most likely partition of the congo without belgium?
- Thread starter ronaldo
- Start date
Portugal isn't neutral given the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, but it is weak enough it might get a big slice
SwampTiger
Banned
I've long wondered what if Portugal had claimed the entire Congo basin. They really don't have the population to exploit and control the region. However, Belgium was only slightly better. Maybe they develop a clientalist rule in the interior to exploit the diamonds, rare minerals and slave trade, pushing towards the eastern highlands and Rift Lakes. Perhaps a lesser defeat in the crusade to Fez redirects their focus southward and avoids the Spanish rule.
who would be more likely to stay with the Belgian Congo coast? because no nation would allow only one power to control the entire coast of the congo
Of these scenarios which is the most likely?
. Portugal receives the entire coastline of congo connecting cabinda to angola
. france or britain receives the congo coast sharing with portugal
. a minor power? and what would be the smaller power most likely to receive the coast of the congo besides belgium and portugal?
I asked myself that too, and where does Germany go in this story? besides receiving a strip of land connecting Kamerun to the congo river could she have received more?
So I have looking through old newspapers to see what the various claims were.
When Portugal opted to seize and annex the mouth of the Congo in February of 1885 … at the time it seemed like the negotiations were going to fall apart … they "demanded the whole of the territory on the right bank between the French frontier and Tehiloango down to the Congo and eastward to the fourteenth degree of longitude."
The claims of the other powers involved however were extremely vague, in the sense that they had an interest in the whole of the region but did not necessarily want to colonize it or had the means to do so at the time, except for France that is. The French at this point did not recognize the International African Association and were actively making treaties with local entities, pushing their colonial frontier further and further into the interior. If allowed they certainly would have continued their expansion, but the British may well have endorsed Portugal's claims to the mouth of the Congo River to prevent a French monopoly on trade in the area, assuming a Free Trade area is not later negotiated amongst the Great Powers involved. You'd inevitably then have Germany coming into the Congo by way of German East Africa, and then the British by way of Katanga and Rhodesia. A conference would need to be called sooner or later, least it become yet another potential powder keg on par with Fashoda.
The greatest irony is that it is rather likely that even without the International African Association or Leopold an "independent" Congo would probably have been formed; there had been discussions at the Berlin Conference revolving around the creation of a "European Monarchy in Africa", I believe in no small part influenced by the experience of the White Rajahs of Sarawak. This Kingdom however would only have loose control over its own affairs, the nation being neutralized and forbidden from having a formal military, it's land sold to any number of Trusts willing to pay the associated costs.
It'd be better than the Congo Free State, but by how much I can't say.
They were part of German Tanganyika prior, and were given to Belgium after WW1.
Would this be the most likely result?
But I had some doubts
Would the part that divided Angola from Cabinda be given to Portugal or would it be from France or would it be some kind of international zone?
And could germany expand kamerun to include a larger part of congo?
Anyone know where actual maps from back then, could be found? I am thinking that more of the interior would be unknown and there would be a great deal of confusion over one of the more minor rivers. Part of why the Congo Free strait had a corner like a square near Uganda early on. Before they got Lato, which was kind of squarish in another way. Basically just look at Angola to see a god example of rivers and straight lines. Anyways, first come first serve for Congo. The British might try getting it to Portugal so they could get the equivalent of Most Favoured Nation status in the area (like they did in Portugul’s other colonies and the Belgian Free State. And to heel the rifts that came from British filibusters invading and attacking the Portuguese in Central Africa and then getting the British government to support them. Congo would have been of sufficient size and potential riches to potentially soften the blow.
I would, as my link does, give the British slightly more in the northwest, so that British Congo borders Sudan. The strip south of Cabinda I wold give to Portugal. I cold also see slightly more of the OTL Belgian Congo going to Portugal too, namely the area immediately east of Angola.
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so I drew the map and I think this is the most likely scenario
I still think that the region between Cabinda and Angola would go to France or some international zone, no nation would allow a single nation to control the entire coast of the Congo River
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