Chapter IX: The French in West and North Africa (1)

It has been asserted with some degree of probability that certain
seamen-adventurers of Dieppe found their way along the West coast of
Africa as far as the Gold Coast in the 14th century, a hundred years
before the Portuguese; and that they established themselves on the
Senegal river, built two or more settlements (Little Paris, and
Little Dieppe) on the Liberian coast, and established trading
stations at “La Mine d’Or” (Elmina), at Accra, and at Kormantin, on
the Gold Coast. The Dieppois station at Elmina was said to have been
founded in 1382; and the legend runs that forty years later, owing
to the wars in France having distracted Norman commerce from
over-sea enterprise, these settlements were abandoned. There may
have been some truth in these accounts of Norman discoveries on the
West coast of Africa set forth in the second half of the 17th
century. A Norman adventurer undoubtedly rediscovered the Canary
Islands in the 14th century; and it is probable that the Rio d’Ouro
and even the whole coast of West Africa as far as the Gulf of Guinea
were known to Italian seamen before these features were placed on
the map by the Portuguese. When, three centuries later, the French
founded a settlement at the mouth of the Senegal, they are said to
have discovered the remains of a Norman fort (built by adventurers
from Dieppe) and to have made it the nucleus of the modern town of
St Louis.

At any rate, soon after the Portuguese had laid bare the coast of
Guinea, ships began to sail from the Norman ports to resume or to
commence the West African trade, though no attempt was made to
establish any political settlements; for in the matter of founding
colonies in Africa, France was considerably behind Portugal,
Holland, and England. However, in 1637, a young Frenchman named
Claude Jannequin de Rochefort was pacing the quays at Dieppe with
vague aspirations to be “another Cortes.” Happening to ask where a
certain ship was going, and being told in reply that she was bound
for the “Senaga” river in Africa, near Cape de Verde, he instantly
resolved to go, and before many hours were over was entered on the
ship’s book as a soldier; he afterwards performed the duties of
clerk to the captain. It would seem that this vessel, which had not
only soldiers but monks on board, must have been despatched by some
far-seeing authority, since before the Sieur de Rochefort joined its
company it had been determined to stop on the West African coast
north of the Senegal river, cut down trees, build a small boat, and
use it to explore the Senegal. This plan had been formulated in
complete ignorance of the fact that the coast north of the Senegal
and south of Morocco contains no timber for boat-building. Finding
this to be the case, the Dieppe expedition, under the command of
Captain Lambert, with the Sieur de Rochefort among its soldiers,
went on to the Senegal and put together a small boat out of timber
which had been brought from France. Into this small vessel was
transferred a portion of the crew, including De Rochefort; and the
Senegal river was explored for 110 miles from its mouth. Although
the Dieppe adventurers were said to have built a fort on the site of
St Louis in 1360, and the Portuguese had a few trading posts on its
lower reaches in the 15th century, there were no Europeans on the
river when it was visited by De Rochefort, though the Dutch had
established stations on the coast not far off. After obtaining
concessions from the natives, Captain Lambert’s expedition returned
to France, experiencing many delays and adventures on the way; and
six years after he had started from Dieppe De Rochefort published an
interesting account of their adventures.

But this pioneer expedition was not soon followed up, owing to the
hostility of the Dutch. The Norman Company sold its rights to the
French West India Company, and the latter again transferred them to
a subsidiary association afterwards called the “Royal Senegal
Company.” In 1677, the French navy (France being at war with
Holland) captured the Dutch ports on the Senegal coast—Rufisque,
Portudal, Joal, and Goree Island—this last, famous in the history of
West Africa, being named after a little island on the Dutch coast,
and commanding the now important harbour and capital of Senegal,
Dakar. In 1717, Portendik, south of Cape Blanco, and in 1724,
Arguin, an islet north of Cape Blanco, were also taken from the
Dutch, who had earlier still acquired them from the Portuguese.

The Royal Senegal Company sent out in 1697 a very able man to attend
to its affairs—André de Brüe—who made his head-quarters at Fort St
Louis, which had been founded by De Rochefort’s party. This
remarkable person, Brüe, combined the qualities of a man of science
and a far-sighted trader, and may be said to have really laid the
foundations of the French empire in West Africa. Brüe made two
important journeys up the Senegal and into the interior. He remained
eighteen years on the coast of Senegal, and visited the Gambia in
1700, finding English, Portuguese, and Spanish there, the
first-named trading at the mouth of the river, and the two last
settled some distance up its course as flourishing slave-traders.
According to Brüe, the Portuguese slave-trading settlements
exhibited some degree of civilization, but also of rowdiness among
the European element, not unlike the proceedings of the “Mohocks” in
the streets of London. In his writings Brüe expresses his amazement
at the enormous number of bees inhabiting the mangrove swamps and
coast-lands of Guinea. In 1716 Brüe sent out agents to extend French
influence up the Senegal and towards the “Gold” country of Bambuk,
the mountainous region on the upper Senegal. Brüe finally returned
to France in 1715 and lived quietly for a long time afterwards on
the large fortune he had accumulated. His is a name to be well
remembered in the annals of the French Empire. He was a far-sighted,
cultivated man, who had also the gift of choosing and employing good
associates. Among these may be mentioned the Sieur Campagnon, the
_beau-idéal_ of a good-tempered, good-looking, supple, kind-hearted,
valorous Frenchman. Only the charm of Campagnon’s winning ways
enabled him to penetrate the recesses of Bambuk, whose secrets as a
gold-bearing country were jealously guarded by the natives. One
little incident of Campagnon’s life on the Senegal depicts his
disposition. Walking round the outskirts of St Louis he came across
an unfortunate lioness that had belonged to an inhabitant of the
town, but had been thrown out on the rubbish heaps to die. The
unfortunate beast had been suffering from some malady of the jaw
which would not permit mastication, and was therefore nearly dead
from hunger. When Campagnon saw the lioness, her eyes were glazing
and her mouth was full of ants and dirt. He took pity on the
unfortunate creature, washed her mouth and throat clean, and fed her
with milk. This saved her life, and the grateful animal conceived a
warm affection for him, and would afterwards follow him about like a
dog and take food from no one else. Dr Robert Brown, who unearthed
this charming anecdote, further informs us that after his romantic
career in Africa Campagnon returned to France, and died, after a
long and prosperous life, a master-mason and undertaker in Paris.

The French continued to develop their Senegal settlements with some
prosperity until 1758, when they were captured by the British, who
held them until 1778, and acquired them again for a time by the
peace of 1783; after this they were in British hands a few years
longer, but were French again by 1790. In 1800 the British took the
island of Goree, which the French had acquired from the Dutch in
1677. By the peace of 1783 the English had secured from the French
the exclusive right to trade with the Arabs or Moors of Portendik
for gum. Portendik was a place on the Sahara coast about 120 miles
north of St Louis. All the French possessions in Senegal which were
held by the British from time to time during the Napoleonic wars
were given back to France two years after the peace of 1815, though
at that time the British hold over the Gambia was more clearly
defined, the French only retaining one post on that river, given up
in 1857 in return for the British trade monopoly with Portendik. The
French had already resumed their explorations of Senegambia at the
end of the 18th century; and after the final recovery of the Senegal
river in 1817 these researches were pushed with some degree of
ardour. In 1818 Mollien discovered the sources of the Gambia, and De
Beaufort explored the country of Kaarta. In 1827 René Caillié
started from the river Nunez with help derived from the colony of
Sierra Leone (for which he was subsequently ungrateful) and
descended the Niger to Timbuktu, thence making his way across the
desert to Morocco. His journey, however, did not do much to lure the
French Nigerwards at that time, especially as a great Fula conqueror
had arisen, Al Hajji ’Omaru, whose conquests not only blocked the
way to the Niger, but later on threatened the very existence of the
French settlements on the Senegal. But after a long period of
inaction and lack of interest, the French colony of the Senegal was
to receive great extension. General Faidherbe, who for political
reasons was rather distrusted by the newly-formed Second Empire, was
exiled to Senegal in 1854 in the guise of an appointment as
Governor-General. He was a man of great enterprise and intelligence,
and immediately began to study the resources and extension of the
Senegal colony. He first punished severely the Moorish tribes to the
north of the river Senegal, who had again and again raided the
settled country. Before he had been a year in Senegambia, Faidherbe
had annexed the Wuli country, and had built the fort of Medina to
oppose the progress of Al Hajji ’Omaru. ’Omaru sent an army of
20,000 men against Medina, but they were repulsed by the officer in
command, and finally had to retreat before Faidherbe’s advance.
Following on the repulse of the Fulas came the annexation of many
countries along the Upper Senegal, and in the direction of the
Gambia. A year later the country between St Louis and the mouth of
the Gambia, past Cape Verde, had been annexed. Then the Casamanse
river, between the Gambia and Portuguese Guinea, was taken; then, in
the sixties, the coast between Portuguese Guinea and Sierra Leone
was added to the French possessions, under the name of “Rivières du
Sud.” In 1864, a French expedition under the gifted Lieutenant E.
Mage (who was drowned off Brest in 1869) reached Segu on the Upper
Niger and was detained there for two years by the suspicious Fula
Sultan—Tidiani, nephew of the Emperor Al Hajji ’Omaru[122].

A suspension of French activity occurred after the disastrous
Franco-German war, but it was resumed again in 1880. Captain
Galliéni surveyed the route for a railway to connect the navigable
Senegal with the Upper Niger, which he reached in that year at
Bamaku. By 1883 the post of Bamaku on the Upper Niger had been
definitely founded and fortified. But General Borgnis-Desbordes,
Galliéni, and other French officers had to contend with the imposing
forces of king Ahmadu bin Tidiani, the grand-nephew and successor of
Al Hajji ’Omaru, who ruled over the country between the upper
Senegal and Jenné on the Niger. However Ahmadu was constrained by
General Borgnis-Desbordes to make a treaty in 1887 which placed his
territory under French protection. Nevertheless war with the
Toucouleur (Takrur) Fulas followed in 1890 (and also with a vestige
of the Masina Fulas under Ahmadu Abdulei); and the French occupied
the great country of Kaarta (where Mungo Park suffered so greatly)
in 1891, Segu on the Niger (also associated with Mungo Park) in
1892, Jenné and Timbuktu in 1893. The French as early as 1881 had
taken under their protection the ancient Fula kingdom of Timbo or
Futa Jallon. Their activities in this direction brought them into
conflict with the forces of Samori, a negro (probably Mandingo) king
who had risen from a very humble position to that of conqueror and
ruler of the countries about the source of the Niger. Samori, like
Al Hajji ’Omaru, commanded hordes of Mandingo negroes, whose
conquests were often undertaken from propagandist motives, and who
were to some extent in sympathy with the Muhammadan tribes of the
Upper Niger. Samori’s forces were mainly recruited from among the
Mandingo tribes between the Upper Niger and the hinterland of Sierra
Leone, Liberia and the Ivory Coast. In 1885-6 a campaign had been
undertaken by Colonel Frey against Samori, which did something to
check the power of that raiding chief; but after the destruction of
the Fula power in 1892 the attacks of Samori on the French outposts
redoubled and nearly embroiled France with Britain over the affair
of Waima. By 1888, a railway had been constructed which facilitated
access to the Niger; and a small armed steamer having been put on
that river at Bamaku, the Niger was for the first time since the
last voyage of Mungo Park navigated beyond Segu. In 1887 this
gunboat (named _Le Niger_) actually reached Kabara, the port of
Timbuktu, but the hostility of the natives prevented its commander,
Lieutenant Caron, from visiting the city. The gunboat returned
without effecting more than an ominous reconnaissance.

In 1888 Captain Louis G. Binger commenced an exploring journey for
France which had the most remarkable results. He was the first to
enter the unknown country included within the great northern bend of
the Niger. He secured by treaty for French influence Tieba, Kong,
and other countries lying between the Niger and the Ivory Coast.
Colonel Archinard, by his brilliantly conducted campaigns against
Ahmadu bin Tidiani, added to the French West African dominions
Kaarta, Bakhunu, Segu and Jenné, and thus freed from obstruction the
road to Timbuktu. Later on Colonel Archinard defeated the
raider-king Samori and occupied his capital, Bisandugu, near the
frontiers of Liberia. An attempt was made in 1894-5 to attack him in
the new kingdom which he soon conquered in the lands between the
main Upper Niger and the Black Volta; and Colonel P. L. Monteil (who
had previously, 1891-2, journeyed from Senegal to the Niger, and
from the Niger to Bornu, and thence overland to Tripoli) led a
military expedition against him from the Ivory Coast. Colonel
Monteil was very unsuccessful, and was recalled by the French
Government. Samori then attempted to advance northwards to the
central Niger, as the last hope of breaking through the ring of
French power with which he was being surrounded. Colonel Bonnier cut
him off from that direction, however, in 1895; and Captain Marchand
(of Fashoda fame) wrested from him the important town of Kong. In
1897 Samori had pushed eastwards, so that he was hovering about the
northern boundary of the British Protectorate of Ashanti; and here
his force attacked a small British surveying party, killed the
native escort, and carried off the officer, Lieutenant Henderson.
After a compulsory visit to Samori, Lieutenant Henderson was
released; and the chief relieved himself from all responsibility for
the wanton attack on the British party by saying, “It was the will
of God.”

At length, in October 1898, the French military authorities on the
Upper Niger made a determined attempt to abolish the power of this
bandit king, who had begun his career as a religious mystic and who
ended by organizing his disciples—“Sofas” or Sufis—into a tremendous
slave-raiding army. They also determined to break the fighting
strength of the Mandingos, as they had previously crushed that of
the Fula and the Tawareq. By a brilliant feat of arms Samori was
brought to bay and his forces routed by Lieutenant Woelfel. The
Mandingo king was taken prisoner by Lieutenant Jacquin and Sergeant
Bratières, and was exiled to the Gaboon.

During the reign of Louis Philippe a somewhat feeble revival of
colonial enterprise had taken place, in which France made
half-hearted attempts to establish herself in New Zealand, and
secured New Caledonia and Tahiti in the Pacific. At this time also
she thought of extending her possessions in unoccupied districts
along the West Coast of Africa, and had acquired rights over Grand
Bassam and Assini to the west of the British Gold Coast. During the
sixties some efforts were made by Napoleon III to develop French
trading and political influence in the Bight of Benin in Africa; and
Porto Novo, near Lagos, was accorded French protection in 1868.
These claims, however, had been allowed to lapse to some degree; and
the places acquired would at one time have been willingly handed
over to England for a small compensation. But in the scramble for
Africa that commenced in 1884 they suddenly acquired immense value
in the eyes of the French as footholds upon which to commence an
expansion northwards from the Gulf of Guinea to the Niger empire of
which France had begun to dream. In 1884 therefore Grand Bassam and
Assini, on the Gold Coast, and Porto Novo, a tiny vassal kingdom of
Dahomé, were effectively occupied. The journeys of Colonel Binger
between the Niger and the Gold Coast in 1888-91 gave Grand Bassam a
hinterland; and the consequence was that the Ivory Coast between
Grand Bassam and Liberia (including the Rio Pedro district of
Liberia) was annexed by France in 1891. Hitherto this coast, the
interior of which was then and till the close of the 19th century
one of the least known parts of Africa, had been of great importance
to British trade, which was carried on chiefly by Bristol sailing
ships. Moreover, from the Ivory Coast came the bulk of the
celebrated Kruboys, who are the best labour-force obtainable along
the West Coast of Africa from the Gambia to the Orange River.
Nevertheless, although the petty chiefs of the Ivory Coast had often
offered their friendship and vassalage to Great Britain, no steps
were taken on the part of the British Government, and therefore no
protest was offered when France annexed the Ivory Coast and became
next neighbour to Liberia. In 1892 a somewhat stringent treaty was
concluded between France and Liberia, by which, in the event of the
latter coming under the influence or protection of any other power,
France would have the reversion of much of her hinterland. The
occupation of Porto Novo soon led to a quarrel with Dahomé, a
kingdom of singular bloodthirstiness, which had defied both England
and Portugal at different times, and had laughed at our futile
blockades of its coast. After a preliminary occupation of the
Dahomean coast towns and the imposition of a somewhat doubtful
French suzerainty, the king, Behanzin, compelled the French to make
their action more effective. A well-equipped expedition was sent out
in 1893 under General Dodds, who had conducted the first operations
in 1891. For the first time Dahomé was invaded by a well-organized
European force; and after a fierce struggle the entire kingdom was
overrun and conquered, and the king was captured and sent to the
West Indies.

In the meantime, the French forces marching step by step along the
upper Niger had captured the important town of Jenné in 1893—Jenné,
the focus of Nigerian civilization, and the mother of Timbuktu. From
Jenné at the close of 1893 Colonel Archinard directed a march to be
made to Timbuktu—it is said, without or contrary to orders from the
Governor of Senegal. Two squadrons marched overland, and a river
flotilla of gunboats under Commandant Boiteux steamed to the port of
Timbuktu, Kabara. The flotilla of gunboats and lighters arrived at
Kabara in advance of the military forces, and caused considerable
perturbation in Timbuktu. The civilized inhabitants of the town were
willing to surrender it to the French, only fearing their hated
masters—the Tawareq. The Tawareq, hearing of the coming of the land
expedition, left the town to meet it; but the Niger being remarkably
high, Lieutenant Boiteux was actually able to take two lighters
armed with machine guns up the back-water, which in seasons of flood
reaches the walls of Timbuktu. After a little deliberation the town
surrendered to the French. Shortly afterwards the Tawareq attacked
the naval station formed at Kabara on the Niger, killing a
midshipman. Lieutenant Boiteux, hearing that firing was going on,
rode out of Timbuktu with one other European, accompanied by his
little garrison on foot, arrived at Kabara and routed the Tawareq.
This was a truly gallant action, worthy to be recorded. After
standing a short siege in Timbuktu and making a successful sortie,
the little naval expedition was relieved from the anxiety of its
position by the arrival of the first column under Colonel Bonnier on
the 14th of January, 1894. Timbuktu was thus captured by the French
with nineteen men, seven of whom were French, and the remainder
Senegalese negroes. But a slight reverse was to follow. Over-rash,
Colonel Bonnier started with a small force to reconnoitre the
country round Timbuktu and rid the neighbourhood of the Tawareq. Too
confident, they marched into a trap. Their camp was surprised by the
Tawareq at early dawn, and almost all the French troops were
massacred, only three French officers and a handful of men escaping
to tell the tale. Twenty-five days afterwards, a second column under
Colonel Jouffre arrived on the scene, and collected the remains of
the unfortunate Frenchmen for interment at Timbuktu. It then set out
to follow up the Tawareq, whom the French surprised in turn at night
in their encampment, and of whom Colonel Jouffre believed his
soldiers to have slain many. From that time the French have had no
serious fighting near Timbuktu. French merchants are established
there already and French missionaries—the White Fathers—from
Algeria. A curious episode in the French conquest was an appeal,
when hearing of the French approach, by the notables of Timbuktu to
the Emperor of Morocco to intervene. After a year’s delay the
Moroccan Sultan replied that upon receiving proofs of the vassalage
of Timbuktu he would march upon the French and drive them away.

Subsequently the French patrolled the Niger far to the south of
Timbuktu, and found it much more navigable than was at first
believed. They established a post at Say, and Lieutenant Hourst
explored that small portion of the river between Say and Gomba which
till then had remained marked by dotted lines on the map. Numerous
expeditions came across the bend of the Niger from its upper waters
to its middle course, incessantly making treaties and extending the
rule of France. Again, following on the conquest of Dahomé, the
French marched northwards across the 9th parallel, which had
hitherto marked the limitation between the French and British
possessions, and occupied the country of Nikki, which had previously
been acquired for the Royal Niger Company by Major, now Colonel Sir
Frederick, Lugard. A bolder step still was taken by the occupation
of Busa (already declared to be in the British protectorate), at a
time when Sir George Goldie and his little army were winning
victories over the forces of Nupe in the vicinity. This step however
roused such a strong expression of popular feeling in England that a
conference was formed in Paris to negotiate a settlement between
England and France; and eventually France gave way on the point of
Busa, though she kept Nikki, and was able to extend her control of
the west bank of the Niger to Ilo, a considerable distance below
Say. She thus united her Dahomean conquest to the rest of her
Nigerian dominions. There is now no great native monarch or
independent people existing in the vast area of French West Africa,
though there are many kings and chiefs ruling their people peaceably
and humanely under the eyes of French resident officers. There has
been no serious breach of the peace in the Senegambian and Nigerian
territories since 1900, with the exception of the fighting in the
region to the north of the Senegal which is rather ineptly styled
“Mauretania.” Here France had concluded treaties of protection with
the chiefs of the Moorish and Arab tribes in 1903-5; but in 1905 the
French Commissioner, Coppolani, was murdered in the far interior.
Between 1908 and 1909 a force under Colonel Gouraud conquered all
Mauretania and especially the hilly country of Adrar Temmur. The
oasis of Air and Asben (which contains the old Songhai town of
Agades) came under French control in 1905-6, and Bilma—farther east,
in the Tibu country—at the same time.

In 1902-4 an administrative reorganisation of French West Africa
took place, in which (and in the additional acts of 1909) the
following divisions were recognised: _Mauretania_ (344,967 sq.
miles), bounded on the north by the Spanish protectorate of Rio de
Oro and the 22° N. latitude and on the south by the river Senegal;
_Senegal_ colony and protectorate (74,000 sq. miles), bounded by the
Senegal and Faleme rivers and Portuguese Guinea; _French Guinea_
(95,000 sq. miles), bounded by Portuguese Guinea, Sierra Leone, and
Liberia; the _Ivory Coast_ (130,000 sq. miles), between Liberia and
the British Gold Coast; _Dahomé_ (about 40,000 sq. miles), a narrow
strip between Borgu, the Niger, and the Gulf of Guinea; and lastly
the enormous “_Colony of Upper Senegal and Niger_,” which, with its
military territories, has an area of something like 1,268,400 sq.
miles. It is bounded on the west and south by the other divisions
and by foreign possessions, and on the north by the Algerian and
Moroccan protectorates. This last division of French West Africa
stretches eastwards from the Faleme branch of the Senegal River to
Lake Chad.

In Senegal and French Guinea, the ports of Dakar and Konakri have
received a remarkable development, and are admitted to be the most
splendid and civilized towns on the West Coast of Africa, far
superior in sanitary arrangements and outward aspect to anything
which as yet exists in the somewhat sluggish British West African
possessions. From Konakri a railway has been constructed on to the
healthy uplands of Futa Jallon and to the Upper Niger at Kankan.
Nearly in front of Konakri is the little archipelago of the Isles de
Los[123]. These islands until the beginning of 1904 belonged to
Great Britain, but under the Anglo-French Convention of 1904 they
were very properly ceded to France, as they no longer commanded a
coast which could become British.

The development of Senegal since the commencement of the 20th
century has not been limited to the making of Dakar (now the
residence of the Governor-General and the metropolis of French West
Africa) a first-class port, but a great advance has also been made
in railway construction. Landing at Dakar, which is only eight days’
steam from Bordeaux or Marseilles, the traveller journeys 165 miles
by rail to St Louis (the old capital), there embarks in a river
steamer on the Senegal and journeys to Kayès, enters the train again
at Kayès and travels on 344 miles to Kulikoro on the Niger, whence
he can proceed by river steamer to Timbuktu, the whole journey from
Timbuktu to Paris being reduced to a possible nineteen days.
Timbuktu the inaccessible, twenty to thirty years ago, is now only a
ten days’ journey from an Atlantic seaport. Timbuktu is connected
with Algeria (as well as with Dakar) by overland telegraph.

Dahomé and the Ivory Coast Colony have both shared in the
development of French Africa. Dahomé is contented, peaceful, and
prosperous under French rule. A railway due north from Kotonu to the
Niger, beyond Borgu, is under construction, about half the line (200
miles) having been finished in 1910. On the Ivory Coast there has
been a certain amount of financial depression owing to the failure
to discover gold or other minerals in profitable quantities. A
number of companies, mostly British, had been formed for developing
the mineral resources of the Ivory Coast; but, in spite of the
vigorous work of the French in opening up communications with the
interior, no great degree of commercial prosperity has as yet come
to that portion of French Africa. A serious native rising had to be
suppressed in 1910. In 1910-11 the contiguous frontiers of Liberia
and the French possessions in Guinea and on the Ivory Coast were
settled, greatly to the advantage of the French possessions.

The total area of French West Africa to-day (1912) is approximately
1,952,000 square miles, with a negro and negroid population of about
12,000,000, and some 8000 whites. It does an annual trade of about
£16,000,000, mainly with France; for France in her colonial policy
still pursues the selfish policy of protection. But unlike what has
happened in French Congo, the territories of Senegal, Guinea,
Nigeria, the Sahara and Dahomé have enormously benefited from the
imposition of French rule at the close of the 19th century. For the
first time in their long, blood-stained history the industrious
negro and Fula agriculturists and herdsmen of these tropical
regions, and the semi-nomads of the Great Desert, know what it is to
experience continual tranquillity, safety and commercial prosperity.

During the three centuries following the Turkish conquest of
Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, France, like most other Christian
nations in the Mediterranean, suffered greatly at the hands of
Moorish corsairs—suffered so much that, not being able to defend her
own coasts sufficiently, it probably never entered into her head to
conquer and possess the corsairs’ country; though under Francis I
she tried, in rivalry with the Genoese, to obtain a trading and
fishing station off the east Algerian coast, “Bastion de France,”
near La Calle (about 1544). So far as political aspirations went,
her eyes were turned fitfully towards Egypt. At the end of the 17th
century Louis XIV not only attempted to enter into political
relations with Abyssinia (his envoy was murdered in Sennar, 1704),
but was advised by Leibnitz to make a descent on Egypt, and to hold
it as a station on the way to India. The idea was not adopted, yet
it lay dormant in the French archives, and was probably discovered
there by the ministers of the Directory after the French Revolution.
Either it was communicated to Napoleon Bonaparte with the idea of
sending him off on a fool’s errand, or the notion had occurred to
him independently as a means of striking a blow at the English. At
any rate, with a suddenness that startled incredulous Europe, the
Corsican General, fresh from the triumphs of his first Italian
campaign, eluded the British fleet, and landed in Alexandria in 1798
with a force of 40,000 men. He met and defeated the Mamluk Beys, who
ruled Egypt under Turkish suzerainty, and eventually chased them
into Upper Egypt. He then established himself at Cairo, and sought
to win over the Muhammadan population by professing more or less
Muhammadan views of religion. But Nelson destroyed his fleet at
Abukir Bay. A Turkish army landed in Egypt, but was cut to pieces
and driven into the sea by the infuriated Napoleon, who then
endeavoured to conquer Syria, with the stupendous idea that he might
carry his arms to Constantinople, and possibly proclaim a revival in
his own person of the Eastern Empire. He was foiled again by the
British, who assisted the Turks to hold Acre. Napoleon, though
victorious elsewhere in Syria, eventually drew back shattered by the
unsuccessful siege of this fortress. He then abandoned his eastern
conquests with disgust, and sailed for France. His able lieutenant,
Kleber, was assassinated. A British and Turkish army settled the
fate of the remaining French forces in Egypt, which after a
capitulation were sent back to France. But this daring inroad on the
East by Napoleon had far-reaching effects. It brought Egypt
violently into contact with European civilization, and prepared the
way for its detachment from the Turkish Empire. Moreover, it caused
France to take henceforth an acute interest in the valley of the
Nile, an interest which on several occasions brought her dangerously
near rupture with a Power even more earnestly concerned with the
Egyptian Question.

In 1827 the Dey of Algiers (a country which remained under nominal
Turkish suzerainty), insolent beyond measure in his treatment of
Europeans, because hitherto all European states had failed to subdue
his pretensions, signalised some difference of opinion with the
French Consul by striking him in the face with a fly-whisk. France
brooded over the insult for three years, when the tottering
government of Charles X sought to prop up the Bourbon dynasty by a
successful military expedition, and in June 1830 landed 37,000
infantry, and a force of cavalry and artillery at Sidi Ferruj, near
Algiers. Considering their renown as fierce fighters, the Algerians
do not seem to have made a very sturdy resistance; though perhaps in
the lapse of time since their last war with a European power the
superiority of European artillery began to be felt. At any rate,
three weeks after the French landed they had taken the town of
Algiers and the Dey had surrendered. A week afterwards the Dey was
banished to Naples. Great Britain then asked for information as to
French projects, and was assured that within a very short time the
French forces would be withdrawn when reparation had been made. But
these assurances were as well meant and as valueless as Russian
assurances in Central Asia, and our own repeated and unsolicited
declarations that we hoped to be able to leave Egypt in six months.
The government of Charles X fell, and the new Orleanist dynasty
could hardly draw down on itself the odium of a withdrawal. But an
unwise policy nevertheless was pursued towards the Arabs, a policy
dictated by ignorance. The inhabitants of Algeria had not taken a
very strong part in the defence of the Dey, who in their eyes was a
Turk and a foreigner; but when they began to realize that their
country was about to be taken possession of by Christians, and
Christians who at that time did nothing to soothe their religious
susceptibilities, they found a leader in a princely man, Abd al
Kader[124]. From 1835 to 1837 the French sustained defeat after
defeat at his hands. In 1837 however a truce was made, by which Abd
al Kader was recognized by the French as Sultan over a large part of
western and central Algeria. Two years after war broke out again
between the French and Abd al Kader. An army under Marshal Bugeaud
attacked Abd al Kader with unwavering energy—perhaps with some
cruelty. In 1841 the national hero had lost nearly every point of
his kingdom, and fled into Morocco, from which country he afterwards
returned with a large army, only to be again and again defeated,
though he occasionally inflicted great losses on the French.
Finally, to save his own special district from ruin, he came to
terms with the French Governor-General, who gave him permission to
retire to Alexandria or Naples. But the French Government repudiated
the terms granted to Abd al Kader, and kept him a close prisoner for
some years in a French fortress. When Louis Napoleon became Emperor
he released him and allowed him to live at Damascus, where he died
in 1883.

At the time when the French invaded Algeria that country was by no
means under a homogeneous government. There were the Dey of Algiers,
the Dey of Oran, and on the east the Bey of Constantine (who ruled
over much of eastern Algeria); whilst the Berber tribes in the
mountains and on the verge of the desert were practically
independent. Constantine was an extremely strong place, and in their
first wars with its Bey the French failed to take it. It was not
finally captured till 1847. By this time France had warred against
Morocco, and had crushed any attempt on the part of the “Emperor of
the West” to interfere in the affairs of Algeria. They had overrun
and to some degree conquered all Algeria north of the Sahara desert.
Therefore, in 1848, the Government felt justified in declaring the
new African acquisition to be French territory, divided into three
departments, to be ruled as part of France, and to possess the right
of representation in the French parliament. Under the Second Empire
this constitutional government, which was quite unsuited to what
Napoleon III fitly termed ‘an Arab kingdom,’ was set aside in favour
of military government. But this was not organized on suitable
lines, and proved a failure. In 1858 an attempt was made to imitate
the change then taking place in the government of British India. An
Algerian ministry was formed in Paris with Prince Napoleon as
Minister; but this form of administration also was a failure, and
was abolished by the Emperor when he returned from his visit to
Algeria in 1863. The country was then governed by a military
governor, generally with absolute powers, and attempts were made to
conciliate the Kabail or Hill Berbers, whom utter mismanagement had
driven into revolt. The country nevertheless continued to be
afflicted with unrest; and in 1870, as the Empire was dying, a
commission sat to enquire into the state of the colony, and to
suggest remedies which might be applied to its misgovernment. By a
vote of the Chamber military government was again abolished in
favour of civil rule, but owing to an insurrection in Eastern
Algeria which followed on the Franco-German War, the recommendations
of this commission were not fully carried out till 1879, when the
first civil governor was appointed. One of the first acts of the new
French Republic at the end of 1870 was to bestow the franchise on
the Jews of Algeria, an action, which by discriminating between the
Jews and Arabs has since caused a great deal of trouble.

From 1848 to 1880 numerous attempts were made to induce French
people to settle in Algeria, nor were the colonists of other nations
discouraged. At one time young soldiers would be selected from the
army, would be married to poor girls dowered by the State, and sent
off to settle in Algeria, where they were given grants of land; but
often as soon as the dowry was spent the newly-wedded wife was
deserted by her husband, who made the best of his way back to
France. In 1871 nearly 11,000 natives of Alsace and Lorraine were
granted land in Algeria, and subsequently some 25,000 other French
colonists were settled in the country at a cost of 15,000,000
francs. But despite failures, frauds and fickleness, the French
settlers in Algeria increased in numbers by immigration and births,
so that by the beginning of the 20th century there was a French
element in the European population of Algeria of more than a quarter
of a million (298,000 in 1910). Meantime, the peace and security of
trade introduced by the French had attracted large numbers of
Italians and Maltese to the eastern part of Algeria, and still
larger numbers of Spaniards to the western department of Oran—so
much so, that even at the present day Spanish is the common language
of Oran, and Italian is as often heard as French at Bona,
Constantine, and even inland as far as Tebessa. Several thousands of
Maltese also settled in eastern Algeria, and became naturalized as
French subjects. It is probable that in this way Algeria will be
eventually colonized by Europe, not by the nations of the north, but
by those Mediterranean peoples who are so nearly akin in blood to
the Berber races of North Africa. The French type that prospers most
is that drawn from the south of France; yet the fair-haired
Alsatians are doing very well[125]. There has been a certain
intermixture between the French and the native races, and between
these again and other European settlers. It is the present writer’s
opinion, based on recent visits to Algeria, that a remarkable degree
of fusion between these elements is being brought about. The Arabs
and Berbers in the settled parts of the country are approximating
more and more in their costume and their mode of life to the
Europeans, while the latter are becoming to some extent Arabised.
There is scarcely an Algerian in any town who cannot talk French,
and there is scarcely a French settler in Algeria who cannot talk
Arabic, while among the lower classes an ugly jargon is springing
up, in which both languages are represented, mixed with Italian and
Spanish words.

In 1863 the Emperor Napoleon brought about the passing of a law
which exchanged for a tribal holding of land the recognition of the
indigenes as individual proprietors of the soil. This law has to
some extent broken up the tribal system, has corrected nomad
tendencies, and has done much to settle the Berbers on the soil with
loyalty to the existing government. Of course, outside the
relatively well-watered, fertile districts the nature of the country
induces a wandering, pastoral life amongst the sparse population;
and here a warlike spirit still shows itself from time to time in
revolts of ever diminishing extent. During the eighties of the 19th
century the French were obliged to bring large forces into the field
to suppress a serious insurrection under Bu Amama, a leader who
represented the more-or-less Arab tribes inhabiting the steppe
country, far to the south of Oran, on the borders of Morocco. Their
turbulence was only finally subdued by the building of a railway
into the heart of their country—a railway now reaching to
south-eastern Morocco and destined to be prolonged across the Sahara
to Timbuktu.

At the close of the 19th century the Jewish question gave rise to
disturbances. The Jews, equally with the Christians in Algeria, are
electors, while this privilege is granted to only a few Arab
proprietors. As in Tunis, the Jews are greatly given to usury, and
they were formerly disliked in Algeria with an intensity which is
but little understood in England, where the Jews are scarcely to be
distinguished from other subjects of the Crown in their demeanour or
practices. But the fact is that parliamentary government, so far as
Algeria and its connection with France are concerned is somewhat of
a farce. Algeria will demand in future fuller measures of
self-government, and less dependence on the selfish policy of French
manufacturers and distillers. But the country nevertheless owes an
immense debt of gratitude to France for its noble public works, its
security, tranquillity and its successful battles against the forces
of nature—drought, locusts and desert sands.

An example of a successful retention of native forms of government
is to be seen in the adjoining country of Tunis, which under the
ægis of a Turkish prince is governed despotically, ably, wisely, and
well by a single Frenchman. Tunis, which, like Algeria and Tripoli,
had since the close of the 16th century been more or less a Turkish
dependency—that is to say, a country governed at first by Turkish
officers, who finally became quasi-independent rulers, with a
recognized hereditary descent—soon began to feel the results of the
conquest of Algeria in an increase of interest felt by the French
regarding its condition. At first the relations between France and
Tunis were flattering to the latter country. The relatively
enlightened character of the Husseinite Beys[126] was recognized,
and when France was in difficulties with Abd al Kader and the Bey of
Constantine, proposals were even made to Tunis to supply from its
ruling family two or three princes who should be made Beys of
Constantine and Oran under French protection; but the idea was not
carried out. In 1863 the Bey of Tunis went in state to visit the
Emperor Napoleon at Algiers. Nevertheless, during the ’50’s and
’60’s Great Britain firmly maintained the independence of Tunis, at
whose court she was represented for many years by a sage
diplomatist, Sir Richard Wood. The disenchantment which Algeria
caused in the early sixties diminished the interest which France
felt in Tunis; and during this time, under the fostering care of Sir
Richard Wood, British enterprise had acquired so large a hold over
the Regency, that at the beginning of the seventies it would have
been reasonable to have extended British protection to the Bey. But
another factor had come into play—the newly-formed Power of United
Italy. The finances of Tunis had from the time of the Crimean War
onwards got into a disarray resembling in a minor degree the
condition of Egypt under Ismail. Not only was the Bey extravagant,
but still worse, his ministers, mostly of servile origin, robbed the
country shamelessly, and loans were obtained over and over again
merely to swell their ill-gotten gains. At last the Powers had to
intervene, and in 1869 the finances of Tunis were brought under the
control of a tripartite commission with representatives of England,
France, and Italy. During the early ’70’s, however, British
commercial interest waned, and the enterprise of France increased,
with the result that France obtained permission to erect telegraphs,
and took over an important railway concession which had been
accepted and then abandoned by a British firm. It was becoming
obvious that the native government of Tunis could not continue much
longer without a definite European protector. Whatever right England
may have had to assume such a position, she quietly surrendered it
to France through her official representatives at the Congress of
Berlin. The only other rival then was Italy; and Italy, though she
would have dearly liked to resume control in the name of Rome over
the Roman province of Africa, shrank from the danger of thus defying
France. A small British railway which had been made from the town of
Tunis to the port of Goletta was sold to an Italian company in
1881[127]. At the same time, a British subject, really acting as a
representative of the Tunisian Government, attempted on a point of
law to prevent a very large estate in the interior of Tunis from
falling into French hands. The French Government determined to delay
action no longer. Taking advantage of the very insufficient plea,
that a Tunisian tribe (the Khmirs or “Kroumirs”) had committed small
robberies across the Algerian frontier, a strong force invaded
Tunis, and wrung from the Bey in his suburban palace the treaty of
Kasr-es-Said, by which he placed his territories under French
protection. When the news spread into outlying districts there were
uprisings against the French or against the Bey’s government which
had placed the country under French control. The French troops had
practically to conquer much of the south of Tunis, but in a year’s
time tranquillity had been restored. In 1883 the treaty of
Kasr-es-Said was replaced by another agreement which brought the
Tunisian Government under complete French control. In this year the
other Powers surrendered their consular jurisdiction, and recognized
that of the French courts. By 1897 all former commercial treaties
with the Bey were abandoned in favour of fresh conventions made with
France. From the commencement of 1898, Tunis became emphatically an
integral portion of the French Empire.

Through accident or design—let us hope the latter—a succession of
able men was appointed to direct the affairs of France in Tunis.
Several of these had a relatively long tenure of power, and were
therefore able to carry out a continuous policy. Ablest amongst
these French residents have been M. Jules Cambon, and M. René
Millet. Tunis has been an example of almost unqualified success in
French colonial administration. Of late, however, the protectionist
policy which finds favour with the French Government has to some
extent striven to secure the commerce of the Regency for France, a
policy which may tend to qualify the praise which otherwise would be
bestowed on a remarkable development of the country under French
direction.

The extension of Senegal under General Faidherbe, and the occupation
by the French of oases in the Sahara, such as Wargla and Golea,
early suggested an overland connection between the two French
possessions, and the “Chemin de fer Trans-Saharien” was hinted at,
half in joke, during the sixties and became a subject of serious
consideration in the seventies. But in 1881 the massacre of the
Flatters expedition in the Sahara Desert, and the obvious hostility
of the Tawareq to any further advance of the French across the
desert temporarily discouraged the idea; though the main
discouragement no doubt arose from the thought of the enormous cost
of such a railway, and the unfruitful character of the country it
would traverse. Still France, when the word “hinterland” was
creeping into political terminology, began to feel anxious that no
other European Power should intervene between her North African
possessions and her empire on the Niger; and in 1890 she secured
from the British Government a recognition of this important point,
the British recognition carrying the French sphere of influence to
the north-western coast of Lake Chad as well as to the Niger. In
1898 it was resolved to take effective possession of all this
portion of the north-central Sudan, and three great expeditions
converged on it; one from Algeria under Commandant Lamy with Mons.
F. Foureau as political officer, one from French Congo (as to which
more will be written when that region is considered), and the third
from Senegal, under Captains Voulet and Chanoine. Unfortunately
these last-named officers belonged to a type which in the closing
years of the 19th century came into prominent notice in the French
and Belgian operations in Central Africa, while it was not entirely
unknown in the British and German records of that period, as
colonial and “Congo Atrocity” scandals testified—a type which became
recklessly cruel and immoral through the possession of unlimited
power and the belief that its doings would never be heard of in
Europe. But the mistreatment of the natives in the Niger Bend did
come to the knowledge of the French authorities in Senegal, and
Lieut.-Colonel Klobb was sent eastward to catch up with the
Voulet-Chanoine column and take command. Klobb overtook these
officers in the Sokoto country. Voulet ordered his men to fire on
the officer sent to supersede him. Klobb fell dead. Then Voulet and
Chanoine marched away with most of their troops to found an
independent state in the heart of Africa, leaving their junior
officers and the remnant of the negro soldiers to do as they
pleased. But their own Senegalese troops, on reflection, objected to
outlawry and permanent banishment from their homes. They held a
rough court martial, sentenced Voulet and Chanoine to die, shot
them, and then returned to the command of Lieut. Pallier, who had
succeeded Klobb in command of this mis-managed expedition. Pallier
bravely and adroitly (for the tragedy took place nominally on
British territory and the natives were arming to punish these
marauders) led the reorganized expedition to Zinder in northern
Hausaland (July, 1899) where four months afterwards Foureau and Lamy
arrived. From this time onwards the Sahara desert was occupied and
pacified and is now traversed by several lines of telegraph wires.
The Tawareq and Tibu have ceased to raid and devastate peaceful
agriculturists in the oases, or the long caravans of traders.
Between 1899 and 1903 French forces (chiefly native cavalry under
French officers, and the Foreign Legion) had occupied all the
prominent oases and centres of population in the Moroccan Sahara,
from Figig and Beshar on the north to Tuāt, Tidikelt, Gurara and
Insalah in the south.

The work of the 1890 and 1898 conventions between Britain and France
was completed by the Agreement of 1904, in which the British
Government acknowledged Morocco to be a sphere of exclusively French
political influence, with the exception of Tangier and the portions
which might be claimed by Spain on the Riff coast. But in 1905 the
German Government showed its displeasure at this agreement by an
ostentatious recognition of Moroccan independence. European
diplomacy arranged the compromise of the Algeciras Conference in the
spring of 1906, at which the thirteen assembled delegates drew up
some regulations of a stop-gap nature for the policing of the
Moroccan Atlantic ports, the re-establishment of Moroccan finances,
the position of foreigners, etc. In 1907 however the disorder in
Morocco became acute and French and English officials were captured
or killed by the natives. To mark her displeasure, France occupied
Ujda (Oudjda), a border town of north-east Morocco and advanced her
troops to the Muluya river (which will probably be fixed as the
theoretical boundary of “Morocco” in the north-east). Soon
afterwards the tribesmen round Casablanca (Dar-al-baida) attacked
and slew some European masons engaged on the harbour works. France
(after the plunder of the town by the Shawia tribesmen) finally
landed a force of 15,000 men and forcibly occupied the Shawia
country all round Casablanca. More fighting took place in South
Morocco (1907-8) and French expeditions traversed and occupied the
regions south of the High Atlas. In 1908 occurred the civil war
between the Sultans Abd-al-aziz and Mulai Hafid, which resulted in
the defeat of the former, in spite of his English military advisers
and non-commissioned officers[128]. Germany seemed rather to espouse
the cause of Mulai Hafid, but in any case the complication was
unravelled by the abdication of Abd-al-aziz and the recognition of
Mulai Hafid by France and the other signatory powers of the
Algeciras conference.