Death in the Sahara [Hardcover]

This is a great book and is quite engaging. Michael Asher tells the story of the French expedition in 1880's sent to Sahara to map the route from Algiers to Timbuktu. The objective is to pave the way for the building of the Trans-Saharan railway by the French.

The expedition is lead by an experienced French commander Paul Flatters who is very familiar with the ways of the desert. However, his own personal ambitions and expectations get in the way of reason and he commits a series of grave mistakes that by and by seal his fate and that of his fellow travelers. His party of 100 men is well equipped and well armed, but they're traveling into the unknown where the help and benevolence of the local tribesmen would be crucial for survival. Yet they approach the unknown with arrogance of the conquerors and instead of making allies make enemies. The unforgiving climate of the Sahara desert, where water is scarce and very far between, does not help their situation. Needless to say the expedition meets a disastrous end and only a few of its participants were lucky enough to live to tell the tale.

The interesting thing is that Flatters had a pretty good gut feel for what should be done and for the direction the expedition should go exploring in order to cross Sahara from Algiers to Timbuktu -- which was around and not through the Tuareg territory. However, he's so preoccupied with his own personal fame and wants to be the one (and the first one) to cross Sahara. And this becomes fatal to him as his obsession drives him against his gut feel. So when his proposal gets turned down he willingly changes his heart and accepts the leadership of the mission straight through the Tuareg territory just so that he can preserve his chance for fame.

What's also interesting about this is how governments make decisions about things they know virtually nothing about. Despite some pretty good reports from the field, like the initial report from Flatters himself who gave them pretty accurate report of what lies ahead in each part of Sahara. His initial report had nothing good to say about the Tuareg and proposed the only logical and sensible way to take the expedition. However, as it usually is in these cases, the bureaucrats and politicians know better than the folks in the field. And one influential, yet misguided individual with connections steered the expedition in a completely different direction to achieve his own personal interests and to pursue his own agenda, sending the Flatters' expedition straight through the uncharted Tuareg territory. Nearly 100 men from the Flatters' expedition paid the ultimate price for this decision. How little has changed since then as we still see governments, politician and bureaucrats operating the same way even today.

As far as the story line is concerned, Asher seems to have done a pretty good research of what was known about the expedition and lets the reader know where he fills in the blanks or where he speculates what might have happened. While I did not have time to check his sources yet, the way Asher wrote the story makes it quite plausible and inspires confidence. It is well written, reads well and is very interesting. I highly recommend it.

Author Asher has written an excellent book on an expedition by the French in 1880 to cross the Sahara from Algiers to Timbuctoo and determine the feasibility of building a railroad following their route to open up the sub-Sahara to French expansion. The book is very well written and even exciting. I would have given it five stars if it would have had even one map illustrating the route taken by the expedition (actually more than one was needed), since I was unable to devine the route using several currently available National Geographic maps of Algeria and the Sahara Desert. What frustration! -- and it could have been easily alleviated by the author. Other criticisms would include the necessity of a discussion of the French arms at the time and why they were so superior to what the Tuareg possessed, and a map showing the various tribal areas.

At any rate, the fecklessness of the promoters of the expedition as well as the poor decisions by its leadership made for a daunting read. The wishful thinking of France's politicians and bureaucrats when putting other people's lives at risk showed democracy at its worst and should be noted by the modern reader and compared to similar actions in current times. The expedition was sent out with inadequate force to defend itself in order not to alarm a potentially hostile population -- when all along that population was dedicated to exterminating everyone on the expedition.

The evildoers in this story were the Tuaregs, several desert tribes who hated Christians (they were Muslims) and did not want to allow unbelievers entry into their lands. They consistently lied, stole, misled, and murdered to achieve their aims, instilling fear in other Arab tribes in order to control them. In Paris, however, they were viewed as romantic.

The hardships experienced by the expedition were many and the author does an excellent job depicting the scenes. When the party penetrated into the Hogger Mountains after being assured by the Tuaregs and their Tuareg guides that the Tuaregs were peaceful, the Tuaregs attacked and killed most of the expedition including all the Europeans. Only a few Arabs, either camel drivers or French auxiliary soldiers, survived to tell the tale. So what did the French do about it? Nothing.

At that point the Tuaregs decided the French were cowardly, toothless, and could be robbed or murdered at will. Sounds rather like contemporary times.

However, the Tuaregs overplayed their hand and a complaint spurred a French officer in a frontier post to action. Without telling his superiors, he sent a detachment of Arab volunteers under an experienced French officer to punish the Tuaregs. This expedition was successful in routing the Tuaregs and broke their power over other Arabs by showing all the tribes that the Tuaregs were no longer to be feared. It was a momentous event for the Sahara -- the Tuareg's 1,000 year hegemony was ended.

Of course the French officer who authorized the patrol was relieved of his command and retired from the Army. The French Army did not need officers who would have thrived under the German system of "mission oriented" commands. The officer who defeated the Tuaregs was relieved and transferred back to France, never again to return to Algeria. For the times, he was not politically correct. The French officer who led the first expedition into disaster was lionized and a fort in Algeria was named after him. The rest of the dead were forgotten, and the railroad was never built. The politicians in Paris went on to the Dreyfus affair and enjoyed the gay nineties.

This is really an enjoyable book to read and one that puts the Muslim/Christian animus into perspective. Remember this was only 125 years ago and when Europe felt the world had become civilized. There is much to learn in this book -- buy it, read it, enjoy it, and learn from it.

It is frustrating that a book of exploration like this has no maps! Not one! Thank goodness for Google Earth or reading this book would have been a trek though alphabet soup. The larger places can be found but smaller places that are still critical for the story. The amazing thing to me is that studying the route that Flatters chose - around the east side of the Hoggar mountains - added hundreds of miles over the route proposed by Duponchel. The expedtion was geographic insanity, if the real goal was to establish the best route for a rrailroad from Algiers to Timbukto.

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