Colonization of the Wadai
The colonization of the Wadai was a French colonial campaign with which the French 1909–1912 achieved the subjugation of the tribes in what is now eastern Chad and destroyed the empire of Wadai . The campaign was part of the so-called Race for Africa , in which between 1880 and the First World War the European powers France , the German Empire , Great Britain and Italy vied with each other to use their superior military power to conquer the last not yet colonized areas of Africa.
The region before the French conquest
The geographic region of the Wadai borders on the Sudanese region of Darfur , which came under direct colonial rule only after the British expedition in 1916 . The area is semi-arid , the terrain is rocky and hilly, with the valleys partially forested. In Dar Tar the heights reach 1200 m.
The population of the Wadai, made up of different tribes who were still involved in the slave trade at that time , was divided into three classes: the upper class (hourin), the peasant class (mesakin) and the slaves (abyd). At the head was the sultan (kolak) with a personal retinue of 1,400 people. He ruled the empire of Wadai , which had existed for more than 400 years, with the help of chiefs (agad) and village chiefs (mandjak) .
Due to the stable political conditions in Wadai and the associated security, this was the most profitable Trans-Saharan route from the Mediterranean to Black Africa. Two routes led from Abéché through Dar Fur to al-Faschir : a northern trade route through Dar Tama, the southern pilgrimage route through the land of the Masalit . The trade route went north to the Kufra oases.
Campaigns
First phase
The German captain and Foreign Legionnaire Fliegenschuh commanded the Fitri sub-district . He received 1909 message in April that the Sultan of Wadai Mohammed Salih Dud Murra place Birket Fatima plane attack. The entire available force of 180 Senegalese tirailleurs with 2 guns and 300 auxiliary troops was set on the march and pushed the attackers back on Abéché . The wadaiis, which had meanwhile grown to around 3,000 riflemen, were beaten in Wadi Shauk . Around 360 Wadai died and around the same number were wounded. Flyshoe was wounded and was represented by Lieutenant Bourreau until he recovered at the end of the year .
The French now marched directly on the city. The sultan capitulated after a short bombardment and fled on June 2nd. The victorious French, who established a regent “Sultan” Acyl , which they liked , left a garrison of 330 Senegalese in the city . Furthermore, they were of the opinion that they would now have sovereignty over the entire region and issued an order to hand over all rifles. By October control was extended to the three districts (dars) Dar Tama, Dar Sila and Dar Gimr . Dar Masalit still remained independent. On November 1, Lieutenant Colonel Moll was appointed military governor of Chad.
The French forces were insufficient to defend a 900 km long border, as various warlike tribes lived near it. The first to invade the Abéché area towards the end of the year was the Sultan of Dar Masalit Taj al-Din . Fliegenschuh followed him from December 31st with a company of Senegalese (3 officers, 109 men). On January 4, 1910, they were ambushed in Wadi Kajja , near today's al-Junaina in Sudan, and were destroyed; also: "Battle of Kirnding". 180 rifles and 20,000 rounds fell into the hands of the sultan's men.
It took five weeks for French reinforcements to arrive in troubled Abéché under the command of Major Julien . In the meantime, the Masalit plundered the Dar Tama district. About 1,500 fur under Adam Rijal, a general of Ali Dinar , were active around Gueréda . The fallen Dud Murra was ready to attack Abéché in the north of the Wadai.
At the end of March, Captain Chauvelot asked Julien for permission to attack a fortified Fur camp near Gueréda with his 120 Senegalese and some auxiliaries . In half-hour hand-to-hand combat, the French used 11,000 rounds and wounded 12. The Fur fled, leaving 200 dead.
Second phase
After reinforcements, the French troop strength in all of Central Africa in mid-1910 was 4,200 infantrymen , divided into twelve local companies, four of which were each assigned to the defense of Ubangi-Shari , Chad and Wadai.
At the end of October Moll set out on a punitive expedition against the Masalit . The troops were divided into two columns, the first had 300 men and 2 guns, the second 130 men. The first was to march on the main village of the Masalit Darjil , the second to track down Dud Murra.
After a 4½ day march, the first column reached Daroti near its destination. They formed behind an inadequately protective palisade (zeriba) . About 5000 Masalit began attacking around 9am on November 9th. Moll (* 1871) only let the gunfire open from a distance of 200 m, rifle fire only started when the massed attackers came within 100 m. This was too late to stop the attack, also because panic transport camels were running around within the palisade. Most of the officers and NCOs were killed by the onrushing masses, the guns failed, and the battle seemed to be lost after a few minutes of close combat. Captain Chauvelot returned from a patrol just at the beginning of the attack and gathered a few stragglers behind a knoll, a total of about 100 riflemen. The group stabbed the masalit, who had already begun to plunder, in the rear, re-occupied the cannons and drove the attackers to flight. Of the Masalit, 600 fell dead, including Taj al-Din and 40 of his family members. Dud Murra escaped with a facial wound. Five of the Europeans were still fit for action, eight officers had died and five were wounded. Of the local 310 men, 28 were dead, 69 wounded and 14 missing. The ammunition was almost used up, practically all the transport animals were stolen or killed, there was no longer any contact with the second column, and a new attack by the Masalit had to be expected at any time. Only on the 16th did they see themselves in a position to retreat.
The commander of the second column, Captain Arnaud , received word of the defeat from scattered auxiliary troops and marched to Bir Tawil (about 50 km north of Daroti ), where he believed that the first troop had been destroyed. On the 17th the columns met and on November 20th, 1910, they reached safe territory.
Third phase
After a brief period of consolidation, the French defeated the Sultan of Dar Kuti in early 1911 . Then they turned to the Fur, who were meanwhile looting slaves in the unprotected region of Dar Tama. On April 11, a unit, again commanded by Chauvelot, succeeded in chasing the Fur out of its base near Kapka and the French territory.
In the northern Ennendi region , a camel-mounted troop (méharistes) of 120 men and 200 auxiliary troops, commanded by Major Hillaire , struck the Khoan under Sidi Saleh in May . After previously still a gang Tuareg under Kassoan was beaten, it came on May 20 at Kafra to another battle, which forced the survivors Khoan to flee to Dar Fur.
Captain Chauvelot encountered Dud Murra's armed forces on June 29, during a reconnaissance mission, which consisted of around 2,000 men, but none of them Masalit. Its renewed uprising was called the Kodoi Rebellion by the French . It originated in Dar Tama, where the new masters opposed the levying of taxes. The rebel troop was quickly broken up and Dud Murra was able to escape into the Masalit area. He soon offered to give up if in return he would be granted a small, independent domain in the border area. On October 14th he surrendered to a French delegation in the Wadai and rode with dignity on the white horse of the fallen Moll on the 27th in Abéché. He was then placed under more or less house arrest at Fort Lamy but received a pension of £ 40 a month. This ended the resistance against the colonial rulers in French Equatorial Africa .
consequences
Taj al-Din's successor as Sultan of the Masalit was Bahr al-Din Abu Bakr Ismail in 1910 , who served under French suzerainty until 1951. After the conquest and the Italian occupation of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica , which began in 1911 , the transport of slaves by caravans to Benghazi was stopped. The local rulers were thereby deprived of their main source of income from which they had financed their private armies. The French puppet Acyl was deposed in 1912 when its loyalty was doubted and the Wadai was placed under direct French administration.
Furnishing
The Senegalese tirailleurs , serving as teams for the French , wore a dark blue tunic, red fez with a light blue tassel, knickerbockers and sandals. In combat operations, the blue uniform was replaced by a white one. They were armed with the reliable M.93 Lebel rifle (model 1886) , which was manufactured in a modified form until the 1960s, with which around nine aimed shots per minute were possible in combat. Machine guns were not used in these campaigns. The equipment also included a machete (panga) . Officers wore the usual tropical uniform.
The Masalit were regionally known as warlike. They usually wore white robes. Senior citizens wore white turban and sashes. You throwing knives used (60-90 cm) and axes, as long as they are not usually on firearms Remington - repeating rifles possessed. Traditionally they formed up in units that had a fanned out, about 100-strong mounted vanguard, followed by the main column of infantrymen. Cavalry brought up the rear.
See also
literature
- René-Joseph Bret: Vie du Sultan Mohamed Bakhit 1856–1916. La Pénétration française au Dar Sila, Tchad. Editions du Center National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 1987, ISBN 2-222-03901-0 ( Contributions à la Connaissance des Élites Africaines 5).
- Erwin Herbert: Risings and Rebellions 1919–1939. Interwar Colonial Campaigns in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Foundry Books, Nottingham 2007, ISBN 978-1-901543-12-4 , pp. 169-174 ( Armies of the 20th Century ).
- HH Wade: The Conquest of Wadai. In: United Service Magazine. 221, 1012. March 1913, ZDB -ID 763643-x , pp. 636-637.