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Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine.

In 1879, King Leopold of Belgium commissioned an expedition to transport Asian elephants from India to the African interior,

with a vision of using them as working animals to unlock the continent's resources.

Journalist Sophie Roberts has retraced the root of this ill-conceived journey for her book,

A Training School for Elephants, and I spoke to her to find out more.

So to start us off, Sophie, I wonder if you can introduce us to this little known story from 1879. Why was there a mission to transport Asian elephants to the middle

of Africa when, I think as most people will know, that continent already had elephants of its own?

Yes, at the beginning of the 19th century, it had something like 26 million elephants

of its own, not the case now, of course, but huge, huge, huge herds.

So why bring in four elephants from India?

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