Besides France, Did Other Nations Use African Troops on the Western Front?

European Colonies in Africa, c.1914

By Christian Koller in the 1914-1918 Online International Encyclopedia of the First World War

France was the country that most extensively made use of African soldiers in European theatres of war. North African soldiers had already served in the Crimean War (1854–1856), in the 1859 Italian War and in the Franco-German War of 1870/71. Several campaigns in the immediate prewar period had raised African colonial troops’ profile. After the first Morocco crisis in 1905/06, army general and radical politician Adolphe Messimy (1869–1935) petitioned for the extension of compulsory military service to Muslim Algerians and a 1912 decree eventually allowed for their forced recruitment if numbers of volunteers fell short of requirements. From 1909 on, colonial officer Charles Mangin (1866–1925) campaigned for a large armée noire (black army) to be recruited in West Africa and trained for deployment in European wars. . .

Senegalese Troops on a Wintertime March

Between 1914 and 1918, the French deployed approximately 450,000 indigenous troops from Africa, including West Africans (so-called Tirailleurs Sénégalais), Algerians (so-called Turcos and Spahis), Tunisians, Moroccans, Malagasies, and Somalis, most of whom saw deployment in Europe. Settlers of European origin provided another 110,000 soldiers from North Africa (Chasseurs d’Afrique and Zouaves) and some of the 5,700 men in “créole” units from the old Senegalese cities and ports were also of European extraction. . . Casualty figures of French African troops deployed in Europe to be found in official reports, unofficial accounts and in the historiography are rather unclear, ranging for West Africans from 25,000 to 65,000 soldiers killed, for Algerians from 12,000 to 100,000, for Moroccans from 2,500 to 9,000, and for Malagasies from 2,400 to 4,000. . .

Algerian Zouaves Parading in Paris

Unlike the French, the British were reluctant to deploy African troops in Europe. It is true that the British forces in the African and Middle Eastern campaigns included large numbers of African soldiers, and parts of the Indian Colonial Army were used in Europe from as early as autumn 1914 on. From 1916 on a campaign for a “million black army” following the French example was backed by several officers and politicians with colonial backgrounds, including Winston Churchill (1874–1965). But logistical issues, coupled with racist prejudices and opposition from colonial authorities in Africa, resulted in a renunciation of using such troops on European battlefields.  However, a number of blacks resident in the United Kingdom managed to enlist in metropolitan British forces and some of them were even promoted to officer ranks. [Also, an estimated 15,000  black soldiers from the West Indies and Bermuda notably served in France and Palestine.] ARTICLE

Non-white men were also banned from the “South African Overseas Expeditionary Force” that sent about 30,000 soldiers to France. Black and “colored” men from the Union of South Africa served in Europe in the “South African Native Labor Contingent” (21,000 men), the “Cape Auxiliary Horse Transport” (2,800 men) and the “Cape Colored Labor Corps” (1,200 men), all of them in unarmed ancillary roles. Part of this force experienced a great tragedy en route to France, when more than 600 African volunteers, sent to dig trenches in France, were drowned after the SS Mendi was accidentally rammed off the Isle of Wight in February 1917. 

South African Laborers in France

Italy, on the other hand, tried to deploy African colonial troops in Europe which resulted in disaster. In August 1915, some 2,700 soldiers from Libya were shipped to Sicily. However, they did not enter the front line because many soldiers died from pneumonia immediately after their arrival, and so, the Libyans, who were designated for Alpine warfare, were shipped home again after a short while. 

The Belgian government repeatedly discussed shipping in several thousand soldiers from the Congo, yet these plans would never materialize. Nevertheless, a small number of Congolese soldiers served on the Western front in metropolitan Belgian troops. 

The Portuguese didn’t deploy any colonial units in Europe either, and the number of soldiers of African descent in the metropolitan Corpo Expedicionário Português that served on the Western front from 1916 on is unknown. The Germans, as the only colonial power among the Central Powers, used plenty of African soldiers of their Schutztruppen in the African theatres of war, but they had never planned to deploy these troops in Europe and would not have been able to do so during World War I for logistical reasons anyway.

Source: Excerpted from "Colonial Military Participation in Europe (Africa)" by Christian Koller