From Nouakchott to Atar, the memory of soldiers and scientists from the French colonial era has not completely disappeared.
Some have not forgotten that Mauritania was a French colony from 1920 to 1960. The businessman and patron Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Lekhal is one of them. Last fall, after an unsuccessful auction in Fontainebleau, he acquired from the Osenat house a watercolor attributed to Géricault. This represents one of the survivors of the Jellyfish – the frigate which was to regain possession of Saint-Louis du Senegal in 1816 but which ran aground off the Mauritanian coast.
The man, depicted by the artist on the basis of testimonies, chats with a cacique – the emir of the Trarza region – who asks him for news of the Emperor. The survivor then draws a map in the sand to explain approximately where the islands of Elba and Saint Helena are located.
Also read
Mauritania: a festival against gridlock
The scene is thus intended to be the inaugural event of the French presence in these latitudes. It is fortunate that she is joining Nouakchott, a capital with few traces of its past (they fit into two rooms in the national museum). During the Festival of Ancient Cities, the leaf was even presented in Atar, capital of Adrar and a major garrison town for troops during the colonial era.
In Atar, the last French military cemetery
Atar has the last French military cemetery. The site was restored in 2003 and 2004 thanks to funds provided by the Directorate of Memory, Heritage and Archives of the Ministry of Defense. Covering an area of 60 acres, it then housed, in addition to 44 graves of French soldiers (plus a few civilians), those of 176 African riflemen or spahis of Muslim or Christian faith, six of their wives and 22 of their children.
Recently some other remains have been added to this number. They come from other cemeteries which are now disused, such as that of Amatil or that of F'Derick. A final transfer, that of the Oualata military square, took place last March. On this occasion three bodies were identified, the remaining eight being anonymous. « Sometimes we only have the buttons of the uniforms »regrets the defense attaché near the French embassy. Who continues the search.
Also read
The head of French diplomacy hands over archaeological objects to Ethiopia
Just like Bernard Saison. This archaeologist and medievalist has just been decorated by the Mauritanian president and received confirmation that the French excavations in which he has participated for more than twenty years will resume. In particular, eight kilometers away, on the site of Azougui which he discovered and which turned out to be the cradle of the Almoravids, a dynasty which in the 11the and 12e centuries dominated North Africa and Spain.
Pierre Messmer's house
In Mauritania, Saison also excavated at Koumbi Saleh, former capital of the Ghana Empire, and Taoudagoust, another major center of trans-Saharan trade. He, like the members of the French embassy in Mauritania, like Ould Lekhal and these other Mauritanian intellectuals who, like Thierry Vergnol, leader of a foundation in Nouakchott, run small museums from Touezekt to Ouadane, are convinced that knowledge of the past is a lever for the economic and social development of the country, a necessity for those who want to build a prosperous and solid future.
These men of culture therefore add actions to their words. This is how, without mentioning Xavier Coppolani, the Corsican founder of Nouakchott, Gouraud the conqueror whose fort was renamed after independence or Commander Frèrejean who surveyed the desert even more than Théodore Monod or Odette du Puigaudeau, the memory of the “old French” Méharists does not completely disappear into the sand. The explorer Albert Bonnel de Mézières rests in Atar. We know here again the tragic story of Georges, younger brother of Charles Mangin, that of Patrick de Mac Mahon, grandson of the marshal president killed in 1932 during the battle of Oum Tounsi, or the epic story of the building engineers of Imperial Road No. 1 linking south to north.
Also read
Pierre Messmer, a demanding and lucid patriot
Even the house of Pierre Messmer who was governor of Mauritania from 1952 to 1954 has just been restored. And if the young civil servants or employees of the Atar aerodrome do not even know the name of De Gaulle who nevertheless, on site in 1959, gave a famous speech about the links uniting France and Africa, they are playing pétanque in the evening not far from the tarmac.
