Race and Work in France, 1914–18

The global story of the First World War is not merely one of soldiers and battles, but also of workers and workplaces.  Many of the belligerents actively recruited workers from all over the world to work in war industries, but France was among the most aggressive in recruiting and employing non-European workers from its colonial empire to sustain the war effort in Europe itself.  Nearly 200,000 workers recruited throughout France’s colonies staffed wartime industries.  More than half of these men (over 130,000) came from the North African possessions of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, another 50,000 from Indochina (today’s Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), and 5,000 from Madagascar.  In addition, many of the 500,000 soldiers France recruited in its colonies to serve on the Western Front had as their primary duties war-related labor.  This was especially true of men whom the racial prejudices of the day identified as ‘non-warlike,’ such as Indochinese and Madagascans.  But even allegedly ‘warlike’ West and North Africans often performed labor such as repairing trenches and roads, manning transport services, or even working in factories or on farms.

This contribution to the roundtable explores the racial prejudices that underlay the recruitment and employment of these men.  A remarkable document drafted by officials at the end of the war, taking stock of all colonial labor and evaluating workers' contributions according to their "race," provides a succinct statement of the conventional wisdom in 1918.  Comparing these evaluations to the actual use made of workers and other contemporary commentary about the role of race in wartime work, allows us to explore the racial and colonial landscape in France at this time, and highlights the many ways that race decisively shaped many of the lived experiences of the Great War.

See more of: War Work: Race, Gender, Empire, and Labor in World War I
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