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1 2 3 Pirates, Slavers, Brigands, and Gangs: the French 4 5 terminology of anticolonial rebellion (1880-1922) 6 7 8 Abstract 9 10 11 During the most rapid period of French colonial expansion (roughly 1880-1914) the French 12 faced regular, often violent, resistance to the expansion of their imperial dominion over 13 people in Africa and Southeast Asia. This article examines the changing terminology that 14 French soldiers, officers and administrators used to describe the anticolonial movements they 15 were called upon to suppress during the course of French conquest and ‘pacification’ 16 operations. This terminology is gleaned both from archival sources, as well as from the so- 17 called ‘grey literature’ of books, letters and pamphlets published by members of the French 18 military, which do Fornot exist in traditionalPeer librari Reviewes and holdings like the Bibliothèque 19 20 Nationale . Taken as a whole this analysis grants us insight into how the French thought about 21 themselves, their anticolonial opponents, how these conceptions changed over time, and how 22 these conceptions translated into action and methodology. 23 24 25 After missionaries, soldiers were often the first Frenchmen to enter the African and Southeast 26 27 Asian interior. These soldiers (men and officers) at the forefront of French colonial conquest 28 29 30 left behind extensive source material, which gives us a unique perspective into both the 31 32 actions and mind-set of French colonisers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They not only 33 34 wrote official reports 1, they maintained correspondence with their relatives and friends 2, 35 36 developed stories 3, propaganda texts 4, and sometimes published novels based on their 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 1 For example Lieutenant-Colonel Archinard (1891), Rapport officiel sur la campagne de 1890-1891 (Paris: 48 Dentu) & Commandant Le Prince (1893), Étude militaire sur le Tonkin (Paris: Baudouin) 49 2 For example, Orsat, Félix (1893) Au Soudan (1890-1891), souvenirs d’un tirailleur sénégalais d’après sa 50 correspondance intime (Paris: Picard) & Le Commandant Lamy d'après sa correspondance et ses souvenirs de 51 campagne (1858-1900) (Paris: Hachette, 1903). See also, D’Andurain , Julie (2015) « La correspondance privée 52 des coloniaux » in Bérenger, Agnès et Dard, Olivier (eds., 2015), Gouverner par les lettres, de l’Antiquité à 53 l’époque contemporaine, Metz, Centre de recherche Universitaire Lorrain d’Histoire, pp. 95-113. 54 3 For example: Lahille, Abel (1910) Mes Impressions sur l'Afrique occidentale française. (Étude documentaire 55 au pays du tam-tam), (Paris: A. Picard) 4 56 De Lanessan, Jean (1896) L’Expansion coloniale de la France : étude économique, politique et géographique 57 sur les établissements français d’outre-mer (Paris: Alcan) 58 1 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 2 of 61

1 2 5 3 experience . On occasion they acted as journalists, often with support from the directors, 4 5 publicists, and politicians of the parti colonial in Paris: those military and government men 6 7 who advocated for a vast French overseas empire.6 Taken in its broadest sense, the literature 8 9 10 produced during the most intensive period of colonial conquest (1880-1914) forms today a 11 12 considerable mass of documents. In the form of primary sources, secondary sources or ‘grey 13 14 literature’ 7 we can think of these sources as together constituting a ‘colonial military 15 16 literature’.8 This literature is a valuable and under-utilised resource in determining how the 17 18 French understood Forthe socio-political Peer and military Review contexts they were operating in. This is 19 20 21 especially true of the changing character of armed conflict between the French and local 22 23 populations in Africa and Southeast Asia as initial conquests turned into enduring policing 24 25 operations with a wide variety of political, social and military challenges. This article will 26 27 examine some of the diverse sources these officers left behind and analyse the evolving 28 29 30 understanding French military personnel had of the anticolonial movements they were called 31 32 on to police and supress. 33 34 35 36 The military men who undertook the initial conquest and ‘pacification’ of the French 37 38 overseas empire quickly came into contact with resistance, often violent, to the nascent 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 5 For example, Harmant, Jacques (1892) La Vérité sur la retraite de Lang-Son. Mémoires d’un combattant, 48 (Paris: Albert Savine) 49 6 D’Andurain, Julie (2017) Colonialisme ou impérialisme ? Le ‘parti colonial’ en pensée et en action (Paris: 50 Hémisphères éditions/Zellige) 51 7 Generally referred to as ‘grey literature’ these are works beyond the usual circuits of production and 52 distribution and that are not subject to legal deposit (theses, dissertations, reports, etc.). They are not referenced 53 in the Bibliothèque Nationale . Some of these monographs are maintained by the French Africa Committee and a 54 number of others are military books kept by the French military. 8 55 Dodille, Norbert (2011) , Introduction aux discours coloniaux (Paris: PUPS). For a polemic approach of the 56 concept of colonial literature, see Krapor, Vladimir ‘Provocation Versus Performativity: Lauching la littérature 57 coloniale française in 1909 ’, Modern & Contemporary France , February 2015, vol. 23, Issue 1, p. 47-64. 58 2 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 3 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 control they had established. When writing about resistance these men generally did not refer 4 5 to rebels as the ‘social bandit’ described by Eric Hobsbawn some 60 years ago.9 This is not to 6 7 say that the French did not have a varied and nuanced language to describe the regular 8 9 10 uprisings they found themselves facing. Indeed, the French deployed a range of terms to 11 12 describe anticolonial rebels that belie geography, time period, French perceptions of 13 14 individual movements, as well as their own self-perception as colonisers. French officers 15 16 often chose their terminology self-consciously to frame situations to their superiors in the 17 18 colonial capitals likeFor Dakar and Peer Hanoi, or indeed Review in Paris, in such a way as to either bolster or 19 20 21 shield the reputation of the officer in question. Language could either inflate or downplay the 22 23 actual importance of a given movement in order to prod higher authorities to respond, or at 24 25 least in the worst case to deflect their own possible responsibility for things getting out of 26 27 hand. The internal and external political context in which French officers wrote about 28 29 30 anticolonial rebellion was paramount. 31 32 The French military in this period expressed the idea of ‘rebellion’ in many different 33 34 ways, varying in both time and space. French military personnel saw their opponents not 35 36 quite as ‘the enemy’ (in the strict military sense), not always as a bandit, rarely as a legitimate 37 38 soldier, and at least in this period, not yet as a nationalist. In Southeast Asia French officers 39 40 41 tended to refer to rebels as ‘pirates’, reflecting the actual existence of powerful pirate and 42 43 bandit groups in the region in the 1800s. 10 In African colonial literature there was initially no 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 9 Hobsbawn, Eric (1959) Primitive Rebels (Manchester: University of Manchester Press) 10 55 For more on ‘pirates’, the Black Flags and on French activity in Southeast Asia see Finch, Michael P. M. 56 (2013), A Progressive Occupation? The Gallieni-Lyautey Method and Colonial Pacification in Tonkin and 57 Madagascar, 1885-1900 (Oxford : Oxford University Press) 58 3 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 4 of 61

1 2 11 12 3 talk of ‘piracy’, but instead of ‘bandits’ , ‘slave-chiefs’ or ‘ mahdistes’. Similar 4 5 terminology, arising out of similar political and military pressures, was also prevalent in 6 7 British India, among other European overseas colonies. 13 Over time, however, in part 8 9 10 because of the proliferation of anticolonial rebellions and also due to the transference of 11 12 colonial officers between different theatres of operation, the terminology surrounding 13 14 anticolonial rebellions began to unify. This unification of terminology, to some extent 15 16 representative of a unification of French, and wider European, concepts of imperialism and 17 18 anticolonialism, underscoresFor a growingPeer awareness Review of the widespread opposition to 19 20 21 colonization, and the nascent emergence of nationalism in parts of Africa and Asia which has 22 23 roots in the struggle against European imperialism. For the French, how they wrote and 24 25 talked about rebellion was a critical part of the fight against anticolonialism. They actively 26 27 sought to improve their ability to fight against anticolonial, and later nationalist, movements 28 29 30 both in military terms, but also through their speech. 31 32 33 34 What is a rebel? 35 In the nineteenth century, the French use of the word ‘rebel’ designated something of an 36 37 instigator; one who must be compelled to obedience. By definition, the rebel is one who 38 39 40 challenges a ruling power. If political opposition exists within a legal framework, the case 41 42 becomes one of ‘disobedience’. If an individual resists political authority, does not obey, and 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 11 De Vilers, Charles Le Myre d, « L’Expédition du Tonkin : La Passé, le Présent, l’Avenir », La Nouvelle revue, 51 November-December 1884, p. 700-728; « Nous nous proposions seulement de châtier les bandits connus sous le 52 nom de Pavillons Noirs, et nous avons été assez imprudents pour faire la guerre à l’Annam puis à la Chine » 53 12 Vasco, Gabriel, « Le Madhisme au Soudan », Revue française de l’étranger et des colonies et Exploration, 54 Gazette géographique, Avril 1896, t. XXI, n°208,p. 231-237 , and more generally Pascha, Rudolph Slatin (1896) 55 Feuer und Schwert im Sudan (1879-1895) (Leipzig: Brockhaus) 13 56 Burton, Major Reginald, ‘Partisans or Bandits’ , Royal United Services Institute Journal , July-September 57 1897, XVII, issue 128, p. 291-292. 58 4 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 5 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 violates socio-cultural rules or traditions, they became a ‘dissident’, and so forth. Such 4 5 naming conventions can take many forms, and should be instantly recognizable as part of the 6 7 basic political framework between the ‘rebel’ and the ‘establishment’. As Stathis Kalyvas put 8 9 10 it in his 2006 book The Logic of Violence in Civil War : ‘incumbents…label their opponents 11 12 “bad guys”, bandits, criminals, subversives, or terrorists – and describe the war as banditry, 13 14 terrorism, delinquent subversion, and other cognate terms’.14 Kalyvas counts anticolonial 15 16 wars as civil wars, and does so for good reason: typically members of the local ethnic 17 18 populations do the Forvast bulk of thePeer fighting and Reviewdying, with allegiances very often falling 19 20 21 along pre-colonial lines, or other factors that have little or nothing to do with the presence of 22 15 23 an outside power. 24 25 In the French colonial context of the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries organised 26 27 anticolonial violence could be emblematic of a broader popular resistance that might lead to a 28 29 30 full-blown insurrection, or it may constitute merely the armed resistance of scattered gangs 31 32 without any real political objectives beyond survival. The French generally distinguished 33 34 between these different types of resistance by referring to them as either ‘political’ or 35 36 ‘apolitical’, albeit often without solid evidence for their classifications. 16 This classification 37 38 could be used to make movements seem more or less threatening, as the reporter may desire, 39 40 41 and also had ramifications for what could be done to captured dissidents. There were at times 42 43 hotly contested debates over whether actions were ‘political’ or not in court, and also whether 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 14 Kalyvas, Stathis (2006) The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 17 54 15 Ibid., p. 19 16 55 Such judgements often relied on the gut feeling of administrators. One example, of many: Archives 56 Nationales d’Outre Mer (ANOM ), Fonds Ministériels, nouveau fonds, carton 28 (dossiers 1-6) « Extrait du 57 Rapport sur la situation politique de la Cochinchine pendant le 2ème trimestre 1915 » 58 5 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 6 of 61

1 2 17 3 or not Metropolitan law applied to colonial subjects. 4 5 The prevailing terminology for referring to ‘rebels’ or ‘rebellion’ often related to 6 7 historical or geographic markers that make the varied regions under French influence different 8 9 10 from each other. In Asia French terminology was influenced by the British definitions given 11 18 12 to the gunmen of India and Burma, the dacoit ; dacoïtisme having prospered amid weak 13 14 Brahman institutions. 19 In Annam bandits spread through the support of mandarins hostile to 15 16 France, many of them supported discretely by China, in a perennial anarchic system which the 17 18 French chose to callFor piracy.20 OfPeer these the Black Review Flags are undoubtedly the most well-known, 19 20 21 although transnational connections between China and Southeast Asia were a common 22 23 concern throughout the French imperial period (the revolution of Sun Yat-Sen, for example, 24 25 and other disturbances in China often had significant implications for life in northern 26 27 Indochina). 21 28 29 30 Interestingly, the term ‘pirate’ was not only used by Europeans in Southeast Asia. It 31 32 was also used by some Vietnamese leaders who refused to accept the French occupation, as 33 34 evidenced by the papers of Ngé-Dinh, an Annamite chieftain in the region of Than-Hoa and 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 17 ANOM; FM, nf 28 (1-6); « Rapport sur l’affaire des nommés Nguyen Anh Hu et Consorts, 45 46 dite affaire de Baria »; 14 Nov 1916 47 48 18 The term dacoit (used in English and French) refers to highway bandits in India and elsewhere in Asia from 49 the mid-nineteenth century onwards. They are also called ‘drivers’, ‘thieves’, ‘robbers’ at different times and 50 places. They are characterized essentially by their mobility. 51 19 Sahita, Hussain Imddad & alii, ‘Dacoity is an Organized Crime: A Case Study of Sindh Province’, Pakistan 52 Journal of Social Sciences, December 2009, vol. 29, No. 2, p. 301-312. Cited by Harmand, Jules (1887) L'Indo- 53 Chine française, politique et administration. Conférence faite à l'Association républicaine du centenaire de 1789 54 (Paris: Pariset) 20 55 Le Prince, Étude militaire sur le Tonkin, op.cit. 21 56 Goscha, Christopher E., ‘Building Force: Asian origins of twentieth-century military science in Vietnam 57 (1905-1954)’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Vol. 34, No. 3 (Oct., 2003), p. 539 58 6 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 7 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 22 3 Nge-An between 1886 and 1887. In his text, he wrote that local people considered the 4 5 French to be pirates for the way they had subjugated and exploited Indochina. This language 6 7 is repeated by other Vietnamese individuals at different times. The concept of French piracy 8 9 10 played a prominent role in the decrees released by rebels in Thai-Nguyen in 1917, one of the 11 23 12 first uprisings in Indochina to position itself in clearly nationalist terms. 13 14 Soon, other words became associated with the ‘rebel’ and ‘pirate’. ‘Gang’ became 15 16 synonymous with irregular forces, sometimes even with local militias. All this reflects the 17 18 emergence of an unknownFor war, Peerirregular warfare, Review but also of French efforts to control, or at 19 20 24 21 least influence, the political messaging of internal dissent. 22 23 24 25 ‘Enemy’ or ‘rebel’? 26 27 28 Why did the French not simply refer to rebels as ‘the enemy’, the way they would have 29 30 referred to most military opponents? Largely, this was due to the delicate political 31 32 circumstances in which the French armed forces were operating. To label rebel forces as ‘the 33 34 enemy’ implies certain political preconditions, and strongly suggests the legitimacy of their 35 36 37 movement (this is the point Kalyvas made in The Logic of Violence in Civil War ). From a 38 39 purely military perspective, talking about ‘the enemy’ also suggests, and perhaps opens the 40 41 door to more conventional forms of warfare.25 The term ‘enemy’ could furthermore be 42 43 politically inflexible. This could be a serious hindrance in the fluid strategic environment the 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 22 Dinh, Ngé (1890) Une Année de la guerre en Annam, 1886-87, racontée par un chef de rebelle, publié par la 53 Revue du cercle militaire 54 23 ANOM, FM, nf, carton 58, dossier 646; « Annexe No 4 à la lettre No du Gouverneur Général de l’Indochine à e 55 Monsieur le Ministre des Colonies ; Le 15 du 7 mois de la Ière année de DAI-HUNG-DE-QUOC » 24 MacCaulay, G M., ‘Irregular Troops’ , RUSI Journal , 1862, volume V, Issue 20, pp. 637-643. 56 25 57 Un colon, « L’insurrection de Ky-Dong » , Questions diplomatiques et colonials, 15 février 1898, pp. 240-242 58 7 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 8 of 61

1 2 3 French found themselves in, in which today’s enemies may need to be accommodated with 4 5 tomorrow (the granting of a small, semi-independent fiefdom to the bandit king De Tham is a 6 7 case in point). Keenly aware of the disadvantages that would come with legitimizing their 8 9 10 opponents, French officers tended to shy away from strictly military language, and instead 11 12 adopted more the more vague terminology of policing and security. 13 14 During the conquest of the bulk of its colonial empire, the French had no official 15 16 declared enemy. They instead faced a complicated, messy situation that included everything 17 18 from massacres, andFor robbery, toPeer simple brigandage Review and even full-blown insurrection. The 19 20 21 concept of a rebel (pirate, bandit, etc.) was often used as a euphemism for any opponent 22 23 operating within a non-state framework. In principle, its vocabulary should be more a matter 24 25 of debate on the maintenance of order and security, but in the colonial context, it always 26 27 confuses ‘war’ with ‘security’ and ‘policing’. Indeed, the French, both civilian and military, 28 29 30 often referred to their own military operations as ‘police actions’ when fighting against 31 32 anticolonial forces, rather than ‘military operations’, a term usually reserved for more remote 33 34 geographies, or more extreme levels of opposition (such as in Niger and Chad in the early 20 th 35 36 century). 26 The conduct of this sort of fighting does not typically fit the traditional 37 38 ‘Clausewitzian’ model, but rather took the form of the ‘small war’27 , that is to say, the war of 39 40 41 ambush and surprise which began to be codified in the mid-nineteenth century, adding to the 42 43 development of an agreed upon language for anticolonial uprisings. 28 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 26 Jeffries, Charles (1952) The Colonial Police (London: Max Parrish) 27 55 De Decker, Ch. (1845) De la Petite guerre selon l'esprit de la stratégie moderne (Paris: Corréard) & later, Callwell, Charles (1896) Small wars : Their Principles and Practice (London: HMSO) 56 28 57 Quinteau, A. (1884) La Guerre de surprise et d’embuscades (Paris: Lavauzelle) 58 8 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 9 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 The rebel group, an army? 4 5 The transition from simple brigandage to rebellion was often expressed by use of the word 6 7 ‘surpris’ (uprising) by French officers; a word that strongly implied a certain magnitude of 8 9 29 10 opposition. It was a much stronger word than the ubiquitous ‘troubles ’, which typically 11 12 included riots, bombings, skirmishes and assassination. The uprising in Than Hoa, in 13 14 northern Tonkin, in 1886 or the Bambara and Fulani in Segou in 1892 were sufficiently large 15 16 to outstrip the term ‘ troubles ’ and grow into full-blown ‘uprisings’ in French parlance. This 17 18 more serious level ofFor discontent Peer (‘uprising’) was Review considered especially dangerous if it was 19 20 30 21 backed by a religious movement, especially one associated with Islam. 22 23 French officers soon learned to distinguish between the pirate, the rebel, the band, the 24 25 ‘gang’ and full-blown rebellious armies. In general, groups were first identified by their 26 27 leader (for example, Tu Duc or Vinc-Phuoc, both leaders of the Black-flags, or Doi-Van and 28 29 30 De Tham in the Yen-Thé region in Tonkin; Lat-Dior, Behanzin, Samory, and Ahmadou were 31 32 similarly classified in Africa). The French often knew the rough location of these groups, 33 34 except in cases where the rebels were mobile or nomadic, but at times knew little more than 35 36 that. In the absence of clear intelligence, the identification of the leader at times acted as a 37 38 shortcut to describing not just the socio-political motives of a given anticolonial group, but 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 29 Colonel Viotte, « De la surprise », Revue militaire française, septembre 1922, t. 5, p. 347-366. Delmas, Jean, 51 « La surprise », Direction des études d’histoire, cours supérieur d’histoire, École Supérieur de Guerre, Novembre 52 1973. 53 30 Monteil, Vincent, « Lat Dior, Damel du Kayor, (1842-1886) et l'islamisation des Wolofs », Archives de 54 sociologie des religions, juillet-décembre 1963, 8 e année, n°16, p. 77-104. See also Marty, Paul (1920) Études 55 sur l’Islam et les tribus du Soudan (Paris: Leroux). For North Africa, see Burke III, Edmund, ‘Pan-Islam and 56 Moroccan resistance to French Colonial Penetration, 1900-12’, The Journal of African History, January 1972, 57 vol. 13, Issue 1, p. 97-118. 58 9 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 10 of 61

1 2 31 3 also their assumed tactics. 4 5 Given this spotty intelligence, estimates on rebel troop numbers could vary wildly. In 6 7 Asia, the French rarely had good intelligence on the number of Black Flags there were, but 8 9 10 nevertheless considered it necessary to mobilize at least 20,000 to 30,000 men against them 11 32 12 between 1883-1886. For comparison, the Siamese army was estimated to be only 5,000 13 14 men in 1893.33 In Africa estimates also varied wildly. Officers believed that Ahmadou, ‘the 15 16 Jugurtha of Sudan’, was able to muster 10,000 warriors against Archinard in December 17 18 1890.34 While unlikely,For such largePeer forces were Reviewnot unknown to the region. The Abyssinians 19 20 21 were able bring 30,000 men against the Italians; the Dahomey army has nearly 22,000 men; 22 35 23 the Malagasy maintained a force of 25,000 to 30,000 warriors. Samory force numbers were 24 25 roughly the same (between 20,000 and 30,000). 36 So these are real armies with regular 26 27 regimented soldiers, and as such their members were often given specific names: the 28 29 37 38 30 ‘Amazons’ of Behanzin in Dahomey , the ‘ talibés ’ of Ahmadou, the ‘sofas’ of Samory. In 31 32 the absence of more complete intelligence the sheer size of these forces was used to intuit 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 31 42 Commandant Verraux, « Monographie d’un chef pirate au Tonkin : le De-Tham », À travers le monde , 16 et 43 23 juillet 1898, p. 225-228 et 233-236. 32 Le Prince, Étude militaire sur le Tonkin, op.cit. 44 33 « Nouvelles géographiques et coloniales », Revue française de l’étranger et des colonies et Exploration, 45 Gazette géographique, Juillet, 1893, tome XVIII, n° 169, p. 37-45 46 34 Valbert, « Le Sultan Ahmadou et la Campagne du colonel Archinard dans le Soudan français », Revue des 47 Deux Mondes , 1 er décembre 1890, tome CII, p. 673-686. 48 35 Bayol, Jean (1893) Les Dahoméens au Champ de Mars (Palais des Arts libéraux) : moeurs et coutumes : 49 exposition d'ethnographie coloniale (Paris: Herment) 50 36 Legassick, Martin, ‘Firearms, Horses and Samorian Army Organisation, 1870-1898’, Journal of African 51 History , 1966, vol. 7, No. 1, p. 95-115. 52 37 Topor, Hélène d’Almeida (1984) Les Amazones. Une armée de femmes dans l’Afrique précoloniale (Paris: 53 Rochevigne/ editions de la lanterne magique) 38 54 Sow, Alioune ‘Biography and Colonial Discourse in ‘French West Africa’’, Social Dynamics . A journal of 55 56 African studies, 2004, vol. 30, Issue 1, p. 69-93. 57 58 10 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 11 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 their intentions and preferred modes and methodology. 4 5 Rebel groups of this size were immediately considered dangerous by the French. 6 7 Their size gave them power to persist, even after losing an engagement, to replace losses with 8 9 10 new recruits, and to pin down European forces which would otherwise have moved on to 11 39 12 other trouble areas. Being pinned down severely slowed the advance of European empires, 13 14 something that was to be avoided at all costs in the mad dash to carve up Africa in the late 15 16 1800s. This being the case, negotiation and co-option remained the easiest way to keep 17 18 moving forward in Forall territories, Peer especially in AfReviewrica where local leaders - Damel, Brach, 19 20 21 Bour, Massa, Almamy, Naba - often had to give their consent before French forces could pass 22 40 23 through their domains. This consent often came with a price in kind, or in gold. Once paid, 24 25 European forces could benefit from the protection of the tribe, the Anaiah .41 26 27 By comparison, in East Africa the Germans typically ensure their safety by producing 28 29 42 30 a letter of recommendation from the Sultan in Istanbul. Such appeals to authority were 31 32 common practice among Europeans operating in Africa. In the late 1880s Gallieni and 33 34 Captain Binger helped ensure their security in Sudan by circulating letters written on their 35 36 behalf by the Toucouleur chief Ahmadou, son of the erstwhile anticolonial leader, El Hadj 37 38 Omar. 43 This was a bold proposal considering the fact that El Hadj and the Toucouleur had 39 40 41 conducted a major war against the French 20 years earlier. This practice of seeking out and 42 43 disseminating letters from important religious or indigenous authority figures persisted with 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 39 Pietri, Capitaine Camille (1885) Les Français au Niger : voyages et combats (Paris: Hachette) 52 40 Beucher, Benoît (2017) Manger le pouvoir au Burkina Faso. La noblesse mossi à l'épreuve de l'Histoire 53 (Paris : Karthala) 54 41 De Foucauld, Charles (1888) Reconnaissance du Maroc, 1883-1884 (Paris: Challamel) 42 th 55 “Germany and East Africa”, The Times , December 1888, 28 , p. 3 43 56 Binger, Capitaine Louis-Gustave (1892) Du Niger au golfe de Guinée par le pays de Kong et le Mossi (1887- 57 1889) (Paris: Hachette) 58 11 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 12 of 61

1 2 44 3 varying levels of success. It was seen as especially useful in dealing with areas that were on 4 5 the extreme fringes of French influence, and which could not be kept pacified through the 6 7 installation of sizeable permanent garrisons. 8 9 10 11 12 Places and modes of rebel action 13 Not every jurisdiction was conducive to the development of rebellion. Proximity to French 14 15 16 administrative and military power generally precluded the organisation of large-scale violent 17 18 resistance. UprisingsFor more often Peer began in more Review remote and rugged regions where groups 19 20 could operate with relative impunity. Laurent Henninger has referred to these different 21 22 geographies as the ‘fluid’ and the ‘solid’. 45 Lyautey, for example, remarked that ‘the pirate is 23 24 46 25 a plant that grows only in certain lands’. Geography had an impact on how the French 26 27 understood, and responded to, anticolonial movements. To an extent, the nature of French 28 29 forces themselves also influenced the terminology used. Thus, we find marines more likely to 30 31 refer to ‘pirates’ in the Asian littoral, and ‘rebels’ being referred to by the army fighting in the 32 33 African interior. There were also distinctions made between pacified and war torn territories, 34 35 36 which were usually called ‘military territories’ and administered directly by the French armed 37 38 forces. This division between civilian and militarily governed areas was one determined by 39 40 the French, but it was not entirely inconsistent with pre-existing realities. In the Arab world, 41 42 for example, especially in Morocco, there was a similar distinction between the bled es- 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 44 ANOM 14 MIOM 1084 19G1, bobbin 445; « Situation islamique dans le Haut-Sénégal-Niger »; Afrique 53 Occidentale et Afrique Equatoriale, Affaires musulmanes, Dakar, 7 Mars 1915 54 45 Henninger, Laurent, « Espaces fluides et espaces solides : nouvelle réalité stratégique ? », Revue Défense 55 nationale , octobre 2012, n°753, p. 5-9. 46 56 Lyautey, Hubert (1920) Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar (1894-1899), Tome 1, août 1896 (Paris: Armand 57 Colin); « Le pirate est une plante qui ne pousse que dans certaines terres » 58 12 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 13 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 Maghzen , land under the authority of the Sultan, and the bled es-siba , areas of only tenuous 4 5 influence and control. 47 6 7 The codification of ‘rebel’ terminology amongst French officers and administrators 8 9 10 had not only a geographic spread, but also a temporal chronology. It began with the French 11 12 codification of ‘piracy’ in Southeast Asia from 1875-1880, and was soon followed by the 13 14 realization that similar patterns of unrest existed in Africa from 1882-1885. Joseph Gallieni 15 16 was one of the first to speak of African leaders as rebels to the French authority.48 This 17 18 evolution marked aFor notable change Peer in how the FrenchReview saw their actions in Africa and 19 20 21 Southeast Asia. On the one hand the French recognised the rights of existing states (like the 22 23 still-young Toucouleur empire) to exercise sovereignty and to sign treaties with other 24 25 independent political entities (be they the French, or others). On the other, however, many of 26 27 these states were (conveniently) considered decadent by the French, leading them to consider 28 29 49 30 such territories res nullius or ‘nobody’s property’: thus, free territories to occupy. Such a 31 32 conception led to French forces almost casually claiming lands and territories, which of 33 34 course led promptly to the emergence and maintenance of violent resistance against their 35 36 claims of domination. 37 38 From the 1880s, the French officers came to understand that they were facing a global 39 40 41 phenomenon. Before trying to craft any sort of broader framework for understanding and 42 43 responding to outbursts of anticolonial violence they began by thinking about the specificities 44 45 of each theatre, and studying patterns of specific actions. These would then be collated 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 47 Burke III, Edmund (1976) Prelude to Protectorate in Morocco. Precolonial protest and resistance, 1860-1912 54 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) 48 55 Gallieni, Joseph (1885) Voyage au Soudan français (Haut-Niger et pays de Ségou), 1879-1881 , publication de la mission d’exploration du Haut-Niger (Paris: Hachette) 56 49 57 Salomon, Charles (1889) L’Occupation des territoires sans maîtres (Paris: Girard) 58 13 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 14 of 61

1 2 3 together, compared and contrasted with the intention of finding more generally applicable 4 5 solutions to the problems posed by persistent anticolonial conflicts. A comparison of the 6 7 geographical and contextual differences between Southeast Asia and West Africa will help 8 9 10 illustrate this point. 11 12 13 14 Tonkinese dens 15 16 17 The fighting in Tonkin took on a character that belied simple classification, and sat 18 For Peer Review 19 outside the prevailing French discourse surrounding anticolonial rebellion. The first military 20 21 texts to discuss and attempt to classify the fighting in Tonkin date back to 1885.50 The war 22 23 circulated around the discovery and destruction of ‘rebel dens’ (the ‘den’ of Tong-Hoa Phu 24 25 was destroyed in November 1894, and that of Phiama in December 1894 by Théophile 26 27 51 28 Pennequin, for example). Following the destruction of each ‘den’ the French erected their 29 30 own outpost in the region to assert their control and influence over the area. 52 Many of these 31 32 ‘rebel dens’ existed in areas like Yen-Thé, a region made famous by the long rule of De 33 34 Tham, the bandit king. 35 36 37 Yen-Thé had an ideal geography in which to base a rebellious or insurrectional 38 39 movement. Upper Tonkin is a mountainous area, filled with dense forest: a difficult ‘Swiss 40 41 Tonkinese’. 53 The area lent itself to the construction of complex fortifications, which the 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 50 C*** P. A., « La guerre au Tonkin », Journal des Sciences militaires , mars 1885, tome 17, p. 420-437. 53 51 Munholland, John Kim, ‘“Collaboration Strategy” and the French Pacification of Tonkin, 1885-1897’, The 54 Historical Journal , September 1981, vol. 24, No. 3, p. 629-650. 52 55 Lieutenant-Colonel Durand, « La vie d'un poste militaire dans la haute région du Tonkin », Revue des Troupes Coloniales , 1925 (4 articles). 56 53 57 L. Girod (1899) Dix Ans de Haut-Tonkin (Tours : Mame et Fils) 58 14 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 15 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 54 3 French could not easily break without massing substantial firepower. Such an 4 5 organisational effort generally was sufficient to tip off an impending attack, giving De Tham 6 7 and his band of ‘pirates’ ample time to flee into the densely wooded mountains, or slip over 8 9 10 the border into a neighbouring province. Similar areas, be they jungle, mountain or desert, 11 12 existed across the French empire and were generally far beyond the reach of meaningful 13 14 European control. Such terrain had a magnetic quality that drew a wide range of dissidents to 15 16 it, strengthening existing rebel/outlaw bands. 55 For both French and British colonial officers 17 18 these spaces were understoodFor andPeer referred to as Reviewthe ‘hinterland’. 56 19 20 21 On occasions when the French were able to locate and penetrate a ‘rebel den’, they 22 23 were consistently impressed by the ‘pirate’ defence systems; their organization was often 24 25 markedly better than fortifications built by the French. 57 Dens were generally in the middle of 26 27 a dense forest hidden by underbrush with camouflaged firing positions producing overlapping 28 29 58 30 fields of fire protecting the den’s few exits and entrances. Alongside such defences rebels 31 32 and outlaws in Southeast Asia made use of an array of field defences which would go on to 33 34 develop lasting notoriety during the Vietnam War: ‘punji sticks’ (shallow excavations 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 54 43 ANOM nf 49, dossier 597, « Note sur les opérations de police dans la région du Yênthé »; in this particular 44 example from 1909 the French managed to launch a surprise assault on one of De Tham’s ‘dens’ by relying on 45 friendly Tonkinese volunteers as the bulk of their force. Nevertheless De Tham escaped, albeit wounded, and 46 many of his followers were killed or captured. De Tham would not be caught until 1913 when he was betrayed by one of his pirates after some 20 years of living outside the law in Yen Thé. 47 55 ANOM, INDO, nf 49, dossier 597, « Annexe No. 1 : Texte de la proclamation adressée par M. Morel, 48 Résident Supérieur au Tonkin aux populations de la province de Bac-Giang ». The same is true for Saharan 49 oases, and the mountains of the Maghreb. McDougall, James (2017) History of Algeria (Oxford: Oxford 50 University Press), p. 254 (forthcoming) 51 56 Lees, Elliott, “The Doctrine Of ‘Hinterland’", The Times, August 1890, 15 th ; “The Franco-German Treaty and 52 the "Hinterland" of Cameroons”, The Geographical Journal , May 1894, vol. 3, issue 5, p. 414-415 ; see also 53 d’Andurain, Julie (2012) La Capture de Samory (1898). L’achèvement de la conquête de l’Afrique de l’Ouest 54 (Saint-Cloud: Soteca) pp. 115-122. 57 55 Mat-Goï (1891) Le Tonkin actuel, 1887-1890 (Paris: Albert Savine) 58 56 ANOM , INDO, nf 49, dossier 597, « Note sur les opérations de police dans la région du Yênthé »; De Tham’s 57 primary base was especially daunting in this regard. 58 15 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 16 of 61

1 2 3 staggered with a large sharp stake driven deep in every hole), fences and bamboo stakes often 4 5 masked their fortified hideouts. 6 7 Even if the French could locate and clear out a ‘rebel den’ that was often not enough. 8 9 10 The ‘pirates’ often escaped French efforts to capture them and break up their ring. They were 11 12 aided in this by the seasonal nature of the struggle, with wet seasons limiting the size and 13 14 duration of French operations. Weather often made the remote, mountainous regions 15 16 unnavigable for French forces, and even in good weather the French could not always scrape 17 18 together the funds necessaryFor to Peercreate and sustain Review a column in the field for long enough to 19 20 59 21 track down rebel bands. In an attempt to get around these substantial operational difficulties 22 23 the French relied heavily on what little intelligence they could gather. When good 24 25 intelligence came in it was necessary to act quickly, which spurred the rapid installation of 26 27 optical telegraphy in Indochina to facilitate rapid communication from military post to 28 29 60 30 military post. This gave the French an advantage, but it also meant that the telegraph wires 31 61 32 were an obvious and frequent target for anticolonial rebels. 33 34 Over time the French also began to use the language of policing and inherent authority 35 36 in Southeast Asia. Regarding one attempt to capture De Tham in 1909 the French resident of 37 38 Tonkin released a public decree stating that: 39 40 41 42 43 ‘The French Government has granted Hoàng-hoa-Tham [De Tham] for some years [an offer] 44 45 to submit, on the condition that he would in future be an honest man. Since this time this 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 59 Gallieni, Joseph-Simon (1899) Trois colonnes au Tonkin (1894-1895) (Paris: Chapelot) 60 55 Lieutenant Saillard, « La télégraphie optique. Son rôle au Tonkin, son avenir », Journal des Sciences militaires , octobre 1886, tome 32, p. 96-116. 56 61 57 ANOM, ALG, CONST, B3 219; « Les Troubles Insurrectionnels de l’Arrondissement de Batna en 1916 » 58 16 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 17 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 pirate chief has constantly failed to keep his word. His concession [De Tham had been 4 5 granted a small fiefdom by the French in return for keeping his brigandage under control] has 6 7 become the refuge of poisoners, thieves, assassins and brigands. The Government, of which 8 9 10 all the honest population knows its sentiments, tired of the odious conduct of this bandit chief 11 12 has decided: [in order] to support the working population, and assure them tranquillity, to put 13 14 an end to the current situation in Yen-Thé and place the region under the common rule…. The 15 16 Government is firmly resolved to go to the end. All is ready. [The Government] will 17 18 compensate all thoseFor who help it.Peer Deliver up De Review Tham, who has violated all laws.’62 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 By the early 1900s the French were no longer an invading force in Southeast Asia, or there 26 27 under thin pretences to help the Nguyen Dynasty’s legal government. Instead, they had 28 29 30 become the government, and spoke as such; a major marker in French colonial supremacy in 31 32 the region. At this time the French began more and more to refer to rebels as ‘ insoumis ’: 33 34 those who have not (yet) submitted. 63 Such language not only positioned the French as the 35 36 legitimate authority, but also assumed the inevitability of their colonial dominance (itself a 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 62 ANOM, INDO, nf 49, dossier 597, « Annexe No. 1 : Texte de la proclamation adressée par M. Morel, 48 Résident Supérieur au Tonkin aux populations de la province de Bac-Giang » ; « Le Gouvernement Français 49 avait accordé à Hoàng-hoa-Tham, il y a quelques années, de faire sa soumission, sous la réserve qu’il serait à 50 l’avenir un honnête homme. Depuis cette époque, ce Chef pirate a manqué constamment à sa parole. Sa 51 concession est devenue le refuge des empoisonneurs, des voleurs, des assassins, des brigands. Le Gouvernement 52 dont toute la population honnête connaît les généreux sentiments, fatigué de la conduite odieuse de ce chef 53 bandit, se décidé ; afin de soutenir la population travailleuse, et lui assurer la tranquillité, de mettre fin la 54 situation actuelle du Yênthé et de placer cette région sous le régime commun… Le Gouvernement est fermement 55 résolu à aller jusqu’au bout. Tout est prêt. Il récompensera tous ceux qui l’aideront. Livrez-lui le Dè-Tham qui a violé toutes lois. » 56 63 57 ANOM, ALG, CONST, B3 219; « Les Troubles Insurrectionnels de l’Arrondissement de Batna en 1916 » 58 17 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 18 of 61

1 2 64 3 term that French officers used self-consciously). 4 5 6 7 8 African « tata » 9 10 Similar patterns existed in Africa, with the French changing their language as they 11 12 faced resistance to their imperial ambitions in the African interior. The enduring popular 13 14 image of this period remains one of vast numbers of brave, but poorly armed, African 15 16 17 warriors throwing themselves hopelessly against the full weight of modern firepower brought 18 For Peer Review 19 to bear by Europeans and their local allies. In reality, however, the French very quickly found 20 21 themselves fighting against forces that relied heavily on firearms, and even modern, quick- 22 23 firing rifles. This is certainly the case in Dahomey with Behanzin 65 , Ahmadou near Segou on 24 25 the Niger 66 , Samory in French Sudan 67 , as well as with Rabih az-Zubayr ibn Fadl Allah and 26 27 68 28 al-Zubayr between the basins of the Nile and the Ubangi. This is especially true once the 29 30 First World War begins and African warriors found themselves with better access to 31 32 European weaponry than ever before. This was in part due to Turco-German efforts to stoke 33 34 anticolonial unrest in French and British colonies, but also the ample opportunities for 35 36 69 37 capturing, stealing or being given European weapons sent to Africa during the conflict. 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 64 French references to their own ‘domination’ are rife in their colonial writings. Just one example here from 47 Niger, 1917: ANOM , 14 MIOM 303, 1D216, bobbin 69; « Rapport d’Operations – Causes qui ont nécessité la 48 Colonne » 49 65 Aublet, Edouard )1894) La Guerre au Dahomey, 1888-1893, d’après les documents officiels (Paris : Berger- 50 Levrault) 51 66 See Pietri, Camille (1885) Les Français au Niger : voyages et combats (Paris: Hachette) & Robinson, David 52 (1985) The Holy War of Umar Tal. The Western Sudan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon 53 Press) 54 67 Samori or Samory. Person, Yves (1968) Samori, une révolution dyula (Dakar: IFAN) 68 55 Dujarric, Gaston (1902) La vie du sultan Rabah : les Français au Tchad (Paris : J. André) 69 56 For more on this see: Correale, Francesco (2014), La Grande Guerre des trafiquants: Le front colonial de 57 l’Occident maghrébin (Paris: l’Harmattan) 58 18 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 19 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 Perhaps the most stunning example of anticolonial rebels wielding modern firearms in 4 5 Africa comes from the so-called ‘Kaocen War’ in Niger, 1916-1922. 70 The conflict began in 6 7 December 1916 when a mixture of Arab, Toubou and Tuareg warriors appeared outside the 8 9 10 walls of Agadez in central Niger armed with modern Italian rifles, a machinegun and even an 11 71 12 70mm Italian artillery piece, with ammunition. The warriors themselves were no strangers 13 14 to modern warfare, and included men who had seen action in Algeria at Djanet against the 15 16 French, as well as Italian askari who had deserted in Fez and Tripolitania. 72 Such hard 17 18 opponents were notFor rare in French Peer Africa. In fact, Review it was common for French soldiers and 19 20 21 administrators to refer to nomadic raiding parties ( rezzous or harkas ) by the number of rifles 22 23 they had rather than their total number of participants, the same way European forces were 24 25 frequently counted in the same period. 73 26 27 Siege operations fuelled by modern, industrial firepower may seem surprising in the 28 29 30 context of Sub-Saharan African warfare in this period, but in reality French operations in 31 74 32 West Africa regularly consisted of siege operations against hardy African fortifications. 33 34 These fortifications were, needless to say, starkly different from those French forces 35 36 encountered in Southeast Asia. Due to pre-existing patterns of warfare in West Africa 37 38 fortified villages - also called tata 75 - covered the entire Upper Niger region from the Bambara 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 70 This conflict was actually part of a much larger Senussi uprising which saw fighting in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria 48 and Niger. 49 71 Idrissa, Kimba, The Kawousan War Reconsidered , p. 203 in Abbink, Jon, de Bruijn, Mirjam & Van Walraven, 50 Klaas (2003) Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History (Leiden & Boston: Brill) 51 72 Ibid. 52 73 ANOM, 14 MIOM 862, 11G16, bobbin 222; « Copie de Télégramme Officiel; Territoire Niger à Gouverneur 53 Général; Zinder, 13 Octobre 1916 » & « M. Lutaud, Gouverneur Général de l’Algérie à M. Briand, Président du 54 Conseil, Ministre des Affaires Etrangères »; Alger, 17 Juillet 1916 among many other examples. 74 55 Royer, Patrick & Saul, Mahir (2001) West African Challenge to Empire: Culture and History in the Volta- Bani Anticolonial War (Oxford: James Currey Ltd) p. 162 56 75 57 Gallieni, Joseph (1885) Voyage au Soudan français (Haut-Niger et pays de Ségou), 1879-1881(Paris: 58 19 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 20 of 61

1 2 3 country to the right bank of the Niger. The outer walls of these village fortifications were 4 5 made of mud-cement (a mixture of clay and straw which formed sun-dried bricks), and could 6 7 be several metres high and thick (as at Sikasso in Mali).76 External defences were built to 8 9 10 facilitate flanking fire, while inside the fortifications there normally existed a smaller 11 12 stronghold used to store men, weapons, ammunition and precious black. These structures, 13 14 built in the middle of large villages, could often accommodate several thousand people. Such 15 16 fortresses were sufficiently daunting that they had traditionally been taken by surprise, either 17 18 by scaling or breachingFor the walls, Peer with assaults maReviewde to the sound of tabalas.77 19 20 21 Despite such varied regional differences, the French quickly learned to implement a 22 23 series of ‘standard’ measures against insurrections, thus giving rise to a specifically French 24 25 colonial school of thought. The main feature of this school of thought centred on the 26 27 importance of ensuring the control of communications.78 Instead of a policy of having French 28 29 30 columns forever chasing faster-moving enemy forces a more steady, concentric method was 31 32 preferred, and remained the hallmark of uniquely French approach to ‘pacification’. 33 34 35 36 37 Countering Rebellion: the Creation of ‘military areas’ 38 Beyond the French understanding of their opponents and themselves in a colonial context the 39 40 colonial military literature tells us how the French felt they should go about actually 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 Hachette) & Person, Yves, Samori, op.cit., p. 1002. See also Bah, Thierno Mouctar (2012) Architecture 50 militaire traditionnelle en Afrique de l’Ouest, du XVII e à la fin du XIX e siècle (Paris: L’Harmattan 51 76 Sikasso was long the undisputed model of African tata , having an outer-wall whose base was 6 metres wide, 52 and 4 to 6 metres deep. Person, Yves, Samori, op.cit ., p. 945. 53 77 African drums, used for war. 54 78 In February 1904 in the circle of Upper Chari, interruption to porting because of a rebel band (M'Brans in the 55 Ombella Valley) was seen to justify repression . Letter of the commander of the circle Chari to Lieutenant- 56 Colonel Gouraud , 23 février 1904, n°595, ministère des Affaires étra ngères (Foreign Ministry ), La Courneuve , 57 fonds Gouraud , PA AP 399, C14. 58 20 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 21 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 countering a rebellion once it occurred. In general, the French responded to prolonged unrest 4 5 with a mixture of cartography, ethnography and building works. 79 The initial infrastructural 6 7 work was primarily done between 1883 and 1890. It occurred in two steps. The first was an 8 9 10 adaptation of the old method of building staging posts. These were generally every 25 11 80 12 kilometres in Tonkin, while in Africa the distance between posts varied widely (reaching up 13 14 to 200 km between certain posts along the Niger River). Post garrisons could be from 30 to 15 16 100 men who were supplied by regular mule trains, and kept in contact with other posts via 17 18 telegraph. 81 All told,For this network Peer eventually formedReview a more-or-less contiguous line of 19 20 21 bunkers demarcating areas French control. The second phase included the formal designation 22 23 of ‘military areas’, a practice which has its intellectual roots in classic studies of Roman 24 25 Africa. 82 This echo of the classical world was brought back due to the intellectual efforts of 26 27 Frenchmen like Jean-Louis de Lanessan (civil-military governor of Indochina, 1891-1894) in 28 29 83 30 his Principes de colonisation , published in 1897. There was also intellectual cross- 31 32 fertilization with the British and struggle against dacoïtisme which saw the suppression of 33 34 civil services and their replacement by a military police. 84 35 36 This principle was applied in Tonkin in April 1891 with the creation of four military 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

45 79 46 D’Andurain, Julie « Cartographie, ethnographie, renseignement, essai de typologie d’une science militaire en situation coloniale (1880-1920) » (« Cartography, ethnography, information, typology of military science in a 47 colonial situation »), Les Administrations coloniales , contributions aux séminaires 2009-2010 de l’IHTP, janvier 48 2010, p. 50-60, on line http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/sites/ihtp/IMG/pdf/Contributions_au_prog-_Ad-_col-_2009- 49 2010.pdf 50 80 This principle was invented by Colonel Pennequin and Gallieni in Tonkin. Lyautey, Hubert (1920) Lettres du 51 Tonkin et de Madagascar (1894-1899), Tome 2 (Paris: Armand Colin), lettre du 21 août 1896 52 81 The principle is based on the method of Bugeaud in Algeria and the Arab offices. See Foucher, Victor (1858) 53 Les Bureaux arabes en Algérie, Paris, Librairie internationale de l’agriculture et de la colonisation 54 82 Boissier, Gaston (1895) L’Afrique romaine, promenades archéologiques en Algérie et Tunisie (Paris : 55 Hachette) 83 De Lanessan, Jean-Louis (1897) Principes de colonisation (Paris: Félix Alcan) 56 84 57 Smith, Vincent (1914) Early History of India (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 58 21 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 22 of 61

1 2 85 3 territories, which were seen as borders delineating separate war zones. They were 4 5 commanded by lieutenant-colonels or colonels who had the powers of a general, and thus 6 7 acted as true autocrats in their territories. The map was further divided into cutting circles 8 9 10 and sectors in which act the intelligence units. Combined, these overlapping spaces were 11 12 intended to limit the spread of any insurrection, and contain them long enough to be met with 13 14 a suitable repression. By 1895, the term ‘ tache d’huile ’ was being used to describe this 15 16 ‘progressive’ methodology, generally associated with Joseph Gallieni.86 The theory was 17 18 substantially furtheredFor in Madagascar Peer by Captain Review Frederic Hellot in 1899. 87 19 20 21 22 23 Identification and Submission 24 25 Once the contours of the territories were defined it then became necessary to begin learning 26 27 28 about the populations contained within, in an attempt to discern who might be favourable to 29 30 the French, and who were likely to be less favourable. 88 In order to facilitate what was often a 31 32 crude analysis, officers of the intelligence service began their own research, including 33 34 ethnographic studies (albeit of wildly varying quality). 89 Such studies were frequently 35 36 37 conducted by colonial administrators or officers who saw themselves as there to help lift up 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 85 De Grandmaison, Louis (1898) En territoire militaire : l’expansion française au Tonkin (Paris: Plon-Nourrit) 47 86 Lyautey, Hubert (1920) Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar (1894-1899), Tome 1 (Paris: Armand Colin), 48 Lettre de Lyautey à son frère le 5 février 1895. For more on this and on Madagascar see Finch, Michael P. M. 49 (2013), A Progressive Occupation? The Gallieni-Lyautey Method and Colonial Pacification in Tonkin and 50 Madagascar, 1885-1900 (Oxford : Oxford University Press) 51 87 Hellot, Frédéric, « La Pacification de Madagascar », Journal des Sciences militaires , octobre 1899, p. 5-56. 52 88 Samya El Mechat (2009, ed.), Les administrations coloniales XIXe-XXe siècles. Esquisse d’une histoire 53 comparée , (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes) & El Mechat, Samya (2014, ed.), Coloniser, pacifier, 54 administrer (CNRS Editions) 89 55 Capitaine du Crosson (1901) L’ethnographie de la Côte d’Ivoire (Paris: Comité de l’Afrique française) & 56 Commandant Lunet de la Jonquières (1904) Ethnographie des territoires militaires (Hanoï: Schneider), publié 57 ensuite sous le titre Ethnographie du Tonkin septentrional (Paris: Leroux, 1906) 58 22 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 23 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 colonised populations through French intervention into African and Asian societies and 4 5 economies. While the overall use of such frameworks was largely a simple matter of ex post 6 7 facto justification, the better ethnographies were produced by individuals who did genuinely 8 9 10 see themselves, and their goals, in this light. Such self-conceptions often had tangible effects 11 12 on how individuals chose to operate in their overseas duties. 13 14 Broad intelligence work, including early ethnographies, led to the identification of 15 16 three basic types of rebel bands in Southeast Asia, separated by their predominant ethnic 17 18 makeup: Annamese,For Chinese andPeer mixed. The FrenchReview even generated a map and index of 19 20 21 ‘pirate’ bands at the end of 1889 which was kept in brigade headquarters for quick 22 90 23 reference. While these efforts are interesting, and in fact are the source of some of our 24 25 earliest ethnographies, especially in Africa, French forces had their best luck when identifying 26 27 rebel leaders with whom they could negotiate and potentially convince to submit to French 28 29 30 rule in exchange for clemency, money, or other concessions. 31 32 Submission, the act of not only accepting the French presence but also of entering 33 34 French dependence, was a highly codified practice in most parts of the French empire. As a 35 36 practice it was not wholly of French invention, but drew on existing customs for such 37 38 arrangements wherever possible. Many Arabic countries, for example, already had in place 39 40 91 41 the concept of ‘amân ’, meaning both to submit and demand peace. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 42 43 the ‘palaver’ operated along similar lines. 92 The submission of a rebel leader generally turned 44 45 him into a ‘supplier’ (‘ soumissionnaire ’) expected to assist French operations when called 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 90 Le Prince, Étude militaire sur le Tonkin, op. cit. 54 91 The term refers to both a pact of non-aggression between a winner and a loser; it is also in some cases a 55 guarantee of safe-passage. « amân », in Sourdel, Janine et Dominique (2004) Dictionnaire historique de l’islam (Paris: PUF) p. 77 56 92 57 After all the talking the palaver can also, conversely, be a harbinger of war. 58 23 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 24 of 61

1 2 3 upon. Such arrangements, perhaps unsurprisingly, were fragile, and indeed fluid. Defections 4 5 and recantations were common; for many the act of submission was nothing more than buying 6 7 time. In 1889, in Upper Tonkin, Doi-Van feigned submission to better observe the French and 8 9 93 10 take their weapons before resuming the fight. Similarly, De Tham had ‘submitted’ and then 11 94 12 defected on many occasions during his 20-year ‘reign’. 13 14 Before long, the French began requiring a signed treaty with the ‘submitted’ to clarify 15 16 the conditions of the submission.95 At times the forces of individual leaders (Luh-Vinh-Phuoc 17 18 in 1885, Si-Votha inFor Cambodia Peerin 1890) were wholesaReviewle integrated into French armed 19 20 21 colonizers as unequal allies. In Africa, negotiation with village chiefs was so important as to 22 23 necessitate the writing of a specific manual to train officers in the art of African diplomacy 24 25 (the Manuel des palabres ou l’art de tenir palabre).96 In many cases, war and peace hinged 26 27 on these negotiations; things which most officers had not been formally prepared for before 28 29 97 30 deployment. In some cases, submission could be had through the promise of a pension for 31 32 rebel leaders (whether the leader shared the pension with their followers or not was left up to 33 34 them).98 In Africa, the acceptance of ‘submitted’ or protectorate status involved a formal 35 36 ritual of submission which included the exchange of food 99 , the distribution of gifts in kind, 37 38 or gold.100 Despite French self-perceptions as an increasingly legitimate authority, large parts 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 93 Frey, Henry (1892) Pirates et rebelles au Tonkin. Nos soldats au Yen-Thé (Paris: Hachette) p. 31 48 94 Lyautey, op. cit., letter 30 septembre 1895. 49 95 See act of aman between colonel Gouraud and Mohamed el Fonana Ben M’hammed, head of the djemma of 50 Torch in 1909. PA AP 399, C16-D1, January 1909, 19 th . 51 96 Angoulvant, Gabriel (1916) Le Manuel des palabres ou l’art de tenir palabre (Paris: éditeur inconnu) 52 97 D’Andurain, Julie, « Négocier en Syrie en 1920 : Gouraud et Fayçal avant la bataille de Damas » in Vivet, 53 Emmanuel (2014, ed.) Négociations d’hier, leçons pour aujourd’hui (Paris: Larcier) pp. 225-238 54 98 The chiefs Luong-Tam-Ky and Baky, north of Thai-Nguyen, received a pension in 1893, but revolted once 55 again in 1895 anyway. 99 This might also include an exchange of dolo , a beer made out of millet. 56 100 57 The submission of the Ashanti king Prepeh in 1896 entailed the payment of 50,000 ounces of gold. 58 24 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 25 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 of the empire remained only thinly influenced by the French, and were retained solely through 4 5 means of petty bribery or empty threats. 6 7 8 9 10 Coercion 11 12 When these methods were not enough, French policy switched from one of conciliation to one 13 14 of brutal repression. Whilst in Tonkin, Lyautey wrote to his sister describing the 15 16 17 ‘establishment of a policy of complete liquidation [regarding] piracy of Tonkin’ between June 18 For101 Peer Review 19 and September 1895. Such conflicts escalated quickly and were often markedly brutal, 20 21 with the French often resorting to the kidnapping and torturing suspected dissidents. 102 In 22 23 Tonkin in the late 1800s decapitation became a regular occurrence as the French sought to 24 25 ‘pacify’ the region. In another one of his letters, Lyautey claimed that it was common to see 26 27 103 28 heads dangling from trees. Such public performance of violence by the nascent authority, 29 30 combined with the propaganda of systematically referring to rebels as ‘bandits’ and publicly 31 32 displaying their severed heads was brutally effective at solidifying, if only temporarily, 33 34 French control over their fledgling overseas empire. The practice was found in all theatres all 35 36 104 37 across the empire. 38 39 In Africa, French forces relied heavily on staged ambushes, mimicking ancient 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 101 Lyautey, op. cit., lettre du 30 septembre 1895 ; « La grande idée directrice de ces trois mois a été la mise sur 50 pied d'un programme de liquidation totale de la piraterie du Tonkin » 51 102 Commandant Verraux, « Monographie d’un chef pirate au Tonkin : le De-Tham », A travers le monde, juillet 52 1898, p. 225-228. 53 103 Lyautey, Hubert (1920) Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar (1894-1899), Tome 1 (Paris: Armand Colin), 54 lettre du 29 avril 1895. 104 55 Francis Garnier was decapitated by the Black Flags in 1873, Charles Gordon by Mahdists in the Sudan in 56 1885; Mamadou Lamine decapitated his chief rival Omar Penda in April 1886; Mamadou’s son was executed in 57 the same manner by order of Gallieni in April 1887. 58 25 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 26 of 61

1 2 105 3 patterns of warfare in the Sahel. Here too, the crushing of a rebellion frequently meant 4 5 employing radical measures; decapitation was seen as matter of course. The French often 6 7 believed that the success of their campaigns relied on such brutality, but some serious study of 8 9 10 these campaigns forces one to take a more nuanced approach. An overabundance of force 11 12 could not only engender prolonged, if temporarily latent, opposition, it could sometimes lead 13 14 to real political scandals at home as well (Voulet-Chanoine’ scandal, in 1898-1899).106 15 16 Military overreach and occasions of performative violence should not, however, lead us to 17 18 assume that the militaryFor was the Peer sole purveyor ofReview such harsh measures. Civilian 19 20 21 administrators could be equally violent in repressing dissent, as was the case during the 22 107 23 pacification of Ivory Coast between 1908 and 1915, led by Gabriel Angoulvant. Feeling 24 25 that the ‘peaceful conquest’ or ‘commercial conquest’ were mistakes, he recommended the 26 27 use of ‘the hard way’, with no outward displays of weakness or sentimentality. The French 28 29 30 experimentation with more coercive methods was broadly applied, and part of the now- 31 32 understood inherent violence and brutality of imperialism. 33 34 35 36 37 Conclusion 38 39 40 The period of France’s most intense colonial expansion (1880-1914) saw French armed forces 41 42 thrust into situations that they had not widely experienced before. They did not have a 43 44 suitable language for the sorts of opponents they faced, nor for their new-found operational 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 105 Colonel Péroz, « La Tactique dans le Soudan - Première partie quelques combats et épisodes de guerre 55 remarquables », Revue maritime et coloniale, 1890, p. 79-129. 106 Mathieu, Muriel (1995) La Mission Afrique Centrale (Paris: l’Harmattan) 56 107 57 Angoulvant, Gabriel (1916) La Pacification de la Côte d’Ivoire (1908-1915) (Paris: Larose) 58 26 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 27 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 and administrative responsibilities. This confusion, and lack of pre-existing models and 4 5 experience on which to reflect, led both to conflicting conceptualisations of who they (the 6 7 French) were, what they were doing, and to the changing military procedures that came in 8 9 10 response to political challenges. These changes and contradictions are to be found in both the 11 12 official correspondence and bureaucratic detritus left to us in archives, as well as the many 13 14 works of ‘colonial military literature’ that survive in the forms of non-fiction books and 15 16 pamphlets written for broader consumption. The proximity of official conceptualisations of 17 18 events and the moreFor private recollections Peer thereof Review should leave us feeling confident in our 19 20 21 assessment of how the French understood military challenges to their imperial domination of 22 23 Africa and Southeast Asia. These conceptions are important for understanding how and why 24 25 the French acted the way they did in this period of ‘pacification’. 26 27 As the nascent control of the French extended into the Asian and African interior and 28 29 30 solidified its control over pre-existing Asian and African power structures the French began to 31 32 see themselves in a different light. The mission civilisatrice (and its counterparts of 33 34 ‘economic development’ and ‘material progress’) remained, but the duty to bring ‘order’ and 35 36 ‘security’ grew, leading to increasingly harsh measures taken against the remaining 37 38 ‘insoumis ’: those not (yet) submitted. With no sense of irony whatsoever French officers and 39 40 41 administrators depicted themselves as the saviours of indigenous societies whilst calling for, 42 43 or carrying out, brutal acts of repression against anticolonial rebels. A cross examination of 44 45 the literature they left behind, and their official correspondence and documentation, helps to 46 47 better elucidate this complexity giving us a better understanding of the impact and experience 48 49 50 of French colonialism in the late 1800s and early 1900s. 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 27 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Manuscripts submitted to French History Page 28 of 61

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 For Peer Review 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 28 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/french Page 29 of 61 Manuscripts submitted to French History

1 2 3 Pirates, Slavers, Brigands, and Gangs: the French 4 5 terminology of anticolonial rebellion (1880-1920) 6 7 8 9 10 11 After missionaries, soldiers were often the first Frenchmen to enter the African and Southeast 12 13 Asian interior. These soldiers (men and officers) at the forefront of French colonial conquest 14 15 left behind extensive source material, which gives us a unique perspective into both the 16 17 actions and mind-set of French colonisers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They not only 18 For Peer Review 19 1 2 20 wrote official reports , they maintained correspondence with their friends and relatives , 21 3 4 22 developed stories , propaganda texts , and sometimes published novels based on their 23 24 experience 5. On occasion they acted as journalists, often with support from the directors, 25 26 publicists, and politicians of the parti colonial in Paris: those military and government men 27 28 who advocated for a vast French overseas empire.6 Taken in its broadest sense, the literature 29 30 31 produced during the most intensive period of colonial conquest (1880-1914) forms today a 32 33 considerable mass of documents. In the form of primary sources, secondary sources or ‘grey 34 35 literature’ 7 we can think of these sources as together constituting a ‘colonial military 36 37 literature’.8 38 39 40 This literature is a valuable and under-utilised resource in determining how the French 41 42 understood the socio-political and military contexts they were operating in. Read critically, 43 44 and in context, an examination of this literature gives us a unique perspective into the ‘French 45 46 colonial mind’ as laid out by Martin Thomas in his two-volume edited collection of essays on 47 48 49 1 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 the subject ( The French Colonial Mind , volumes 1 and 2). Thomas’ edited collection 4 5 provides readers with a wide-ranging and stimulating series of snapshots which, taken 6 7 together, give readers an excellent sense of both the diverse spectrum of colonial thought and 8 9 10 action, whilst also offering up a few universal threads which tie together a large and diverse 11 12 group of individuals and their experiences. Due to the nature of such a scholarly undertaking, 13 14 however, the books are not often able to provide a continuing account of the changing 15 16 narratives, the evolving identification and self-identification, that wrought the French colonial 17 18 mind as the FrenchFor empire expanded Peer and solidified. Review In particular, this is true of the changing 19 20 21 character of armed conflict between the French and local populations in Africa and Southeast 22 23 Asia as initial conquests turned into enduring policing operations with a wide variety of 24 25 political, social and military challenges. This article will examine some of the diverse sources 26 27 that French officers left behind and analyse the evolving understanding French military 28 29 30 personnel had of the anticolonial movements they were called on to police and supress. 31 32 33 34 The military men who undertook the initial conquest and ‘pacification’ of the French 35 36 overseas empire quickly came into contact with resistance, often violent, to the nascent 37 38 control they had established. When writing about resistance these men generally did not refer 39 40 9 41 to rebels as the ‘social bandit’ described by Eric Hobsbawm some 60 years ago. This is not 42 43 to say that the French did not have a varied and nuanced language to describe the regular 44 45 uprisings they found themselves facing. Indeed, French officers and administrators deployed 46 47 a range of terms to describe anticolonial rebels that belie geography, time period, French 48 49 2 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 perceptions of individual movements, as well as their own self-perception as colonisers. 4 5 Frequently, the language French officers deployed when discussing anticolonial uprisings 6 7 served to denigrate them and their participants, much in the same way that British imperial 8 9 10 officers and agents did. Ranajit Guha’s study of this phenomenon in the Raj (the referring to 11 12 Muslim protestors and rebels as ‘fanatics’, etc.) provides a worthy and apt counterpart to 13 14 broader European imperial frameworks and conceptions. 10 15 16 French officers often chose their terminology self-consciously to frame situations to 17 18 their superiors in theFor colonial capitalsPeer like Dakar Review and Hanoi, or indeed in Paris, in such a way 19 20 21 as to either bolster or shield the reputation of the officer in question. Language could either 22 23 inflate or downplay the actual importance of a given movement in order to prod higher 24 25 authorities to respond, or at least to deflect their own possible responsibility for things getting 26 27 out of hand. The internal and external political context in which French officers wrote about 28 29 30 anticolonial rebellion was paramount. 31 32 The French military in this period expressed the idea of ‘rebellion’ in many different 33 34 ways, varying in both time and space. French military personnel saw their opponents not 35 36 quite as ‘the enemy’ (in the strict military sense), often as a ‘brigand’ or ‘bandit’, rarely as a 37 38 legitimate soldier, and at least in this period, not yet as a nationalist. In Southeast Asia French 39 40 41 officers tended to refer to rebels as ‘pirates’, reflecting the actual existence of powerful pirate 42 43 and other outlaw groups in the region in the 1800s.11 In African colonial literature there was 44 45 generally no talk of ‘piracy’, but instead of ‘bandits’ 12 , ‘slave-chiefs’ or ‘ mahdistes’.13 46 47 Similar terminology, arising out of similar political and military pressures, was also prevalent 48 49 3 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 14 3 in British India, among other European overseas colonies. Over time, however, in part 4 5 because of the proliferation of anticolonial rebellions and also due to the transference of 6 7 colonial officers between different theatres of operation, the terminology surrounding 8 9 10 anticolonial rebellions began to change. This evolution of terminology, to some extent 11 12 representative of the growing unification and solidification of French, and wider European, 13 14 concepts of imperialism and anticolonialism, gives us insight into how the French saw 15 16 themselves, their objectives, their local collaborators and dissenters within the colonial 17 18 context. How the FrenchFor chose Peer to write and talk Review about anticolonial rebellion was itself a 19 20 21 critical part of their attempt to achieve dominion over large swaths of the global south. They 22 23 actively sought to improve their ability to fight against anticolonial, and later nationalist, 24 25 movements both in military terms, but also through their speech. 26 27 28 29 30 I 31 32 33 In the nineteenth century, the French use of the word ‘rebel’ designated something of an 34 35 instigator; one who must be compelled to obedience. By definition, the rebel is one who 36 37 challenges a ruling power. If political opposition exists within a legal framework, the case 38 39 becomes one of ‘disobedience’. If an individual resists political authority, does not obey, and 40 41 violates socio-cultural rules or traditions, they became a ‘dissident’, and so forth. Such 42 43 44 naming conventions can take many forms, and should be instantly recognizable as part of the 45 46 basic political framework between the ‘rebel’ and the ‘establishment’. As Stathis Kalyvas put 47 48 49 4 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 it in his 2006 book The Logic of Violence in Civil War : ‘incumbents…label their opponents 4 5 “bad guys”, bandits, criminals, subversives, or terrorists – and describe the war as banditry, 6 7 terrorism, delinquent subversion, and other cognate terms’.15 Kalyvas counts anticolonial 8 9 10 wars as civil wars, and does so for good reason: typically members of the local ethnic 11 12 populations do the vast bulk of the fighting and dying, with allegiances very often falling 13 14 along pre-colonial lines, or other factors that have little or nothing to do with the presence of 15 16 an outside power. 16 17 18 In the FrenchFor colonial contextPeer of the late Review 19 th and early 20 th centuries organised 19 20 21 anticolonial violence could be emblematic of a broader popular resistance that might lead to a 22 23 full-blown insurrection, or it may constitute merely the armed resistance of scattered gangs 24 25 without any real political objectives beyond survival. The French generally distinguished 26 27 between these different types of resistance by referring to them as either ‘political’ or 28 29 17 30 ‘apolitical’, albeit often without solid evidence for their classifications. This classification 31 32 could be used to make movements seem more or less threatening, as the reporter may desire, 33 34 and also had ramifications for what could be done to captured dissidents. There were at times 35 36 hotly contested debates over whether actions were ‘political’ or not in court, and also whether 37 38 or not Metropolitan law applied to colonial subjects. 18 39 40 41 The prevailing terminology for referring to ‘rebels’ or ‘rebellion’ often related to 42 43 historical or geographic markers that make the varied regions under French influence different 44 45 from each other. In Asia French terminology was influenced by the British definitions given 46 47 to the gunmen of India and Burma, the dacoit 19 ; dacoïtisme having prospered amid weak 48 49 5 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 20 3 Brahman institutions. The French used this term second-hand from the British, who 4 5 themselves took it from Indian usage. French officers occasionally used English loan words 6 7 (‘gang’, for example) in a colonial context for ‘colour’ and variety. Words like dacoit had the 8 9 10 added appeal of exoticism, which helped spur its adoption by French officers. In Indochina 11 12 ‘bandits’ spread through the support of mandarins hostile to France, many of them supported 13 14 discretely by China, in a perennial anarchic system which the French chose to call ‘piracy’. 21 15 16 These small armed bands might at times be simple outlaws, or they might be proto-nationalist 17 18 fighters, or, more likely,For they mightPeer drift between Review the two depending on circumstance. The 19 20 21 participation of ‘bandits’ in revolutionary movements was not new to the region, such groups 22 th 23 played a critical role in the Tay Son rebellion in the late 18 century, but the French had 24 25 difficulty understanding their complex role in Southeast Asian, especially Vietnamese, 26 27 society. 22 28 29 30 Interestingly, the term ‘pirate’ was not only used by Europeans in Southeast Asia. It 31 32 was also used by some Vietnamese leaders who refused to accept the French occupation, as 33 34 evidenced by the papers of Ngé-Dinh, an Annamite chieftain in the region of Than-Hoa and 35 36 Nge-An between 1886 and 1887.23 In his text, he wrote that local people considered the 37 38 French to be pirates for the way they had subjugated and exploited Indochina. Unfortunately, 39 40 41 we do not have the original text, and so do not know what Vietnamese word was used for 42 43 ‘pirate’. Terminology that might be translated at ‘bandit’ or ‘pirate’, however, is not 44 45 uncommon in Southeast Asia. In his recent book Imperial Bandits Bradley Camp Davis 46 47 translates the Vietnamese word giac for ‘bandit’, specifically in reference to the Black Flags, 48 49 6 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 th 24 3 a prominent ‘bandit’ or ‘outlaw’ group of the late 19 century. It is possible that Ngé-Dinh 4 5 had used this, or an analogous, word. Similar language (‘banditry’ or ‘piracy’) is repeated by 6 7 other Vietnamese individuals at different times to describe French activity in Southeast Asia. 8 9 10 The concept of French piracy played a prominent role in the decrees released by rebels in 11 12 Thai-Nguyen in 1917, for example; one of the first uprisings in Indochina to position itself in 13 14 clearly nationalist terms. 25 In addition to the terms ‘rebel’ and ‘pirate’, ‘band’ or ‘gang’ was 15 16 frequently used, and became synonymous with irregular forces, sometimes even with local 17 18 militias. All this reflectsFor the emergence Peer of an unReviewknown war, irregular warfare, but also of 19 20 26 21 French efforts to control, or at least influence, the political messaging of internal dissent. 22 23 24 25 II 26 27 28 Why did the French not simply refer to rebels as ‘the enemy’, the way they would have 29 30 referred to most military opponents? Largely, this was due to the delicate political 31 32 circumstances in which the French armed forces were operating. To label rebel forces as ‘the 33 34 enemy’ implies certain political preconditions, and strongly suggests the legitimacy of their 35 36 37 movement (this is the point Kalyvas made in The Logic of Violence in Civil War ). From a 38 39 purely military perspective, talking about ‘the enemy’ also suggests, and perhaps opens the 40 41 door to more conventional forms of warfare.27 The term ‘enemy’ could furthermore be 42 43 politically inflexible. This could be a serious hindrance in the fluid strategic environment the 44 45 French found themselves in, in which today’s enemies may need to be accommodated with 46 47 48 49 7 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 tomorrow (the granting of a small, semi-independent fiefdom to the proto-nationalist fighter 4 5 De Tham is a case in point). Keenly aware of the disadvantages that would come with 6 7 legitimizing their opponents, French officers tended to shy away from strictly military 8 9 10 language, and instead adopted the more vague terminology of policing and security. 11 12 During the conquest of the bulk of their colonial empire, the French had no official 13 14 declared enemy. They instead faced a complicated, messy situation that included everything 15 16 from massacres, and robbery, to simple brigandage and even full-blown insurrection. The 17 18 concept of a rebel (pirate,For bandit, Peer etc.) was often Review used as a euphemism for any opponent 19 20 21 operating within a non-state framework. In the colonial context terminology, and at times 22 23 strategy, frequently confused ‘war’ with ‘security’ and ‘policing’. Indeed, the French, both 24 25 civilian and military, often referred to their own military operations as ‘police actions’ when 26 27 fighting against anticolonial forces, rather than ‘military operations’, a term usually reserved 28 29 30 for more remote geographies, or more extreme levels of opposition (such as in Niger and 31 th 28 32 Chad in the early 20 century). These ‘police actions’ or punitive raids did not typically fit 33 34 the traditional ‘Clausewitzian’ model. Instead they took the form of what was at the time 35 36 referred to as ‘small war’ 29 , that is to say, the war of ambush and surprise which began to be 37 38 codified in the mid-nineteenth century by writers like Charles Callwell and Albert Ditte. This 39 40 41 attempted reconciliation of accepted ‘European’ warfare with the violence and military 42 43 operations common in the colonies helped ensure that terms reserved for conventional 44 45 European wars were not often used for anticolonial uprisings, thus necessitating the invention 46 47 and use of innovative terminology. 30 48 49 8 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 III 7 8 The transition from what European observers considered to be simple brigandage to rebellion 9 10 was often expressed by use of the word ‘ surpris’ (uprising) by French officers; a word that 11 12 31 13 strongly implied a certain magnitude of opposition. It was a much stronger word than the 14 15 ubiquitous ‘ troubles ’, which typically included riots, bombings, skirmishes and assassination. 16 17 The uprising in Than Hoa, in northern Tonkin, in 1886 or that of the Bambara and Fulani in 18 For Peer Review 19 Segou in 1892, for example, were sufficiently large to outstrip the term ‘ troubles ’ and grow 20 21 into full-blown ‘uprisings’ in French parlance. 32 This more serious level of discontent 22 23 24 (‘uprising’) was considered especially dangerous if it was backed by a religious movement, 25 33 26 especially one associated with Islam. 27 28 French officers soon came to believe that they were accurately distinguishing between 29 30 the pirate, the rebel, the band, the ‘gang’ and full-blown rebellious armies. The generally 31 32 33 poor level of knowledge French officers had of their colonial subjects however, let alone the 34 35 inner workings and motivations of secretive organisations and conspiracies, means that 36 37 French designations need to be treated with caution. 34 In general, groups were first identified 38 39 by their leader (for example, Doi-Van and De Tham in the Yen-Thé region in Tonkin; Lat- 40 41 Dior, Behanzin, Samory, and Ahmadou were similarly classified in Africa). The French often 42 43 44 knew the rough location of these groups, except in cases where the rebels were mobile or 45 46 nomadic, but at times knew little more than that. In the absence of clear intelligence, the 47 48 49 9 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 identification of the leader at times acted as a shortcut to describing not just the socio-political 4 5 motives of a given anticolonial group, but also their assumed tactics. 35 6 7 To an extent, the sheer size of a rebellious or outlaw group imbued it with a certain 8 9 10 meaning for French officers. Larger groups were more dangerous, and far more often to be 11 12 considered rebellious, if not revolutionary. Of course, given spotty French intelligence, 13 14 estimates on rebel troop numbers could vary wildly, and with it the interpretations of given 15 16 groups, and thus the terminology applied to them. This did not stop the French from 17 18 deploying troops andFor undertaking Peer operations based Review on speculation and rumour. In Asia, the 19 20 21 French rarely had good intelligence on the number of Black Flags there were, but nevertheless 22 23 considered it necessary to mobilize at least 20,000 to 30,000 men against them between 1883- 24 25 1886 (admittedly within the context of the Sino-French War). 36 For comparison, the Siamese 26 27 army was estimated to be only 5,000 men in 1893; the French deployment was truly 28 29 37 30 massive. In Africa estimates also varied wildly. French officers believed that Ahmadou, 31 32 ‘the Jugurtha of Sudan’, was able to muster 10,000 warriors against Archinard in December 33 34 1890.38 While this is unlikely, it must be said that such large forces were not unknown to the 35 36 region. The Abyssinians were able bring 30,000 men against the Italians; the Dahomey army 37 38 has nearly 22,000 men; and the Malagasy maintained a force of 25,000 to 30,000 warriors. 39 39 40 40 41 Samory force numbers were roughly the same (between 20,000 and 30,000). These were 42 43 real armies with regular, regimented soldiers, and as such their members were often given 44 45 specific designations: the ‘Amazons’ of Behanzin in Dahomey 41 , the ‘ talibés ’ of Ahmadou, 46 47 the ‘sofas’ of Samory.42 Thus, terminology was deployed not only to describe the supposed 48 49 10 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 size and intentions of a given local force, it was also a way of implying the strength and 4 5 rationale of the bonds that tied these forces together. The term ‘ talibés ’ (‘Islamic students’) is 6 7 especially interesting here, as it implied not only a sort of mentoring, devotional attachment to 8 9 10 Ahmadou, but also a religious fanaticism tinged with cultish leanings. This played directly to 11 43 12 long-standing French fears about Islam and its practitioners. Using a loan word originally 13 14 from Arabic ( talib , the same basis for the term ‘Taliban’) had the added appeal of exoticism, 15 16 thus fixing Ahmadou’s followers into a certain French conception about the Muslim world. 17 18 French officersFor did not justPeer apply terminology Review to rebel forces and their participants, 19 20 21 but also to the differing geographies in which rebellious movements most frequently 22 23 occurred. These geographies ultimately carried with them conceptual, cultural and political 24 25 baggage in the same way ‘the bush’, or other similar terms did. To some extent, this is due to 26 27 certain geographic similarities which manifest across different colonies, or even different 28 29 30 continents. Mountainous areas almost always offered refuge for individuals trying to escape 31 44 32 central authority, be it in Indochina or southern Algeria. Not every jurisdiction was 33 34 conducive to the development of rebellion. Proximity to French administrative and military 35 36 power generally precluded the organisation of large-scale violent resistance. Uprisings most 37 38 often erupted in more remote and rugged regions where groups could operate with relative 39 40 41 impunity. Lyautey, for example, remarked that ‘the pirate is a plant that grows only in certain 42 43 lands’. 45 Writing about more contemporary conflicts Laurent Henninger has referred to these 44 45 different geographies as the ‘fluid’ and the ‘solid’, showing the longue durée impact that 46 47 simple geography has on strategy and politics. 46 48 49 11 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 Geography necessarily had an impact on how the French understood, and referred to, 4 5 anticolonial movements. Thus, we find French officers and administrators more likely to 6 7 refer to ‘pirates’ in the Asian littoral, and ‘rebels’ being referred to by the army fighting in the 8 9 10 African interior. There were also distinctions made between pacified and war torn territories, 11 12 which were usually called ‘military territories’ and administered directly by the French armed 13 14 forces. This division between civilian and militarily governed areas was one determined by 15 16 the French, but it was not entirely inconsistent with pre-existing realities. In the Arab world, 17 18 for example, especiallyFor in Morocco, Peer there was aReview similar distinction between the bled es- 19 20 21 Maghzen , land under the authority of the Sultan, and the bled es-siba , areas of only tenuous 22 47 23 influence and control. 24 25 In Southeast Asia geographic categorization and terminology was applied with 26 27 pseudo-scientific precision, in part because it delineated where Europeans could and could not 28 29 48 30 (or, at least, ‘should’ not) focus their agricultural reforms and exploitation. Across the 31 32 French overseas empire land that was not being cultivated to French satisfaction was 33 34 considered fair game for expropriation and cultivation under French ownership. 49 This 35 36 applied even to lands clearly under the command of local leaders, like the Toucouleur empire 37 38 in West Africa. Many of these states were (conveniently) considered decadent by the French, 39 40 50 41 which in French eyes rendered their territories res nullius or ‘nobody’s property’: thus, free 42 43 to occupy by Europeans.51 This led to the somewhat absurd development of Joseph Gallieni 44 45 speaking of African leaders as ‘rebels’ to the French authority, even in instances when France 46 47 was invading their land. 52 This evolution marked a notable change in how the French saw 48 49 12 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 their actions in Africa and Southeast Asia. From the 1880s onwards any opposition to French 4 5 rule, or even French expansion, was typically seen as ‘rebellious’, even when the French had 6 7 no legitimate claim to the land or peoples in question. This implied sense of ‘manifest 8 9 10 destiny’ belied the growing French belief in their authority not only to conquer, but also to 11 12 govern. This development can be seen in how French officials began to deal with, and talk 13 14 about, rebellious groups in Southeast Asia and Africa. 15 16 17 18 For Peer Review 19 IV 20 21 The fighting in Tonkin took on a character that belied simple classification, and sat 22 23 outside the prevailing French discourse surrounding anticolonial rebellion, despite attempts to 24 25 classify fighting in Tonkin from as early as 1885. 53 The French experience of fighting in 26 27 28 Tonkin centred around the discovery and destruction of ‘rebel dens’ (the ‘den’ of Tong-Hoa 29 30 Phu was destroyed in November 1894, and that of Phiama in December 1894 by Théophile 31 32 Pennequin, for example). 54 Following the destruction of each ‘den’ the French erected their 33 34 own outpost in the region to assert their control and influence over the area. 55 Thus, the 35 36 37 conquest of each ‘den’ brought an increased permanence to the French occupation of the 38 39 region; the construction of new fortresses made French domination a physical reality. 40 41 Of the different regions of Tonkin that the French slowly attempted to bring under 42 43 their rule Yen-Thé is probably the most famous. Yen-Thé had an ideal geography in which to 44 45 base a rebellious or insurrectional movement. Upper Tonkin is a mountainous area, filled 46 47 48 49 13 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 56 3 with dense forest; a difficult ‘Swiss Tonkinese’. The area lent itself to the construction of 4 5 complex fortifications, which the French could not easily break without massing substantial 6 7 firepower. 57 Such an organisational effort generally was sufficient to tip off an impending 8 9 10 attack, giving De Tham and his band of ‘pirates’ ample time to flee into the densely wooded 11 12 mountains, or slip over the border into a neighbouring province. Similar areas, be they 13 14 jungle, mountain or desert, existed across the French empire and were generally far beyond 15 16 the reach of meaningful European control. Such terrain had a magnetic quality that drew a 17 18 wide range of dissidentsFor to it, strengtheningPeer exist Reviewing rebel/outlaw bands. 58 For both French 19 20 21 and British colonial officers these spaces were understood and referred to as the 22 59 23 ‘hinterland’. 24 25 On occasions when the French were able to locate and penetrate a ‘rebel den’, they 26 27 were consistently impressed by the ‘pirate’ defence systems they employed; their organization 28 29 60 30 was often markedly better than fortifications built by the French. Dens were generally in the 31 32 middle of a dense forest hidden by underbrush with camouflaged firing positions producing 33 34 overlapping fields of fire protecting the den’s few exits and entrances.61 Alongside such 35 36 defences rebels and outlaws in Southeast Asia made use of an array of field defences which 37 38 would go on to develop lasting notoriety during the American War in Vietnam: ‘punji sticks’ 39 40 41 (shallow excavations lined with sharp stakes), fences and bamboo stakes often masked their 42 43 fortified hideouts. 44 45 Even if the French could locate and clear out a ‘rebel den’, that was often not enough. 46 47 The ‘pirates’ often escaped French efforts to capture them and break up their ring. They were 48 49 14 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 aided in this by the seasonal nature of the struggle, with wet seasons limiting the size and 4 5 duration of French operations. Weather often made the remote, mountainous regions 6 7 unnavigable for French forces, and even in good weather the French could not always scrape 8 9 10 together the funds necessary to create and sustain a column in the field for long enough to 11 62 12 track down rebel bands. In an attempt to get around these substantial operational difficulties 13 14 the French relied heavily on what little intelligence they could gather. When good 15 16 intelligence came in it was necessary to act quickly, which spurred the rapid installation of 17 18 optical telegraphy inFor Indochina Peerto facilitate rapid Review communication from military post to 19 20 63 21 military post. This gave the French an advantage, but it also meant that the telegraph wires 22 64 23 were an obvious and frequent target for anticolonial rebels. 24 25 As French influence and infrastructure began to spread the French began to use the 26 27 language of policing and inherent authority in Southeast Asia. Regarding one attempt to 28 29 30 capture De Tham in 1909 the French resident of Tonkin released a public decree stating that: 31 32 33 ‘The French Government has granted Hoàng-hoa-Tham [De Tham] for some years [an offer] 34 to submit, on the condition that he would in future be an honest man. Since this time this 35 pirate chief has constantly failed to keep his word. His concession [De Tham had been 36 granted a small fiefdom by the French in return for keeping his brigandage under control] has 37 become the refuge of poisoners, thieves, assassins and brigands. The Government, of which 38 all the honest population knows its sentiments, tired of the odious conduct of this bandit chief 39 40 has decided: [in order] to support the working population, and assure them tranquillity, to put 41 an end to the current situation in Yen-Thé and place the region under the common rule…. The 42 Government is firmly resolved to go to the end. All is ready. [The Government] will 43 compensate all those who help it. Deliver up De Tham, who has violated all laws.’65 44 45 46 47 48 49 15 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 By the early 1900s the French were no longer an invading (as opposed to an ‘occupying’) 4 5 force in Southeast Asia, or there under thin pretences to help the Nguyen Dynasty’s legitimate 6 7 government. Instead, they had become the government, and spoke as such; a major marker in 8 9 10 French colonial supremacy in the region. At this time the French began more and more to 11 66 12 refer to rebels as ‘ insoumis ’: those who have not (yet) submitted. Such language not only 13 14 positioned the French as the legitimate authority, but also assumed the inevitability of their 15 16 colonial dominance (itself a term that French officers used self-consciously). 67 It is worth 17 18 noting that the 1909For attack on DePeer Tham’s principal Review fortress came in the wake of a 1908 19 20 68 21 attempted mass poisoning of Europeans at a dinner in Hanoi. The poisoning was to be 22 23 followed up by an assault on Hanoi itself led by De Tham and his allies. As Michael Vann 24 25 has pointed out, attacks on Europeans in Asia and Africa, be they coordinated military 26 27 assaults, individual attacks or simple signs of insubordination, were seen as an attack on the 28 29 69 30 very foundations of colonialism. Even minor acts of subversion were not only considered a 31 32 real threat to the colonial order, they also justified brutal retribution on the part of the colonial 33 34 authority. This sentiment, and the power to act on it, grew as colonial power and authority 35 36 solidified both intellectually and physically in the early 1900s. 37 38 39 40 41 V 42 43 Similar patterns existed in Africa, with the French changing their terminology as they 44 45 faced resistance to their imperial ambitions in the African interior. The enduring popular 46 47 48 49 16 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 image of this period remains one of vast numbers of brave, but poorly armed, African 4 5 warriors throwing themselves hopelessly against the full weight of modern firepower brought 6 7 to bear by Europeans and their local allies. In reality, however, the French very quickly found 8 9 10 themselves fighting against forces that relied heavily on firearms, and even modern, quick- 11 70 12 firing rifles. This is certainly the case in Dahomey with Behanzin , Ahmadou near Segou on 13 14 the Niger 71 , Samory in French Sudan 72 , as well as with Rabih az-Zubayr ibn Fadl Allah and 15 16 al-Zubayr between the basins of the Nile and the Ubangi.73 Modern firepower became even 17 18 more accessible to ForAfrican warriors Peer during and afteReviewr the First World War. This was in part 19 20 21 due to Turco-German efforts to stoke anticolonial unrest in French and British colonies, but 22 23 also the ample opportunities for capturing, stealing or being given European weapons that 24 25 were sent to Africa during the conflict. 74 26 27 Perhaps the most stunning example of anticolonial rebels wielding modern firearms in 28 29 30 Africa comes from the Kaocen War in Niger, 1916-17 (although fighting continued until 31 75 32 1920). The conflict began in December 1916 when a mixture of Arab, Toubou and Tuareg 33 34 warriors appeared outside the walls of Agadez in central Niger armed with modern Italian 35 36 rifles, a machinegun and even an 70mm Italian artillery piece, with ammunition. 76 The 37 38 warriors themselves were no strangers to modern warfare, and included men who had seen 39 40 41 action in Algeria at Djanet against the French, as well as Italian askari who had deserted in 42 43 Fez and Tripolitania. 77 Such experienced and well-armed opponents were not uncommon in 44 45 French Africa. In fact, it was common for French soldiers and administrators to refer to 46 47 nomadic raiding parties ( rezzous or harkas ) by the number of rifles they had rather than their 48 49 17 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 total number of participants, the same way European forces were frequently counted in the 4 5 same period. 78 The adoption or co-option of Arabic words ( rezzou or razzia ) served to 6 7 typecast opponents to French colonialism, implied their objectives and methodology for them, 8 9 10 and also freed the French up to pursue their own invented interpretations of what they thought 11 79 12 ‘local’ warfare meant. 13 14 By shielding themselves behind misinterpretations of African warfare French officers, 15 16 who often referred back to ancient Sahelian war-fighting methods in their writing, tried to 17 18 justify their brutal punitiveFor columns Peer and the wanto Reviewn violence they committed. 80 Terminology 19 20 21 here was a potent shield against the political, moral and social consequences of their actions. 22 23 It was not a perfect defence. The well-known barbarity of the Voulet-Chanoine column tried, 24 25 and failed, to hide behind preconceptions of African brutality. For many other cases, 26 27 however, such conceptions and terminologies were sufficient to provide cover for a broad 28 29 30 range of atrocities and military overreach. This was partially the case during the Kaocen War. 31 32 After the initial operations to lift the siege at Agadez French troops, some of whom had 33 34 travelled from as far away as Dakar, engaged in a brutal campaign of repression and 35 36 retribution. The Aïr region, already wracked by the famine of 1912-1915, lost roughly half of 37 38 its population due to the war. 81 British onlookers were shocked, stating that the French 39 40 82 41 repression in Niger ‘appeared to be little short of extermination’. 42 43 Throughout the French empire the crushing of a rebellion frequently meant employing 44 45 radical measures; decapitation and other gruesome displays were seen as matter of course. 83 46 47 While this violence was not ‘terminology’ as such, it still constituted a form of 48 49 18 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 communication. Many French officers believed that the success of their campaigns relied on 4 5 such brutality, even if their results did not always bear this out. An overabundance of force 6 7 could not only engender prolonged, if temporarily latent, opposition, it could sometimes lead 8 9 84 10 to real political scandals at home. Military overreach and occasions of performative 11 12 violence should not, however, lead us to assume that the military was the sole purveyor of 13 14 such harsh measures. Civilian administrators could be equally violent in repressing dissent, 15 16 as was the case during the pacification of Ivory Coast between 1908 and 1915, led by Gabriel 17 18 Angoulvant. 85 FeelingFor that the Peer‘peaceful conquest’ Review or ‘commercial conquest’ had been 19 20 21 strategic mistakes, he recommended the use of ‘the hard way’, with no outward displays of 22 23 weakness or sentimentality. The French experimentation with more coercive methods was 24 25 broadly applied, and part of the now-understood inherent violence and brutality of 26 27 imperialism. 28 29 30 31 32 VI 33 34 Militarily insurrections were often countered in the brutal way that Angoulvant and others 35 36 37 advocated: by use of the column, the punitive raid. Beyond purely military responses, 38 39 however, there were administrative and organisational practices that were intended to contain 40 41 any possible insurrection. These can tell us a fair bit about the French colonial mind. Areas 42 43 that were only recently conquered or not yet pacified, for example, were often designated 44 45 ‘military areas’. This principle was applied in Tonkin in April 1891 with the creation of four 46 47 48 49 19 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 86 3 military territories, which were seen as borders delineating separate war zones. They were 4 5 commanded by lieutenant-colonels or colonels who had the powers of a general, and thus 6 7 acted as true autocrats in their territories. Designated military territories were further divided 8 9 10 into different sectors with designated intelligence units. Within these spheres of influence 11 12 individual officers often undertook various natural and ethnographic studies to try to learn 13 14 more about the regions that France had so recently conquered. 87 Combined, these 15 16 overlapping spaces were intended to limit the spread of any insurrection, and contain them 17 18 long enough to be metFor with a suitablePeer repression. Review By 1895, the term ‘ tache d’huile ’ was 19 20 21 being used to describe this ‘progressive’ methodology, generally associated with Joseph 22 88 23 Gallieni. The theory was substantially furthered in Madagascar by Captain Frederic Hellot 24 25 in 1899. 89 26 27 The practice of setting up ‘military areas’ nominally had its intellectual roots in classic 28 29 90 30 studies of Roman Africa. This echo of the classical world was brought back through the 31 32 intellectual efforts of Frenchmen like Jean-Louis de Lanessan (civil-military governor of 33 34 Indochina, 1891-1894) in his Principes de colonisation , published in 1897. 91 This look back 35 36 to antiquity gives us an interesting glimpse into how at least some French officers saw 37 38 themselves and their actions. On the one hand, many were clearly amateur historians, 39 40 41 classicists, botanists, and ethnographers who wrote about their different subject matters for a 42 43 mixture of personal interest and possible strategic or economic benefit. 92 On the other hand, 44 45 pseudo-intellectualism often provided a veneer of respectability which might serve to justify, 46 47 or at least try to contextualise, barbarous acts of repression. The studies of Octave Depont, 48 49 20 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 who compiled substantial reports on Islam in Africa and also the anticolonial uprisings in 4 5 Algeria in 1916, are rife with this sort of misappropriated Classical imagery. In Depont’s 6 7 report on the Batna uprising references to liberty, progress, the benefits of French colonialism, 8 9 10 and reflections on Carthage and the Numidians sit alongside calls for swift and brutal 11 12 repression freed from the ‘scruples of legality’ that he felt typically hindered French efforts in 13 14 their fight against anticolonialism. 93 15 16 The mixture of romantic associations with the Classical world and contemporary 17 18 severity and xenophobiaFor expressed Peer in Depont’s Reviewwork appear frequently in the written and oral 19 20 21 records left behind by French officers and civilians living in the colonies, giving us an 22 23 interesting glimpse into how they saw themselves and colonized people. In court proceedings 24 25 from 1916, part of the aftermath from a failed attack on Saigon Central Prison, the Prosecutor 26 27 General in Saigon, G. Michel, stated that ‘the French, successors of the Greeks and Romans, 28 29 30 always had, in their duties as colonizers, a high and great design. [T]hey never failed to push 31 32 back against the exploitation of [non-white] races under their tutelage; the American theories 33 34 of Captain [Alfred Thayer] Mahan of 'the incompetence of [non-white] races' will never find 35 36 echo in French hearts.’94 Given what he felt had been the high-minded ideals of the French in 37 38 their civilising mission Michel recommended that those accused of taking part in the attack 39 40 41 receive the sternest punishment possible, essentially for their ingratitude and impudence. 42 43 While most of the frameworks, judgements and studies of African and Asian people 44 45 were largely a simple matter of ex post facto justification for French imperialism, some of the 46 47 better ethnographies were produced by individuals who genuinely see themselves as working 48 49 21 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 toward the betterment of African and Asian people. Such self-conceptions could have 4 5 tangible effects on how individuals chose to operate in their overseas duties. Some colonial 6 7 officers and administrators opted for relatively more lenient or accommodative measures. 8 9 10 Others, like Depont and Michel, felt that any betrayal of French largesse should be met with 11 12 the harshest response possible. Their sense of affront underscores their belief in an 13 14 established French colonial authority. As such their calls for retributive violence were 15 16 intellectually distinct from that of earlier phases of conquest which resorted to brutality under 17 18 pretences of practicality.For Between Peer June and Septem Reviewber 1895, for example, Lyautey wrote to 19 20 21 his sister describing the ‘establishment of a policy of complete liquidation [regarding] piracy 22 95 23 of Tonkin’. Such conflicts escalated quickly and were often markedly brutal, with the 24 25 French often resorting to the kidnapping and torturing of suspected dissidents. 96 In Tonkin in 26 27 the late 1800s decapitation became a regular occurrence as the French sought to ‘pacify’ the 28 29 30 region. In another one of his letters, Lyautey claimed that it was common to see heads 31 97 32 dangling from trees. Public performance of violence by the nascent authority, combined 33 34 with the propaganda of systematically referring to rebels as ‘bandits’ and publicly displaying 35 36 their severed heads was brutally effective at solidifying, if only temporarily, French control 37 38 over their fledgling overseas empire. The practice was commonplace throughout the 39 40 98 41 empire. 42 43 44 45 VII 46 47 48 49 22 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 The period of France’s most intense colonial expansion (1880-1914) saw French armed forces 4 5 thrust into situations that they had not widely experienced before. They did not have a 6 7 suitable language for the sorts of opponents they faced, nor for their new-found operational 8 9 10 and administrative responsibilities. This confusion, and lack of pre-existing models and 11 12 experience on which to reflect, led to conflicting conceptualisations of who they (the French) 13 14 were, what they were doing, and to the changing military procedures that came in response to 15 16 political challenges. These changes and contradictions are to be found in both the official 17 18 correspondence andFor bureaucratic Peer detritus left to Reviewus in archives, as well as the many works of 19 20 21 colonial military literature that survive in the forms of non-fiction books and pamphlets 22 23 written for broader consumption. These conceptions are important for understanding how and 24 25 why the French acted the way they did in this period of conquest and ‘pacification’. 26 27 As the nascent control of the French extended into the Asian and African interior and 28 29 30 solidified its control over pre-existing Asian and African power structures the French began to 31 32 see themselves in a different light. The mission civilisatrice (and its counterpart, the mise en 33 34 valeur ) remained, but the duty to bring ‘order’ and ‘security’ grew, leading to increasingly 35 36 harsh measures taken against the remaining ‘ insoumis ’: those not (yet) submitted. With no 37 38 sense of irony whatsoever French officers and administrators depicted themselves as the 39 40 41 saviours of indigenous societies whilst calling for, or carrying out, brutal acts of repression 42 43 against anticolonial rebels. A cross examination of the literature they left behind, and their 44 45 official correspondence and documentation, helps to better elucidate this complexity giving us 46 47 48 49 23 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 a better understanding of the impact and experience of French colonialism in the late 1800s 4 5 and early 1900s. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 For Peer Review 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 1 31 For example Lieutenant-Colonel Archinard, Rapport officiel sur la campagne de 1890-1891 (Paris, 1891) & 32 Commandant Le Prince, Étude militaire sur le Tonkin (Paris, 1893) 33 34 2 For example, F. Orsat, Au Soudan (1890-1891), souvenirs d’un tirailleur sénégalais d’après sa correspondance 35 36 intime (Paris, 1893) & Le Commandant Lamy d'après sa correspondance et ses souvenirs de campagne (1858- 37 38 1900) (Paris, 1903). See also, J. Andurain (d’), « La correspondance privée des coloniaux » in A. Bérenger et O. 39 40 Dard, Gouverner par les lettres, de l’Antiquité à l’époque contemporaine, (Metz, 2015), 95-113.

41 3 42 For example: A. Lahille, Mes Impressions sur l'Afrique occidentale française. (Étude documentaire au pays du 43 tam-tam), (Paris, 1910) 44 45 4 J. Lanessan (de), L’Expansion coloniale de la France : étude économique, politique et géographique sur les 46 47 établissements français d’outre-mer (Paris, 1896) 48 49 24 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 5 For example, J. Harmant, La Vérité sur la retraite de Lang-Son. Mémoires d’un combattant, (Paris, 1892) 9 10 6 J. Andurain (d’), Colonialisme ou impérialisme ? Le ‘parti colonial’ en pensée et en action (Paris, 2017) 11 12 7 Generally referred to as ‘grey literature’ these are works beyond the usual circuits of production and 13 14 distribution and that are not subject to legal deposit (theses, dissertations, reports, etc.). They are not referenced 15 16 in the Bibliothèque Nationale . Some of these monographs are maintained by the French Africa Committee and a 17 18 number of others are militaryFor books keptPeer by the French military.Review 19 8 N. Dodille, Introduction aux discours coloniaux (Paris, 2011). For a polemic approach of the concept of 20 21 colonial literature, see V. Krapor, ‘Provocation Versus Performativity: Lauching la littérature coloniale 22 23 française in 1909’, Modern & Contemporary France, 23 (2015), 47-64 24 25 9 E. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels (Manchester, 1959) 26 27 10 R. Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies II: Writings on South Asian History and Society (Oxford, 1983), 59 28 11 29 For more on ‘pirates’, the Black Flags and on French activity in Southeast Asia see M. Finch, A Progressive 30 31 Occupation? The Gallieni-Lyautey Method and Colonial Pacification in Tonkin and Madagascar, 1885-1900 32 (Oxford, 2013) 33 34 12 C. Vilers (de), ‘L’Expédition du Tonkin : La Passé, le Présent, l’Avenir’, La Nouvelle revue, (1884), 700- 35 36 728; « Nous nous proposions seulement de châtier les bandits connus sous le nom de Pavillons Noirs, et nous 37 38 avons été assez imprudents pour faire la guerre à l’Annam puis à la Chine » 39 13 40 G. Vasco, ‘Le Madhisme au Soudan’, Revue française de l’étranger et des colonies et Exploration, Gazette 41 42 géographique, tome XXI, 208 (1896), 231-237 , and more generally R. S. Pascha, Feuer und Schwert im Sudan 43 (1879-1895) (Leipzig, 1896) 44 45 14 R. Burton, ‘Partisans or Bandits’, Royal United Services Institute Journal, XVII (1897), 291-292. 46 47 15 S. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge, 2006), 17 48 49 25 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 16 ibid., 19 9 10 17 Such judgements often relied on the gut feeling of administrators. One example, of many: A[rchives] 11 12 N[ationales] d’O[utre] M[er] , Fonds Ministériels, nouveau fonds, carton 28 (dossiers 1-6) « Extrait du Rapport 13 14 sur la situation politique de la Cochinchine pendant le 2ème trimestre 1915 » 15 18 16 ANOM ; FM, nf 28 (1-6); « Rapport sur l’affaire des nommés Nguyen Anh Hu et Consorts, dite affaire de 17 Baria »; 14 Nov 1916 19 18 The term dacoit (usedFor in English andPeer French) refers to highwayReview bandits in India and elsewhere in Asia from 19 20 the mid-nineteenth century onwards. They are also called ‘drivers’, ‘thieves’, ‘robbers’ at different times and 21 places. They are characterized essentially by their mobility. 22 23 20 H. I. Sahita, ‘Dacoity is an Organized Crime: A Case Study of Sindh Province’, Pakistan Journal of Social 24 25 Sciences, 29 (2009), 301-312 & J. Harmand, L'Indo-Chine française, politique et administration. Conférence 26 27 faite à l'Association républicaine du centenaire de 1789 (Paris, 1887) 28 29 21 Le Prince, Étude militaire sur le Tonkin, op.cit. 30 22 31 G. Dutton, The Tay Son Uprising: Society and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century Vietnam (Honolulu, 2006), 32 33 212 & A. Woodside, Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam (Boston, 1976), 35 34 23 N. Dinh, Une Année de la guerre en Annam, 1886-87, racontée par un chef de rebelle, publié par la Revue du 35 36 cercle militaire, (1890) 37 38 24 B. C. Davis, Imperial Bandits: Outlaws and Rebels in the China-Vietnam Borderlands (Seattle and London, 39 40 2017), 7 41 42 25 ANOM , FM, nf, carton 58, dossier 646; « Annexe No 4 à la lettre No du Gouverneur Général de l’Indochine à 43 e 44 Monsieur le Ministre des Colonies ; Le 15 du 7 mois de la Ière année de DAI-HUNG-DE-QUOC »

45 26 46 G. M. MacCaulay, ‘Irregular Troops’, RUSI Journal, V (1862), 637-643. 47 48 49 26 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 27 Un colon, ‘L’insurrection de Ky-Dong’ , Questions diplomatiques et colonials, (1898), 240-242 & Davis, 9 10 Imperial Bandits , 9 11 12 28 M. Michel, Les Africains et la Grande Guerre : l’appel à l’Afrique (1914-1918) ((Paris, 2014), 9 13 14 29 C. Decker (de), De la Petite guerre selon l'esprit de la stratégie moderne (Paris, 1845) & later C. Callwell, 15 16 Small wars: Their Principles and Practice (London, 1896)

17 30 18 A. Quinteau, La GuerreFor de surprise Peer et d’embuscades (Paris,Review 1884) 19 31 Colonel Viotte, ‘De la surprise’, Revue militaire française, 5 (1922), 347-366 & J. Delmas, ‘La surprise’, 20 21 Direction des études d’histoire, cours supérieur d’histoire , École Supérieur de Guerre, (1973) 22 23 32 Commandant Bonnier, Mission au pays de Ségou (Soudan français). Campagne dans le Guénié-Kalary et le 24 25 Sansanding en 1892, (Nancy, 1897) 26 27 33 V. Monteil, ‘Lat Dior, Damel du Kayor, (1842-1886) et l'islamisation des Wolofs’, Archives de sociologie des 28 29 religions, 16 (1963), 77-104. See also P. Marty, Études sur l’Islam et les tribus du Soudan (Paris, 1920). For 30 31 North Africa, see E. Burke III, ‘Pan-Islam and Moroccan resistance to French Colonial Penetration, 1900-12’, 32 The Journal of African History, 13 (1972), 97-118. For West Africa see C. Harrison, France and Islam in West 33 34 Africa, 1860-1960 (Cambridge, 1988) 35 36 34 M. Thomas, The Colonial Mind , Volume 2: Violence, Military Encounters, and Colonialism (Lincoln and 37 38 London, 2011), 32; In particular this passage refers to Captain Chanoine, of the infamous Voulet-Chanoine 39 40 affair, who correctly discarded European notions about how Africans might respond to European technology. 41 42 Chanoine is correct in pointing out one of countless examples of European hubris and misunderstanding, even 43 while making regular errors and ill-founded assumptions in his own interpretations. 44 45 35 Commandant Verraux, ‘Monographie d’un chef pirate au Tonkin: le De-Tham’, À travers le monde, (1898), 46 47 225-228 & 233-236. 48 49 27 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 36 Le Prince, Étude militaire sur le Tonkin, op.cit. 9 10 37 ‘Nouvelles géographiques et coloniales’, Revue française de l’étranger et des colonies et Exploration, Gazette 11 12 géographique, (169) 1893, 37-45 13 14 38 Valbert, ‘Le Sultan Ahmadou et la Campagne du colonel Archinard dans le Soudan français’, Revue des Deux 15 16 Mondes, CII (1890), 673-686.

17 39 18 J. Bayol, Les DahoméensFor au Champ Peer de Mars (Palais desReview Arts libéraux): moeurs et coutumes: exposition 19 d'ethnographie coloniale (Paris, 1893) 20 21 40 M. Legassick, ‘Firearms, Horses and Samorian Army Organisation, 1870-1898’, Journal of African History, 7 22 23 (1966), 95-115. 24 25 41 H. A. Topor, Les Amazones. Une armée de femmes dans l’Afrique précoloniale (Paris, 1984) 26 27 42 A. Sow, ‘Biography and Colonial Discourse in ‘French West Africa’’, Social Dynamics, 30 (2004), 69-93 28 43 Harrison, France and Islam in West Africa , 30 29 30 44 ANOM , ALG CONST B3 219; « Les Troubles Insurrectionnels de l’Arrondissement de Batna en 1916 », 5

31 45 32 H. Lyautey, Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar (1894-1899), tome 1, (Paris, 1920); « Le pirate est une plante 33 qui ne pousse que dans certaines terres » 34 35 46 L. Henninger, ‘Espaces fluides et espaces solides: nouvelle réalité stratégique ?’, Revue Défense nationale, 36 37 753 (2012), 5-9. 38 39 47 E. Burke III, Prelude to Protectorate in Morocco. Precolonial protest and resistance, 1860-1912 (Chicago, 40 41 1976) 42 48 43 M. Cleary, ‘Managing the Forest in Colonial Indochina’, Modern Asian Studies, 39 (2005), 266

44 49 45 M. Murray, The Development of Capitalism in Colonial Indochina (1870-1940) (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 46 London, 1980), 179-191 47 48 49 28 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 50 C. Salomon, L’Occupation des territoires sans maîtres (Paris, 1889) 9 10 51 The British empire operated along similar lines. J. Darwin, Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of 11 12 Britain (London, 2012), 85-86 13 14 52 J. Gallieni, Voyage au Soudan français (Haut-Niger et pays de Ségou), 1879-1881 , publication de la mission 15 16 d’exploration du Haut-Niger (Paris, 1885)

17 53 18 C*** P. A., ‘La guerreFor au Tonkin’, PeerJournal des Sciences Review militaires, 17 (1885), 420-437 19 54 J. K. Munholland, ‘“Collaboration Strategy” and the French Pacification of Tonkin, 1885-1897’, The 20 21 Historical Journal, 24 (1981), 629-650 22 23 55 Lieutenant-Colonel Durand, ‘La vie d'un poste militaire dans la haute région du Tonkin’, Revue des Troupes 24 25 Coloniales, (1925) 26 27 56 L. Girod, Dix Ans de Haut-Tonkin (Tours, 1899) 28 57 29 ANOM nf 49, dossier 597, « Note sur les opérations de police dans la région du Yênthé »; in this particular 30 31 example from 1909 the French managed to launch a surprise assault on one of De Tham’s ‘dens’ by relying on 32 friendly Tonkinese volunteers as the bulk of their force. Nevertheless De Tham escaped, albeit wounded, and 33 34 many of his followers were killed or captured. De Tham would not be caught until 1913 when he was betrayed 35 36 by one of his ‘pirates’ after some 20 years of living outside the law in Yen Thé. 37 38 58 ANOM , INDO, nf 49, dossier 597, « Annexe No. 1 : Texte de la proclamation adressée par M. Morel, 39 40 Résident Supérieur au Tonkin aux populations de la province de Bac-Giang ». The same is true for Saharan 41 42 oases, and the mountains of the Maghreb. J. McDougall, History of Algeria (Oxford, 2017), 254 43 59 E. Lees, ‘The Doctrine Of ‘Hinterland’’, The Times , August 1890; ‘The Franco-German Treaty and the 44 45 "Hinterland" of Cameroons’, The Geographical Journal, 3 (1894), 414-415; see also J. Andurain (d’), La 46 47 Capture de Samory (1898). L’achèvement de la conquête de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Saint-Cloud, 2012), 115-122 48 49 29 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 60 Mat-Goï, Le Tonkin actuel, 1887-1890 (Paris, 1891) 9 10 61 ANOM , INDO, nf 49, dossier 597, « Note sur les opérations de police dans la région du Yênthé »; De Tham’s 11 12 primary base was especially daunting in this regard. 13 14 62 J. Gallieni, Trois colonnes au Tonkin (1894-1895) (Paris, 1899) 15 63 16 Lieutenant Saillard, ‘La télégraphie optique. Son rôle au Tonkin, son avenir’, Journal des Sciences militaires, 17 18 32 (1886), 96-116 For Peer Review 19 64 ANOM , ALG, CONST, B3 219; « Les Troubles Insurrectionnels de l’Arrondissement de Batna en 1916 » 20 21 65 ANOM , INDO, nf 49, dossier 597, « Annexe No. 1 : Texte de la proclamation adressée par M. Morel, Résident 22 23 Supérieur au Tonkin aux populations de la province de Bac-Giang » ; « Le Gouvernement Français avait 24 25 accordé à Hoàng-hoa-Tham, il y a quelques années, de faire sa soumission, sous la réserve qu’il serait à 26 27 l’avenir un honnête homme. Depuis cette époque, ce Chef pirate a manqué constamment à sa parole. Sa 28 29 concession est devenue le refuge des empoisonneurs, des voleurs, des assassins, des brigands. Le Gouvernement 30 31 dont toute la population honnête connaît les généreux sentiments, fatigué de la conduite odieuse de ce chef 32 bandit, se décidé ; afin de soutenir la population travailleuse, et lui assurer la tranquillité, de mettre fin la 33 34 situation actuelle du Yênthé et de placer cette région sous le régime commun… Le Gouvernement est fermement 35 36 résolu à aller jusqu’au bout. Tout est prêt. Il récompensera tous ceux qui l’aideront. Livrez-lui le Dè-Tham qui 37 38 a violé toutes lois. » 39 66 40 ANOM , ALG, CONST, B3 219; « Les Troubles Insurrectionnels de l’Arrondissement de Batna en 1916 »

41 67 42 French references to their own ‘domination’ are rife in their colonial writings. Just one example here from 43 Niger, 1917: ANOM , 14 MIOM 303, 1D216, bobbin 69; « Rapport d’Operations – Causes qui ont nécessité la 44 45 Colonne » 46 47 68 Thomas, The French Colonial Mind , vol. 2, 65 48 49 30 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 69 ibid., 54 9 10 70 E. Aublet, La Guerre au Dahomey, 1888-1893, d’après les documents officiels (Paris, 1894) 11 12 71 See C. Pietri, Les Français au Niger : voyages et combats (Paris, 1885) & D. Robinson, The Holy War of 13 14 Umar Tal. The Western Sudan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1985) 15 72 16 Samori or Samory. Y. Person, Samori, une révolution dyula (Dakar, 1968)

17 73 18 G. Dujarric, La vie duFor sultan Rabah Peer : les Français au TchadReview (Paris, 1902) 19 74 For more on this see: F. Correale, La Grande Guerre des trafiquants: Le front colonial de l’Occident 20 21 maghrébin (Paris, 2014) 22 23 75 This conflict was actually part of a much larger Senussi uprising which saw fighting in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria 24 25 and Niger. 26 27 76 K. Idrissa, The Kawousan War Reconsidered , 203 in J. Abbink, M. de Bruijn, & K. Van Walraven, Rethinking 28 29 Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History (Leiden & Boston, 2003)

30 77 31 Ibid. 32 78 ANOM , 14 MIOM 862, 11G16, bobbin 222; « Copie de Télégramme Officiel; Territoire Niger à Gouverneur 33 34 Général; Zinder, 13 Octobre 1916 » & « M. Lutaud, Gouverneur Général de l’Algérie à M. Briand, Président du 35 36 Conseil, Ministre des Affaires Etrangères »; Alger, 17 Juillet 1916 among many other examples. 37 38 79 Thomas, The French Colonial Mind , vol. 2, 6 39 80 40 Colonel Péroz, ‘La Tactique dans le Soudan - Première partie quelques combats et épisodes de guerre 41 42 remarquables’, Revue maritime et coloniale, (1890), 79-129 43 81 Idrissa, The Kawousan War Reconsidered , 214 44 45 82 A. Osuntokun, Nigeria in the First World War (London, 1979), 160 46 47 83 Thomas, The French Colonial Mind , vol. 2, 35 48 49 31 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 84 M. Mathieu, La Mission Afrique Centrale (Paris, 1995) 9 10 85 G. Angoulvant, La Pacification de la Côte d’Ivoire (1908-1915) (Paris, 1916) 11 12 86 L. Grandmaison (de), En territoire militaire : l’expansion française au Tonkin (Paris, 1898) 13 14 87 E. M. Samya (ed.), Les administrations coloniales XIXe-XXe siècles. Esquisse d’une histoire comparée , 15 16 (Rennes, 2009) & E. M. Samya (ed.), Coloniser, pacifier, administrer (Paris, 2014)

17 88 18 H. Lyautey, Lettres duFor Tonkin et de PeerMadagascar (1894-1899), Review tome 1 (Paris, 1920), Lettre de Lyautey à son 19 frère le 5 février 1895 . For more on this and on Madagascar see M. Finch, , A Progressive Occupation? The 20 21 Gallieni-Lyautey Method and Colonial Pacification in Tonkin and Madagascar, 1885-1900 (Oxford, 2013) 22 23 89 F. Hellot, ‘La Pacification de Madagascar’, Journal des Sciences militaires, (1899), 5-56 24 25 90 G. Boissier, L’Afrique romaine, promenades archéologiques en Algérie et Tunisie (Paris, 1895) 26 27 91 J-L. Lanessan (de), Principes de colonisation (Paris, 1897) 28 92 29 For example, Capitaine du Crosson, L’ethnographie de la Côte d’Ivoire (Paris, 1901) & Commandant Lunet 30 31 de la Jonquières, Ethnographie des territoires militaires (Hanoï, 1904), publié ensuite sous le titre Ethnographie 32 du Tonkin septentrional (Paris,1906) 33 34 93 ANOM , ALG CONST B3 219; « Les Troubles Insurrectionnels de l’Arrondissement de Batna en 1916 », 4-9 35 36 94 ANOM , FM, nf, carton 8, dossier 28 (1); « Affaire dite le ‘Complot de Saigon-Cholon’, Cour Criminelle de 37 38 Saigon du 5 au 13 Novembre 1913, Réquisitoire de M. le Procureur Général G. Michel » ; « Les Français, 39 40 continuateurs des Grecs et des Romains, eurent toujours, de leurs devoirs de colonisateurs, une conception 41 42 haute et grande, ils ne manquèrent jamais de repousser le concert de l’exploitation des races en tutelle ; et la 43 théorie américain du Capitaine Mahan sur ‘l’incompétence des races’ ne trouvera jamais d’écho dans les cœurs 44 45 français. » 46 47 48 49 32 50 51 52 53 54 55

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 95 Lyautey, op. cit., lettre du 30 septembre 1895 ; « La grande idée directrice de ces trois mois a été la mise sur 9 10 pied d'un programme de liquidation totale de la piraterie du Tonkin » 11 12 96 Commandant Verraux, ‘Monographie d’un chef pirate au Tonkin: le De-Tham’, A travers le monde, (1898), 13 14 225-228 15 97 16 H. Lyautey, Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagascar (1894-1899) , Tome 1 (Paris, 1920), lettre du 29 avril 1895 .

17 98 18 Francis Garnier was Fordecapitated by Peerthe Black Flags in 1873,Review Charles Gordon by Mahdists in the Sudan in 19 1885; Mamadou Lamine decapitated his chief rival Omar Penda in April 1886; Mamadou’s son was executed in 20 21 the same manner by order of Gallieni in April 1887. 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 33 50 51 52 53 54 55

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