Abstrakt: |
After the establishment of its Third Republic in 1871, France sought overseas economic growth. In 1879, it began expanding its empire in Africa. The French started by advancing inland from Dakar, their coastal trading outpost in Senegal. They declared a protectorate over Tunisia, expanded into the Congo Basin, and sent an army into the Sudan, thus creating the basis of an empire in Africa that would eventually encompass most of West and Northwest Africa, large parts of equatorial Africa, and the island of Madagascar. |