Thus both in the Gold Coast hinterland and in the Lagos hinterland
a door was left wide open to the north of the 9th parallel.
Notwithstanding her strenuous efforts, France, in her advance
down the Niger from Senegal, did not succeed in reaching Sego
on the upper Niger, a considerable distance above Timbuktu,
until the winter of 1890-1891, and the rapid advance of British
influence up the river raised serious fears lest the Royal Niger
Company should reach Timbuktu before France could forestall
her. It was, no doubt, this consideration that induced the
French government to consent to the insertion in the agreement
of the 5th of August 1890, by which Great Britain recognized
France's protectorate over Madagascar, of the following article:
The Government of Her Britannic Majesty recognizes the sphere of
influence of France to the south of her Mediterranean possessions
up to a line from Say on the Niger to Barrua on Lake Chad, drawn
m such a manner as to comprise in the sphere of action of the
Niger Company all that fairly belongs to the kingdom of Sokoto;
the line to be determined by the commissioners to be appointed.
The commissioners never were in fact appointed, and the
proper meaning to be attached to this article subsequently
became a subject of bitter controversy between the two
countries. An examination of the map of West Africa will
show what possibilities of trouble were left open at the
end of 1890 by the various agreements concluded up to that
date. From Say on the Niger to where the Lagos frontier came
to an abrupt stop in 9 deg. N. there was no boundary line between
the French and British spheres of influence. To the north
of the Gold Coast and of the French Ivory Coast colony the
way was equally open to Great Britain and to France, while
the vagueness of the Say-Barrua line left an opening of which
France was quick to avail herself. Captain P. L. Monteil,
who was despatched by the French government to West Africa in
1890, immediately after the conclusion of the August agreement,
did not hesitate to pass well to the south of the Say-Barrua
line, and to attempt to conclude treaties with chiefs who
were, beyond all question, within the British sphere. Still
farther south, on the Benue river, the two expeditions of
Lieutenant Mizon--in 1890 and 1892--failed to do any real
harm to British interests. In 1892 an event happened which
had an important bearing on the future course of the dispute.
French advance Timbuktu.
After a troublesome war with Behanzin king of to the native
state of Dahomey, France annexed some portion of Dahomeyan
territory on the coast, and declared a protectorate over
the rest of the kingdom. Thus was removed the barrier which
had up to that time prevented France from pushing her way
Nigerwards from her possessions on the Slave Coast, as well
as from the upper Niger and the Ivory Coast. Henceforth
her progress from all these directions was rapid, and in
particular Timbuktu was occupied in the last days of 1893.
In 1894 it appears to have been suddenly realized in France
that, for the development of the vast regions which she was
placing under her protection in West Africa, it was extremely
desirable that she should obtain free access to the navigable
portions of the Niger, if not on the left bank, from which she
was excluded by the Say-Barrua agreement, then on the right
bank, where the frontier had still to be fixed by international
agreement. In the neighbourhood of Bussa there is a long
stretch of the river so impeded by rapids that navigation is
practically impossible, except in small boats and at considerable
risk. Below these rapids France had no foothold on the river,
both banks from Bussa to the sea being within the British
sphere. In 1890 the Royal Niger Company had concluded a treaty
with the emir and chiefs of Bussa (or Borgu); but the French
declared that the real paramount chief of Borgu was not the
king of Bussa, but the king of Nikki, and three expeditions
were despatched in hot haste to Nikki to take the king under
French protection. Sir George Goldie, however, was not to be
baffled. While maintaining the validity of the earlier treaty
with Bussa, he despatched Captain (afterwards General Sir) F.
D. Lugard to Nikki, and Lugard was successful in distancing
all his French competitors by several days, reaching Nikki
on the 5th of November 1894 and concluding a treaty with the
king and chiefs. The French expeditions, which were in great
strength, did not hesitate on their arrival to compel the
king to execute fresh treaties with France, and with these in
their possession they returned to Dahomey. Shortly afterwards
a fresh act of aggression was committed. On the 13th of
February 1895 a French officer, Commandant Toutee, arrived
on the right bank of the Niger opposite Bajibo and built a
fort. His presence there was notified to the Royal Niger
Company, who protested to the British government against
this invasion of their territory. Lord Rosebery, who was
then foreign minister, at once made inquiries in Paris, and
received the assurance that Commandant Toutee was ``a private
traveller.'' Eventually Commandant Toutee was ordered to
withdraw, and the fort was occupied by the Royal Niger Company's
troops. Commandant Toutee subsequently published the official
instructions from the French government under which he had
acted. It was thought that the recognition of the British
claims, involved in the withdrawal of Commandant Toutee,
had marked the final abandonment by France of the attempt
to establish herself on the navigable portions of the Niger
below Bussa, but in 1897 the attempt was renewed in the most
determined manner. In February of that year a French force
suddenly occupied Bussa, and this act was quickly followed
by the occupation of Gomba and Illo higher up the river. In
November 1897 Nikki was occupied. The situation on the Niger
had so obviously been outgrowing the capacity of a chartered
company that for some time before these occurrences the
assumption of responsibility for the whole of the Niger region
The Franco-British settlement of 1898.
by the imperial authorities had been practically decided on;
and early in 1898 Lugard was sent out to the Niger with a number
of imperial officers to raise a local force in preparation for
the contemplated change. The advance of the French forces from
the south and west was the signal for an advance of British
troops from the Niger, from Lagos and from the Gold Coast
protectorate. The situation thus created was extremely
serious. The British and French flags were flying in close
proximity, in some cases in the same village. Meanwhile the
diplomatists were busy in London and in Paris, and in the latter
capital a commission sat for many months to adjust the conflicting
claims. Fortunately, by the tact and forbearance of the officers
on both sides, no local incident occurred to precipitate a
collision, and on the 14th of June 1898 a convention was signed
by Sir Edmund Monson and M. G. Hanotaux which practically
completed the partition of this part of the continent.
The settlement effected was in the nature of a compromise.
France withdrew from Bussa, Gomba and Illo, the frontier
line west of the Niger being drawn from the 9th parallel to
a point ten miles, as the crow flies, above Giri, the port of
Illo. France was thus shut out from the navigable portion of
the middle and lower Niger; but for purely commercial purposes
Great Britain agreed to lease to France two small plots of land
on the river-the one on the right bank between Leaba and the
mouth of the Moshi river, the other at one of the mouths of the
Niger. By accepting this line Great Britain abandoned Nikki
and a great part of Borgu as well as some part of Gando to
France. East of the Niger the Say-Barrua line was modified
in favour of France, which gained parts of both Sokoto and
Bornu where they meet the southern edge of the Sahara. In the
Gold Coast hinterland the French withdrew from Wa, and Great
Britain abandoned all claim to Mossi, though the capital of
the latter country, together with a further extensive area
in the territory assigned to both powers, was declared to be
equally free, so far as trade and navigation were concerned,
to the subjects and protected persons of both nationalities.
The western boundary of the Gold Coast was prolonged along
the Black Volta as far as latitude 11 deg. N., and this parallel
was followed with slight deflexions to the Togoland frontier.
In consequence of the acute crisis which shortly afterwards
occurred between France and Great Britain on the upper Nile,
the ratification of this agreement was delayed until after
the conclusion of the Fashoda agreement of March 1899 already
referred to. In 1900 the two patches on the Niger leased to
France were selected by commissioners representing the two
countries, and in the same year the Anglo-French frontier
from Lagos to the west bank of the Niger was delimited.
East of the Niger the frontier, even as modified in 1898,
failed to satisfy the French need for a practicable route to
Lake Chad, and in the convention of the 8th of April 1904, to
which reference has been made under Egypt and Morocco, it was
Further concessions to France.
agreed, as part of the settlement of the French shore question
in Newfoundland, to deflect the frontier line more to the
south. The new boundary was described at some length, but
provision was made for its modification in points of detail
on the return of the commissioners engaged in surveying the
frontier region. In 1906 an agreement was reached on all
points, and the frontier at last definitely settled, sixteen
years after the Say-Barrua line had been fixed. This revision
of the Niger-Chad frontier did not, however, represent the
only territorial compensation received by France in West
Africa in connexion with the settlement of the Newfoundland
question. By the same convention of April 1904 the British
government consented to modify the frontier between Senegal
and the Gambia colony ``so as to give to France Yarbutenda
and the lands and landing-places belonging to that locality,''
and further agreed to cede to France the tiny group of islands
off the coast of French Guinea known as the Los Islands.
Meantime the conclusion of the 1898 convention had left both
the British and the French governments free to devote increased
attention to the subdivision and control of their West African
possessions. On the 1st of January 1900 the imperial authorities
assumed direct responsibility for the whole of the territories
of the Royal Niger Company, which became henceforth a purely
commercial undertaking. The Lagos protectorate was extended
northwards; the Niger Coast protectorate, likewise with extended
frontiers, became Southern Nigeria; while the greater part
of the territories formerly administered by the company were
constituted into the protectorate of Northern Nigeria--all
three administrations being directly under the Colonial
Office In February 1906 the administration of the Southern
Nigerian protectorate was placed under that of Lagos at the
same time as the name of the latter was changed to the Colony
of Southern Nigeria, this being a step towards the eventual
Organization of the British and French protectorates.
amalgamation of all three dependencies under one governor or
governor-general. In French West Africa changes in the
internal frontiers have been numerous and important. The
coast colonies have all been increased in size at the expense
