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If you've ever seen a map of post-scrambled Africa, you'll notice that a massive chunk of it went to France. The French conquered most of these lands during the mid to late 19th century, a period in which France was internationally isolated, prone to instability and revolution, as well as a nation whose strength had declined relative to the other European great powers. In spite of this, when Africa was being divided up between European nations, the French took all of this, and the other European powers didn't really complain or do anything to stop it, which raises the question, why did France get such a massive amount of Africa? Why was a nation which brought Europe to its knees within the last
century allowed to gain the power and wealth that so much land would bring? You'll probably be aware that France's adventures into Africa were not its first foray into empire building. Alongside a couple of small colonies on the African coast and in India, the French were primarily interested in North America and the Caribbean. However, after the Seven Years' War, it lost much of what's now Canada to Britain, but secretly yielded this territory to Spain before the Brits could take it for themselves, because spite. Napoleon would soon get it back briefly so he could sell it to the
United States just in time to watch as Haiti broke away. Now, Napoleon preferred to keep his conquests confined to Europe, which was met with some resistance. And as you'll know, he eventually lost, was ousted, made himself un-ousted, lost again, and was shipped off to Ascension Island here, where he would remain for the rest of his life. Needless to say, the whole conquering your neighbors, carving up their kingdoms, and forcing their elites to flee or adopt a new system of government didn't endear France to the rest of Europe. And whilst Napoleon had been replaced by a revived Bourbon monarchy and some of France's overseas territories had been returned to it, its neighbors were fully aware of just how
powerful France could get in the right circumstances. As a result, in the years following Napoleon's defeat, France was routinely sidelined. And when it did get involved with other great powers, efforts were made to make sure that it didn't stand to gain too much. This semi-united front by the other four great powers didn't take long to crack. And the French realized that if they painted their military interventions as part of some obvious common good, then nobody was going to stop them. For example, when the French began their conquest of Algiers, it officially wasn't to build an empire and make themselves more powerful, it was to stop the slave trade and piracy originating from the region. And to be fair to the
French, they did stop it. But as a bonus, France now had a foothold in North Africa which it could expand from, and none of the other great powers could really complain. France's colonial conquest briefly died down after this, and during the late 1840s and 1850s, the French cozied up to the British. Allying with London during the Crimean War and the Second Opium War meant that France's power was now being used to help its former enemy, whose main rival was now Russia because of the Great Game. And so, the British weren't feeling threatened by France increasing the size of its empire. With this, France, now ruled by president no, wait, Emperor Napoleon III, engaged in some more
empire building. The conquest of Algeria slowly plotted along, and Napoleon was quick to remind the other powers that he didn't want to expand the French empire in Europe, which certainly helped to calm things down there. Furthermore, Napoleon III began the conquest of Vietnam and what would later become French Indochina, which was done for pretty much the same reasons as any other European colonial empire. France wanted resources to extract that it couldn't get in France, people to tax and use for labor and military service. It wanted captured markets to sell its products to, and for Vietnam in particular, it meant that France could have a permanent presence in East Asia that would grant it easy access to China. Another important reason was
obviously that of proselytization. The British and the Dutch were spreading Protestantism, the Russians were spreading Eastern Orthodoxy, and whilst both Spain and Portugal were Catholic, their power had waned so much that in the eyes of France, it was left to them to spread Catholicism to these places, whether they wanted it or not. Whilst Napoleon did have a couple of cheeky attempts to expand France proper at the cost of Belgium and Luxembourg, it was through Sardinia that France managed to gain more territory in Europe. After the French helped them to defeat the Austrians, the Sardinians handed over these lands to France in 1860, which they claimed was done via popular
referendum. The British didn't buy this, and the two nations subsequently fell out. And as I'm sure you're aware, in the following years, France did not have a good time. Its attempt to create a puppet state in Mexico failed and damaged its relationship with the United States. And after a dispute over a Prussian taking the Spanish throne, the French were goaded into starting a war with the North German Confederation and by extension its allies. As you'll know, the French army was crushed, Napoleon was ousted, and a republic declared. And from this victory, Germany unified. Following this, France was yet again pushed into a period of isolation due to Bismarck being Bismarck. For France's
new leaders, they had one overriding objective: restore France's international prestige, which its recent loss had severely damaged. Since France was now considered to be fourth amongst the European powers, and that just wouldn't do. The way that they planned to do this was by repairing relations with the other great powers and notably building a large colonial empire. And because much of the rest of the world was already colonized by other Europeans, that meant that they would have to wage war to get those colonies. And thus, the easiest and best option was Africa, because France already had some holdings there, and because the vast majority of it had yet to be claimed. Meaning that France would be able to avoid conflict by simply
grabbing as much of it as possible. Now, it's important to note that not everyone in France was happy with colonial expansion at this time. Jules Grévy, for example, the French president throughout most of the 1880s, fundamentally opposed colonialism and empire building. However, the real power lay not with him, but with his prime ministers and their ministers under them, who, for the most part, alongside the French military, were very much in favor of imperialism and conquest. And also fighting Germany, but that would come later. Against Grévy's wishes, France expanded its empire into Africa, and by the mid-1880s, they had taken all of this. Obviously, this sudden surge of interest in Africa meant that when rival
claims overlapped, there was a risk of war, which is why German Chancellor and world champion of smiling Otto von Bismarck called the Berlin Conference in 1884, not to be confused with the previous 1878 Berlin Congress, which was held to figure out what Bulgaria is. The conference was meant to lay the ground rules for the Scramble for Africa to avoid bloodshed. Of Europeans, that is, not you guys. There's a common misconception that this conference of the great powers carve up the continent and draw new borders, but this mostly wasn't the case. They all agreed that the main reason that they set up African colonies was to totally end that slave trade. And if, as a result of said
compassion, some of them just happened to become insanely wealthy, well, that was a side effect that they would have to come to terms with. Now, whilst I am being a bit snide, it's important to note that the Europeans did effectively end the slave trade in Africa by the early 1910s. The conference also guaranteed these lands to King Leopold of Belgium in order to avoid conflict between Britain, France, and Germany, thus leading to the nightmare that was the Congo Free State. But perhaps most importantly, it was agreed that in order to claim an area, you actually had to hold some influence there. Essentially, flags, battles, and soldiers. This was mostly to stop other nations from just
claiming everything in the interior like the Spanish and the Portuguese had done previously. But in practice, it largely meant that the smaller states and land-focused empires were essentially priced out of participating in any significant way. So, with that settled, it was off to the races, and the French were very quick to pounce. And during this time, the French people's opinion on empire was mixed. For example, Jules Ferry, the prime minister, was forced out of office in 1885 due to popular discontent over his waging excessive wars of conquest, with many people believing that French young men were being sacrificed in Vietnam and China for either negligible gains or for businesses to make even greater profits.
Opposition to colonial wars didn't just come from the liberal side of French politics, either. Some hardline conservatives and nationalists were worried that focusing on overseas empire building would detract from what should be France's primary goal, killing Germans, as a means of allowing France to regain Alsace-Lorraine. That said, there was greater support for the conquest of Africa than Asia, mostly because it was viewed through the romantic lens of ending slavery, deposing despots, and saving souls through religious conversions. And also, barring disease, the wars were often quicker and simpler than those in Asia, which was an easier sell. So, what about opposition to French expansion from other scramblers? At this point,
Portugal and Spain were too weak to prevent France's expansion, whereas Germany wasn't able to effectively project enough power into and across Africa. Also, Wilhelm II, Germany's brand new emperor, had decided to fire Bismarck, meaning that the German empire's diplomatic talents were severely reduced, which meant that not only did France's diplomatic come to an end, but rising fear of this brash Germany made it easy to find willing partners, notably Britain, who just wanted the greater powers to stay away from the Suez Canal and for France to keep clear of South Africa. But barring those two demands, London was more than happy with France and to a lesser extent Italy grabbing large chunks of Africa if it meant that Germany couldn't get them.
Also, whilst France obviously wanted the increased power and wealth that came from an overseas empire, it desperately wanted one that was visibly large and imposing when printed on maps, because its sheer size would look impressive and buoy national pride. The fact that sizable chunks of its West African conquest were either deserts or sparsely populated didn't change that. By 1914, France had taken all of this. And when France finally got its war with Germany, the French were able to conscript a great many peoples from its colonies to aid in said conflict. And after the Central Powers were defeated, Berlin lost all of its African colonies, too, with these bits of them going to France,
thereby supplementing France's already massive holdings in Africa, most of which they would hold onto until the 1960s, when, like Britain, it all came crashing down. I hope you enjoyed this episode, with a special thanks to my patrons, James Bizenet, Sky Shoppe Katowice, Gustav Swan, Marvin Cassell, Winston Kaywood, Anthony Beckett, Ryan Hockey, Alex Swin, Andy McGee, Paul H, Merza Ahmed, Air Firefly, Copper Tone, Yudu An Wang, Shu En, L Diamond, Roddy Martin, The McWopper, Captain Sidock, Spencer Lightfoot, Respectable Level of Chaos, Robert Z. Perkins, The Flying Deutschland, Castle Bravo, Commun Yun, Michael Holbert, Raj Mohana Panicker, Starry Nights, Calitro, The Gym Stanum, Bonnie Bounds, Jim Strumberg, Remco Hoistman, Charles I,
Bet Cabot, and Lord Beak.
