One day, the European countries started to discover the world and appropriate what they found. The British Empire, France, The Netherlands and Belgium played the big roles. Later, Germany also took some colonies, when the Kaiserreich unified most parts of Germany in 1871, some years after a German-German war, of Prussia against Bavaria, Austria and their allies. Prussia won and Austria had to leave the "German Bund" which was founded in 1806, after the Frenchmen went home. When Germany started to take the empty African regions, the Kaiser was annotating that its quite simple to take the land. By a "contract" the Reich purchased the authenticity of German law in the tribal leaders areas for cheap items. The "contracts" were signed with X by the tribal leaders in lack of literacy.
Not a day, but a few centuries, between XV to XIX centuries... World or Africa? World or Africa? The big role in Africa is Portugal, from Ceuta to Ethiopia, South Africa, Guinee, Gabon, Congo etc etc.. Nor Netherlands nor Belgium nor France nor Britain played any big role during XV-XVI centuries when Portuguese explored Africa and established the kingdom of Congo. About the World the same, but with spaniards, from Alaska to Korea and Japan and from South of Argentine to Cambodia.... Can you give me a list of Belgian explorers in Oceania? I can give a list of Spanish and Portuguese explorers in Africa or Oceanie... So, I imagine you´re writing about Africa and only about the last third of the nineteenth century, don´t you? Wrong. Netherlands play no roll in last third of the nineteenth century. Its roll was in XVII and XVIII century (but if you wrote Netherlands you must write Portugal.. because Portugal was by far most important in Africa than Netherlands, from Cabo da Boa Esperança to Arguim...in fact, Portugal was by far the most important country in the exploration of African coast and the first inlands expeditions: Congo, Angola etc. In XIX century, the most important expeditions were british ( Livingstone, Speke, Burton, Baker, Bruce (XVIII C.) or Mungo Park etc), german (Barth, Emin Pacha, Peters, Schweinfurth (he was a german russian) etc) and french (Caillie, Levaillant etc). Belgium played no roll in exploration of Africa. The Belgian Congo was a Leopold II´s private Ownership named Congo Free State. It was given by Berlin Congress in 1885 because the european rivalry in Central Africa led to diplomatic tensions and was a defusing tension way and a recognition of its expedition sponsorship to the Congo (Stanley). nothing to do nor Belgium nor belgian expeditions. Only in 1908, when Leopold II lived his last year of life (he died in 1909) the Congo Free State passed to Belgium. You forget Italy and the great austrian victories in Custozza and Lizza. Regards
