CHAPTER VIII

THE ADVANCE TO THE NILE

VAST as were the burdens imposed on the State by the operations against the slave-traders and its rebellious. soldiery, Leopold II declined to permit them to hamper his deliberate purpose of obtaining control of the headwaters of the Nile. In adopting this aim he acted in virtue of his sole responsibility for the government of the Congo, and now reaped the full benefit of his freedom from the control of the Great Powers or even of Belgium, which would certainly have hesitated to support his ambitious projects, At what date the dream of becoming master of the provinces of the south, which were manifestly falling from the hands of Egypt, suggested itself to him is uncertain, but there can be no doubt that he succeeded in convincing Gordon that this was the best mode in which to combat the anarchy of the south and to overthrow the slave-traders. As we have seen,1 Gordon's intention in accepting the King's offer to appoint him to the charge of the Congo expedition in 1884 was to devote himself to attacking the slave-traders in their own head-quarters, and his action is easily explicable when it is remembered that the Association which the King then represented purported to be international and philanthropic in character. In accordance with this plan, after accepting the offer of the British Government to proceed to the Sudan, Gordon wrote from Korosko on February 12 to Lord Cromer (then Sir E. Baring), enclosing a letter to the King in which he spoke of ascending the White Nile with a view to taking possession of the Equatorial provinces and the Bahr el

1 Above, p. 47.

2 Cromer, Modern Egypt, i. 464; cf. Fitzmaurice, Lord Granville, ii. 386; Morley, Gladstone, iii. 162.

Ghazal, and to handing them over to the King. Lord Cromer disapproved this project and advised Lord Granville that it should be discouraged. On March 9 Gordon repeated by telegraph his suggestion that he should resign his position as an officer of the British Government, and proceed with his steamboats to the southern provinces, treating them as subject to the King of the Belgians, in reply receiving the instructions of the British Government not on any account to adopt this course. The death of Gordon and the fall of Khartum on January 26, 1885, followed by the evacuation of the Sudan,1 left the way open for another effort by the King to secure his position; Stanley offered, as one of the alternative courses open to Emin Pasha, to make him Governor of Equatoria for the King with a salary of 37,000 francs and a grant of 200,000 or 300,000 francs for the cost of administration.2 Emin's refusal of this offer in no way discouraged the King, who determined to carry out the proposal by Belgian hands. One possible rival existed, the British East Africa Company, which had profited by the efforts of Stanley during his march to relieve Emin to secure territorial acquisitions for that Company, which had supported generously 3 the fund from which were defrayed. the expenses of the relief expedition. An arrangement with the Company of May 24, 1890, which foreshadowed the arrangements of the treaty of 1894, at the same time bound the latter not to operate on the left bank of the Nile, thus leaving open to the State the power to reach that river without fear of competition.

Conditions in the Bahr el Ghazal and Equatoria and in the adjoining parts of the Congo territory were indeed such

1 Announced in the House of Commons by Mr. Gladstone on May 11, 1885; cf. Fitzmaurice, op. cit. ii. 402 sq.

2 Masoin, Histoire, ii. 258; Stanley, In Darkest Africa, i. 421 sq.

3 It contributed no less than £10,000.

Not communicated officially to, or approved by, the British Government, on which therefore it was not binding; C. 7360, p. 1. Cf. Stanley's version of the matter, Autobiography, pp. 413, 414, 418, where he implies that Lord Salisbury had approved his proposal for the agreement, but says nothing as to the Nile.

as to render intervention an act of humanitarian interest. Lupton had struggled without cessation in the Bahr el Ghazal against the slave-traders whose zaribas covered the land, but his capture by the Mahdists reintroduced the wildest disorder, and Mahdists under Rabah penetrated as far as the country of the Sakaras and defeated the Sultan. The death of the Mahdi and the disputes which followed among his lieutenants enabled the country to regain some measure of order, and in 1890 its chief rulers were Rafai and Jabir, who had served in the Egyptian armies, and the Asandé chief Semio, and Bangasso, ruler of the Sakaras. Such organization as existed was feudal in type, and the influence of Egyptian and Arab civilization made itself felt among even the less important negro rulers. The fate of the district south of Equatoria had been similar: Emin had sent Havash Montasser, his lieutenant, to reduce to order the slave-traders who infested it, and this savage warrior completed the ruin of the country by overthrowing the last vestige of the independence of the Manbettus. The advent of the Mahdi caused further confusion, the negroes taking advantage of the abandonment of the Egyptian posts to wreak revenge for their defeats, while the Arabs of the Aruwimi gradually advanced north by the Nepoko and seized possession of Bomokandi, though their advance was strongly resisted by the negroes.

Preparations for an advance north were made effectively but without serious fighting under M. Janssen's régime in 1889-91: Van Gèle, who in 1886-7 had explored the Ubangi, advanced by the Mbomu, and won over the Sultan Bangasso in 1889, received in the following year the submission of the Yakomas, and in 1891 established communication between Yakoma and Jabir. Baert in 1890-1 advanced by the Mongala and established control of the Ebola and Dua rivers, while in 1889-90 Roget founded the post of Ibembo on the Itimbiri, thus effectively precluding the union of the Arabs of the Aruwimi with the northern slave-traders, and formed an alliance with Jabir, with whom he stationed Milz. The way was thus opened for the great expedition led by Van

Kerckhoven which, assembled at Leopoldville in September, 1890, reached the flourishing station of Jabir in June, 1891. ✓ Its advance thence was steady: on October 21 it dispersed a camp of Arabs at the confluence of the Bomokandi and Uele, obtaining ten tons of ivory as booty, but giving dire cause of offence to the Arabs of the Falls. Bomokandi was reached in December, Nyangara on February 16, 1892, Bitima in April; treaties were concluded with the native chiefs, and delegates from small Egyptian posts which still existed at Neduda on the Kibali sent messages welcoming the advance. In two months the leader expected to be at Wadelai, but at Lehmin, on August 10, he perished, accidentally shot by his servant.1

The work of Van Kerckhoven was effectively pursued by his lieutenants. De la Kéthulle in 1892 received the alliance of Rafai, and the submission of the Abandas and Banjas; in 1894, on the orders of Hanolet, commandant of the Ubangi, he advanced across the Nile watershed and established a post at Katuaka, on the Ada, an affluent of the Bahr el Ghazal. Hanolet himself made a reconnaissance in the Shari valley and entered into secret negotiations with Rabah, who had by that time founded a strong state south of Lake Chad. Milz, who took over command of Van Kerckhoven's expedition, received the submission of the officers of Emin at Wadelai, and occupied that post on October 9, 1892. He also founded a post at Wando on the Yei, and his successor, Delanghe, established posts at Kiri, Muggi, Laboré, and Dufilé. Donckier and Donceel reached the most northerly point of the advance at Lifi. The dervishes naturally decided to oppose a movement so menacing, and, though Delanghe defeated them at Mundu, it became necessary in August, 1894, to abandon Katuaka, Lifi, and the three Nile stations, but the superiority of Belgian arms inflicted on December 23 a decisive defeat in a battle on the Egaru.

The Belgian advance naturally evoked the liveliest interest. both in England and in France. The treaty of July 15, 1840, between Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and

1 Masoin, Histoire, ii. 257 sq.

Turkey, and the Sultan's Firman of February 13, 1841, definitely assigned the Sudan- then, however, of very restricted area in comparison with its later extension by Egyptian conquests-to Egypt, and no steps had been taken to annul this formal agreement. The claim of Egypt to the southern provinces was recognized in Article I of the Anglo-German convention of July 1, 1890, and in the Anglo-Italian treaty of April 15, 1891, and it was therefore open to the United Kingdom to contend that the Belgian advance had carried them into territories which fell within the sphere of influence of the British Government.1 The objections of France rested not only on general considerations of the integrity of the Turkish Dominions but on the actual wording of the treaty of April 29, 1887, regarding the boundary between the Congo and French territory. The line under that agreement was to follow the Ubangi up to its intersection with the fourth parallel of north latitude, and the Congo undertook not to exercise any political influence north of that parallel on the right bank of the Ubangi, while France gave a similar undertaking in respect of the left bank of that stream. A further provision provided that in any case 'la frontière septentrionale de l'État du Congo ne descendra pas en-dessous du 4o parallèle nord, limite qui lui est déjà reconnue par l'article 5 2 de la convention du 5 février 1885. The Belgian reply was that Article V did not define the limits of the Congo State, but merely indicated the extent within which France was prepared to recognize its neutrality; that the rights of France were confined to the Ubangi, which ceased at the confluence of the Mbomu and Uele; and that it had occupied legitimately territories which were vacant through the evacuation of the Sudan, and therefore, according to the spirit of the Berlin Act, open to seizure by the first comer, while France had done nothing to make effective a counter-claim.

In point of fact France had done little to develop her claims: in 1889 a small post at Bangi on the fourth parallel 1 Cf. C. 9054, pp. 17, 18.

2 Rather the map annexed to the treaty and referred to in the Article.