The French Army and Its African Soldiers: The Years of Decolonization (France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization) - Hardcover

Ginio, Ruth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803253397 ISBN 13: 9780803253391

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2017

Synopsis

As part of France’s opposition to the independence of its former colonies in the years following World War II, its army remained deeply invested in preventing the decolonization of the territories comprising French West Africa (FWA). Even as late as the 1950s, the French Army clung to the hope that it was possible to retain FWA as a colony, believing that its relations with African soldiers could offer the perfect model for continued ties between France and its West African territories.
 
In The French Army and Its African Soldiers Ruth Ginio examines the French Army’s attempts to win the hearts and souls of the local population at a time of turbulence and uncertainty regarding future relations between the colonizer and colony. Through the prism of the army’s relationship with its African soldiers, Ginio considers how the army’s activities and political position during FWA’s decolonization laid the foundation for France’s continued active presence in some of these territories after independence. This project is the first thorough examination of the French Army’s involvement in West Africa before independence and provides the essential historical background to understanding France’s complex postcolonial military relations with its former territories in Africa.

 
 

About this title

About the Author

Ruth Ginio is an associate professor in the Department of History and is the head of the Inter-University Program for African Studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. She is the author of French Colonialism Unmasked: The Vichy Years in French West Africa (Nebraska, 2006) and the coeditor (with Efrat Ben Ze’ev and Jay Winter) of Shadows of War: A History of Silence in the Twentieth Century.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The French Army and Its African Soldiers

The Years of Decolonization

By Ruth Ginio

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS

Copyright © 2017 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8032-5339-1

Contents

List of Illustrations, 
Acknowledgments, 
List of Abbreviations, 
Introduction, 
1. Historical Background: The Army, the Empire, and the Decolonization of French West Africa, 
2. The Aftermath of World War II: Frustration, Protest, and Rebellion, 
3. The Military Reforms: A New Army in French West Africa?, 
4. African Troops in the Wars of Decolonization: Indochina, 1946–1954, 
5. African Troops in the Wars of Decolonization: Algeria, 1954–1962, 
6. Alternatives to Independence: The Army's Colonial Vision in French West Africa, 
7. Adjusting to a New Reality: The Army and the Imminent Independence, 
Conclusion, 
Notes, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Historical Background

The Army, the Empire, and the Decolonization of French West Africa

The French arrived on the shores of present-day Senegal in the seventeenth century and settled along the coast. Like other Western powers at the time, the French used trade and trading posts rather than military power as a way to establish their presence in the area. Their inability to penetrate the hinterland due to transportation difficulties and diseases for which there was yet no cure, principally malaria, forced them to rely on African intermediaries in order to perform their trading activities. Up until the mid-nineteenth century the French presence was felt mainly along the coast of Senegal in four towns, later to be known as the four communes: Dakar, Gorée, Rufisque, and Saint Louis (locally called Ndar). A municipal decree from 1872 accorded a commune status to Saint Louis and Gorée; Dakar and Rufisque joined them a few years later. During this early period of French presence, two local groups emerged as significantly influential within the four communes. One was the métis, descendants of French men and African women who had gained political, social, and economic power. The other group was comprised of Africans known as the originaires, who happened to reside in these four towns when France was overwhelmed once again by the revolutionary tide in 1848. The originaires gained French citizenship without being required to renounce their personal status. This meant that even an African who did not speak a word of French, was Muslim, and was married to a few wives would automatically become a French citizen just because he happened to be in the right place at the right time. Many colonial officials would later lament this measure, uncharacteristic of republican France, and some would try to revoke it, as this was quite a privileged status within the harsh colonial reality. Nevertheless, the originaires did not lose their privileged status during the Second Empire or even under Vichy rule in the early 1940s. These originaires were allowed to vote and be elected to local assemblies and could send a representative to the French parliament. In fact, in 1914 Gorée-born Blaise Diagne (1872–1934) was the first African elected to this post after a series of métis.

The originaires were also allowed to organize and establish newspapers. But most important, they were exempt from the two most repressive colonial practices that the French implemented when they began to extend their rule to the entire area of AOF and later to the territory that became the neighboring federation of French Equatorial Africa (Afrique Équatoriale Franēaise, AEF): the indigénat and forced labor. The indigénat was a legal tool that ensured administrative control over colonial subjects. It allowed administrators and other French representatives residing in the federation to arrest a colonial subject for a period of up to fifteen days or fine him for a listed offense (in general, women were exempted from the indigénat). As one of these offenses was disrespect for colonial authority, this punishment could be applied to virtually any act a colonial subject had performed that may have upset a colonial official. The originaires were not subject to this law and therefore enjoyed much more freedom than the colonial subjects.

The other colonial practice originaires were exempt from was that of forced labor. The French recruited Africans by force to work in agricultural tasks that were considered undesirable, such as cotton cultivation and certain public projects. They paid these workers very little and forced them to work under difficult conditions, often subjecting them to brutal treatment. This practice was abolished by the French parliament only in 1946 on the initiative of Félix Houphouėt-Boigny, the parliamentary representative of the Ivory Coast.

Being exempt from these two colonial tools of repression was indeed aprivilege, but it came with its own set of responsibilities. As French citizens, the originaires were required to serve in the French army. Their service conditions were far better than those of the African subjects who either were recruited by force or volunteered to serve. While the originaires served in metropolitan units alongside French soldiers, the other African soldiers were drafted into a special force called the Tirailleurs Sénégalais (Senegalese Infantrymen), established in 1857, when France desperately needed African help to extend its control in West Africa.

The Structure of the French Colonial Army

During the nineteenth century the French and other Europeans acquired the means to leave the shores of Africa and reach the inland sources of their trade, thus releasing them from dependence on African intermediaries. The development of steamboats enabled Europeans to travel through narrow rivers to the hinterland, and the discovery of quinine as a means of preventing and treating malaria permitted them to do so with diminished anxiety. Although the French tried to employ diplomacy and sign dubious contracts with African local leaders in order to establish French authority, they soon encountered resistance in several areas: Haj Umar and Samori Touré in the area of present-day Guinea and Mali and King Behanzin in the region of Dahomey (Benin) were the fiercest resistors of the French expansion. The French had no choice but to use force, but they found it increasingly difficult to rely on European soldiers. They therefore began to recruit Africans, who they believed were far more resilient to the climate and geographical conditions in West Africa. They were also much cheaper to use, and their death did not raise criticism in France against unnecessary colonial adventures. African recruits thus became the backbone of the colonial army.

As shown by Anthony Clayton, there was a contradiction between France's imperial aspirations and its need for military force to fulfill them, on the one hand, and the public objections in France to sending French soldiers outside the metropolitan territory, on the other. According to French legislation, a conscript from the metropole could not be sent to sub-Saharan Africa, Syria, or Indochina (until 1945) except under special circumstances. In order to reconcile this contradiction, two new forces were established, independent of the metropolitan army, that remained responsible only for the defense of metropolitan France. One was the Armée d'Afrique, which was actually the army of Northwest Africa. This force was established by the July monarchy (1830–48) after France landed in Algeria in 1830. It was responsible for the occupation and defense of North Africa and included Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan conscripts, known as Spahis (a term borrowed from the Ottoman traditional army), as well as other units such as the Foreign Legion. The second force responsible for the French empire was the Troupes Coloniales or La Coloniale. Prior to 1900 and after 1957 this force was known as Troupes de Marines. Its origins go back to the seventeenth century, and its units were sent to garrison French colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. These units were formalized under the Restoration monarchy (1814–30) and increased considerably in the middle of the nineteenth century, when they began to recruit local soldiers in the French colonies. This was the force that in 1857 had incorporated the units of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais, which included soldiers from all over AOF and to a lesser extent Equatorial Africa. It also included separate units of metropolitan soldiers, largely volunteers, referred to as La Coloniale Blanche (The White Colonial Army). The Troupes Coloniales were responsible for defending the rest of the French empire, excluding North Africa, which was under the responsibility of the Armée d'Afrique. As the focus of this book is on the AOF region, this will be the force to which I am referring when I use the term "French colonial army," "colonial units," "French army," or simply "army."

The Deployment of African Soldiers in Europe

In theory, then, it was the French metropolitan army that was responsible for defending metropolitan France, while the other two forces were assigned to conquer and maintain order in the growing French empire. But when in the beginning of the twentieth century the clouds of war began to darken European skies, Col. Charles Mangin (1866–1925), later a well-known general, expressed an idea to use colonial units of African soldiers to defend the motherland. In a book titled La force noire, published in 1910, Mangin maintained that the falling birthrates in France made it necessary to recruit African soldiers to defend its borders. He regarded the deployment of black soldiers in the defense of the motherland as the pinnacle of France's civilizing mission. Referring to the pseudoscientific racial theories of his time, Mangin claimed that several so-called natural attributes of Africans made them excellent soldiers. Among these he included their ability to live in harsh climates and their capacity to carry heavy loads over great distances, explained by the belief that a supposedly underdeveloped nervous system allowed them to withstand pain. He argued that these ostensible qualities made African soldiers valuable for deployment as "shock troops" (troupes de choc) and that their appearance on the battlefields of Europe would have a considerable effect on the enemy's morale.

Mangin was not alone in claiming that African soldiers could contribute to France's war efforts in Europe. Gen. Joseph Gallieni (1849–1916), who commanded many of the colonization campaigns in Africa and Indochina, stated in 1910 that "the warriors' qualities of the Senegalese can no longer be contested. They are proud to serve under the orders of the French leaders, so it is impossible to treat them as simple mercenaries; in the service of our flag, they constitute, on the contrary, elite troops that it would be regrettable not to deploy."

After a heated debate among military and political circles in France, it was finally decided to support Mangin's proposal. African soldiers were recruited and sent to Europe right from the beginning of World War I, but mostly after 1916, when French casualties became heavy and mutiny in the ranks was on the rise. Over the five years of the war, AOF supplied 170,891 soldiers to the military forces.

The main objection to this draft came from the then governor-general of AOF, Joost Van Vollenhoven, who was later killed in action in World War I. Van Vollenhoven did not see the logic in sending Africans to fight in a European war instead of leaving them to work their lands in Africa. However, the recruitment campaign in AOF was led by the first African deputy in the French parliament, Blaise Diagne. Diagne estimated that recruiting Africans to World War I would encourage the extension of civil rights in the colonies. He therefore took it upon himself to convince Africans that volunteering for the army would contribute to their well-being in the future, and he succeeded in attracting a great number of volunteers, although in fact most Africans who served in the war were eventually forcibly recruited.

Sending African colonial subjects to defend the motherland dramatically changed the rules of the "colonial game" — although it seemed at the time that the French did not yet realize this. The French military and administrative officials legitimized the idea of sending Africans thousands of kilometers away from their homes to fight a war that was not theirs by emphasizing what officials called the "blood debt." This was a supposed debt Africans owed the French for bringing civilization to their people and saving them from local and ruthless tyrants. It wasn't long before this idea was reversed, and the blood debt became one that France owed its colonial subjects for coming to its aid against its German enemies. A debt to colonial subjects is certainly not something any colonial power would easily admit to, but the contribution of tens of thousands of Africans to the war effort required some sort of gratitude, at least from the military perspective. This was manifested right after World War I by military efforts to commemorate African soldiers. Much later, on the eve of World War II, the African veterans' contribution was acknowledged by a decree giving them the right to be judged before French courts of law, thus allowing them to avoid the constant threat of the indigénat.

It would take a while until this gratitude would be translated into massive reforms, but Africans who served in World War I gained a patron in the form of the military command in AOF. This did not simplify matters for the colonial administrators, who often found African veterans difficult to control. The experiences the Africans underwent in Europe and especially their relations with white women made them seem arrogant and disobedient in the eyes of members of the administration, especially in their behavior toward the African chiefs who did not go to war. Africans who served in Europe blurred colonial boundaries, as their experiences during the war reshaped their perceptions of colonialism and challenged their categorization as "colonial subjects." This suspicion toward veterans sometimes caused friction between administrators and military officials. One prominent example is the reluctance of colonial governors to participate in commemoration projects in AOF held for the African soldiers who had perished in the war due to their concern that such attention would only increase the veterans' disrespect toward the colonial authorities.

The war also elevated the significance of the army's role in the colonial arena. As was the practice when the army occupied new territories, military officers took over the administration of the territory that was to become AOFand shaped colonial policy. When the federation of AOF was established in 1895, colonial rule was gradually transferred to civilian administrators in most of the colonies of the federation. The army thus lost much of its control over the shaping of colonial policy. World War I and the mass participation of local soldiers from AOF in this war changed the situation and again increased military influence over the administration of the federation. One event that exemplifies the army's comeback is a tour to AOF in January 1925, led by no other than the hero of Verdun, later to become the collaborator of Vichy marshal Philippe Pétain. The aim of this tour was to formulate a report on the quality of the "black army" that Pétain was to submit to the minister of overseas France, Édouard Daladier. The decision to send the most important military figure that emerged from the war to conduct this tour and write the report is hardly trivial. It demonstrates the new significance and respect the army had gained in the colonial arena. From now on the colonial civilian administration had to take the army's positions into account, and not only in strictly military matters. The military and the civilian administrations in AOFoften saw eye to eye, but occasionally there were clashes. As we shall see later in this book, these frictions became more frequent during the tense years of decolonization.

Unlike the situation prior to World War I, when a heated debate ensued around Mangin's proposal to send African soldiers to defend metropolitan France, as World War II approached both colonial and military circles agreed that a massive draft of African soldiers was necessary. African soldiers' experiences in this war and its influence over their perception of French colonial rule upon their return will be examined in the next chapter. Suffice it to say that unlike World War I, which occurred at a very early stage of the French presence in West Africa, the second world conflict broke out when African politicians, students, and workers had already been challenging the legitimacy of colonial rule and the inherent discrimination it entailed. Its effects on the Africans who fought in this war were therefore much more significant than those of the previous war on their predecessors.

Major Watersheds in the Decolonization of AOF

In 1944, toward the end of World War II, Free French leader Charles de Gaulle convened a conference on colonial reforms in the capital of AEF, Brazzaville. Although the eventual reforms were rather limited and no African representatives were invited to participate in the debates, in retrospect this conference can be seen as the beginning of a process that resulted in independence. This was not de Gaulle's intention, though. It was not even the preference of many Africans at the time, who only wished to become equal citizens in the newly established French Union. Nevertheless, fifteen years later, all of the colonies of AOF became independent states.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803253397
• ISBN 13: 9780803253391
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 282