France set the capstone to her African empire on March 30, 1912, when His Shereefian Majesty the Sultan Mulai Yusef, in his palace at Fez, set his signature to the document which formally accepted a French protectorate over Morocco. By that single stroke of the pen was added to the overseas dominions under the tricolor a territory larger than France itself. Be it clearly understood, that the control of Morocco was as vital a fact in the French scheme for acquiring the hegemony of Northwest Africa as the annexation of California was to the dominance of the North American continent by the United States. France’s style was cramped, to make use of a popular expression, as long as Morocco remained independent. Had the Shereefian Empire been a strong, well-governed country, the situation would have been different; but it was, on the contrary, a hotbed of disorder, unrest, intrigue, and corruption. To have attempted the pacification of the Sahara and the reëstablishment of the old trade-routes, with the hinterland of Morocco offering a secure refuge and recruiting-ground for all the lawless and unruly elements of desert life, would have been to court endless difficulties if not to invite complete disaster. For centuries Morocco had been a thorn in the flesh of all those European nations having political interest in Africa; this source of irritation and infection must be got rid of if France’s elaborate and carefully worked out plans for the consolidation of her African possessions were to succeed. That her action was justified has been proved beyond cavil by the striking success which has marked her administration of Morocco during the past dozen years. The most recent additions to France’s African domain were acquired at the close of the World War, when Germany unconditionally surrendered her overseas possessions to the Allies. When the spoils of war came to be apportioned, France obtained control of about two thirds of the former German colony of Togo, and nearly the whole of Cameroon (both of which adjoined her possessions on the Gulf of Guinea), under mandates granted by the League of Nations. Omitting the little enclave of French Somaliland on the East Coast and the great island colony of Madagascar, France’s African empire to-day consists of Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, French West Africa (comprising the colonies of Senegal, French Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Dahomey, the French Sudan, and the Upper Volta, and the civil territories of Mauretania and the Niger), French Equatorial Africa (in which are embraced the colonies of Gabun, Middle Congo, Ubanghi-Shari, and Tchad), and the mandated territories of Togo and Cameroon.