Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918 Alexander Keese Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918. By Richard S. Fogarty. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8018-8824-3. Note on terminology. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Essay on sources. Index. Pp. 374. $60.00. Interest in the role of colonial troops as part of the French army has reached a new peak in recent years. Following the older studies of Marc Michel on the Tirailleurs Sénégalais, West African troops under French command, scholars have notably been engaged in analysing the connections between war experience and the social role of the respective soldiers in their societies of origin. Gregory Mann's book Native Sons went farthest in this respect. Richard Fogarty's study has, in comparison, a less ambitious goal. He enquires into the context of non-European experience in the First World War without commenting much on its repercussions on the returning individuals and their societies. The nature of the French approach towards non-Europeans recruited for the army of the Grande Nation, practical difficulties in battle, training and everyday interaction between European French and 'indigènes', questions of republican universalism and the racist limits of assimilation are at the heart of Fogarty's interpretations. This approach might be described as Eurocentric – but, in fact, the author paves the way for a more comprehensive analysis of problems that are at the core of interpreting France's colonial past. Also, while not following Mann's choice of combining research on indigenous soldiers both in France and in the colonial territories, Fogarty comments, nonetheless, on a remarkably wide range of different groups recruited for the war. Namely, besides the more classical interest in West and North Africans he includes a detailed study of the role of Malagasy and Indochinese troops. On the latter he provides an important discussion of their specialisations, namely as nurses and as members of artillery units. Also, their particular encounter with French civilians, especially with French women, is still under-researched, a gap in scholarly literature which is very well filled by Fogarty's book. Fogarty's analysis starts with the important and frequently ignored fact that French military officials, at the end of First World War and beyond, had to [End Page 668] defend the integration of African troops in the European battle theatres against racially motivated international critiques. The French practice was scorned by their white American colleagues (and idealised by Black American political activists). Obviously, Fogarty rapidly shows that the French 'liberality' was in part rhetoric. French military officers of all ranks doubtlessly had strong racist preconceptions. This already influenced strategies of recruitment: French officers believed that different colonial populations had 'racial characteristics', and that only some were real races guerrières (warrior races), while others were ineffective in battle. Moreover, race remained a central criterion for (white) leadership in the army, which made it extremely difficult for colonial soldiers to reach the rank of officer. Fogarty alludes to but does not respond to the question if French war planners deliberately sent non-white soldiers to places where losses were highest – a hypothesis so vehemently rejected in Marc Michel's Appel à l'Afrique. That race created hierarchy both on the level of the common soldier, as in the officer corps, becomes, as an unsurprising fact, very well illuminated in Fogarty's book. Fogarty's empirical findings on language problems, Islam and sexual contacts are very applicable for any reader, beyond the group of genuine military historians, and provide a strong part of the book. He refers to the problems of language use, and identifies the absence of a language base as a consequence of racism, as the French believed that a simplified (and ridiculed) form of French was an appropriate lingua franca. Regarding sexual encounters, Fogarty demonstrates that many indigenous recruits interpreted those as a symbolic revenge against the colonizer. Going here beyond the Eurocentric perspective, he holds that in the long run the visual proofs, particularly photos, of non-European soldiers having intimate contact with French women undermined the European prestige on which French colonial...