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The Congress of Berlin (1884-1885)by Jim Jones (Copyright 2006, All Rights Reserved) | |
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The Congress of Berlin (1884-1885)by Jim Jones (Copyright 2006, All Rights Reserved) | |
The Congress of Berlin was not the start of the "Scramble for
Africa," but it laid down the rules that governed the European
conquest of Africa for the next fifteen years. It was unusual
because international conferences were usually held to sort out
the aftermath of a war, but almost never to settle problems
before they led to war. But all of the major powers had reasons
to attend, especially France, Britain and the new powerhouse,
Germany. Although there were many issues at stake, the most
important one was the future of the Congo River basin.
The main dispute among Europeans was over navigation and
commercial rights in the Congo River basin. The first Europeans
to claim the area were the Portuguese who explored the mouth of
the river in the 15th century. Although the Upper Congo River
was navigable for hundreds of miles, a series of waterfalls made
it impossible for ships to reach the upper part of the river
directly from the Altantic Ocean.
The Portuguese claims went unchallenged for several centuries
until French naval officer Pierre-Paul-François de
Brazza-Savorgnan (known simply as Savorgnan de Brazza) began to
explore
the area. From 1875-1878, he followed the Ogoué River
(located north of the Congo) upstream in search of an alternate
route to the Upper Congo River that avoided Portuguese territory.
Although he failed on his first attempts, he tried again in
1879-1882 and succeeded in reaching the Congo River by
following the Ogoué River and proceeding overland to the
Lefini River, a tributary of the Congo. During this expedition,
he signed a treaty on September 10, 1880 with the chief of the
Batéké people who lived on the north side of the Upper
Congo River. The treaty granted France a protectorate over the
Batéké land including a stretch of the north bank of
the Upper Congo River at Ntambo (known as Stanley Pool during the
colonial period and Malebo Pool since independence).
Before Savorgnan de Brazza left, he placed the new post under
the command of a Senegalese sergeant named Malamine and two other
Senegalese soldiers, then returned to the coast by following
along the Congo itself. Along the way, Savorgnan de Brazza met
H. M. Stanley, who was leading an expedition from the Atlantic
Coast to Ntambo on behalf of his employer, King Leopold of
Belgium. Stanley was enraged to learn that the Frenchman had
beaten him to the Upper Congo and when he arrived at Ntambo he
tried to intimidate Malamine and his soldiers into leaving. The
Senegalese refused to leave and in 1883, Savorgnan de Brazza
returned with a larger force to organize the colony that became
the French Congo.
The British had no direct claim on the Congo basin, nor did
they have any particular need for one. Their empire was based
in Asia and their African interests were solely intended to
safeguard communication with India. On the other hand, the
British had close relations with the Portuguese, so they acquired
commercial rights in their colonies in exchange for protecting
the Portuguese claims against encroachment by other Europeans.
On February 26, 1884 Britain and Portugal signed a treaty
that reserved navigation rights on the Congo River to Britain
alone, in exchange for Britain's support for Portuguese control
of the mouth of the river. The treaty angered all of the other
major European powers, and in particular, prevented the French
from taking advantage of Savorgnan de Brazza's treaties.
Although international protest forced the Portuguese and British
to abandon their treaty on June 26, the issue remained
unresolved. It became one of the reasons to call the Congress of
Berlin.
Germany's Bismarck took advantage of the diplomatic
outcry over the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty to call an international
conference that met in Berlin from November 15, 1884 to February
26, 1885. Bismarck's initiative came as something of a surprise
because Germany was not a major colonial power, possessing only a
few claims based on a Lutheran mission in Southwest Africa and a
bundle of treaties collected by private adventurer Karl Peters.
Yet Bismarck was always looking
for ways to strengthen his new country, so he found a number of
reasons to hold the conference.
The Berlin Congress opened on November 15, 1884, and every
European country sent a representative except Switzerland. Even
the US sent a representative, and Leopold II of Belgium attended
as the president of the "International Association of the Congo."
However, no Africans attended, not even from Morocco, Liberia or
Ethiopia, which were independent nations at the time. Over the
next three months, the delegates went beyond their original
agenda--to regulate navigation on the Congo River--to create a
blueprint for the subsequent European conquest of Africa.
The Congress produced the Berlin Act of 1885 which
established the "conventional basin of the Congo" (bigger than
the geographical basin) and opened it to European free trade,
made it neutral in times of war and promoted efforts to end the
slave trade. This was an unprecedented piece of international
diplomacy, since it included so many different countries. The
closest legal antecedents were multinational agreements made in
1815 at the Treaty of Vienna to control navigation on the Danube
and Rhine Rivers.
The most important consequence of the Berlin Act was the
reduction of tensions that had resulted from the French
explorations in the Congo basin (Savorgnan de Brazza, 1876-1877),
the
establishment of Belgian posts in the Congo (1879-1884), the
French invasion of Tunisia (1881), and the British takeover of
Egypt (1882). In essence, the representatives agreed that
rivalries over African soil were not serious enough to justify a
war between European nations.
Among the provisions of the Berlin Act . . .
In the long run, the Berlin Congress stimulated the "Scramble
for Africa" by establishing rules for the recognition of European
claims. In brief, after signing the Berlin Act, a European
nation could not longer simply raise its flag along the African
coast and claim everything that lay behind it in the hinterland.
Instead, a European colonial power had to physically occupy
whatever it claimed with troops, missionaries, merchants, or
better yet, railroads, forts and buildings.
Britain, as the dominant naval power in the world, got most
of what it wanted. The main thing was European recognition of
their claim in Egypt, but the British government was also
satisfied by the internationalization of the Congo. The
agreement kept France from obtaining complete control in the
Congo basin, and France "compensated" Britain by recognizing
Britain's dominant position on the Lower and Middle Niger River.
On the other hand, the concept of physical presence needed to
guarantee "effective occupation" was a direct challenge to the
British practice of obtaining influence without substantial
financial investment.
If one ignores Africans (as the conference participants did),
then Portugal was certainly the biggest loser. Not only did it
lose the right to restrict access to the Congo basin, the need to
physically occupy territory placed most of their claims in
southern Africa at risk. It eventually opened the way for
British claims to land between Portuguese Angola and Mozambique
Germany is generally considered to have emerged the winner
from the Berlin Congress. The Congress demarcated German
territory in Africa, confirming Germany as a major player at the
expense of the Sultan of Zanzibar. The Congress accepted
Bismarck's declaration of a protectorate over East African
territory mentioned in Karl Peter's treaties. The Anglo-German
Treaty of 1886 ratified the protectorate by dividing Kenya
(British) from Tanganyika (German) and allowing Zanzibar to
remain independent and in control of a ten-mile deep coastal
strip.
THE CONGO DISPUTE
BISMARCK'S ROLE
RESULTS
[Full text of the General Act of the Congress of Berlin of 1885]