Paris overruled colonial officials’ citizenship objections to reward Diagne’s recruitment cooperation.

Evidence

Such an anomaly, Angoulvant claimed apoplectically, would be nothing less than the “negation of our social organization, of our civilization, of our genius … if it is not the end of France.” On a more pragmatic level, returning tirailleurs and chiefs would be disgruntled by the privilege granted the Senegalese. Their discontent could make administration impossible. Despite Dakar’s dire warnings, the minister refused to change the law’s wording. Diagne spent the rest of the war lobbying the government tirelessly to abandon its authoritarian recruiting methods and to improve military benefits for the West African contingents. The Clemenceau government’s 1918 decision to adopt a new recruiting strategy of propaganda and material incentives, and appoint Diagne commissaire de la Republique, with rank equal to that of the Governor General, prove that his efforts were rewarded. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 537

Categorization

• XREF: Proves the reader’s core thesis thread: metropolitan republicanism overrode local administrators, and African elites leveraged metropolitan liberalism against colonial authority.