Second French colonial empire: A Visual History

France's second colonial empire began with the invasion of Algeria in 1830 and reached its peak between the world wars, when it covered about 12 million km2 and ruled around 110 million people across North, West and Central Africa, Indochina, Madagascar, Syria and Lebanon, and scattered islands. Its 'civilising mission' rhetoric coexisted with forced labour and settler rule. Defeat in Indochina in 1954, the Algerian War and the independence of sub-Saharan Africa in 1960 dismantled it; a handful of overseas departments and territories remain French today.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Second French colonial empire. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Area under French rule

Includes Algeria, protectorates and mandates.

Timeline of the Second French colonial empire

1. 1830
   Algiers takenThe beginning of 132 years in Algeria.
2. 1862
   Cochinchina annexedThe start of French Indochina.
3. 1881
   Tunisia protectorateFerry's expansion begins.
4. 1898
   Fashoda incidentFranco-British confrontation on the Nile.
5. 1912
   Morocco protectorate
6. 1920
   Syria and Lebanon mandatesThe empire at its widest.
7. 1931
   Colonial Exhibition, ParisEight million visitors.
8. 1954
   Dien Bien PhuFrance leaves Indochina; the Algerian War begins.
9. 1960
   Year of AfricaFourteen colonies become independent.
10. 1962
    Algerian independenceEvian Accords.

Algeria and the Second Empire

Charles X sent an army to Algiers in 1830 partly to distract from troubles at home; the conquest of the interior took decades of brutal campaigning against Abd al-Qadir and cost perhaps half a million Algerian lives. Algeria became legally part of France, settled by a million Europeans. Under Napoleon III France added Cochinchina, a protectorate over Cambodia, New Caledonia and footholds in Senegal.

The Third Republic, humiliated by Prussia in 1871, embraced empire as a route back to greatness. Jules Ferry championed expansion into Tunisia (1881), Tonkin and Annam (1883-1885) and Madagascar (1895).

The Scramble and the peak

France took the largest share of Africa in the Scramble: the whole of the Sahara and Sahel from Senegal to Chad, plus Gabon, Congo and Dahomey. Confrontation with Britain at Fashoda in 1898 was resolved by the Entente Cordiale of 1904, which gave France a free hand in Morocco, made a protectorate in 1912.

The First World War brought 500,000 colonial troops to France. Afterwards League of Nations mandates over Syria and Lebanon, and Cameroon and Togo taken from Germany, took the empire to its greatest extent. The 1931 Colonial Exhibition in Paris celebrated an empire that most French people had barely thought about.

Collapse

The fall of France in 1940 split the empire between Vichy and Free France and shattered its prestige in Asia. Japan occupied Indochina; the Viet Minh declared independence in 1945 and defeated France at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Syria and Lebanon left in 1946.

The Algerian War (1954-1962) brought down the Fourth Republic and returned de Gaulle to power. He offered sub-Saharan colonies independence within a French community, and fourteen became sovereign in 1960. Algeria followed in 1962 after a war that killed hundreds of thousands. France retains close ties (and the CFA franc, military bases and periodic interventions) across its former African empire.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• First French colonial empire (1534 to 1814)
• British Empire (1583 to 1997)
• German colonial empire (1884 to 1919)
• Belgian colonial empire (1885 to 1962)
• Sokoto Caliphate (1804 to 1903)
• Empire of Japan (1868 to 1947)

Wars of the same era and region

• French conquest of Algeria (1830 to 1903)
• Algerian War (1954 to 1962)
• First Indochina War (1946 to 1954)
• World War I (1914 to 1918)
• World War II (1939 to 1945)
• Vietnam War (1955 to 1975)

8 surprising things about the Second French colonial empire

1. The invasion of Algeria was triggered by an incident in which the Dey of Algiers struck the French consul with a fly whisk.
2. France's Sahara made the empire look enormous on maps: about 40 percent of its African territory was desert.
3. The tirailleurs senegalais recruited across West Africa fought in both world wars; over 200,000 served in 1914-1918.
4. In 1940 more of the French empire declared for Vichy than for de Gaulle; French Equatorial Africa was the Free French base.
5. Algeria was legally part of metropolitan France, divided into departments, which is why the war of independence was for years officially called 'events'.
6. The CFA franc, created in 1945, is still used by 14 African countries.
7. France's overseas departments today mean that most of France's exclusive economic zone lies in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
8. The Suez Canal was a French project (de Lesseps) even though Egypt was never a French colony.

Sources

• French colonial empire Wikipedia
• French Empire Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Decolonization of Asia and Africa, 1945-1960 US Office of the Historian
• Robert Aldrich, Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion (1996) Palgrave

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