MYSTERIOUS SHEIK

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 October 1930, Page 10

MYSTERIOUS SHEIK

THE TUAREGS' LEADER

Is the notorious Captain Voulet still alive?

Is he the mysterious and powerful chief of the Tuaregs, the veiled men of the Lower Sahara, who is known over the length and breadth of Central Africa for his intense sympathy for France?

This strange skcleton-in-the-cJoset of the Dark Continent, that may actually be a living man, has rattled its bones again and peered out, writes R. S. Kendrick in the “San Francisco Chronicle. ”

In all the colonial development of France —or of any other country, for that matter—it is hard to find a more incredible tragedy. On July 14, 1899. Captain Voulet. t i French marine officer, who was leading an official exploration expedition from Senegal to Lake Chad, shot down in cold blood Lieutenant-Colonel Klobb. of the French Army, who had been sent io relieve him of his command, and also seriously wounded Lieutenant Meynier, Klobb’s aide-de-camp. Voulet’s accomplice and fellow plotter was Captain Chanoine, son of the French Minister of War at the time. The scene of this killing was a remote spot in the jungle of French West Africa called Zinder, about 100 miles north of the Nigerian frontier and 300 miles west of Lake Chad.

At that time there was an intense rivalry between France and England for control of the Sudan, or all of Central Africa. The French General Marchand and Kitchener had clashed the previous year at Fashoda. The French officer Lamy was pushing from Algeria down toward Lake Chad to hoist the Tricolour before the English could arrive. The French captains Voulet and Chanoine, who had distinguished themselves in helping to conquer Dahomey, persuaded the French Minister of Colonies to let them lead an expedition from Senegal to Lake Chad —a voyage of 2000 miles, across a tangled jungle.

They left the French outposts in the '.vinter of 1898 with a force of 600 native rifiemfen and cavalrymen. 500 porters, 14 camels, donkeys, cattle, and women camp followers. The expedition more or less followed the Niger River to Timbuktu, and then just before arriving at the Say trading post, headed eastward toward Lake Chad. By the spring of 1899 tales of horrible atrocities committed by Captain Voulet began to reach the French authorities at. Timbuktu and other stations.

According to -tin official French account printed in the Paris “Matin” on September 1 of that year, Voulet ravaged, pillaged, devastated, and massacred the natives in the most fiendish manner, although most tribes had received him in a friendly spirit. In one village, where his column had been attacked, he had 20 young women with babies in their arms stood in a line and speared. For a thousand miles behind him there was a trail of blood and ashes, heads sticking on poles, chopped-up bodies, mutilated villagers, while all the flocks and cattle had been carried pff. “He acted as though he suffered from an erotic madness,” the “Matin” declared, after relating three columns of almost unspeakable cruelties. In the fact of these shocking reports. the French military authorities immediately directed Klobb, a distinguished officer who had been with Voulet’s expedition at. the beginning, to leave Timbuktu with another party of native troops, catch up with Voulet and Chanoine by forced marches, place them under arrest, and take over the command.

On July 13 Klobb arrived within a. few miles of Voulet, at a point near Zinder, and sent several native sergeants ahead with a message, saying he would join hint the following day. DRIVEN TO FURY. Voulet, a forceful, energetic, man of 40, because furious when he realised that he was to be replaced. His fellow conspirator, Chanoine. a frail, nervous. effeminate young man of 25, being some miles away with another section of the expedition, Voulet called in his native sergeants, told them a fanciful story about how they were all to be disgraced and punished, and got their promise to fire on Klobb and his force. He left the lieutenant. Joalland and I’allier. and Henry, the military doctor, in the dark about his plans, and sent back to Klobb an insulting message that began: — "What is this new infamy? Do they wish to rob us of the fruits of our efforts? Are we Hie first to have acted as we have done? Let us follow our route in peace, and woe to tiny one who tries to stop us, for we have GOO rifles.”

The sergeants who returned with this note became lost in the jungle and failed to reach Klobb in time. The note is now in the archives of the War Ministry in Paris. Klobb finally caught up with Voulct’s expedition on .July 1-1 and called out his name when he was still several hundred yards away in the thick foliage. An eye-witness. Lieutenant Joaliand, who retired from active military service a few weeks ago as Cl eneral Joallaud. recently gave a detailed account of the tragedy that followed. “I know who you are.” Captain Voulet shouted back to his superior. "But if you and your troops advance a foot farther I shall fire.” SHOT DOWN. Like a brave soldier, Klobb advanced, followed by his native riflemen. Voulet’s natives fired a vqlley point blank and Klobb fell with a bullet through his stomach. Klobb’s sergeants ran up and begged for permission to return the fire. Klobb refused and ordered his men to advance. This time Voulet ordered two more volleys and then, firing at random, Klobb fell with a bullet through his head, shouting shouting “Vive la France!” His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Meyner, who is a general to-day. received a bullet through his hip, and a dozen more of Klobb’s men were killed at the same time. Voulet then ordered a bayonet charge, whereupon Klobb’s column took to their heels and head-/ ed back to Senegal, 2000 miles away. “I am going to found an empire in the Sahara,” Captain Voulet told his French officers, and also his natives after the battle. "I have an army, and I shall be the master of this country. 'lf you will all stay with me, I shall make you -powerful chiefs.” The reason for Voulet’s murderous frenzy has never been fully explained. It is believed, though, that he suspected Klobb and other officers were intriguing to rob him of the glory of reaching Lake Chad, and that on top

of this mania he went a bit mad from the terrific heat. Ou the other hand, he bad been acting outrageously even before the hot season started. Lieutenant Joalland. who was horrified by Voulet’s action, got 30 riflemen to follow him and slipped away during the night for Dakar. A few hours later the remainder of Voulet’s native troops revolted and started back to Senegal with all their equipment, the crazy commander being left with several French officers and noncoms., who hardly knew what to do. “Captain Chanoine hurried up just as the natives were leaving camp, and as they believed that he was trying to stop them they shot him,” Joalland declared in his recent speech. “As for Captain Voulet. he took to the jungle, and when he tried to enter the camp of his disbanded troops on the night of July 2. a sentinel shot and killed him. declaring that the captain had fired first." This is the official explanation of Captain Voulet’s end. The French military authorities have always declared that he was shot and killed two days after he killed Klobb. but from that moment a sort of mysterious legend spread through Central Africa that Voulet had not been killed, and the legend persists to this day. In fact, it is a considerably more substantial tale than tiny mere legend.

For example, a correspondent of the London “Times.” in the Congo announced on May 7, 1901. that Voulet and Chanoine were arming and training the troops of the Sultan of Wadai against France. On October 12, 1909, the Paris “’datin’’ had a report from Oran. Algeria, that “Captain Voulet had delivered Abe.chr. capital of Wadai ( French Congo), ;o Colonel Millot (of the French Army}, and Colonel Millot will not dare deny this.” There have been similar reports from usually reliably sources that Voulet became a high chief of the veiled Tuaregs in the Southern Sahara, and was still alive. The world at large, however, has-, largely ignored this passionate mystery. It happened in the very midst of the Dreyfus trial in France, the American war with Spain, and the British troubles in South Africa. Only the French newspapers mentioned it at the time, and they dropped it quickly for more important news. Then the World War came along, a new generation grew up in France and every one had forgotten it—and also that it forced General Chanoine to resign from the War Ministry—until General Joalland gave his reminiscences of it before a group of French military men when he retired a few weeks ago.

STRANGE PERSONALITY. General Joalland’s account, which was widely reproduced in the Paris newspapers, happened to fall into the hands of a Latvian Army officer, Colonel Otto Zeltin, who happens to be a noted African explorer, and in a vivid letter to the Paris “Instransigent” the explorer confirms the theory that Voulet became a chief of a native tribe and may be living still. “In the course of two different trips across the Dark Continent, I heard old. grey-haired native guides whisper around tiie campfires at night about this fantastic and terrifying affair,” Colonel Zeltin declares. “I first heard of Captain Voulet

when I crossed the Sahara in 1921, and I wrote in my book, published by Verlag-Oldenburg at Leipzig in 1924, a chapter entitled. The Mysterious Sheik Called Schirr Sidi Bey.’ in which I said: “He is a strange personality, who has never allowed any man to see his face. This sheik has a remarkable influence over Ihe population of the Northern Sudan and always supports French policy. Many believe that he is a Frenchman, and mention a well-known name, but I can scarcely credit this."

“1 heard the same legend in 1927 in a remote corner of the limitless jungle between British Nigeria and French West Africa. 1 had called on some natives to help me when my car got stuck in a small stream, and among them was an old chief carrying the type of sword used by French officers thirty or forty years ago. This sword intrigued me and, by giving him liquor and tobacco, my interpreter finally persuaded him to show us some other curious relics he said he possessed. The old man took us to a but in a nearby jungle, and there he drew out an old French officer’s cloak with the three stripes of a capain on the sleeve.

“ ‘Ba-To-Ri!’ exclaimed the old negro, radiant with joy. (‘The great white man.') And he added: ‘Schirr Sidi Bey.’ It was the same name I had heard several thousand miles away in 1921. “We talked for a whole afternoon and the old man. who claimed to have been with Voulet as a servant, said that the French officer had not been killed but bad gone off with the daughter of a Tuareg chief and had become a chief in turn. After living with Voulet in the Sahara for some years, the old man had finally become homesick for his own tribe, and in leaving Voulet had given him the sword and cloak as a gift.” Colonel Zeltin. who has a high reputation throughout Europe as ;m explorer and scientist, declares that the various accounts he heard of Voulet’s arrival impressed him as absolute truth. ' “It seems to be absolutely certain,” he adds, “that Captain Voulet lived for many years after the bloody drama near Chad, for it is impossible to see a simple coincidence in accounts that 1 received at two different times, in regions far apart, by men who certainly had no contact with one another, and these accounts separated by so many years.” As for Voulet being alive to-day, the explorer does not pretend to affirm or deny it, but he is convinced that the officer was living in 1921.