Kivu frontier incident
The frontiers of the Congo Free State were defined by the Neutrality Act during the 1885 Berlin Conference, in which the European powers staked out their territorial claims in Africa.
However, the northeastern part of the Free State had not been explored or mapped by Europeans at this time, and Lake Kivu was not to be discovered until nine years later, by Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen in 1894.
[2] In 1896 the mutiny in the northeast of the Congo during the Congo-Nile expedition of Francis Dhanis forced the Belgians to evacuate the territory between the official border and the Ruzizi valley and Lake Kivu.
[2] On 10 April 1900 Auguste Beernaert for Belgium and Frédéric Jean d'Alvensleben for Germany signed a protocol defining the frontier between their territories.
[2] Lieutenant Paul Léon Delwart, head of the elite company of the Force Publique in Orientale Province, died on 19 August 1900.
[1] Von Schoen of Belgium wrote to Baron Greindl on 30 July 1909 protesting against this agreement, which dividing Belgian territory between Britain and Germany.
There he was told to go to Mbarara and there take charge of a mixed force of Sikhs, King's African Rifles and Police as Political Officer.
[1] On 26 June 1909 Coote, as district commissioner of Mbarara, wrote from Mount Lubuna to F. Goffoel, head of the Rutshuru sector, stating that he had been instructed to occupy the Ufumbiro.
[1] When Goffoel received Coote's letter he replied that he was not authorized to deal with the question and referred it to Olsen, who was on an inspection tour in the Kasindi region to the north of Lake Edward.
The two men then had a friendly conversation, and Coote gained the impression that his present position was recognized by the Belgians as being in the British zone.
Olsen was in the stronger position, since his troops were supplied by villages in Belgian territory, while Coote was halted in the marshy region between the Mutanda, Bunyonyi and Burera lakes.
[14] The Germans, concerned by the Belgian and British concentrations, occupied Mount Nyamuragira in the north of the disputed territory with a force of 300 men.
[12] On 8 November 1909 Earl Granville wrote to the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Davignon, protesting the arrest of two British soldiers, a Muganda headman and five porters.
[9] On 19 November 1909 Coote wrote to Acting Governor Boyle saying the Belgians were building a road from their ferry on Lake Kivu to Rutshuru.
On 26 November 1909 he reported that the Belgians had stopped working on the road and retired to the south of Lake Kivu due to pressure from the Germans.
[14] In December 1909 Belgium had 2,000 troops in the region compared to 800 British soldiers, and the consul at Boma reported that more Belgians were being mobilized.
[5] Belgium was represented by Jules Van den Heuvel, Germany by Karl Ebermaier and Britain by Arthur Henry Hardinge.
[22] The boundaries that were eventually agreed were based on natural features and took no account of the local peoples, apart from allowing them to harvest their crops and then migrate with their flocks and possessions to the territory of the state that had previously administered their land.
