Lowered conquest costs and national humiliation revived French colonial expansion

Evidence

By the 187o’s, the human and financial costs of conquering tropical territories had diminished significantly, thanks to certain technological advances, including the discovery of the prophylactic qualities of quinine and vastly improved weapons; at the same time, interest in new colonial expansion began to revive among a select republican elite in Paris. One measure of this renewed interest was the rather sudden growth of geographical societies, whose explicit aim was to promote the exploration of Africa and Asia as a prelude to commercial penetration and outright annexation. New colonies would help compensate for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, as well as combat French “decadence” in the wake of Sedan and the Paris Commune, by allowing the Republic to engage in the politics of grandeur. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 55

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the imperial-imposition theme relevant to the reader’s project on republicanism forced into West Africa — cause being both technological feasibility and nationalist compensation.