The Berlin Conference

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2013

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Berlin Conference of 1884. In the 1880s, as colonial powers attempted to increase their spheres of influence in Africa, tensions began to grow between European nations including Britain, Belgium and France. In 1884 the German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, brought together many of Europe's leading statesmen to discuss trade and colonial activities in Africa. Although the original purpose of the summit was to settle the question of territorial rights in West Africa, negotiations eventually dealt with the entire continent. The conference was part of the process known as the Scramble for Africa, and the decisions reached at it had effects which have lasted to the present day. The conference is commonly seen as one of the most significant events of the so-called Scramble for Africa; in the following decades, European nations laid claim to most of the continent. With: Richard Drayton Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King's College London Richard Rathbone Emeritus Professor of African History at SOAS, University of London Joanna Lewis Assistant Professor of Imperial History at the LSE, University of London. Producer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for more details about In Our Time
0:04.1	and for our terms of use, please go to bbc.co.uk slash radio for.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:11.0	Hello, on November 15th 1884, the representatives of 14 world powers arrived at the Berlin Palace
0:18.2	of the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck for an international summit.
0:22.2	For the next three months, they sat locked in negotiation in a grand ballroom dominated
0:26.8	by a 16-foot high map of Africa.
0:30.0	Officially the summit was known as the Conference on West African Affairs in practice, the delegates
0:35.4	were discussing the future of the entire continent and how to carve it up.
0:39.8	European powers had been setting up colonies in Africa for decades, now they decided which
0:44.3	parts of the continent they would each be allowed to treat as their own.
0:47.8	The conference was part of the process known as the Scramble for Africa, and the decisions
0:51.9	reached it had effects which have lasted to the present day.
0:55.2	It was a single African took part in the summit, and only two of the diplomats involved
0:59.2	in these crucial negotiations had ever set foot there.
1:02.6	With me to discuss the Berlin Conference and the Scramble for Africa, a Richard Dreyton
1:06.9	Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King's College London, Richard Rathburn, Emeritus
1:12.2	Professor of African History at Siras University of London, and Joanna Lewis Assistant Professor
1:17.2	of Imperial History at the LSE University of London.
1:20.5	Richard Dreyton, the main events we'll be talking about took place in the late 19th century.
1:25.0	Professor, will you tell us how and in what way the European started to establish permanent
1:29.6	semi-permanent residents in Africa?
	...

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