Who is Veiled Sheik of the Sahara?

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1082, 20 September 1930, Page 18

Who is Veiled Sheik of the Sahara?

France Hears That Mysterious Leader of Wild Tuaregs is Captain Voulet, Killer in Grim Tragedy of 30 Years Ago; Now “ Great White Chief ” of Tribe Into Which He Married. r—S THE notorious Captain Voalet still alive. Lc l3 he the mysterious and ■>.' UiS j-. powerful chief of tjW 'r« S Tuaregs, the veiled men ;f the Lover Sahara - js known oTer the length ar. : t-Adtb of Central Africa for his in-,Jn-e sympathy for France? This" strange skeleton in-the-clo=e-o' the Dark Continent, that may actually be a living man, has rattled ins bones again and peered out. as ii " ■ ■ You thought I had been deau for thirty years. - you relieved the tales o' my being ■ ■ troop® as I had shot my brother officers. Yoa were sure that you had buried T p and my Tuareg wife along the burning trail to Chad. But the .ingle and the desert jealously guard their secrets. Ha! Am I dead, or ’"i- aU the colonial development of France —or of any other country, for •hat matter —it is hard to find a more incredible tragedy. On July 14. 1599, Captain Voulet. a French marine officer, who was lead-.-g an official exploration expedition :;om Senega! to Lake Chad, shot ■.own in cold blood Lieutenant-Colonel ilobb. of the French Army, who had been sent to relieve him of his command, and also seriously wounded Lieutenant Meynier, Klobb's aide-de-•smp. Voulet’s accomplice and -Low platter was Captain Chanoine ,on of the French Minister of War at xae time. The scene of this killing was a remote spot in the jungle of French West Africa called Zinder, about 100 miles nortn of the Xigerian frontier and W 4 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 Marc hand and Kitchener had clashed the previous year at Fashoda. The French officer Lamy was pushing from Algeria down toward Lake Chad '■3 hoist the Tricolour before the English could arrive. The French captains Voulet and Chancine, who had *.: = t:ngul;aed themselves in helping to conquer Dahomey, persuaded the French Minister of Colonies to let •hem lead an expedition from Senegal to Lake Chad—a voyage of 2.000 mil-s across a tangled jungle. They left the French outposts in *ae winter of ISSS with a force of 60•> native rlfiemen and cavalrymen, 500 porters, 14 camels, donkeys, cattle, and women camp followers. The expedition more or less followed the Alger 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 an official French account printed ia the Paris • Matin’' on September 1 of that year. Voalet ravaged. pillaged, devastated, and massacred the natives in the most fiend--h 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 Hocks and cattle hail been carried ofT. “He acted as though he suffered from aa erotic madness." the “Matin” declared, after relating three columns of almost unspeakable cruelties. In the face of these shocking reports, the French military authorities immediately directed Kiobb, 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 Kiobb arrived within a few miles of Voulet, at a point near Zinder, and sent several native sergean's ahead with a message, saying he would join him the following day. Voulet, a forceful, energetic man of 40, became furious when he realised that he was to be replaced. His fellow-coaspirator, 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 Kiobb and his force. He left his lieutenants. Joalland and Pallier, and Henry, the military doctor, in the dark about his plans, and sent back to Kiobb an insulting message that began: “What is -his new infamy? Do they wish to rob us of the fruits of our efforts? Are we the first to have acted as we have done? Let us follow our route in peace, and woe to anyone who tries to stop us, for we have 600 rifles.” The sergeants who returned with this note got lost in the jungle, and failed to reach Kiobb in time. The note is now in the archives of the War Ministry in Paris. Kiobb finally caught up with Voulet’s expedition at dusk on July 14. and called out his name when he was still several hundred yards aw?, in the thick foliage An eyewitness. Lieutenant Joalland, who retired from active military service a few weeks ago as General Joalland. recently gave a detailed account of the tragedy that ensued. "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.” Like a brave soldier, Klobb advanced. followed by his native riflemen. Voulet’s natives fired a volley point-blank and Klobb fell with a bullet through his stomach- Klobb's i sergeants ran up and begged for p- :- mission 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 hi 3 head, shouting "Vive la France:” His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Meynier, who is a general today, got a ballet through his hip, and a dozen or more of Klobb'3 men were killed at the same time. Voulet then ordered a bayonet charge, whereupon Klobb’s column took to their heels and headed back to Senegal, 2,000 miles away. "I am going to found an empire in the Sahara,” Captain Voulet told hi 3 French officers and also his natives after the battle. “I have an army and I shall be the master of this country. If you will stay with me, I shall make you powerful chiefs.” The reason for Voulet's murderous frenzy has never ben 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 slightly mad from the terrific heat. On the other hand, he had been acting outrageously even before the hot season started. Lieutenant Joalland, who was horrified by Voulet'3 action, got thirty 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 with a native woman, and when he tried to enter the camp of his disbanded troops on the night of July 16 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 that legend persists to this day In fact, it is a considerably more substantial tale than any mere legend. For example, a correspondent of the “London Times” in the Congo an- ; nounced on May ”, 1901, that Voulet : and Chanoine were arming and training tho troops of the Sultan of Wadai against France. On October 12, 1309, the Paris “Matin” had a report from Oran Algeria, that “Captain Voulet had delivered Abechr, capital of Wadai (French Congo) to Colonel Millot (of the French Army), and Colonel Millot will not dare deny this.” There have been similar reports ! from usually reliable 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 i South Africa. Only the French news- j

I mentioned It at the time, and they dropped it quietly for more im--1 pertant news. Then the World War • came along, a new generation grew up in France, and every one had for- ; gotten it —and also that it forced General Chanoine to resign from the War Ministry—until General Joalland gave ...- reminiscences of it before a group ,f French military men when he retired a few weeks Ego. General Joaliaud's account, which was widely reproduced in the Paris newspapers, happened to fall into the hands of a Latvian army officer, ColI onel Otto Zeltin, who happens to be a noted African explorer, and in a vivid letter to the Paris "Intransi- : geant” the explorer confirms the theory that Voulet became a chief of a native tribe and ma> be living still ‘ In the course of two different trips across the Hark Continem 1 heard old, grey-haired native guides whisper around the campfires at night about this fantastic and terrifying affair," Colonel Zeltin declares. "I first heard of Captain Voulet when 1 crossed the Sahara in 1921, and 1 wrote in my book, published by Verlag-Oldenburg at Leipzig in 1924, a chapter entitled, ‘The Mysterious Sheik Called Schirr Sidi Bey,’ iu which I said: ‘He is a strange personality, who has never allowed any man to see his face. Thi3 sheik has a remarkable infiuence over the population of the Northern Sudan and always supports French policy. Many believe that he is a Frenchman and mention a well-known name, bat I can scarcely credit this.’ "I heard the same legend in 1927 in a remote corner of the limitless jungle between British Nigeria and French West Africa. I 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 hut in a nearby jungle and there he drew our an old French officer’s cloak with the three stripes of a captain on the sleeve. “ ‘Ba-To-Roi:’ exclaimed the old negro, radiant with joy. (‘The gTeat white man.’) And he added: ‘Schirr Sidi Bey.’ It was the same name I had heard several thousand miie3 away in 192 L “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 had 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 ha 3 a high reputation throughout Europe as an explorer and sicentist, declares that the various accounts he heard of Voulet's survival 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 I received at two different times, in 1 regions far apart, by men who ceri tainlv had no contact with one another, and these accounts separated : by so many years.” As for Voulet being alive today, the ! explorer does not pretend to affirm or i deny it, but he Is convinced that the | officer was living in 1921.