FRENCH EQUATORIAL AFRICA. French Kongo — which in 1908 became the Gen eral Government of French Equatorial Africa— is a colony of a special nature. Its boundaries were fixed diplomatically before the country was penetrated, as the result of some brilliant exploring expeditions. The conquest was under taken progressively and pacifically without France being called upon to support those heavy burdens and bloodshed which the establishment of other colonies have sometimes entailed.
We are indebted to those intrepid explorers who started out to unravel the equatorial mystery and who paid the price of their ad venturlous spirit in loss of health and life in order to add a new page to the colonial history of France. In turn, Commanders Bonet Wuillaumez and Paul du Chaillu, Ensigns Bravouzec and Genoyer, Aymes, Marche and Compiegne, established from 1840 to 1872 the general lines of definite bases in the hinterland of Gaboon. Shortly afterward, Savorgnan de Brazza, by patience coupled with skill, trans formed in the course of three successive mis sions from 1875 to 1885, the small possession of Gaboon into a very large colony, Joining up in a pacific manner that Kongolese depression which constitutes the enormous basin of the Kongo to our Gaboonese possession. Posses sion had only just been taken when the diplo matic status of the Kongo was settled by an international conference, the outcome of which was the General Act of the Berlin Conference of 26 Feb. 1885, and a series of agreements fixing the frontier boundaries for Germany, established in the Cameroons, for Spain, mis tress of the Rio Mouni region, for Portugal, installed in the enclosed territory of Cabinda, and for the Kongo Free State, which afterward became Belgian Kongo. However, a new field of activity was opened up for explorers consisting in the gigantic scheme of presenting France with an empire which would be linked up by way of the Tchad, the banks of the Oubangui River, to the Algerian oases, and by way of the upper Nile region and the ports of Gaboon to the Red Sea stations. In 1890 Crampel marched on Tchad, but the sly hostility of the Sultan Rabah prevented him from reaching it. Dy
bowski, Maistre and Clozel followed in his wake, and their repeated efforts gradually en larged the sphere of France's activity in Kongo land. Shortly afterward as the result of a clever junction-movement carried out by the Foureau-Lamy mission coming from Algeria, Joalland-Meynier from Senegal and Gentil as cending the Kongo, France became definitely in stalled in Tchad in 1900 and Baguirmi, Kanem, Chari and Ouadai were not long before suc cumbing to its influence. These results were further completed by the Marchand mission, which crossed French Kongo from one to the other, making the junction .between the basin of the Kongo and the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and which, following on the Fashoda incident, found its epilogue in the Declaration of 21 March 1899. The pacific conquest of the country was hereafter assured. At Tchad, however, where France encountered the hostility of the well organized Senoussans and Onadians and found herself in the presence of troops used to fighting in open country, trained by chiefs like the Sultan Rabah for long periods of warfare, the occupa tion could not be carried out under the same conditions and took the form of a veritable cam of which the battles of Abeche, Bir Taouil and Dorote and the military operations of Massalit and Borkou were the most glorious episodes. In 1911 French Equatorial Africa allowed France to emerge from the situation wherein she found herself after the Agadir in cident, and it was she who, by a mutilation ac cepted with dignity, finally supported the cost of the operations of 4 Nov. 1911 of which France was to reap honor and profit in Morocco. But although having to accept the inevitable in the scheme of world politics, Equatorial Africa was soon after to have her share of glory, and in the World War, thanks to the valor displayed by the Franco-Britannic troops under Generals Aymerich and Dobell, she has not only recov ered the territories taken from her but she now exercises her administrative action in the old Cameroon territory.