France and its allies mobilized hundreds of thousands of Black African troops in WWI

Evidence

Padmore had quoted General Smuts of South Africa on the French use of troops: “During the first year of the war 70,000 black troops were raised in French West Africa. By 1918 Black Africa had furnished France 680,000 soldiers and 238,000 labourers in all. We have seen what we have never seen before, what enormously valuable material lay in the Black Continent.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2345

Categorization

• SHARE: The Smuts quote — with its blend of horrified envy and colonial appraisal of Black soldiers as ‘valuable material’ — is exactly the sort of thing a specific history-buff friend would savor.