The study of modern imperialism, which originated in Liberal and Marxist critiques of capitalism, has always attached considerable importance to theory. On the whole, the results have been positive, especially as theories of imperialism based on historical analysis have largely supplanted those founded on abstract economic principles or political polemic. There is always the danger, however, that theoretical rigidity may stifle originality.Footnote 1 This article, which concentrates on the decision-making process in Paris, may appear open to charges of Eurocentrism. This approach, however, is integral to its argument that empire-building was a by-product of the division of economic and political spoils within France rather than an attempt to exploit the resources of tropical Africa. The emphasis placed on railway finance as the novel and decisive element in French expansion after 1879 also makes it difficult to sidestep the contentious issue of ‘economic imperialism’. The current, rather sterile, debate on economic aspects of French imperialism focuses on the business interests of members of the parti colonial without attempting to relate these to matters of policy.Footnote 2 The opposite approach is adopted here of examining the correlation that exists between African policy and the interests of the railway companies, and how far it conformed to stages of the economic cycle. Although examples of collusion between economic and political interests are not difficult to uncover, there is little that supports the economic interpretation in its broader sense, and still less, despite the exceptionally close connections between banks and railway companies, to justify Marxist theories of finance capitalism and its relationship to imperialism.Footnote 3 When examined more closely, the interest of railway finance in tropical Africa was political, not economic. French railway interests showed no appetite for operations in far-flung parts of Africa, preferring to concentrate instead on the captive market readily available in Algeria and other colonial dependencies. It was only to the extent that African expansion could be exploited politically, in furtherance of these interests, that it entered into the calculations of the railway lobby.
I
The technological gap between Europe and the rest of the world and the unprecedented growth of the capitalist economy were preconditions for modern imperialism. Railways were integral to both these developments and provided one of the principal means by which European power was projected across the globe. Railways, or more precisely railway schemes, had a particular significance in the history of French imperialism in Africa, as is clear from the central part played by the trans-Saharan and Senegal–Niger railway schemes in the development of French expansion in 1879. The nature of these ambitious and utopian railway schemes has generally been misunderstood. Engineers like Alphonse Duponchel, the best-known advocate of the transsaharien, were doubtless driven by a desire to emulate recent feats of engineering such as the transcontinental railroad in America or the piercing of the isthmus of Suez, but this does not explain why governments took their plans seriously.Footnote 4 How this question is answered depends very largely on one's understanding of the relationship between empire and the railway. The conventional view of the railway as no more than an instrument of imperial policy leaves room for little else than a one-dimensional interpretation of French expansion as a deliberate exercise in empire-building, made possible by the application of modern technology.Footnote 5 The relationship may, however, be more complex. Railways may figure amongst the causes of expansion, or, as one leading historian has succinctly put it, empire may itself be a function of the railway.Footnote 6 This insight is crucial to any understanding of the contradictory phenomenon of French imperialism, whose programme of African expansion was amongst the earliest and most ambitious, yet which petered out, a few short years later, in recrimination and disarray.
Comparative studies of imperial railway policy in different parts of the world provide fresh insight into the nature of French activities in Africa. They suggest, despite the variety of different ways in which empire and the railroad may interact, that common patterns exist in the relationship between the imperial power and the colonized (or in some cases the colonists), as well as between government and private investors. Often, the most important developments took place after empire had been won, when railways acted to reinforce ties with the metropole, bind disparate territories together, and integrate the colonial economy in the world market. In particular cases, however, where territories were contiguous, railways operated directly as agents of expansion, extending across frontiers to annex land or monopolize the local economy.Footnote 7 French railway penetration in Tunisia, which was followed five years later by the declaration of a protectorate, provides a classic instance of this process. However, its importance here lies in the contrast it offers with other contemporary French African railway projects. In Tunisia, a French company, the Bône-Guelma, was able to obtain a concession in 1876 for a line from Tunis to the frontier, with a view to linking it with its own expanding network in Algeria. For the company this was a purely commercial venture but its strategic significance was recognized by the government in Paris, which acted quickly to provide a guarantee of interest. As a result, French banks had no hesitation in advancing the necessary capital.Footnote 8 Support for the Bône-Guelma could readily be justified in terms of the national interest. The aim of French diplomacy was to secure international recognition of France's paramount role in Tunis, which was regarded as essential for the security of Algeria and France's strategic position in the Mediterranean. In the interim, a French economic monopoly of the Regency, to which the Tunis railway would make a major contribution, was seen as the most effective means of combating Italian influence and upholding French supremacy.
The Bône-Guelma's relationship with its own government, with the host country, and with capital markets conformed closely to the normal pattern. In the Bey of Tunis it found a willing collaborator anxious to modernize his state, in the banks a ready source of capital, and in its own government, the essential financial guarantor. In the case of the African railways, extending in similar fashion from French territory in Algeria and Senegal, these characteristic elements were noticeably absent. The provision of protection and assistance, undertaken by the Bey, was in this case left to the voluntary co-operation of the African consumer, a Smithian construct whose cultural and political allegiances could safely be discounted. Oblivious to warnings from its own advisers about the need for prior agreements with indigenous powers, the government persisted in this optimistic, not to say foolhardy, course until forced to abandon it by the pressure of events.Footnote 9 This carelessness about means was matched by a corresponding imprecision about ends. The strategic benefits accruing from the Tunis railway were incontestable. It was far from clear, however, what national or imperial interests would be served by the infinitely more challenging and costly African railways. All that was on offer was a nebulous commercial empire in the African interior, whose centre was located somewhere between Timbuktu in the west and Lake Chad in the east, and faint echoes of the old idea of uniting Algeria and Senegal across the Sahara.Footnote 10
The most unusual aspect of the African railway programme, however, was the way the government proposed to pay for it. By placing responsibility for finance and construction on the state, it went against one of the most cherished principles of republican political economy, on which the recent railway settlement in France was founded. Its fundamental principle was that private enterprise would raise investment capital in return for annuities and a guarantee of interest, enabling the state to provide new infrastructure without endangering the public finances or overburdening the taxpayer. By adopting the opposite course in this instance and investing large amounts of taxpayers' money in Africa, the government would be courting the very electoral retribution it had been so careful to avoid in France.Footnote 11 The only conclusion that can be drawn from this catalogue of omissions and inconsistencies is that the government was not entirely serious in its African plans, and that the whole programme was in fact an elaborate charade.
The purposes served by such play-acting can be deduced from a largely unremarked feature of these railway plans. Both in the case of the trans-Saharan and the Senegal–Niger, the railway falls into two distinct parts, a shorter section within French territory, earmarked for private construction, and a much longer one on still unclaimed land, for which the state was to assume responsibility. Thus the transsaharien was to be an extension of the railway from Biskra to Ouargla, just as the Senegal–Niger would be the continuation of the Dakar–St Louis via the River Senegal.Footnote 12 With only minor differences, the Congo railway followed the same template, acting as a continuation of the newly discovered Congo waterway, which, like the transsaharien, offered limitless vistas for imperial development. It was these semi-detached railways – not the grand imperial schemes of which they formed part and which have tended to monopolize historians' attention – that determined the characteristics of French railway imperialism. The need to legitimize construction and public subsidy of these lines by association with politically more defensible, imperial schemes, inspired the policy of African expansion. To the extent that these railways were financially and technically separate, they were not ultimately dependent on the success or failure of the larger imperial programme, enabling promoters and their allies to disengage as soon as the political costs of expansion outweighed the benefits.
II
Railway politics and the coming of age of a new breed of Republican politician provide the background to a new policy of African expansion after 1879. Investigation into its causes must therefore begin, not with developments in Africa, but with two closely related events in French domestic politics: the take-over of the Republic by the Republican parties in 1877 and, in the following year, the Freycinet plan for the restructuring of the railway system. The failure of the Monarchists, who had dominated the early years of the Third Republic, to find a solution to the railway question, presented their Republican opponents, who had usurped their position after the constitutional crisis of 16 May, with a particular challenge. The refusal of mainline companies to meet popular demand for unprofitable local railways had already provoked calls for nationalization and led to some unsuccessful experiments in state management.Footnote 13 Despite his earlier reputation as an extremist, Léon Gambetta, the leader of the Republican Union, realized, now that power was finally within his grasp, that it was time to claim the centre ground and seek accommodation with vested interests. One means of achieving this was by tackling the thorny issue of railway reform, which, handled skilfully, could prove equally beneficial to the politicians as to the railway companies. As the one figure to whom members of all the different Republican groups looked for leadership, he was uniquely placed to achieve a historic compromise with the railway companies, hitherto the recipients of routine attacks by the Republican opposition. With Gambetta's encouragement, Charles de Freycinet, his protégé and railway expert, now serving as minister for public works, secured an agreement with the companies to build and operate a new network of local railways. His counterpart in these delicate negotiations was his colleague at the ministry of finance, Léon Say, who was not only a leading authority on the public finances but, through his close ties with the Rothschilds, unofficial spokesman for the railway interest. It was another of Gambetta's intimates, Eugène Raynal, who subsequently signed the notorious railway conventions, setting out the new financial deal for the railways, seen by many as a licence to print money.Footnote 14
Republican politicians had no cause to be disappointed with the outcome. The Freycinet plan opened the floodgates allowing every deputy to demand a line in his own constituency, swelling the original proposals out of all proportion and virtually guaranteeing victory in the coming elections.Footnote 15 The railway companies also emerged stronger than before from the Freycinet plan. The huge investment in new infrastructure forced them to look beyond the Haute Banque, their traditional source of capital, to the large banks and credit institutions that had mushroomed under the Second Empire.Footnote 16 The effect of these massive transfers of capital was to create exceptionally close connections between the banks and the railway companies, which not infrequently had directors in common.Footnote 17 They shared links with shipping companies whose ports were served by the railways and with steel mills that supplied the rails and rolling stock.Footnote 18 The companies, together with their associated banks, already controlled most of the railways in southern Europe. With their domestic base in France now secure, they were poised to expand across the Mediterranean into North Africa.Footnote 19
The Freycinet plan was the result of a convenient alliance between the railway interest and the Moderate Republicans, entered into at a time of rapidly rising prosperity, which appeared to accompany the political triumph of Republicanism. It was less certain that it would survive, however, if political and economic conditions deteriorated. Many Moderates were already aware that, by identifying themselves too closely with vested interests, they risked being outflanked on the left by their Radical opponents. For its part, the railway interest lost no time in recruiting a core of committed supporters, making approaches to the Republican Union, as soon as the Republican victory appeared imminent, and forging close links with several of its leading personalities.Footnote 20 Many of these came from humble or disadvantaged backgrounds and saw politics primarily as a means of self-enrichment.Footnote 21 Railway speculation appears to have had a particular attraction for men like Maurice Rouvier and Eugène Etienne. The former was the inspiration behind local railways in Switzerland and in his own constituency of Alpes Maritimes, where he was joined by his Gambettist colleague, Etienne. These enterprises were both eventually mired in scandal, had some of the same directors, and drew on similar sources of finance as the new companies, which had been formed to take advantage of the extension of the Freycinet plan to Algeria.Footnote 22 The latter, effectively subsidiaries of the metropolitan banks, benefited like their counterparts in France from the process of political inflation, resulting in the addition of several new railways in response to electoral pressure, without resistance from the government. A more ominous note was struck, however, when the president of the Chamber's commission on classification of Algerian railways remarked on the absence from the official programme of lignes de pénétration towards the Sahara, a comment echoed by his counterpart in the Senate. This marked the opening of a campaign for Saharan railways, confirming that the railway companies, far from resting on their laurels, were bent on driving home their advantage.Footnote 23
III
The campaign to win support in parliament for a trans-Saharan railway was carefully orchestrated through a series of apparently spontaneous exchanges, which conveniently blurred the lines of responsibility between deputies and senators on the one hand, and ministers and the government on the other. Several amendments were put forward during debates on the Algerian railway programme. The first by Paul Bert, a rising star on the Gambettist benches, called for railway surveys in the Sahara. More forthrightly, Eugène Caillaux, vice-president of the Paris–Lyon–Mediterranée railway, demanded a line from Biskra to El Golea, which, he explained to the Senate, was to form the first stage of a transsaharien. Both amendments were withdrawn when the prime minister, Freycinet, gave assurances that his department was already examining plans for the trans-Saharan railway based on Duponchel's report, and would shortly set up a full commission to consider the matter.Footnote 24
Discussions in parliament were centred firmly on railway issues with scarcely any consideration given to wider questions raised by a trans-Saharan railway. African policy itself figured only as an afterthought. Rouvier, speaking as rapporteur of the budget commission, confined himself to generalities regarding the potential riches of Africa, the opportunities for commerce it presented, and the predestined role of France in opening up the Dark Continent.Footnote 25 Exaggerated claims about the population of the African interior were advanced to support these arguments; Rouvier put the figure at two hundred million, the government, more conservatively, at half this amount.Footnote 26 The newly convened commission on the transsaharien offered an opportunity to correct some of these misconceptions. But it soon became apparent that this impressive body comprising politicians, entrepreneurs, technical experts, and African specialists had not been convened to offer impartial advice but to rubber stamp decisions already reached.Footnote 27 In particular, it was expected to come out in favour of the Biskra railway, which had already been singled out for special mention by the departmental committee. Meanwhile Rouvier and Paul Bert, sitting on the explorations sub-committee, ensured that three out of the four planned surveys in the Sahara would adopt Biskra as their starting point.Footnote 28
The commission was also charged, on the recommendation of the ministry of public works, with the examination of a second proposal for a railway linking Senegal to the Upper Niger, offering a shorter route to the Soudan. This was conceived, however, as an addition rather than an alternative to the trans-Saharan scheme, regardless of the unnecessary duplication of effort.Footnote 29 As in Algeria, the ground had been carefully prepared in advance. The explorer, Paul Soleillet, along with Duponchel, the chief originator of the transsaharien, had been entrusted a year earlier by the governor of Senegal with a mission to Segu, to explore the route to the Soudan. Concurrently, a survey had also been completed of another railway linking the capital St Louis and the new port of Dakar, which was included as an integral part of the Senegalese scheme. This line, like the Biskra railway in Algeria, was scheduled for private construction and was approved by the commission without further discussion.Footnote 30
While the commission was still sitting, a third railway project was added to the agenda, inspired by recent developments in the vicinity of Gabon, in West Equatorial Africa. The prospects of this isolated French outpost, valued mainly as a naval station for the South Atlantic, had been transformed by the arrival of the explorer, H. M. Stanley, at the mouth of the Congo after his epic crossing of the continent. This had revealed the importance of the River Congo as a means of opening up the interior to European commerce, once the obstacle presented by a series of cataracts between Stanley Pool and the Atlantic was overcome. A railway offered the obvious solution to this difficulty, as King Leopold of the Belgians was one of the first to realize. Already intent on creating an imperial patrimony for himself under cover of the humanitarian concerns of the International African Association, by the end of 1878 Leopold was engaged in forming a railway company to bypass the rapids.Footnote 31 French entrepreneurs were also alive to the opportunity, especially after the arrival in Paris the same year of a French naval officer of Italian extraction, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza. Recently returned from an exploration of the region lying between Gabon and the Congo, Brazza was advertising the advantages of the Ogowé as an alternative route to Stanley Pool. Taking a leaf out of Leopold's book, the French branch of the International African Association, among whose members railway interests were exceptionally well represented, began preparing for Brazza's return to the Congo to complete his explorations.Footnote 32 Ferdinand de Lesseps, entrepreneur and founder of the Suez Canal Company, was president of the Association, alongside his son, Charles, who was on the board of the Société de dépôts. Baron de la Roncière de Noury, another prominent member and president of the Société de géographie, was also director of the Ouest railway and of the Société générale, largest of the French banks. With de Lesseps and de Noury both on the trans-Saharan commission, adding the Congo railway to the agenda presented no difficulty, though the claim that it offered an additional means of access to the Soudan was debatable. With help from Victor Fournier, rapporteur of the Sahara and Soudan sub-committee, and later a director of Rouvier's Sud de la France railway, it was accorded the same priority as the trans-Saharan and Senegal–Niger schemes.Footnote 33 Further progress was hardly to be expected but a useful marker had been put down for the future, while the case for giving official support to Brazza's new expedition had been strengthened.
IV
The measure of public support that African expansion seemed to enjoy after 1879 was not sustainable in the long run as it was based on policies which were inherently unrealistic. By pretending that expansion was simply a matter of peaceful, commercial exchange, in which military force played only a supporting role, government was storing up trouble for itself in the future. The railway lobby, however, was working to a shorter timetable, realizable long before the difficulties and drawbacks of colonial expansion emerged. In the Sahara, for example, completion of the railway surveys already authorized by parliament, and involving at most a few hundred men, would be sufficient to trigger a déclaration d'utilité publique, allowing the Biskra concession to be put out to tender.Footnote 34 Financial arrangements for this eventuality were already well advanced. The Est-Algérien, provisional concessionaries of the line leading to Biskra, kept in the background, leaving the Caisse centrale, a second-tier Parisian bank, to submit its bid. The Caisse, in its turn, was preparing to create an operating company in which five leading Gambettists were reputed to be personally involved. Behind the Caisse stood the much more substantial Société de dépôts, a bank with large railway interests in Spain and Italy.Footnote 35
The expectations of the promoters were disappointed, however, following the massacre by the Tuareg in February 1881 of the most ambitious of the Saharan survey missions, led by Colonel Flatters, a disaster which shattered the illusions on which the programme of expansion rested.Footnote 36 Faced with a public outcry, the government had little option but to suspend further actions in the Sahara until their safety could be assured. At the same time, it resolved to treat all future railway proposals strictly on their military or political merits, disregarding arguments relating to the trans- Saharan projects. This was, of course, a tacit admission of the real motives inspiring the transsaharien campaign.Footnote 37 Although the promoters continued to argue the case for the Biskra railway, invoking their considerable influence in Paris and Algiers, without the transsaharien and the accompanying imperial programme, it was difficult to make further headway, until the project was finally killed off by the economic recession.Footnote 38
From the standpoint of the railway promoters, the situation in Senegal was not essentially different from that in the Sahara. Opposition to French expansion might be expected from the formidable Muslim empire of Ahmadu, which blocked access to the Niger. Ahmadu could be brought to heel, however, by turning his pagan subjects against him. In any event, the promoters could count on the assistance of Louis Brière de l'Isle, the energetic governor of the colony, who had long harboured expansionist ambitions and chafed at restrictions imposed from Paris. What these calculations left out of account was that Brière had an agenda of his own, which placed the pacification of Cayor, the settling of accounts with Ahmadu, and the achievement of Louis Faidherbe's dream of extending French rule to the Niger, before those of the railway promoters.Footnote 39 This miscalculation was all the greater because of the unstinting support of the minister of marine, Admiral Jean Jauréguiberry, himself a former governor of the colony, and a close political ally of the prime minister.Footnote 40
Any expectation by the railway lobby that events in Senegal might follow a similar pattern to those in the Sahara, with action being limited to railway surveys and the negotiation of a treaty with Ahmadu, proved short-lived. Instead, Jauréguiberry lost no time in authorizing construction of a fort at Bafoulabé on the Upper Senegal, without troubling to inform parliament of his plans.Footnote 41 It was only when Jauréguiberry faced the Chamber early in 1881 that the extent of his difficulties became clear. The deputies, who had gladly approved credits for the Sahara a few months earlier, baulked at the huge costs of the Senegalese programme which was certain to prove unpopular with the voters, and delayed the vote of funds, as a sign of disapproval.Footnote 42 It was left to the Gambettists to head off this threat to the consensus by devising a formula, which would assuage the deputies' fears without jeopardizing the entire programme. Eugène Blandin's report for the budget commission proposed to drop the optional connecting line altogether and to halt the railway at Bafoulabé, only a quarter of the distance to the Niger. Critics were quick to point out that, as a result, the railway no longer served any useful purpose. However, the fact that it remained in existence was enough to justify continuation of the Dakar–St Louis line, significantly the one part of the government's programme to escape Blandin's censure.Footnote 43
Even this dishonest compromise, which Jauréguiberry and his successors had perforce to accept, could not save the project in the long run. The railway was doomed not so much by lack of a clear objective as by the incompetence with which it was handled. In 1883, the prime minister, Jules Ferry, was forced to admit that, despite huge cost-overruns, no more than sixteen kilometres of track had been laid.Footnote 44 More fundamental criticisms were soon expressed in the Chamber, though stopping short of outright condemnation of expansion. Attention was drawn to the lack of resources in the area crossed by the railway and the failure to secure the co-operation of local rulers. When, at the end of the year, the Chamber declined to vote further credits, the government made no attempt to mount a coherent defence of the project, characterized, not unfairly, by one critic as a ‘fantasy railway in pursuit of imaginary commerce’.Footnote 45 In any case, the Senegal–Niger railway had by now largely outlived its usefulness for the promoters, a fact reflected in the decline of Gambettist support for it in parliament.Footnote 46 Six months earlier, the bill for the Dakar–St Louis concession had passed into law, progressing through the system in record time. The commission appointed to examine the project took less than two months to pronounce in favour of the Société de Batignolles, parent company of the Bône-Guelma.Footnote 47 Despite the damning criticisms of its terms by the ministry of finance, the concession was approved by the budget commission at the end of 1880, after which it was separated from the now more controversial bills dealing with the Senegal–Niger.Footnote 48 Rumours, nevertheless, continued to circulate in the ministry of marine that money intended for the Senegal–Niger was finding its way into the pockets of the concessionaries, reflecting widespread unease at the way in which the railway programme blurred the distinction between private profit and public interest.Footnote 49
V
While striving to retain control of events in the Soudan, the railway lobby was actively pursuing its plans in the Congo. The chief obstacle was the ministry of marine's uncooperative attitude, where Brazza was regarded as a foreign upstart whose activities might divert resources from its own operations on the Upper Senegal.Footnote 50 With other avenues blocked, it was left to the ministry of public instruction to come to the rescue with a grant to the explorer, after energetic lobbying by Rouvier and Paul Bert, though it was unable to confer official status on Brazza as a representative of France.Footnote 51 In addition, Brazza was able to draw on the contributions of de Lesseps and the French branch of the International African Association. When these proved insufficient and the expedition began to run short of money, the ministries still refused to help, though attitudes changed dramatically once Gambetta assumed office, with Rouvier occupying the new post of minister of commerce, industry, and colonies in this short-lived administration.Footnote 52
Brazza's return to France in the spring of 1882, claiming to have secured rights by treaty over Stanley Pool, provided the acid test for the railway lobby. Official ratification of the Makoko treaty, giving France access to the navigable Congo, was vital to advance the railway scheme. No support could be expected from the Rue Royale, which maintained its attitude of hostile reserve, insisting on Brazza's unofficial status.Footnote 53 Fortunately, the new prime minister, who also held the strategic post of foreign minister, was better disposed. Eugène Duclerc was the representative par excellence of the financial institutions, having spent part of his career as director of the Crédit mobilier in Spain, and presently sitting on the board of various French banks.Footnote 54 Although a politician of the left centre, he had a past history of collaboration with the Gambettists.Footnote 55 Duclerc displayed no hesitation in submitting the treaty to parliament where its enthusiastic reception justified his confidence.Footnote 56 The unanimous support for ratification has been explained as a nationalistic backlash inspired by resentment against the British occupation of Egypt, but evidence for this is lacking.Footnote 57 Rather, it was due to the massive press campaign in its favour in which newspapers of every political persuasion participated, presumably paid for by the railway lobby.Footnote 58 In the Chamber, Paul Bert, as president of the treaty commission, and Rouvier, as its rapporteur, deployed the same uplifting mixture of patriotism, philanthropy, and self-interest they had used previously in the debate on the trans-Saharan railway.Footnote 59 The parliamentary triumph was followed a month later by a bid for the Congo railway from the Société de dépôts.Footnote 60 This, however, proved to be the high-watermark of railway imperialism in the Congo. The campaign for ratification had been conducted against the backdrop of a plunging stock market, triggered by the collapse of the Union générale, marking the end of the speculative boom.Footnote 61 Although securing possession of the Ogowé and Niari–Kouilou valleys remained the primary objective of the new expedition entrusted to Brazza at the beginning of 1883, doubts were emerging about their suitability as a means of communication with Stanley Pool. In addition, the attitude of the new government towards the railway was far from encouraging. Ferry was openly dismissive of such plans, with the lesson of the Senegal–Niger still fresh in his mind, insisting that French interests would be better served through co-operation with Leopold.Footnote 62
These factors are sufficient in themselves to account for the diminishing importance of the railway issue, but they do not tell the whole story. In the Sahara and the Soudan, where railway imperialism was acting in what was virtually France's own backyard, it was subject only to domestic pressures. In the Congo, however, it provoked international complications that it was less able to control. Pursuit of the railway agenda brought government into conflict not only with King Leopold, but also Great Britain, the arch colonial rival, posing as the champion of free trade.Footnote 63 Once events began to unfold on the international stage in the full glare of publicity, questions of prestige and national self-esteem inevitably took precedence over support for private interests.Footnote 64 The different order of priority this imposed is illustrated by the vehement French reaction to the Anglo-Portuguese treaty of February 1884. There was little in its provisions to stop France developing its own railway link with Stanley Pool. What made it unacceptable, and tantamount to a national humiliation, was its brazen attempt to settle the question of the Congo behind France's back. In his determination to undo the treaty and restore French prestige, Ferry showed himself ready not only to co-operate with Bismarck at the Berlin West Africa conference but even to endorse a free trade regime in the Congo, which, as he was aware, negated the principal argument in favour of an exclusive means of communication with the navigable Congo.Footnote 65
With the Anglo-Portuguese treaty safely out of the way, Ferry devoted his efforts to reaching the agreement with Leopold he had consistently advocated, seeking some form of guarantee that the king's African possessions would not fall into the hands of another European power, while finding a solution to the territorial dispute which would be acceptable to the French public. Leopold was equally anxious to reach a settlement, realizing that only French recognition of his sovereign rights could give him security of tenure in the Congo.Footnote 66 Negotiations between the two sides began early in 1884, but the railway question still remained to complicate matters. By now, however, this had assumed a quite different aspect from the time of the Makoko treaty. A purely French railway was no longer a realistic aspiration, leaving a partnership with Leopold as the only alternative, provided it could be achieved on a basis of equality. As a result, the policies of the railway lobby and those of Ferry were on a convergent, if not identical, course. Quite apart from his overriding need for French recognition, there were other incentives for Leopold to come to terms. He needed diplomatic support in Berlin to block any attempt to impose an international regime in the Congo on such vital issues as communication and monopolies, which would hamstring his railway plans.Footnote 67 He also needed access to French capital, as earlier attempts to obtain it on his own terms had failed, while efforts to raise money on the open market had been little more successful.Footnote 68 Bilateral talks on the territorial dispute and the formal sessions at the Berlin conference were almost certainly accompanied by parallel discussions about the railway, in which Rouvier was expected to play a prominent part.Footnote 69 As no record of these survive, it is impossible to determine what was agreed and the importance of the railway issue for the negotiations as a whole. It can, however, be concluded from an additional clause attached to the treaty, finally signed in February 1885, which gave King Leopold permission to raise twenty million francs on the Paris money market, that an agreement on the railway, satisfactory to French financial interests, had been reached.Footnote 70 This outcome also suggests that French promoters in the Congo, like their counterparts in Algeria and Senegal, had always regarded the railway as primarily a financial operation, rather than the exercise in empire-building and colonial exploitation that the Congo railway eventually became in Leopold's hands.
VI
Despite its decisive role in setting France on the path towards African expansion in 1879, railway imperialism was not particularly well adapted to the task of empire-building. Its horizons remained limited to an extension of the captive, overseas market, which was subsidized by the taxpayer. Tropical Africa entered into its calculations mainly as a tactical expedient, while its willingness to assume imperial commitments was constrained by fear of undermining political consensus in favour of colonial expansion. It was only when it provided opportunities for local, colonial pressure-groups, or when it involved France in wider diplomatic conflicts, that empire began to take hold in the Soudan and the Congo. It was for this reason that its impact was so limited in the Sahara, where no other powers were involved and where the tradition of military advance in the Extrême Sud, developed by Marshal Randon under the Second Empire, had long since been discontinued under the pressure of Arab insurrection and the crushing defeat of 1870.Footnote 71 Little more remained of the brief revival of French interest after 1879 beyond an enduring fascination with the idea of a transsaharien.
The limitations of railway imperialism were no less apparent in the Congo where the development of colonial rivalries did as much as the activities of the railway promoters to ensure a permanent occupation. Where, as on the Lower Niger, intervention by vested interests failed to engage with the mechanisms of Great Power rivalry, the impact on the ground was less profound. The attempt by French firms, encouraged by the government, to challenge the monopoly of the Niger Company is best understood as a spin-off from the Congolese affair, though the episode has been misread by some historians as a strategic move to extend French influence along the Benue towards Lake Chad.Footnote 72 It was prompted by the banks' insistence on the need for an official mailboat service to the new colony as part of their bid for the Congo railway.Footnote 73 To strengthen its position in the contest for this lucrative concession, Chargeurs-Réunis, a Le Havre shipping company, promptly joined forces with the Compagnie française de l'Afrique équatoriale, then the sole French firm trading on the Niger.Footnote 74 The advantages to be derived from an additional port of call in the Niger Delta, with a ready-made entrepôt trade based on existing trading posts on the Niger and the Benue, were not difficult to appreciate. Similar considerations accounted, no doubt, for the appearance of a second French firm on the river, representing the shipping interests of Marseille.Footnote 75 Domestic political influence was even more crucial to the outcome than positioning on the ground in Africa. The interests of the Marseille shippers were championed by J. Charles-Roux, those of Le Havre by Felix Faure, president of the chamber of commerce and soon to be under-secretary for colonies, under Ferry.Footnote 76 Chargeurs-Réunis had useful connections with the government of the day, however, through the banking interests of Duclerc, while its partner, the Compagnie française de l'Afrique équatoriale did not hesitate to offer the prime minister a directorship in return for his support.Footnote 77 Almost his last decision before leaving office was to insist on the dispatch of French warships to assist the company's treaty-making activities at Bonny and Brass in the Niger Delta.Footnote 78 At the very same moment, his colleague at the Rue Royale, in what looks like a concerted move, drew attention to the new opportunities available to France on the Benue, in which he had hitherto showed no interest.Footnote 79 The unsuccessful outcome of these attempts to persuade the trading states of the Delta to accept French protection meant, however, that the dangers of a clash with Great Britain were averted, in the one area of West Africa where the government in London was prepared to defend its commercial interests against all-comers. Ferry, Duclerc's successor, could afford, as a result, to take a more pragmatic approach, similar to that adopted towards the railway question. He refused to intervene to prevent the French firms selling out to the Niger company and declined to press the case for neutralizing navigation on the Niger in line with arrangements on the Congo, despite Faure's repeated pleas, for fear of jeopardizing the wider aims of French diplomacy.Footnote 80
The interaction between economic pressure-groups and international rivalries offered one route to territorial empire in tropical Africa. The French conquest of the western part of the Soudan, an area largely insulated from rival European interests, provides an example of another. The critical factor in the Soudan was the emergence of a local, military sub-imperialism as a direct consequence of the new opportunities offered by the railway scheme. The natural advantage enjoyed by the military, as men on the spot, was compounded by the uncritical support they received from the governor in St Louis and by Jauréguiberry at the ministry of marine. This ensured that military priorities were adopted from the start. The building of forts took precedence over construction of the railway, while negotiations with Ahmadu were discontinued in favour of a military advance to the Niger.Footnote 81 The soldiers' position was in no way weakened by the decision to abandon the railway scheme. A continuation of the military occupation, judged indispensable to maintain French prestige, was the basis of the face-saving compromise, which enabled the government to escape from its predicament.Footnote 82 This left the military in a position to do much as they liked, particularly as the government had no alternative policy of its own to offer. Given the difficulties of control from Paris and the natural desire of the soldiers to seek opportunities for glory and promotion, the chances of avoiding ongoing conflict with the hostile and relatively well-organized Muslim empires of Ahmadu and Samori, appeared minimal.
Public support for colonial expansion had, however, never been more than lukewarm in a country where memories of Napoleon III's disastrous overseas adventures remained fresh. In the boom years, between 1879 and 1882, government had seized the opportunity to foist expansion in West Africa, Tunisia, and the Congo on an unsuspecting public. However, the tide in public opinion was starting to turn, as illustrated by the violence of the attacks on Ferry for his handling of the Tunisian affair, where he was accused of failing to keep parliament informed and diverting troops that might be needed to defend French frontiers.Footnote 83 The real turning point came after the elections of 1885, however, which saw large gains for the Radicals and Monarchists at the expense of the Moderates, who lost their overall majority in the Chamber.Footnote 84 The effects were felt immediately in the sphere of colonial policy. Ferry was driven from office early in 1885, after reports of a military setback in Tonkin. Heartened by their success, opposition parties adopted anti-colonialism as a rallying cry and the most effective means of attacking the government in power. In the circumstances, colonial administration in Africa could no longer expect to remain immune from criticism, especially as parliament was already showing signs of impatience at the mounting costs of occupation in the Soudan.Footnote 85 The case for an urgent reappraisal of the management and future direction of the African colonies was, by now, unanswerable.
The obvious starting point for reform was in the French Soudan, where government had failed from the outset to discipline its military commanders or control the costs of occupation, while promised commercial opportunities had signally failed to materialize. By 1886, affairs in the colony had reached a low ebb. Military prestige had hit rock-bottom, following inconclusive skirmishes with Samori and the outbreak of revolt in areas previously considered under French control.Footnote 86 After restoring security in the colony, the new commander, Joseph Gallieni, proceeded to outline a far-reaching programme of reform. Rejecting the old axis of advance and the policy of confrontation with the Muslim empires, he urged that France should concentrate her efforts on the Senegambian triangle, the more populous area to the south. This, he claimed, would lead to economies in the costs of occupation and develop commerce by providing outlets to the sea through the southern rivers. His programme was enthusiastically endorsed by Etienne, appointed under-secretary for colonies in 1887, not least because it offered new opportunities to the Marseille traders on the coast, who looked to the Gambettists for patronage.Footnote 87 At the same time, the reform programme transformed the prospects for the isolated French enclaves on the West Coast regarded, until now, as little more than bargaining counters for a Gambian exchange. They now acquired a new importance as valuable outlets to the coast, enabling French conquests in the interior to develop into a viable colony.Footnote 88 The reformers also turned their attention to the Congo, signalling an end to the period of expansion, for which funds were no longer available, by merging it with Gabon and restoring control over the new colony to the ministry of marine.Footnote 89
By the end of the 1880s, the expansionist phase that had drawn France into tropical Africa had passed its peak. By now, policy-makers in Paris were more concerned with managing the consequences of empire than extending its boundaries. Experienced British observers remarked on the widespread support in France for a reduction in colonial expenditure, and forecast a new focus on the commercial colonies of the West Coast at the expense of expansion in the interior.Footnote 90 Their analysis was sound, as far as it went; it could not be expected, however, to take the unpredictable variable of railway imperialism into account. Within a year, French policy was once more in the melting-pot, with ambitious plans for expansion to Lake Chad dominating the agenda. This reversal of policy towards Africa, as striking in its way as that of 1879, is again best explained in terms of railway finance, by now heavily committed in Algeria and still retaining a foothold in the Congo.
