The expedition was fully armed with artillery, machine guns, hundreds of rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition. The force was directed by nine Europeans: the two commanders, the artillery expert lieutenant Paul Joalland, Lt. It was composed of 50 Senegalese Tirailleurs, 20 spahis (both units recruited in West Africa) and 30 interpreters, but the bulk was formed by 400 auxiliaries and 800 porters that were pressed into service. The Voulet–Chanoine Mission to Lake Chad set out from Dakar in November 1898, moving through French Sudan (modern Mali). The expedition is remembered for its descent into depravity and extreme violence, actions which today would legally be considered war crimes. The refusal of the expedition commander and his second-in-command to follow orders from France, their murder of a commanding officer and their subsequent deaths at the hands of their own soldiers cast a dark shadow over France's emerging colonial empire in Africa at the end of the 19th century.
This expedition operated jointly with two other expeditions, the Foureau-Lamy and Gentil missions, which advanced from Algeria and Middle Congo respectively. The Voulet–Chanoine Mission or Central African-Chad Mission ( French: mission Afrique Centrale-Tchad) was a French military expedition sent out from Senegal in 1898 to conquer the Chad Basin and unify all French territories in West Africa.