Colonialism in the French Geographical Movement 1871-1881

Abstract

W R RITERS on French colonial policy customarily consider the decade after I870 to be a period in which the only aspirations for an active foreign policy are to be found in the desire for revenge against Germany for the humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War. Reputedly hypnotized by the gap in the Vosges,' France is said to have turned all her energy inward. From this view has followed the conclusion that the rise of French interest in colonial expansion was a rather sudden development of the i88o's. The purpose of this article is to prove that, on the contrary, only a few months after the victorious Germans forced the Treaty of Frankfurt on the helpless French in I87I a vigorous, organized, and effective effort was begun to popularize the idea of French expansion. This colonial agitation was the work of a rapidly growing pressure group, the French geographical societies,2 whose activities in this respect have heretofore been overlooked.