Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2013
On April 6, 1920 the French government, in reprisal for the entry of German troops into the demilitarized zone of the Ruhr, occupied Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Hanau, and Homburg. During the occupation French Moroccan soldiers fired on a German mob in Frankfurt and killed several. In covering the event the Daily Herald, alone among English newspapers, called special attention to the “race” of the French troops. It headlined:
FRANKFURT RUNS WITH BLOOD
FRENCH BLACK TROOPS USE
MACHINE GUNS ON CIVILIANS
On April 10, the Herald followed its accounts of events on the Rhine by a front page article by Edmund Dene Morel under banner leads:
BLACK SCOURGE IN EUROPE
SEXUAL HORROR LET LOOSE BY FRANCE ON RHINE DISAPPEARANCE OF YOUNG GERMAN GIRLS
France, Morel wrote, “is thrusting her black savages …into the heart of Germany.” There “primitive African barbarians”, carriers of syphilis, have become a “terror and a horror” to the Palatinate countryside. The “barely restrainable beastiality of the black troops” has led to many rapes, an especially serious problem since Africans are “the most developed sexually of any” race and “for well-known physiological reasons, the raping of a white woman by a negro is nearly always accompanied by serious injury and not infrequently has fatal results.…” Morel had reports of rapes, “some of them of an atrocious character”, and of “dead bodies of young women discovered under manure heaps and so on”. German municipalities were forced to provide bordellos and white women, and even young boys, for these over-sexed blacks. Master-minding this effort to “ruin, enslave, degrade, dismember [and] reduce to the lowest depths of despair and humiliation a whole people” was a “ruthless” and militaristic French government. Furthermore Morel warned his working class readers, “If the manhood of these races, not so advanced in the forms of civilisation as ourselves, are to be used against the Germans, why not against the workers here or elsewhere?”
page 1 note 1 Times, April 7–10, 1920; Illustrated London News, CLVI (April 17, 1921), p. 641; Gosling, Cecil to Earl Curzon, 04 17, 1920, Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939 (Butler, Rohan and Bury, J. P. T., eds; 1st series; London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1958), IX, p. 322.Google Scholar
page 1 note 2 Daily Herald, April 9, 1920.
page 2 note 1 Italics in original.
page 2 note 2 Raymond Postgate, The Life of George Lansbury (London: Longmans Green, 1951), pp. 195–198, 209.Google Scholar
page 2 note 3 Swanwick, H. M., Builders of the Peace: Being Ten Years' History of the Union of Democratic Control (London: Swarthmore Press, 1924), p. 187.Google Scholar See also Brockway, A. Fenner, Inside the Left: Thirty Years of Platform, Press, Prison and Parliament (London: New Leader, 1942), p. 54.Google Scholar
page 3 note 1 Swanwick, , Builders of the Peace, pp. 34–35Google Scholar; “Six Years”, in: Foreign Affairs: A Journal of International Understanding, II (December, 1920), p. 94; Angell, Norman, After All (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1951), pp. 191, 193Google Scholar. For a detailed biography of Morel see Wuliger, R., “The Idea of Economic Imperialism, with Special Reference to the Life and Work of E. D. Morel” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1953).Google Scholar
page 3 note 2 Morel, , “The Will to Destroy Germany”, in: Labour Leader, 12 11, 1919Google Scholar; Editor's preface to Price, Philips, “British Labour's Duty in Central Europe”, in: Foreign Affairs, II (07, 1920), p. 7Google Scholar; Morel, “The Destructive Legend”, ibid., II (April, 1921), pp. 149–150; “Our Purpose”, ibid., I (July, 1919), p. 1; Wuliger, , “The Idea of Economic Imperialism”, pp. 370–371, 406–408Google Scholar. The UDC ardently supported J. M. Keynes' critique of the Versailles Treaty and distributed copies of his Economic Consequences of the Peace. Swanwick, , Builders of the Peace, p. 191.Google Scholar
page 3 note 3 Morel, , The Black Man's Burden (Manchester: National Labour Press, 1920), pp. 223–229.Google Scholar
page 3 note 4 Some of the ideas expressed in this work are presaged in Morel's book, Africa and the Peace of Europe (1917), and a pamphlet, The African Problem and the Peace Settlement (1917). Wuliger, , “The Idea of Economic Imperialism”, p. 376.Google Scholar
page 3 note 5 Morel, , Black Man's Burden, p. 8.Google ScholarMorel, was convinced that winter in Europe was “fatal to the tropical or sub-tropical African” (p. 9)Google Scholar, but perhaps because he considered that there was a “force of character, innate in the white imperial peoples”, (p. 5) he did not draw the obvious corollary that Africa was too hot for Europeans.
page 4 note 1 Herald, Daily, 01 27, 1920; “The Employment of Black Troops”, in: Nation, XXVI (March 27, 1920), p. 893.Google Scholar The Nation article was an outgrowth of Morel's discovery that the French had 30–40,000 coloured soldiers in their army of occupation. Part of this Nation article was reprinted, with favourable comments, in “The Looking Glass”, in: Crisis (New York), XX (July, 1920), p. 141. Crisis was the official publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.
page 4 note 2 Morel, , “The Slave Owner Spirit Again”, in Labour Leader, 04 22, 1920.Google Scholar
page 4 note 3 Morel, , “The ‘Horror on the Rhine’”, in: Foreign Affairs, II (08, 1920), p. 29.Google Scholar See also Morel, “The Peacewar”, ibid., II (November, 1920), pp. 69–70; Morel, “The Prostitution of the Rhineland”, ibid., II (June, 1921), p. 196.
page 4 note 4 “Our London Letter”, in: Labour Leader, August 26, 1920; Morel to Philip Snowden, July 15, 1920, Parcel 252, UDC Collection, Library, University of Hull. The pamphlet was published in August, 1920 by the UDC. The British Museum has copies of the 3rd (1920) and 8th (1921) editions.
page 5 note 1 Morel, , Horror on the Rhine, 8th ed., p. 4.Google Scholar
page 6 note 1 “What We Think”, in: Foreign Affairs, II (January, 1921), pp. 104–105.
page 6 note 2 Kneeshaw, J. W., “The Horror on the Rhine”, in: Labour Leader, 09 2, 1920Google Scholar. See also Daily Herald, September 1, 1920; “Coloured Troops in Germany”, in: Women's International League (British Section), Monthly News Sheet, VI (September, 1920), pp. 2–3. Copy in the British Museum.
page 6 note 3 Kneeshaw, J. W., “The Outlook”, in: Foreign Affairs, II (10, 1920), pp. 66–67.Google Scholar
page 6 note 4 Daily Herald, April 12, 1920.
page 7 note 1 Thomson's statement was written on April 10, evidently within hours of reading Morel's article, and sent directly to Morel. The Black Scourge in Europe (Being the reproduction with additional material of MrMorel's, E. D. article in the ‘Daily Herald’ of 04 10, 1920) (London: UDC, 1920), p. 3.Google Scholar A copy of this leaflet is in Parcel 279, “E. D. Morel”, UDC Collection. Thomson, later Lord Thomson of Cardington, had served in South and West Africa. In 1924 he was appointed by MacDonald as the First Secretary for Air. He was proposed for the General Council of the UDC in Autumn of 1920. Entry for September 21, 1920, Meetings of the Executive Council UDC, (DDC 1/5) UDC Collection.
page 7 note 2 Daily Herald, April 22, 1920; Morning Post, April 22, 1920.
page 8 note 1 Morel used this theme repeatedly, varying it with the type and location of his audience. In this speech Morel also made his oft-repeated claim that French native troops could be used against defenceless British colonies and against European workers.
page 8 note 2 Women's, International League (British Section), Coloured Troops in Europe (London: WILPF, 1920), copy in the British Museum.Google Scholar See also Morel, , “Black Troops in Germany”, in: Foreign Affairs, I (06, 1920), Special Supplement, pp. v–ix.Google Scholar The Daily Herald's account was headlined: BLACK MENACE TO WOMEN. Herald, Daily, 04 19–20, 26, 28Google Scholar.
page 8 note 3 Hunter, E. E., “Labour and Foreign Affairs”, in: Foreign Affairs, I (05, 1920), pp. 16–17Google Scholar; Morning Post, April 26, 1920.
page 8 note 4 Daily Herald, April 14, 19, 1920; “Branch News”, WILPF Monthly News Sheet, VI (June, 1920), p. 4; Letter from Mrs E. Brennan, June 6, 1920, FO 371/3786 paper 202233/18; M. G. Townley to Cecil Harmsworth, June 21, 1920, FO 371/3787 paper 205271/18, Public Record Office.
page 9 note 1 Coloured Troops in Europe, p. 18.
page 9 note 2 The ex-Liberals of the UDC moved into the ILP during the war and not only assumed positions of leadership but largely determined ILP foreign policy. Dowse, Robert E., Left in Centre: The Independent Labour Party 1893–1940 (London: Longmans, 1966), pp. 25–26, 49.Google Scholar The UDC provided a liaison between the Parliamentary Labour Party and the ILP. On a local level ILP and UDC chapters frequently consisted of the same persons; representatives of both groups contributed to each others journals. In addition the UDC was affiliated with trade union and Labour parties with a membership of 800,000 in April 1920 and over a million by November. “Six Years”, in: Foreign Affairs, II (December, 1920), pp. 94–95; Minute Book, General Council UDC, No 2, pp. 15Google Scholar, 22 (DDC 1/2), UDC Collection.
In February, 1919 Morel was named an advisor to the Labour Party's Advisory Committee on International Questions. Telegram Leonard Woolf to Morel, February 1, 1919, Newspaper Clippings, Miscellaneous 1919–1921, E. D. Morel Collection, Library, London School of Economics and Political Science. Morel was chosen a Labour candidate for Dundee in 1920 and two years later he defeated Winston Churchill for the seat. He was re-elected in 1923 and 1924. Wuliger, , “The Idea of Economic Imperialism”, pp. 426–427, 445–446, 492, 522.Google Scholar
page 9 note 3 Daily Herald, April 19, 1920.
page 9 note 4 Ibid., April 21, 1920.
page 9 note 5 127 HC Deb. 5 s. (April 14, 1920), p. 1659.
page 9 note 6 Ibid. (April 15, 1920), p. 1824. Spoor was on the General Council of the UDC and he became a minister in the first Labour government. He visited the occupied zone in 1921 and reported that the African troops were being “used as the instruments of French hatred”. He admitted that any army tends to be loose in its morals, but the Africans “are not restrained in their behaviour to women by the scruples and conventions inherent in European training, nor are their passions cooler for being used to a polygamous state of society.” He feared the “rising tide of colour” and declared that it was a mistake to acquaint Africans with modern weapons and industrial techniques – “to impose obligations beyond their capacities upon primitive peoples is to injure their growth”. Spoor, , “Black and White on the Rhine”, in: Foreign Affairs, III (11, 1921), p. 1.Google Scholar
page 10 note 1 128 HC Deb. 5 s. (April 22, 1920), p. 544. Bonar Law gave the same answer on May 12 to Waterson, A. E. (Labour MP from Northampton, Kettering). 129 (05 12, 1920), p. 436.Google Scholar
page 10 note 2 The Foreign Office investigated the French emp oyment of native troops. They were satisfied that the troops were well behaved and charges against them were exaggerated. Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, 1st series, IX, pp. 328, 332, 384–485.
page 10 note 3 131 HC Deb. 5 s. (June 28, 1920), pp. 55–56; 132 (July 20, 1920), pp. 222–223. The number of colonial troops – Moroccans, Senegalese, Malagasies and a few Indochinese – stationed in the Rhineland varied from 5–20,000. There is no official proof that Morel or the Herald's charge of 30,000 or 40,000 “Black” troops in Germany was remotely correct.
page 11 note 1 133 HC Deb. 5 s. (October 21, 1920), p. 1062; 141 (May 11, 1921), p. 1895; 145 (July 27, 1921), p. 441; 147 (October 31, 1921), pp. 1342–1343. The issue was raised only once in the House of Lords. Lord Parmoor (a contributor to Foreign Affairs) asked if Senegalese troops had been removed from occupied Germany. The government spokesman insisted that he had no information and besides it was a French concern. 39 HL Deb. 5 s. (April 21, 1920), p. 919.
page 11 note 2 By December 1920 Foreign Affairs had a circulation of 14–15,000. “Six Years”, in: Foreign Affairs, II, pp. 94–95. Charles Trevelyan reported that in 1921 Foreign Affairs had a circulation of 20,000, “chiefly among the local leaders of the working class”. From Liberalism to Labour (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1921), p. 86.
page 11 note 3 Daily Herald, April 14, 1920.
page 11 note 4 Dawson, William Arbutt, “Germany and Spa”, in: Contemporary Review, CXVIII (07, 1920), p. 8.Google Scholar
page 11 note 5 Commonweal, April 17, 1920, copy in Newspaper Clippings, Miscellaneous 1919–1921, Morel Collection.
page 11 note 7 H.W.M., , “A Glance at the French Occupation”, in: Nation and Athenaeum, XXX (10 22, 1921), pp. 138–140.Google Scholar
page 12 note 1 No effort has been made to comb European newspapers and periodicals. I have concentrated on Morel's response to European protests in the pages of Foreign Affairs, Labour Leader, Daily Herald, Daily News and in the newspaper clippings of the Morel Collection.
page 12 note 2 Morel, , The Horror on the Rhine, 3rd ed., p. 6.Google Scholar See also “The Black Troops”, in: Outlook (New York), CXXVII (March 16, 1921), p. 424.
page 12 note 3 Labour Leader, April 29, 1920.
page 12 note 4 Swanwick, , Builders of the Peace, p. 130Google Scholar; “A French Union of Democratic Control”, in: Foreign Affairs, III (December, 1921), p. 90.
page 13 note 1 Rolland, , “Europe and the Coloured People”, in: Foreign Affairs, I (05, 1920), p. 1.Google Scholar See also Jean Longuet's statement addressed to the Westminster meeting, “What We Think”, ibid., p. 2, and Henri Barbusse in “Widespread International Support for Mr. Morel's Protest”, ibid., I (June, 1920), Special Supplement, p. x. Morel quoted in his Daily Herald article the French journal Clarté's views about the “barely restrainable beastiality of the black troops”.
page 13 note 2 Gannett, Lewis S., “Those Black Troops on the Rhine- and the White”, in: Nation (New York), CXII (05 25, 1921), p. 733Google Scholar; “The Return of the Hyphen”, in: Literary Digest (New York), LXVIII (March 12, 1921), p. 14; Arnold Robertson to Earl Curzon, October 13, 1920, Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, 1st series, X, pp. 317–320. There was even a German film, “The Black Horror”. Sevestre, Norbert, “‘La Honte Noire’”, in: Revue des Deux Mondes, LXV (09 15, 1921), pp. 418, 420–421, 432.Google Scholar
page 13 note 3 “African Troops in Europe”, in: Foreign Affairs, II (July, 1920), p. 10; Times, October 21, 29, 1920; Morel's letter in European Press, March 11, 1921, copy in Newspaper Clippings, Miscellaneous 1919–1921, Morel Collection.
page 13 note 4 Morel, The Horror on the Rhine, 3rd ed., title page; “The ‘Horror on the Rhine’ ”, in: Foreign Affairs, II (October, 1920), p. 64. See also Gardiner, A. G., What I Saw in Germany (Letters from Germany and Austria) (London and Manchester: Daily News, 1920), p. 58.Google Scholar
page 13 note 5 Swanwick, , Builders of the Peace, pp. 131–132Google Scholar; “African Troops in Europe”, in: Foreign Affairs, II, p. 10; “A Hungarian UDC”, ibid., II (May, 1921), p. 170: Morel's letter in Daily News, February 16, 1921; “Correspondence”, in: Foreign Affairs, III (October, 1921), p. 61.
page 14 note 1 Morel, , “The Prostitution of the Rhineland”, in: Foreign Affairs, II (06, 1921), p. 196.Google Scholar See also letter of Col. Peterson of the Swedish army in Morel, Horror on the Rhine, 8th ed., p. 4.
page 14 note 2 “Foreign News”, in: WILPF, Monthly News Sheet, V (July, 1920), p. 3; “France's ‘Terrible’ Black Troops”, in: Literary Digest, LXVI (October 28, 1920), p. 22.
page 14 note 3 Morel, , Horror on the Rhine, 8th ed., p. 4Google Scholar; “The Horror on the Rhine”, in: Foreign Affairs, II (March, 1921), p. 145.
page 14 note 4 Morel, , Horror on the Rhine, 8th ed., p. 4Google Scholar; Morel letter in Daily News, September 3, 1921; Gärtner, Margarete, Botschafterin des guten Willens: Aussen-politische Arbeit 1914–1950 (Bonn: Athenäum Verlag, 1955), p. 64.Google Scholar
page 14 note 5 Letter from the Vereinigung evangelischer Frauenverbände Deutschlands, June 7, 1920, FO 371/3786 paper 202095/18.
page 14 note 6 “Coloured Troops in Germany”, in: WILPF Monthly News Sheet, VI (September 1920), p. 3.
page 15 note 1 Morel, Horror on the Rhine, 8th ed., title page.
page 15 note 2 “Correspondence”, in: Foreign Affairs, III (November, 1921), p. 78. In the previous month Foreign Affairs printed a letter from an English WILPF member who had seen Senegalese soldiers in Wiesbaden. She had talked to German women about them and they told her “if English mothers only knew the truth about these things …”, “Correspondence”, ibid., III (October, 1921), p. 61.
page 15 note 3 “Resolution by the French Section of the Women's International League on the Use of Black Troops”, ibid., I (June, 1920), Special Supplement, p. xi.
page 15 note 4 Resolutions passed at the Third Congress of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Vienna, July 10–17, 1921 (Vienna: Otto Maass, 1921), p. 4. Copy in the British Museum.
page 15 note 5 Morel, , Horror on the Rhine, 3rd ed., p. 7.Google Scholar
page 15 note 6 “The Horror on the Rhine”, in: Foreign Affairs, II (March, 1921), p. 145.
page 15 note 7 Morel, , Horror on the Rhine, 8th ed., p. 3Google Scholar; Freeman, April 27, 1921, Newspaper Clippings, Miscellaneous 1919–1921, Morel Collection.
page 16 note 1 “The Return of the Hyphen”, in: Literary Digest, LXVIII (March 12, 1921). p. 14; “The Rhine's ‘Black Horror’ Faded”, ibid., LXIX (June 25, 1921), p. 14; Times, March 2, 1921.
page 16 note 2 “The Return of the Hyphen”, in: Literary Digest, LXVIII, p. 14; “Is the Black Horror on the Rhine Fact or Propaganda?”, in: Nation (New York), CXIII (July 13, 1921), p. 45; Sevestre, , “La Honte Noire”, in: Revue des Deux Mondes, LXV, pp. 418, 431.Google Scholar Morel took a great interest in American affairs, but he either was little aware of the protest movement in the United States or he wished to disassociate himself from it. The Morel Collection does have a clipping on the African soldier question from the Gaelic American, April 30, 1921 and Morel's letter in the Freeman, April 27, 1921.
page 16 note 3 “Is the Black Horror on the Rhine Fact or Propaganda?”, in: Nation, CXIII, p. 45. See also Lewis S. Gannett, “The Horror on the Rhine Again”, ibid., CXIII (September 7, 1921), p. 264. A French journalist unfairly bunched Miss Beveridge with Morel: “zélées recrues du Barnum pangermain …” Sevestre, , “La Honte Noire”, in: Revue des Deux Mondes, LXV, p. 430.Google Scholar
page 16 note 4 The Daily News gave Morel a sympathetic hearing on the subject. They sent a reporter to Germany who investigated the charges made against colonial troops. He concluded that there was little substance in the accusations, though these troops “embittered” Franco-German relations. Gardiner, , What I Saw in Germany, p. 58.Google Scholar
page 17 note 1 McKay, Claude, “A Black Man Replies”, in: Workers' Dreadnought, 04 24 1920Google Scholar; Cooper, Wayne and Reinders, Robert C., ”A Black Briton Comes ‘Home’: Claude McKay in England, 1920”, in: Race, IX (07, 1967), p. 71.Google Scholar McKay's letter was reprinted in Marcus Garvey's Negro World (New York). See also a letter from a Cardiff Negro signed “One of the Oppressed”. At first he thought the Herald was guilty of racial prejudice, but no longer. Labour and the Negro are minorities who have been criticised for being unable to rule. Of course the Negro he declares – with irony? – does not ask for social equality, “only the right to live and obtain the just reward of our part in the Great War for White Nations”. Daily Herald, April 24, 1920.
page 17 note 2 Daily Herald, April 10, 26, 1920; Morel, untitled speech, 1921 in Parliament, Miscellaneous Speeches, Morel Collection; Hunter, E. E., “Labour and Foreign Affairs”, in: Foreign Affairs, I (05, 1920), p. 17.Google Scholar
page 17 note 3 Letter from Norman Leys, Daily Herald, April 17, 1920. General Sir Harry Johnston asked on the basis of his African experience for a statement on the “Black Horror” replied that reports of atrocities by Africans in Europe originated in “hysteria and unfounded accusations”. He said that Negro troops were better behaved than white ones. WILPF, Coloured Troops in Europe, p. 19.Google Scholar
page 18 note 1 Coloured Troops in Europe, p. 20.
page 18 note 2 Morning Post, April 26, 1920. See above p. 10.
page 18 note 3 A study of the minute books of the Attercliffe and the Sheffield ILP branches show no interest in black troops. Copies of the minutes are in the Department of Local History and Archives, Central Library, Sheffield. The minutes of the Executive Council and the General Council of the UDC never deal with the issue though the General Council passed resolutions condemning occupation of the Rhineland. UDC Collection.
page 18 note 4 “Coloured Troops in the Occupied Provinces”, in: New Statesman, XVII (July 2, 1921), pp. 353–354.
page 18 note 5 Ransom, Josephine, “Women in International Politics”, in: WILPF Monthly News Sheet, V (07, 1920), p. 1.Google Scholar Ransom was editor of the Britain and India Magazine.
page 19 note 1 “Headquarters News”, ibid., VII (May, 1921), p. 4.
page 19 note 3 Gide, , “L'Armée Noire”, in: Foi et Vie, 03 16, 1921Google Scholar, Newspaper Clippings 1920–1923, Morel Collection. For another criticism of Morel see “Le Defaitisme de la Paix en Angleterre. J.-M. Keynes et E.-D. Morel”, in: Mercure de France (November 1, 1923), pp. 607–620, copy in Newspaper Clippings 1920–1923, Morel Collection.
page 19 note 4 Times, May 21, 1920; Washington Bee (Washington D.C.), May 29, 1920; Daily Herald, May 21, 1920; Lord Kilmanock despatch, n.d., FO 371/3785 paper 199677/18.
page 20 note 1 “Is the Black Horror on the Rhine Fact or Propaganda?”, in: Nation, CXIII, p. 44. For other German newspaper comments questioning stories about atrocities see “The Black Troops”, in: Outlook, CXXVII (March 16, 1921), pp. 424–425.
page 20 note 2 For the hostile attitude of several New York dailies see “The Return of the Hyphen”, in: Literary Digest, LXVIII, pp. 14–15.
page 20 note 3 “Propaganda about the Black Troops”, in: Outlook, CXXVII (March 9, 1921), p. 363.
page 20 note 4 Gannett, , “Those Black Troops on the Rhine – and the White”, in: Nation, CXII, pp. 733–734Google Scholar; Gannett, “The Horror on the Rhine Again”, ibid., CXIII, p. 264; “The Black Troops on the Rhine”, ibid., CXII, p. 366.
page 20 note 5 “African Troops on the Rhine”, in: New Republic, XXVI (March 9, 1921), pp. 29–30.
page 21 note 2 Washington Bee, October 9, 1920.
page 21 note 3 Angell, Norman, “France and the Black Power”, in: Contemporary Review, CXXI (02, 1922), pp. 226–229Google Scholar; Spoor, Ben C., “Black and White on the Rhine”, in: Foreign Affairs, III (12, 1921), p. 1Google Scholar; Joseph King, “French and British in Occupied Germany”, ibid., III (June, 1922), p. 184–185; “Correspondence”, ibid., IV (July, 1922), pp. 120–121; Brent Dow Allinson, “The Double Curse in Germany”, ibid., IV (May, 1923), pp. 233–234; Hugh F. Spender, “The Rhineland Amnesty”, ibid., VI (November, 1924), p. 94; Spender, “Coloured Troops in the Palatinate”, ibid., VI (January, 1925), p. 150.
page 21 note 4 Morel kept his Dundee constituents informed about the “black horror”. Dundee Advertiser, October 17, 1923, Newspaper Clippings 1920–1923, Morel Collection. Morel's last impact May have been in Scotland. In 1923 the Committee on Social Problems of the United Free Church of Scotland investigated charges made against French colonial troops and concluded that “a shameful outrage on civilization was being perpetrated”. The next year the General Assembly of the Free Church sent a memorial to Ramsey MacDonald stating that the “continuous presence among a civilian population in Europe of some 40,000 soldiers, belonging to a polygamous order of society, and separated from women of their own race, creates a situation in which grave moral disorders become inevitable.” Morel's writings were cited as proof of their accusations. MacDonald evidently made no public reply to the memorial but Brigadier General C. B. Thomson, Secretary of State for Air, read and approved the clergymen's draft. Morel was also an authority for Professor James Stalker D.D. of Aberdeen who published his findings in the British Weekly, October 4, 1923. “African Troops in Europe”, in: Foreign Affairs, VI (September, 1924), p. 66.
page 22 note 1 159, HC Deb. 5 s. (November 24, 1922), p. 223.
page 22 note 2 Ibid. (December 14, 1922), pp. 3258–3267.
page 22 note 3 The few MP's, other than Morel and Kenworthy, who introduced the black troops issue after 1921 were Conservatives or Liberals. 150 HC Deb. 5 s. (February 22, 1922), p. 1867; 151 (March 6, 1922), p. 833; 152 (March 29, 1922), pp. 1304–1305; 161 (March 7, 1923), p. 456; 181 (March 4, 1925), p. 406.
page 22 note 4 Wuliger, , “The Idea of Economic Imperialism”, p. 457.Google Scholar
page 22 note 5 See undated speech (1923?) in Parliament, Speeches 1922–1924, Morel Collection.
page 22 note 6 Marwick, Arthur, Clifford Allen: The Open Conspirator (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1964), p. 86.Google Scholar
page 23 note 1 Riddell's, LordIntimate Diary of the Peace Conference and After 1918–1923 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1933), p. 177.Google Scholar
page 23 note 2 The Mist Procession: The Autobiography of Lord Vansittart (London: Hutchinson, 1958), p. 302. Vansittart disliked the “fuddled Union of Democratic Control”, ibid., p. 323. In 1922 Curzon, then in opposition, asked the government how many native troops the French had in the Rhineland. The answer was the same as that which he would probably have prepared for his Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: there were 18,020; they were part of the French home army and “as such are considered Frenchmen” and of no concern to His Majesty's government. 151, HC Deb. 5 s. (March 6, 1922), p. 833.
page 23 note 3 Cabinet Paper CP 381 of 20 December, 1919, Public Record Office; Cecil Gosling despatch May 17, 1920, FO 371/3785 paper 198612/18; Minute of S.P. Waterlow, June 23, 1920, FO 371/3787 paper 205271/18. The American State Department in June 1920 asked General Henry T. Allen, commander of the United States forces in the occupied zone, to investigate charges of atrocities by French African troops. He concluded that most of these stories were “pure inventions”, Allen, , My Rhineland Journal (London: Hutchinson, 1924), p. 123Google Scholar; Times, February 22, 1921; “The Black Troops on the Rhine”, in: Nation, CXII, p. 365.
page 24 note 1 George, David Lloyd, The Truth About the Treaty (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939), p. 281.Google Scholar
page 24 note 2 D'Abernon, Viscount, An Ambassador of Peace, (2 vols; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1929), I, p. 64Google Scholar; Riddell, , Intimate Diary, p. 247.Google Scholar
page 24 note 3 Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, 1st series, VIII, pp. 601–604.
page 25 note 1 Ibid., p. 620.
page 25 note 2 MacDonald supposedly approached the French Premier Eduard Herriot about removing colonial soldiers from the occupied zone. The French refused. Spender, , “The Rhineland Amnesty”, in: Foreign Affairs, VI, p. 94.Google Scholar
page 25 note 3 Nitti, , The Decadence of Europe: The Paths of Reconstruction (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1923), pp. 113–129.Google Scholar
page 26 note 1 “Literary Supplement”, in: Foreign Affairs, III (March, 1922), pp. 137–138; “The International Conference of the Union of Democratic Control at Geneva”, ibid., II (August, 1920), Special Supplement, pp. vi-vii; “What We Think”, ibid., II (August, 1920), p. 18. See also Morel, “Giolitti's Bill to Abolish Secret Diplomacy”, ibid., II (January, 1921), pp. 101–104.
page 26 note 2 Cooper and Reinders, “A Black Briton Comes ‘Home’: Claude McKay in England, 1920”, in: Race, IX, pp. 71, 82.
page 26 note 3 Schwarzschild, Leopold, World in Trance, (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1943), p. 145.Google Scholar
page 27 note 1 Morel in Parliament, 163, HC Deb. 5 s. (May 10, 1923), p. 2673; 167 (August 2, 1923), p. 1809.
page 27 note 2 Morel, , “The Disruption of Germany: A Catastrophe for International Labour”, in: Labour Magazine, II (11, 1923), p. 298.Google Scholar
page 27 note 3 Wuliger, , “The Idea of Economic Imperialism”, p. 398.Google Scholar
page 28 note 1 Graham, Frank, Children of Slaves (London: Macmillan, 1920), pp. 278–279.Google Scholar
page 28 note 2 Morel, , Black Man's Burden, p. 216.Google Scholar