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| Africaparallel as the northern boundary of German expansion towards the interior was not accomplished without some sacrifice of German ambitions. Having secured an opening on Lake Chad for her Cameroon colony, Germany was anxious to obtain a footing on the middle Niger for Togoland. German expeditions reached Gando, one of the tributary states of the Sokoto empire on the middle Niger, and, notwithstanding the existence of prior treaties with Great Britain, sought to conclude agreements with the sultan of that country. But this German ambition conflicted both with the British and the French designs in West Africa, and eventually Germany had to be content with the 11th parallel as her northern frontier. On the west the Togoland frontier on the coast was fixed in July 1886 by British and German commissioners at 1 deg. 10' E. longitude, and its extension towards the interior laid down for a short distance. A curious feature in the history of its prolongation was the establishment in 1888 of a neutral zone wherein neither power was to seek to acquire protectorates nor exclusive influence. It was not until November 1899 that, as part of the Samoa settlement, this neutral zone was partitioned between the two powers and the frontier extended to the 11th parallel. The story of the struggle between France and Great Britain in West Africa may roughly be divided into two sections, the Anglo-French rivalry in West Africa. first dealing with the Coast colonies, the second dealing with the struggle for the middle Niger and Lake Chad. As regards the Coast colonies, France was wholly successful in her design of isolating all Great Britain's separate possessions in that region, and of securing for herself undisputed possession of the upper Niger and of the countries lying within the great bend of that river. When the British government awoke to the consciousness of what was at stake France had obtained too great a start. French governors of the Senegal had succeeded, before the Berlin Conference, in establishing forts on the upper Niger, and the advantage thus gained was steadily pursued. Every winter season French posts were pushed farther and farther along the river, or in the vast regions watered by the southern tributaries of the Senegal and Niger rivers. This ceaseless activity met with its reward. Great Britain found herself compelled to acknowledge accomplished facts and to conclude agreements with France, which left her colonies mere coast patches, with a very limited extension towards the interior. On the 10th of August 1889 an agreement was signed by which the Gambia colony and protectorate was confined to a narrow strip of territory on both banks of the river for about 200 m. from the sea. In June 1882 and in August 1889 provisional agreements were made with France fixing the western and northern limits of Sierra Leone, and commissioners were appointed to trace the line of demarcation agreed upon by the two governments. But the commissioners failed to agree, and on the 21st of January 1895 a fresh agreement was made, the boundary being subsequently traced by a mixed commission. Sierra Leone, as now definitely constituted, has a coast-line of about 180 m. and a maximum extension towards the interior of some 200 m. At the date of the Berlin conference the present colonies of Southern Nigeria and the Gold Coast constituted a single colony under the title of the Gold Coast colony, but on the 13th of January 1886 the territory comprised under that title was erected into two separate colonies—Lagos and the Gold Coast (the name of the former being changed in February 1906 to the colony of Southern Nigeria). The coast limits of the new Gold Coast colony were declared to extend from 5 deg. W. to 2 deg. E., but these limits were subsequently curtailed by agreements with France and Germany. The arrangements that fixed the eastern frontier of the Gold Coast colony and its hinterland have already been stated in connexion with German Togoland. On the western frontier it marches with the French colony of the Ivory Coast, and in July 1893, after an unsuccessful attempt to achieve the same end by an agreement concluded in 1889, the frontier was defined from the neighbourhood of the Tano lagoon and river of the same name, to the 9th degree of north latitude. In August 1896, following the destruction of the Ashanti power and the deportation of King Prempeh, as a result of the second Ashanti campaign, a British protectorate was declared over the whole of the Ashanti territories and a resident was installed at Kumasi. But no northern limit had been fixed by the 1893 agreement beyond the 9th parallel, and the countries to the north—Gurunsi (Grusi), Mossi and Gurma—- were entered from all sides by rival British, French and German expeditions. The conflicting claims established by these rival expeditions may, however, best be considered in connexion with the struggle for supremacy on the middle Niger and in the Chad region, to which it is now necessary to turn. A few days before the meeting of the Berlin conference Sir George Goldie had succeeded in buying up all the French interests on the lower Niger. The British company's influence had at that date been extended by treaties with the native chiefs up the main Niger stream to its junction with the Benue, and some distance along this latter river But the great Fula states of the central Sudan were still outside European influence, and this fact did not escape attention in Germany. German merchants had been settled for some years on the coast, and one of them, E. R. Flegel, had displayed great interest in, and activity on, the river. He recognized that in the densely populated states of the middle Niger, Sokoto and Gando, and in Bornu to the west of Lake Chad, there was a magnificent field for Germany's new-born colonizing zeal. The German African Company14 and the German Colonial Society listened eagerly to Flegel's proposals, and in April 1885 he left Berlin on a mission to the Fula states of Sokoto and Gando. But it was impossible to keep his intentions entirely secret, and the (British) National African Company had no desire to see the French rivals, whom they had with so much difficulty dislodged from the river, replaced by the even more troublesome German. Accordingly Joseph Thomson, the young Scottish explorer, was sent out to the Niger, and had the satisfaction of concluding on the 1st of June 1885 a treaty with ``Umoru, King of the Mussulmans of the Sudan and Sultan of Sokoto,'' which practically secured the whole of the trading rights and the control of the sultan's foreign relations to the British company. Thomson concluded a similar treaty with the sultan of Gando, so as to provide against the possibility of its being alleged that Gando was an independent state and not subject to the suzerainty of the sultan of Sokoto. As Thomson descended the river with his treaties, he met Flegel going up the river, with bundles of German flags and presents for the chiefs. The German government continued its efforts to secure a footing on the lower Niger until the fall of Prince Bismarck from power in March 1890, when opposition ceased, and on the failure of the half-hearted attempt made later to establish relations with Gando from Togoland, Germany dropped out of the competition for the The Niger Company granted a charter. western Sudan and left the field to France and Great Britain. After its first great success the National African Company renewed its efforts to obtain a charter from the British government, and on the 10th of July 1886 the charter was granted, and the company became ``The Royal Niger Company, chartered and limited.'' In June of the previous year a British protectorate had been proclaimed Over the whole of the coast from the Rio del Rey to the Lagos frontier, and as already stated, on the 13th of January 1886 the Lagos settlements had been separated from the Gold Coast and erected into a separate colony. It may be convenient to state here that the western boundary of Lagos with French territory (Dahomey) was determined in the Anglo-French agreement of the 10th of August 1889, ``as far as the 9th degree of north latitude, where it shall stop.'' Thus both in the Gold Coast hinterland and in the Lagos hinterland a door was left wide open to the north of the 9th parallel. Notwithstanding her strenuous efforts, France, in her advance down the Niger from Senegal, did not succeed in reaching Sego on the upper Niger, a considerable distance above Timbuktu, until the winter of 1890-1891, and the rapid advance of British influence up the river raised serious fears lest the Royal Niger Company should reach Timbuktu before France could forestall her. It was, no doubt, this consideration that induced the French government to consent to the insertion in the agreement of the 5th of August 1890, by which Great Britain recognized France's protectorate over Madagascar, of the following article: The Government of Her Britannic Majesty recognizes the sphere of influence of France to the south of her Mediterranean possessions up to a line from Say on the Niger to Barrua on Lake Chad, drawn m such a manner as to comprise in the sphere of action of the Niger Company all that fairly belongs to the kingdom of Sokoto; the line to be determined by the commissioners to be appointed. The commissioners never were in fact appointed, and the proper meaning to be attached to this article subsequently became a subject of bitter controversy between the two countries. An examination of the map of West Africa will show what possibilities of trouble were left open at the end of 1890 by the various agreements concluded up to that date. From Say on the Niger to where the Lagos frontier came to an abrupt stop in 9 deg. N. there was no boundary line between the French and British spheres of influence. To the north of the Gold Coast and of the French Ivory Coast colony the way was equally open to Great Britain and to France, while the vagueness of the Say-Barrua line left an opening of which France was quick to avail herself. Captain P. L. Monteil, who was despatched by the French government to West Africa in 1890, immediately after the conclusion of the August agreement, did not hesitate to pass well to the south of the Say-Barrua line, and to attempt to conclude treaties with chiefs who were, beyond all question, within the British sphere. Still farther south, on the Benue river, the two expeditions of Lieutenant Mizon—in 1890 and 1892—failed to do any real harm to British interests. In 1892 an event happened which had an important bearing on the future course of the dispute. French advance Timbuktu. After a troublesome war with Behanzin king of to the native state of Dahomey, France annexed some portion of Dahomeyan territory on the coast, and declared a protectorate over the rest of the kingdom. Thus was removed the barrier which had up to that time prevented France from pushing her way Nigerwards from her possessions on the Slave Coast, as well as from the upper Niger and the Ivory Coast. Henceforth her progress from all these directions was rapid, and in particular Timbuktu was occupied in the last days of 1893. In 1894 it appears to have been suddenly realized in France that, for the development of the vast regions which she was placing under her protection in West Africa, it was extremely desirable that she should obtain free access to the navigable portions of the Niger, if not on the left bank, from which she was excluded by the Say-Barrua agreement, then on the right bank, where the frontier had still to be fixed by international agreement. In the neighbourhood of Bussa there is a long stretch of the river so impeded by rapids that navigation is practically impossible, except in small boats and at considerable risk. Below these rapids France had no foothold on the river, both banks from Bussa to the sea being within the British sphere. In 1890 the Royal Niger Company had concluded a treaty with the emir and chiefs of Bussa (or Borgu); but the French declared that the real paramount chief of Borgu was not the king of Bussa, but the king of Nikki, and three expeditions were despatched in hot haste to Nikki to take the king under French protection. Sir George Goldie, however, was not to be baffled. While maintaining the validity of the earlier treaty with Bussa, he despatched Captain (afterwards General Sir) F.D. Lugard to Nikki, and Lugard was successful in distancing all his French competitors by several days, reaching Nikki on the 5th of November 1894 and concluding a treaty with the king and chiefs. The French expeditions, which were in great strength, did not hesitate on their arrival to compel the king to execute fresh treaties with France, and with these in their possession they returned to Dahomey. Shortly afterwards a fresh act of aggression was committed. On the 13th of February 1895 a French officer, Commandant Toutee, arrived on the right bank of the Niger opposite Bajibo and built a fort. His presence there was notified to the Royal Niger Company, who protested to the British government against this invasion of their territory. Lord Rosebery, who was then foreign minister, at once made inquiries in Paris, and received the assurance that Commandant Toutee was ``a private traveller.'' Eventually Commandant Toutee was ordered to withdraw, and the fort was occupied by the Royal Niger Company's troops. Commandant Toutee subsequently published the official instructions from the French government under which he had acted. It was thought that the recognition of the British claims, involved in the withdrawal of Commandant Toutee, had marked the final abandonment by France of the attempt to establish herself on the navigable portions of the Niger below Bussa, but in 1897 the attempt was renewed in the most determined manner. In February of that year a French force suddenly occupied Bussa, and this act was quickly followed by the occupation of Gomba and Illo higher up the river. In November 1897 Nikki was occupied. The situation on the Niger had so obviously been outgrowing the capacity of a chartered company that for some time before these occurrences the assumption of responsibility for the whole of the Niger region The Franco-British settlement of 1898. by the imperial authorities had been practically decided on; and early in 1898 Lugard was sent out to the Niger with a number of imperial officers to raise a local force in preparation for the contemplated change. The advance of the French forces from the south and west was the signal for an advance of British troops from the Niger, from Lagos and from the Gold Coast protectorate. The situation thus created was extremely serious. The British and French flags were flying in close proximity, in some cases in the same village. Meanwhile the diplomatists were busy in London and in Paris, and in the latter capital a commission sat for many months to adjust the conflicting claims. Fortunately, by the tact and forbearance of the officers on both sides, no local incident occurred to precipitate a collision, and on the 14th of June 1898 a convention was signed by Sir Edmund Monson and M. G. Hanotaux which practically completed the partition of this part of the continent. The settlement effected was in the nature of a compromise. France withdrew from Bussa, Gomba and Illo, the frontier line west of the Niger being drawn from the 9th parallel to a point ten miles, as the crow flies, above Giri, the port of Illo. France was thus shut out from the navigable portion of the middle and lower Niger; but for purely commercial purposes Great Britain agreed to lease to France two small plots of land on the river-the one on the right bank between Leaba and the mouth of the Moshi river, the other at one of the mouths of the Niger. By accepting this line Great Britain abandoned Nikki and a great part of Borgu as well as some part of Gando to France. East of the Niger the Say-Barrua line was modified in favour of France, which gained parts of both Sokoto and Bornu where they meet the southern edge of the Sahara. In the Gold Coast hinterland the French withdrew from Wa, and Great Britain abandoned all claim to Mossi, though the capital of the latter country, together with a further extensive area in the territory assigned to both powers, was declared to be equally free, so far as trade and navigation were concerned, to the subjects and protected persons of both nationalities. The western boundary of the Gold Coast was prolonged along the Black Volta as far as latitude 11 deg. N., and this parallel was followed with slight deflexions to the Togoland frontier. In consequence of the acute crisis which shortly afterwards occurred between France and Great Britain on the upper Nile, the ratification of this agreement was delayed until after the conclusion of the Fashoda agreement of March 1899 already referred to. In 1900 the two patches on the Niger leased to France were selected by commissioners representing the two countries, and in the same year the Anglo-French frontier from Lagos to the west bank of the Niger was delimited. East of the Niger the frontier, even as modified in 1898, failed to satisfy the French need for a practicable route to Lake Chad, and in the convention of the 8th of April 1904, to which reference has been made under Egypt and Morocco, it was Further concessions to France. agreed, as part of the settlement of the French shore question in Newfoundland, to deflect the frontier line more to the south. The new boundary was described at some length, but provision was made for its modification in points of detail on the return of the commissioners engaged in surveying the frontier region. In 1906 an agreement was reached on all points, and the frontier at last definitely settled, sixteen years after the Say-Barrua line had been fixed. This revision of the Niger-Chad frontier did not, however, represent the only territorial compensation received by France in West Africa in connexion with the settlement of the Newfoundland question. By the same convention of April 1904 the British government consented to modify the frontier between Senegal and the Gambia colony ``so as to give to France Yarbutenda and the lands and landing- places belonging to that locality,'' and further agreed to cede to France the tiny group of islands off the coast of French Guinea known as the Los Islands. Meantime the conclusion of the 1898 convention had left both the British and the French governments free to devote increased attention to the subdivision and control of their West African possessions. On the 1st of January 1900 the imperial authorities assumed direct responsibility for the Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 |
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