The Senegalese Tirailleurs () were a corps of colonial infantry in the French Army. They were initially recruited from Saint-Louis, Senegal, the initial colonial capital city of French West Africa and subsequently throughout Western, Central and Eastern Africa (the main sub-Saharan regions of the French colonial empire).Cf. Éric Deroo and Antoine Champeaux, La Force noire. Gloire et infortunes d'une légende coloniale, Paris, Tallandier, 2006, 223 p. . The noun tirailleur, which translates variously as 'skirmisher', 'rifleman', or 'sharpshooter', was a designation given by the French Army to indigenous infantry recruited in the various colonies and overseas possessions of the French Empire during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Despite recruitment not being limited to Senegal, and including regiments from French Soudan (contemporary Mali), these infantry units took on the adjective since that was where the first black African Tirailleur regiment had been formed. The first Senegalese Tirailleurs were formed in 1857 and by the 1930s, men from territories like Chad and Gabon also comprised parts of the corps. These African soldiers served France in a number of wars, including World War I (providing around 200,000 troops, more than 135,000 of which fought in Europe, and 30,000 of whom were killed Marc Michel, "Les Africains et la Grande Guerre. L'appel à l'Afrique (1914–1918)", Ed : Karthala, 24 October 2003) and World War II (recruiting 179,000 troops, 40,000 of which were deployed to Western Europe).
Other tirailleur regiments were raised in French North Africa from the Arab and Berber populations of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco;Marc Michel, collectively they were called or . Tirailleur regiments were also raised in Indochina; they were called Vietnamese, Tonkinese or Annamites Tirailleurs.
History
Origins
The Senegalese Tirailleurs were formed in 1857 by Louis Faidherbe, Governor-General of French West Africa, because he lacked sufficient French troops to control the territory and meet other requirements of the first phase of colonization. The formal decree for the formation of this force was signed on 21 July 1857 in Plombières-les-Bains by Napoleon III. Recruitment was later extended to other French colonies in Africa. During its early years the corps included some former slaves bought from West African slave-owners as well as prisoners of war. By 1891, fugitive slaves from Liberty Villages, settlements established as part of France's effort to address the abolition of slavery, could receive official emancipation by enlistment with the .Martin Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in West Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 85.Clark, A. F. (1995). Freedom villages in the upper Senegal valley, 1887–1910: A reassessment. Slavery & Abolition, 16(3), 311–330. https://doi.org/10.1080/01440399508575164 Subsequent recruitment was either by voluntary enlistment or on occasion by an arbitrary form of conscription. Men who voluntarily joined the corps often did so partly due to the special opportunities to accumulate wealth or social standing outside of traditional paths. Newly liberated slaves were incorporated into Tirailleur military units or worked as auxiliary laborers. In some cases Tirailleurs married emancipated former slave women, allowing the soldiers to circumvent the common regional practice of familial negotiation and payment of bride-wealth.Zimmerman, S. J. (2011). Living beyond boundaries: West African servicemen in French colonial conflicts, 1908–1962 (Doctoral dissertation). University of California, Berkeley.
1870–1914
In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, the Senegalese tirailleurs continued to provide the bulk of French garrisons in West and Central Africa. Their overall numbers remained limited. However, in anticipation of the First World War, Colonel Charles Mangin described in his 1910 book La force noire his conception of a greatly expanded French colonial army, whilst Jean Jaurès, in his , suggested that the French Army should look elsewhere to recruit its armies due to the falling birthrate in mainland France.
A company-sized detachment of took part in the conquest of Madagascar (1895), although the bulk of the non-European troops employed in this campaign were Algerian and Hausa tirailleurs. Regiments of s were subsequently recruited in Madagascar, using the Senegalese units as a model.
In 1896, a small expedition consisting mainly of 200 was assembled in Loango (French Congo) under Captain Jean-Baptiste Marchand. This "Marchand Mission" took two years to cross hundreds of miles of unexplored bush until they reached Fashoda on the Nile. Here they encountered British and Egyptian troops under Major-General Kitchener, who had just defeated the Mahdi's Dervish army near Khartoum. While the Fashoda Incident raised the possibility of war between France and Britain, tribute was paid to the courage and endurance of Marchand and his Senegalese tirailleurs by both sides.
By a decree dated July 7, 1900 the , the Tirailleurs indochinois, Tirailleurs malgaches and the "marsouins" were no longer under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Navy and Colonies, but were reclassified as Troupes coloniales, different from the mainland elements Metropolitan army and separate from the Armée d’Afrique of the Maghreb. The anchor badge of the was worn on the collar from 1914, and when the Adrian helmet was adopted in WW1, an insignia with the anchor behind a flaming grenade was worn by the .
During the early 1900s, the saw active service in the French Congo and Chad while continuing to provide garrisons for the French possessions in West and Central Africa. In 1908, two battalions of landed at Casablanca to begin nearly twenty years of active service in Morocco by Senegalese units. On 14 July 1913, the paraded their standard at Longchamp, the first occasion upon which Senegalese troops had been seen in metropolitan France. New flags were presented to the 2e, 3e and 4e RTS at the same parade.
The originaires were a group of Tirailleurs specifically from the Four Communes of Senegal who, beginning in the mid-19th century, were granted a unique legal status by the French government. Unlike other African subjects in French colonies, originaires had French citizenship while maintaining many of their religious and cultural practices. This dual status meant that they were not subject to the French Civil Code but instead operated under statut personnel, a legal framework allowing them to adhere to Islamic law in personal matters such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance.
The statut personnel created a parallel legal system where French and Islamic laws coexisted. A ministerial decree in on May 10, 1857 allowed West African residents of Saint-Louis to use Muslim tribunals for "matters related to personal status," even if they were French citizens. This accommodation recognized practices like polygyny, which were permissible under Islamic law but conflicted with the monogamy required by French civil law. The statut personnel allowed Senegalese Tirailleurs to maintain Islamic marital practices, including polygyny, despite French laws mandating monogamy. This dual legal system often caused administrative challenges, such as distributing family allocations among multiple wives. After Blaise Diagne's 1915 legislation made military service mandatory for originaires, tensions arose between French secular ideals and the cultural traditions of Muslim soldiers. Despite criticism of the statut personnel as incompatible with French law, it remained intact due to the military’s reliance on Tirailleurs and the need to maintain their loyalty.Diouf, M. (1998). French colonial policy of assimilation and the civility of the originaires of the Four Communes (Senegal): A nineteenth-century global project. Development and Change, 29(4), 671–696. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7660.00091
World War I
There were 21 battalions of (BTS) in the French Army in August 1914, all serving in either West Africa or on active service in Morocco.
With the outbreak of war 37 battalions of French, North African and Senegalese infantry were transferred from Morocco to France. Five Senegalese battalions were soon serving on the Western Front, while others formed part of the reduced French garrison in Morocco. The 5th BTS formed part of a French column which was wiped out near Khenifra, during the Battle of El Herri on 13 November 1914, with 646 dead. The 10th, 13th, 16th and 21st BTS subsequently saw heavy fighting in Morocco, reinforced by 9,000 additional Senegalese tirailleurs brought up from French West Africa. Morocco was the last place in the French empire where were permitted to travel with their West African wives, part of a broader French push for professionalism and the trend of national armies in Europe to discontinue their use of auxiliary services and provisions by civilians.Hacker, B. C. (1981). Women and military institutions in early modern Europe: A reconnaissance. Signs, 6(4), 643–671. https://doi.org/10.1086/493856
On the Western Front the served with distinction at Ypres and Dixmude during the Battle of Flanders in late 1914, at the Battle of Verdun in the recapture of Fort de Douaumont in October 1916, during the battle of Chemin des Dames in April 1917 and at the Battle of Reims in 1918. Losses were particularly heavy in Flanders (estimated from 3,200 to 4,800)Eugène-Jean Duval, pag. 165 "Aux sources officielles de la colonisation française-2°période-1870-1940", and Chemin des Mains (7,000 out of 15,500 tirailleurs engaged).
In 1915 seven battalions of were amongst the 24 infantry battalions the French sent to the Dardanelles as the Corps Expéditionnaire d'Orient. Total French casualties in this campaign reached 27,000 but the Senegalese and regular Colonial Infantry were noted for the high morale that they maintained in spite of losses that reached two out of three in some units. The Senegalese tirailleurs particularly distinguished themselves in the attack during the initial French landings on the southern shore of the Dardanelles. After the withdrawal from the Dardanelles and the redeployment to the Macedonian front, further Senegalese battalions were deployed in this theatre of war.'On 21 November 1917, the 81st, 93rd, 95th and 96th battalions constitute the Groupement des Bataillons Sénégalais de la 17e Division d'Infanterie Coloniale. The Commanding Officer of the 96th Battalion took overall command.' Via
New recruitment drive
French military policy towards the use of African troops in Europe changed in 1915. The French high command realized that the war would last far longer than they had originally imagined. They therefore authorized a major recruitment drive in West Africa. As a result, a further 93 Senegalese battalions were raised between 1915 and 1918, of which 42 saw service in France itself. The usual practice was to bring together battalions of white Colonial Infantry () and African Tirailleurs into . (Four such regiments were formed from the seven tirailleurs and five battalions of deployed at Gallipoli.)The harsh conditions of trench warfare were a particular source of suffering to the un-acclimatized African soldiers and, after 1914/15, the practice of hivernage was adopted: withdrawing them to the south of France for training and re-equipping each winter. In spite of their heavy losses in almost every major battle of the Western Front, the discipline and morale of the "Colonial Corps" remained high throughout the war.
Fréjus in southeastern France became the main centre for hivernage (wintering) for the Senegalese Tirailleurs. The town also contained segregated hospitals with images of African village life painted on the walls.