The Congo slips through Leopold's fingers

BossaNova

Banned
Let me first introduce you to Walthère Frère-Orban and Jules Van Praet. Frère-Orban was deeply, deeply opposed to Leopold's pet project which he called 'louche et hypocrite'. One of his memorandums mentions the existence of a brief report where Leopold distances himself from his African posts. According to Frère-Orban, Van Praet once approached with said report and asked him what to do with it. Frère-Orban told him to bury it deep. He apparently agonised himself over an possible response; he would get great satisfaction of being the one to sabotage Leopold's plans, on the other hand, he considered himself a Belgian patriot. Let's say that his hatred of Leopold beats his patriotism and he secretly leaks the statement where Leopold distances himself from his African posts in the Congo to the European representatives in Brussels in January 1885. What next?
 
What next?
It's to be noted that Frère-Orban mostly opposed a Belgian sponsored colonisation but not a Lepoldian Congo, aka a privately owned state as Congo Free State ended up to be.

Belgium does not need a colony. Belgians are not drawn towards overseas enterprises: they prefer to spend their energy and capital in countries which have already been explored or on less risky schemes [...] Still, you can assure His Majesty of my whole-hearted sympathy for the generous plan he had conceived, as long as the Congo does not make any international difficulties for us.

A Leopoldian Congo had several advantages, namely being a free trade zone and not belonging to any other colonial power. So, Frère-Orban could do its worst, but these pretty much clear advantages wouldn't be written off.

You'd need to curb down Leopold's ambitions early on, or having the whole affair turning into a political crisis which would outweight the advantages of a CFS.

At this point, it makes Congo's fate being under the hands of negociatiors : among the most likely candidates to carve out the basin, you'd have France (that had a vested interest controlling both sides of the Congo river), Britain (whom own interests seems to have been more focused on Katanga and South-East), Portugal (which claimed a general interest, but would probably end up with a bigger Angola, because their claims weren't that taken in consideration).
I'd note that, without Leopoldian's invertments in the 1870's, Congo would still appear as it did before, as potentially interesting but underdevelloped and requiring huge investment to work out as a viable colony : so, I don't expect the region and negociation to be that of a minefield, and much more like the rest of central Africa.
 
I'm not sure how much it would change things TBH. By 1885 Leopold has already waged an emphatic campaign in the international press and in Britain, Germany, USA, and Belgium to be given the Congo. He's made vast promises that he'll make trade easier for interested merchants, evangelise and convert the locals, and eventually hand power back to them when they have been "educated" and "civilized". And whilst we know he intended none of those things, people at the time were very convinced.

I don't know the report you're talking about, but as @LSCatilina points out you'd need a POD that early on prevents Leopold from waging his campaign of propaganda.
 
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