ABSTRACT
At the Berlin Conference the gun was fired for the start of a race for which two of the participants, France and Britain, had already been in training. The French had already shown themselves impatient of the treaty-making process and quick to resort to the armed column. France’s occupation of West Africa was much more of a military exercise than Britain’s. On the Upper Niger the military had virtual autonomy of action, so that it is not surprising that a military approach to the occupation of the Western Sudan should have been the order of the day: quantity of land rather than quality seemed the more important. In 1891 war broke out again between Samory and the French, each accusing the other of violation of the Treaty of Bissandougou. The most striking facet of Samory’s military genius was his adaptability to the changing situation.
