Samori Ture - War and Defeat

War and Defeat

By 1887, Samori had a disciplined army of 30,000 - 35,000 infantry, organized into platoons and companies on the European model, and 3,000 cavalry, in regular squadrons of 50 each. However, the French were determined not to give Samori time to consolidate his position. Exploiting the rebellions of several of Samori's animist subject tribes, the French continued to expand into his westernmost holdings, forcing Samori to sign several treaties ceding territory to them between 1886 and 1889.

In March 1891, a French force under Col. Archinard launched a direct attack on Kankan. Knowing his fortifications could not stop French artillery, Samori began a war of maneuver. Despite victories against isolated French columns (for example at Dabadugu in September 1891), Samori failed to push the French from the core of his kingdom. In June 1892, Col. Archinard’s replacement, Humbert, leading a small, well-supplied force of picked men, captured Samori’s capital of Bissandugu. In another blow, the British stopped selling breech loaders to Samori in accordance with the Brussels Convention of 1890.

Samori moved his entire base of operations eastward, toward the Bandama and Comoe. He instituted a scorched earth policy, devastating each area before he evacuated it. Though this maneuver cut Samori off from his last sources of modern weapons, Sierra Leone and Liberia, it also delayed French pursuit.

Nonetheless, the fall of other resistance armies, particularly Babemba Traoré at Sikasso, permitted the colonial army to launch a concentrated assault against Touré. He was captured 29 September 1898 by French Capitaine Gouraud and exiled to Gabon.

Samori died in captivity on June 2, 1900, following a bout of pneumonia. His tomb is at the Camayanne Mausoleum, situated within the gardens of Conakry Grand Mosque.