Émile Gentil

Émile Gentil (4 April 1866 – 30 March 1914) was a French colonial administrator, naval officer, and colonial military leader.

Born at Volmunster in the department of Moselle, he later attended the École Navale, the school that formed French naval officers. As an ensign, he was assigned to conduct hydrographic soundings along the Gabonese coast from 1890 to 1892. In 1892 he joined the colonial administration in Gabon.

Gentil is best known for heading two military missions to conquer and consolidate territories north from modern Gabon to Chad.

In 1895, Gentil was ordered to find a practical route to Chad, claiming the area between for France, and hence thwarting German and British expansion. On 27 July 1895, Gentil headed up the Congo River on the French steamship Léon-Blot. The ship was then dismantled and hauled by African laborers through the forest to reach navigable portions of the Oubangui, where he founded the French station at Fort-Archambault near one of Sultan Rabih az-Zubayr's major towns, Kouno (now in the Chari-Baguirmi Region of Chad). The mission then transported the steamboat overland again to the Chari, which stretches to Lake Chad in the north.

In October 1897 he convinced the Sultan Abd ar Rahman Gwaranga to sign a treaty of alliance which gave France a protectorate over the Kingdom of Baguirmi, which was then threatened by Rabih az-Zubayr, the most powerful ruler in the Chad basin.

On 20 October Gentil's mission passed through Rabih az-Zubayr, reaching Lake Chad on the 28th.

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