Colonial Subjects Claim Equality

The war fundamentally altered relationships between France and its colonial subjects. 800,000 colonial soldiers and workers served in France, their sacrifice creating claims for equality that colonial administration could no longer dismiss. The fiction of civilizing mission collapsed when colonized peoples died defending the "motherland."

Blaise Diagne, Senegal's deputy, embodied these contradictions. Appointed Commissioner for Colonial Recruitment in 1918, he recruited 77,000 West Africans while demanding political rights. His speeches linked military service to citizenship: "France calls us her children when she needs soldiers. We accept, but children have rights to inheritance."

Colonial soldiers' experiences in France transformed consciousness. They discovered French people were not uniformly superior—many were illiterate, poor, and powerless. They saw French women doing manual labor, French men displaying cowardice, French society's deep divisions. Sergeant Bakary Diallo wrote: "We came believing French were gods. We discovered they were humans like us, with same fears and weaknesses."

Interactions with French civilians challenged racial hierarchies. In southern France, where colonial troops wintered, relationships developed despite official discouragement. Thousands of mixed-race children were born. Some colonial soldiers married French women, creating families that straddled racial boundaries. These personal connections undermined colonial ideology's racial foundations.

The contrast between military equality and civilian discrimination radicalized many colonial subjects. In trenches, they fought as equals; on leave, they faced segregation. Algerian soldiers with Croix de Guerre couldn't enter certain cafés. Senegalese who had saved French lives were barred from public parks. This hypocrisy created bitterness that would fuel independence movements.

Vietnamese workers and soldiers experienced particular transformation. 100,000 Indochinese served in France, mostly in factories and logistics. Exposed to socialist ideas, union organization, and anti-colonial thought, many returned home as revolutionaries. Ho Chi Minh, working in Paris, developed political consciousness that would shape Vietnamese independence struggle.