of Portugal to sovereignty over the hinterland of her coast
possessions. At that period other European nations--with
the occasional exception of Great Britain--were indifferent
to Portugal's pretensions, and her estimate of her African
empire as covering over 700,000 sq. m. was not challenged.11
But the area under effective control of Portugal at that time
did not exceed 40,000 sq. m. Great Britain then held some
250,000 sq. m., France about 170,000 sq. m. and Spain 1000 sq.
m. The area of the independent Dutch republics (the Transvaal
and Orange Free State) was some 150,000 sq. m., so that the
total area of Africa ruled by Europeans did not exceed 1,271,000
sq. m.; roughly one-tenth of the continent. This estimate,
as it admits the full extent of Portuguese claims and does not
include Madagascar, in reality considerably overstates the case.
Egypt and the Egyptian Sudan, Tunisia and Tripoli were
subject in differing ways to the overlordship of the sultan
of Turkey, and with these may be ranked, in the scale of
organized governments, the three principal independent states,
Morocco, Abyssinia and Zanzibar, as also the negro republic of
Liberia. There remained, apart from the Sahara, roughly one
half of Africa, lying mostly within the tropics, inhabited
by a multitude of tribes and peoples living under various
forms of government and subject to frequent changes in respect
of political organization. In this region were the negro
states of Ashanti, Dahomey and Benin on the west coast, the
Mahommedan sultanates of the central Sudan, and a number
of negro kingdoms in the east central and south central
regions. Of these Uganda on the north-west shores of
Victoria Nyanza, Cazembe and Muata Hianvo (or Yanvo) may be
mentioned. The two last-named kingdoms occupied respectively
the south-eastern and south-western parts of the Congo
basin. In all this vast region the Negro and Negro-Bantu races
predominated, for the most part untouched by Mahommedanism
or Christian influences. They lacked political cohesion,
and possessed neither the means nor the inclination to extend
their influence beyond their own borders. The exploitation
of Africa continued to be entirely the work of alien races.
The causes which led to the partition of Africa may now be
considered. They are to be found in the economic and political
Causes which led to partition.
state of western Europe at the time. Germany, strong and
united as the result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870,
was seeking new outlets for her energies --new markets for
her growing industries, and with the markets, colonies.
Yet the idea of colonial expansion was of slow growth in
Germany, and when Prince Bismarck at length acted Africa was
the only field left to exploit, South America being protected
from interference by the known determination of the United
States to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, while Great Britain,
France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain already held
most of the other regions of the world where colonization was
possible. For different reasons the war of 1870 was also the
starting-point for France in the building up of a new colonial
empire. In her endeavour to regain the position lost in
that war France had to look beyond Europe. To the two causes
mentioned must be added others. Great Britain and Portugal,
when they found their interests threatened, bestirred themselves,
while Italy also conceived it necessary to become an African
power. Great Britain awoke to the need for action too late to
secure predominance in all the regions where formerly hers was
the only European influence. She had to contend not only with
the economic forces which urged her rivals to action, but had
also to combat the jealous opposition of almost every European
nation to the further growth of British power. Italy alone
acted throughout in cordial co-operation with Great Britain.
It was not, however, the action of any of the great powers
of Europe which precipitated the struggle. This was brought
about by the ambitious projects of Leopold II, king of the
Belgians. The discoveries of Livingstone, Stanley and others
had aroused especial interest among two classes of men in western
Europe, one the manufacturing and trading class, which saw in
Central Africa possibilities of commercial development, the
other the philanthropic and missionary class, which beheld in the
newly discovered lands millions of savages to Christianize and
civilize. The possibility of utilizing both these classes in
the creation of a vast state, of which he should be the chief,
formed itself in the mind of Leopold II. even before Stanley
had navigated the Congo. The king's action was immediate; it
proved successful; but no sooner was the nature of his project
understood in Europe than it provoked the rivalry of France
and Germany, and thus the international struggle was begun.
Conflicting ambitions of the European powers.
At this point it is expedient, in the light of subsequent
events, to set forth the designs then entertained by the
European powers that participated in the struggle for
Africa. Portugal was striving to retain as large a share
as possible of her shadowy empire, and particularly to
establish her claims to the Zambezi region, so as to
secure a belt of territory across Africa from Mozambique to
Angola. Great Britain, once aroused to the imminence of
danger, put forth vigorous efforts in East Africa and on the
Niger, but her most ambitious dream was the establishment of an
unbroken line of British possessions and spheres of influence
from south to north of the continent, from Cape Colony to
Egypt. Germany's ambition can be easily described. It was
to secure as much as possible, so as to make up for lost
opportunities. Italy coveted Tripoli, but that province
could not be seized without risking war. For the rest
Italy's territorial ambitions were confined to North-East
Africa, where she hoped to acquire a dominating, influence
over Abyssinia. French ambitions, apart from Madagascar,
were confined to the northern and central portions of the
continent. To extend her possessions on the Mediterranean
littoral, and to connect them with her colonies in West Africa,
the western Sudan, and on the Congo, by establishing her
influence over the vast intermediate regions, was France's first
ambition. But the defeat of the Italians in Abyssinia and
the impending downfall of the khalifa's power in the valley
of the upper Nile suggested a still more daring project to
the French government--none other than the establishment of
French influence over a broad belt of territory stretching
across the continent from west to east, from Senegal on the
Atlantic coast to the Gulf of Aden. The fact that France
possessed a small part of the Red Sea coast gave point to this
design. But these conflicting ambitions could not all be
realized and Germany succeeded in preventing Great Britain
obtaining a continuous band of British territory from south
to north,while Great Britain, by excluding France from
the upper Nile valley, dispelled the French dream of an
empire from west to east. King Leopold's ambitions have
already been indicated. The part of the continent to which
from the first he directed his energies was the equatorial
region. In September 1876 he took what may be described
as the first definite step in the modern partition of the
continent. He summoned to a conference at Brussels
representatives of Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia, to deliberate on the best
methods to be adopted for the exploration and civilization of
Africa, and the opening up of the interior of the continent
to commerce and industry. The conference was entirely
unofficial. The delegates who attended neither represented
nor pledged their respective governments. Their deliberations
lasted three days and resulted in the foundation of ``The
International African Association,'' with its headquarters at
Brussels. It was further resolved to establish national
committees in the various countries represented, which should
collect funds and appoint delegates to the International
Association. The central idea appears to have been to put the
exploration and development of Africa upon an international
footing. But it quickly became apparent that this was an
unattainable ideal. The national committees were soon working
independently of the International Association, and the
Association itself passed through a succession of stages until
it became purely Belgian in character, and at last developed
into the Congo Free State, under the personal sovereignty
of King Leopold. At first the Association devoted itself
to sending expeditions to the great central lakes from the
east coast; but failure, more or less complete attended its
efforts in this direction, and it was not until the return of
Stanley, in January 1878, from his great journey down the
Congo, that its ruling spirit, King Leopold, definitely
turned his thoughts towards the Congo. In June of that year,
Stanley visited the king at Brussels, and in the following
November a private conference was held, and a committee
was appointed for the investigation of the upper Congo.
Stanley's remarkable discovery had stirred ambition in other
capitals than Brussels. France had always taken a keen interest
The struggle for the Congo.
in West Africa, and in the years 1875 to 1878 Savorgnan
de Brazza had carried out a successful exploration of the
Ogowe river to the south of the Gabun. De Brazza determined
that the Ogowe did not offer that great waterway into the
interior of which he was in search, and he returned to Europe
without having heard of the discoveries of Stanley farther
south. Naturally, however, Stanley's discoveries were keenly
followed in France. In Portugal, too, the discovery of the
Congo, with its magnificent unbroken waterway of more than a
thousand miles into the heart of the continent served to revive
the languid energies of the Portuguese, who promptly began
to furbish up claims whose age was in inverse ratio to their
validity. Claims, annexations and occupations were in the
air, and when in January 1879 Stanley left Europe as the
accredited agent of King Leopold and the Congo committee,
the strictest secrecy was observed as to his real aims and
intentions. The expedition was, it was alleged, proceeding
up the Congo to assist the Belgian expedition which had
entered from the east coast, and Stanley himself went first to
Zanzibar. But in August 1879 Stanley found himself again at
Banana Point, at the mouth of the Congo, with, as he himself has
written, ``the novel mission of sowing along its banks civilized
settlements to peacefully conquer and subdue it, to remould
it in harmony with modern ideas into national states, within
whose limits the European merchant shall go hand in hand with
the dark African trader, and justice and law and order shall
prevail, and murder and lawlessness and the cruel barter of
slaves shall be overcome.'' The irony of human aspirations was
never perhaps more plainly demonstrated than in the contrast
between the ideal thus set before themselves by those who
employed Stanley, and the actual results of their intervention in
Africa. Stanley founded his first station at Vivi, between
the mouth of the Congo and the rapids that obstruct its course
where it breaks over the western edge of the central continental
plateau. Above the rapids he established a station on Stanley
Pool and named it Leopoldville, founding other stations on the
