-PAWN OF THE GIANTS By LOUIS-PHILIPPE DUBEL

When a/te'T three 'months of preparation the British forces opened their attack on Madagascar, the colony of their erstwhile brothers-in-armlJ, we did what countless people throughout the world were doing that day: wo tool, a volumo 0/ tho 0?&01lelopodia and looked under M. In general. probablu no duller readinu can be found than thR tR7'1l1l li'1lP.8 of an encyclopedia. They are not meant for entertainment but for in/ormation. Tile greater is one's surprise to find under MADAGASCAR a legend of intrigue and romance, rise amt fall Of tribes and king8, and foreign plotting8. We hav8 asked our author to revive the past of Madagascar at a moment when it i.s Vd88i71D th7'ouoh itll D7'eatRllt r.7';.Jl1.R.-K.M.

o ALL intents and pur­ European power behind the other, poses, Madagascar, ceding a move above the table and shaped like a. geo. trying to get it bo.ck with LL knife graphical battleship beneath. ~""~~IP-and lying 230 miles off the southeast A TUMULTUOUS STORY coast of Africa. has been a pawn in the chess game of Money and treachery and whispers Europe's gitmts ever since that August in a king's ear all have their place day 442 years ago when a Portuguese here, as well as a certain amount captain named Diego Diaz, blown off his of hCl·oil5n1. Fidelity and h-eal5on and grandeur mix with equal portions of course to India, discovered it. It is LL big pawn, larger even than France, 980 avarice and gratitude, barbarism and miles long and 360 miles across at its cupidity, to give us a tumultuous story greatest breadth, and embracing 240,000 of energy and, though sometimes mis­ directed, crusade spirit- if anyone square miles: but it is a pawn never­ dared to write it. It is not inconsistent theless. It is a pawn in the game with Madagascar's past that events of where natives are only rooks, and a tribal ruler is a knight if he is the last few weeks have again thrown important enough; when the tribal it into the temporary glare of front situation is boiled down to a fairly pages. even balance of power between two The only way to appreciate the leading factions, one European nation Madagascar picture as it now presents gets behind one of them and another itself is to get a long way off and look 416 THE XXth CENTURY at it objectively. France has paid through narrow openings in coral reefs. heavily for this colony. Disease and Behind a. coral belt, which nature swamps and climate have attacked seemed to have designed to keep the natives as well as white men, and have world out, lay Madagascar. cost France more in men and money Natives fished in dug-out log canoes than the military conquest. on gray rivers so alive with fish they Madagascar has become truly French, did not use a line. They knocked but unfortunately that does not change bits of wood against the bottom of the the fact that IvL'ldagascar is an island canoe, and agitated fish jumped from so situated as to make it a help or a the water. Those that fell in the hindrance to Britain's trade with her canoe were their catch. colonicI' and the &15t. IL~ seizure today under the pretext of war neces­ FRUITLESS EFFORTS sity may presage other movements Local tribes under ambitious chiefs wherever Fr~nclJ oovereignty bas been were usually waging war among them­ R stumbling block to Britnin. selves with little immediate result other than to keep them under orms, AL~IGATORS AND DUG-OUTS ready to nnit,p :tg~inst the pea(!e.making The best w~y to get to the bottom intruder. of present event.; i~ to go hack to the Firat the Portuguese tried to isllmd which Marco Polo called "Mlldei­ coloniLe t.he i~land, t.hen the Dutch. R'ascar" lU1I'l Diego niaz discovered in During the reign of Charles I, the 1500. Tt was a large island, Africa's British attempted agricultural devdop­ biggest, discovered on the fenst dny ment, but 80011 gave it up. They were of St. Lawrence and hence known ~s succeeded by the French, who founded St. Lawrence Island for a hundred a port and named it after their yennl t.!1t:rcll!Lt:l-. A Ivw, level shore­ Dauphin. What souvenirs come back line encircled it, with few natural to a Frenchman when he sees Fort ho.rboro onve iu the uvd.ht:ru purLiuu. lJaupnm today, or Port Dauphin, as it In the interior, a rough central plateau was often called, as it was practically with n tompernto dimnte, ~uLLcu wiLh wlthout tortlOcatloDB. Memories of ravines and mountainous gullies, rose hopes and sacrifices, maladies and pri­ to oyer 0,000 feet Abov" /!lea It:vel. vations and the sutferings of exile, Most famed of its peaks is Tsi-afa­ not only of men but of wives and javona, "t1lat Which the mists cannot daughters and mothers who came here climb." from France through t.he centurielS amI to whom France owes Madallasear! The lowlands were wowed, well Fort Dauphin is now the most Euro­ watered. and fertile. but sultry. Malaria pean city and the 8out.hernm08t on the infested them and swamps dotted them. island. The months between November and April were hot and rainy, subject to NATIVE CONQUERORS thunder and hail, and at regular intervals a typhoon-sIze hurricane would Old records and songs and legends arrive. There wcus DO snow in Mada­ hnndcd down in the Antaimoro tribal gascar. language, but in beautiful polished Arabic script, have preserved the Alligators abounded in its waters better than the along the coast of the Mozambique spoken records we have had to content Channel. Dawn broke over rivers and ourselves with in the study of Pacific valleys that were cloaked with a thick islands. According to these, the partial gray mist, and as the mist lifted a conquest of Madagascar by the Saka­ world of birds came to life, like lava in the seventeenth century marks enchantment leaving a sleeping wood. the first great tribal ascendancy on \ aves rushed with tremendous force the island. Lake Itasy. spreading like 11 limpid jewel among J\'ladaga~eal"s m:>untains. There ure JIlUlIj- such luke" j 11 the h ighlutld:J

IUaliagascar, Afrlca"s Largest Island

Typi~al old native storehouse ,

\ \

Radama I, J',]adagas!:ar's greatest king. Ranavalona lIT, the island's last reigning Though his uniform W:1S French, he managed queen, under the starbedecked crown of the to checkl1wte France fn'llI 1810 to ]gZX ,;. She died in exile in 1917

Rulers of Madagascar

Rasoherina. Queen of the JJovus from 1,~63 . brilliant Prime Minister who to 1868 aft"r hpr husband Radama II had remained in power by marrying three queens been strangled in his pala!:e in succes!1ion

I •i \",t,(?} .\ ~ -It . . '-1-'"" ..., '. MADAGASCAR-PAWN OF THE GIANTS 419

Then the Hova tribe, in the central idate Hova authority, outmaneuver province of Imerina, rose under their the French, and still leave a loophole king Andrianimpaira to challenge the for Britain until Radama died and the Sakalava; and before the Hovas fell, Princess Ranavalona mounted the removed by the French in 1895, they throne. had conquered the entire northern and central provinces. The West was nom­ The story of Madagascar under inally under their authority and only Ranavalona has striking parallels else­ the Southwest was free. where in history, when the death of a native ruler too much under foreign The word "conquered" has an abrupt influence is followed by a wave of way of covering and ending the sagas anti-foreignism. Missions were closed, and songs and civilizations of a people. native Christians killed, property con­ To look between the lines that precede fiscated, and foreigners so badly treated the word "conquered" would take in general that in 1846 the French us through battles as numerous and British together bombarded Ta­ and, to the mstave in re­ Madagasy, prisal. as important as the Napo­ QUEENS leonic wars. TAKEOVER The mad A romantic king Radama ruler known II.nextinsuc­ as Radama I ~ cession, was ascended the killed in his throne of the palace in 1861 Hovas in (rumor had 1810, and it, through throughou t a weakness thenexteight- ;0 for European een years his mistresses) tall figure, and was suc­ head in air ceeded by his and swinging ambitious asaber,threw wife, who a dashing proceeded to shadowacross draw up trea­ Madagascar's ties with history. France, Brit- ain, and the United States during her A BRITISH ADVISER five-year reign. He had the stride of a conqueror and, unfortunately for the sake of Gradually a Madagasy nation was legend, his overstrong personality has forming. Consulates and embassies and drowned out the story of the connivings recognition abroad were the ultimate of the British adviser attached to him, goal of the Hovas, but they bad for­ a man named Hastie, who was the gotten the chess game of the giants. Lawrence of his time. Following a Up on the northeast coast, France policy used by Britain at a later date was protecting a king of the in handling sheiks and princes else­ Sakalava. True, France had a treaty where, intrigue flourished at the court with the Hovas, but this did not of Radarna. Hastie had the king's stipulate the recognition of the Hovas ear and, in consideration of various as rulers of all the island. It was gifts of money, uniforms, arms, and the old story of the balance of military instructors, was able to consol- power. 420 THE XXth CENTURY

In 1868 Queen Ranavalona II mounted it: the same boats that came loaded the throne, and in the aging records with missionaries and Bibles above of dynasty and the dry leaves of decks, were loaded with rum below; encyclopedias we have almost lost and while he was glad to welcome the sight of one of the most astute foreigners, he would not have let in a opportunists that ever ruled a people: single bottle of rum if he could have Rainilaiarivony, her Prime Minister, helped it. But he could not help it. who cinched his job by marrying the Ten years after the ascent of Queen, and ensured the Queen's position Ranavalona II to the throne, in by making himself commander in chief 1878, when altercations arose with of the army. France over the estate of the deceased French consul, Monsieur Laborde, an THREE ROYAL WIVES era of colonial expansion, particularly The three Ranavalonas one by one in Africa, was sweeping Europe and all followed the policy of marrying the Third Republic. With it the the same Prime Minister (or was it movements in Madagascar gained mo­ that he married them ?), and, as mentum, culminating in 1883 in the Voltaire said in bis own observation delivery of a French ultimatum, which on the Sallc Law, it was a good idea. the Hovas rejected and which was "With a man on the throne France followed by war with France. was always ruled by a woman. If A French army unter General Duchesne they could crown a woman the country partially subdued native resistance. might be ruled by a man." The conquest of Madagascar for France was by no means a cheap one. Over Though RainiJaiarivony had never half of tbe troops at Duchesne's disposal traveled, he was surprisingly modern. were buried along the way of a four­ With the aid of British advisers, he hundred- mile advance, cut down by built up an army of around 35,000 battle, fever, beat, and terrain. On men, the British idea being to use it the signing of a peace treaty with to keep the French out, and Rainilai­ Ranavalona III, in 1885, Madagascar, arivony's to keep himself in. He though not specifically stated as such, received any European who asked for became a French protectorate. Britain an audience; he was not overly genial, agreed to this in return for French but he was friendly, and, according to recognition of British claims to Zan­ the profession or station of his guest, zibar. had no end of questions to ask. How European nations collected customs SECRET SERVICE INTRIGUES duties was the first. Increasing the state revenue seems to have been one This was London's official attitude of Rainilaiarivony's worries; but that of course; but there is a peculiar phase he did not care to do it through the to French and British relations far rum trade is an outstanding point in from London and Paris that one must his favor. know in order to understand it. It is a policy of not letting the right hand MISSIONARIES AND RUM know wbat the left hand does, that might be compared to the pre-war Following the anti-foreign wave un­ workings of the Communist Interna­ der , Madagascar had tionale. While a treaty might be signed been thrown open to foreign trade or situation recognized between these and influence. The London Missionary two countries, the workings of Briti h Society reopened their missions, traders, agents in the places concerned are mostly British, came in, and com­ subject to no discussion in the House pulsory importation of rum came with of Commons. Neither England nor them. The effect on the natives was Engllshmen know of them, and the catastrophic. As Rainilaiarivony put government, when confronted with MADAGASCAR-PAWN OF THE GIA.~TS 421 evidence concerning them, denies any pher, Judith Cladel, ealled the artist­ responsibility. architect of colonization, is one of the richest in the annals of the French Every French move of expansion, army. There is an old saying among though agreed to in the diplomatic French soldiers that the names of proceedings between the two nations Caesar, Napoleon, and Gallieni rise at conference tables, has been the straight and strong like a column, and object of secret knife-work by unrec­ that Gallieni's is a column without a ognized agents. To the colonial French­ fissure. men who had to watch and cope with these intrigues comes always the Every important village in Mada­ thought: that myth of the infallibility gascar is situated in a hollow sur~ of the Secret Service, which fiction, rounded by a single, and sometimes a press, and cinema have done their best double, ring of protecting mountains, to make seem almost papal-might it entered by narrow passes which Gal- not be the Serv- lieni had to ice itself which take and which finances it in France has since order to escape fortified. T his the open parlia- isespecially true mentary di8CU8~ of Tananarive, sion that legiti~ the capital. In mate moves are spite of the lack subject to? of troops, Tana- The picture narive, su r- the colonial roundedbyapro- Frenchman has tective double seen in Greece ring of hills, is and Turkey, in probably at the Syria, Morocco, present time a and Madagas- formidable for- ear, was London tress agai nst and Paris shak~ anything but 'ng hands across John Bull: "Very JrOOd. now that tlte Funch have taken Malia. h t' t l PIJC&!', .... eaD etart colollicinc lU" para CUI S s the Channel, (F'romanoldnumbel'ofL

from the Palace to the COU,1' d'A'J'gent with a singular softness, began to over which the Queen was carried on speak: her royal litter, for the foot of Ranavalona could not touch the soil, "My dear friend, you understand French well. Do not protest at what As she held court in the COU1' d'A1'gent, I am going to say to you. I know. her eyes could look out over the vast I know that you have followed me plain between the cliff of ber palace many evenings, throwing pebbles in bill to a rim of mountains in the my path to make me lenient. I know distance. Fashionable houses are built that district chiefs have often given along this cliff now, but in the time you money because they thought you of the queens of the Hovas it was could make me change my decisions, an execution ground. The victim con­ and sometimes, on deliberation, I have demned in the court was led to the changed my decisions. In the night edge of the cliff and, without any you visit the sick, and sometimes you circumlocution, gen­ cure them. You have tly pushed over. A magic to keep women guard waited at the from having twins, base below to finish which you charge for him off if the fall did also. ,not kill him. "I know all of Ranavalona III was these things, and the last native queen there were laws to reign over Mada­ that permitted me to gascar, and her re­ prosecute you, but I moval has striking have closed my eyes, similarities to that because your father of Abd-el-Krim. Two was a sorcerer and years after the end your grandfather was of the Great War, this a sorcerer before ~1oroccan leader led for four years a you. Now I want you to do me a ..foreign-financed" insurrection and dis­ favor. rupted the French development and colonization of Morocco. Ranavalona "You know that a teacher was as­ was first sent to Reunion Island, where sassinated in the North. Go. Get into Abd-el-Krim is now exiled, and from some quiet place and make the there she was transferred to Algeria, sikidy call to the dead. Then come where she died in 1917. back and tell me what the sikid'll says." A MURDER IS SOLVED "Oui, monsieur le juge," said the On the whole there has been an cook, and meekly ambled off into the inclination on the part of the French, recesses of the kitchen. both civil and military, to listen to the natives. A short time later the cook, having A good example is found in a story followed the custom of his ancestors, came back holding a stained paper still told over CeLie tables; how a French juge d"instTuction, baffled by and, sitting down at the feet of the an unsolved murder, called on an old judge, said: "He was killed by a woman, friend one evening and asked to speak monsieur le juge. This, says the to his cook. The friend, thinking of silcid11, was done by a club on a path near fine recipes for sauce and roast chicken, the river." complied. The widow of the deceased, when The cook sat down, with a "bon SOi1', confronted by the report of the sikidy, 1nonsiew' le jnge," and the judge, confessed. Th~ plain of ~lohRmasina. lying like a huge saucer l;relll slone tuirways descend the surrounding in its hollow of protecting mountains. Its rim is heig-hts to the market place in the hollow crossl'd by narrow, fortified passes Tananarive The old pala<:c and CO",' d·.-trgent of the lJuecns of :'Iladagascar M A n .-\ G A S I E S

.-\ Ilov:l woman The noble features of a member of the rlllil1j{ tribe. the Hovlls

A woman from the interior of ~ladug:lscl1r MADAGASCAR-PAWN OF THE GIANTS 425

UNLUCKY DAYS possible weight, color, formation, con­ AND NATIVE JUSTICE dition, and direction of fall, etc. The customs and liberties of the It was hot, and the resident and his native tribes, in whom the many mys­ native friends were tired. The me­ teries, taboos, superstitions, and the teor had long been exhausted as a topic power of the priests are still strong, of conversation, and they didn't want have on the whole not been interfered to hear any more about it. And over with. a tall glass of absinthe they dispatched a reply: "BoUde 'reparti" (meteor gone Ancestor worship plays a great part back). in the life of the people; certain days, mountains, rocks, rivers, lakes, and France has fortified the harbor of animals all have special significance. Diego Suarez in the North as a naval Wednesday, the and:roftsy miverina, or base and depot for her trade with the "day of no return," is held to be a bad East. With the weaving of cotton and one to start a journey on, and Thursday silk, the manufacture of soap, sugar, is a day on which anything started is and tapioca, industries have sprung up. doomed to failure. Frenchmen treat Iron, copper, lead, zinc, antimony, them with due reverence. manganese, nickel, sulphur, graphite, and lignite coal are taken from Mada­ The Governor General, appointed by gascar to feed the smelters and fur­ France and assisted by a council of naces of France. Exports include gold 24 Europeans and 24 natives, provides dust, cattle, tanning-bark, hides, fiber, a government that is on the whole a and wax, through the busy port of liberal and a just one. Native civilian Tamatave. leaders placed over their own localities are allowed a free hand in adjusting The rainy season has just ended in their own affairs. Court cases involving Madagascar. Diego Suarez has been Europeans and natives are tried in a occupied by British forces. Tamatave, French Court with Europeans ~nd the only other good port of the island, natives presiding. Cases involving na­ may follow. It is with regret that tive versus native are settled in the one sees the lifework of two genera­ native court. tions of Frenchmen hanging in the balance. THE BOTHERSOME METEOR • • • There is an air of carefree laissez­ For some reason, out of all the !a'i,"e evident in the relations between stories, two pictures come back to my French officials and natives in the out­ mind as I think of Madagascar today: posts. A local fonctionnaire in one of The old native who had fought in the the stations in the interior, who had not campaign of Gallieni, looking at the had anything to report for a year, passed tricolor limply waving above Tananarive long bours fraternizing with native (called by the English) chieftains over a glass of liquid that and saying: "Le voila, fier comme il turned milky when you put water in it. eta'it a la veille d'Auste1·litz." It was his flag too. One day a meteor fell in his district and, delighted to have something to And the story of the bitten lieutenant. report, he telegraphed Tananarive, It was in 1901 or 1902, in Tananarive. which in turn cabled Paris. The French used to gather in the Suddenly messages started pouring evening in a little club in the Place into Tananarive and from Tananarive d'Andohalo, where the Lycee Gallieni to the outpost: How big was the is now, to talk over the news of the meteor? Send specimens at once! Did town and the outposts. it burst in the air or break on landing? One evening it was learned that a Prepare complete description as to young lieutenant commanding a minor 426 THE XX.th CENTURY post at Tsiombe had been bitten by a and the natives rejoiced as mucb mad dog and was being rushed by as the whites. Now fine motor high­ litter to Tananarive. The message had ways and an airline extend over the come over the hills to the capital by route the lieutenant crossed by litter, signal, and from that night on, every and Tananarive is only six days by evening, from all corners of the city air from Paris. the people-Frenchmen and natives Telegraph systems, hotels, and tele­ alike-came for news of the phones are spread out in a sick lieutenant. long line over a country that Tsiombe, to them, was on ten years ago was believed the other side of the world, impassable. The energy and and they did not think he lives of Frenchmen have made could make it. The journey it an integralpartof the great overland was a perilous, empire of France, and no good if not an impossible, one. can come from any attempt But he made it after all, to change it now.

THE "FOUR LANDS"

OST Germans, unless they happen to be from Hamburg, would look at you M in some bewilderment if you were to ask them about the Vierlande, the "Four Lands." But a native of Hamburg would wax enthusiastic and probably tell you that the finest fruit he ever tasted came from there. Vierlande is a district consisting of four parishes in the delta of the River Elbe. Its fertile, marshy soil provides the great city of Hamburg with most of its fruit, vegetables, and flowers. On shallow arms of the Elbe, motor lighters move from farm to farm, collecting their produce by the basketful and carrying it down the river to the markets of Hamburg. There you can see rows of baskets along the banks, brimming with tomatoes, plums, apples, pears, horse-radishes, and flowers. Although the Vierlande are scarcely more than ten miles upriver from the metropolis of Hamburg, they have retained much of their old-world atmosphere. The only modern note is the huge greenhouses, in which roses, lilies of the valley, and narcissi are grown. But otherwise the thatched houses with their carved wooden gates stand in the fields between the high dikes just as they have stood for generations. The scenery is not unlike the marshlands below Shanghai, where the roofs of the farmhouses also barely peep above the level of the dikes. And when you enter one of the farmhouses of the Vierlande you feel even more transported into an age gone by. To keep out the damp, the inside walls are usually tiled like those of Dutch farmhouses. The ancient, heavy cupboards and chests, the chairs and tables, and the grandfather clocks-all are decorated with rich inlay work. If you are lucky and happen to be there on a holiday, you will see the people in their ancient finery handed down from generation to generation: the men in top hats, jerkins, and breeches, with rows of heavy silver buttons, the women with gay embroidery and silver ornaments on their dresses.