Jean Jacques Marie Ferdinand de Béhagle (18 July 1857 – 15 October 1899) was a French explorer of Africa.
He served with the colonial service in Algeria and travelled in the Congo and Ubangi region.
While attempting to find a viable land route from the Congo to the Mediterranean via Chad he was taken prisoner by
Rabih az-Zubayr
Rabih az-Zubayr ibn Fadl Allah (; c. 1842 – April 22, 1900), also known as Rabih Fadlallah and usually known as Rabah in French, was a Sudanese warlord and slave trader who established a powerful empire east of Lake Chad, in today's Chad.
B ...
and hanged.
Early years
Jean Jacques Marie Ferdinand de Béhagle was born in
Ruffec, Charente on 18 July 1857.
He became an officer of the merchant marine.
He was then employed as administrator of mixed communes in Algeria.
He served in Algeria from 1885 to 1891.
On 15 September 1885 he married Rosine Dehoux in
Bône, Algeria.
In 1892, de Béhagle was a volunteer member of the exploratory expedition organized by
Casimir Maistre,
François Joseph Clozel and
Albert Bonnel de Mézières that followed the expedition of
Paul Crampel.
The mission ascended the
Congo River
The Congo River, formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second-longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the third-largest river in the world list of rivers by discharge, by discharge volume, following the Amazon Ri ...
, then the
Ubangi River, and explored the divide between the
Chad
Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North Africa, North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to Chad–Libya border, the north, Sudan to Chad–Sudan border, the east, the Central Afric ...
and
Congo Basins.
After his return, between 1893 and 1897, de Béhagle published a number of papers on the French colonization of Africa.
He was an erudite man.
De Béhagle and
Paul Bourdarie (1864–1950) made speeches to the Société africaine de France in which they stressed the importance of the French colonists making a military "association" with the natives for defense of the colonies.
Expedition to Bornu
During the 1890s the
Sudanese warlord
Rabih az-Zubayr
Rabih az-Zubayr ibn Fadl Allah (; c. 1842 – April 22, 1900), also known as Rabih Fadlallah and usually known as Rabah in French, was a Sudanese warlord and slave trader who established a powerful empire east of Lake Chad, in today's Chad.
B ...
was actively expanding his power in the former
Bornu Empire Bornu may refer to:
* Bornu Empire, a historical state of West Africa
* Borno State, Nigeria
{{disambig