European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and Its Aftermath by Sir Martin Ewans

Author:Sir Martin Ewans [Ewans, Sir Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Ethnic Studies, Developing & Emerging Countries, Social Science, Political Science, Regional Studies, General
ISBN: 9781317849087
Google: ZyEvDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 35864418
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The Drive to the Nile 2: Leopold’s ‘Fashoda’

Even before Stanley had arrived back in Europe, other initiatives designed by Leopold to establish a presence on the Nile were well under way. In the spring of 1889, he had proposed a contract with Tippu Tib, under which the latter would set up three posts in the Bahr-el-Ghazal and, if possible, a fourth on the upper Nile. Tippu Tib, however, was understandably distrustful of Leopold’s good faith and failed to act, with the result that Leopold was finally reduced to using his own men and money. Between 1889 and 1891, he sent an expedition to establish posts up the Ubangi, the Uele and the Bomu. This established a station at Bangasso on the Bomu and succeeded in concluding treaties with a number of local chiefs. It was followed in 1891 by another expedition, which ascended the Bomu to the Congo-Nile watershed, and similarly set up stations along its route. Yet other expeditions later penetrated the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and one of them managed to reach Hofrat-en-Nahas, where there was reputed to be an ancient copper mine which Leopold apparently wished to exploit for his personal benefit.

The French, meanwhile, had not been inactive, but had met with reverses. In 1890 de Brazza despatched an expedition with orders1 ‘to occupy progressively the territories to which we have access, notably the upper Ubangi, and to make of it a French region with an open door to the Nile’. The expedition found the French post at Las Abiras virtually besieged by the Belgians and moved on to try to take Bangasso, but discovered when they reached it that the Belgians had forestalled them and reinforced it. Throughout his confrontation with the French along and beyond the Bomu, Leopold had no hesitation in breaching both the limits to the Free State he had proposed during and after the Berlin Conference, and those set out in his 1887 agreement with the French. He ignored the 4th parallel and suggested disingenuously that the agreement covered the Ubangi only and that it did not apply above its confluence with the Bomu and Uele.

Once he had received, in 1890, the Fr. 25 million loan from the Belgian Government and so had some fresh resources, Leopold supplemented his incursions into the Bahr-el-Ghazal with a direct assault on the Nile. Early in 1891, van Kerckhoven’s ivory-collecting expedition left Stanley Pool, struck inland and marched up the Uele. Its progress was slow and it took more than a year to reach that river, where Van Kerckhoven was accidentally killed by his gun-bearer. However his second-in-command, Jules Milz, carried on and in October 1892 arrived on the Nile at Wadelai, a short distance north of Lake Albert. He enlisted those of Emin’s men who were still in the region, hoping to leave them as a permanent garrison, but they proved unreliable and Milz was forced to withdraw under pressure from the Mahdists. He was then superseded by a new commander, Florimund Delanghe, and an advance was

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