CONGO FREE STATE. 



153 



region was recognized as belonging to the Brit- 

 ish sphere, and in the Anglo-Italian arrange- 

 ment of 1891 the eastern basin of the Nile is re- 

 served to Great Britain. The British sphere 

 was recognized as extending northward to 12 

 of latitude on the east and to 11 or thereabouts 

 on the west side of the Nile. In an agreement 

 concluded in 1893 between Great Britain and 

 Germany the Shari river is accepted as the limit 

 of German influence on the north, leaving to 

 England a free hand in the Mohammedan states 

 of the Central Soudan lying north of that 

 river and precluding Germany from objecting 

 to the union of the British sphere in the Nile 

 basin with the British sphere of the Niger re- 

 gion. As a stepping-stone to an effective pro- 

 tectorate on the upper Nile, Uganda has been 

 made a British protectorate and the conquest ex- 

 tended to Unyoro. France has claimed that the 

 Congo State is limited by international agree- 

 ment to the fourth parallel from the point where 

 it cuts the seventeenth meridian to the point 

 where it cuts the thirtieth meridian ; therefore it 

 can not extend its boundaries either by effective 

 occupation by treaties with native potentates, or 

 by agreements with individual European powers. 

 By the agreement entered into in April, 1887, 

 between France and the Congo State, the water- 

 shed of the Ubangi is accepted as the frontier 

 line between their territories up to its point of 

 intersection with the fourth parallel. The 

 French have been desirous of extending their 

 sphere of influence from the Senegal and Niger 

 into the Central Soudan east of Lake Chad, and 

 from the French Congo through the Niam 

 Niam country and into the rich province of the 

 Bahr el Ghazal, which England claims, with the 

 rest of the Nile basin, as her own sphere. The 

 French, moreover, aim to unite their two spheres 

 in West Africa, and to this project the German 

 Government waived the objections that it might 

 have interposed by restricting the inland limit 

 of the Cameroons to 15 of east longitude and 

 permitting the French to push northward to 

 Lake Chad. Great Britain had offered the Hin- 

 terland to Germany in order to shut off the 

 French from approaching her sphere on the Nile, 

 and was disappointed when Germany abandoned 

 it to France. 



In 1890 arrangements were made between the 

 Administrator of the Congo State and the chair- 

 man of the British East Africa Company, in 

 which the company agreed to waive its rights 

 to territory that the Congo State might ac- 

 quire in the western watershed of the Nile. The 

 British Government was not consulted, and 

 -when expeditions were sent into this region by 

 the Congo State a formal protest was made by the 

 British representative at Brussels. The first ex- 

 pedition had departed beyond recall, re-enforce- 

 ments followed, and in spite of reverses the 

 Congo Government pursued secretly and ener- 

 getically the enterprise of gaining a foothold on 

 the Nile. The original expedition was sent out 

 in 1891 under Lieut, van der Kerckhoven, con- 

 sisting of over 2,000 men, with machine guns 

 and boats, which traversed the country of the 

 Niam Niams, and, crossing the watershed, estab- 

 lished itself upon the sources of the Nile. Lord 

 Rosebery protested against the invasion of ter- 

 ritory claimed as the^British sphere, but it was 



only recognized as such by Germany and Italy 

 in their agreements with Great Britain, not by 

 Belgium or the Congo State, nor by France, nor 

 was the British claim to the Nile basin com- 

 pleted by effective occupation. The expedition 

 proceeded, not withstanding the death of its 

 original leader, and was heard of in the terri- 

 tories bordering on the Nile, where friendly re- 

 lations were said to have been cultivated with 

 the local sultans and defensive posts established. 

 In the beginning of 1894 Capt. Baert, the com- 

 mander, was heard from on the Nile, and ru- 

 mors came of battles with the Soudanese der- 

 vishes and of the occupation of Lado after the 

 arrival of re-enforcements and supplies. In 

 March, 1894, Capt. Bonvalet, commanding the 

 advanced guard of a force pushing forward be- 

 yond the headwaters of the Welle, was killed by 

 the Mahdists after his irregular troops had fled. 

 His death was soon avenged by the main body 

 under Capt. Belanghe, who achieved a signal 

 victory. 



On May 12, 1894, an agreement was signed at 

 Brussels by Sir Francis Plunkett and M. van 

 Eetvelde, securing to Great Britain the coveted 

 unbroken line of communication through the 

 whole length of Africa from the Cape of Good 

 Hope to the Mediterranean, in return for a recog- 

 nition of the Belgian occupation of a part of the 

 British sphere in accordance with the agreement 

 entered into by Sir William Mackinnon, but 

 afterward repudiated by the British Government, 

 which would secure for the Congo State the out- 

 let on the Nile that King Leopold has desired to 

 obtain. The territory on either side was not for- 

 mally ceded, as other powers could object on 

 grounds of international law, but was ostensibly 

 leased. The Independent Congo State granted 

 under lease to Great Britain a strip of territory, 

 25 kilometres in breadth, extending from the 

 most northerly post on Lake Tanganyika, and 

 including such- post, to the most southerly point 

 on Lake Albert Edward. The Congo State fur- 

 ther authorized the construction through its 

 territory by Great Britain or any duly authorized 

 British company of a line of telegraph connect- 

 ing British territories in South Africa with the 

 British sphere of influence on the Nile, thus 

 giving Cecil Rhodes and his Transcontinental 

 Telegraph Company the choice of building their 

 line on the leased strip, or selecting another 

 route. The Congo State reserved the right to 

 use the line in connection with its own telegraph 

 system. Both parties declared that they neither 

 claimed nor sought to acquire political rights in 

 the leased territories other than the rights of 

 police and administration stipulated in the agree- 

 ment. Great Britain obtained for the first time 

 a recognition from the Congo State that the 

 sphere of influence of the latter is bounded by 

 the watershed between the Nile and the Congo, 

 which runs in a northerly and northwesterly di- 

 rection from the established eastern boundary, 

 30 of east longitude. The political supremacy 

 of Great Britain in the Equatorial Province 

 would thus be secured without the cost of occu- 

 pation and administration, which was under- 

 taken by the Congo State for the left bank of 

 the Nile for the period of the lease. The terri- 

 tories leased were bounded by a line starting 

 from a point on the west shore of Lake Albert 



