Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960 (Social History of Africa Series)

Rating:
Summary: The New Military History As African Social History {****1/2}
Review: "New Military History" refers to scholarship which explores soldiers' lives away from the battlefield, and the broader impact of warfare on society. This prizewinning study is a concise but thoroughly-researched look at the military experience in 19th and 20th-century West Africa, largely based on archival materials but making effective use of key oral interviews. France's empire was the most militarized in all Africa, with universal male conscription during much of the 20th century. By withdrawing labor from the rural economy and deploying it elsewhere, this draft had a heavy impact on the region. Echenberg's analysis thus is central to understanding West African life under colonial rule. He further demonstrates the importance of the slave origins of soldiers, many of whom attained freedom by joining the Tirailleurs Senegalais (recruited throughout West African territories, not just Senegal). Tirailleurs, or "sharpshooters," fought with distinction in France's colonial conflicts and both World Wars, suffering heavy casualties on the Western Front, and imprisonment and discrimination during 1940-45. Echenberg also examines the significant contribution of veterans to postwar nationalist movements. Overall, this is a highly readable and succinct book, perhaps too succinct. The account of the epochal 1944 Thiaroye soldiers' uprising is overly brief, and Echenberg could also say more about the domestic and social life of army families. On Thiaroye, see his chapter in P. Gutkind ed., "African Labor History," and Ousmane Sembene's memorable film "Camp de Thiaroye." Cf. also N. Lawler, "Soldiers of Misfortune;" J. Lunn, "Memoirs of the Maelstrom;" and J.M. Thompson in "The International Journal of African Historical Studies" (1990).

Rating:
Summary: Human Cost of Imperialism
Review: When one usually thinks about imperialism, the common image is of imperial powers taking natural resources from colonized peoples for the benefit of the metropolitan power. In his book Colonial Conscripts, Myron Echenberg delves into the even more insidious practice of conscirpting a nation's young men for the colonizers' army.

The Tirailleur Senegalais fought and died for France during two World Wars and numerous colonial adventures. Unlike the British and other colonial powers, France did not recruit mercenaries from their African possesions. Instead they built a complex system of conscription that touched every village and hamlet under French control. Peasants were drafted into African units of the French Army, given rudimentary training in French culture and military tactics and then sent around the world to fight in French wars. Thousands of Tirailleurs died in trenches and fox holes of northern France.

Unlike the English, France created a fiction that their African subjects were French. In turn,they had the same rights and responsibilites as all other French citizens and this included going to war to defend the French Republic. This sort of droll cynacism was so beautifully French in its conception and implementation.

This book is not a military history of the Tirailleur Senegalais. Its focus is on the politics and experience of conscription in West Africa. This book is a detailed chronicle of French imperial cynacism.

Rating:
Summary: Human Cost of Imperialism
Review: When one usually thinks about imperialism, the common image is of imperial powers taking natural resources from colonized peoples for the benefit of the metropolitan power. In his book Colonial Conscripts, Myron Echenberg delves into the even more insidious practice of conscirpting a nation's young men for the colonizers' army.

The Tirailleur Senegalais fought and died for France during two World Wars and numerous colonial adventures. Unlike the British and other colonial powers, France did not recruit mercenaries from their African possesions. Instead they built a complex system of conscription that touched every village and hamlet under French control. Peasants were drafted into African units of the French Army, given rudimentary training in French culture and military tactics and then sent around the world to fight in French wars. Thousands of Tirailleurs died in trenches and fox holes of northern France.

Unlike the English, France created a fiction that their African subjects were French. In turn,they had the same rights and responsibilites as all other French citizens and this included going to war to defend the French Republic. This sort of droll cynacism was so beautifully French in its conception and implementation.

This book is not a military history of the Tirailleur Senegalais. Its focus is on the politics and experience of conscription in West Africa. This book is a detailed chronicle of French imperial cynacism.