This was a world war, not merely a European one, as some may think.
But men by the hundreds of thousands came to Europe to fight from the colonial empires
of the European powers, and some of those came from French North Africa.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War special episode about North Africa and the
First World War.
Well, today isn’t about ALL of North Africa, it’s about the Maghreb - Morocco, Algeria,
and Tunisia, parts of which had been under Ottoman control at one point or another, but
no longer were by 1914.
Algeria had become a French colony in 1830.
Tunisia had been an Ottoman province with a fair amount of autonomy, but the Treaty
of Berlin in 1878 granted France a protectorate over Tunisia, which they established a few
years later.
Morocco had had a strong empire in place, and remained independent from European colonial
empires, but by the late 19th century, French, Spanish, and British commercial trade had
penetrated the Moroccan market, though the Conference of Madrid in 1880 guaranteed Moroccan
-sovereignty . When France and Britain signed the Entente in 1902, they agreed that Britain
would have control over Egypt and France over Morocco, except for a small part in the north
for Spain.
Germany had a problem with this, which led to the two Moroccan Crises, which we’ve
talked about, but long story short, Morocco became a French Protectorate under the Treaty
of Fez in 1912.
Still, as the Great War began, France only really held the cities and the plains of “useful”
Morocco.
So- three different stories.
And they had different colonial policies.
Assimilation was more visible in Algeria, and the Muslim- let’s call them “components”-
of society were to be eliminated.
Algerians had to pay an “Arab tax”, which was a main source of the colonial administration’s
revenue.
They were forced to take family names that sounded pleasing to the French ear.
French settlers took over land by regulation, nearly a quarter of the country, though two
thirds of them were in coastal towns, which made those French dominant.
French administrators had disciplinary powers over the locals, with a judicial system just
for them, collecting fines, confiscating goods, and so forth.
Assimilation was more discreet in Tunisia, but still the policy, but in Morocco, much
more recently under French control, there was a different system, ruled by a Military
Governor, Hubert Lyautey.
He was much more open to Muslim society, and opposed Christian attempts to convert the
population, and also opposed French immigration to Morocco.
He was very aware of the need to maintain a symbolic religious local power in the person
of the Sultan, though he kept all political and legal power.
He explained the difference between Morocco and Algeria in 1916, “In Algeria, we found
ourselves in dust, with an inorganic state of things, where the only constituted power
was that of a fallen bey, whereas in Morocco, as soon as we arrived, we were faced with
a historical, independent empire, extremely jealous of its independence, impervious to
servitude, which, until its last years of existence, still looked like an established
State, with its hierarchy of civil servants, its representatives abroad, its social organizations...”
So the war begins.
Lyautey had this to say to his officers, “They are completely mad.
A war between Europeans is a Civil War.
This is the most monumental foolishness they have ever done.”
Conscription was already in place since 1912, and as soon as Germany declared war on France,
the transfer of soldiers from the Maghreb to Europe began.
Here are some numbers, though they do tend to vary from source to source: Algeria provided
the bulk of the men and resources, so of roughly 260,000 soldiers recruited, 176,000 were from
Algeria, 50,000 from Tunisia, and 34,000 from Morocco.
Now, half of those Algerians were volunteers, because they were better treated than conscripts
and got higher wages.
These men all served in the Army of Africa- Armée d’Afrique, including the Foreign
Legion, the zouaves, the tirailleurs, and the Moroccan tabors.
There were also men who served in the Africa Battalions, but these were men who’d been
condemned to minor sentences.
The death toll of all of these men was around 14%.
After the first battles of 1914, fighting modern war for the first time, the Algerian
soldiers were considered frightened and kept in the rear, but not for too long, because
the war made every life valuable, and they were praised for their courage at Artois,
the Somme, Verdun, and the Chemin des Dames, and the Tirailleurs- the Turcos, were one
of the most decorated regiments of the war.
The Grand Mosque of Paris would be built after the war as a token of gratitude to the tirailleurs
for their service during the war.
Still, the popular press often portrayed them as violent people with an obsession for the
local women, and carrying diseases like tuberculosis.
Around 130,000 workers also made the trip to Europe.
Beginning in 1915 in factories and on farms, they replaced the local population lost to
combat.
80,000 from Algeria, 35,000 from Tunisia, and 14,000 from Morocco.
A big side note here- there were also 4 or 5,000 Algerians who had already been working
in factories in Northeastern France, and when the Germans conquered the region they were
sent away and came over to work in factories on the French side.
Algeria also produced most of the North African resources requisitioned, like wine, wheat,
tobacco, and sheep.
There was both support and resistance to conscription in the Maghreb.
There were movements that thought they could get political freedom through participation
in the war.
The Young Tunisian Movement, begun in 1907, inspired the Young Algerian Movement, which
was the main active group during the war.
They supported conscription, and were received by several government officials, including
future Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau.
They agreed with the policy of assimilation, but asked for political equality, in terms
of things like voting and taxes.
There was also a somewhat surprising wave of support from the indigenous peoples, as
the sons of chiefs of local tribes volunteered.
Opposition grew progressively, because of the ever more onerous conditions of recruitment.
The Conscription Class of 1917 really triggered the resistance, though the first rebellion
was in the south of Algeria in 1916.
Civil servants were killed and the army was forced to intervene.
Repression was in the form of airplane raids to scare the local tribes, and land burning.
There are later reports that claim the police carried out an “intolerable slaughter”,
and some soldiers used for the repression came from other colonies.
There were an estimated 4-5,000 organized rebels in the resistance from a regional population
of 300,000, and two divisions were eventually transferred from the Western Front to deal
with this.
Tunisia and Morocco were quieter during the war, though the Italians in Libya had issues
with rebellions, and those rebels declared war on France as well.
That revolt was broken at a cost of 784 lives.
The Rif, the Spanish part of Morocco, was barely controlled by colonial forces, so the
Germans and Ottomans infiltrated the region to try to foment revolt.
Algerian immigration to France to work in factories became a lasting phenomenon from
the war.
Beyond economics, there were some general effects.
It put the colonial population in touch with French working class issues and the will to
oppose domination.
The fall of the Ottoman Empire helped foster a concept of national independence, as opposed
to the idea of a giant unique Arab nation, and things like the Russian Revolution and
Wilson’s 14 Points really had a huge impact.
Also, the arrival of Clemenceau as PM in late 1917 really began the transition of theory
to practice.
He was opposed to colonialism in the first place, and the Jonnart Law- in February 1919
granted Algerian individuals the right to French citizenship, though they had to drop
Muslim status, the Arab tax was eliminated, and they had a collective right to representation
in assemblies, which themselves represented over 400,000 people with the new right to
vote.
How that was received and all that went on after the war is not, however, within the
scope of this channel.
Today, was just a brief look at some of the French African colonies during the war, their
general situations, and the men who went off to bravely fight and die in the World War.
Thank you Max Rose and Martin Lanoux for the research of this episode.
If you want to learn more about France before WW1, check out our special episode right here.
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See you next time.