Folly and Madness in the Congo

 

 

A review of The Last Expedition – Stanley’s Mad Journey through the Congo by Daniel Liebowitz and Charles Pearson, W. W. Norton, NY, 2005.

 The popular facts - In 1886 word began to spread that Emin Pasha, a German national who was the governor of Equatoria Province of Egyptian Sudan, was under siege by Mahdi jihadists who in 1885 had executed British Governor General Charles Gordon and stuck his head on a pole in Khartoum. The British public was outraged by this atrocity so rallied to support the relief of Gordon’s last remaining lieutenant.  Because the Mahdists controlled the Nile, an overland expedition was conceived designed to resupply Emin Pasha and to offer him an escape from the marauding jihadists. The best-known explorer of Africa, Henry Morton Stanley, was designated to lead the expedition.

It began to go wrong from the beginning.  The major decision that backfired was Stanley’s bullheaded determination to approach Equatoria from the west, that is starting at the Atlantic Ocean. The shorter alternative was from the east along the slave caravan trails from Zanzibar.  Stanley’s iron will prevailed and the column of nearly a thousand men – nine Europeans, some Sudanese soldiers, some Somali fighters and hundreds of Zanzibari porters, augmented by hundreds of African carriers – both hired and enslaved – began the 2000-mile journey from the mouth of the Congo River, up the river and its Aruwimi tributary. They hacked through hundreds of miles of oppressive, dank, dark, wet jungle to Lake Albert. Beginning in March 1887, they sought to transport hundreds of tons of ammunition, weaponry, and supplies as well as an eighty-foot-long metal boat. Materiel was divided into sixty-pound loads carried by men. Those who survived the rigors of the journey finally arrived at the Lake in December 1887.

The going was hell. Rivers became impassable. The Ituri jungle was impenetrable, and native tribes, including pygmies, cannibals, and indigenous slavers, were hostile. Harassment and conflict plagued the column. Food ran out and little was available. Men starved, were wounded, weakened, and became susceptible to disease. Hundreds died. Stanley badgered and berated his officers. He brutalized slackers and laggards, and had thieves and deserters hung. Given the almost insurmountable obstacles, it is amazing that the column crept onwards, seemingly empowered by Stanley’s unbending will.

Upon finally reaching Lake Albert, the southernmost part of Equatoria, Stanley and Emin Pasha finally met.  Each privately recognized the irony of Pasha rescuing Stanley rather than the other way around.  However, Pasha exercised diminishing control over his Egyptian troops who, at first, refused to believe that their sovereign the Khedive of Egypt had abandoned them.  Secondly, they opted to rebel against Pasha and his so-called savior Stanley. Pasha was a weak, indecisive administrator and while he dithered, Stanley returned into the forest to reclaim what was left of his rear column and supplies. That took a year!

Finally, back at Lake Albert Stanley set a deadline and Pasha realized he had no option. He had to leave. Another huge column set out for Zanzibar. This column moved excruciatingly slowly as well but did not suffer from the horrors of the jungle. Twelve hundred miles later on December 4, 1889, they arrived at Bagamoyo, on the Indian Ocean coast across from Zanzibar Island.  There during a joyful welcoming dinner celebration, Emin Pasha unwittingly stepped out of a second story window and smashed his head on the stones below. (Pasha survived but never left Africa). Stanley, who had more than enough of the dithering gentle soul, left him and returned to a tumultuous reception in England. 

Reality – The authors of this book recount the facts of the expedition but reveal the maneuvering, the backbiting, the antagonisms, the politics, the scheming, the betrayals, the bravery, the motives, the competence, the incompetence, and the character of all involved. The first narrative of the expedition was Stanley’s best seller In Darkest Africa. In that book Stanley painted himself as hero and protagonist without peers. In fact, Stanley was aloof, selfish, and haunted by his humble origins. He was motivated by the prospects for fame and fortune. He focused on results. He had no friends or colleagues on the expedition, only subordinates.

Later publications of letters, diaries and memoirs by his British companions cast considerable doubt on Stanley’s version of events, especially his leadership and management styles. The authors of the book used the various accounts of the expedition throughout the saga to paint an authentic portrait of the expedition, of its people, of the hardships, and of the decisions made and not made.  Especially revealing are the roles that Stanley’s British subordinates played. Indeed, without them – and Stanley gave them little credit in his opus – the expedition would not have survived.  Major Barttelot, William Bonny, James Jameson, Arthur Jephson, Dr. Parke, Lt. Stairs, Herbert Ward, and even notorious Arab slaver Tippu Tib, all played important roles in the expedition’s various fortunes.  Consequently, The Last Expedition provides contemporary readers with an accurate recitation of the reality of the expedition to rescue Emin Pasha. It is terrific readable history!

Afterword – Readers will note various citations, not just from Stanley, but from others mentioned above, employed to underline points in the text. Indeed, as the authors later explain, in the years after the expedition was completed, the contrasting points of view provided fodder for Britian’s popular press. The sanctimonious anti-Stanley hoopla certainly tarnished his reputation but could not refute the fact that he was the 19^th century’s most intrepid explorer.