Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960

http://www.greenwood.com/images/books/no_image.gif
Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960
Echenberg, Myron
Myron Echenberg traces the social history of a large and diverse group of West Africans who served in Senegalese

regiments of the French colonial army.

Les Tirailleurs Senegalais WW I

Les Tirailleurs Senegalais WW I

Posted By: K Wyer Lane
Date: Sunday, 13 April 2003, at 12:06 p.m.

Hello Military Historians:

We all know of the military honors that France bestowed on African American soldiers (The 369th of Harlem). The

Harlem Hellfighters also remembered the Senegalese who like them fought at Meuse Argonne and other battlefields in

France. Below is the url that describes the history of Les Tirailleurs Senegalais.


Contributed by Leonard G. Shurtleff
President of the Western Front Association - U. S. Branch


Period Poster [France]

From 1905 onward, France, alone among the major colonial powers, adopted military doctrine calling for the use of colonial

troops in every corner of its empire. Thus regiments of Tirailleurs Senegalais served in French armies from the conquest of

Morocco (1907-19 12) through the siege of Dienbienphu (1953-1954). In World War I I, the forces that fought under

General Leclerc in North Africa and Italy were made up largely of Africans, including Moroccans. Africans accounted for

more than half the French troops who landed in southern France in August 1944. But the largest contribution of the

Tirailleurs Senegalais came during the First World War, when more than 200,000 were mobilized for service, mainly on the

Western Front.

The History of the Tirailleurs Senegalais

The Tirailleurs (commonly translated as riflemen) were founded in 1857 by Louis Faidherbe, governor general of French

West Africa. Faidherbe believed that Africans could be trained to become effective combat soldiers. To this end, he

promised his men new uniforms, higher pay and the opportunity to loot, all proven as powerful incentives. Looking at the

situation from another angle, it is clear that Faidherbe had little alternative but to turn to African manpower. Metropolitan

French troops did not perform well in tropical Africa. They succumbed by the hundreds to malaria, black water fever and

other tropical diseases to which Africans had a natural tolerance.

From 1857 to 1905, Tirailleur regiments consisted mainly of slaves and others from the lowest social strata. Under the

rachat system [1] the French bought slaves from their African masters and turned them into soldiers led by French officers.

By 1882, the rachat system was modified. While payments to slave owners continued, the French came more and more to

depend upon the incorporation of prisoners of war and porters, as well as upon volunteer mercenaries. Toward the end of

the 19th century, members of the traditional ruling class increasingly began to volunteer for service as NCOs and junior

officers. As the conquest of West Africa progressed, defeated African soldiers became an important source of recruits. For

soldiers on the losing side, volunteering to serve with the victors was often a matter of survival. Notably, the sons of the

influential African merchant class never volunteered in any numbers.

Colors of a TIrailleurs Regiment

Also beginning in the last decade of the 19th century, the French came to rely heavily on certain ethnic groups, principally

the Bambara of present-day Mali (formerly French Soudan), the Tucolor and the Mande-speaking ethnic groups related to

these savannah tribes. After its pacification in 1906, the heavily-populated Mossi Plateau of Upper Volta became an

important source of recruits. Forest peoples became a modest minority in Tirailleur regiments only after 1919, when

peace-time conscription was widened. Reflecting Bambara dominance among the various ethnic groups enrolled in France's

African army, Bambara along with pidgin French became the language of command in Tirailleur regiments.

Rapid Growth in the Early Years of the 20th Century

After 1905, the Tirailleur force grew rapidly as a result of evolving political and military conditions in French Africa and

Europe, as well as a major change in French military doctrine. Five key factors were at work:

—Occupation troops were needed to police and administer a vast African territory several times the size of metropolitan

France.

—The conquest of West Africa was not complete; many pockets of resistance remained. Indeed, France did not consider

Mauritania to have been pacified until the mid-1930s. Fighting continued in Morocco through the I 920s.

—Garrison troops were needed to man permanent strong points throughout Africa.

—A decision was made to use Tirailleur regiments outside of West Africa, initially in the conquest of Morocco, where

Tirailleurs made up from 9 percent to 15 percent of French forces.

Finally, and most importantly, France was desperate for manpower to meet the threat of a larger and faster-growing German

pool of military conscripts.

Charles Mangin and "La Force Noire"

Many prominent French general officers of the World War I era served junior and field-grade officers with Tirailleur

regiments, and they came to admire the prowess of these light infantrymen. [2]Among these officers were Marshal Joffre;

Gallieni, hero of the Marne, and Charles Mangin, commander of the Sixth Army in the disastrous 1917 Neville offensive


Monument to Gen. Charles Mangin, Paris
Destroyed by German Army, 1940

In 1910, Mangin wrote a book entitled La Force Noire arguing that black Africa was an almost inexhaustible source of

manpower and that Africans were ideally suited for military service. Culturally, Mangin asserted, Africans had not been

"spoiled" by hard farm or factory labor. Racially, he claimed, Africans had a less highly developed nervous system and were,

therefore, less sensitive to pain. France, desperate for manpower to face the larger German army, embraced Mangin' s

theories uncritically.

Not only were Mangin's racial theories pure claptrap, he got his demographics wrong as well. The reality was that West

Africa was thinly populated and actually suffered from labor shortages resulting from colonial administrators' efforts to

build infrastructure such as roads, ports and railways. In fact, by 1912 French West Africa was having difficulty in

supplying even 5000 recruits per year, only half of Mangin's promised harvest of soldiers. The result of this recruiting

drought was the imposition in 1912 of conscription in French West African territories. While this was a setback for Mangin's

scheme, it did form the basis for the huge wartime levies that soon followed.

A View of French West Africa in 1914

On the eve of the Great War, the wars of conquest in Africa were petering out, although "pacification" operations continued

and would continue for another two decades at least. In a region still suffering from exhaustion after 30 years of more or

less continuous warfare, the exactions of the colonizers were becoming ever more burdensome. Poll tax rates were rising

rapidly, French colonial administrators demanded corvee labor on roads and railways, and the practice of compulsory crop

cultivation was spreading. In 1911 through 1913 cash crop prices for rubber and other commodities collapsed. Drought and

famine in 1913 and 1914 forced Sahalian tribes southward, where they clashed with the forest peoples. At the same time,

France neglected to finance health care and education.

The Tirailleurs on the Western Front

In 1914, there were 14,000 Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa. An additional 15,000 were stationed outside the

region, mainly in Morocco. Six battalions were immediately shipped to France upon mobilization. The Tirailleurs were

engaged on the front lines from the beginning. In the opening weeks of the war, four Tirailleur battalions suffered heavy

casualties on the Yser River at Dixmude, but held their part of the line while three out of four were wounded or killed

By October 1915, 30,000 new conscripts and volunteers were recruited for the Western Front. A decree of 9 October 1915

ordered the mobilization of Africans over 18 years of age and authorized a 200-franc bonus for volunteers. An additional

51,000 Africans were recruited under this decree in 1916. In 1917, seventeen Tirailleur battalions were engaged on the

Somme. By then 120,000 Africans were serving in French forces. In 1918, Tirailleur battalions served with the U.S. First

Army at St. Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne campaign.


A Swirl of Senegalese
Sketch by John Thomason, Jr., USMC

In 1917, France, desperate for manpower in the wake of widespread army mutiny, risked the largest mass levy of the war in

West Africa: 50,000 men. The French governor general in Dakar resigned in disgust. He and many resident French

businessmen predicted that the Africans would revolt. Others, however, saw this as an opportunity to advance the interests

of France's African subjects.

Blaise Daigne, an elected deputy in the French National Assembly from Senegal, stepped in as Commissioner General for

Recruitment and used his prestige to raise 60,000 men with virtually no resistance. [3] In this he was aided by a January

1918 French decree offering inducements including tax exemptions, family allowances, reserved jobs for returning veterans

and citizenship under certain conditions.

How the War Changed the Tirailleurs

Daigne's success in recruiting Africans for France's army prompted Premier Clemenceau to extend conscription into

peacetime. The force of Tirailleurs Senegalais emerged from the Great War slightly larger than it had been in 1912.

More importantly, it changed from an essentially mercenary army to an army of conscripts. And, unlike metropolitan troops,

many Tirailleur conscripts were not demobilized in 1919, but stayed on for occupation duty in Germany and in garrisons in an

enlarged French colonial empire.

Myths and Counter-Myths: How Did Africans Perform in Combat?

While the French press was enthusiastic about African bravery, German propagandists accused Tirailleurs of atrocities.

Some French elements also cultivated this image and it is widely reflected in post-war literature. France's British allies

tended to disparage the French African Army. Field Marshal Haig was particularly vociferous in this regard. Britain's own

experience with Indian Army troops on the Western Front was not a good one. Indian troops were employed there only

briefly and had a high rate of self-inflicted wounds. Some Indian units mutinied when they learned they were to be sent

outside the subcontinent. Unlike French colonial troops, they had not been told to expect worldwide service. They were not

trained or equipped for service outside India and it was never intended that they would serve in Europe. And in the Second

War they didn't while French African troops again served on the Western Front.

Given these conflicting images, the historian is best advised to assess the Tirailleurs' performance on the basis of such

criteria as morale, how they behaved in battle and how they viewed the enemy.

There are instances in which Tirailleurs allegedly performed badly. Green African conscripts on the flank of a Canadian

battalion panicked and ran during the first German gas attack of the war on 15 April 1915. Alistair Home's study of Verdun

finds troops of the 27th Colonial Infantry Division deficient in performance. In fact, this division was sent into line at

Verdun without its usual complement of officers and into a section of the line with no prepared trenches. And, at the Chemin

des Dames (Second Battle of the Aisne), there were allegations of panic among elements of the II Colonial Corps. But there

is no evidence that Tirailleur units participated in the widespread mutinies caused by the failed Neville Offensive of 1917.

Indeed, several sources indicate that African troops were used extensively in sectors where mutinous metropolitan troops

refused to serve.

After the Armistice, the German press quailed at the prospect of African troops making up part of the force occupying the

Rhineland: "The Black Shame." Obviously, the French government felt under pressure to demobilize as many metropolitan

Frenchmen as possible. Africans had no constituency and could be maintained under arms. Of course, there was also the

strong desire to humiliate the Boche.

Some French officers opposed Mangin's efforts to elevate African soldiers to a leading place among empire troops. They

argued that Moroccans were superior. One of them, General de Torcy, noted that Tirailleurs were of doubtful value in cold

climates, such as that of northwestern France. Indeed the practice of hivernage that of pulling African troops out of the line

and sending them to southern France during the winter months -- would seem to justify this charge. There was also some

criticism of the performance of mixed African-French metropolitan regiments (one French and two Tirailleur battalions) in

the Gallipoli campaign. Yet the French sustained this practice in 1939 and 1940.

http://www.worldwar1.com/france/jpg/ts_2.jpg
Resting in a Church Yard [postcard]

In any event, the myth of African savagery did succeed in impressing German soldiers. "Are there any Africans opposite?"

was a familiar question posed by German soldiers relieving comrades in the trenches. U.S. Marine Captain John W. Thomason

Jr. makes much of Senegalese prowess and savagery in his celebrated Fix Bayonets! Thomason should know, since his unit

served with the First Moroccan Division at the Battle of Soissons in 1918.

On balance, however, French African troops were no better or no worse than any other soldiers on the Western Front. Their

performance in battle depended upon such variables as leadership, training and motivation, not ethnicity or race. But, then,

that was (and is) true of all soldiers.

The Butcher's Bill

Of 212,000 French Africans recruited during World War I, 163,000 served on the Western Front. Of these some 30,000

died for France. In 1918 alone 60,000 Africans joined the colors. Only Mauritania and Niger failed to contribute. Fatalities

among Tirailleur units were at the rate of 185 per thousand. Mortality rates for metropolitan French troops were slightly

higher: 200 per thousand of the 1.3 million dead among five million Frenchmen in uniform. [4]

Post- War French West Africa: Nationalism Delayed

By and large, the French kept their promise to reserve jobs for returning African veterans. Special salons were set up where

veterans could meet and socialize. French colonial administrators sought to use veterans as a buffer group to support

colonial administration. Unfortunately, expanded war-time recruitment in the forest zone often destroyed traditional social

relationships as returning veterans with their pensions and reserved employment often rose to the level of their traditional

leaders and even above. Yet the First World War did not result in the upsurge of African nationalism caused by World War

II. France, after all, emerged victorious in 1918, and moved quickly to improve public services in its African colonies and

mandates. It was only after World War II, which saw the defeat of France and the acceptance of Woodrow Wilson's ideal

of self-determination, that African nationalism rose to the surface as an articulate political movement.

Leonard Shurtleff is a member of The Great War Society and President of the Western Front Association. Until he retired

from the US. Foreign Service in 1995, he specialized in African affairs. This is a slightly expanded version of an article

which appeared in the Winter, 1995 issue of RELEVANCE: The Quarterly Journal of the Great War Society.



Notes:

1. Repurchase, from the French verb acheter, to buy.

2. Service in the colonial army was popular among middle-class officers with little or no private means. The health threat was

real, but promotion was faster and living costs lower than at home.

3. Between 1872 and 1887 France granted citizenship to the inhabitants of four Senegalese communes: Dakar, Goree,

Rufisque and St. Louis. Blaise Daigne was the principal political leader of these African citizens of France.

4. French army corps commonly contained a mixture of metropolitan and colonial troops. For example, the II Colonial

Infantry Corps was routinely assigned to command French metropolitan divisions. Likewise, the First Moroccan Division had

Tirailleur battalions under command from time to time.

Sources:

Echenberg, Myron. Colonial Conscripts The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 185 7-1960. Portsmouth, N.H:

Heinemann, 1991.

White, Dorothy Shipley. De Gaulle and Black Africa: From the French Empire to Independence. Pennsylvania State University

Press, 1979

Suret-Canale, Jean French Colonization in Tropical Africa (translated by Till Gottheimer). New York: Pica Press, 1971.

Thomason, John W. Jr. Fix Bayonets! Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994. First published in 1926, this is a fictionalized

account of the author's First Marine Brigade experiences in World War I.

Greenhut, Jeffery. The Indian Army in France, a paper presented at the 26 March 1993 meeting of the East Coast Branch of

the Western Front Association-U.S.A.
http://www.worldwar1.com/france/tseng.htm


Sources: Abadie 1937: 210-216; A.N.S. 2G12/7 and 4D143/100.

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/AfricaFocus/AfricaFocus-idx?type=div&did=AFRICAFOCUS.0006.0007.0022&isize

=text

WEST, NATURAL RESOURCES AND POPULATION CONTROL POLICIES IN AFRICA IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

WEST, NATURAL RESOURCES AND POPULATION CONTROL POLICIES IN AFRICA IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, THE
Journal of Third World Studies, Spring 2005 by Martin, Guy
Continued from page 24.

The colonial myth of the fight against slavery also provided the French colonialists with a unique opportunity to create in

1857 a devoted and ruthless corps of African foot soldiers constituted almost exclusively of freed slaves, the famed

Tirailleurs Sénégalais (Senegalese riflemen- actually originating from throughout French Africa-), increasing from one

battalion in 1882 to four in 1903. These troops, feared for their extreme ruthlessness and cruelty, constituted, under the

leadership of French military officers, the bulk of the French colonial expeditionary forces in French West Africa and in

Madagascar (1894). Through a decree of 1912, all male African subjects between the ages of 20 and 28 were compulsorily

conscripted into the army for a four-year period. As a result, the French administration managed to recruit large numbers of

soldiers for the war effort. Thus, the number of Tirailleurs Sénégalais increased from less than 6,000 in 1895 to 12,000 in

1910, 17,000 in 1914, 55,000 in 1920, and 110,000 in 1925. In 1916, the French mobilized a total of 51,000 troops

throughout West Africa, and 63,378 new recruits in 1918 alone, especially through the efforts of Senegalese Biaise Diagne,

appointed High Commissioner in charge of the Recruitment of African Troops for the occasion.79 Massive numbers of

Africans were forcibly recruited for the war effort either as soldiers, carriers or military labor. Thus, over 483,000

colonial soldiers-including 170,891 Tirailleurs Sénégalais-from all over Africa served in the French army during the war, and

260,000 porters from the Belgian Congo were mobilized during the East Africa campaign. All in all, over 2.5 million Africans-

including one million troops-were involved in the war effort during World War I.80 The death toll among African soldiers

was estimated at 71,000, including 25,000 Algerians and 35,000 Tirailleurs Sénégalais.Sl About a million African troops and

carriers-including 200,000 Tirailleurs Sénégalais-were used in World War II, and as many as 80,000 French African

soldiers had been fighting on the European front when France fell to the Germans.82 An estimated 36,530 (over 45 per

cent) were killed in combat, including 10,500 from Madagascar and 26,030 from sub-Saharan Africa.83

POPULATION CONTROL POLICIES IN AFRICA IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3821/is_200504/ai_n13642805/pg_25

SLAVES INTO SOLDIERS: SOCIAL ORIGINS OF THE TIRAILLEURS SENEGALAIS

SLAVES INTO SOLDIERS: SOCIAL ORIGINS OF THE
TIRAILLEURS SENEGALAIS
Myron Echenberg
The origins of France's colonial army in West Africa are
commonly dated from the creation of the Tirailleurs Senegalais
by Governor Louis Faidherbe in 1857 (Boisboissel 1956: 48). In
fact the roots of the African Tirailleurs are much older. They
can be traced back to the first years of company rule in
seventeenth century Senegambia, when British and French mili-
tary recruiters took on local Africans as soldiers and sailors
in order to augment European units which formed the core of the
small company detachments (Boisboissel 1956: 47-48).
During the course of the nineteenth century the Tirail-
leurs underwent several transformations, as Table 12.1 indi-
cates. At the beginning of the post-Napoleonic era in 1820,
TABLE 12.1
GROWTH OF THE TIRAILLEURS, 1820-1914
Year Size Year Size Year Size
1820 23 1862 900 1900 8,400
1823 125 1867 1,000 1902 8,639
1827 200 1872 625 1904 9,000
1831 400 1882 1,200 1911 11,980
1839 150 1886 1,600 1912 12,920
1848 250 1888 2,000 1913 14,790
1852 350 1891 2,400 1914 17,356
1857 500 1893 5,087
1895 5,987 1920s 48,000

Curtin, Philip D.; Lovejoy, Paul E. / Africans in bondage : studies in slavery and the slave trade : essays in honor of Philip D.

Curtin on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of African Studies at the University of Wisconsin
(1986)

Echenberg, Myron
Chapter 12: Slaves into soldiers: social origins of the Tirailleurs Senegalais, pp. [unnumbered]-333 ff.

Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960 (Social History of Africa)

Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960 (Social History of Africa)
by Myron Echenberg


About This Book

* Synopses & Reviews
* Table of Contents
* Add a comment about this title
* More Books by Myron Echenberg

ISBN: 0435080520
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Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis:
Myron Echenberg traces the social history of a large and diverse group of West Africans who served in Senegalese

regiments of the French colonial army.
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About the Author
MYRON ECHENBERG is an associate professor at McGill University, where he teaches African history. He was for several

years the co-editor of the Canadian Journal of African Studies and has published numerous articles dealing with

French-speaking West Africa. His Colonial Conscripts: the Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960 won the

Herskovits Award of the African Studies Association for the outstanding original scholarly work published during 1991.
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Table of Contents
Four Tirailleur Armies
Slaves into Soldiers
The Tirailleurs Senegalais and the First World War
Military Conscription in Theory and Practice
Consequences of Conscription: Military Migration
"Morts Pour la France": The Tirailleurs Senegalais and the Second World War
The New Army, 1945-1960
French West African Veterans, 1945-1960
Veterans and French West African Politics, 1945-1960
Epilogue: Collective Memory and the African Military
Appendix
Maps
Photographs

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Product Details

ISBN:
0435080520
Subtitle:
The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960
Author:
Echenberg, Myron
Publisher:
Heinemann
Subject:
History
Subject:
Race relations
Subject:
Military - General
Subject:
Africa
Subject:
Military Science
Subject:
Africa - General
Edition Description:
Paperback
Series:
Social History of Africa (Paperback)
Publication Date:
November 1990
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
256
Dimensions:
9.00x6.12x.53 in. .78 lbs.

http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=0435080520

Anciens combattants africains des visages et des mots pour mémoire de Philippe Guionie

Anciens combattants africains des visages et des mots pour mémoire de Philippe Guionie / aux Editions Les Imaginayres

préfacé par Gaston Kelman

«Si l’incendie ne s’éteint pas très vite, alors demain, après-demain ou dans un an, les “ peaux allumées ” ramassent tous nos fils et nos biens pour entretenir leur guerre, car nous sommes là pour ça », prophétise, dès 1914, le sage Guéla M’Bouré, cité par Amadou Hampâté Bâ dans Amkoullel, L’enfant peul.
C’est le début du sacrifice pour quelques 200 000 Africains envoyés défendre leur « mère-patrie ». Seconde Guerre

mondiale, Madagascar, Indochine, Algérie, autant de conflits auxquels les Anciens Combattants africains et nord-africains ont pris une part importante. Symboles de l’aliénation coloniale pour les uns, exemples de fidélité pour les autres, ces tirailleurs sénégalais, béninois, guinéens, marocains, tunisiens... « semblent aujourd’hui tous à la recherche d’une patrie perdue où ils pourraient enfin reposer leur âme fatiguée et leur visage patiné ». Une histoire d’homme et de soldat.
En associant l’image photographique (portraits, paysages) et des enregistrements sonores réalisés en France et en Afrique,

cet ouvrage intitulé « Anciens combattants africains, des visages et des mots pour mémoire » se propose de donner, à cette mémoire oubliée ou méconnue, un écho nouveau dans notre société. En collaboration avec des historiens, il s’agit de redonner une parole à ces tirailleurs africains - nos contemporains - et de rendre hommage à leur dévouement patriotique, tout en

développant une démarche plus militante quant à leurs droits actuels. Cette valorisation d’un patrimoine humain prend une acuité particulière, à l’heure où se manifeste la nécessité d’ancrer l’immigration dans la mémoire collective et de lui rendre sa juste place dans une perspective d’histoire commune et partagée.
Cet ouvrage n’est ni un livre d’histoire, ni un pamphlet univoque contre la « France ingrate ». Ne cherchez pas dans ces photographies une quelconque nostalgie de la France coloniale ou la glorification de son oeuvre soi-disant « civilisatrice ».

Les historiens sont là pour en débattre. Loin de moi, aussi, l’idée d’écrire une hagiographie du soldat noir. J’ai trop de respect pour eux. Vedette de la réclame et figure incontournable de l’imaginaire francophone, le tirailleur est un personnage

historique complexe aux multiples lectures : symboles de l’aliénation coloniale pour les uns, exemples de fidélité pour les autres, sa bonhomie naturelle, si souvent louée, lui a attiré bien des sympathies1 et beaucoup de condescendance.

Philippe Guionie


Anciens combattants africains des visages et des mots pour mémoire de Philippe Guionie
Éditeur : Editions Les Imaginayres
Dimensions : 21 x 21 cm
Pages : 108 pages (2000 exemplaires)
Présentation4 pages avec rabats latéraux intégraux, sur carte 1 face 300 gr, Insertion d’un cd audio.
Prix : 28 euros

France’s Black Defenders

France’s Black Defenders
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
June 2006

In the spring of 1940, the French Army fielded 101 divisions of varying quality. Among the very best of these were the elite

formations of the Armée d’Afrique and La Coloniale, the two branches of France’s overseas forces.

By the time of the Armistice, the elite 1st Moroccan Division, seven other North African divisions, three African divisions,

and eight Colonial divisions had arrived at the front plus three cavalry brigades. In addition, a number of regiments had been

attached to Metropolitan French divisions; manpower from outside France made up about one-fifth of the French Army.

In our Strange Defeat game, the two corps made up solely of colonial units are among the best the French player fields.

These are the only strictly colonial pieces in the game; most of the colonial divisions are part of the “French” corps.


Tirailleurs Sénégalais head to the front, May 1940.
Until 1900, La Coloniale had been known as the Troupes de Marine, and had fallen under the French Navy’s administration.

They had provided colonial garrisons for the preceding several centuries; these were the regiments that waged the French

and Indian War and fought for Dupleix in India, for example. In 1900, control passed to the War Ministry, who

administered the force separately from the metropolitan Army. La Coloniale had its own officers, promotion paths, and pay

scales. Officers could and did transfer between the branches, but such a change was both rare and frowned upon.

White cadres came from French volunteers; these served five-year commitments and included all-white units known as

Coloniale Blanche. Most were recruited in economically-depressed areas like Brittany or the Paris slums. Black soldiers from

sub-Saharan Africa, some volunteers and some conscripts, formed Tirailleurs Sénégalais regiments. “Sénégalais” referred to

all black peoples of Africa, not just those from Sénégal itself where the units had first been formed. The French did not

administer a European-style draft: Village chiefs were assigned recruiting quotas, and received cash bonuses for exceeding

them.

Vietnamese and Laotian soldiers did not serve in France in the 1940 campaign in any great numbers, but several thousand

Malagasy did, chiefly in Maginot Line machine-gun battalions.

The “white” and “black” distinction was more cultural than racial; black soldiers from Martinique or Guadeloupe serving as

cadre in Sénégalais regiments were classed as “blanche” and assigned white barracks and pay scales. Most troops had

experience serving alongside one another in “mixed” regiments in the colonies, and the Coloniale’s officer corps consciously

fostered comradeship between the races. And thanks to their Great War heroism, Tirailleurs Sénégalais had a very positive

reputation among the French civilian population; in the 1920s and 1930s images of balck soldiers became very prominent in

advertising campaigns. French breakfast cereal boxes even exhorted French children to eat their flakes like a brave

Tirailleur. And at a time when the United States Army still practiced intense racial segregation, Africans could and did rise

to officer rank in La Coloniale.

The elite 3rd Division d’Infanterie Coloniale, an all-blanche unit, fought extremely well at Chiers in May and June, where

Sgt. François Mitterand was wounded. The other Colonial divisions fought mostly on the Meuse in May and along the Somme

River in June; Sénégalais shouting the traditional “Allah Akbar!” war cry at one point overran tanks of the 7th Panzer

Division. Most Coloniale units did not have anti-tank guns, and those that did received them only at the start of the campaign.

Yet they still managed to mount a very effective defense.

German directives warned their troops that African soldiers routinely mutilated their prisoners, a charge not supported by

any evidence but widely believed. Black French soldiers taken captive were to be treated “severely.” Nazi ideology held the

Africans to be sub-human, and many Germans resented the French Army’s deployment of Sénégalais regiments on occupation

duty in the Rhineland after the First World War. The troops gleefully complied: at Montluzin on 19 June 1940, German

soldiers machine-gunned 200 unarmed prisoners of the 25th Tirailleurs Sénégalais. At Aubigny in May an unknown number of

Africans of the 24th Tirailleurs Sénégalais including all of their black officers were murdered, and between 16 and 25

June in Cote d’Or over 250 Sénégalais prisoners were massacred.


Museum display of Sénégalais uniform, Ministere de Forces-Armées, Senegal. Note the “anchor” badge, a holdover from the

Troupes de Marine days.
France’s black soldiers suffered approximately 17,500 killed and wounded in the 1940 campaign. But their war was only

beginning. Sénégalais units were among the first to rally to Charles DeGaulle’s Free French movement (though the very first

formed unit to do so was a Foreign Legion battalion mostly made up of Spanish communists). They made up most of the

infantry in LeClerc’s epic march across the Sahara, and made the stand at Bir Hakeim in June, 1942. Four battalions fought

at El Alamein, and five others in the 1st Free French Division in Italy in 1943. And the mostly-black 9th Division d’Infanterie

Coloniale took Elba and landed in southern France. France’s claim to have continued to fight rested in large part on the

contributions of its African troops. Their reward came swiftly.

By late 1944, with Free French units moving into France itself, the Gaullist movement replaced the black soldiers with young

metropolitan white recruits of the FFI, in a movement called blanchiment. Officially, the stated reason was that the Africans

would not stand up to the cold winter weather then approaching. But the Sénégalais suspected outright racism on the part of

both DeGaulle and his American allies, who had demanded that no Sénégalais have contact with black U.S. troops. The

Africans were sent to camps and in many cases treated as prisoners; at Morlaix seven veterans were shot and wounded by

white French guards.

After the war, La Coloniale’s own officer corps was surprisingly able to repair most of the damage done by the regular Army

in 1944. Black regiments fought in Indochina willingly and very capably. By the early 1960s, the experiment of France in

Africa was over and the former colonies began to claim their independence.
http://avalanchepress.com/Coloniale.php

Chronique : Le vieux nègre et la médaille, de Ferdinand Oyono

Chronique : Le vieux nègre et la médaille, de Ferdinand Oyono
Œuvre de l’illustre romancier et homme politique camerounais, Ferdinand Oyono, Le vieux nègre et la médaille a

été écrit en 1957 durant la période de la décolonisation.
Par Albertine M.



"Le vieux nègre et la médaille" a été classé parmi les 100 meilleurs livres africains du 20ème siècle


Œuvre de l’illustre romancier et homme politique camerounais, Ferdinand Oyono, Le vieux nègre et la médaille a été écrit en

1957 durant la période de la décolonisation. En outre, avant même que ce processus ne soit complètement achevé et dont

l’issue fut l’émancipation des colonies vis-à-vis des métropoles occidentales, l’auteur a voulu être l’un des tout premiers de

son temps à mettre à nu d’un point de vue on ne peut plus objectif, les réalités, les mystères et les côtés obscurs entourant la

colonisation.

C’est avec humour et ironie, simplicité et réalisme que celui-ci revient sur une période charnière mais difficile de l’histoire du

continent noir. En abordant dans son œuvre ce que l’on pourrait considérer comme un « choc des civilisations » ou « un choc

des cultures », la rencontre de deux mondes par essence dichotomiques et qui, par la force des choses, ont été amenés à se

rencontrer, Ferdinand Oyono décrit sans complaisance les relations difficiles entre colonisateurs et colonisés, opprimants et

opprimés.

Ainsi, véritable satire de la situation coloniale et des méfaits qu’elle a engendré sur tout un peuple tant du point de vue moral

et spirituel que physique, ledit roman met en scène le déclenchement progressif du processus de destruction, d’aliénation et

d’acculturation d’un homme, Méka, victime de sa propre naïveté et de l’hypocrisie d’un peuple foncièrement faux, fourbe et

dictatorial. De la sorte, personnage principal, Méka incarne l’homme africain traditionnel. Ancien tirailleur et retraité durant

les deux guerres mondiales, celui-ci mène une vie paisible aux côtés de sa femme Kelara jusqu’au jour où il reçoit de façon

inopinée, une convocation chez le représentant du gouvernement français, le commandant de la mission de son village.

Il y apprend qu’en date du 14 juillet, jour de la fête nationale française, il se verra décerner par le Chef des Blancs de

Timba, en remerciement de ses bons et loyaux services à l’égard de la France, une médaille venant de Paris. En effet, ayant

cédé une partie de ses terres aux missionnaires et donné ses deux fils à la guerre où tous deux périrent, Méka, pour ses

actes de bravoure et de générosité, se verra récompensé et glorifié. Cette nouvelle étape de sa vie marque non seulement

pour ce dernier le début d’une « pseudo » ascension sociale au sein d’un monde nouveau, abrogeant ainsi selon lui toute

frontière existentielle les séparant jadis, mais également celui de sa décadence et de sa destruction morale, intellectuelle et

physique.



Ferdinand Oyono




Au sein des villages avoisinants, l’annonce de la nouvelle est très vite perçue par les villageois comme un évènement

exceptionnel et place Méka en véritable héros et modèle au sein de la communauté africaine. Tous, parents, frères, sœurs,

cousins et amis, trouvent en cet évènement une certaine satisfaction personnelle et décident de ce fait, de se rendre chez lui

afin de le féliciter et de le soutenir le jour de la cérémonie décorative. Ainsi, c’est avec joie, allégresse, euphorie et

admiration, qu’ils se retrouvent tous en attendant avec impatience et engouement le jour « j », dans la case du couple,

devenue pour la circonstance, lieu de la palabre africaine par excellence.


Le jour de la cérémonie officielle, Méka, compte tenu de la portée symbolique de l’évènement, a eu droit à une place

d’honneur située dans « un cercle dessiné à la chaux ». Séparé ainsi de sa famille et seul face à la douleur physique et

psychologique que lui impose l’habit d’emprunt dont il s’est doté pour l’occasion, Méka aura le temps de réaliser que le chemin

menant au « monde blanc », est tortueux et fait de souffrances. En aucun cas la douleur, l’attente et l’isolement ne le feront

perdre courage. Au contraire, perçue plus comme une épreuve et un passage obligés pour tout homme qui désire ardemment

s’élevé et accéder à la gloire et à la reconnaissance, cette étape de sa vie ne fera que raviver en lui l’envie d’atteindre ce

qu’aucun homme de sa race et de son rang n’a jamais pu atteindre jusque là.



"Le vieux nègre et la médaille" de Ferdinand Oyono




La remise de médaille terminée, Méka reçoit à nouveau les félicitations du Haut Commandant qui en profite pour lui

renouveler ses sincères amitiés. Après les festivités, celui-ci s’endormira dans la salle et, abandonné injustement par ceux qui

au départ le soutenaient et l’encadraient, il se retrouvera seul face à son destin d’homme nouvellement entré dans une sphère

dont il n’avait jamais espéré pouvoir intégrer lorsque, réveillé par une forte pluie, il cherchera à fuir.

Dès lors, la médaille n’a plus que peu d’importance. Une fois libéré des eaux, Méka cherchant son chemin, se rend compte

qu’il a perdu sa médaille et qu’il s’est égaré. Interpellé par les policiers blancs du quartier européen qui le prennent pour un

voleur, il est arrêté, traité comme un malpropre puis jeté en prison où il y passera la nuit entière. Ne le reconnaissant pas

comme le « nouvel ami » des blancs, Méka, quelque peu délusionné, y subit les pires sévisses et les pires tortures.

Finalement reconnu par le Chef de sa mission, il est libéré et rentre chez lui. Sur le chemin du retour, Méka aura le temps de

prendre conscience de la réalité des choses, de comprendre que tout n’était que mascarade et que l’homme noir ne sera

jamais l’ami, voire le frère de l’homme blanc.

Plus qu’un simple roman burlesque, ce livre traite de la colonisation. Ferdinand Oyono critique ouvertement la politique

d’assimilation prônée par les colons français durant cette période. En effet, une fois arrivés en Afrique, les colons au lieu de

favoriser l’intégration progressive des peuples colonisés à l’instar de la colonisation anglaise, ont préféré imposer leur

culture et leur religion sans chercher à comprendre ni à accepter celles des peuples autochtones. Cette politique qui se veut

injuste, arbitraire, aliénante et destructrice a contraint bon nombre d’autochtones en quête de devenir, à se détacher de

leurs racines et de la terre de leurs ancêtres, perdant ainsi leurs coutumes, leurs traditions voire même leur propre identité.

Méka en est une victime. En sacrifiant ses terres, celles de ses ancêtres et sa propre identité en échange d’une « pseudo »

gloire, celui-ci a provoqué sans le savoir, sa propre destruction et déchéance. Il ne s’en rendra compte qu’à la fin lorsque,

malmené par ses « soi-disant » amis, il finira par rejeter la culture, les traditions et la religion qui lui ont été imposées pour

retrouver celles de ses aïeux.

Par ailleurs, tout en soulignant l’inégalité qui régit les rapports entre les Africains et les Blancs, l’auteur pointe du doigt la

crédulité des uns et l’hypocrisie des autres et montre que le monde dans lequel nous vivons demeure un monde où l’injustice,

la méchanceté et la fourberie sont les déterminants de notre existence.

Tirailleur means sharpshooter in French

Tirailleur
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Tirailleur means sharpshooter in French. The term dates back to the Napoleonic period where it was used to designate light infantry trained to skirmish ahead of the main columns. Subsequently "tirailleurs" was used by the French military as a classification for infantry recruited in the various French colonial territories during the 19th and 20th centuries. Such units were generally battalion to regiment in size and were commanded by French officers.

Tirailleurs from Algeria served in the Crimean and Franco-Prussian Wars (1870), as well as the various French colonial campaigns. During World War I (1914-18) tirailleurs from the various African territories served on the Western Front, incurring heavy losses. The Great Mosque of Paris was constructed afterwards in honour of the Muslim tirailleurs who had fought for France.

France made extensive use of tirailleurs in its various colonial campaigns. The best known of these were the "tirailleurs Algeriens" who served in Indo-China, Tunisia and Morocco; and the "tirailleurs Senegalais" (who were recruited from all of the French possessions in West and Central Africa). Both played an important role in the occupation of Morocco (1908-14) as well as in the Rif War of the 1920s.

Prior to and during World War II (1939-45), tirailleurs were recruited from the Maghreb (Algerian, Moroccans, and Tunisians), from French West Africa,(from Madagascar and from Indochina (Amman, Tonkin and Cambodia). The individual regiments were named after the territory in which they were recruited. Thus "tirailleurs Malagache", "tirailleurs Annamites", "tirailleurs Tunisiens" etc.

Tirailleurs from North and Central Africa fought with distinction in Europe during World War II, notably in the Italian campaign. Algerian, Moroccan and Senegalese units served in Indo-China until the fall of Dien Bien Phu and subsequently as part of the French forces during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62). Even after the French withdrawal from Indochina a unit of mostly Vietnamese tirailleurs ("le Commando de Extreme Orient Dam San") continued to serve with the French Army in Algeria until 1960.

Most of the tirailleur regiments were disbanded as the various French colonies and protectorates achieved independence between 1956 and 1962. In Morocco and the various new African states most tirailleurs transferred direct from the French service to their new national armies. However, there is still one Tirailleur regiment in the modern French Army, which is descended from the Algerian tirailleurs. While these troops are now entirely French, items of the traditional North African uniform are still worn on ceremonial occasions to commemorate the Algerian "turcos" who served France for over 130 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirailleur

Addi Bâ soldat guinéen, juin 1940- 18 décembre 1943, l’honneur de la France.

Addi Bâ soldat guinéen, juin 1940- 18 décembre 1943, l’honneur de la France.

Un petit texte en ces temps troublés où, à la fois, nous fêtons la victoire du 8 mai 1945 sur la barbarie nazie et que nous honorons les victimes de l’esclavage. Que les gardiens de la dignité et de l’âme de la France soient, pour certains, originaires d’Afrique doit nous rendre vigilants à l’égard de tous les discours actuels sur l’immigration : heureusement qu’il y a eu des africains pour venir nous rappeler ce qu’être français voulait dire !

Il y a au programme d’histoire des classes de terminale une notion intitulée « les mémoires de la Seconde Guerre mondiale » et qui résonne singulièrement en ce 8 mai 2006 lorsque je pense à Addi Bâ, ce soldat guinéen, membre du corps des tirailleurs sénégalais, qui est venu en 1940 défendre la patrie des droits de l’homme et une certaine idée de la France, là-haut sur les frontières de l’Est. Loin de sa terre africaine…

Addi Bâ, ce nom venu d’ailleurs, nous donne l’occasion de renouer avec certains fils de la mémoire qui, oubliés ou refoulés, font le manque et le défaut de la trame de nos discours et débats bien actuels sur « l’identité de la France ». Aussi en ce jour où nous fêtons la victoire sur la barbarie nazie, il serait bon de se souvenir que nous devons aussi à des étrangers, et singulièrement à des hommes du continent africain, qui croyaient pour beaucoup à nos valeurs républicaines, la possibilité d’être français. Car Addi Bâ n’a pas seulement combattu vaillamment jusqu’à la débâcle de juin 1940, il a été aussi un des premiers résistants engagés dans le maquis des Vosges et il est mort fusillé par les nazis le 18 décembre 1943. Certains, là-haut dans l’est, terre où l’extrême droite frôle parfois les 30%, se souviennent peut-être qu’ils doivent leur liberté, aussi, à cet homme-là…

Et aujourd’hui où en France on discute des critères de la nationalité française et où certains se croient dignes de la réclamer comme un dû sous prétexte qu’ils se nomment « Durand-Dupond », ou bien qu’ils croient être plus que d’autres du « terroir », et qui voient dans l’autre, dans l’étranger, surtout celui venu d’Afrique, une menace pour l’identité française , il est salutaire de leur rappeler que cette identité repose aussi sur l’engagement de ces hommes qui, africains, ont sacrifié leur vie au nom de l’idée qu’être français est une question de valeurs partagées et certainement pas de couleurs de peau !

Se souvenir de cela, c’est reconnaître de façon humble que nous devons notre honneur et notre dignité à des homme d’une autre culture qui ont cru, plus que certains d’entre nous, au discours que la France se tient à elle-même : être français repose sur des valeurs qui transcendent de loin l’origine de ceux qui ont fait la France. Au point qu’on peut choisir de mourir pour elle même si on est né guinéen…

Que ces hommes aient ainsi porté haut nos valeurs de liberté, d’égalité, de fraternité, afin de les préserver de la barbarie nazie et nous permettre de renaître à notre fierté nationale en 1945 devrait nous rendre bienveillants à l’égard de ceux qui, aujourd’hui, viennent partager notre devenir.

Il convient de mesurer avec gratitude ce que nous devons à ces hommes venus d’ailleurs en ces jours sombres de 2006 où le dehors, l’étranger, l’autre, sont dorénavant perçus comme une puissance de délitement de notre identité, une cause de corruption de « ce qui fait la France ». Alors que nous devons à des Addi Bâ rien moins que la préservation de notre être et de notre âme !

Avoir la mémoire de toute notre histoire, en ses composantes les plus singulières, c’est reconnaître que c’est du dehors que nous a été redonnée et confiée à nouveau, comme ressourcée et purifiée de nos errances et de nos trahisons, notre dignité de Français. Là est un devoir de mémoire absolu qui devrait nous conduire à interpréter de façon bien plus accueillante et respectueuse ce que « l’étranger » d’aujourd’hui peut apporter à notre « précieuse » mais si fragile identité. Une fragilité qui a été sauvée du naufrage en 1943 par le sacrifice d’un Guinéen !

Je songe alors à Addi Bâ avec des larmes de reconnaissance, mais aussi au premier char de la 2ème DB du général Leclerc qui est entré par la porte d’Italie pour libérer Paris : il était conduit par des réfugiés républicains espagnols…C’est aussi à ceux qui venaient de l’autre côté des Pyrénées que nous devons notre liberté et notre honneur tout comme aux deux tiers de l’armée de Leclerc que était composée…d’Africains. Et je me demande, un rien rêveur, qui devrait quitter la France pour avoir oublié, à ce point, ce que l’aimer veut vraiment dire !

Par Alain Bénel

Rédigé le 14/05/2006
http://www.hebdo.ch/indexBlogs.cfm