France’s colonialism spanned nearly every continent, and its population in Africa provided essential relief for the empire’s survival, both during and after World War II. The experience of the Africans conscripted into the French army to help save France from Nazi Germany, prompted them after their return home to change the direction of independence movements in French-controlled African territories. Their time in the French army changed the way they perceived politics, showing them the abilities of a democratic society in which all of its members had equal rights. In their service to France, the African veterans expected the same benefits as French veterans, but because they were not citizens of France, they were treated as mere pawns for the empire. Saving France from destruction was not enough for equality, but the French Empire would discover that not committing to their agreements had extreme consequences on colonial government stability.
After claiming victory against the Nazis, the French government believed that the best way to retain imperial power while rebuilding France’s infrastructure and manpower, was by creating a more democratic imperial government. In order to do that, the French believed that creating a system of citizenship, which would help create a multinational government, was the best way forward. Frederick Cooper offers insight in Reconstructuring Empire in British and French Africa, Past and Present, to this incentive of citizenship, by the efforts of the French to create an African agricultural revolution in order to bring Africa into a modern position of a new democratic order. (Cooper p.205) The new imperial government, the French Union, put extreme pressure on the canton chiefs to turn out high-demand crops, but much resistance countered after Africans rejected the demands, reinforced by their anger over years of forced labor to aid in the war effort. Although the French government allowed African and Asian political activists to participate in “calm debate,” anything that the French Union deemed to be an insurrection, usually ended in “brutally violent repercussions.” (Cooper p.201) Even though the legislature allowed Africans to sit in it, discrimination against the persisted, showing that racial bias was a large problem when politically negotiating.
In 1940, Africans made up around 9% of the French army, and most of those soldiers were used to cover the retreat of the French and British from Nazi advancements. French West and Equatorial African soldiers, the Tirailleurs Senegalais, helped defeat Italian and German troops in North Africa from 1940-1943, and 20% of Free France’s Army that invaded Southern France in 1944 were African soldiers. (Schmidt p.448) Viewing the defeat of Imperial France, experiencing equality as soldiers and in the French metropole, and being subjected to dehumanizing treatment after the end of the war effort, all contributed in the political awareness/motivations of the returning Tirailleurs Senegalais. (Schmidt p.449) The frustrations felt by rural populations in Guinea, and the disrespect served to African veterans by the French officials, aided in the formation of the Rassemblement Democratique Africain (RDA), which sought equal rights and greater autonomy for Africans in the French Union.
Many African veterans headed the RDA during the early years of the organization, and helped to campaign in cantons to establish village authorities to circumvent the chiefs and ensure taxes would be used for the people of those cantons, instead of the French government. The RDA was successful in achieving some of its goals within the French Union, in particular, acquiring equal workers’ rights in 1952. By the mid-1950s, the French Union had reconciled with most of the African veterans, and many RDA members left politics as a result. (Schmidt p.453) It was also in the mid-1950s that France began questioning the preservation of their empire, believing the development of power in its European domains was more important than trying to retain their imperial territories. The ineffectiveness of France’s torture of “rebels” and its campaigns of “collective terror” against colonial insurrections, proved to be substantial in the instability of the French Union.
By the end of the French Union, Cooper indicates that many African veterans ended up leaving Guinea and joining the French Army. This form of displacement is unique, because it is being done out of the desire for political benefits coupled with state loyalty, while dismissing nationalist incentives of movements in their homelands. It could also be said that the African veterans who left after independence did so out of the desire to not lose all of the things they had been fighting for while apart of the RDA. Many African leaders in the French Union were also dismayed by immediate independence, favoring a federalized-autonomous system, and believing that it would leave African nations-states balkanized: “too small, too weak, and too disunited to attain real power in an international system.” (Cooper p.210) Even though independence was achieved in 1958, it was not the end to political instability in Guinea, but it was the beginning of the end for the French colonial empire.
Citations:
Elizabeth Schmidt, Popular Resistance and Anti-Colonial Mobilization – The War Effort in French Guinea, in Africa and World War II, ed. Judith A. Byfield, et al., 441-61 (2015).pdf
Frederick Cooper, Reconstructing Empire in British and French Africa, Past and Present 210 (Supp. 6), (2011).pdf
Malloryk. Murdered warriors: The Chasselay Massacre, June 1940: The National WWII Museum: New Orleans. The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/chasselay-massacre-june-1940. (2020)
I was impressed by how well you articulated the important points from the articles in a succinct manner. I liked that you tied the theme of displaced persons back into the narrative. I think you did a good job highlighted the fractured nature of justice movements, though your description of why many soldiers left following independence.
It is a terrible shame how France treated its colonial inhabitants, even when they were willing to take up arms and fight for a nation who cared so little about them. It wasn’t just the French who did this, but the British too especially during World War 1. If France and Britain didn’t have the empires they had during the World Wars, they would have lost to Germany both times nearly as fast as France fell during WW2. It is a surprise to me that so many were still willing to join the French military after the war, even for the political benefits you mention.
I think you did a good job going over the main points in the readings. I personally had not known before how many African soldiers fought for the country that had colonized them during WWII. Exploring the historiography surrounding African veterans was an interesting topic.