Paul Flatters

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Paul Flatters

Paul François Xavier Flatters (born September 16, 1839 in Laval (Mayenne) , † February 16, 1881 in the Sahara ) was a French officer and Africa explorer. He died on an expedition to explore a route for the Transsahara Railway .

Life

Paul Flatters became a second lieutenant in the infantry in 1853 and a lieutenant in 1855, in 1864 he was promoted to captain and in 1871 he became battalion chief. On May 3, 1879, the Lieutenant-Colonel was supposed to return to France from Algeria , where he had served for a long time, but was then tasked with exploring the route for a railway line from Tunis to Lake Chad via Timbuktu in Senegal .

On March 5, 1880, he and 39 people set out from Ouargla to the south. From Timassinin he turned to the southeast. On April 16, 1880, he camped on Lake Menghough . On May 17th, after exploring the first part of the route, he returned to Ouargla and prepared a new expedition from there.

Chocolate collector's picture for the Flatters' expedition

He set out for this with 92 men and more than 300 camels on December 4, 1880. He headed for Asiou , from where he hoped to get to Sudan without any problems . On February 16, 1881, he arrived in Bir-el-Gharama , about 200 kilometers north of Asiou. Around 600 men from the Tuareg tribes Senoussya, Hoggar and Ouled-Sidi-Cheikh had gathered there. They attacked the expedition and killed Paul Flatters, the Capitaine Masson, the engineers Roche and Béringer, the doctor Guiard, the district captain Dennery and several other people.

Flatters had sent word of his plans to cross the area to one of the Tuareg leaders , Ahitigal. The planning of a railway line through the Sahara, however, was not welcome to the Tuareg, who made their living from the caravans in their area, and Ahitigal had warned Flatters not to enter his area with his expedition. But Flatters hadn't taken that into consideration and had kept his route. At Amguid, under the leadership of two Tuareg from the Ifora tribe, he had entered the completely unknown territory of the Hoggar. In a south-easterly direction the group had moved on to the Amadror plain , which lay between the Tassilibergen in the north and the Hoggar mountains in the south. When Ahitigal realized that Flatters was not following his advice to leave the area untouched, he sent his son Attici ould Chikat with some emissaries to lure him deeper into his territory. Attici persuaded Flatters to dismiss his Ifora leaders and confide in the native Tuareg. The new leaders led the expedition into the mountains and finally suggested separating the group threatened by water shortages. All pack animals should go ahead with empty water containers and bring fresh water for the rest of the group. Flatters agreed, had the pack animals led by the Tuareg and accompanied by an officer, the doctor, two engineers and other people go ahead and stayed with the rest of the group in a bivouac to wait for the water transport. Here he and his companions were attacked by the Tuareg, who slaughtered almost the entire group that was left behind.

Follow the expedition

The survivors were around 700 miles from Ouargla and had firearms but no camels. Nevertheless, they decided to return to their base station on foot. They initially moved in the direction of Amguid, but quickly realized that they were being pursued by the Tuareg and had to expect an attack. Two days before the expected arrival in Amguid, some Tuareg made contact with the refugees, behaved in a friendly manner and provided them with food. However, the food was poisoned with ifalezlez ( henbane ), a plant whose alkaloids hyoscyamine and scopolamine cause hallucinations and disorientation. Still, some of the expedition members survived and continued to try to escape from the desert. A gun battle broke out in front of Amguid. The Tuareg initially withdrew, but then began to kill prisoners in front of the expedition members by knocking them off rocks or beheading them. The last French officer was killed in action and the escapees were now led by Sergeant Pobeguin. Under cover of darkness he was able to lead the survivors beyond Amguid and start the 450 mile walk to Ouargla. Numerous people, including Pobeguin, died along the way. The last participants in the expedition finally turned to cannibalism because of hunger and ate the dead. On March 28, 1881, some survivors reached Ouargla.

Under the leadership of Lieutenant Dianous, the last survivors of the battle and the retreat arrived in Messeguem on April 4, 1881 . Only a few of the 93 expedition participants returned. The records that had been made along the way were lost. It was only possible to reconstruct some of his observations on the basis of a few letters that Flatters had written on the way. For a long time, this highly incomplete piece of information remained the most secure information about the Central Sahara for Europeans.

Paul Flatters' unsuccessful expedition through Africa was addressed by Michael Asher in his work Sands of Death . The Algerian department of Flatters was named after Paul Flatters.

Monument in Paris

literature

  • Flatters, Mission d'exploration dans le Sahara central , in: Bull. De l'Union geogr. du Nord, 1880
  • V. Derrécagaix, Exploration du Sahara; les deux missions Flatters , Paris 1882
  • Deuxième Mission Flatters , historique et rapport réd. au service cent. of the aff. indig., Alger 1882
  • Documents relatifs à la mission dirigée par le lieut-col. Flatters , Paris 1884
  • H. Brosselard, Les Deux Missions Flatters , Paris ²1889
  • Asher, Michael, Sands of Death, An Epic Tale of Massacre & Survival in the Sahara ISBN 978-0-7538-2358-3 , 2007

Web links

Commons : Paul Flatters  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Edward C. Bimberg gives slightly different figures; according to his treatise, there were ten French and 78 local people.
  2. http://www.wwcc.cc.wy.us/library/pdf/Faceless%20Warriors%20of%20the%20Sahara.pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.wwcc.cc.wy.us  
  3. The figures vary between 21 and 12, for example here .
  4. Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alger-roi.net