The Invasion of the United States by an Englishman: E. D. Morel and the Anglo-American Intervention in the Congo

Abstract

At the outset of the twentieth century, reports of atrocities in the administration of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium excited the moral outrage of the British public. As the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, later remarked, “no external question for at least thirty years has moved the country so strongly and so vehemently”.¹ At the forefront of the movement to publicize the horrors was the honorary secretary of the Congo Reform Association (CRA), E. D. Morel. He believed that the mobilization of Britain would stir the conscience of the rest of the world; if “the British people could be really roused, the world might be roused”; and Leopold’s brutal regime would be eradicated.² With his assistance, branches of the CRA sprouted up across Europe [from 1900 onwards]. Yet, outside Britain, only in the United States did the cause of Congo reform become a truly mass movement. Together the two associations cultivated public opinion and lobbied their governments to alleviate the suffering in the Congo. Popular pressure ultimately led to diplomatic action [in 1908]. Following a scandal in the United States over Leopold’s attempts to combat his deteriorating public image, the British and American governments joined together to press for an end to the king’s regime. The subsequent downfall of Leopold’s administration and the annexation of the Congo Free State by Belgium was largely a consequence of this Anglo-American intervention, the first of its kind in the twentieth century.