Carte mission Centre - Asie Citroën 1931

Planning motor car expedition across Asia 1930

The Yellow Expedition (french: Croisière Jaune) was a French trans-Asian expedition in 1931/1932. It was organized by

Citroën Citroën () is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded in March 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën is owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired ...

in order to promote their P17

Kégresse track A Kégresse track is a kind of rubber or canvas continuous track which uses a flexible belt rather than interlocking metal segments. It can be fitted to a conventional car or truck to turn it into a half-track, suitable for use over rough or soft ...

vehicles. The expedition started in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

and, the capital of

French Lebanon The State of Greater Lebanon ( ar, دولة لبنان الكبير, Dawlat Lubnān al-Kabīr; french: État du Grand Liban), informally known as French Lebanon, was a state declared on 1 September 1920, which became the Lebanese Republic ( ar, ...

and

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

, the capital of China. One group traveled westward, the other eastward and both met along the route, where the eastbound group turned back allowing both groups to travel to Beijing along a different route. Georges-Marie Haardt and Louis Audouin-Dubreuil led the cruise. Haardt had already crossed the

Sahara , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

and the whole

African continent Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

in two ambitious expeditions. One group of the expedition travelled eastwards through the

French Syria The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (french: Mandat pour la Syrie et le Liban; ar, الانتداب الفرنسي على سوريا ولبنان, al-intidāb al-fransi 'ala suriya wa-lubnān) (1923−1946) was a League of Nations mandate foun ...

, Kingdom of Iraq under British administration,

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

until the border of

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

, then a de facto independent region of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

under control of the warlord

Jin Shuren Jin Shuren (; c. 1883–1941) was a Chinese Xinjiang clique warlord who served as Governor of Xinjiang between 1928 and 1933. Biography Jin Shuren was born in Yongjing, Hezhou, Gansu. He graduated at the Gansu provincial academy and th ...

. Another group travelled westwards across China from

to Urumchi, where they were held hostage by Jin Shuren's troops for several weeks. The French archeologist

Joseph Hackin Joseph Hackin (8 November 1886, Boevange-sur-Attert – 24 February 1941) was a French archaeologist and Resistance member. He was a curator at the Musée Guimet and explored Afghanistan in 1923 with Alfred Foucher and Andre Godard. Biography B ...

, the Russian-French painter

Alexandre Jacovleff Alexandre Yevgenievich Jacovleff (also spelt Iacovleff or Yakovlev, russian: Александр Евгеньевич Яковлев; – 12 May 1938) was a neoclassicist painter, draughtsman, designer and etcher. Biography Alexandre was the son ...

(as an "Artistic Adviser"), the French philosopher

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ( (); 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher and teacher. He was Darwinian in outlook and the author of several influential theological and philos ...

and the American photographer

Maynard Owen Williams Maynard Owen Williams (September 12, 1888 – June 1963) became the first National Geographic foreign correspondent in 1919. Over the course of his career, he explored Asia and witnessed the Russian Revolution. He died in Antalya, Turkey, and was ...

participated in the expedition. Early 1932, the expedition reached the

East China Sea The East China Sea is an arm of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. It covers an area of roughly . The sea’s northern extension between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula is the Yellow Sea, separated b ...

. In

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the Briti ...

, Haardt died of pneumonia and the expedition was aborted. In 1934, a feature-length documentary of the expedition was released.

Claude Delvincourt Claude Étienne Edmond Marie Pierre Delvincourt (12 January 1888 – 5 April 1954) was a French pianist and composer of classical music. Biography Delvincourt was born in Paris, the son of Pierre Delvincourt and Marguerite Fourès. He studied ...

composed the music for this film. In the early 1970s, a French-

West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

co-produced drama depicting the expedition was filmed. During shoots in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, famous British actor

Roger Delgado Roger Caesar Marius Bernard de Delgado Torres Castillo Roberto (1 March 1918 – 18 June 1973) was a British actor. He played many roles on television, radio and in films, and had "a long history of playing minor villains" before becoming ...

died. Nevertheless, filming continued. The series aired in France in 1974 and in West Germany in 1975.Alan Hayes/Richard McGinlay/Alys Hayes: ''Two Against the Underworld – The Collected Unauthorised Guide to the Avengers Series 1'', Morrisville (NC) 2017, p. 147
Available here.
/ref>

Literature

* Ariane Audouin-Dubreuil: ''La Croisière jaune: Sur la route de la soie'', Grenoble 2013. . * M.-P. Bossard: ''Quer durch Asien über die alte Seidenstraße'', Stuttgart/Zürich 1967. . *

André Citroën André-Gustave Citroën (; 5 February 1878 – 3 July 1935) was a French industrialist and the founder of French automaker Citroën. He is remembered chiefly for the make of car named after him, but also for his application of double helical ...

/Fabien Sabates/Camille Cravan/Eric Baschet (eds.): ''Die Gelbe Expedition Beirut-Peking 1931–1932: Eine historische Foto-Reportage'', Kehl am Rhein 1979. . * Georges Le Fèvre: ''La croisière jaune : expédition Citroën Centre-Asie Haardt'', Paris 1991. . * Georges Le Fèvre: ''An Eastern Odyssey: The Third Expedition of Haardt and Audouin-Dubreuil'', London, Gollancz, 1935. Translated by

Major-General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

Ernest Swinton Major-General Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton, (21 October 1868 – 15 January 1951) was a British Army officer who played a part in the development and adoption of the tank during the First World War. He was also a war correspondent and author of sev ...

with a preface by

References

{{Authority control 1931 in Lebanon 1932 in China Asian expeditions China–France relations Exploration of Central Asia Exploration of South Asia Exploration of Western Asia Expeditions from France