Janice Anderson - War Crimes and Atrocities

As the sun rose the next morning and the nawab awoke, he ordered the guards to open the door to the tiny cell. They were horrified at what they saw. The majority of the captives were dead, however, they were still standing, due to the crowded conditions of the room. Only 23 faint and weak people actually staggered out into the daylight. Although some were revived by being taken into the fresh air, others remained delirious and incoherent. Holwell, who was one of the survivors, and three others were taken as prisoners to Murshidabad, while the corpses were simply thrown into a ditch to rot.

Britain was horrified by what had taken place at Fort William and wanted revenge. They sent in Robert Clive, an ex-civil servant of the East India Company, who now worked for their military. Clive and his mighty army marched on Calcutta and by January 1757 they had taken control, flying the British flag proudly over the city.

Some 150 km (96 miles) away, the Nawab was waiting for Clive at Plassey with an army at least 20 times the size of the British. However, luck was on the side of Clive and his army because the majority the nawab’s army had deserted him, led by his own great-uncle, Mir Jafar. Clive and his army crossed the river and set up camp for the night. Unaware that the Indian army was now considerably depleted, Clive had a restless night, knowing too well the fearful odds that his army would have to face the next morning.

The battle started as soon as the dawn broke, but it had barely started when it was all over, with the nawab taking flight on the back of his camel. The remainder of what was once the great native army retreated in wild disorder. Clive stood triumphant in the middle of the battlefield at Plessey, with a loss of only 22 men. He had succeeded in defeating an army of almost 60,000 men. Not only was Clive the conqueror of Plassey, but far more importantly he had set the footings of a brand new empire for Great Britain.

For the nawab, the fact that India now found itself completely under the administration of the triumphant East India Company was too much for him to bear. A few days later, his lifeless body was found floating down the river.

King Leopold II succeeded his father Leopold I to the Belgian throne in 1865, and he occupied this position until his death in 1909. Leopold II has been described as a man with exceptional greed who became obsessed with the idea of owning a colony. He believed that the key to a country’s greatness lay with the overseas colonies, and he strived hard to obtain a colonial territory for Belgian at any cost. Even though he didn’t have the backing of the Belgian people or government, Leopold eventually acquired the Congo Free State as his own private venture, which turned into one of the most infamous international scandals at the turn of the 19th century.

During the late 19th and early 20th century, Europe started to branch out and became aware of less developed countries. In these countries, they saw the perfect opportunity to colonize – that is to spread European civilization to native people in exchange for cheap labour and natural resources. Africa at this time was still called the ‘Dark Continent’ and the western districts had been virtually unexplored due to the difficulties of negotiating the massive system of rapids on the Congo River.

In 1876, Leopold set up a private holding company called the International African Society, which he camouflaged as an international scientific and philanthropic association. Under the auspices of this company, which strove for colonization and exploration of Africa, Leopold hired the already famous explorer, Sir Henry Stanley to try and acquire as much land as possible for him in the Congo Basin.

Stanley was able to gain control of an enormous region of the Congo – 2.344 million km 2(905,000 square miles) – by trading with the local chiefs through illicit treaties. The chiefs, who believed that they were signing friendship treaties, were in fact selling their land to Leopold II, and Stanley managed to get over 450 treaties over the next five years.

In 1884–85, the Berlin Conference took place for representatives of both Europe and the USA to discuss the even distribution of Africa. However, with the treaties that Stanley had been able to obtain, it meant that Leopold was legally able to lay claim to an exceptionally large region of Central African rainforest. Leopold became sole ruler to a population of over 30 million people and, without international intervention, he was left to do exactly as he pleased with his newly acquired colony.

Pronouncing himself as sovereign of the Congo Free State, Leopold continued to use and finance the services of Stanley. Leopold wanted to develop the area due to the high concentration of natural resources, such as rubber, ivory, copper, diamonds and gold. He started to make plans to improve transport in the area so that he would be able to freely export these valuable goods. In fact, Leopold did anything he could to gain wealth out of the Congo, even if this meant the use of slave labour.

Leopold continued to strengthen his new realm with the construction of a new railway, which took a total of eight years to build, with the loss of many native lives. However, this was just a minor obstacle. The main hurdle Leopold had to overcome was the dissipation of Arab slave traders living along the Lualaba River, who also considered the Congo to be their rightful claim. Having lived in the area since the 1860s, the slavers were firmly established in the region and were unprepared to accept Leopold as their new sovereign. The slavers already felt threatened by the proposed abolition of Africa’s interior slave trade as laid down by the Berlin Conference, and the situation became tense.

To try and appease the predicament he found himself in, Leopold once again sent Stanley to approach the slavers. Stanley met with their leader, Tippu Tip, in an effort to try and get him to confine his activities to a smaller area upstream of Stanley Falls. Tippu, who had previously helped Stanley on one of his explorations, was outraged by the betrayal of an old associate. The result was that in 1886 the Arab slavers attacked Stanley Falls and killed the entire garrison stationed there.

Leopold, who knew that he did not have enough forces to overcome the slavers, relented and sent Stanley to meet Tippu again with a new proposition. This time Stanley offered the leader a compromise by taking control of the region under the protection of Leopold’s company. Tippu agreed to his new arrangement and three years later he was able to retire in comfort from the considerable profits he had acquired. However, this caused new problems for Leopold as the remaining slavers were not happy with the liaison with the king’s company.

Leopold knew that he would no longer be able to cooperate with the natives peaceably, and in 1889 called for an antislave congress. Despite the fact that the Berlin Conference was in favour of keeping the Congo as a free trade zone, Leopold was able to win enough support to enable him to start charging import taxes on any goods coming into the Congo. Using the income from these taxes, Leopold planned a campaign to end slave trading in the area and, by 1895, the Arab slavers had largely been driven out of the area.

Between the years 1885 and 1890, Leopold had spent an enormous amount of his own money on his project, totalling almost 20 million francs. As the problems rose, so did the cost of dealing with them, and Leopold was now desperate to start making a profit from his African colony. In 1889, he convinced the Belgian government to loan him 25 million francs, and with these new funds Leopold started to squeeze every bit of money he could out of his project, determined to recoup his losses at all costs.