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Senegal Armée de Terre - History

From the early years of penetration into West Africa, leading eventually to control of much of this area, the French made a practice of using Africans from occupied areas in their colonial forces. Their abilities as fighters had been demonstrated during a long period of resistance to the French forces. Once West Africa had been penetrated, the French turned these qualities to their own advantage.

As early as 1765 young men were enlisted in the army in Senegal, and over the years the practice was extended to all of French West Africa. The Africans soon had reputations as tough and disciplined soldiers of the French colonial army. In 1838 a company of Senegalese was dispatched to Guinea. Senegalese soldiers fought in the Crimea, under Maximilian in Mexico, and in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Senegalese units were used extensively by the French in their eastward penetration south of the Sahara and gained distinction in the Madagascar and Moroccan campaign of 1912.

As part of a plan to raise a large colonial force for service wherever needed, in 1916 France formally adopted military conscription for itsWest African territories. From that time on, many Africans were called up and incorporated in the French army. They were organized into units designated Senegalese Riflemen (Tirailleurs Senegalais), although the troops were drawn from all parts of West Africa. The units usually were maintained at a ratio of two-thirds conscripts to one-third regulars. The great majority ofofficers and non-commissioned officers were French, but Africans could and did advance to noncommissioned officer status, and a limited number gained commissions.

Nearly half a million fearsome fighters, mainly from Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco — all generally referred to as Senegalese Tirailleurs regardless of their national origins — fought in the French Army during the Great War. West African troops fought on several battle-fronts, and a large percentage of the 181,000 men involved were from Senegal. Losses were high, and incapacities resulting from unaccustomed climates took a toll that equaled the battle casualties. Known generically as Senegalese, the West African soldiers earned a considerable reputation as fierce and reliable fighters.

Hitler wrote in Mein Kamf of France that "Not only that she complements her army to an ever-increasing degree from her enormous empire's reservoir of colored humanity, but racially as well, she is making such great progress in negrification that we can actually speak of an African state arising on European soil. The colonial policy of present-day France cannot be compared with that of Germany in the past. If the development of France in the present style were to be continued for three hundred years, the last remnants of Frankish blood would be submerged in the developing European-African mulatto state. An immense self-contained area of settlement from the Rhine to the Congo, filled with a lower race gradually produced from continuous bastardization....

"The former German colonial policy, like everything we did, was carried out by halves. It neither increased the settlement area of the German Reich, nor did it undertake any attempt - criminal though it would have been - to strengthen the Reich by the use of black blood. ... The idea of bringing black troops into a European battlefield, quite aside from its practical impossibility in the World War, never existed even as a design to be realized under more favorable circumstances, while, on the contrary, it was always regarded and felt by the French as the basic reason for their colonial activity."

The armistice of 11 November 1918 gave France and her allies the right to occupy the German Rhineland. During the early 1920s, an average of 25,000 colonial French soldiers participated in the occupation of German territory west of the river Rhine. The vast majority of these troops came from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, with significantly smaller contingents hailing from Indochina, Madagascar, and Senegal.

In the aftermath of the Great War, a storm of protest met the stationing of colonial African troops in the occupied German territories. The “schwarze Schmach am Rhein” (“black horror on the Rhine”) campaign was an important chapter in the popularisation of racialised discourse in European history. Originating post-War Germany, this international racist campaign was promoted through modern media, targeting French occupation troops from colonial Africa on German soil and using stereotypical images of 'racially primitive', sexually depraved black soldiers threatening and raping 'white women' in 1920s Germany to generate widespread public concern about their presence.

One English acount from 1920 related that "It is repugnant to ninety-nine out of a hundred Englishmen to think of black savages from the Congo being forced into any European homes. The consequences of the proximity of the Senegalese, who have been separated from their own women for two years, to white women, and conquered white women, are too obvious to require discussion. It may be said that we too have occupied various lands with coloured troops, but in this case there is surely a difference to be observed. The Indians are unrelated to the full-blooded negro; they have neither his passions nor his ferocity."

Many Africans joined the French forces during the early phase of World War II. In a continuation of the policy initiated during the First World War, France recruited nearly 65,000 West Africans who served as combatants during the German Blitzkrieg in the spring of 1940.

During its campaign against France in 1940, the German army massacred several thousand black POWs belonging to units drafted in France's West African colonies. A massive Nazi propaganda offensive approved by Hitler, reviving traditional images of black soldiers as mutilating savages, formed the background for the massacres.

After the defeat of metropolitan France's military forces in 1940, French West Africa gave its allegiance to the surviving French government, located in Vichy, until the landings of the Allied armies in North Africa in 1942. Senegalese units then joined the Free French forces and took part in battles in North Africa, France, and Germany. The Second World War only strengthened the French and British resolve to use their colonial empires to the full in a confrontation with Germany. Thus, as early as 1940, French West Africa supplied 127,320 infantrymen, French Equatorial Africa 15,500 and Madagascar 34,000. This was only the beginning of war operations.

After World War II ended, the French continued to maintain their West African units at considerable strength to help meet worldwide military commitments. Some 15,000 served in the Indochina conflict; and 30,000, in North Africa and the Suez area. Meanwhile, only about 4,000 were garrisoned in the whole of West Africa. French control of military forces in Senegal and French influence on organization, training, and tactics continued after World War II ended.

When Sengal became independent in 1960, its leaders retained the French approach as they developed their national military forces, with some adaptations to Senegal's special needs.