CHAPTER XXI.

The Era of Colonies.

Since civilization began nations have endeavored to extend their dominions, not alone by adding to their territory by the conquest of adjoining countries, but also by sending out their excess population to distant regions and founding colonies that served as aids to and feeders of the parent state. In the ancient world the active commercial nations, Phoenicia and Greece, were alert in this direction, some of their colonies,--Carthage, for instance,--becoming powerful enough to gain the status of independent states. In modern times the colonial era began with the discovery of America in 1492 and the circumnavigation of Africa immediately afterwards. Spain and Portugal, the leaders in enterprise at that period, were quick to take advantage of their discoveries, while France, Great Britain and Holland came into the field as founders of colonies at a later date.

[=Progress in Colonization=]

At the opening of the nineteenth century Spain and Portugal still held the great dominions they had won. They divided between them the continent of South America, while Spain held a large section of North America, embracing the whole continent south of Canada and west of the Mississippi River, together with the peninsula of Florida. Portugal held, in addition to Brazil, large territories in east and west Africa and minor possessions elsewhere. As regards the remaining active colonizing nations,--Great Britain, France, and Holland,--some striking transformations had taken place. Great Britain, while late to come into the field of colonization, had shown remarkable activity and aggressiveness in this direction, robbing Holland of her settlement on the Atlantic coast of America, and depriving France of her great colonial possessions in the east and the west.

[=French Activity in Founding Colonies=]

France had shown a remarkable activity in colonization. In the east she gained a strong foothold in India, which promised to expand to imperial dimensions. In the west she had settled Canada, had planted military posts along the great Mississippi River and claimed the vast territory beyond, and was extending into the Ohio Valley, while the British still confined themselves to a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast. The war which broke out between the English and French colonists in 1754 put an end to this grand promise. When it ended France had lost all her possessions in America and India, Great Britain becoming heir to the whole of them with the exception of the territory west of the Mississippi, which was transferred to Spain. As regards Holland, she had become the successor of Portugal in the east, holding immensely valuable islands in the Malayan archipelago.

The colonial dominion of Great Britain, however, suffered one great loss before the end of the eighteenth century. It failed to recognize the spirit of Anglo-Saxon colonists, and by its tyranny in America gave rise to an insurrection which ended in the freedom of its American colonies. It still held Canada and many of the West India Islands, but the United States was free, and by the opening of the nineteenth century had fairly begun its remarkable development.

Such was the condition of colonial affairs at the beginning of the century with which we are concerned. Spain and Portugal still held the greatest colonial dominions upon the earth, France had lost nearly the whole of her colonies, Holland possessed the rich spice islands of the eastern seas, and Great Britain was just entering upon that activity in colonization which forms one of the striking features of nineteenth century progress.

[=Spain's Colonial Decline=]

At the close of the century a remarkable difference appears. Spain had lost practically the whole of her vast colonial empire. She had learned no lesson from England's experience with her American colonies, but maintained a policy of tyranny and oppression until these far-extended colonial provinces rose in arms and won their independence by courage and endurance. Her great domain west of the Mississippi, transferred by treaty to France, was purchased by the United States. Florida was sold by her to the same country, and by the end of the first quarter of the century she did not own a foot of land on the American continent. She still held the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico in the West Indies, but her oppressive policy yielded the same result there as on the continent. The islanders broke into rebellion, the United States came to their aid, and she lost these islands and the Philippine Islands in the East. At the end of the century all she held were the Canary Islands and some small possessions elsewhere.

Portugal had also suffered a heavy loss in her colonial dominions, but in a very different manner. The invasion of the home state by Napoleon's armies had caused the king and his court to set sail for Brazil, where they established an independent empire, while a new scion of the family of Braganza took Portugal for his own. Thus, with the exception of Canada, Guiana, and the smaller islands of the West Indies, no colonies existed in America at the end of the century, all the former colonies having become independent republics.

[=The Colonial Development of Great Britain=]

The active powers in colonization within the nineteenth century were the great rivals of the preceding period, Great Britain and France, though the former gained decidedly the start, and its colonial empire to-day surpasses that of any other nation of mankind. It is so enormous, in fact, as to dwarf the parent kingdom, which is related to its colonial dominion, so far as comparative size is concerned, as the small brain of the elephant is related to its great body.

[=Other Colonizing Powers=]

Other powers, not heard of as colonizers in the past, have recently come into this field, though too late to obtain any of the great prizes. These are Germany and Italy, the latter to a small extent. But there is a great power still to name, which in its way stands as a rival to Great Britain, the empire of Russia, whose acquisitions in Asia have grown enormous in extent. These are not colonies in the ordinary sense, but rather results of the expansion of an empire through warlike aggression, but they are colonial in the sense of absorbing the excess population of European Russia. The great territory of Siberia was gained by Russia before the nineteenth century, but within recent years its dominion in Asia has greatly increased, and it is not easy to tell just when and where it will end.

[=Growth of the British Colonies=]

With this preliminary review we may proceed to consider the history of colonization within the century. And first we must take up the results of the colonial enterprise of Great Britain, as much the most important of the whole. Of this story we have already described some of the leading features. A chapter has been given to the story of the Indian empire of Great Britain, far the largest of her colonial possessions, and another to that of South Africa. In addition to Hindustan, in which the dominion of Great Britain now extends to Afghanistan and Thibet in the north, the British colony now includes Burmah and the west-coast region of Indo-China, with the Straits Settlements in the Malay peninsula, and the island of Ceylon, acquired in 1802 from Holland.

[=Australia and New Zealand=]

In the eastern seas Great Britain possesses another colony of vast dimensions, the continental island of Australia, which, with its area of nearly 3,000,000 square miles, is three-fourths the size of Europe. The first British settlement was made here in 1788, at Port Jackson, the site of the present thriving city of Sydney, and the island was long maintained as a penal settlement, convicts being sent there as late as 1868. It was the discovery of gold in 1851 to which Australia owed its great progress. The incitement of the yellow metal drew the enterprising thither by thousands, until the population of the colony is now more than 3,000,000, and is growing at a rapid rate, it having developed other valuable resources besides that of gold. Of its cities, Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, has more than 300,000 population; Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, probably 250,000, while there are other cities of rapid growth. Australia is the one important British colony obtained without a war. In its human beings, as in its animals generally, it stood at a low level of development, and it was taken possession of without a protest from the savage inhabitants.

The same cannot be said of the inhabitants of New Zealand, an important group of islands lying east of Australia, which was acquired by Great Britain as a colony in 1840. The Maoris, as the people of these islands call themselves, are of the bold and sturdy Polynesian race, a brave, generous, and warlike people, who have given their new lords and masters no little trouble. A series of wars with the natives began in 1843 and continued until 1869, since which time the colony has enjoyed peace. It can have no more trouble with the Maoris, since there are said to be no more Maoris. They have vanished before the "white man's face." At present this colony is one of the most advanced politically of any region on the face of the earth, so far as attention to the interests of the masses of the people is concerned, and its laws and regulations offer a useful object lesson to the remainder of the world.

[=Other British Colonies=]

In addition to those great island dominions in the Pacific, Great Britain possesses the Fiji Islands, the northern part of Borneo, and a large section of the extensive island of Papua or New Guinea, the remainder of which is held by Holland and Germany. In addition there are various coaling stations on the islands and coast of Asia. In the Mediterranean its possessions are Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus, and in America the great colony of Canada, a considerable number of the islands of the West Indies, and the districts of British Honduras and British Guiana. Of these, far the most important is Canada, to which a chapter will be devoted farther on in our work.

[=The Interior of Africa and Asia=]

We have here to deal with the colonies in two of the continents, Asia and Africa, of which the history presents certain features of singularity. Though known from the most ancient times, while America was quite unknown until four centuries ago, the striking fact presents itself that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the continents of North and South America were fairly well known from coast to centre, while the interior of Asia and Africa remained in great part unknown. This fact in regard to Asia was due to the hostile attitude of its people, which rendered it very dangerous for any European traveler to attempt to penetrate its interior. In the case of Africa it was due to the inhospitality of nature, which had placed the most serious obstacles in the way of those who sought to penetrate beyond the coast regions. This state of affairs continued until the latter half of the century, within which period there has been a remarkable change in the aspect of affairs, both continents having been penetrated in all directions and their walls of isolation completely broken down.

[=Early Colonies in Africa=]

Africa is not only now well known, but the penetration of its interior has been followed by political changes of the most revolutionary character. It presented a virgin field for colonization, of which the land-hungry nations of Europe hastened to avail themselves, dividing up the continent between them, so that, by the end of the century, the partition of Africa was practically complete. It is one of the most remarkable circumstances in the history of the nineteenth century that a complete continent remained thus until late in the history of the world to serve as a new field for the outpouring of the nations. The occupation of Africa by Europeans, indeed, began earlier. The Arabs had held the section north of the Sahara for many centuries, Portugal claimed--but scarcely occupied--large sections east and west, and the Dutch had a thriving settlement in the south. But the exploration and division of the bulk of the continent waited for the nineteenth century, and the greater part of the work of partition took place within the final quarter of that century.

[=The Partition of Africa=]

In this work of colonization Great Britain was, as usual, most energetic and successful, and to-day the possessions and protectorates of this active kingdom in Africa embrace 2,587,755 square miles; or, if we add Egypt and the Egyptian Soudan--practically British territory--the area occupied or claimed amounts to 2,987,755 square miles. France comes next, with claims covering 1,232,454 square miles. Germany lays claim to 920,920; Italy, to 278,500; Portugal, to 735,304; Spain, to 243,877; the Congo Free State, to 900,000; and Turkey (if Egypt be included), to 798,738 square miles. The parts of Africa unoccupied or unclaimed by Europeans are a portion of the Desert of Sahara, which no one wants; Abyssinia, still independent though in danger of absorption; and Liberia, a state over which rests the shadow of protection of the United States.

[=British Colonies in Africa=]

Of the British colonial possessions in Africa we have already sufficiently described that in the south, extending now from Cape Town to Lake Tanganyika, and forming an immense area, replete with natural resources, and capable of sustaining a very large future population. On the east coast is another large acquisition, British East Africa, extending north to Abyssinia and the Soudan and west to the Congo Free State, and including part of the great Victoria Nyanza. Further north a large slice has been carved out of Somaliland, facing on the Gulf of Aden. The remainder of this section of Africa is claimed--though very feebly held--by Italy, whose possessions include Somaliland and Eritrea, a coast district north of Abyssinia. Great Britain, in addition, lays claim to Sierra Leone and the Ashantee country on the west coast and an extensive region facing on the Gulf of Guinea, and extending far back into the Soudan.

[=African Colonies of France=]

Next to Great Britain in activity in the acquisition of African territory comes France, which within the recent period has enormously extended its claims to territory in this continent. Of these the most difficult in acquirement was Algeria, on the Mediterranean, which France first invaded in 1830, but did not obtain quiet possession of for many years and then only at the cost of long and sanguinary wars. At a later date the adjoining Moorish kingdom of Tunis was added, and since then the claims of France have been extended indefinitely southward, to include the greater part of the western half of the Sahara--the Atlantic coast district of the Sahara being claimed by Spain. Of this great desert region almost the whole is useless to any nation, and France holds it mainly as a connecting link between her possessions in Algeria and the Soudan.

French Soudan has had a phenomenal growth, the French displaying the same enterprise here as they did in America in the rapid extension of their Canadian province. Claiming, as their share in the partition of Africa, the Atlantic coast region of Senegal and an extensive district facing on the Gulf of Guinea and the South Atlantic, and known as French Congo, they have made an enormous spread, northward from the latter, westward from Senegal, and southward from Algeria, until now their claims cover nearly the whole of the Soudan--a vast belt of territory stretching from the Atlantic nearly across the continent and bordering on the Egyptian Soudan in the east. The French claim, indeed, extended as far as the Nile, being based on Major Marchand's journey to the river in 1898. But the English conquests in that region barred out the French claim, and it has been abandoned. In addition to the territories here named, France has taken possession of a portion of the coast region of Abyssinia, between the Italian and the British regions, and completely shutting out that ancient kingdom from the sea.

[=German and Italian Colonies=]

The latest of the nations to develop the colonizing spirit were Italy and Germany. We have described Italy's share in Africa. Germany's is far larger and more important. In East Africa it holds a large and valuable region of territory, on the Zanzibar coast, between British East Africa and Portuguese Mozambique, and extending westward to Lake Nyassa and Tanganyika and the Congo Free State, and northward to the Victoria Nyanza. It cuts off British territory from an extension throughout the whole length of Africa, and if Cecil Rhodes' Cairo to Cape Town Railway is ever completed, some hundreds of miles of it will have to run through German territory.

In South Africa Germany has seized upon abroad region left unclaimed by Great Britain, the Atlantic coast section of Damaraland and Great Namaqualand, and also an extensive section on the right of the Gulf of Guinea, stretching inward like a wedge between British and French possessions in this region. On the Gold Coast it has also a minor territory, lying between British Ashantee and French Dahomey.

[=The Congo Free State=]

The broad interior of the continent, the mighty plateau region watered by the great Congo River and its innumerable affluents, first traversed by the daring Stanley not many years in the past, has been erected into the extensive and promising Congo Free State, under the suzerainty of the king of Belgium. It is the most populous and agriculturally the richest section of Africa, while its remarkable extension of navigable waters give uninterrupted communication through its every part. It has probably before it a great future.

[=The French Conquest of Madagascar=]

Off the east coast of Africa lies the great island of Madagascar, now a French territory. France has had military posts on its coast for more than two hundred years, and in 1883 began the series of wars which resulted in the conquest of the island. The principal war of invasion began in 1895 and ended in a complete overthrow of the native government, Madagascar being declared a French colony in June, 1896.

Of these European possessions in Africa, all are held with a strong hand except those of Portugal, which unprogressive state may soon give up all claim to her territories of Angola and Mozambique. Great Britain and Germany have been negotiating with Portugal for the purchase of these territories--to be divided between them. As one part of the bargain, Great Britain will get the important Delagoa Bay, and definitely shut in the Boer Republic from the sea.

[=Wars in Africa=]

This division of Africa between the European nations, with the subsequent taking possession of the acquired territories, has not been accomplished without war and bloodshed; England, France, and Italy having had to fight hard to establish their claims. In only two sections, Abyssinia and the Egyptian Soudan, have the natives been able to drive out their invaders, and the wars in these regions call for some fuller notice.

[=Defeat of the Italians in Abyssinia=]

The first war in Abyssinia occurred in 1867, when England, irritated by an arbitrary action of the Emperor Theodore, declared war against him, and invaded his rocky and difficult country. The war ended in the conquest of Magdala and the death of Theodore. In 1889 Italy aided Menelek in gaining the throne, and was granted the large district of Eritrea on the Red Sea, with a nominal protectorate over the whole kingdom. Subsequently Menelek repudiated the treaty, and in 1894 the Italians invaded his kingdom. For a time they were successful, but in March, 1896, the Italian army met with a most disastrous defeat, and in the treaty that followed Italy was compelled to acknowledge the complete independence of Abyssinia. It was the one case in Africa in which the natives were able to hold their own against the ambitious nations of Europe.

[=The Expansion of Egypt=]

In Egypt they did so for a time, and a brief description of the recent history of this important kingdom seems of interest. Egypt broke loose in large measure from the rule of Turkey during the reign of the able and ambitious Mehemet Ali, who was made viceroy in 1840. In 1876 the independence of Egypt was much increased, and its rulers were given the title of khedive, or king. The powers of the khedives steadily increased, and in 1874-75 Ismail Pasha greatly extended the Egyptian territory, annexing the Soudan as far as Darfur, and finally to the shores of the lately discovered Victoria Nyanza. Egypt thus embraced the valley of the Nile practically to its source, presenting an aspect of immense length and great narrowness.

Soon after, the finances of the country became so involved that they were placed under European control, and the growth of English and French influence led to the revolt of Arabi Pasha in 1879. This was repressed by Great Britain, which bombarded Alexandria and defeated the Egyptians, France taking no part. As a result the controlling influence of France ended, and Great Britain became the practical ruler of Egypt, which position she still maintains.

[=The Rise of the Mahdi=]

[=The Massacre of Hicks Pasha and His Army=]

In 1880 began an important series of events. A Mohammedan prophet arose in the Soudan, claiming to be the Mahdi, a Messiah of the Mussulmans. A large body of devoted believers soon gathered around him, and he set up an independent sultanate in the desert, defeating four Egyptian expeditions sent against him, and capturing El Obeid, the chief city of Kordofan which he made his capital in 1883. Then against him Great Britain dispatched an army of British and Egyptian soldiers, under an English leader styled in Egypt Hicks Pasha. These advanced to El Obeid, where they fell into an ambush prepared by the Mahdists, and, after a desperate struggle, lasting three days, were almost completely annihilated, scarcely a man escaping to tell the disastrous tale. "General Hicks," said a newspaper correspondent, "charged at the head of staff. They galloped towards a sheikh, supposed by the Egyptians to be the Mahdi. Hicks rushed on him with his sword and cut his face and arm; this man had on a Darfur steel mail-shirt. Just then a club thrown struck General Hicks on the head and unhorsed him. The chargers of the staff were speared but the English officers fought on foot till all were killed. Hicks was the last to die."

Other expeditions of Egyptian troops sent against Osman Digma ("Osman the Ugly"), the lieutenant of the Mahdi in the Eastern Soudan, met with a similar fate, while the towns of Sinkat and Tokar were invested by the Mahdists. To relieve these towns Baker Pasha advanced with a force of 3,650 men. There was no more daring or accomplished officer in the British army than Valentine Baker, but his expedition met with the same fate as that of his predecessor. Advancing into the desert from Trinkitat, a town some distance south of Suakim, on the Red Sea, the force was met by a body of Mahdists, and the Egyptian soldiers at once broke into a panic of terror. The Mahdists were only some 1,200 strong, but they surrounded and butchered the unresisting Egyptians in a frightful slaughter.

[=The Battles Near Suakim=]

"Inside the square," said an eyewitness, "the state of affairs was almost indescribable. Cavalry, infantry, mules, camels, falling baggage and dying men were crushed into a struggling, surging mass. The Egyptians were shrieking madly, hardly attempting to run away, but trying to shelter themselves one behind another." "The conduct of the Egyptians was simply disgraceful," said another officer. "Armed with rifle and bayonet, they allowed themselves to be slaughtered, without an effort at self-defence, by savages inferior to them in numbers and armed only with spears and swords."

Baker and his staff officers, seeing that affairs were hopeless, charged the enemy and cut their way through to the shore, but of the total force two-thirds were left dead or wounded on the field. Such was the "massacre" of El Teb, which was followed four days afterwards by the capture of Sinkat and slaughter of its garrison. This butchery was soon after avenged. General Graham was sent from Cairo with reinforcements of British troops, which advanced on Osman's position, and, in two bloody engagements subjected him to disastrous defeat. The last victory was a crushing one, the total British loss being about 200, while, of the Arab loss, the killed alone numbered over 2,000.

[=Gordon Goes to Khartoum=]

In the same year in which these events took place (1884) General Charles Gordon--Chinese Gordon, as he was called, from his memorable exploits in the Flowery Kingdom--advanced by the Nile to Khartoum, the far-off capital of the Mohammedan Soudan, of which he had been governor-general in former years. His purpose was to relieve the Egyptian garrison of that city--in which design he failed. In fact, the Arabs of the Soudan flocked in such multitudes to the standard of the Mahdi that Khartoum was soon cut off from all communication with the country to the north, and Gordon and the garrison were left in a position of dire peril. It was determined to send an expedition to his relief, and this was organized under the leadership of Lord Wolseley, the victor in the Ashantee and Zulu wars.

[=To the Rescue of Gordon=]

[=The Desert Fights=]

The expedition was divided into two sections, a desert column which was to cross a sandy stretch of land with the aid of camels, from Korti to Metamneh, on the Nile, thus cutting off a wide loop in the stream; and a river column for whose transportation a flotilla of 800 whale boats was sent out from England. The desert column found its route strongly disputed. On the 7th of January, 1885, it was attacked by the Arabs in overwhelming force and fighting with the ferocity of tigers, some 5,000 of them attacking the 1,500 British drawn up in square, round which the fanatical Mahdists raged like storm-driven waves. The peril was imminent. Among those who fell on the British side was Colonel Burnaby, the famous traveler. The battle was a remarkably brief one, the impetuous rush of the Arabs being repulsed in about five minutes of heroic effort, during which there was imminent danger of their penetrating the square and making an end of the British troops. As it was the Arabs lost 1,100 in dead and a large number of wounded, the British less than 200 in all. A few days afterwards the Arabs attacked again, but as before were repulsed with heavy loss. On the 19th of January the river was reached, and the weary troops bivouacked on its banks.

Here they were met by four steamers which Gordon had sent down the Nile, after plating their hulls with iron as a protection against Arab bullets. Various circumstances now caused delay, and several days passed before General Wilson, in command of the expedition, felt it safe to advance on Khartoum. At length, on January 24th, two of the steamers, with a small force of troops, set out up the river, but met with so many obstacles that it was the 28th before they came within sight of the distant towers of Khartoum. From the bank came a shout to the effect that Khartoum had been taken and Gordon killed two days before. As they drew nearer there came evidence that the announcement was true. No British flag was seen flying; not a shot came from the shore in aid of the steamers. Masses of the enemy could be seen in all directions. A storm of musketry beat like hail on the iron sides of the boats. Wilson, believing the attempt hopeless, gave the order to turn and run at full speed down the river. They did so amid a rattle of bullets and bursting of shells from the artillery of the enemy.

[=Death of General Gordon=]

The news they brought was true. The gallant Gordon was indeed dead. The exact events that took place are not known. Some attributed the fall of the town to the act of a traitor, some to the storming of the gates. It does not matter now; it is enough to know that the famous Christian soldier had been killed with all his men--about 4,000 persons being slaughtered, in a massacre that continued for six hours. That was the end of it. The British soon after withdrew and left Khartoum and the Soudan in the undisputed possession of the Arabs. The Mahdi had been victorious, though he did not live long to enjoy his triumph, he dying some months later.

[=The Advance of the British and Recapture of the Soudan=]

And so matters were left for nearly twelve years, when the British government, having arranged affairs in Egypt to its liking, and put the country in a prosperous condition, decided to attempt the reconquest of the Soudan, and avenge the slaughtered Gordon. An expedition was sent out in 1896, which captured Dongola in September and defeated the dervish force in several engagements. The progress continued, slowly but surely, up the Nile. In 1897 other advantages were gained. But it was not until 1898 that the Anglo-Egyptian force, under Sir Herbert Kitchener, known under his Egyptian title of the Sirdar, reached the vicinity of Khartoum. The Egyptian soldiers under him were of other stuff than those commanded by Baker Pasha. From a mob with arms in hand they had been drilled into brave and steady soldiers, quite capable of giving a good account of themselves. At Omdurman, near Khartoum, the dervishes were met in force and a fierce and final battle was fought. The Arabs suffered a crushing defeat, losing more than 10,000 men, while the British loss was only about 200. This brilliant victory ended the war on the Nile. The fight was taken out of the Arabs. The Soudan was restored to Egypt by British arms, fourteen years after it had been lost to the Mahdi.

[=The Partition of Asia=]

Asia has been invaded by the nations of civilization almost as actively as Africa, and to-day, aside from the Chinese and Japanese Empires, far the greater part of that vast continent is under foreign control, the only important independent sections being Turkey, Arabia, Persia, and Afghanistan. As matters now look, all of these, China included, before the twentieth century is very old may be in European hands, and the partition of Asia become as complete as that of Africa. The nations active in this work have been Great Britain, Russia, and France, while Holland is in possession of Java, Sumatra, and others of the valuable spice islands of the eastern seas. Of the enterprise of Great Britain in extending her colonial dominion in Hindostan and Burmah we have already spoken. The enterprise of France here demands attention.

[=French and British Methods of Colonization=]

France has always been remarkably active in her colonizing enterprises. In America she surpassed Great Britain in the rapid extension of her dominion, though she fell far behind in the solidity of her settlements. It has been the same in Africa. France has spread out with extraordinary rapidity over the Soudan, while England has moved much more slowly but far more surely. The enterprises of the one are brilliant, those of the other are solid, and it is the firmness with which the Anglo-Saxon race takes hold that makes it to-day the dominant power on the earth. The French have the faculty of assimilating themselves with foreign peoples, accepting their manners and customs and becoming their friends and allies. The British, on the contrary, are too apt to treat their colonial subjects as inferior beings, but they combine their haughtiness with justice, and win respect at the same time as they inspire distrust and fear.

[=Operations of France in Indo-China=]

The colonizing enterprise of France in Asia, after the French had been ousted from India by Great Britain, directed itself to the peninsula of Indo-China. This was the only region of the Asiatic coast land which was at once safe to meddle with and worth the cost and trouble. In 1789 the emperor of Annam accepted French aid in the conquest of the adjoining states of Cochin China and Tonquin. The wedge of French influence, thus entered, was not removed. Missionaries sought those far-off realms, and in time found themselves cruelly treated by the natives. As usual in such cases, this formed a pretext for invasion and annexation, and in 1862 a portion of Cochin China was seized upon by France, the remainder being annexed in 1867. Meanwhile, in 1863, the "protection" of France was extended over the neighboring state of Cambodia.

North of Cochin China lies Annam, and farther north, bordering on China, is the province of Tonquin, inhabited largely by Chinese. The four states mentioned constitute the eastern half of Indo-China. The western portion is formed by the kingdom of Burmah, now a British possession. Between these lies the contracted kingdom of Siam, the only portion of the peninsula that retains its independence.

[=The Black Flags=]

The attention of France was next directed to Tonquin, the northern province of the Annamite Empire, which was invaded in 1873, and its capital city, Hanoi, captured. Here the French found foeman worthy of their steel. After the suppression of the Taiping rebellion in China certain bands of the rebels took refuge in Tonquin, where they won themselves a new home by force of arms, and in 1868 held the valley of the Red River as far south as Hanoi. These, known as the "Black Flags," were bold, restless, daring desperadoes, who made the conquest of the country a difficult task for the French. By their aid the invading French were driven from Hanoi and forced back in defeat.

[=The Siege of Sontay=]

[=A Night Attack=]

The French resumed their work of conquest in 1882, again taking the city of Hanoi, and in December, 1883, a strong expedition advanced up the Red River against the stronghold of Sontay, which, with the neighboring Bac Ninh, was looked upon, in a military sense, as the key to Tonquin. The enterprise seemed a desperate one, the expeditionary force consisting of but 6,000 soldiers and 1,350 coolies, while behind the strong works of the place were 25,000 armed men, of whom 10,000 were composed of the valiant Black Flags. But cannon served the place of men. The river defences were battered down and preparations made to storm the citadel. During the succeeding night, however, the French ran imminent risk of a disastrous repulse. At one o'clock at night, when all but the sentries were locked in slumber, a sudden shower of rockets was poured on the thatched roofs of the huts in which the soldiers lay asleep, and with savage yells the Chinese rushed from their gates and into the heart of the camp, firing briskly as they came. The French troops, fatigued with the hard fighting of the preceding day, and demoralized by the suddenness of the attack and the pluck and persistent energy of the assailants, were thrown almost into panic, and were ready to give way when the Chinese trumpets sounded the recall and the enemy drew off. As it appeared afterwards this attack was made by only 300 men. It would undoubtedly have stampeded the invading forces but for the vigilance of the sentinels.

[=The Storming of the Citadel=]

On the next day, December 16th, the fort was stormed, and taken after a desperate resistance. There is but one incident of the assault that we need relate. As the French rushed across the bridge that spanned the wide ditch and approached the gate of the citadel, there was seen an instance of cool and devoted bravery hardly excelled by that which was displayed by the famous "captain of the gate" who held the Tiber bridge, against the Tuscan host. There, told off to guard the narrow passage between the stockade and the wall, stood a gallant Black Flag soldier. His Winchester repeating rifle was in his hand, its magazine filled with cartridges. Although half the French force were at the gate, he quailed not. Shot after shot he fired, deliberately and calmly, and each bullet found its billet. Down went brave Captain Méhl, leader of the Foreign Legion, with a ball through his heart, and other attackers were slain; and when the stormers rushed in at last the heroic Black Flag, true to his trust, died with his face to the foe, as a soldier should die. The French, quick to recognize bravery either in friend or enemy, buried him with military honors when the day's fight was over, at the gate which he defended so well.

The capture of this town, followed by that of Bac-Ninh, which was similarly taken by storm, completed the work of conquest and firmly established the French in their occupation of Tonquin.

[=France in Possession=]

They had, however, still the Chinese to deal with. China claimed a suzerainty over this region and protested against the French invasion, and in 1885 went to war for the expulsion of the foreign conquerors. During the previous year the Black Flags had engaged in murderous raids on the French mission stations, in which they massacred nearly 10,000 native Christians. In the war with China, they, with other Chinese troops, held the passes above Tuyen-Kivan for nearly a month against repeated assaults by the French, and were still in possession of their posts when peace was declared. China had yielded the country to France.

In 1895 France gained the right to extend a railway from Annam into China, a concession which was protested against by Great Britain, then in possession of the adjoining province. In 1896 a treaty was made between these two powers, which fixed the Mekong or Cambodia River as their dividing line. As a result those powers now hold all of Indo-China except the much diminished kingdom of Siam. France has permitted the form of the old government to continue, the Emperor of Annam still reigning--though he does not rule, since the real power is in the hands of the French governor-general at Hanoi.

[=The Advance of Russia in Asia=]

While Great Britain and France were thus establishing themselves in the south, Russia was engaged in the conquest of the north and centre of the continent. The immense province of Siberia, crossing the whole width of the continent in the north, was acquired by Russia in the seventeenth century, after which the progress of Russia in Asia ceased until the nineteenth century, within which the territory of the Muscovite empire in that continent has been very greatly extended. Two provinces were wrested from Persia in 1828, as the prize of a victorious war, and in 1859 the conquest of the region of the Caucasus was completed by the capture of the heroic Schamyl. In 1858 the left bank of the great Amur River was gained by treaty with China, after having been occupied by force.

Soon after this period, Russia began the work of conquest in the region of Turkestan, that long-mysterious section of Central Asia, inhabited in part by fierce desert nomades, who for centuries made Persia the spoil of their devastating raids, and in part by intolerant settled tribes, among whom no Christian dared venture except at risk of his life. It remained in great measure a _terra incognita_ until the Russians forced their way into it arms in hand.

[=The Invasion of Turkestan=]

The southern border of Siberia was gradually extended downward over the great region of the Mongolian steppes until the northern limits of Turkestan were reached, and in 1864 Russia invaded this region subduing the oasis of Tashkend after a fierce war. In 1868 the march of invasion reached Bokhara, and in 1873 the oasis of Khiva was conquered and annexed. In 1875-76 Khokand was conquered after a fierce war, and annexed to Russia. This completed the acquisition of the fertile provinces of Turkestan, but the fierce nomades of the desert remained unsubdued, and the oasis of Merv and the country of the warlike Tekke Turcomans were still to conquer. This, which was accomplished in 1880-81, merits a fuller description.

A broad belt of desert lands stretches across the continent of Asia from Arabia, in the southwest, to the rainless highlands of Gobi, or Shamo, in the far east. This desert zone is here and there broken by a tract of steppe land that is covered with grass for a portion of the year, while more rarely a large oasis is formed where the rivers and streams, descending from a mountain range, supply water to a fertile region, before losing themselves in the sands of the desert beyond.

[=The Deserts of Central Asia=]

Eastward of the Caspian, and south of the Aral, much of the waste land is a salt desert, and the shells, mixed with the surface sand, afford further evidence that it was in times not very remote part of the bottom of a large inland sea, of which the landlocked waters of Western Asia are a survival.

Along the Caspian the steppe and desert sink gradually to the water-level, and the margins of the sea are so shallow that, except where extensive dredging works have been carried out, and long jetties constructed, ships have to discharge their cargoes into barges two or three miles from the shore.

This desert region marked for many years the southern limit of the Russian empire in Central Asia. A barren waste is a more formidable obstacle to an European army than the ocean itself; and the Turkoman tribes of the oases not only refused to acknowledge the dominion of the White Czar, but successfully raided up to the very gates of his border forts in the spring, when the grass of the steppe afforded forage for their horses. The first successful advance across the desert zone was made by Kaufmann, whose expeditions followed the belt of fertile land which breaks the desert where the Amu Daria (the Oxus of classical times) flows down from the central highlands of Asia to the great lake of the Aral Sea. But in 1878 the Russians began another series of conquests, starting not from their forts on the Oxus, but from their new ports on the southwestern shore of the Caspian.

[=The Country of the Tekke Turkomans=]

In this direction the most powerful of the Turkoman tribes were the Tekkes of the Akhal oasis. Between their strongholds and the Caspian there was a desert nearly 150 miles wide, and then the ridge of the Kopet Dagh Mountains. The desert, which stretches from the northern shore of the Atrek River, is partly sandy waste, partly a tract of barren clayey land, baked hard by the sun; broken by cracks and crevices in the dry season, and like a half-flooded brickfield when it rains. The water of the river is scanty, and not good to drink. It flows in a deep channel between steep banks, and so closely does the desert approach it that for miles one might ride within a hundred yards of its clay-banked cañon without suspecting that water was so near. Where the Sumber River runs into the Atrek the Russians had an advanced post--the earthwork fort of Tchad, with its eight-gun battery. Following the Sumber, one enters the arid valleys on the south of the Kopet Dagh range. On this side the slopes rise gradually; on the other side of the ridge there is a sharp descent, and sometimes the mountains form for miles a line of precipitous rocky walls. At the foot of this natural rampart lay the fortified villages of the Tekke Turkomans.

[=The Land of Akhal=]

[=The Herds and Villages of the Tekkes=]

[=The Akhal Warriors=]

Numerous streams descend from the Kopet Dagh, flowing to the north-eastward, and after a few miles losing themselves in the sands of the Kara Kum desert. Between the mountain wall and the desert the ground thus watered forms a long, narrow oasis--the land of Akhal--to which a local Mussulman tradition says that Adam betook himself when he was driven forth from Eden. No doubt much of the praise that has been given to the beauty and fertility of this three-hundred-mile strip of well-watered garden ground comes from the contrast between its green enclosures and the endless waste that closes in the horizon to the north-eastward. Corn and maize, cotton and wool, form part of the wealth of its people. They had the finest horses of all Turkestan, and great herds and flocks of cattle, sheep and camels. The streams turned numerous mills, and were led by a network of tunnels and conduits through the fields and garden. The villages were mud-walled quadrangles, with an inner enclosure for the cattle; the kibitkas, or tents, and the mud huts of the Tekkes filling the space between the inner and outer walls, and straggling outside in temporary camps that could be rapidly cleared away in war time. The people were over 100,000 strong--perhaps 140,000 in all--men, women and children. They were united in a loose confederacy, acknowledged the lordship of the Khan of Merv, who had come from one of their own villages. They raided the Russian and Persian borders successfully, these plundering expeditions filling up the part of the year when they were not busy with more peaceful occupations. Along their fertile strip of land ran the caravan track from Merv by Askabad to Kizil Arvat and the Caspian, and when they were not at war the Tekkes had thus an outlet for their surplus productions, among which were beautiful carpets, the handiwork of their women. In war they had proved themselves formidable to all their neighbors. United with the warriors of Merv, the men of Akhal had cut to pieces a Khivan army in 1855 and a host of Persians in 1861.

The conquest of Akhal had long been a subject of Russian ambition. It was not merely that they were anxious to put an end once for all to the raids of the Turkomans of the great oasis, but they regarded the possession of this region as a great step towards the consolidation of their power in Asia. From Baku, the terminus of their railways in the Caucasus, it was easy to ferry troops across the Caspian. What they wanted was a secure road from some port on its eastern shore to their provinces on the Upper Oxus, and anyone who knew the country must have felt that this road would eventually run through the Akhal and the Merv oases.

[=Repulse of Lomakine and the Russians=]

The first effort to subdue the Akhal warriors proved a complete failure. As soon as peace was concluded with Turkey, after the war of 1877-78, General Lomakine was sent with a strong force to the Caspian, whence he made his way by the caravan route over the desert to the strong nomade fortress of Geok Tepe ("blue hills"), at the foot of the mountain range mentioned. We shall say nothing more concerning this expedition than that the attempt to take the fort by storm proved a complete failure, and the Russians were forced to retreat in disorder.

[=Skobeleff and the Siege of Geok Tepe=]

To retrieve this disaster General Skobeleff, the most daring of the Russian generals, who had gained great glory in the siege of Plevna, was selected, and set out in 1880. On the 1st of January, 1881, he came in sight of the fort, with an army of 10,000 picked troops, and fifty-four cannon. Behind the clay ramparts lay awaiting him from 20,000 to 30,000 of valiant nomades, filled with the pride of their recent victory. The first batteries opened fire on the 8th, and the siege works were pushed so rapidly forward that the Russians had gained all the outworks by the 17th. This steady progress was depressing to the Turkomans, who were not used to such a method of fighting. The cannonade continued resistlessly, the wall being breached on the 23d and the assault fixed for the next day. Two mines had been driven under the rampart, one charged with gun-powder and one with dynamite, and all was ready for the desperate work of the storming parties.

Early the next day all the Russian guns opened upon the walls, and a false attack was made on the west side of the fort, the men firing incessantly to distract the attention of the Turkomans, while the actual column of attack was formed and held ready on the east. Another column, 2,000 strong, waited opposite the south angle, the soldiers ready and eager for the assault.

[=The Fort Carried by Storm=]

A little after eleven the mines were fired. The explosion caused momentary panic among the garrison, and in the midst of the confusion the two storming columns rushed for the breaches. But before they could climb the heaps of smoking _debris_ the Tekkes were back at their posts, and it was through a sharp fire of rifles and muskets that the Russians pushed in through the first line of defence. The fight in and around the breaches was a close and desperate struggle; but as the stormers in front fell, others clambered up to replace them, and at the same time Haidaroff, converting his false attack into a real one, escaladed the southern wall.

[=A Frightful Massacre=]

"No quarter!" had been the shout of the Russian officers as they dashed forward at the head of the stormers. The Tekkes expected none. They fought in desperate knots, back to back, among the huts and tents of the town, but at last they were driven out by the east side. Skobeleff did not make Lomakine's mistake of blocking their way. He let them go; but once they were out on the plain the Cossack cavalry was launched in wild pursuit, and for ten long miles sword and spear drank deep of the blood of the fugitives. Women as well as men were cut down or speared as the horses overtook them. More than 8,000 Tekkes fell in the pursuit. Asked a year after if this was true, Skobeleff said that he had the slain counted, and that it was so. Six thousand five hundred bodies were buried inside the fortress; eight thousand more strewed the ten miles of the plain.

[=Submission of the Turkomans=]

Skobeleff looked on the massacre as a necessary element in the conquest of Geok Tepe. "I hold it as a principle," he said, "that in Asia the duration of peace is in direct proportion to the slaughter you inflict on the enemy. The harder you hit them the longer they will keep quiet after it." No women, he added, were killed by the troops under his immediate command, and he set at liberty 700 Persian women who were captives in Geok Tepe. After ten miles the pursuit was stopped. There was no further resistance. Not a shot was fired on either side after that terrible day. The chiefs came in and surrendered. The other towns in the eastern part of the oasis were occupied without fighting; nay, more, within a month of Geok Tepe Skobeleff was able to go without a guard into the midst of the very men who had fought against him. We in America cannot understand the calm submission with which the Asiatic accepts as the decree of fate the rule of the conqueror whose hand has been heavy upon him and his. The crumbling ramparts of Geok Tepe remain a memorial of the years of warfare which it cost the Russians; and the iron track on which the trains steam past the ruined fortress shows how complete has been the victory.

Skobeleff looked upon his triumph as only the first step to further conquests. But within eighteen months of the storming of Geok Tepe he died suddenly at Moscow. Others have built on the foundations which he laid; and, for good or ill, the advance which began with the subjugation of the Tekke Turkomans has now brought the Russian outposts in Central Asia in sight of the passes that lead across the mountain barriers of the Indian frontier.

[=Great Development of Russia in Asia=]

This conquest was quickly followed by the laying of a railroad across the desert, from the Caspian to the sacred Mohammedan city of Samarcand, the former capital of the terrible Timur the Tartar, and the iron horse now penetrates freely into the heart of that once unknown land, its shrill whistle perhaps disturbing Timur in his tomb. Across the broad stretch of Siberia another railroad is being rapidly laid, and extended downward through Manchuria to the borders of China, a stupendous enterprise, the road being thousands of miles in length. Manchuria, the native land of the Chinese emperors, is now held firmly by Russia, and the ancient empire of Persia, on the southern border of Turkestan, is threatened with absorption. When and where the advance of Russia in Asia will end no man can say, perhaps not until Hindustan is torn from British hands and the empire of the north has reached the southern sea. While Russia in Europe comprises about 2,000,000 square miles, Russia in Asia has attained an area of 6,564,778 square miles, and the total area of this colossal empire is nearly equal to that of the entire continent of North America.

The final step in colonization--if we may call it by this name--belongs to the United States, which at the end of the century laid its hand on two island groups of the Eastern Seas, acquiring Hawaii by peaceful annexation and the Philippine Islands by warlike invasion. What will be the result of this acquisition on the future of the United States it is impossible to say, but it brings the American border close to China, and when the destiny of that great empire is settled, the republic of the West may have something to say.

[=The Future of Colonizing Enterprise=]

At the end of the nineteenth century the work of the colonizing powers was fairly at an end. Nearly all the available territory of the earth had been entered upon and occupied. But the work, while in this sense completed, was in a fuller sense only begun. It was left for the twentieth century for those great tracts of the earth to be brought properly under the dominion of civilization, their abundant resources developed, peace and prosperity brought to their fertile soils, and their long turbulent population taught the arts of peaceful progress and civilized industry.