The Crown Prince, Clemenceau and the Congo

Crown Prince Rudolph’s contacts with Georges Clemenceau, the French Radical Party politician (and much later wartime Prime Minister), have often been interpreted as a sign of acute dissatisfaction with Austria-Hungary's German alliance. However, a closer look at Rudolph’s correspondence with the man who established these contacts, Vienna journalist Moritz Szeps, clearly shows that Rudolph was primarily concerned to further the plans of his father-inlaw, King Leopold II of Belgium. Leopold desperately needed the French government’s permission to launch a lottery loan for his Congo Free State on the Paris stock exchange. In 1886–7, Clemenceau seemed a good choice to bring that result about. Moreover, contrary to his later reputation, Clemenceau and the Radicals were at that time opposed to a Russian alliance. Thus, they were not regarded as a force that was particularly dangerous for the Austro-German alliance.