1 A few general overviews exist, the best of which is Headrick, Rita, ‘African soldiers in World War II’, Armed Forces and Society, IV (1978), 502–526Google Scholar; see also Crowder, Michael, ‘The 1939–1945 war and West Africa’, in Ajayi, J. F. A. and Crowder, M. (eds.), History of West Africa, vol. 2 (London, 1971) 596–621.Google Scholar

2 There are important gaps, especially of divisions virtually destroyed in 1940, but the reports and regimental diaries (Journaux de marche) that do survive are invaluable. They may be consulted at the Archives Nationales, Service Historique de l'Armée, Château de Vincennes (hereafter ANSHA).

3 Bruge, Roger, Juin, 1940: Le Mois Maudit (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar; and Les Combattants du 18 Juin Vol. I: Le Sang versé (Paris, 1982).Google Scholar

4 Michel, Marc, L'Appel à l'Afrique, Contributions et réactions à l'effort de guerre en A.O.F., 1914–19 (Paris, 1982).Google Scholar

5 Ibid., 405–408.

6 The order of battle in May and June 1940 was as follows (D.I.C. is the abbreviation for Division d'Infanterie Coloniale). Ist and 6th D.I.C.: both were on the Aisne and the Argonne, 15 May to 11 June, and then made an orderly retreat to the Vosges foothills by 22 and 23 June. 4th and 5th D.I.C.: these two divisions bore the brunt of the German attack on the Somme from 23 May on, and were virtually destroyed by the Panzer attack of 5 June. 2nd, 7th and 8th D.I.C.: several regimental units from these divisions were detached from the Armée des Alpes and rushed to the Seine on 5 June: the regiments fought in the major river valleys of central France.

7 Among other considerations, First World War losses and war weariness among the French population had made it politically attractive to substitute large numbers of colonial troops for metropolitan ones. For more on the politics of conscription, see Challener, Richard D., The French Theory of the Nation in Arms, 1866–1939 (New York, 1965).Google Scholar

8 Archives de l'Afrique occidentale française (hereafter AAOF), Dakar, 4D 4/14, ‘Observations sur les rapports sur le recrutement pour 1940’. Directeur des Affaires Politiques et Administratives to Chef de Cabinet Militaire, Dakar, 11 June 1940.

9 Crevecœur, Colonel, ‘L'Union Française’, conférence prononcée au N.A.T.O. collège, 30 January 1952, published by Le Centre Militaire d'Information et de Documentation (CMIDOM), Versailles, 1952.Google Scholar

10 Ambler, John S., The French Army in Politics, 1945–1962 (Columbus, Ohio, 1966), 74.Google Scholar

11 AAOF, Dakar, 2D 23/14, Report by Le Masle, Colonel, Chef d'Etat Major for Général Magnan, Général Commandant Supérieur (GCS), Dakar, 13 May 1946.Google Scholar

12 As was the case in the First World War, this French recruitment placed a heavier burden on French subjects than on other colonial peoples. To be sure, British military recruiting was much heavier in 1939–45 than in 1914–18 but it probably did not very much exceed half a million men, many if not most of whom were porters and members of other labour units. These men would have been drawn from populations in excess of 100 million, compared to 200,000 French African soldiers from a population of roughly 18 million, a ratio of roughly 2 to 1.

13 Gobineau, Hélène De, Noblesse d'Afrique (Paris, 1946), 12.Google Scholar

14 Michel, , L'Appel, 62–64.Google Scholar

15 For a work heavily emphasizing patron-client ties see Balesi, Charles J., From Adversaries to Comrades-in-Arms: West Africans and the French Military, 1885–1918 (Waltham, Mass., 1979).Google Scholar

16 Mangin's paternalism is vividly demonstrated throughout his prolific writings. See, for example, Mangin, Charles, Regards sur la France d'Afrique (Paris, 1924).Google Scholar

17 Echenberg, Myron, ‘Paying the blood tax: military conscription in French West Africa, 1914–1929’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, IX, 2 (1975), 171–192.Google Scholar

18 La Gazette du Tirailleur (Dakar, 1940).Google Scholar

19 A British equivalent of Mamadou might be A Spear for Freedom (Nairobi, 1943?)Google Scholar: Great Britain, Ministry of Information, recruitment booklet for East African Military Labour Service, as cited by Headrick, Rita, ‘African Soldiers’, p. 504.Google Scholar This was a picture-book with short captions in English, Swahili, Chinyanja and Luganda depicting the transformation of an East African cattle herder into a British soldier. Much of the stress is on good food, and the order, discipline and cleanliness of army life, which says a good deal about British perceptions perhaps, but makes it much less ideologically oriented than the Mamadou material.

20 No issue for 15 June seems ever to have appeared. Very few copies of this periodical now survive. One series can be found in the IFAN library, Dakar, Sénégal.

21 Houdry, Captain, ‘Le recrutement en Afrique occidentale française’, Bulletin du Comité de l'Afrique française, Renseignements coloniaux (1929), 373.Google Scholar

22 Echenberg, Myron, ‘Les Migrations militaires en Afrique occidentale française, 1900–1945’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, XIV, 3 (1980), 430.Google Scholar

23 ANSHA, 34N/1081: anonymous report on the death of Captain Charles N'tchoréré (n.d., 1940?).

24 ANSHA, 34N/1081: 4É RTS, Année 1938: Rapport Annuel Par Le Colonel Blaizot, Toulon, 15 September 1938.

25 Interview with Pierre Diémé, Ziguinchor, Sénégal, 15 April 1973.

26 Boisboissel, Général Yves De, ‘Un siècle d'héroisme au service de la France: le centenaire des Tirailleurs Sénégalais’, Tropiques, Revue des Troupes Coloniales, LV, June (1957), 22.Google Scholar

27 ANSHA, 34N/1081: rapport de sondage du contrôle postal militaire, 11 May 1940.

28 Ibid.

29 Boisboissel, , ‘Le centenaire’, 22–31Google Scholar; Bonnet, Captain G., Mémorial de l'Empire: A la gloire des Troupes Coloniales (Paris, 1941).Google Scholar

30 This view was widely current in interviews I conducted in several West African cities: with Léopold Basse, Dakar, 11 April 1973; with Jean Ahui, Abidjan, 24 May 1973; with Paul Vicens, Ouagadougou, 8 June 1973.

31 Bruge, , Le Sang versé.Google Scholar

32 Bruge, , Le Mois Maudit, 118.Google Scholar

33 ANSHA, 34N/1081, entry by Captain Campos-Hugueney in Journal de marche of the 44th RICMS relating to events of 5 June 1940; entry is dated 22 August 1940.

34 ANSHA, 34N/1081: anonymous report, death of N'Tchoréré.

35 ANSHA, 34N/1081: anonymous report, death of N'Tchoréré; Bonnet, , Mémorial, 37Google Scholar; Boisboissel, , ‘Le centenaire’, 22.Google Scholar

36 So incensed over this incident were the French that even under the censorship of Vichy a toned-down version of N'Tchoréré's tragedy was published. See Bonnet, , Mémorial, 37.Google Scholar

37 Boisboissel, , ‘Le centenaire’, 22–24.Google Scholar

38 Boisboissel, , ‘Le centenaire’, 24.Google Scholar

39 Balesi, , Comrades-in-arms, 110.Google Scholar

40 Nelson, Keith, ‘“The black horror on the Rhine”: race as a factor in post-World War I diplomacy’, Journal of Modern History, XLII, (December, 1976), 606–627.Google Scholar

41 For Hitler's rantings on the subject of Black African troops, see Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph, Manheim (Boston, 1943, original ed. 1925), 644–645Google Scholar; for more on the subject of Nazi views of Africa, see N'dumbe, Alexandre Kum'a III, Hitler voulait l'Afrique, Les plans secrets pour une Afrique fasciste, 1933–1945 (Paris, 1980).Google Scholar

42 The Pommersche Zeitung of 28 July 1940 reported thus on the resistance of Black African troops at Condé-Folie, near Amiens, lower Somme; as quoted in ANSHA, 34N/1081, Rapport du Lieutenant-Colonel Polidori, 53rd RICMS, en captivité 3 July 1940, sur les opérations des 4–5-6 et 7 Juin 1940.

43 Bruge, , Le Mois Maudit, 118.Google Scholar

44 Gobineau, , Noblesse, 12.Google Scholar

45 Irving, David, The Trail of the Fox (New York, 1977), 72.Google Scholar Irving's tone suggests very little sensitivity to the plight of the African soldiers. Rather than disapproving of Rommel's behaviour he treats the incident as illustrative of Rommel's passion for detail. The filming, incidently, was for Goebbels's propaganda film Victory in the West, which depicts African soldiers dancing and cavorting in what is suggested to be an uncivilized manner.

46 Mail from West Africa could be channelled through the neutral offices of the neighbouring colony of Portuguese Guinea to prisoners in Europe. It is unlikely that very much contact actually took place through such a cumbersome route. AAOF, 4D 31/14; Governor General of FWA to Minister of Colonies, 26 February 1944.

47 Gobineau, , Noblesse, 12–15.Google Scholar

48 Morgenthau, Ruth Schachter, Political Parties in French-Speaking West Africa (Oxford, 1964), 137–138.Google Scholar

49 Gobineau, , Noblesse, passim.Google Scholar

50 Gobineau, , Noblesse, 99–102.Google Scholar

51 AAOF, 4D 31/14, Minister of Colonies to Governor-General of FWA, 31 October 1944.

52 An excellent study of the hostility POWs feel for their liberators can be gleaned from James Clavell's novel, King Rat, based upon the experiences of British and American prisoners of the Japanese in Singapore.

53 Gaulle, Charles De, Mémoires de guerre: III: Le Salut, 1944–1946 (Paris, 1959), 30–32;Google ScholarTassigny, Jean De Lattre De, History of the French First Army, trans. by Malcolm, Barnes (London, 1952), 173–175Google Scholar; Keegan, John, Six Armies in Normandy (Harmondsworth, 1982), 302–303Google Scholar; Salan, Raoul, Mémoires: fin d'un empire. I: Le sens d'un engagement, Juin 1899–Septembre 1946 (Paris, 1970), 132–133.Google Scholar

54 Gaulle, De, Le Salut, 32.Google Scholar

55 Gaulle, De, Le Salut, 32.Google Scholar

56 Gaulle, De, Le Salut, 32Google Scholar; Lattre, De, French First Army, 172–173.Google Scholar

57 Lattre, De, French First Army, 177Google Scholar; Salan, , Le sens d'un engagement, 133.Google Scholar

58 Michel, , L'Appel, chap. XVII.Google Scholar

59 Ladhuie, Paul, ‘L'Etat d'esprit des troupes noires consécutif à la guerre 1939–1944’, unpublished mémoire de l'Ecole Nationale Française d'Outre-Mer (ENFOM), 1945–1946, no. 80, 19.Google Scholar

60 Ladhuie, Paul, ‘L'Etat d'esprit’Google Scholar; Poujoulat, Fernand, ‘Evolution de la mentalité des tirailleurs sénégalais au cours de la guerre 1939–1945’, unpublished mémoire de l'ENFOM, 1945–6, no. 124. All following references to the incidents of 1944–5 are from these two works unless otherwise stated.Google Scholar

61 Ladhuie, , ‘L'Etat d'esprit’, 13–16.Google Scholar

62 For an examination in length of the uprising at Thiaroye see Echenberg, Myron, ‘Tragedy at Thiaroye: the Senegalese soldiers' uprising of 1944,’ in Cohen, R., Copans, J. and Gutkind, P. (eds.), Labor History in Africa (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1978), 109–128.Google Scholar

63 AAOF, 4D 31/14, Minister of Colonies to Governor-General of FWA, 31 October 1944.

64 AAOF, 4D 178/144, Department of Political Affairs, Government General of FWA. undated report, ‘Sur les incidents de Thiaroye du premier Décembre 1944’.

65 AAOF, 4D 178/144, ‘Sur les incidents de Thiaroye’.

66 AAOF, 4D 31/14, ‘Reseignements’, no date, contains a letter translated from Arabic and written by one Ibrahima of Dakar to his friend, Abdurahmane Traoré, stationed in a military camp in the Bouches-de-Rhone département.

67 See, for example, Réveil, 26 August 1946, 2.Google Scholar

68 AAOF, 4D 31/14, Administrator, District of Dakar and region to Governor-General of FWA, 4 December 1944.

69 AAOF, 4D 31/14, Minister of Colonies to Governor-General of FWA, 31 October 1944.

70 AAOF, 4D 31/14, Governor-General of FWA, circular letter to all Lieutenant-Governors, 14 December 1944.

71 Echenberg, , ‘Thiaroye’, 121–124Google Scholar, for details of the veterans' political campaign.

72 AAOF, 4D 31/14, Governor-General of FWA to Minister of Colonies, 7 December 1944.

73 The archives are still closed for this period, and newspaper accounts vary considerably, but see Padmore, George in the West African Pilot, 30 August 1945Google Scholar; the Socialist L'Espoir de Nice and the MUR Le Patriote de Nice et du Sud-Est for 20–22 August for the St Raphaël disturbances, and both newspapers again on 6 September 1945 for the Antibes incident.

74 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, Hosties noires (Paris, 1948).Google Scholar

75 My translation from the text to Poème liminaire found in Léopold Sédar Senghor, Poèmes (Paris, 1964)Google Scholar, an edition which contains his complete works of poetry.

76 Interview with a veteran of the uprising at Thiaroye, Dakar, 18 May 1973.