West Africa’s size and diversity destabilized early French colonial administration.

Evidence

This instability was partially the result of rivalry between civilian and military authorities in the colony, at a time when the conquest of West Africa was still not complete. But it was also the result of the sheer size and human diversity of the lands in question, which made the institution of any new bureaucracy problematic. Because West Africa’s geography, history, and peoples are as essential as metropolitan priorities and feuding administrators to the history of the Government General and its ideology, it is with a brief overview of the physical and social landscape of West Africa that a description of the federation must start. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 93

Categorization

• XREF: Rivalry between civilian and military authorities in West Africa parallels French-Algerian colonial administration tensions the reader is already tracking.