King Leopolds Congo: Genius King or Evil Tyrannt?

To truly understand this story, the history of Belgium is essential background. Belgium, one of the youngest and smallest countries in Western Europe is at the centre of the European political world. For its small size it has power and can make a big difference to decisions made in Europe. But it hasnt always been like this. In 1810 Belgium was a possession of France and had never formally existed as a country. By 1820 it was part of the Netherlands and it was not until 1831 that Belgium became established as a country with a constitutional monarchy by Leopold I. If I asked most people who King Leopold II was they would not be able to associate him with Belgium, let alone link him to crimes which resulted in the deaths of millions of people (some sources put this figure as high as 18 million, but it is hard to be sure) in Central Africa. In terms of the money he made from this humanitarian crisis he is more evil than Hitler, yet he has been almost forgotten even in the history of his own country, as they try to win power inside the modern European Union. Forgotten along with him is his extreme cunning, which allowed him to manipulate the most intellectual people on the planet and trick the most famous of British monarchs, Queen Victoria, and the government of the British Empire. He systematically created a network of government ministers and army officers, which stretched from West Africa to East Africa and to the West Coast of America. All of them were ready to do his bidding, for the promise of money. This man had one sole ambition; to make Belgium the most powerful country on the planet, and he would stop at nothing to achieve it. In doing research for this project I read two books about the Congo and also dipped into two biographies of King Leopold and Stanley as well as glancing over countless others. Due to selectivity of the project, title I have found it difficult to do extensive research as the does not seem to be a subject addressed by the modern world. The three books I did choose were carefully picked to provide me with a primary source, an older secondary source and a modern secondary source. The other books I glanced over were picked up from the bibliographies of the books I was reading and I was interested in the authors of these books as they were the people who the issues mattered to. The first book was on the recommendation of my history teacher, I read King Leopolds Ghost by Adam Hochschild. The book itself focuses on the humanitarian issues in the Congo and eventually the effect on the modern world, but the background story of how the King tricked and manipulated everyone from the leaders of the German Geographical Society to some of Britains most famous explorers is what really interested me.

Hochschild is a travel journalist from America who has always focused on humanitarian issues. During the sixties he wrote for an Anti-government newspaper in South Africa. Later in his journalistic career he turned to writing books, mainly focusing on humanitarian rights in other countries, including Stalins Russia and the South African Apartheid. On taking a trip to the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) he became interested in the old place names, such as Leopoldville and Stanleyville, but his tour guides where more interested in hiding the origins of these names. The book starts with a biography of the King and his father and close family. The relationships with his siblings are explored in little detail. These have always intrigued me and I think it may have been the fact that they were almost left out here which first interested me in them (or perhaps how they are so different from my own relationship with my siblings!) The marriages of the kings siblings and his own children are chronicled in detail. The description of the kings network of right-hand-men who were willing to do his bidding is explained, as is his incredibly shrewd judge of character which is one of his greatest attributes. The rest of the book is less useful for this title as, while it goes onto to speak about the crimes in the Congo there is much less reference to the king himself. Reading this book allowed me to gain an understanding of the kings mind and his crimes that caused deaths three] times that of the Holocaust and also provided a few good points from which to continue with my research. The second book I read was very different from first. Unlike Hochschilds book Mark Twains King Leopold Soliloquy is both a work of fact and a work of fiction. The book is set during the kings later life as he looks back on his rule over the Congo Free State and the lives of people which he changed and/or ruined. The book was not originally intended to published in the form which I read as Twain had always expected it to be a pamphlet (a short, politically or religiously motivated text) Mark Twain is considered as one of Americas greatest novelists, his works include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but this book is one of his lesser known works. It lead to a greater public awareness in America as it shone light onto many of the Kings crimes and the issues not only in the Congo but across the newly explored world. The book consists of one long speech by the Belgian monarch, during which he takes extracts from pamphlets written by missionaries and reads them in disgust, claiming that they are lies and nothing else. This provides a lot of opinions and interesting ideas that are useful in this project. whether these are what Twain believes to be the thoughts of the king towards the people he tricked and the people whom he bought down or his deranged reaction to the lies of missionaries who had simply picked their numbers carefully. I found it to be extremely useful because it is almost the only primary source available, it shows what people at the time thought and perhaps shows a little of what Leopold could have been like. He is portrayed as an evil dictator and this is probably significant in understanding why Belgium prefers to forget him.

The Penultimate stage of my research required getting hold of two books, the first of which was The King Incorporated by Neal Ascherson. The book is a biography of King Leopold II which includes his complex relationships with his siblings and father. I had started to read the book from the beginning but found that a lot of the information in the first few chapters would not be necessary for the project, for this reason I decided concentrate on and read the chapters about Leopold's midlife and his relationships with Stanley and finish with Ascherson's interpretation of the Congo Free State. Ascherson is the most acclaimed historian on the list of authors of the books I have read, he has worked in historical journalism throughout his career. His jobs have included posts at The Observer and The Independent and he has also contributed scripts for television programmes. The 150 pages of this book which I read have proved as helpful as any of the other pieces of literature in understanding what happens in the mind of Leopold and how he has affected so many other people. The second book I wanted to read a few chapters of was Stanley by Tim Jeal. Whilst this may not have been the most appropriate book for my topic it was useful to gain the view of someone who was looking at the story from a completely different view. This is also the most recent of the books I read. Published in 2007, it has also affected the opinions of Jeal, he is writing more than a century after many of the events have taken place. Tim Jeal is a historical novelist and has been writing a series of biographies of notable British men during the 19th century. Stanley if you have not guessed, in the biography of Sir Henry Morton Stanley, Leopold's right-hand man when it came to exploring in the Congo. I learnt a huge amount from the book, including things Stanley had done which the writers writing about Leopold had not been aware of, such as trying to sell the Congo to the British or pretending that he was American to escape his disgraceful past. Finally I turned to the Internet. I collected a list of characters and researched raw facts that would not fit in a book like date of birth and achievements. These people included the obvious characters and the authors of the books I have read but also some less known characters who had an effect on the story, Henry Shelton Sanford for instance, was the American ambassador to Belgium and became the King's right-hand man for most of his career. I compressed my research into a few pages of word document which contains well over 30 characters, from the Emperor of Mexico to David Livingstone, and many organisations, including the Germany Geographical Society and its British equivalent. Before I start the next part of this essay a note about the Belgian Royal Family would be useful. Leopold I was Belgiums first king. He had four children, a daughter and three sons, Charlotte, Louise-Philippe, Leopold and Phillippe. Charlotte went on to become Empress of Mexico through marriage and the other boys received the titles Crown-Prince and Count of Flanders respectively. Louise-Phillippe had always been his mothers favourite son and this was one factor in pushing Leopold to achieve. This childhood rivalry

affected his entire life. Leopold was enrolled in the army at an early age and was promoted quickly but soon realised he would prefer to study in his fathers library than perform drill. This had an effect on the opinion of his parents towards him, for they thought that Leopold lacked commitment and a desire to to work. Now to the question; King Leopold II Evil Tyrant or Genius King? The best place to start is early in the young kings life. Just as he has succeeded his father to the throne, he was young and he keen to make a Belgium a powerful country in the age of Empires. At this stage we can already see the elements of the mans intelligence creeping through, he may not have a written plan but one was certainly starting to formulate in his brain. He was already starting to make it known that he is looking for land in the new world. The first notable step Leopold takes was when he organised a state visit to the British colonies in Egypt to see the construction of the Suez Canal. He is looking to see how colonies are run. We see that his visit has been very useful from some of the letters he writes to Sanford, Henry Shilton Sanford is Leopolds right-hand man, a bankrupt businessman who is clutching at straws in order to survive as a member of the Aristocracy. He tell Sanford that he has seen the British building their Empire, how the British place their own officers in charge of the native population as they build the improvements of the land which will make the British feel at home. He also writes that this is a good way to mange to the natives, Whites, controlling with weapons, the black natives who were living on the land before it was taken from them. This is another element of Leopolds Genius, his ability to take an idea which most simply accepted as being the best and make improvements, no one had ever tried to do this before the Europeans just believed that this was the only way to do it. Leopolds first master plan was as follows: A colony must be governed by one absolute ruler, the government should set up outposts spread evenly across the country. At each outpost is a small number of military officers who command the natives using force, this system allows and uprisings to be crushed immediately. Any infrastructure should be for the use of the white rulers only and it should be as minimal as possible to allow for maximum profit from the land. This show how Leopold was not the average colonial, he did not want to rule land for Glory or to expand his empire, Leopold was in the business of profiteering via exploitation. This had never been done before, no one had ever tried to rule a colony simply for their own personal gain and this meant that Leopold could rewrite the colonial rule book to suit himself, a piece of pure genius. What this man needed now was someone who would do the dirty work for him, someone with a good reputation, but who was suitably weak to manipulated into doing anything. Enter Sir Henry Morton Stanley, or at this time just Henry Morton Stanley, famous British explorer but with a hidden past which appealed to Leopolds darker side. Stanley was ashamed of his roots, he was the illegitimate son of a Welsh domestic servant and an English Aristocrat, he thought if this was found out it wound mean he would lose his

reputation. As I have said Leopolds plan to deceive Stanley showed the darker side of his mind, but what he didnt know was that he had already fallen into a trap which had been created by his very target. Leopold had no practical experience of Africa, the closest he had got was a boat ride along the Nile, he had no idea what it was really like so he believed the stories that Stanley told. In his reports on Africa, Stanley had described the Congo as mythical land where savage tribes laid waste to the land and where Arab slave raiders held all the power. Stanley had told this lie so many times that is likely even he himself and fallen for it, really we have little idea what the Congo was like before Leopold entered. We can presume it was a this jungle, broken by occasional small deserts, Tribes would have ruled over small areas of land and probably had little contact with the outside world. Whether anyone in the Congo had ever seen an Arab we cant tell, but from the reaction Stanley receives from the natives it seems unlikely. So the King, not knowing he has fallen for the lies of Stanley, and Stanley, not knowing he is being tricked by the King or that the King has fallen into his trap, begin to communicate with each other. The King send messages to Stanley through Sanford and Stanley replies happily, it seems that the possibility of working for royalty is right up his street. This is understandable as, for almost his whole life, Stanley has been chasing recognition, trying to hide his past and bring glory to himself. Leopold and Stanley agree that Stanley is to go back to the Congo and when he returns he must write a journal which makes the Congo sound like the most horrible, god-less, place on earth. Stanley does just this and his journal is incredibly popular, in 6 months most of Europe believes the Congo to be Hell on earth. Leopold has completed stage one of his masterplan, already we can see that he is an incredibly clever man, he has used a single person to trick all of Europe and now he is ready to collect the reward. With the whole of Europe waiting for someone to do something about the Congo, Leopold steps out on to the international stage. He says that the journal has shocked him and that something must be done about the Congo, he says he will set up an international committee to find a solution. Leopold does just this and the Berlin conference meets soon after with the main aim of deciding the best way to solve the problems on the Congo, 40 international delegates, the cleverest people of the 19th Century, have all fallen in the web of lies spun my Leopold, it is impossible to argue against him being a deceptive mastermind at this point. Leopold does not attend the conference himself, but rather sends Sanford with the specific instructions to find out the best way to run a colony. From the letters Leopold and Sanford exchange we can learn the real reason that the Berlin Conference had been held, Leopold wanted the delegates to discuss and decide upon the best way to rule a colony, everything from system of government to quality of infrastructure. Now that Leopold had the information he needed it was time for him to reveal himself and his plan to the world, this was a very clever move;

Leopold had waited for the perfect time, a lot of people had forgotten about the Congo and whilst Britain and France we beginning to move slowly into the territory, Stanleys shocking reports had scared many possible colonials away. Less than a year after the Berlin conference Leopold held another in Brussels, this time he attended in person and explained to the delegates how he would run the colony. Another clever move because all Leopold was doing was telling the delegates what they had told him a year earlier, this meant they were suitably impressed. The conference agreed that Leopold should lead an expedition to take control of the Congo and establish the Congo Free State a model colony which would be ruled by the humanitarian King Leopold, of course they had no idea what was really going to happen in the Congo. Leopold was weaved an incredible plan and tricked the most prominent figures in colonialism, he has taken control of a famous British explorer and extorted a former American politician. At the moment he seems like a clever man with a shrewd judge of character but also a mad craving for power and control. The king sent Stanley to Gibraltar where he met Sanford who told him how he would be going to the Congo again, he was to take a huge group of mercenaries acquired by the king and would set up stations along the river. Leopold had spent 5 months planning what Stanley should do step by step, he had had a special paddle steamer built; it could be taken to pieces and carried around the rapids and other dangerous sections by the men. Stanley was not to stop to negotiate which the tribes, if they did not let him past he could use guns and swords to get them out the way. Leopold wanted a majority of the natives kept alive, this way he could make money from slaves and also use them to harvest the rubber and ivory on the land. The river stations Stanley set up would have one white commander and several black mercenaries, these men would control the slaves and load the boats on the river. It was a very well thought out plan, he had every detail thought through, every problem solved, it enabled him to be making money from the colony as soon as Stanley was finished. A genius plan but with terrible consequences, it is a summary of what Leopold does. Stanley set of soon after his meeting with Sanford and for a second time he was off into the Congo for a man he had never seen of spoken to. His expedition part of over 500 people included an artist and several journalists who were being paid by the king to make it seem as if this was a humanitarian mission, this was one of the areas where Leopold had fixed a potentially critical problem; he had to supple the delegates from the conference with evidence of what he was doing otherwise they would become suspicious. It took Stanley almost a year to make his way through the Congo and to set up the river stations Leopold desired, there were no hospitals or infrastructure like the delegates wanted yet stories of the building of bridges across the river to link communities were fed back to the delegates in Europe.

Leopold had the territory he had so desired and now he realised he did want it to go the Belgium, the government did not want a colony and they would let it fall into disrepair, instead he began to seek diplomatic recognition of the Congo Free State as an independent country. Sanford was sent back to America to lobby for this recognition and with the support of the delegates from Berlin and Brussels and the support of Sanfords political reputation the United States agreed to recognise the country with Leopold as its head of State. Meanwhile the ships were leaving Leopoldville full of slaves, rubber and ivory and the extortion of the native population by Leopolds mercenaries was beginning. For a head of state Leopold did very little ruling, this was a crucial failure for a man who seemed like he had everything perfectly planned, he had let the white officials take control of the money for their area. This would be fine in any normal country but when you leave a rich man in charge of 5 mercenaries in the middle of the jungle there will be obvious complications, there were mutinies across the Congo in the first months of the countrys statehood. Leopold managed to rearrange the system of government to regain control, many mercenaries were killed and native men were hired in their place. During the several decades of its existence the Congo Free State saw many atrocities, its unlikely that these were directly linked to Leopold but were the result of his putting inexperienced men in charge of his country. Christian missionaries report seeing women and children having their hands cut off for not producing enough rubber and failed elephant hunters were often beheaded. There were at least two reports of regular cannibalism, villages were burnt to the ground and the remaining white officials lived in lavish houses. Leopold had lost control of his country, what was originally a very well run dictatorship had fallen to pieces because the king made several big mistakes. Looking back on the events before and after the colonisation i think it may be necessary to say that Leopold had laid the foundations of a fantastic dictatorship which would have bought him great personal gains. His biggest short coming was that believed everyone was like him, of course they werent and this meant he wasnt able to keep his country running as it should have. In the modern world it would be possible the country like Leopold had tried to, just without the killing and the slavery. On the kings death the colony was inherited by Belgium but by the end of the First World War the small country did not have the funds to keep the Congo and it became a free country. Leopold had embarrassed his country and, whilst he had done a lot for them culturally, he was forgotten by its people. I think that this was a terrible thing to happen, from the research I have done I see that contrary to the opinion of the time Leopold did not order the humanitarian crisis to take on the level that it eventually did. Whatever caused it to escalate, it is clear that Leopold had known this would be the only way to run a colony and make money from it.

King Leopold II was in no way like the more famous of tyrant Dictators, Hitler and Napoleon. Where they failed, Leopold didnt. He kept his cool and calculated the risk of every movement, he used those who worked for him like a chess grand master. When looking for the model of a Dictatorship we should look towards Leopolds Congo, he may have had the advantage of complete secrecy and no opposition from the population, but he remained in control and never went mad or started crazy wars. He was always prepared to take risks but never big ones. Leopold had the right contacts and was around at the right time. He did his research and knew exactly what to do, he played the part of a humanitarian monarch perfectly. Yet at heart Leopold was a greatly misunderstood man, always striving to do the best he could be cause he knew his parent had favoured his brother. He had been a sickly child and he wanted to gain power greater than any other monarch in the world. Leopold proved both the flaws of the imperial system and showed where it works well. I will put him down as a great tyrant, a man who should have been seen and stopped before he went out on a crazy mission to gain territory , but also the cleverest ruler of the 19th century. He was able to trick anyone as long as he had the resources, every move he made had been thought through, all problems covered before he even said a word. This is the verdict that Leopold II, King of the Belgians, Duke of Brabant deserves and I was upset not to find this is any of my reading. His story is one that would captivate the world and I think it would be great to find him forgiven by the Belgian government and written back into history, I think there are ways to recover his reputation and Belgium should pursue these. In my opinion he was Belgiums worst citizen but her greatest King. I have enjoyed writing about King Leopold as his biography has fascinated me for some time and it was good finally to be given an excuse to do more research. I struggled to find literature on the subject I wanted and had to subtly change my title to encompass the limited nature of the books I had. When I started the project I found I had to reevaluate what I already knew and add the new information from the books to my existing knowledge. I struggled to keep the length of the essay down, it could be much longer than it is now, as what I thought was a small subject, soon exploded revealing many small subplots to follow. The other thing which frustrated me was the lack of any recent information, I have written a letter to the BBC editor for history to explain this. Im sure if Leopold was alive now the thing that would disappoint him most would be that he has almost been forgotten by history, the worst thing for a man with an ego the size of his.