Everything about Louis Faidherbe totally explained
Louis Léon César Faidherbe (
June 3,
1818 –
September 29,
1889) was a
French general and colonial administrator. He created the
Senegalese Tirailleurs when he was governor of Senegal.
Background
He was born in
Lille. He received his military education at the
École Polytechnique and at
Metz, and entered the engineers in
1840. From
1844 to
1847 he served in
Algeria, then two years in the
West Indies, and again in Algeria, taking part in many expeditions against the Arabs.
West Africa
In
1852 he was transferred to
Senegal as sub-director of engineers, and in
1854 was promoted
chef de bataillon and appointed governor of the colony on December 16. He held this post with one brief interval (1861-1863) until July 1865.
The work he accomplished in
West Africa constitutes his most enduring legacy. At that time France possessed in
Senegal little else than the town of
Saint-Louis and a strip of coast. Explorers had, however, made known the riches and possibilities of the
Niger regions, and Faidherbe formed the design of adding those countries to the
French dominions. He even dreamed of creating a French African empire stretching from Senegal to the
Red Sea.
Militarization of the Colonies
Faidherbe's primary legacy was the means by which French colonialism expanded. Under the
French Second Empire, the ideology of opening foreign markets to
Free Trade came to dominate metropolitan interests in West Africa. In practice this meant free access by French interests to African markets and resources, in which conditions, prices, and products to be produced by Africans were enforced by European coercion. Since the 18th century, attempts to curcumvent the traditional African controlled and taxed trade routes into the interior met with little success. Faidherbe, under the justification of extending security for Europeans, made the French military the engine of expansion.
Direct Control of the Senegal River
Faidherbe's actions were not of his own creation, but were an implementation of "The Plan of 1854": a series of ministerial orders given to Governor Protet that originated in petitions from the powerful Bourdeaux based Maurel and Prom company, the largest shipping interest in
St. Louis. The plan specified in detail the creation of forts along the Senegal river to end African control of the
acacia gum trade from the interior. Faidherbe's push to build fortifications farther out, his conflicts with Protet, and his protests to Paris over Protet's inaction earned him the govenorship in 1854.
Within three months of his appointment as Governor, he'd begun work on the first in a series on inland forts up the
Senegal River, at
Médine just below the Félou waterfall(1855). By 1860, Faidherbe had built a series of forts between Médine and St. Louis, launching missions against the
Trarza Moors in
Waalo (north of the Sengal river), who had previously collected taxes on goods coming to Saint-Louis from the interior.
Conflict in the interior
French Military forces had previously avoided conflicts with the most powerful states in the area, the
Toucouleur empire along the Niger River, and the
Cayor in the south. . By sending emissaries to sign protectorates with weaker states (
Bubakar Saada of
Bondu, King
Samba of
Khasso) and by completing the "pacification" of
Casamance and the Wolof peoples through what is now northern Senegal, Faidherbe quickly came into direct conflict with these states.
.
War with the Toucouleur
To accomplish even the first part of his design, he'd very inadequate resources, especially in view of the opposition from
El Hadj Umar Tall, the
Muslim ruler of the countries of the middle Niger. By advancing the French outposts on the
upper Senegal, and particularly by breaking Umar Tall's
siege of Medina Fort, Faidherbe stemmed the Muslim advance. Striking an advantageous treaty with Umar in
1860, Faidherbe brought the French possessions into touch with the Niger. He also brought into subjection the country lying between the
Senegal river and
Gambia.
Economics
Saint-Louis was placed under formal military control, and a telegraph and road link was set up between it and the French colonies in
Gorée Island and
Rufisque. In 1857, the French seized the inland region between these two from the Lebu Republic, and recristened their capital Ndakarou as the new colonial city of
Dakar. Work was begun on the Dakar-Saint Louis railway, as well as a rail line along the Senegal into the interior.
Faidherbe's large-scale projects included the building of bridges and provisioning of fresh drinking water. But Saint-Louis' place as a door of French trade into an African interior began to wane with the expansion of direct colonial rule. Access to its port became increasingly awkward in the age of the steamship and the completion of the Dakar-Saint Louis railroad in 1885 meant that up-country trade effectively circumvented its port. Large French firms, many from the city of
Bordeaux, took over the new commercial networks of the interior, marginalizing the
Métis traders who had always been the middle men of upstream commerce.
Faidherbe also placed under direct French control large scale seasonal
Groundnut cultivation near the fort systems, and then along the rail lines. This created the
navétanes system of seasonal labor migration, first in Cayor, then spreading along the rail lines to
Baol and
Sine-Saloum, and eventually along the
Thies-Kayes railway. This would be a pattern spread throughout
French West Africa and
French Equatorial Africa well into the 20th century.
Slavery
The Tirailleurs sénégalais
Education
Legacy in French Colonialism
When he resigned his post French rule had been firmly established over a very considerable and fertile area and the foundation laid upon which his successors built up the position occupied after 1904 by
France in West Africa.
The first half century of French colonialism in Senegal produced neither solid political control nor economic gains. However, it established the basic principles for the later French advance. Senegal became the principal French base, not Guinea. French expansion was aimed towards the interior (which also encouraged expansion south in Algeria), and Faidherbe's vision of empire was confirmed.
In
1863 he became general of brigade. From
1867 to the early part of
1870, he commanded the subdivision of
Bona in
Algeria, and was commanding the
Constantine division at the commencement of the
Franco-Prussian War.
Franco-Prussian War
After the defeat of
Napoleon III and his French Imperial Army by the
Prussian Army in the summer of
1870, colonial officers such as Faidherbe were recalled to France and increasingly promoted to higher ranks to command new units and replace generals killed or captured in battle. Faidherbe was promoted to
general of division in November
1870, and on 3rd December he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of the North by the
Government of National Defence.
Faidherbe quickly proved himself to be the most able of the generals fighting Prussian forces in the French provinces, and won several small victories against the Prussian First Army at the towns of
Ham,
Hallue,
Pont-Noyelles, and
Bapaume. Despite his military skills, Faidherbe was never able to form an army strong enough to seriously worry the Prussians, as his army, composed of raw recruits, suffered immense supply difficulties and low morale in the freezing winter of 1870/71. The Army of the North performed remarkably well by being able to strike isolated German forces and then retreat behind the belt of fortresses protecting the
Pas-de-Calais, but the army was ultimately destroyed at
St Quentin when, ordered by Minister of War
Leon Gambetta, Faidherbe rushed his army into an open battle with Prussian forces, which shattered Faidherbe's forces.
Political Life and Retirement
After the war, Faidherbe was elected 5 January 1879 to the
National Assembly for the
département of the
Nord, He resigned his seat prior to the end of his term in 1888.
For his military services he was decorated with the grand cross, and made chancellor of the order of the
Legion of Honor. In
1872 he went on a scientific mission to
Upper Egypt, where he studied the monuments and inscriptions. An enthusiastic
geographer,
philologist and
archaeologist, he wrote numerous works, among which may be mentioned
Collection des inscriptions numidiques (1870),
Epigraphie phenicienne (1873),
Essai sur la langue poul (1875), and
Le Znaga des tribes sénégalaises (1877), the last a study of the
Berber language. He also wrote on the geography and history of Senegal and the
Sahara, and
La Campagne de l'armée du Nord (1872).
He was elected a senator in
1879, and, in spite of failing health, continued to the last a close student of his favorite subjects. He died on
29 September 1889, and received a public funeral. Statues and monuments to his memory were erected at Lille,
Bapaume,
Saint-Quentin and
Saint-Louis, Senegal.
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