France, Africa, and the first world war

Abstract

World War I marked the final phase of French colonial expansion. France's African war aims were determined not by the cabinet but by the leaders of the colonialist movement and by a handful of African enthusiasts in the colonial and foreign ministries. Most of these men harboured the unrealistic aim of acquiring not merely German territory but also other foreign ‘enclaves’ in A.O.F. At the peace conference, however, France's African gains were limited to mandates over the greater part of German West Africa. Before August 1914 no government had given serious thought to the potential contribution of French Africa, either in men or raw materials, to a war in Europe. The enormous losses on the Western Front led to the recruitment of French Africa's first great conscript army. By the end of the War French Africa had sent 450,000 soldiers and 135,000 factory workers to Europe. The crisis of French food supply also led in 1917-18 to the first concerted campaign, mounted jointly by the colonialists and the colonial ministry, for the mise en valeur of the Empire. But France's shipping losses made it impossible to increase her African imports. In the aftermath of victory French Africa appeared genuinely popular in France for the first time. The main reason for that popularity was the naive belief that the resources of the Empire would free France from dependence on foreign suppliers and speed her post-war recovery. When the resources of the Empire proved even slower to arrive than reparations, the Empire quickly lost its newfound popularity. The War nonetheless left behind it the myth of the Empire as a limitless reservoir of men and raw materials: a myth which, though dormant for most of the inter-war years, was to be revived by the coming of World War II. © 1978, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.