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.