Senegal: World War II

Senegal: World War II

World War II was an important watershed in the political history of Senegal. At the beginning of the war, Africans in the Four Communes (the so-called originaires) lost their privileged status as French citizens. The war gave rise to an upsurge in anticolonial activity, the outcome of which, just 15 years after the end of hostilities, was to be political independence.

The war in Senegal can be divided into three periods. During the first phase, from 1939 to 1940, some

100,000 Africans were called up in French West Africa, a significant proportion of whom came from Senegal. Although some desertions were reported, these do not appear to have been widespread, as African pledges of loyalty to France reportedly flooded in from throughout the colony.

The armistice of June 1940, which marked the beginning of the second phase of the War in Senegal, was greeted with dismay, particularly by African assimiles and evolues who did not understand why France had surrendered to Germany without a fight. Most colons, on the other hand, rallied to Vichy and colonial officials for the most part acquiesced in the change of regime, seeing their essential task as the maintenance of the colonial administration. Acts of resistance among the French population of Senegal were relatively rare. Pierre Boisson was appointed commissioner for the whole of French Africa on June 25,1940, and arrived in Dakar in July to take up his post, in place of Leon Cayla. The latter, who had initially hesitated over whether to respond positively to overtures from Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill, was demoted to the governorship of Madagascar. The aim of the new administration, like its counterpart in metropolitan France, was the abolition of the republican regime and the restoration of the rights of custom and tradition. In fact, elections in the Four Communes, which was the only part of Senegal to enjoy full political rights, had already been suspended by decree on September 8, 1939. The Vichy administration went further, however, by establishing an authoritarian regime in which the use of forced labor increased and public order became the paramount consideration. Following the British attack on the French naval ship the Richelieu, which limped into the port of Dakar on July 8, and the bombardment of Dakar by a combined British and Free French force on September 23-25, Vichy propaganda against the British and the Free French intensified in French West Africa, and any manifestation of pro-Free French activity was repressed, particularly among Africans who risked imprisonment or death if found guilty.

This second phase of the war effectively came to an end on December 7, 1942, when, following the Allied invasion of North Africa, Boisson rallied French West Africa to General Darlan in Algiers. There was then a short interregnum before the Vichy regime formally ended and the Free French appointee as governor general, Pierre Cournarie, arrived in Dakar to take over from Boisson on July 17, 1943. The assassination of Darlan on Christmas Eve 1942 led to his replacement by General Giraud, who visited Senegal in January 1943, raising hopes of an improvement in political conditions in the territory. However, Giraud refused to receive a delegation of Saint-Louis evolues during his visit, thereby forfeiting any goodwill toward him that may have existed among the evolues of Senegal. Republican liberties were restored in March 1943, and this was followed by the rapid resumption of political activity, notably under the guise of “patriotic associations,” which quickly split along racial lines as Africans sought to use the associations as a vehicle for the expression of their political grievances. A Bloc Africain was formed under the leadership of Lamine

Gueye, to prepare the list of demands to be presented to Rene Pleven in Algiers by a delegation of Senegalese assimiles and evolues. Hopes of a rapid improvement in conditions were soon dashed, however. The new governor general’s overriding concern was with production for the war effort: the “battle for groundnuts” intensified the pressure on farmers to increase production and the use of forced labor increased. At the same time, apart from the change of governor general, there was virtually no purge of Vichy colonial officials. Thus, despite the “return to republicanism,” these were trying times for most Senegalese: political change was slow to come and the situation remained very difficult in economic and military terms. Prices were high, African wages and the prices paid to African farmers for their produce remained low, and few imported goods were available for purchase. Aware that Africans would have to be rewarded after the War for the sacrifices they were making for France, the provisional government organized the Brazzaville Conference in January 1944 to discuss the changes to the colonial regime that would be needed. However, no Africans were present, and the conference’s main recommendations met with resistance from colons and colonial officials. It raised hopes among African assimiles and evolues, but its immediate impact in Senegal was limited.

At the end of 1944, the government general was confronted with the problem of the repatriation of some 12,000 French West African soldiers, many of whom had spent long periods as German prisoners of war (POWs). The first contingent of 1280 ex-POWs arrived in Dakar and was transferred straight to a military camp at Tiaroye, just outside Dakar. The soldiers were angry about the nonpayment of back pay and pensions, and refused to be sent home until their demands were met. On December 1, the African soldiers’ “rebellion” was brutally repressed, leaving 35 of them dead and another 35 wounded. Measures were taken to avoid any further such incidents, but the way France treated returning soldiers who had served it loyally in Europe lived on in Senegalese folk memory and a film about the events, Camp Tiaroye, was made by the Senegalese filmmaker Sembene Ousmane in 1988.

The war had far-reaching effects in Senegal. France as the colonial power emerged from the war in a weakened position: the armistice of 1940 and the dependence of the colony on the Allied Forces after 1942 demonstrated the weakness of the French position, and American and Soviet anticolonialism at the end of the war further undermined French authority. Within the colony, the crisis within the colonial administration after December 1942; the economic and military pressures on the population; the ending of the Four Communes’ special political position within the colony; the resumption of political activity along racial lines, which was symptomatic of a growing anticolonialism; and the mishandling of returning African soldiers were all signs that the old colonial order had changed permanently. In this respect, World War II can be considered the prelude to decolonization in Senegal.

Anthony Chafer

See also: Senegal: Colonial Period: Four Communes: Dakar, Saint-Louis, Goree, and Rufisque; Senegal: Nationalism, Federation, and Independence; World War II: French West Africa, Equatorial Africa.

Further reading

Chafer, T. “African Perspectives: the Liberation of France and its Impact in French West Africa.” In The Liberation of France: Image and Event, edited by H. R. Kedward and N. Wood. Oxford: Berg, 1995.

Echenberg, M. “Tragedy at Tiaroye: The Senegalese Soldiers’ Uprising of 1944.” In African Labour History, vol. 2, edited by P. C. W. Gutkind, R. Cohen, and J. Copans. London: Sage, 1978.

Gardinier, D. E. “The Second World War in French West Africa and Togo: Recent Research and Writing.” In Proceedings of the Tenth Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society, edited by P. P. Boucher. 1984.

Ousmane, Sembene, dir. Camp Tiaroye. 1988.

Thomas, M. The French Empire at War, 1940-45. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.

Topouzis, D. Popular Front, War and Fourth Republic Politics in Senegal: from Galandou Diouf to L. S. Senghor, 1936-52. Ph. D. diss. University of London, 1989.