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AFRICA

But while Great Britain was thus lending her sanction to Italy’s ambitious schemes, the Abyssinian emperor was becoming more and more incensed at Italy’s pretensions to exercise a protectorate over Ethiopia. In 1883 Menelek denounced the treaty of Uciali, and eventually, in a great battle, fought at Adowa on 1st March 1896, the Italians were disastrously defeated. By the subsequent treaty of Addis Abbaba, concluded on 26th October 1896, the whole of the country to the south of the Mareb, the Belesa, and Muna rivers was restored to Abyssinia, and Italy acknowledged the absolute independence of Abyssinia. The effect of this was practically to destroy the value of the Anglo-Italian agreement as to the boundaries to the south and west of Abyssinia ; and negotiations were afterwards set on foot between the British, the Egyptian, and the Abyssinian Governments for determining the Abyssinian frontiers. The position of Egypt is theoretically unchanged since the abolition of the Dual Control, though in fact British influence is now recognized as virtually paramount in Egypt proper. In the reconquered Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, which consists of the territory south of the 22nd parallel of latitude, the administration is carried on in accordance with the terms of a convention between the British and Egyptian Governments, signed at Cairo, 19th January 1899, under which the British and Egyptian flags are used together. Tripoli still remains a Turkish province. In Tunis the French protectorate has practically eliminated the Bey for all but ceremonial purposes. In Algeria France, in her progress south and south-west, has come into conflict with Morocco. In the ^Morocco c^os^ng days of 1899 an attack by some of the inhabitants of the Tidikelt oasis on a French “ scientific ” mission furnished the occasion for which France had long been seeking for the occupation of a number of groups of oases in the western Sahara, known as the Tuat Oases, and consisting of Tuat, Tidikelt, and Gurara. The last two groups were occupied by French troops after some fighting, and at the end of 1900 France was preparing to make good her hold on these two groups and to establish her influence in Tuat proper, the Sultan of Morocco having protested to the European Powers against the action of France and asked for their intervention. The occupation of Igli, half-way between the frontier of Morocco proper and Tuat, by French troops further excited the Sultan’s subjects. The claim of Morocco was that the tribes of the oases owed allegiance to the Sultan, and that France acknowledged them to be within the Moorish sphere of influence by the treaty of 1845, which is the only document fixing the frontier between Morocco and Algeria. 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 9th January 1885, the Spanish Government intimated that in view of the importance of the Spanish settlements on the Bio Oro, at Angra de Cintra, and at Western Bay, 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 Bajador.” Numerous attempts were made with France to settle the landward extension of Spain’s possessions in this part of Africa, both Governments claiming to include the Adrar country within their sphere of influence; but in 1900 an agreement was come to by which Spain recognized the French claim to Adrar and agreed to the twelfth meridian west of Greenwich being the eastern boundary of the Spanish sphere, north of the Tropic of Cancer, the boundary line to the south being deflected westwards so

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as to leave the Sebkha, or dry salt lake, of Ijil to France. The same agreement settled a long-standing dispute between Spain and France as to the ownership of the district around the Muni river to the south of Cameroon, and Spain secured 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° 20' E., and the southern by the 1st 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 mouth of the Congo is partitioned among four European Powers—Great Britain, France, of'west Germany, and Portugal—and the negro republic Africa. of Liberia. Following the coast southwards from Cape Blanco we come first to the French colony of Senegal,, which is indented, along the Gambia river, by the small British colony of that name, and then to 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 pursuing our way south and east we come to the British colony of Sierra Leone, the republic oh Liberia, the French colony of the Ivory Coast, the British. Gold Coast, German Togoland, French Dahomey, the British colony of Lagos, the British territory of Southern. Nigeria, the German colony of Cameroon, the Spanish settlements on the Muni river, the French Gabun colony, and the small Portuguese enclave north of the Congo, of which the principal town is Kabinda, 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. Before describing the results of these agreements, both on the coast and in the interior, it may be interesting to glance briefly at one or two of the main features of the problem which so many rival Powers were approaching from their several standpoints. The dominant part in West Africa has been played by France. Her anxiety to connect her West African possessions with. Southern Algeria, and her Congo colony with both, has already been alluded to. Ancillary to this desire was the wish to establish a continuous territorial connexion between her scattered possessions on the West African coast. When this design was consciously adopted as the object of French statesmanship, it is very difficult to say; but for several years before the Berlin Conference military and exploring expeditions had been pushed forward into the great Niger bend from the upper waters of the Senegal, and the purpose became clearer and more defined in the strenuous years of struggle that followed the Conference. The exhaustion of Portugal, the apathy of the British Government, and the late arrival of Germany in the field, are all elements that favoured the success of France’s West African policy. If, in her larger design of joining on her empire in the Western Sudan to her possessions on the Congo, she experienced a check by reason of the vigour with which British interests were pushed on the Middle Niger and eastwards to Lake Chad, the credit for this cannot be claimed by the British Government, but is due entirely to the Boyal Niger Company and its distinguished governor, Sir George Taubman Goldie. France’s double object was to secure as large a share of the Niger basin as possible, and to make Lake Chad a French lake. In this latter object she was not wholly successful, and for