PREFACE

of the work; in case of success, I claim only the merit of having chosen them.

The task was indeed vast enough and complex enough to exceed the competence of a single person. Unlike most African colonies, whose past—as virgin as their forests—is reduced to the history of the effort of European explorers to penetrate them, the Sudan In this context, "Sudan" refers to the French Sudan (Soudan Français), a vast territory in West Africa that encompasses modern-day Mali and parts of neighboring countries. has a history. It is a history little known and imperfectly documented, but real, and capable of taking shape and rewarding the labor of whoever will unravel its obscurities and uncertainties.

In the times of Greece, Carthage, and the ancient Egyptian dynasties, the Sudan was in commercial relations with the Mediterranean, the cradle of ancient civilizations. Those caravans of old had to cross a Sahara that was very probably less sterile and less inhospitable than that of today.

The Sudan was touched by the Arab conquest; from its mysterious borders emerged the Almoravids A Berber imperial dynasty that ruled the Maghreb and Al-Andalus (Spain) in the 11th and 12th centuries. who conquered the Maghreb The region of Northwest Africa, including present-day Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. and Spain; it saw the founding and disappearance of great Black empires; Moroccan armies invaded and dominated certain of its provinces for more than a century. Finally, the account of the French conquest, begun in 1880 and only recently completed, remains to be written. This epic, misunderstood and poorly judged because it is too close to us, has lacked its Bernal Diaz Bernal Díaz del Castillo (c. 1492–1584), a soldier and chronicler who wrote a famous first-hand account of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. and its Heredia José-Maria de Heredia (1842–1905), a French poet known for his work "The Trophies," which celebrated the exploits of explorers and conquerors..

One would admire first of all the continuity of designs and effort, from the distant plans traced with such remarkable foresight by the likes of Bouët-Willaumez and Faidherbe, to the uninterrupted series of military expeditions begun by Brière de l'Isle and Borgnis-Desbordes, continued by Frey, Galliéni, Humbert, Archinard, Combe, Audéoud, de Trentinian, Gouraud... I pass over many other excellent men.

There, one would see enterprises of the maddest temerity, conducted with the coldest intrepidity, justifying by their success the most daring philosophical theories on the power of the will. General Combe, in the campaigns against Samori Samori Ture (c. 1830–1900), the founder of the Wassoulou Empire and a primary leader of resistance against French colonial rule in West Africa.,