Question on French slice of Congo

Just a minor one. I'll be straight : I wonder why western bank of Congo river fell to the French. Guess they had precedent in the exploration of the area. But I wonder if someone else, most obviously Leopold and later Belgium, could've gotten it. Leaving only roughly the area of Gabon to France.

Also perhaps if Leopold didn't get his Congo Free state, it could've fallen to Portugues along with the entire OTL Congo-Zaire. After all, they had even older precedent.
 
Well de Brazza, as you said, explored the region for France/signed native treaties before the Belgians got in on the action.

I guess if Stanley had moved a bit quicker he could have secured the Lower Congo before France, which would have had little choice but to respect the matter. Portugal could have gotten there first I suppose but they were too busy trying to link up Angola and Mozambique.

No French Congo likely means no French Central African Republic as well, which would remove French interests from the Congo - though I doubt France would have stood for that, and would probably have bullied Belgium into giving it the Ubangi and Chari riverbasins, and also free access to all of the Congo.
 
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