MADAGASCAR-PAWN OF THE GIANTS

By LOUIS-PHILIPPE DUBEL

When a/te'T three 'months of preparation the British forces openedtheir attack on Madagascar, the colony of their erstwhile brothers-in-armlJ,we did what countless people throughout the world were doing that day:wo tool, a volumo 0/ tho 0?&01lelopodia and looked under M. In general.probablu no duller readinu can be found than thR tR7'1l1l li'1lP.8 of anencyclopedia. They are not meant for entertainment but for in/ormation.Tile greater is one's surprise to find under MADAGASCAR a legend ofintrigue and romance, rise amt fall Of tribes and king8, and foreignplotting8.

We hav8 asked our author to revive the past of Madagascar at amoment when it i.s Vd88i71D th7'ouoh itll D7'eatRllt r.7';.Jl1.R.-K.M.

o ALL intents and pur­poses, Madagascar,shaped like a. geo.graphical battleship

~""~~IP-and lying 230 milesoff the southeastcoast of Africa. has

been a pawn in the chess game ofEurope's gitmts ever since that Augustday 442 years ago when a Portuguesecaptain named Diego Diaz, blown off hiscourse to India, discovered it. It is LL

big pawn, larger even than France, 980miles long and 360 miles across at itsgreatest breadth, and embracing 240,000square miles: but it is a pawn never­theless. It is a pawn in the gamewhere natives are only rooks, and atribal ruler is a knight if he isimportant enough; when the tribalsituation is boiled down to a fairlyeven balance of power between twoleading factions, one European nationgets behind one of them and another

European power behind the other,ceding a move above the table andtrying to get it bo.ck with LL knifebeneath.

A TUMULTUOUS STORY

Money and treachery and whispersin a king's ear all have their placehere, as well as a certain amountof hCl·oil5n1. Fidelity and h-eal5on andgrandeur mix with equal portions ofavarice and gratitude, barbarism andcupidity, to give us a tumultuous storyof energy and, though sometimes mis­directed, crusade spirit - if anyonedared to write it. It is not inconsistentwith Madagascar's past that events ofthe last few weeks have again thrownit into the temporary glare of frontpages.

The only way to appreciate theMadagascar picture as it now presentsitself is to get a long way off and look

416 THE XXth CENTURY

at it objectively. France has paidheavily for this colony. Disease andswamps and climate have attackednatives as well as white men, and havecost France more in men and moneythan the military conquest.

Madagascar has become truly French,but unfortunately that does not changethe fact that IvL'ldagascar is an islandso situated as to make it a help or ahindrance to Britain's trade with hercolonicI' and the &15t. IL~ seizuretoday under the pretext of war neces­sity may presage other movementswherever Fr~nclJ oovereignty bas beenR stumbling block to Britnin.

AL~IGATORS AND DUG-OUTSThe best w~y to get to the bottom

of present event.; i~ to go hack to theisllmd which Marco Polo called "Mlldei­R'ascar" lU1I'l Diego niaz discovered in1500. Tt was a large island, Africa'sbiggest, discovered on the fenst dnyof St. Lawrence and hence known ~s

St. Lawrence Island for a hundredyennl t.!1t:rcll!Lt:l-. A Ivw, level shore­line encircled it, with few naturalho.rboro onve iu the uvd.ht:ru purLiuu.In the interior, a rough central plateauwith n tompernto dimnte, ~uLLcu wiLhravines and mountainous gullies, roseto oyer 0,000 feet Abov" /!lea It:vel.Most famed of its peaks is Tsi-afa­javona, "t1lat Which the mists cannotclimb."

The lowlands were wowed, wellwatered. and fertile. but sultry. Malariainfested them and swamps dotted them.The months between November andApril were hot and rainy, subject tothunder and hail, and at regularintervals a typhoon-sIze hurricane wouldarrive. There wcus DO snow in Mada­gascar.

Alligators abounded in its watersalong the coast of the MozambiqueChannel. Dawn broke over rivers andvalleys that were cloaked with a thickgray mist, and as the mist lifted aworld of birds came to life, likeenchantment leaving a sleeping wood.\ aves rushed with tremendous force

through narrow openings in coral reefs.Behind a. coral belt, which natureseemed to have designed to keep theworld out, lay Madagascar.

Natives fished in dug-out log canoeson gray rivers so alive with fish theydid not use a line. They knockedbits of wood against the bottom of thecanoe, and agitated fish jumped fromthe water. Those that fell in thecanoe were their catch.

FRUITLESS EFFORTSLocal tribes under ambitious chiefs

were usually waging war among them­selves with little immediate resultother than to keep them under orms,ready to nnit,p :tg~inst the pea(!e.makingintruder.

Firat the Portuguese tried tocoloniLe t.he i~land, t.hen the Dutch.During the reign of Charles I, theBritish attempted agricultural devdop­ment, but 80011 gave it up. They weresucceeded by the French, who foundeda port and named it after theirDauphin. What souvenirs come backto a Frenchman when he sees FortlJaupnm today, or Port Dauphin, as itwas often called, as it was practicallywlthout tortlOcatloDB. Memories ofhopes and sacrifices, maladies and pri­vations and the sutferings of exile,not only of men but of wives anddaughters and mothers who came herefrom France through t.he centurielS amIto whom France owes Madallasear!Fort Dauphin is now the most Euro­pean city and the 8out.hernm08t on theisland.

NATIVE CONQUERORSOld records and songs and legends

hnndcd down in the Antaimoro triballanguage, but in beautiful polishedArabic script, have preserved thehistory of Madagascar better than thespoken records we have had to contentourselves with in the study of Pacificislands. According to these, the partialconquest of Madagascar by the Saka­lava in the seventeenth century marksthe first great tribal ascendancy onthe island.

Typi~al old native storehouse

Lake Itasy. spreading like 11 limpid jewelamong J\'ladaga~eal"s m:>untains. Thereure JIlUlIj- such luke" j 11 the h ighlutld:J

IUaliagascar, Afrlca"s

Largest Island

,\

\

Radama I, J',]adagas!:ar's greatest king.Though his uniform W:1S French, he managed

to checkl1wte France fn'llI 1810 to ]gZX

Ranavalona lIT, the island's last reigningqueen, under the starbedecked crown of the

Hova,;. She died in exile in 1917

Rulers of Madagascar

Rasoherina. Queen of the JJovus from 1,~63

to 1868 aft"r hpr husband Radama II hadbeen strangled in his pala!:e

Rainilaiarivony. brilliant Prime Minister whoremained in power by marrying three queens

in succes!1ion

\",t,(?}.\ ~ -It. '-1-'.

""..., '.

I• i

MADAGASCAR-PAWN OF THE GIANTS 419

Then the Hova tribe, in the centralprovince of Imerina, rose under theirking Andrianimpaira to challenge theSakalava; and before the Hovas fell,removed by the French in 1895, theyhad conquered the entire northern andcentral provinces. The West was nom­inally under their authority and onlythe Southwest was free.

The word "conquered" has an abruptway of covering and ending the sagasand songs and civilizations of a people.To look between the lines that precedethe word "conquered" would takeus through battles as numerousand, to theMadagasy,as importantas the Napo­leonic wars.

A romanticruler knownas Radama I ~

ascended thethrone of theHovas in1810, andthroughou tthe nexteight- ;0

een years histall figure,head in airand swingingasaber,threwa dashingshadowacrossMadagascar'shistory.

A BRITISH ADVISERHe had the stride of a conqueror

and, unfortunately for the sake oflegend, his overstrong personality hasdrowned out the story of the connivingsof the British adviser attached to him,a man named Hastie, who was theLawrence of his time. Following apolicy used by Britain at a later datein handling sheiks and princes else­where, intrigue flourished at the courtof Radarna. Hastie had the king'sear and, in consideration of variousgifts of money, uniforms, arms, andmilitary instructors, was able to consol-

idate Hova authority, outmaneuverthe French, and still leave a loopholefor Britain until Radama died and thePrincess Ranavalona mounted thethrone.

The story of Madagascar underRanavalona has striking parallels else­where in history, when the death ofa native ruler too much under foreigninfluence is followed by a wave ofanti-foreignism. Missions were closed,native Christians killed, property con­fiscated, and foreigners so badly treatedin general that in 1846 the Frenchand British together bombarded Ta­

mstave in re­prisal.

QUEENSTAKEOVER

The madking RadamaII.next in suc­cession, waskilled in hispalace in 1861(rumor hadit, througha weaknessfor Europeanmistresses)and was suc­ceeded by hisambitiouswife, whoproceeded todraw up trea­ties withFrance, Brit-

ain, and the United States during herfive-year reign.

Gradually a Madagasy nation wasforming. Consulates and embassies andrecognition abroad were the ultimategoal of the Hovas, bu t they bad for­gotten the chess game of the giants.Up on the northeast coast, Francewas protecting a king of theSakalava. True, France had a treatywith the Hovas, but this did notstipulate the recognition of the Hovasas rulers of all the island. It wasthe old story of the balance ofpower.

420 THE XXth CENTURY

In 1868 Queen Ranavalona II mountedthe throne, and in the aging recordsof dynasty and the dry leaves ofencyclopedias we have almost lostsight of one of the most astuteopportunists that ever ruled a people:Rainilaiarivony, her Prime Minister,who cinched his job by marrying theQueen, and ensured the Queen's positionby making himself commander in chiefof the army.

THREE ROYAL WIVES

The three Ranavalonas one by oneall followed the policy of marryingthe same Prime Minister (or was itthat he married them ?), and, asVoltaire said in bis own observationon the Sallc Law, it was a good idea."With a man on the throne Francewas always ruled by a woman. Ifthey could crown a woman the countrymight be ruled by a man."

Though RainiJaiarivony had nevertraveled, he was surprisingly modern.With the aid of British advisers, hebuilt up an army of around 35,000men, the British idea being to use itto keep the French out, and Rainilai­arivony's to keep himself in. Hereceived any European who asked foran audience; he was not overly genial,but he was friendly, and, according tothe profession or station of his guest,had no end of questions to ask. HowEuropean nations collected customsduties was the first. Increasing thestate revenue seems to have been oneof Rainilaiarivony's worries; but thathe did not care to do it through therum trade is an outstanding point inhis favor.

MISSIONARIES AND RUM

Following the anti-foreign wave un­der Ranavalona I, Madagascar hadbeen thrown open to foreign tradeand influence. The London MissionarySociety reopened their missions, traders,mostly British, came in, and com­pulsory importation of rum came withthem. The effect on the natives wascatastrophic. As Rainilaiarivony put

it: the same boats that came loadedwith missionaries and Bibles abovedecks, were loaded with rum below;and while he was glad to welcome theforeigners, he would not have let in asingle bottle of rum if he could havehelped it. But he could not help it.

Ten years after the ascent ofRanavalona II to the throne, in1878, when altercations arose withFrance over the estate of the deceasedFrench consul, Monsieur Laborde, anera of colonial expansion, particularlyin Africa, was sweeping Europe andthe Third Republic. With it themovements in Madagascar gained mo­mentum, culminating in 1883 in thedelivery of a French ultimatum, whichthe Hovas rejected and which wasfollowed by war with France.

A French army unter General Duchesnepartially subdued native resistance.The conquest of Madagascar for Francewas by no means a cheap one. Overhalf of tbe troops at Duchesne's disposalwere buried along the way of a four­hundred - mile advance, cut down bybattle, fever, beat, and terrain. Onthe signing of a peace treaty withRanavalona III, in 1885, Madagascar,though not specifically stated as such,became a French protectorate. Britainagreed to this in return for Frenchrecognition of British claims to Zan­zibar.

SECRET SERVICE INTRIGUES

This was London's official attitudeof course; but there is a peculiar phaseto French and British relations farfrom London and Paris that one mustknow in order to understand it. It isa policy of not letting the right handknow wbat the left hand does, thatmight be compared to the pre-warworkings of the Communist Interna­tionale. While a treaty might be signedor situation recognized between thesetwo countries, the workings of Briti hagents in the places concerned aresubject to no discussion in the Houseof Commons. Neither England norEngllshmen know of them, and thegovernment, when confronted with

MADAGASCAR-PAWN OF THE GIA.~TS 421

pher, Judith Cladel, ealled the artist­architect of colonization, is one of therichest in the annals of the Frencharmy. There is an old saying amongFrench soldiers that the names ofCaesar, Napoleon, and Gallieni risestraight and strong like a column, andthat Gallieni's is a column without afissure.

The Tananarive of today as well asmodern Madagascar is a monumentto the untiring energy of GovernorGeneral Leon Cayla, who, in spite ofgreat obstacles, has managed in aperiod of ten years to give rockyMadagascar a network of good roads.His object: to preserve the past andensure its future.

From the summit of a hill aboveTananarive, the old palace of the kingsand queens of the Hovas still looksdown. The Court of Silver, whereQueen Ranavalona granted audiencesand passed judgment, is little changedsince she left it. A balcony passes

evidence concerning them, denies anyresponsibility.

Every French move of expansion,though agreed to in the diplomaticproceedings between the two nationsat conference tables, has been theobject of secret knife-work by unrec­ognized agents. To the colonial French­men who had to watch and cope withthese intrigues comes always the Every important village in Mada­thought: that myth of the infallibility gascar is situated in a hollow sur~

of the Secret Service, which fiction, rounded by a single, and sometimes apress, and cinema have done their best double, ring of protecting mountains,to make seem almost papal- might it entered by narrow passes which Gal-not be the Serv- lieni had toice itself which take and whichfinances it in France has sinceorder to escape fortified. T histhe open parlia- is especially truementary di8CU8~ of Tananarive,sion that legiti~ the capital. Inmate moves are spite of the lacksubject to? of troops, Tana-

The picture narive, su r-the colonial roundedbyapro-Frenchman has tective doubleseen in Greece ring of hills, isand Turkey, in probably at theSyria, Morocco, present time aand Madagas- formidable for-ear, was London tress agai nstand Paris shak~ anything butl'ng hands across John Bull: "Very JrOOd. now that tlte Funch have taken Malia. h t' t

PIJC&!', .... eaD etart colollicinc lU" para CUI S sthe Channel, (F'romanoldnumbel'ofL<J Rire, Parb) should thewhile Paris held a champagne glass in British attempt to push on to it.its left hand and London's left handhanded a roll of bills to an agent. And THE COURT OF SILVERthey know that victorious French armiesopened the road to the British traders.

Insurrections, anti-French plottings,and evidences of revolt backed bypowerful foreign capital began toassert themselves in Madagascar to­wards the end of the last century,and General Gallieni was sent out fromFrance to restore order. Hova rulewas abolished when a plot was discov­ered to poison the foreigners on theisland.

The story of General Gallieni, themilitary adventurer whom his biogra-

GALLIENI'S CAMPAIGN

422 THE XXth CENTURY

from the Palace to the COU,1' d'A'J'gentover which the Queen was carried onher royal litter, for the foot ofRanavalona could not touch the soil,

As she held court in the COU1' d'A1'gent,her eyes could look out over the vastplain between the cliff of ber palacebill to a rim of mountains in thedistance. Fashionable houses are builtalong this cliff now, but in the timeof the queens of the Hovas it wasan execution ground. The victim con­demned in the court was led to theedge of the cliff and, without anycircumlocution, gen­tly pushed over. Aguard waited at thebase below to finishhim off if the fall did,not kill him.

Ranavalona III wasthe last native queento reign over Mada­gascar, and her re­moval has strikingsimilarities to thatof Abd-el-Krim. Twoyears after the endof the Great War, this~1oroccan leader led for four years a..foreign-financed" insurrection and dis­rupted the French development andcolonization of Morocco. Ranavalonawas first sent to Reunion Island, whereAbd-el-Krim is now exiled, and fromthere she was transferred to Algeria,where she died in 1917.

A MURDER IS SOLVED

On the whole there has been aninclination on the part of the French,both civil and military, to listen tothe natives.

A good example is found in a storystill told over CeLie tables; how aFrench juge d"instTuction, baffled byan unsolved murder, called on an oldfriend one evening and asked to speakto his cook. The friend, thinking offine recipes for sauce and roast chicken,complied.

The cook sat down, with a "bon SOi1',1nonsiew' le jnge," and the judge,

with a singular softness, began tospeak:

"My dear friend, you understandFrench well. Do not protest at whatI am going to say to you. I know.I know that you have followed memany evenings, throwing pebbles inmy path to make me lenient. I knowthat district chiefs have often givenyou money because they thought youcould make me change my decisions,and sometimes, on deliberation, I havechanged my decisions. In the nightyou visit the sick, and sometimes you

cure them. You havemagic to keep womenfrom having twins,which you charge foralso.

"I know all ofthese things, andthere were lawsthat permitted me toprosecute you, but Ihave closed my eyes,because your fatherwas a sorcerer andyour grandfather wasa sorcerer before

you. Now I want you to do me afavor.

"You know that a teacher was as­sassinated in the North. Go. Get intosome quiet place and make thesikidy call to the dead. Then comeback and tell me what the sikid'llsays."

"Oui, monsieur le juge," said thecook, and meekly ambled off into therecesses of the kitchen.

A short time later the cook, havingfollowed the custom of his ancestors,came back holding a stained paperand, sitting down at the feet of thejudge, said: "He was killed by a woman,monsieur le juge. This, says thesilcid11, was done by a club on a path nearthe river."

The widow of the deceased, whenconfronted by the report of the sikidy,confessed.

Th~ plain of ~lohRmasina. lying like a huge saucerin its hollow of protecting mountains. Its rim is

crossl'd by narrow, fortified passes

l;relll slone tuirways descend the surroundingheig-hts to the market place in the hollow

TananariveThe old pala<:c and CO",' d·.-trgent of the lJuecns of :'Iladagascar

.-\ Ilov:l woman

MAn.-\GASIES

The noble features of a member of therlllil1j{ tribe. the Hovlls

A woman from the interior of ~ladug:lscl1r

MADAGASCAR-PAWN OF THE GIANTS 425

UNLUCKY DAYSAND NATIVE JUSTICE

The customs and liberties of thenative tribes, in whom the many mys­teries, taboos, superstitions, and thepower of the priests are still strong,have on the whole not been interferedwith.

Ancestor worship plays a great partin the life of the people; certain days,mountains, rocks, rivers, lakes, andanimals all have special significance.Wednesday, the and:roftsy miverina, or"day of no return," is held to be a badone to start a journey on, and Thursdayis a day on which anything started isdoomed to failure. Frenchmen treatthem with due reverence.

The Governor General, appointed byFrance and assisted by a council of24 Europeans and 24 natives, providesa government that is on the whole aliberal and a just one. Native civilianleaders placed over their own localitiesare allowed a free hand in adjustingtheir own affairs. Court cases involvingEuropeans and natives are tried in aFrench Court with Europeans ~nd

natives presiding. Cases involving na­tive versus native are settled in thenative court.

possible weight, color, formation, con­dition, and direction of fall, etc.

It was hot, and the resident and hisnative friends were tired. The me­teor had long been exhausted as a topicof conversation, and they didn't wantto hear any more about it. And overa tall glass of absinthe they dispatcheda reply: "BoUde 'reparti" (meteor goneback).

France has fortified the harbor ofDiego Suarez in the North as a navalbase and depot for her trade with theEast. With the weaving of cotton andsilk, the manufacture of soap, sugar,and tapioca, industries have sprung up.Iron, copper, lead, zinc, antimony,manganese, nickel, sulphur, graphite,and lignite coal are taken from Mada­gascar to feed the smelters and fur­naces of France. Exports include golddust, cattle, tanning-bark, hides, fiber,and wax, through the busy port ofTamatave.

The rainy season has just ended inMadagascar. Diego Suarez has beenoccupied by British forces. Tamatave,the only other good port of the island,may follow. It is with regret thatone sees the lifework of two genera­tions of Frenchmen hanging in thebalance.

For some reason, out of all thestories, two pictures come back to mymind as I think of Madagascar today:The old native who had fought in thecampaign of Gallieni, looking at thetricolor limply waving above Tananarive(called Antananarivo by the English)and saying: "Le voila, fier comme ileta'it a la veille d' Auste1·litz." It washis flag too.

And the story of the bitten lieutenant.It was in 1901 or 1902, in Tananarive.

The French used to gather in theevening in a little club in the Placed'Andohalo, where the Lycee Gallieniis now, to talk over the news of thetown and the outposts.

One evening it was learned that ayoung lieutenant commanding a minor

THE BOTHERSOME METEOR

There is an air of carefree laissez­!a'i,"e evident in the relations betweenFrench officials and natives in the out­posts. A local fonctionnaire in one ofthe stations in the interior, who had nothad anything to report for a year, passedlong bours fraternizing with nativechieftains over a glass of liquid thatturned milky when you put water in it.

One day a meteor fell in his districtand, delighted to have something toreport, he telegraphed Tananarive,which in turn cabled Paris.

Suddenly messages started pouringinto Tananarive and from Tananariveto the outpost: How big was themeteor? Send specimens at once! Didit burst in the air or break on landing?Prepare complete description as to

• • •

426 THE XX.th CENTURY

post at Tsiombe had been bitten by amad dog and was being rushed bylitter to Tananarive. The message hadcome over the hills to the capital bysignal, and from that night on, everyevening, from all corners of the citythe people-Frenchmen and nativesalike-came for news of thesick lieutenant.

Tsiombe, to them, was onthe other side of the world,and they did not think hecould make it. The journeyoverland was a perilous,if not an impossible, one.But he made it after all,

and the natives rejoiced as mucbas the whites. Now fine motor high­ways and an airline extend over theroute the lieutenant crossed by litter,and Tananarive is only six days byair from Paris.

Telegraph systems, hotels, and tele­phones are spread out in along line over a country thatten years ago was believedimpassable. The energy andlives of Frenchmen have madeit an integral part of the greatempire of France, and no goodcan come from any attemptto change it now.

THE "FOUR LANDS"

MOST Germans, unless they happen to be from Hamburg, would look at youin some bewilderment if you were to ask them about the Vierlande, the

"Four Lands." But a native of Hamburg would wax enthusiastic and probablytell you that the finest fruit he ever tasted came from there.

Vierlande is a district consisting of four parishes in the delta of theRiver Elbe. Its fertile, marshy soil provides the great city of Hamburg withmost of its fruit, vegetables, and flowers. On shallow arms of the Elbe,motor lighters move from farm to farm, collecting their produce by thebasketful and carrying it down the river to the markets of Hamburg. Thereyou can see rows of baskets along the banks, brimming with tomatoes, plums,apples, pears, horse-radishes, and flowers.

Although the Vierlande are scarcely more than ten miles upriver fromthe metropolis of Hamburg, they have retained much of their old-worldatmosphere. The only modern note is the huge greenhouses, in which roses,lilies of the valley, and narcissi are grown. But otherwise the thatched houseswith their carved wooden gates stand in the fields between the high dikes justas they have stood for generations. The scenery is not unlike the marshlandsbelow Shanghai, where the roofs of the farmhouses also barely peep above thelevel of the dikes.

And when you enter one of the farmhouses of the Vierlande you feeleven more transported into an age gone by. To keep out the damp, the insidewalls are usually tiled like those of Dutch farmhouses. The ancient, heavycupboards and chests, the chairs and tables, and the grandfather clocks-all aredecorated with rich inlay work.

If you are lucky and happen to be there on a holiday, you will see thepeople in their ancient finery handed down from generation to generation: themen in top hats, jerkins, and breeches, with rows of heavy silver buttons,the women with gay embroidery and silver ornaments on their dresses.