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In 1895 the first of many military revolts in the Congo Free state occured. Troops from the Force Publique -the state army- mutinied en mass in northern Congo after being forced to march to Sudan in an ill planned invasion attempt of Egyptian Sudan (Yes Leopold actually ordered the bulk of his army to conquer Sudan).

This invasion was a disaster from the start, with much of the army being composed of ill paid and supplied consripts and mercenaries (usually from Arab influenced slave trade regions like Zanzibar, or Nigerians) with little loyalty to the state. The mutiny was quick and brutal for the free state, as troops tried to push the Belgians out.

However, these were keen to squabble amongst each other and exhaustion (along a fresh batch of new recruits from the military from Boma) allowed the Belgians to slowly regain the upper hand. Nonetheless, this rebellion took a full 4 years to squash, denied Belgian access to the Eastern claims for about a decade and was so expensive it was one of the major reasons for the later shift to mass resource extraction in the colony.

Now suppose someone manages to keep this makeshift army together long enough for them to reorganize (probably just mass looting the nearby villages) and decide to take the fight back to the Belgians. Organized and with a semblamce of morale, these troops manage to push the border and slowly but surely (and with added material support from Arab patrons in Zanzibar eager to eliminate their rival in Central African trade) destroy Belgium's trading posts and state presence in the Congo (which at this point was an ad hoc mess of one capital, a military industrial complex, some missions, a few dozen trading posts and their vassal villages/chiefdoms/"empires").

So by 1897, Boma is captured and the Congo river is once more back in native hands. Leopold would by then be bankrupt (he already was historically, by 1895 spending almost 20 million of his own Francs on this project) and unable to secure funds from the Belgian Parliament or private investors. In anger over this waste of money (Parliament didn't want to fund the Congo adventures for the most part, seeing it as an expensive waste- until the rubber boom), the king is unable to secure public funds to get an army to retake the colony, and is forced to stop trying as the bills add up. Nor would France help out as they've been in competition for that real estate for decades.

Which leads us to wondering, whats next? This would effectively be the second time in history a major Black revolt has kicked out Europeans and set up their own state. At the same time, this new empire in the Congo, a major European trained and mercenary/conscript force would be in possession of about 17,000 now controls an area 3 times larger than France (Hence the "Mamluk" part of the title, as this reminds me of the medieval slave soldier caste). Along with having the necessary training, robust semi feudal institutions (with local connections and integration) and access to funds via the ivory, mineral and rubber trade to keep much of the land under their control. Probably wont last longer than 30 years, but I think it would be fun to see.

Thoughts?
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