Forced African conscription discredited France’s civilizing mission in West Africa

Evidence

These three entities all naively assumed that France’s African subjects would welcome the chance to serve the country that was bringing civilization into their midst. Conscription of African soldiers and the disruption it caused helped, instead, to discredit Dakar’s conception of its mission civilisatrice as implemented by the Government General. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 495