Solomon Braun was a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 lieutenant

Lieutenant

A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

 of artillery, born at Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1868 and died in Togbao, Chad

Chad

Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...

, in 1899. His father, a poor pedler, observing Solomon's capacity for learning, made the greatest sacrifices to give him a good education. Solomon successfully passed the competitive examination for the École Polytechnique

École Polytechnique

The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...

, whence he graduated as lieutenant of artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

. In 1897 he obtained permission from the Minister of War

Minister of Defence (France)

The Minister of Defense and Veterans Affairs is the French government cabinet member charged with running the military of France....

 to join the perilous expedition for the exploration of Lake Chad

Lake Chad

Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Africa, whose size has varied over the centuries. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme, it shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998; yet it also states that "the 2007 ...

 under Lieutenant Henri Bretonnet

Henri Bretonnet

Henri-Etienne Bretonnet was a French naval officer, killed with most of his men in the battle of Togbao.Bretonnet entered in the navy by attending the École Navale, the Navy Academy in charge of the education of the officers of the French Navy...

. The expedition was surprised by the forces of Rabih az-Zubayr

Rabih az-Zubayr

Rabih az-Zubayr ibn Fadl Allah or Rabih Fadlallah , usually known as Rabah in French, was a Sudanese warlord and slave trader who established a powerful empire west of Lake Chad, in today's Chad....

, ruler of the region, and almost every member of the mission was killed, Solomon included.