Edmund Musgrave Barttelot

Edmund Musgrave Barttelot (28 March 1859 – 19 July 1888) was a British army officer, who became notorious after his allegedly brutal and deranged behaviour during his disastrous command of the rear column in the Congo during Henry Morton Stanley's Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. He has often been identified as one of the sources for the character of Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness. Life Barttelot was born in Petworth, West Sussex, the second son of Sir Walter Barttelot, 1st Baronet and his first wife, Harriet Musgrave. He attended Sandhurst before receiving a commission in the 7th Regiment of Foot on 22 January 1879 at the age of 19. Barttelot served in the British Raj before fighting in the Second Anglo-Afghan War and the Anglo–Egyptian War. During the Nile Expedition of 1884–85, he joined the Camel Corps on their march to Khartoum, and caused some controversy by shooting an Aden man who attempted to vandalise a waterskin and struck Barttelot with a stick. Barttelot was promoted to the rank of captain on 8 September 1886 before being brevetted Major the following day in recognition of his service in Sudan. In 1886, he volunteered for Henry Morton Stanley's Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. As Stanley's second in command he was leader of the Rear Column which was left at Yambuya on the Aruwimi River to wait for more porters to be brought by the Arab slave trader Tippu Tip while Stanley marched on to reach Emin as soon as possible. During Stanley's absence, the Rear Column descended into confusion. Barttelot was unable to maintain discipline, and resorted to repeated floggings of Africans, a least two of whom died from the beatings. Large numbers of bearers died from malnutrition and untreated illness or deserted. Although the Rear Column finally received some of the Manyema porters, it had only got as far as Banalya when the Major threatened a woman with his revolver because she was beating a drum during a ceremony in the early hours of the morning. He was shot dead by the woman's husband, a man named Sanga or Samba. Stanley received reports about Barttelot's behaviour from other officers. One, William Bonny, said that "the least thing caused the Major to behave like a fiend" and that he would repeatedly stab African workers with a steel-pointed cane, bit a woman, and tried to poison an Arab chief.