Africa

France had trespassed on territories that unmistakably belonged to Morocco.

After some negotiation, however, a protocol was signed in Paris on

France's privileged position in Morocco.

the 20th of July 1901, and commissioners appointed to devise measures for

the co-operation of the French and Moorish authorities in the maintenance

of peaceful conditions in the frontier region. It was reported that in

April 1902 the commissioners signed an agreement whereby the Sharifan

government undertook to consolidate its authority on the Moorish side of

the frontier as far south as Figig. The agreement continued: ``Le

Gouvernement francais, en raison de son voisinage, lui pretera son appui,

en cas de besoin. Le Gouvernement francais etablira son autorite et la paix

dans les regions du Sahara, et le Gouvernement marocain, son voisin, lui

aidera de tout son pouvoir.'' Meanwhile in the northern districts of

Morocco the conditions of unrest under the rule of the young sultan, Abd el

Aziz IV., were attracting an increasing amount of attention in Europe and

were calling forth demands for their suppression. It was in these

circumstances that in the Anglo-French declaration of April 1904 the

British government recognized ``that it appertains to France, more

particularly as a power whose dominions are conterminous for a great

distance with those of Morocco, to preserve order in that country, and to

provide assistance for the purpose of all administrative, economic,

financial and military reforms which it may require.'' Both parties to the

declaration, ``inspired by their feeling of sincere friendship for Spain,

take into special consideration the interests which that country derives

from her geographical position and from her territorial possessions on the

Moorish coast of the Mediterranean. In regard to these interests the French

government will come to an understanding with the Spanish government.'' The

understanding thus foreshadowed was reached later in the same year, Spain

securing a sphere of interest on the Mediterranean coast. In pursuance of

the policy marked out in the Anglo-French declaration, France was seeking

to strengthen her influence in Morocco when in 1905 the attitude of Germany

seriously affected her position. On the 8th of July France secured from the

German government formal ``recognition of the situation created for France

in Morocco by the contiguity of a vast extent of territory of Algeria and

the Sharifan empire, and by the special relations resulting therefrom

between the two adjacent countries, as well as by the special interest for

France, due to this fact, that order should reign in the Sharifan Empire.''

Finally, in January-April 1906, a conference of the powers was held at

Algeciras to devise, by invitation of the sultan, a scheme of reforms to be

introduced into Morocco (q.v..) French capital was allotted a larger share

than that of any other power in the Moorish state bank which it was decided

to institute, and French and Spanish officers were entrusted with the

organization of a police force for the maintenance of order in the

principal coast towns. The new regime had not been fully inaugurated,

however, when a series of outrages led, in 1907, to the military occupation

by France of Udja, a town near the Algerian frontier, and of the port of

Casablanca on the Atlantic coast of Morocco.

It only remains to be noted, in connexion with the story of French

activity in North-West Africa, that with such energy was the penetration of

the Sahara pursued that in April 1904 flying columns from Insalah and

Timbuktu met by arrangement in mid-desert, and in the following year it was

deemed advisable to indicate on the maps the boundary between the Algerian

and French West African territories.

Brief reference must be made to the position of Tripoli. While Egypt was

brought under British control and Tunisia became a French protectorate,

Tripoli remained a province of the Turkish empire with undefined frontiers

in the hinterland, a state of affairs which more than once threatened to

lead to trouble with France during the expansion of the latter's influence

in the Sahara. As already stated, Italy early gave evidence that it was her

ambition to succeed to the province, and, not only by the sultan of Turkey

but in Italy also, the Anglo-French declaration of March 1899, respecting

the limits of the British and French spheres of influence in north Central

Africa, was viewed with some concern. By means of a series of public

utterances on the part of French and Italian statesmen in the winter 1901-

1902 it

Italy's interest in Tripoli.

was made known that the two powers had come to an understanding with regard

to their interests in North Africa, and in May 1902 Signor Prinetti, then

Italian minister for foreign affairs, speaking in parliament in reply to an

interpellation on the subject of Tripoli, declared that if ``the status quo

in the Mediterranean were ever disturbed, Italy would be sure of finding no

one to bar the way to her legitimate aspirations.''

At the opening of the Berlin conference Spain had established no formal

claim to any part of the coast to the south of Morocco; but while the

conference was sitting, on the 9th of January 1885, the Spanish government

intimated that in view of the importance of the Spanish settlements on the

Rio de Oro, at Angra de Cintra,

Spanish colonies.

and at Western Bay (Cape Blanco), and of the documents signed with the

independent tribes on that coast, the king of Spain had taken under his

protection ``the territories of the western coast of Africa comprised

between the fore-mentioned Western Bay and Cape Bojador.'' The interior

limits of the Spanish sphere were defined by an agreement concluded in 1900

with France. By this document some 70,000 sq. m. of the western Sahara were

recognized as Spanish.

The same agreement settled a long-standing dispute between Spain and

France as to the ownership of the district around the Muni river to be

south of Cameroon, Spain securing a block of territory with a coast-line

from the Campo river on the north to the Muni river on the south. The

northern frontier is formed by the German Cameroon colony, the eastern by

11 deg. 20' E., and the southern by the first parallel of north latitude to

its point of intersection with the Muni river.

Apart from this small block of Spanish territory south of Cameroon, the

stretch of coast between Cape Blanco and the

Division of the Guinea coast.

mouth of the Congo is partitioned among four European powers—Great Britain,

France, Germany and Portugal —and the negro republic of Liberia. Following

the coast southwards from Cape Blanco is first the French colony of

Senegal, which is indented, along the Gambia river, by the small British

colony of that name, and then the comparatively small territory of

Portuguese Guinea, all that remains on this Coast to represent Portugal's

share in the scramble in a region where she once played so conspicuous a

part. To the south of Portuguese Guinea is the French Guinea colony, and

still going south and east are the British colony of Sierra Leone, the

republic of Liberia, the French colony of the Ivory coast, the British Gold

Coast, German Togoland, French Dahomey, the British colony (formerly known

as the Lagos colony) and protectorate of Southern Nigeria, the German

colony of Cameroon, the Spanish settlements on the Muni river, the French

Congo colony, and the small Portuguese enclave north of the Congo to which

reference has already been made, which is administratively part of the

Angola colony. When the General Act of the Berlin conference was signed the

whole of this coast-line had not been formally claimed; but no time was

lost by the powers interested in notifying claims to the unappropriated

sections, and the conflicting claims put forward necessitated frequent

adjustments by international agreements. By a Franco-Portuguese agreement

of the 12th of May 1886 the limits of Portuguese Guinea—surrounded

landwards by French territory—were defined, and by agreements with Great

Britain in 1885 and France in 1892 and 1907 the Liberian republic was

Confined to an area of about 43,000 sq. m.

The real struggle in West Africa was between France and Great Britain,

and France played the dominant part, the exhaustion of Portugal, the apathy

of the British government and the late appearance of Germany in the field

being all elements that favoured the success of French policy. Before

tracing the steps in the historic contest between France and Great Britain

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