The European scramble to partition and occupy African territory is often treated as a peripheral aspect of the political and economic rivalries that developed between the new industrial nations in Europe itself and that were particularly acute from about 1870 to 1914. Its opening has commonly been taken to be either the French reaction to the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 or the Congo basin rivalry between agents of France and of Leopold II of the Belgians that led to the Berlin West Africa Conference of 1884–85, both of which are seen as being exploited by Bismarck for purposes ...(100 of 31209 words)