Colonialism.docx

History (Minor) Project | First Semester Colonialism – a Critique (French Colonial Empire)

Submitted by:

Submitted to:

Kaustubh Singh Thakur

Dr. Rachna Sharma

Roll no. – 18042

RGNUL, Punjab

Group: 05 (Section A)

Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab 2018

1|Page

Acknowledgement I would like to express my sincere gratitude and ineffable indebtedness to my History professor Dr. Rachna Sharma who gave me an opportunity and guided me throughout my research work on the project topic “Colonialism – a Critique”. It was my privilege to work under their guidance.

The RGNUL Library has also greatly contributed to the making of this project.

At last, I would also like to thank my friends for helping me and motivating me to complete this project on time.

Kaustubh Singh Thakur Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law Punjab First Year 18042

2|Page

Contents Research Methodology ..................................................................................................... 4 Objectives........................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 5 French Colonial Empire ................................................................................................... 6 First Phase of French Colonial Empire .......................................................................... 7 Second Phase of French Colonial Empire ...................................................................... 9 Third Phase of French Colonial Empire (1870 – 1939) ............................................... 11 Analysis of French Colonialism in India....................................................................... 13 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 17 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 19

3|Page

Research Methodology The Research Methodology used in this project has been primarily library research and specifically doctrinal research where we derive the research material from the secondary sources such as books, research papers, journals and articles.

Objectives The objective of this study is to gain fundamental knowledge in the field of colonialism. This will enable me to understand and critically analyze the era of colonialism. To do this, I have studied and examined various research papers and journals which are relevant to this field and I have also taken help of a few notable books based on ‘History’.

4|Page

Introduction Colonialism is the policy of a foreign polity seeking to extend or retain its authority over other people or territories, generally with the aim of developing or exploiting them to the benefit of the colonizing country and of helping the colonies modernize in terms defined by the colonizers, especially in economics, religion, and health. “Colonialism is the policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker peoples or areas”.1 "Colonialism is the control by one power over a dependent area or people".2 Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule.3 Colonialism can also be defined as a Western, political-economic phenomenon whereby various European nations explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large areas of the world. The age of modern colonialism began about 1500, following the European discoveries of a sea route around Africa’s southern coast (1488) and of America (1492). With these events sea power shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and to the emerging nation-states of Portugal, Spain, the Dutch Republic, France, and England. By discovery, conquest, and settlement, these nations expanded and colonized throughout the world, spreading European institutions and culture. Settler colonialism involves large-scale immigration, often motivated by religious, political, or economic reasons. Exploitation colonialism involves fewer colonists and focuses on the exploitation of natural resources or population as labour, typically to the benefit of the metropole. Surrogate colonialism involves a settlement project supported by a colonial power, in which most of the settlers do not come from same ethnic group as the ruling power. Internal colonialism is a notion of uneven structural power between areas of a state.

1

"Colonialism". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. 2011. Retrieved 8 January 2012. "Colonialism". Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. 2010. Retrieved 5 April 2010. 3 Osterhammel, Jürgen (2005). Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview. Trans. Shelley Frisch. Markus Weiner Publishers. p. 16. ISBN 978-1-55876-340-1. Retrieved 5 April 2010. 2

5|Page

French Colonial Empire The French colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "first colonial empire," that existed until 1814, by which time most of it had been lost, and the "second colonial empire", which began with the conquest of Algiers in 1830. The second colonial empire came to an end after the loss in later wars of Vietnam (1954) and Algeria (1962), and relatively peaceful decolonization elsewhere after 1960. Competing with Spain, Portugal, the Dutch United Provinces and later England, France began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean and India in the 17th century. A series of wars with Great Britain and other European major powers during the 18th century and early 19th century resulted in France losing nearly all of its conquests. France rebuilt a new empire mostly after 1850, concentrating chiefly in Africa as well as Indochina and the South Pacific. Republicans, at first hostile to empire, only became supportive when Germany started to build their own colonial empire. As it developed, the new empire took on roles of trade with France, especially supplying raw materials and purchasing manufactured items as well as lending prestige to the motherland and spreading French civilization and language and the Catholic religion. It also provided manpower in the World Wars. At its apex, French empire was one of the largest empires in history. Including metropolitan France, the total amount of land under French sovereignty reached 11,500,000 km2 (4,400,000 sq. mi) in 1920, with a population of 110 million people in 1939.

6|Page

First Phase of French Colonial Empire French Colonialism in Africa French colonial expansion was not limited to the New World. In Senegal in West Africa, the French began to establish trading posts along the coast in 1624. In 1664, the French East India Company was established to compete for trade in the east. With the decay of the Ottoman Empire, in 1830 the French seized Algiers, thus beginning the colonization of French North Africa. After the First World War, France's African war aims were not being decided by her cabinet or the official mind of the colonial ministry, but rather the leaders of the colonial movement in French Africa. The first occasion of this was in 1915–1916, when Francois Georges-Picot (both a diplomat and part of a colonial dynasty) met with the British to discuss the division of Cameroon. Picot proceeded with negotiations with neither the oversight of the French president nor the cabinet. What resulted was Britain giving nine tenths of Cameroon to the French. Picot emphasized the demands of the French colonists over the French cabinet. This policy of French colonial leaders determining France's African war aims can be seen throughout much of France's empire.4 French Colonialism in Asia Indochina and India were two major French colonies setup in Asia. France–Vietnam relations started in early 17th century with the mission of the Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes. At this time, Vietnam was only just beginning to occupy the Mekong Delta, former territory of the Indianised kingdom of Champa which they had defeated in 1471. European involvement in Vietnam was confined to trade during the 18th century. In 1787, Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, a French Catholic priest, petitioned the French government and organised French military volunteers to aid Nguyễn Ánh in retaking lands his family lost to the Tây Sơn. Pigneau died in Vietnam but his troops fought on until 1802 in the French assistance to Nguyễn Ánh. A grouping of the three Vietnamese regions of Tonkin (north), Annam (centre), and Cochinchina (south) with Cambodia was formed in 1887. Laos was added in 1893 and the leased Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan in 1898.

4

Andrew, C. M., and A. S. . . KANYA-FORSTNER. "FRANCE, AFRICA, AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR." The Journal of African History 19.1 (1978): 11–23. Print.

7|Page

The capital was moved from Saigon (in Cochinchina) to Hanoi (Tonkin) in 1902 and again to Da Lat (Annam) in 1939. In 1945 it was moved back to Hanoi. In India, France was the last of the major European maritime powers of the 17th century to enter the East India trade. The first French expedition to India is believed to have taken place in the first half of the 16th century, in the reign of King Francis I, when two ships were fitted out by some merchants of Rouen to trade in eastern seas; they sailed from Le Havre and were never heard of again. In 1604 a company was granted letters patent by King Henry IV, but the project failed. Fresh letters patent were issued in 1615, and two ships went to India, only one returning.

Colonies were established in India's

Chandernagore (1673) and Pondichéry in the south east (1674), and later at Yanam (1723), Mahe (1725), and Karikal (1739) (see French India). Colonies were also founded in the Indian Ocean, on the Île de Bourbon (Réunion, 1664), Isle de France (Mauritius, 1718), and the Seychelles (1756). French Colonialism in America During the 16th century, the French colonization of the Americas began. Excursions of Giovanni da Verrazzano and Jacques Cartier in the early 16th century, as well as the frequent voyages of French boats and fishermen to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland throughout that century, were the precursors to the story of France's colonial expansion. But Spain's defense of its American monopoly, and the further distractions caused in France itself in the later 16th century by the French Wars of Religion, prevented any constant efforts by France to settle colonies. Early French attempts to found colonies in Brazil, in 1555 at Rio de Janeiro ("France Antarctique") and in Florida (including Fort Caroline in 1562), and in 1612 at São Luís ("France Équinoxiale"), were not successful, due to a lack of official interest and to Portuguese and Spanish vigilance. The story of France's colonial empire truly began on 27 July 1605, with the foundation of Port Royal in the colony of Acadia in North America, in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada. A few years later, in 1608, Samuel De Champlain founded Quebec, which was to become the capital of the enormous, but sparsely settled, fur-trading colony of New France (also called Canada).5

5

Marcel Trudel, the Beginnings of New France, 1524-1663 (McClelland & Stewart, 1973).

8|Page

Second Phase of French Colonial Empire At the close of the Napoleonic Wars, most of France's colonies were restored to it by Britain, notably Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies, French Guiana on the coast of South America, various trading posts in Senegal, the Île Bourbon (Réunion) in the Indian Ocean, and France's tiny Indian possessions; however, Britain finally annexed Saint Lucia, Tobago, the Seychelles, and the Isle de France (now Mauritius). In 1825 Charles X sent an expedition to Haïti, resulting in the Haiti indemnity controversy. The beginnings of the second French colonial empire were laid in 1830 with the French invasion of Algeria, which was conquered over the next 17 years. One authority counts 825,000 Algerian victims of the French conquest. Napoleon III doubled the area of the French overseas Empire; he established French rule in New Caledonia, and Cochinchina, established a protectorate in Cambodia (1863); and colonized parts of Africa. He joined Britain sending an army to China during Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion (1860), but French ventures to establish influence in Japan (1867) and Korea (1866) were less successful. His attempt to impose a European monarch, Maximilian I of Mexico on the Mexicans ended in a spectacular failure in 1867. To restore the Mexican Republic, 31,962 Mexicans died violently, including over 11,000 executed by firing squads, 8,304 were seriously wounded and 33,281 endured captivity in prisoner of war camps. Those Mexicans who fought for the monarchy sacrificed 5,671 of their number killed in combat, 2,159 badly wounded, and 4,379 taken prisoner. The French suffered 1,729 battle deaths, including 549 who died of wounds, 2,559 wounded, and 4,925 dead from disease. In 1857, after the murder of a French priest and the arrest by the Chinese police of the crew of a British merchant ship, Napoleon III joined together with Great Britain to form a military expedition to punish the Chinese government. The object of his policy was not to take territory, but to assure that the vast and lucrative Chinese market was open to French commerce, and not the exclusive trading partner of Britain. In January 1858 a combined British and French fleet bombarded and occupied Canton, and landed troops at the mouth of the Hai River in northern China. In June 1858 the Chinese government in Peking was forced to sign the Treaty of Tientsin with Britain, France, Russia and the United States. 9|Page

This treaty opened six additional Chinese ports to European merchant ships, allowed Christian missionary activity, and legalized the import of opium into China. French – British Relations Despite the signing of the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier Treaty, a historic free trade agreement between Britain and France, and the joint operations conducted by France and Britain in the Crimea, China and Mexico, diplomatic relations between Britain and France never became close. Lord Palmerston, the British foreign minister from 1846 to 1851 and prime minister from 1855 to 1865, sought to maintain the balance of power in Europe; this rarely involved an alignment with France. In 1859 there were even briefly fears that France might try to invade Britain. Palmerston was suspicious of France's interventions in Lebanon, Southeast Asia and Mexico. Palmerston was also concerned that France might intervene in the American Civil War (1861–65) on the side of the South. The British also felt threatened by the construction of the Suez Canal (1859–1869) by Ferdinand de Lesseps in Egypt. They tried to oppose its completion by diplomatic pressures and by promoting revolts among workers. The Suez Canal was successfully built by the French, but became a joint BritishFrench project in 1875. Both nations saw it as vital to maintaining their influence and empires in Asia. In 1882, ongoing civil disturbances in Egypt prompted Britain to intervene, extending a hand to France. France's leading expansionist Jules Ferry was out of office, and Paris allowed London to take effective control of Egypt.6

6

A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918 (1954) pp 286–92

10 | P a g e

Third Phase of French Colonial Empire (1870 – 1939) Asia It was only after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 and the founding of the Third Republic (1871–1940) that most of France's later colonial possessions were acquired. From their base in Cochinchina, the French took over Tonkin (in modern northern Vietnam) and Annam (in modern central Vietnam) in 1884–1885. These, together with Cambodia and Cochinchina, formed French Indochina in 1887 (to which Laos was added in 1893 and Guangzhouwan in 1900). In 1849, the French concession in Shanghai was established, lasting until 1946. The French also had concessions in Guangzhou and Hankou (now part of Wuhan). Africa France also extended its influence in North Africa after 1870, establishing a protectorate in Tunisia in 1881 with the Bardo Treaty. Gradually, French control crystallized over much of North, West, and Central Africa by around the start of the 20th century (including the modern states of Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, Benin, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, the east African coastal enclave of Djibouti (French Somaliland), and the island of Madagascar). Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza helped to formalize French control in Gabon and on the northern banks of the Congo River from the early 1880s. The explorer Colonel Parfait-Louis Monteil traveled from Senegal to Lake Chad in 1890–1892, signing treaties of friendship and protection with the rulers of several of the countries he passed through, and gaining much knowledge of the geography and politics of the region. Pacific islands At this time, the French also established colonies in the South Pacific, including New Caledonia, the various island groups which make up French Polynesia (including the Society Islands, the Marquesas, and the Tuamotus), and established joint control of the New Hebrides with Britain. The French made their last major colonial gains after World War I, when they gained mandates over the former territories of the Ottoman Empire that

11 | P a g e

make up what is now Syria and Lebanon, as well as most of the former German colonies of Togo and Cameroon. Civilising mission A hallmark of the French colonial project in the late 19th century and early 20th century was the civilising mission (mission civilisatrice), the principle that it was Europe's duty to bring civilisation to benighted peoples. As such, colonial officials undertook a policy of Franco-Europeanisation in French colonies, most notably French West Africa and Madagascar. French conservatives had been denouncing the assimilationist policies as products of a dangerous liberal fantasy. In the Protectorate of Morocco, the French administration attempted to use urban planning and colonial education to prevent cultural mixing and to uphold the traditional society upon which the French depended for collaboration, with mixed results. After World War II, the segregationist approach modeled in Morocco had been discredited by its connections to Vichyism, and assimilationism enjoyed a brief renaissance. In 1905, the French abolished slavery in most of French West Africa.[68] David P. Forsythe wrote: “From Senegal and Mauritania in the west to Niger in the east (what became French Africa), there was a parallel series of ruinous wars, resulting in tremendous numbers of people being violently enslaved. At the beginning of the twentieth century there may have been between 3 and 3.5 million slaves, representing over 30 percent of the total population, within this sparsely populated region.”7

7

David P. Forsythe (2009). "Encyclopedia of Human Rights, Volume 1". Oxford University Press. p. 464. ISBN 0195334027

12 | P a g e

Analysis of French Colonialism in India Following the Portuguese, English, and Dutch, the French also established trading bases in India. Their first establishment was in Pondicherry on the Coromandel Coast in southeastern India in 1674. Subsequent French settlements were Chandernagore in Bengal, northeastern India in 1688, Yanam in Andhra Pradesh in 1723, Mahe in 1725, and Karaikal in 1739. The French were constantly in conflict with the Dutch and later on mainly with the British in India. At the height of French power in the mid-18th century, the French occupied large areas of southern India and the area lying in today’s northern Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Establishments France was the last of the major European maritime powers of the 17th century to enter the East India trade. Six decades after the foundation of the English and Dutch East India companies (in 1600 and 1602 respectively), and at a time when both companies were multiplying factories on the shores of India, the French still did not have a viable trading company or a single permanent establishment in the East. La Compagnie française des Indes orientales (French East India Company) was formed under the auspices of Cardinal Richelieu (1642) and reconstructed under Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1664), sending an expedition to Madagascar. In 1667 the French India Company sent out another expedition, under the command of François Caron (who was accompanied by a Persian named Marcara), which reached Surat in 1668 and established the first French factory in India. In 1669, Marcara succeeded in establishing another French factory at Masulipatam.8 In 1672, Saint Thomas was taken but the French were driven out by the Dutch. Chandernagore (present-day Chandannagar) was established in 1692, with the permission of Nawab Shaista Khan, the Mughal governor of Bengal. In 1673, the French acquired the area of Pondicherry from the qiladar of Valikondapuram under the Sultan of Bijapur, and thus the foundation of Pondicherry was laid. By 1720, the French had lost their factories at Surat, Masulipatam and Bantam to the British East India Company. List of French Establishments in India –

8

The Cambridge history of the British Empire, p. 66.

13 | P a g e

The French establishments of India are all located in the Indian peninsula. These establishments are 1) On the Coramandel coast - Pondicherry and its territory comprising districts of Pondichéry, Villenour and Bahour; Karikal and its dependent maganams, or districts. 2) On the coast of Orissa - Yanaon and its territory comprising dependent aldées or villages; The Masulipatam loge. 3) On the Malabar Coast - Mahé and its territory; The Calicut loge. 4) In Bengal - Chandernagore and its territory; the five loges of Cassimbazar, Jugdia, Dacca, Balasore and Patna. 5) In Gujarat - Surat factory. Decline (Battle of Plassey – 1757) From their arrival until 1741, the objectives of the French, like those of the British, were purely commercial. During this period, the French East India Company peacefully acquired Yanam (about 840 kilometers or 520 miles north-east of Pondicherry on Andhra Coast) in 1723, Mahe on Malabar Coast in 1725 and Karaikal (about 150 kilometers or 93 miles south of Pondicherry) in 1739. In the early 18th century, the town of Pondicherry was laid out on a grid pattern and grew considerably. Able governors like Pierre Christophe Le Noir (1726–1735) and Pierre Benoît Dumas (1735–1741) expanded the Pondicherry area and made it a large and rich town. Soon after his arrival in 1741, the most famous governor of French India, Joseph François Dupleix, began to cherish the ambition of a French territorial empire in India in spite of the pronounced uninterested attitude of his distant superiors and of the French government, which didn't want to provoke the British. Dupleix's ambition clashed with British interests in India and a period of military skirmishes and political intrigues began and continued even in rare periods when France and Great Britain were officially at peace. Under the command of the Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau, Dupleix's army successfully controlled the area between Hyderabad and Cape Comorin. But then Robert Clive arrived in India in 1744, a British officer who dashed the hopes of Dupleix to create a French empire India. After a defeat and failed peace talks, Dupleix was summarily dismissed and recalled to France in 1754. In spite of a treaty between the British and French 14 | P a g e

agreeing not to interfere in regional Indian affairs, their colonial intrigues continued. The French expanded their influence at the court of the Nawab of Bengal and increased their trading activity in Bengal. In 1756, the French encouraged the Nawab (Siraj ud-Daulah) to attack and take the British Fort William in Calcutta. This led to the Battle of Plassey in 1757, where the British decisively defeated the Nawab and his French allies, resulting in the extension of British power over the entire province of Bengal. Subsequently, France sent Lally-Tollendal to recover the lost French possessions and drive the British out of India. Lally arrived in Pondicherry in 1758, had some initial success and razed Fort St. David in Cuddalore District to the ground in 1758, but strategic mistakes by Lally led to the loss of the Hyderabad region, the Battle of Wandiwash, and the siege of Pondicherry in 1760. In 1761, the British razed Pondicherry to the ground in revenge for the French depredations; it lay in ruins for four years. The French had lost their hold now in South India too. In 1765 Pondicherry was returned to France in accordance with a 1763 peace treaty with Britain. Governor Jean Law de Lauriston set to rebuild the town on its former layout and after five months 200 European and 2000 Tamil houses had been erected. In 1769 the French East India Company, unable to support itself financially, was abolished by the French Crown, which assumed administration of the French possessions in India. During the next 50 years Pondicherry changed hands between France and Britain with the regularity of their wars and peace treaties. Later Phase In 1816, after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, the five establishments of Pondicherry, Chandernagore, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam and the lodges at Machilipatnam, Kozhikode and Surat were returned to France. Pondicherry had lost much of its former glory, and Chandernagore dwindled into an insignificant outpost to the north of the rapidly growing British metropolis of Calcutta. Successive governors tried, with mixed results, to improve infrastructure, industry, law and education over the next 138 years. The Independence of India on 15 August 1947 gave impetus to the union of France's Indian possessions with former British India. The lodges in Machilipatnam, Kozhikode and Surat were ceded to India in October 1947. An agreement between France and India in 1948 agreed to an election in France's remaining Indian possessions to choose their political 15 | P a g e

future. Governance of Chandernagore was ceded to India on 2 May 1950, then it was merged with West Bengal state on 2 October 1954. On 1 November 1954, the four enclaves of Pondicherry, Yanam, Mahe, and Karikal were de facto transferred to the Indian Union and became the Union Territory of Puducherry. The de jure union of French India with India did not take place until 1962, when the French Parliament in Paris ratified the treaty with India.

16 | P a g e

Conclusion Colonialism is defined as the policy of countries extending their powers over other territories. In the 18th and 19th centuries, during the industrial revolution due to industrialization European nations became stronger, therefore they started eyeing the other countries that are rich with natural resources, and the countries that would be good markets for their goods and started occupying them by the process called colonization. They started occupying those countries that have failed to industrialize during the industrial revolution. This process had positive and negative impacts on the development of the colonized territory, it had positive impacts since it often led to modernization of the colony, provided better education, since they opened and established universities, institutions, schools and faculties with European systems of education, and started learning and using foreign languages, also led to the modernization and development of the society due to the interactions between the people from the two different countries and cultures. Clearly the process was not entirely negative. The Europeans brought their laws education systems and views about civilization in to the colony and helped modernizing their societies; for the most part the Europeans were able to suppress opposition within the countries they ruled. They increased trade, used raw material to feed industries back home, and improved infrastructure by building roads, railways and electricity plants and improving irrigation projects. Distances that once took weeks to cover were covered in days. Schools were built that offered a European-style education. Some were built by the colonizers. But these improvements were spotty and generally didn’t have much effect on the majority of the population. On the other hand colonialism had negative impacts as well, since the powerful countries were using and exploiting the colonized country’s natural resources and they were using them as their markets, the colonized countries found their local economies destroyed or at least dramatically transformed as their populations were forced and used to produce and consumer goods for the country that had colonized them rather for themselves. The population of the colonized country became second class citizens as the people in the other country began to think of themselves as superior and feel it was their duty to civilize and educate the people in the colony. Therefore colonialism in some cases could lead to

17 | P a g e

imperialism (which is defined as the policy of one nation to exercise and use their power over another nation to exploit their resources and use their people as their labor and consumer goods and use their land as their goods market and benefit from every aspect and era of that country). And this often led to the decrease in the development rate of the colony especially economically. Hence imperialism is often considered as “geographical violence.” for example, when Britain occupied India, India had to grow and provide cotton for Britain, then they were shipped to Manchester, England where it was made into finished goods which were sold back to India for a tidy profit. The colonizers also exerted pressure by controlling trade, defining the terms of the trade and forcing the colonies to become indebted to them so they could demand concessions. And most importantly the rise of capitalism, the colonizers owned the production means such as factories farms and work areas and the people from the colonized country were only the workers. There were also cultural traditional and social changes, and more than that, they began using European languages instead of their native language and attended European universities. Therefore it could be argued that it is difficult to state whether the colonization was all a positive or all a negative process in the history of development in the developing countries, since it had both positive and negative impact on the development on the colonized developing countries.

18 | P a g e

Bibliography Books 1) Ram Chandra Pradhan, Colonialism in India. 2) B. Singh, A.P Singh, General Studies (Made Easy Publications). 3) India and the Contemporary World – 2 (N.C.E.R.T Textbook, Class 10th, History). Websites 1) http://www.academia.edu 2) http://www.historydiscussion.net 3) www.britannica.com

19 | P a g e