Table Of ContentTHE IDEOLOGY OF FRENCH IMPERIALISM
1871-1881
THE IDEOLOGY OF
FRENCH IMPERIALISM
1871-1881
by
Agnes Murphv, r.s.c.j.
Professor of History
San Diego College for Women
New York HOWARD FERTIG 1968
First published in 1948
by The Catholic University of America Press
Howard Fertig, Inc. edition 1968
Published by arrangement with the author
Copyright 1948 by Agnes Murphy
All Rights Reserved.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-24590
PUNTED IN THE UNtTED STATES OF AMERICA
BY NOBLE OFFSET PUNTERS, INC.
PREFACE
One of the most surprising features of the ideology of imperialism
in France is that it has received so little attention in the copious
literature dealing with the colonial policy of the Third French Re
public. When it has not been totally ignored, it has been minimized.
Yet the decade immediately following the Franco-Prussian War of
1870, the ideas voiced in that period, were not without significance
for the expansion of the 1880*s which tripled France’s overseas
territory.
The movement for Italian unification had its visionaries, its lesser
champions, its secret societies, long before it took shape under Cavour’s
molding hand into that new instrument in international politics that
was the Italian kingdom. Long before the “Iron Chancellor,’’ Bis
marck, had welded one German empire out of many states, dreamers,
agitators, and associations had aspired to a concrete realization of their
nationalistic ambitions. It is as much a mistake to disregard the French
imperialistic movement of the last two decades of the nineteenth
century as it is to neglect the earlier movements in Italy and Germany.
Jules Ferry cannot poise himself atop the ladder of French colonial
ism and deserve either all of the eulogy or all of the censure for
erecting that new empire which France chalked out for herself on
the ancient continents in less than twenty years after she had tasted
defeat in Europe. No one, we believe, would be inclined to assert
that the rungs of the ladder that led up to the new construction
were related to the actual building itself, as cause to effect, but
it would not be an overstatement to declare that they served as
essential conditions under which something else was to operate effec
tively. Those conditions, that ladder, were the preparation of the
mind of France for the reception of the new lands which the govern
ment was to lay at the feet of the willing nation. No history of the
acquisition of those new territories would be complete without an
VI Preface
understanding of the geographical movement within France through
out the 1870’s, without an appreciation of the implications involved
in the fever of exploration which gripped France in those years. No
later justification of the motives which prompted colonization can
afford to disregard the ideological contribution of the young French
economist and theorist par excellence of imperialism, Paul Leroy-
Beaulieu, or of that of such advocates as Gabriel Charmes, Paul
Gaffarel, and M. Raboisson.
The present essay does not propose to investigate the strength of
the movement. In the course of the narrative certain indications will
be given, but no effort will be made to establish the fact of a definite
imperialistic movement within this decade, nor to assert that the propa
ganda of these years ever reached the full stature of a movement.
What this study does propose to examine is whether or not there was
a genuine colonial ideology in favor of expansion for France, an
ideology that cannot be explained solely in terms of economic causes.
That there are, strictly speaking, shades of difference in the meaning
of colonialism, colonization, imperialism, a civilizing mission, and
such terms, is granted, but it has been thought proper to include
them under the term imperialism in its wide connotation of some form
of control over backward peoples, whether that control be religious,
economic, or political. The sources for the investigation have been
found to be abundant. The imperialists selected expressed themselves
in books, in articles, and in records of conferences, to most of which
access was possible.
The writer’s interest in the topic was first aroused in the summer of
1945 through a stimulating seminar under the guidance of Professor
Friedrich Engel-Janosi, to whom she is much indebted. To the Rev
erend John Tracy Ellis and the Reverend Jules Baisnée, S.S., who also
read the manuscript and offered important criticism and corrections, she
wishes likewise to express her deep appreciation. The courtesy and
helpfulness of the staff of the Library of Congress immeasurably facili
tated the task, and the writer cannot sufficiently thank them.
ERRATA
Page 5, line 3 should read “ 'et comprise and that it was
necessary that the children fsachent la”
Page 39, line 17 should read “establish stations of refueling
and refuge, and that the land between”
Page 51, line 11 from bottom: “25,000” should read “2500”
Page 61, footnote 59: "Voyage au Yun-nan,’ ” should read
“ ‘Voyage au Yun-nan’ ”
Page 66, line 6 from bottom of text: “tranquility” should
read “tranquillity”
Page 67, lines 6 and 7 should read “ward their insurrection
against Annam, which invoked the clause of the
treaty to ensure at least French good will in its”
Page 76, line 2: “west” should read “east”
Page 86, footnote 143, line 3: “Rohlf’s” should read
“Rohlfs’ ”
Page 122, line 5: “agricultural” should read “industrial”
Page 124, line 27 should read “some millions in expenses for
their establishment.60”
Page 126, line 16 should read “evokes new improvements and
new progress.64”
line 21 should read “Our best customers are not
those who take most of our”
Page 165, line 14 should read “and succeeded in signing with
the Bey the Treaty of Bardo. The”
Page 238: “Inteiror” should read “Interior”
“Lassalle, Marshall” should read “Lassalle,
Ferdinand”
Page 239: "McCulloch, 113" should read “McCulloch, John
R., 113"
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGB
Preface _______ v
I. The Geographical Movembnt______________________ 1
The Fact of the Movement
Relationship to Colonialism
II. Explorations ____________________________________ 41
Tonkin
Roudaire and the Interior Sea
A Central African Route
Equatorial Africa
III. Academic Protagonist—Part One_________________ 103
Theoretician
IV. Academic Protagonist—Part Two-------------------------- 139
Journalist
V. Academic Advocates---------------------------------------------- 176
Gabriel Charmes
Paul Gaffarel
Raboisson
Minor Contributors
viii Table of Contents
CHAPTER PAGB
VI. Conclusion ................................ .... 226
Bibliography ...... ................................ 229
Index . . 235
