[Madagascar 1902-1903]
Fascinating unpublished diary of Sergeant Brousse, from the Madagascar occupation corps, illustrated with original photographs.
Quarto notebook of 82 pp., hard cover, title.
[Madagascar]. Brousse, Sergeant. Autograph manuscript, Madagascar 1902-1903, 2nd stay, enriched with 14 original photographs and about fifteen photographic reproductions or press clippings.
After spending a first stay in Madagascar in 1898, Sergeant Brousse volunteered to return there while awaiting his discharge.
As part of the 3rd regiment of Senegalese riflemen, he set sail from Marseille on July 10, 1902, stopped over in Zanzibar, and arrived in Majunga, in the northwest of the island, on July 31. Assigned to serve in the 1st company, he traveled by river to Ankadibe, which he reached on August 10, before leaving it for a few weeks to serve in Maevatanana before being sent back to Ankadibe. After receiving a negative response to his request to join the native militia as chief guard, Brousse, eligible for discharge in December, decided to be repatriated for health reasons: he left Majunga on November 23 and landed in Marseille on December 14.
After recounting certain events and anecdotes of garrison life, this journal ends on a somewhat bitter note: "The last two years in particular had changed me considerably and had even made me detest the military career that I had nonetheless embraced with pleasure and interest. Well, it's over now."
This account is followed by various notes on the history and geography of Madagascar: notably its discovery by Portuguese navigators in 1506, the foundation of Fort Dauphin in 1644 by Commander Rigault, the arrival of the Polish count Bienowsky, its exploration by Bory de Saint-Vincent, and the “definitive” occupation of the island by France, in constant struggle against English rivalry. Brousse then describes the geographical and climatic situation of the island, its fauna, flora, population, its products and concludes: "Fertile country, rich in various products, suitable for industry and commerce, but rendered powerless by the lack of crops, means of communication, insecurity and the formidable tyranny of treacherous tribes discouraging even our most intrepid settlers."
After an entire page devoted to the hammerkop, an endemic bird of Madagascar, Brousse copied several reports or articles about the situation in the colony, between 1904 and 1917, from the Antaisaka revolt in the south of the country to the death of Queen Ranavalo.
14 small photographs (5 x 5 cm), taken by Brousse himself, illustrate this notebook: Zanzibar. Sultan's Palace. A road in Zanzibar. Young girl bathing. Gunboat going up the Betriboka Moevatanana, south side. In the garden at Ankadibe. A brickworks at Moevatanana. Gathering for a dance. A serenade at the officers’ pavilion. Moevatanana, west side. A fire in Moevatanana (July 14, 1903). The bed of a river in the dry season. Mennessier on the rock in the post courtyard (later we blew up this rock…). The Ikopa at Tanandava – the rapids.
Included is a copy of a notification from the Ministry of War, relating to the military pension granted in June 1928 to Sergeant Brousse for his fifteen years of service, ten of which were spent in Africa and Madagascar.
