WWI conscription of 135,000 tirailleurs destabilized collaboration across French West Africa

Evidence

Elsewhere in the federation, French authority was further put to the test. In November 1916, revolt broke out in northern Dahomey; although the excesses of recruitment were again to blame, the revolt was led by disaffected aristocrats hoping to profit individually from perceived French weakness in the area. 15 On the borders of the Sahara, in Niger, the Tuareg also rebelled. 16 An estimated 135,000 tirailleurs had been recruited, but at a high price to the Africans serving and future French interests in the federation. A letter written to the local administration by nomad chiefs in Upper Senegal-Niger, complaining about a wartime increase in taxation, indicates that by 1917 even chiefs who had chosen to collaborate with the French were wavering: Not only have we not revolted, but at the moment when the entire region was getting ready to do so, we helped suppress the rebels … — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 514

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s broader theme of the tirailleur recruitment bargain driving colonial crises.