harm to British interests. In 1892 an event happened which
had an important bearing on the future course of the dispute.
After a troublesome war with Behanzin, king of
to the native state of Dahomey, France annexed some
portion of DahomeyanFrench advance to Timbuktu. 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 Toutée, 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
Toutée was “a private traveller.” Eventually Commandant
Toutée was ordered to withdraw, and the fort was occupied
by the Royal Niger Company’s troops. Commandant Toutée
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 Toutée, 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° 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 agreed, as part of the settlement of the French shore question in Newfoundland, to deflect the frontier line Further concessions to France. 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
