s. French recruitment practices were also partially responsible for the numerous rebellions in Benin during the war.
Of the many anti-colonial rebellions in North Africa during the war, which stretched from Morocco to Libya and Egypt, especially those in Algeria were linked to military recruitment. As in West Africa, French recruitment officers in Algeria faced all sorts of opposition. Back in the autumn of 1914, conscripts and their families had protested forced service in various locations. Resistance to recruitment culminated in the winter of 1916-17 in a major uprising in the South Constantinois. In Tunisia there were a few minor revolts in 1915 and 1916.
Other colonial powers’ recruitment drives faced organised African resistance as well. In Southern Nyasaland, for instance, John Chilembwe (1871-1915) led a revolt against British carrier recruitment. Several rebellions in Nigeria expressed general discontent with British colonial rule, to which the recruitment of soldiers and carriers had considerably contributed. The same is true for wartime revolts against Belgian rule in the Congo. German East Africa between 1914 and 1917 witnessed twenty-six oppositional movements, nine cases of armed resistance, and nine rebellions or attempted rebellions, many of which were directly or indirectly linked to recruitment of soldiers and carriers.
On balance, recruitment of more than two million young men, most often against their will, for war service was a major issue in large parts of wartime Africa. Whilst colonial propaganda and memorial culture stressed Africans’ eagerness to fight for their colonial masters, the reality was considerably different, with many men trying to avoid war service by hiding from recruitment missions, by desertion or even by active resistance. Forced recruitment thus had serious consequences, ranging from the flight of tens of thousands of young men, to major armed rebellions against colonial rule. Conversely many men, mainly for financial reasons, voluntarily joined colonial armies, especially upon the outbreak of the war, and in response to Blaise Diagne’s recruitment campaign in 1918 that presented war service as a means to gain political rights and managed to attract many more men than expected. Nonetheless, young men’s attitudes were overwhelmingly negative towards service in a war that was so obviously not theirs.
Christian Koller, Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv
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