We are not them! Self-presentation of North African Muslim soldiers in the German captivity in 1914–1918

ABSTRACT

During 1914–1918, the French Army deployed almost 270,000 Muslims from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. As early as August 1914, the Germans captured the first of them. For the Germans, the POWs were Muslims who should show solidarity with Muslim Ottoman Empire and, therefore, join the Turkish Army. Such stigmatization of the captives’ identity provoked unexpected reactions. Some prisoners declared that ties linking them with the territory in North Africa from which they came and communities living there were more significant than religious links. This article stresses that the identity of the captives was multi-layered and the subject of a game played by both sides. The Germans had specific goals for the prisoners, and recognition of the religious layer of the soldiers’ identity was directed towards these goals. The captives had their own plans and did everything they could to achieve them. Qualitative analysis of French documents explains the intentions that prisoners of war from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia had in emphasizing selected layers of their identity. Choosing one layer of their identity for self-presentation at the expense of another was a means to that end.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Gilbert Meynier, L’Algérie révélée: La guerre de 1914–1918 et le premier quart du XXe siècle (Genève-Paris: Librairie Droz, 1981), 793; Marc Michel, Les Africains et la Grande Guerre: L’appel à l’Afrique (1914–1918) (Paris: Karthala, 2003), 533; Bertrand Nogaro, La Main d’oeuvre étrangère et colonial pendant la guerre (Paris/New Haven, CT: Presses Universitaires de France/Yale University Press, 1926), 25; Anthony Clayton, France, Soldiers and Africa (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1988), 6–7; Jean-Charles Jaufrett, ‘Les armes de la plus grande France’, in Histoire militaire de la France. De 1871 à 1940, ed. Guy Pedroncini (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992), 43–69.

² Albert Sarrault, Le mise en valeur des colonies françaises (Paris: Payot, 1923), 40–42; Marc Michel, L’appel à l’Afrique: Contribution et reaction à l’effort de guerre en A.O.F., 1914–19 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1982), 242–243, 260, 404; Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Jean-Jacques Becker, eds., Encyclopédie de la Grande Guerre, 1914–1918: Histoire et culture (Paris: Bayard, 2004), 323; more conservative figures are given by Richard S. Fogarty, who believes that 47,000 indigenous soldiers were mobilized in Tunisia and 24,300 in Morocco (R.S. Fogarty, Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914–1918 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 27.

³ Charles-Robert Ageron, Modern Algeria: A History from 1830 to the Present (London: Hurst, 1991), 8–9.

⁴ Farhat Abbas, De la colonie vers la province: Le Jeune Algérien (1930) suivi de rapport au Maréchal Pétain (Avril 1941) (Paris: Éditions Garnier Frères, 1981), 22; André Nouschi, La naissance du nationalisme algérien 1914–1954 (Paris: Minuit, 1962), 77, 80; Abderrahmane Bouchène et al., eds. Histoire de l’Algérie à la période coloniale (1830–1962) (Paris: La Découverte/Poche, 2014), 320.

⁵ Meynier, L’Algérie révélée, 405–412.

⁶ Charles-Robert Ageron, Genèse de l’Algérie algérienne (Paris: EDIF, 2010), 117–118.

⁷ Ibid., 108.

⁸ Charles-Robert Ageron, Les Algériens musulmans et la France, 1871–1919 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France; new edition: Paris: Bouchène, 2005).

⁹ See Jean Mélia, L’Algérie et la guerre (1914–1918) (Paris: Librarie Plon, 1918); Gilbert Meynier, ‘Les Algériens dans l’Armée française, 1914–1918’, in Fremdeinsätze: Afrikaner und Asiaten in europäischen Kriegen, 1914–1945 ed. Gerhard Höpp and Brigitte Reinwald (Berlin: Das Arabische Buch, 2000), 35–56; Jacques Frémeaux, Les colonies dans la Grande Guerre: Combats et épreuves des peuples d’outre-mer (Paris: Soteca, 14–18 Editions, 2006); Jacques Frémeaux, Damien Heurtebise and Emmanuel Pénicault, ‘Colonies et protectorats dans la guerre’, in Archives de la Grande Guerre: Des sources pour l’histoire, ed. F. Chauvaud, F. Mazel, C. Michon and J. Saincliver (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014), 289–300; Michel, Les Africains; Fogarty, Race and War; Richard S. Fogarty and David Killingray, ‘Demobilization in British and French Africa at the End of the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History 50/1 (2015): 100–123.

¹⁰ Meynier, L’Algérie révélée, 442, 462, 690.

¹¹ Richard S. Fogarty, ‘Out of North Africa: Contested Visions of French Muslim Soldiers during the Great War’, in Empires in World War I: Shifting Frontiers and Imperial Dynamics in a Global Conflict, ed. Andrew Tait Jarboe and Richard S. Fogarty (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 136–158. This chapter is a revised, English version of ‘L’identité en question: L’islam et les soldats nord-africains pendant la Grande Guerre’, Migrances 38 (2011): 37–52.

¹² Fogarty, ‘Out of North Africa, 139.

¹³ Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, ‘Beyond “Identity”’, Theory and Society 29/1 (2000): 1–47.

¹⁴ Fogarty, ‘Out of North Africa’, 139.

¹⁵ Taouti Ben Yahia, Algeria, to Edouard Montet, Professor at the University of Geneva, 1 August 1917, AMAE, G1668.

¹⁶ General Governor of Algeria (GGA) to President of the Council (PC) and MFA, 25 December 1916, AMAE G 1667; Captain Louis, Head of the Laghouat Annexe, Indigenous Affairs to the Military Commander of the Ghardaia Territory, Laghouat, 17 November 1916, AMAE, G1667.

¹⁷ Spanish Embassy in Berlin. French Affairs: Note Verbale, 8 January 1917, AMAE, G1667.

¹⁸ Taouti Ben Yahia, Algeria, to Edouard Montet, Professor at the University of Geneva, 1 August 1917, AMAE, G1668.

¹⁹ William A. Gamson, ‘Constructing Social Protest’, in Social Movements and Culture, ed. Hank Johnson and Bert Klandersmans (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 85–106, 90.

²⁰ Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991).

²¹ Ervin Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Doubleday, 1959), 17–18, 22.

²² Robert Park, Race and Culture (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1950), 249, cited after Goffman, Presentation of Self, 19.

²³ Yossi Harpaz and Ikhlas Nassar, ‘Crossing Borders, Choosing Identity: Strategic Self-presentation among Palestinian-Israelis Travelling Abroad’, Ethnic and Racial Studies (December 2021): 1–22, https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2021.2008465 (accessed January 12, 2022).

²⁴ Jonathan Wyrtzen, ‘Colonial State-Building and the Negotiations of Arab and Berber Identity in Protectorate Morocco’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 43/2 (2011): 227–249.

²⁵ Erving Goffman, Stigma (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963), 3.

²⁶ Ibid., 139; Imogen Tyler and Tom Slater, ‘Rethinking the Sociology of Stigma’, Sociological Review Monographs 66/4 (2018): 721–743, 729.

²⁷ Goffman, Stigma, 12–14.

²⁸ Imogen Tyler, ‘Resituating Erving Goffman: From Stigma Power to Black Power’, Sociological Review 66/4 (2018): 744–765, 744.

²⁹ Annexe to the political message of 16 February 1915, no. 61: Prisonniers algériens en Allemagne, AMAE, G1664).

³⁰ Taouti Ben Yahia, Algeria, to Edouard Montet, Professor at the University of Geneva, 1 August 1917, AMAE, G1668.

³¹ Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Political and Commercial Affairs Department: Au sujet de licenciement des goumiers et du contentement de nos prisonniers musulmans de servir dans l’armée turque, 19 February 1916, AMAE, G1666.

³² Gerhard Höpp, ‘Die Wünsdorfer Moschee: Eine Episode islamischen Lebens in Deutschland, 1915–1930’, Die Weelt des Islams 36/2 (July, 1996): 204–218, 205. The number of about 4,000 Muslim prisoners of war in the ‘Halbmondlager’ camp in April 1915 is given by one of the soldiers from the Ivory Coast, who testified before the French commission in January 1917; see Jacques Bannes, Teacher in Bingerville (Ivory Coast), Sergeant in the 7th Colonial Infantry Regiment, 32nd Company, 31 January 1917, AMAE, G1668.

³³ Gerhard Höpp, Muslime in der Mark: Als Kriegsgefangene und Internierte in Wünsdorf und Zossen, 1914–1924 (Berlin: Das Arabische Buch, 1997), 73–74.

³⁴ Statement by paramedic Ouyahya Areski Ben Messoud, Aix en Provance, 8 December 1916, AMAE, G1667.

³⁵ El Hadj Abdallah, L’Islam dans l’armée française: (Guerre de 1914–1915) (Constantinople, 1915), https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k854595g.image.

³⁶ MFA, Politcal and Commercial Affairs Department: Article de la Gazette de Lauzanne sur les prisonniers français musulmans, 9 December 1916, AMAE, G1667.

³⁷ Minisry of War (MW) to MFA: Extrait du rapport du sergent-major Darches Jean-Marie, 158ème Régiment d’Infanterie, évadè d’Alemangne, au sujet de la pression exercé sur les contingents musulmans prisionniers, 20 June 1916, AMAE G1666.

³⁸ Jean-Ives Le Naour, Djihad 1914–1918: La France face au panislamisme (Paris: Perrin, 2017); Erik-Jan Zürcher, ed., Jihad and Islam in World War I: Studies on the Ottoman Jihad on the Centenary of Snouck Hurgronje’s ‘Holy War Made in Germany’ (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2016); Stefan M. Kreutzer, Dschihad für den deutschen Kar: Max von Oppenheim und die Neuordnung des Orients (1914–1918) (Graz: Ares, 2012); Fremde Erfahrungen, ed. Gerhard Höpp (Berlin: Das Arabische Buch, 1996); Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, Djihad Made in Germany: Deutsche Islampolitik im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Politik, Wirtschaft, Militär und Kultur (Berlin: Trafo, 2009); Eugene Rogan, ‘Rival Jihads: Islam and the Great War in the Middle East, 1914–1918’, Journal of the British Academy, 4 (2016): 1–20, DOI 4, 1–20, doi:10.5871/jba/004.001.

³⁹ Höpp, Muslime in der Mark; Tilman Lüdke, Jihad Made in Germany: Ottoman and German Propaganda and Intelligence Operations in the First World War (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2005); Tilman Lüdke, ‘(Not) Using Political Islam: The German Empire and Its Failed Propaganda Campaign in the Near and Middle East, 1914–1918 and Beyond’, in Jihad and Islam in World War I: Studies on the Ottoman Jihad on the Centenary of Snouck Hurgronje’s ‘Holy War Made in Germany’, ed. Erik-Jan Zürcher (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2016), 71–94.

⁴⁰ The Germans called this battalion Trupp Dschihadisten to emphasize that its formation was a spontaneous response of Muslim prisoners to the sultan’s declaration of jihad; see Höpp, Muslime in der Mark, 82.

⁴¹ Ibid., 82–83.

⁴² Colonel Bailloud (Cairo) to Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA): Soldats musulmans français incorporés dans l’armée turque, 6 August 1917, N° 45, AMAE, G1668. According to the French Resident-General in Tunisia, there were about 100 Tunisians soldiers in the Muslim Battalion; Resident-General in Tunis (RGT) to PC and MFA: A/s des declarations d’un tirailleur marocain repatrié d’Allemagne, Rabat, 18 February 1917, AMAE, G1668.

⁴³ Spanish Embassy in Berlin. French Affairs: Note Verbale, January 8, 1917, AMAE, G1667.

⁴⁴ Ltd. Doynel de Saint-Quentin, Note N° 78, Africains français évadés des camps turcs en Mésopotamie et réfugiés dans les lignes anglais d’Orient, Cairo, 23 September 1917, AMAE, G1669; Interrogation of a Moroccan rifleman who, enlisted by force in the Ottoman army, joined the English lines in Mesopotamia, French military mission in Egypt, 19 July 1916, AMAE, G1667.

⁴⁵ Consulate of France in Mesopotamia to MFA: Soldats musulmans français incorporés dans l’armée turque, Basrah, 25 March 1918, AMAE, G1669.

⁴⁶ Such was the fate of a tirailleur named Ouyahya Areski ibn Messoud, who was a certified medical assistant from the Faculty of Medicine in Algiers; see The First Class Interpreter Mercier, Head of the Assistance and Surveillance Service for the Indigenous Military of the Unit d’Aix, to the General Commanding the 15th Region, Marseille, 11 December 1916, AMAE, G1667.

⁴⁷ See Taouti Ben Yahia, Algeria, to Edouard Montet, Professor at the University of Geneva, 1 August 1917, AMAE, G1668; Spanish Embassy in Berlin. French Affairs: Note Verbale, January 8, 1917, AMAE, G1667.

⁴⁸ Copy, in translation, of a report prepared by the Delegate of the Royal Spanish Embassy in Berlin, May 31, 1917, AMAE, G1668.

⁴⁹ Taouti Ben Yahia, Algeria, to Edouard Montet, Professor at the University of Geneva, 1 August 1917, AMAE, G1668.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ Statement by a paramedic Ouyahya Areski Ben Messoud, Aix en Provance, 8 December 1916, AMAE, G1667.

⁵² Fogarty, ‘Out of North Africa’, 150.

⁵³ Ibid., 147.

⁵⁴ Taouti Ben Yahia, Algeria, to Edouard Montet, Professor at the University of Geneva, 1 August 1917, AMAE, G1668.

⁵⁵ Ibid.

⁵⁶ Fogarty, ‘Out of North Africa’, 147, 154.

⁵⁷ Laure Blévis, ‘Les avatars de la citoyenneté en Algérie colonial ou les paradoxes d’une catégorisation’, Droit et Société 48 (2001): 557–581, 559; L. Hincker, ed., Citoyenneté, république, démocratie: France 1789–1899 (Neuilly-sur-Seine: Atlande, 2014), 359; Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).

⁵⁸ Consulate of France in Mesopotamia to MFA: Soldats musulmans français incorporés dans l’armée turque, Basrah, 25 March 1918, AMAE, G1669.

⁵⁹ Rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).

⁶⁰ Michèle Lamont and Virág Molnár, ‘The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences’, Annual Review of Sociology 28 (2002): 167–195, 169.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Narodowe Centrum Nauki [2017/27/B/HS3/02645].