No Leopold II: what happens to Congo?

No Leopold II: what happens to Congo?

  • Congo becomes somebody else's colony

    Votes: 16 25.8%
  • Congo is divided by neighbouring colonial powers

    Votes: 45 72.6%
  • Other, please explain...

    Votes: 1 1.6%

  • Total voters
    62
Let's suppose Leopold II dies young. He was the driving force behind colonial ambition as, in his day, the Belgian government itself was uninteresed in colonial adventures. Eventually, Belgium inherited Congo from him anyway. Without him, no Belgian Congo. So the question is: what happens to the OTL Belgian Congo without the Belgians? Does someone else take the entire territory or does it get divided by its neighbours? If it's the latter, how do the Germans, French, British and Portuguese divide this cake?
 
Everyone, from France to Portugal, and the British and Germans had a interest in he Congo for a good while. So it would be divided between the major powers.


As how it would look like...


Division between France and Britain seems likely.

France already had an option on Congo basin, with Leopold having more or less agreed, if his claims were to fail due to financial lacks, to give them to France for all the basin.

I could see a french takeover of most of Congo basin, up to Tanganika Lake and Kindu or Ubundu.
Britain would probably take the third of the OTL CFS, in S-E.

Portugal could probably be granted some compensations would it be only to tie with Cabinda enclave and to not piss too much Germans.

The British and the Germans backed Portugal's claims to the Congo River Basin, much to the annoyance of the French. I believe Portugal would probably take everything south of the Kasai River and East of the Lubilash (Sankuru) River. France would probably take everything North of this and Britain most likely everything to the East giving them a Cape to Cairo link.

Economically this means that Britain gains the mineral rich Katanga with its huge copper and cobal deposits, probably adding this to Northern Rhodesia. It also gains tin and gold deposits along with coffee and rubber producing regions. In OTL Katanga was sparsely populated and had a large number of European settlers working in mining, this could be a contentious area for Rhodesia.

Portugal will get the diamond mines of the Kasai region in this scenario along with more coffee, cocoa and rubber producing areas. Like northern Angola in OTL, this will mean an influx of settlers during the 1950s coffee boom in northern Angola (Uige and Zaire districts). Of course the British win with this area being Portuguese as British capital controls diamond mining in Angola (Diamang) and the railroads too.

France will seem like the big winner early on in this scenario having the richest rubber producing region. This area produces palm oil, cocoa and coffee as well. However, it is mostly lowland swamps and would probably not be developed any differently than the rest of French Equatorial Africa was in OTL (meaning very few settlers).
 
I'm pretty sure it will start a war between Portugal and Germany or France and Portugal. I would love to see a different scramble for Africa
 
I am so disappointed that noone suggested "Insert random country" Congo. Dutch Congo, Danish Congo, Swedish Congo, Russian Congo, Swiss Congo, Luxembourgish Congo, American Congo, Peruvian Congo, Korean Congo, Ethiopean Congo, Congolese Congo.
 
I am so disappointed that noone suggested "Insert random country" Congo. Dutch Congo, Danish Congo, Swedish Congo, Russian Congo, Swiss Congo, Luxembourgish Congo, American Congo, Peruvian Congo, Korean Congo, Ethiopean Congo, Congolese Congo.

Zairean Congo.
 
In my timeline, it was agreed between the European powers to grant the entire Congo to Spain for this reason. Because everyone had a claim that could step on everyone's toes, it was generally agreed to give the whole place to a) a European nation that isn't too small to be bullied or too powerful to bully others, and b) can act as a check against any sort of reckless expansionism by other Powers.

Of course, my timeline also had every other Power carving up the Congo borderlands afterwards to get what they wanted, so it didn't work that well.

One timeline had the region be put under an international consortium and later, under an international court. Takes care of pesky imperial claims and give the local "savages" a chance to grow up through hard labor.

If you really want to go wild, how about a Siamese Congo? Or a White Rajah Congo?
 
Why not Ottoman Congo? :frown:

Seriously, though, with Leopold II's iniatives we may very well see the colonization of Africa in general vastly slowed down, or at least remaining close to the coast. As much of a vanity project as it was, Leopold II's big propaganda push, ease of getting treaties, elevating/publizing explorers in order to gain legitimacy for his unprecidented claim to the Congo for the nominal creation of an international free-trade zone really is what brought the idea to the public imagination, and once you had people wanting to make claims you had to come together to make a set of rules for claiming land (Which Leopold was key in pushing the Berlin Congress anyways). My bet is that a solid chunk of the basin becomes French, though given it was easier to navigate from the east you could very well see somebody who managed to clientize Zanzibar setting up shop in the eastern side of the basin as well.
 
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