Berlin Conference

King Leopold II of Belgium slicing into a cake labeled ''CONGO''.

The Berlin Conference was an international gathering of the imperial core, convened by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and held in Berlin from November 15, 1884 to February 26, 1885. Its purpose was to regulate the increasing rivalry among the European states over the partition of Africa, the conference led to the General Act of the Berlin Conference which established the rules under which Africa would be colonized and systematically plundered.

The conference was a reflection of the transition from capitalism to imperialism i.e. of finance capital and monopoly. Colonialism, which had been in decline, underwent a revival as capital sought new areas for investment and markets. The Long Depression drove the imperial core to seek external territories as a means of alleviating the increasing class tensions at home. The conference was a predatory struggle among the rival bourgeoisie to strengthen their global economic and strategic positions. It was attended by representatives of every major European imperialist power, alongside the United States, Tsarist Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. Not a single African was present.

History

Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, the USA, Turkey, France, Norway and Sweden participated in the Berlin Conference.

At the time of the conference, roughly 80 percent of Africa was under indigenous rule, yet no African representatives were invited to negotiate the colonization of their own lands. The conference did not initiate the partition of Africa, which was already in full swing as France had occupied Tunisia in 1881 and Guinea in 1884; Britain had invaded Egypt in 1882; Italy had occupied parts of Eritrea; and Germany had annexed Namibia, Togo, and Cameroon in 1884.

Article 34 within the General Act, was the doctrine of spheres of influence, requiring any imperialist power occupying an African coast or declaring a "protectorate" to notify the other imperialists. Article 35, the doctrine of effective occupation, required occupiers to demonstrate actual possession or authority over a territory, a condition that became the trigger for military occupation, since recognition by the other imperialists now had to be backed by force of arms.

The General Act was signed by 13 of the 14 nations present. The United States declined to sign, busy with its own ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Indigenous population. Washington still played an important role, pushing a free-trade policy to secure access to markets controlled by the imperialists and actively supporting Belgium's Congo Free State under King Leopold II which murdered an estimated five to eight million Congolese.

After three decades, with the exceptions of Liberia and Ethiopia, 90 percent of the continent was turned into roughly 40 colonies occupied by five of the imperialists. The borders drawn at the Berlin Conference and in the treaties following fragmented the ethnic, cultural, and linguistic landscapes. The conference despite the goal of regulating the rivalry only intensified inter-imperialist rivalries and it was this competition that birthed both the First World War of 1914 and the Second World War.