Colored Troops in the French Army / A Report from the Department of State Relating to the Colored Troops in the French Army and the Number of French Colonial Troops in the Occupied Territory

by United States. Department of State

Appendix V.

Interallied Rhineland High Commission,
American Department,
Coblenz, Germany, July 2, 1920.

Sir: 1. In compliance with your cablegram of June 22, 1920, regarding alleged mistreatment of German women by French colored troops, and in elaboration of my cablegram of June 28, I submit the following report, based on a personal investigation conducted by Col. Le Vert Coleman, C. A. C., American liaison officer with the commanding general of the allied forces of occupation.

2. During the period from January, 1919, to June 1, 1920:

(a) The average number of Negro troops in the French Army of the Rhine was 5,200 men.

(b) The average number of French colonial troops composed of natives of Africa not of pure Negro blood, including distinct races such as Arabs from Algeria, Moroccans, etc., and mixed blood races, such as the Malgaches from Madagascar, who are Negroids, was 20,000 men. During the entire period from the first day of the occupation in 1918, to the 1st of June, 1920, 66 cases of alleged rape, attempted rape, sodomy, or attempted sodomy have been officially reported to the French military authorities, against their colored colonial troops in the occupied territories of the Rhinelands. Among these cases, there have been 28 convictions, including several cases where the intent was not fully proved, but punishment was given by minor courts corresponding to our summary and garrison courts, for indecent proposals and obscene handling of women and girls against their will. There have been 11 acquittals. There have been 23 investigations leading to trials, the results of which have not been published yet. There have been 6 cases where the offenders could not be found. The penalties inflicted have been varied; from 10 years at hard labor for aggravated cases of rape, to 30 days in prison for indecent mishandling of women.

3. At the present time, the Senegalese brigade having all left the Rhinelands between June 1 and 6, 1920, there actually remains but one regiment of troops of Negroid origin, the First Regiment of Chasseurs Malgaches. There are, however, a few individual Negroes or Negroids in the other French colonial regiments.

4. A very violent newspaper campaign attacking the French colonial troops, especially the Negro troops, broke out simultaneously throughout Germany coincident with the time of the French evacuation of Frankfurt and Darmstadt, and has continued up to the present time. It is unquestionably a fact that many gross exaggerations were circulated in the German press concerning the conduct of the French colonial troops. The allegations in the German press have been, for the most part, so indefinite as to time and place, and circumstance, as to leave it impracticable to verify the alleged facts, or to disprove them.

5. After all proper allowance is made for the natural difficulties, which always are to be expected in tracing crimes of this nature, due to the shame and distress of the victims, the great mass of the articles in the German press, by the simultaneous appearance all over Germany, and by the failure to cite time, place, and circumstance sufficiently clear to enable the truth to be ascertained, give to an impartial observer the impression of an adroit political move which would tend to sow antipathy to France in the other lands of the allied and associated powers, especially in America, where the Negro question is always capable of arousing feeling.

6. The Rheinische Zeitung and the Kolnische Volkszeitung, recently suspended for publishing attacks on the French colored colonial troops, admit under date of June 15, that they employed certain terms and expressions which they might better have omitted, due to the imperfection of the news coming for the most part from outside sources, says the Volkszeitung, and from Berlin says the Rheinische Zeitung. This tends to bear out the opinion noted above, which is further strengthened by dissentant voices in the South German press which protests against exaggerated accusations by other German papers against colored French troops.

7. These exaggerated attacks in the German press outside of the Rhinelands have, in several cases, been refuted by responsible officials (German) and citizens of the Rhinelands.

Herr Kohler, mayor of Worms; Herr Bischoff, police commissioner of Worms, referring to the Senegalese troops, reports to the Interallied Rhineland High Commission, that with the exception of one incident, the Senegalese troops in Worms have not committed any misdemeanor and have been under perfect discipline during their entire stay in Worms.

Herr Levy, from Kreuznach, and several Germans, have written open letters protesting against what they term unfair exaggerations in the German press against the troops.

8. Among gross exaggerations in the German press may be cited the following:

(a) Claim that there are 40,000 colored French troops in the Palatinate.

(b) Claim that Frankfort was occupied by 20,000 men entirely formed of Negro (Senegalese) troops. French official report shows that no Senegalese occupied Frankfort, but first Moroccan and Algerian tirailleurs and later French troops (white).

(c) Numerous atrocities in the Saar, where young women are said to have been forcibly abducted, raped, mutilated, killed, and their bodies thrown into manure piles. The burgermeister of Saarbrucken, the inspector of the Caserne Petain, Herr Welsch, proprietor of the manure pile; Wilhelm Roth, caretaker; Herr Geppert, employee, have all given written and oral testimony wholly refuting the accusations.

(d) Claim of the German press that large numbers of young Austrian girls who had come to the vicinity of Mainz to get away from the famine in Austria were raped. The Austrian Government is reported to have made an investigation through its consular service and to have found that not a single such case had occurred.

(e) Investigation by Col. Bonvialle, commanding the Twelfth Tirailleurs, May 21, 1920, concerning charges of sodomy near Euskirchen, with medical report, indicates that the charges could not be sustained.

(f) Claims in the Nauen Radio Service on April 29, 1920, that the working people of Alsace-Lorraine had protested, demanding the removal of the Moroccan division from Alsace-Lorraine, when there was no part of those troops in Alsace-Lorraine.

9. On the other hand, undoubtedly many instances have occurred where women or girls have been assaulted and some where boys and men have been sodomized by members of the French colored colonial troops. See report above as to the official figures. There are undoubtedly cases which are not included in the official figures, due to the natural desire to keep out of obscene notoriety. For example, a case of attempted assault was reported June 14, 1920, from Saarbrucken which is not included in the French official figures. Some cases will never come to light, due to the natural feeling of shame of the women concerned, but they are, in my opinion, cases such as generally occur in any land when soldiery is for a long time quartered upon the population.

10. The impression gained from contact with and observation of the French colonial troops is that, as a general rule, they are quiet, orderly, and well behaved. Discipline has a purely relative value and is hardly of the same order as that which we would require. That the discipline of the Senegalese brigade was not always good, is established by the incidents which recently occurred at Marseille, when a part of these troops committed serious infractions of discipline when ordered aboard their transports.

11. The attitude of certain classes of German women toward the colored troops has been such as to incite trouble. On account of the very unsettled economic conditions, and for other causes growing out of the World War, prostitution is abnormally engaged in and many German prostitutes and women of loose character have openly made advances to the colored soldiers, as evidenced by numerous love letters and photographs which are now on file in the official records and which have been sent by German women to colored French soldiers. Several cases have occurred of marriages of German women with French Negro soldiers. One German girl of a first-class burgher family, her father a very high city functionary of a prominent city in the Rhinelands, recently procured a passport to rejoin her fiance in Marseille. He was a Negro sergeant. Other Negro soldiers have had French wives here, and the color line is not regarded either by the French or the Germans as we regard it in America; to keep the white race pure. At Ludwigshafen, when the Seventh Tirailleurs left for Frankfurt, patrols had to be sent out to drive away the German women from the barracks, where they were kissing the colored troops through the window gratings.