La pénétration saharienne (1830-1906)

A chronological study recounts the gradual French advance into the northern Sahara, combining military and administrative actions with scientific exploration and cartographic work. It surveys early reconnaissance and settlement attempts, periods of intensified campaigns and of relative stagnation, ill-fated trans-Saharan projects and later consolidation, while discussing the occupation of oases, relations with local nomadic groups, commercial and missionary ventures, and the creation of communications and transport links. The account emphasizes mapping, boundary delineation and institutional organization as factors that transformed regional control and integrated Saharan spaces into broader colonial networks by the early twentieth century.