflict broke out on the Upper Congo. There the slave-raiders, subsidised or led by Arabs of Zanzibar, were specially active. Working from Ujiji and other bases, they attacked some of the expeditions sent by the Congo Free State. Chief among the raiders was a half-caste Arab negro nick-named Tipu Tib ("The gatherer of wealth"), who by his energy and cunning had become practically the master of a great district between the Congo and Lake Tanganyika. At first (1887-1888) the Congo Free State adopted Stanley's suggestion of appointing Tipu Tib to be its governor of the Stanley Falls district, at a salary of L30 a month[464]. So artificial an arrangement soon broke down, and war broke out early in 1892. The forces of the Congo Free State, led by Commandants Dhanis and Lothaire, and by Captain S.L. Hinde, finally worsted the Arabs after two long and wearisome campaigns waged on the Upper Congo. Into the details of the war it is impossible to enter. The accounts of all the operations, including that of Captain Hinde[465], are written with a certain reserve; and the impression that the writers were working on behalf of civilisation and humanity is somewhat blurred by the startling admissions made by Captain Hinde in a paper read by him before the Royal Geographical Society in London, on March 11, 1895. He there stated that the Arabs, "despite their slave-raiding propensities," had "converted the Manyema and Malela country into one of the most prosperous in Central Africa." He also confessed that during the fighting the two flourishing towns, Nyangwe and Kasongo, had been wholly swept away. In view of these statements the results of the campaign cannot be regarded with unmixed satisfaction.

[Footnote 464: Stanley, In Darkest Africa, vol. i. pp. 60-70.]

[Footnote 465: The Fall of the Congo Arabs, by Capt. S.L. Hinde (London, 1897).]

Such, however, was not the view taken at the time. Not long before, the Continent had rung with the sermons and speeches of Cardinal Lavigerie, Bishop of Algiers, who, like a second Peter the Hermit, called all Christians to unite in a great crusade for the extirpation of slavery. The outcome of it all was the meeting of an Anti-Slavery Conference at Brussels, at the close of 1889, in which the Powers that had framed the Berlin Act again took part. The second article passed at Brussels asserted among other things the duties of the Powers "in giving aid to commercial enterprises to watch over their legality, controlling especially the contracts for service entered into with natives." The abuses in the trade in firearms were to be carefully checked and controlled.

Towards the close of the Conference a proposal was brought forward (May 10, 1890) to the effect that, as the suppression of the slave-trade and the work of upraising the natives would entail great expense, it was desirable to annul the clause in the Berlin Act prohibiting the imposition of import duties for, at least, twenty years from that date (that is, up to the year 1905). The proposal seemed so plausible as to disarm the opposition of all the Powers, except Holland, which strongly protested against the change. Lord Salisbury's Government neglected to safeguard British interests in this matter; and, despite the unremitting opposition of the Dutch Government, the obnoxious change was finally registered on January 2, 1892, it being understood that the duties were not to exceed 10 per cent ad valorem except in the case of spirituous liquors, and that no differential treatment would be accorded to the imports of any nation or nations.

Thus the European Powers, yielding to the specious plea that they must grant the Congo Free State the power of levying customs dues in order to further its philanthropic aims, gave up one of the fundamentals agreed on at the Berlin Conference. The raison d'etre of the Congo Free State was, that it stood for freedom of trade in that great area; and to sign away one of the birthrights of modern civilisation, owing to the plea of a temporary want of cash in Congoland, can only be described as the act of a political Esau. The General Act of the Brussels Conference received a provisional sanction (the clause respecting customs dues not yet being definitively settled) on July 2, 1890[466].

[Footnote 466: On August 1, 1890, the Sultan of Zanzibar declared that no sale of slaves should thenceforth take place in his dominions. He also granted to slaves the right of appeal to him in case they were cruelly treated. See Parl. Papers, Africa, No. 1 (1890-91).]

On the next day the Congo Free State entered into a financial arrangement with the Belgian Government which marked one more step in the reversal of the policy agreed on at Berlin five years previously. In this connection we must note that King Leopold by his will, dated August 2, 1889, bequeathed to Belgium after his death all his sovereign rights over that State, "together with all the benefits, rights and advantages appertaining to that sovereignty." Apparently, the occasion that called forth the will was the urgent need of a loan of 10,000,000 francs which the Congo State pressed the Belgian Government to make on behalf of the Congo railway. Thus, on the very eve of the summoning of the European Conference at Brussels, the Congo Government (that is, King Leopold) had appealed, not to the Great Powers, but to the Belgian Government, and had sought to facilitate the grant of the desired loan by the prospect of the ultimate transfer of his sovereign rights to Belgium.

Unquestionably the King had acted very generously in the past toward the Congo Association and State. It has even been affirmed that his loans often amounted to the sum of 40,000,000 francs a year; but, even so, that did not confer the right to will away to any one State the results of an international enterprise. As a matter of fact, however, the Congo State was at that time nearly bankrupt; and in this circumstance, doubtless, may be found an explanation of the apathy of the Powers in presence of an infraction of the terms of the Berlin Act of 1885.

We are now in a position to understand more clearly the meaning of the Convention of July 3, 1890, between the Congo Free State and the Belgian Government. By its terms the latter pledged itself to advance a loan of 25,000,000 francs to the Congo State in the course of ten years, without interest, on condition that at the close of six months after the expiration of that time Belgium should have the right of annexing the Free State with all its possessions and liabilities.

Into the heated discussions which took place in the Belgian Parliament in the spring and summer of 1901 respecting the Convention of July 3, 1890, we cannot enter. The King interfered so as to prevent the acceptance of a reasonable compromise proposed by the Belgian Prime Minister, M. Beernaert; and ultimately matters were arranged by a decree of August 7, 1901, which will probably lead to the transference of King Leopold's sovereign rights to Belgium at his death. In the meantime, the entire executive and legislative control is vested in him, and in a Colonial Minister and Council of four members, who are responsible solely to him, though the Minister has a seat in the Belgian Parliament[467]. To King Leopold, therefore, belongs the ultimate responsibility for all that is done in the Congo Free State. As M. Cattier phrased it in the year 1898: "Belgium has no more right to intervene in the internal affairs of the Congo than the Congo State has to intervene in Belgian affairs. As regards the Congo Government, Belgium has no right either of intervention, direction, or control[468]."

[Footnote 467: H.R. Fox-Bourne, Civilisation in Congoland p. 277.]

[Footnote 468: M. Cattier, op. cit. p. 88.]

Very many Belgians object strongly to the building up of an imperium in imperio in their land; and the wealth which the ivory and rubber of the Congo brings into their midst (not to speak of the stock-jobbing and company-promoting which go on at Brussels and Antwerp), does not blind them to the moral responsibility which the Belgian people has indirectly incurred. It is true that Belgium has no legal responsibility, but the State which has lent a large sum to the Congo Government, besides providing the great majority of the officials and exploiters of that territory, cannot escape some amount of responsibility. M. Vandervelde, leader of the Labour Party in Belgium, has boldly and persistently asserted the right of the Belgian people to a share in the control of its eventual inheritance, but hitherto all the efforts of his colleagues have failed before the groups of capitalists who have acquired great monopolist rights in Congoland.

Having now traced the steps by which the Congolese Government reached its present anomalous position, we will proceed to give a short account of its material progress and administration.

No one can deny that much has been done in the way of engineering. A light railway has been constructed from near Vivi on the Lower Congo to Stanley Pool, another from Boma into the districts north of that important river port. Others have been planned, or are already being constructed, between Stanley Falls and the northern end of Lake Tanganyika, with a branch to the Albert Nyanza. Another line will connect the upper part of the River Congo with the westernmost affluent of the River Kasai, thus taking the base of the arc instead of the immense curve of the main stream. By the year 1903, 480 kilometres of railway were open for traffic, while 1600 more were in course of construction or were being planned. It seems that the first 400 kilometres, in the hilly region near the seaboard, cost 75,000,000 francs in place of the 25,000,000 francs first estimated[469]. Road-making has also been pushed on in many directions. A flotilla of steamers plies on the great river and its chief affluents. In 1885 there were but five; the number now exceeds a hundred. As many as 1532 kilometres of telegraphs are now open. The exports advanced from 1,980,441 francs in 1885-86 to 50,488,394 francs in 1901-02, mainly owing to the immense trade in rubber, of which more anon; the imports from 9,175,103 francs in 1893 to 23,102,064 in 19O1-O2[470].