Obock
1862-1891 		1918-1939







French Somali Coast, 1891-1918



Construction of DJIBOUTI had begun in 1888. The French administration moved there in 1891, but Obock and Djibouti were still treated as separate entities : stamps were issued separately for Obock and the Somali Coast between 1892 and 1894. In 1896, the FRENCH SOMALI COAST COLONY was established.
While Obock had primarily the function of a port of call for bypassing French ships, Djibouti had the function of providing access to Ethiopia. The French supplied Ethiopia with European weapons, weapons the Ethiopians required to defend their independence against the Italians and others.
While the Berlin Congress of 1884/1885 mainly was concerned about coastal stretches of Africa, in the 1890es European colonial powers were in an intense competition over stretches of inland Africa. Britain's CECIL RHODES pushed to get a line from Cape to Cairo under British control; France countered with the Dakar-Djibouti line. In 1894, Negus Menelik of Ethiopia granted France the right to construct a railway line across his country, to the White Nile. The agreement signed after the FASHODA CRISIS (1898) ended France's hopes of establishing the Dakar-Djibouti line. Djibouti was connected by railway with Diredawa (Ethiopia) by 1902; the line was extended to Addis Ababa in 1917.
In 1904 the size of the terrotory was given as 36.000 square km, the population estimated at 200,000.




EXTERNAL
FILES 		Articles from Infoplease : Djibouti
French Somaliland : Obock, from Djiboutian Sightings
Links to Djibouti from UPenn, African Studies
Brief history 1898-1967, from al.oueb
DOCUMENTS Map of Djibouti, from UPenn, African Studies
Triangle Stamps from Obock, 1893, from Rene Gerritsen
Lists of Governors, from World Statesmen by Ben Cahoon
REFERENCE Article : Obock, in : Statesman's Year Book 1895 p.521, 1898 p.519 [G]
Article : Somali Coast, in : Statesman's Year Book 1901 pp.597-598, 1905 pp.659-660, 1910 pp.803-804 [G]



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on April 26th 2008

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