MORALE AMONG FRENCH COLONIAL TROOPS ON THE WESTERN FRONT DURING WORLD WAR I: 1914–1918

Abstract

The traditional images of the French Army in World War I on the Western
Front from Cyril Falls’s to Marc Ferro’s surveys (both entitled The Great War 1914–
1918) have been that of the grizzled yet determined French peasant or worker – the
poilu. It is clear from recent research that this is far from accurate and that the
French forces were far more heterogeneous than portrayed by previous images.1
Men were called from all over the French empire to serve in the frontline and in
logistics units. Virtually every part of the French Empire responded, although
somewhat grudgingly, even including Tahiti, which provided a Bataillon Pacifique.
Bringing men to a foreign land and culture to fight in a new type of horrific war was
quite a strain on these 600 000 soldiers.2 The bulk of these soldiers were drawn from
North and West Africa, with smaller numbers coming from Madagascar, Indochina
and Equatorial Africa. This article is an attempt at giving an impressionistic glimpse
of this subject describing colonial morale both at the frontlines and behind the lines,
seeing how they compare to their metropole comrades and trying to gain an
understanding of the vie quotiedienne of the colonial soldier.