African Americans, Military Service, and Nation Tensions in WWI

“My mind broadened and I had a greater vision of the world,” remarked Robert Gilliam, a private in the famous 369th Infantry Regiment of the 93rd Division. 58 Interactions with French men and women played a significant role this process. Countless African American troops remarked during and after the war about their relations with French men and women, whom they came to greatly admire. While temporarily stationed at Brest, France, William Dyer, a medical officer in the 92nd Division 317th Ammunition Train, observed, "We found these people to be extremely fine and what pleased us most, there was no thought of prejudice for with them there was no color line." 59 France's relationship with colonized peoples of African descent obviously spoke to a much different reality, and Dyer's comments in fact say more about the virulently racist treatment of black soldiers in the American army than an inherent—and wholly mythic— French racial egalitarianism. And while it is also accurate to critique the purported French embrace of African Americans during the war as in part acts of exoticization and civilizationist idealization of a “noire évoluée,” many black soldiers nevertheless encountered, some for the first time in their lives, “white people” who treated them with respect and dignity. 60 Arthur Gaston of the 92nd Division relished his interactions with the French, and, most important, their acceptance of him as "an equal, as a friend." "I could feel it surge in me," he reflected, "this new sense of confidence, of being equal." 61 Their visions distorted by the sting of American racism, black soldiers may not have fully understood the complexities of French racial ideology. But the powerful experience of overseas travel and, more specifically, exposure to an alternate system of racial beliefs and social interactions still effectively broadened the international consciousness of many African American soldiers, their self-worth, manhood, and sense of democratic possibility. While romantic descriptions of white Frenchmen and women are prevalent in the memoirs and recollections of African American soldiers, many took particular interest in the sight of African colonial troops. Combat, labor, and social fraternization brought both African American and African colonial soldiers into close contact with each other throughout 1918. In addition to combat soldiers, an estimated 135,000 Africans, largely from Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, arrived in France during the war as laborers, employed to fill the severe shortage of male workers lost to the army. 62 They were complimented by the more than 160,000 African American servicemen attached to the overseas American forces who performed similar duties. These soldiers were linked by both physical proximity and the racialized nature of their labor. Combat duty on the frontlines likewise presented opportunities for African American troops to interact with other soldiers of African descent. This was particularly true for the 93rd Division, whose four regiments—approximately 27,000 men—often fought side by side with the more than 100,000 African colonial troops from the AOF, Algeria and Morocco in the French 4th Army. In fact, the first assignment for the 369th Infantry Regiment took place in a region dubbed the "Afrique" sector because of the extensive service and presence of French colonial troops. 63 For African American servicemen, coming upon and interacting with other black men, other black soldiers, dressed in foreign garb, speaking different languages represented a remarkable experience. But for these same reasons, the initial encounters between African American and French colonial troops were regularly characterized by exoticization and cultural misunderstanding. African American medical officer William Dyer reached France on June 27, 1918 and spent much of his first month in France traveling en route to the 92nd Division's headquarters at Bourbonne-les-Bains. Along the way he stopped at the bustling Mediterranean port city of Marseille, which he described as "the most cosmopolitan city on earth," filled with "people of every nation with their most peculiar dress and customs." He was particularly struck by the sight of whom he perceived to be Algerian soldiers. "The Algerians wearing their little red skull caps, many of whom were black as tar, were the strangest looking," he wrote. "These men all being soldiers, I cannot to this day see how with such clothing and peculiarities of dress, they could be of best service on the Western Front where small neat fitting garments seem essential." 64 The soldiers Dyer came into contact with were more than likely not Algerian, but West African tirailleurs from the AOF, an error reflective of his lack of familiarity with the nature of French colonialism, as well as the geographic, ethnic, and cultural diversity of various African peoples. Moreover, Dyer's initial impressions of these "strange" looking men spoke to an exoticization of African troops regularly engaged in by African American soldiers, reflective of the extent to which they had been Westernized to view African peoples as a cultural "other." Language and the complexities of translation played a significant role in the cultural disjuncture, or, as Brent Edwards theorizes, décalage, between African American servicemen and African soldiers. 65 African American soldiers could not speak Arabic, Wolof, Mandé, Bamanankan, or any of a host of West African dialects. 66 Nor could African colonials speak English, a fact that surprised many African American soldiers who had never before encountered a black person outside of the United States. A post-war Army War College report on AmericanFranco relations had few observations on the relations between African American soldiers and the French, but stated, "We find merely such inconsequential items as one concerning the astonishment of U.S. Colored troops at the inability of French Colored Colonial to speak English." 67 While white military officials may have found this issue "inconsequential," it remained crucial in shaping the nature of interactions between African American and African troops, who quite literally spoke past each other. For example, Julius Paul, a private in the 371st Infantry Regiment had a frustrating first encounter with a Senegalese soldier of the French army. Karl Bardin, his white First Lieutenant, recounted how Paul's inability to speak French and the Senegalese soldier's lack of English hindered their initial attempts to communicate with each other. The fact that Paul approached this Senegalese soldier and made the effort to speak with him is itself significant, and speaks to the potential power of blackness to forge diasporic connections between dispersed peoples of African descent. Blackness, however, had its limitations. Having never, in his words, seen "a nigger before that couldn't talk United States," Private Paul presumed the Senegalese soldier was crazy and reported him to Lieutenant Bardin. To Paul's relief, Bardin explained, "Why Paul, that is one of your real Brothers from Africa. He is just as same as you are, but he only speaks French and his own African dialect." Although Bardin, through his white gaze, may have seen Paul and the Senegalese soldier as "just as same," they were in fact quite different. Paul's comment about talking "United States" revealed the linguistic and cultural divide between the two black soldiers, and how the identities of African American soldiers remained rooted in a strong connection to the American nation. But diaspora was indeed a process, and as such the relationships between African and African American soldiers evolved with the course of the war and the nature of their service in France. Over time, the sight of African soldiers became less of a shock, and African American soldiers developed a strong respect for their African counterparts. Horace Garvin, a private in the 801st Pioneer Infantry, recalled, "We came in contact with Algerians. They seemed to be good soldiers." 68 Military service functioned as an experiential bridge for African American soldiers to find common ground with African servicemen. It also facilitated a deepened respect and admiration for France's African soldiers. James Reese Europe, the famed bandleader of the 369th "Harlem Hellfighters" Infantry Regiment, wrote in July 1918 to the New York Age, “It is glorious to see the French regiments intermingled with black boys, and I wish to state here of all the black French troops I have seen over here, I have never seen one without some sort of decoration and I have met thousands.” 69 African soldiers increasingly represented a source of diasporic racial pride for African American soldiers, many struggling against a racist American military power structure that attempted to devalue their service. As African American soldiers developed a better grasp of the French language, and African soldiers did the same, their familiarity and interactions with each other increased. A correspondent embedded with the AEF reporting on African American soldiers observed, "Many of the men have become fluent French talkers and I have heard animated conversations between Colored men and the Senegalese who chanced to be passing." 70 These conversations led to the establishment of camaraderie with African soldiers in the French army, an appreciation for their shared humanity, and in some cases political exchange that paved a foundation for post-war panAfricanism. African American and African soldiers occupied similar racially marginalized positions in their respective armies. Whether in the French army or the AEF, soldiers of African descent shared a common bond—a common diaporic condition—as victims of racial discrimination and white supremacy. This fact functioned as an important link for African American troops to develop an increasingly politicized conception of diaspora. In a letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, an unnamed soldier admitted to being taken aback when a black Frenchmen, presumably another soldier, asked him if the American army intended to hang the remaining men convicted in the August 1917 Houston rebellion, where African American soldiers of the 24th Infantry struck back in retaliation for weeks of racial abuse and killed seventeen white people. 71 The soldier wrote of the French Africans he encountered, "They know everything and what they don't know we will tell them." 72 War mobilization nurtured transnational circuits of social, cultural, and political exchange, allowing African Americans to experience diaspora through their interactions with French African soldiers. While explicitly political exchanges between African and African American servicemen were pregnant with possibility, they nevertheless remained few and far between, as the realities of diasporic difference remained difficult to overcome. Despite a militaristic admiration and sense of racial affinity, African American soldiers lacked a nuanced grasp of the complex social, political, and historical conditions informing the presence of African soldiers in France. Horace Pippin, a soldier in the 369th and future reknowned artist, described the Algerian soldiers fighting alongside him and his regiment as "a good lot," and observed that "they did not care for the French mutch." 73 Although Pippin clearly understood some French, a considerable communication barrier still existed between himself and the Algerian soldiers he encountered. This was linguistic, and at the same time historical. Pippin's linguistic and experiential parochialism prevented him from asking a crucial question: why did this Algerian soldier dislike the French? Pippin could not fully appreciate the first-hand lesson he received in the contentious colonial relationship between France and Algeria, one characterized by violent colonial aggression and equally fierce resistance. Understanding such complexities would necessitate a process of linguistic, historical, and experiential immersion into the gradations of the diaspora, a process the war initiated but did not by any means complete. African American soldiers frequently resorted to dominant, and often highly stereotypical, generalizations of African soldiers as fierce fighters. Horace Pippin may have indeed admired the Algerian soldiers he came into contact with, but his impressions focused on their ruthless fighting ability, use of crude weaponry, and lack of compassion for their German adversaries. "[T]hey were a bad lot to their foe," Pippin recalled, "for they would not gave a foe a chance. I have seen them go over the top mineys a time and they never have a prisoner but his knife would have fresh blood on it, when he came back." Pippin, like many other African American soldiers, was fascinated with the tirailleurs use of the bolo knife, their purported weapon of choice in lieu of the rifle or machine gun and a highly racialized symbol of perceived African inferiority. "They would cairy this knife in their belt all the time," Pippin continued, "but when they would go over the top they would put this knife in to thir mouth and no rifle at all with them. I have seen them do it. But when they come back do not look for a Germen, for they would not have any with them. . . 74 A fellow veteran of the 369th Infantry Regiment similarly recalled how the Moroccan troops he encountered "were game and they wouldn't take no prisoners." He went on to state how instead of allowing German soldiers to surrender, they "cut their ears off and strung 'em on a string and tied around their waist." 75 From one perspective, these observations reflect a sense of diasporic connection and racial pride on the part of African American soldiers who admired the valor, manhood, and abilities of African troops to strike down Germans with impunity. But more pervasively, the perceived actions of African soldiers, both North and West African, not taking prisoners and engaging in acts of mutilation provided evidence of African peoples continued lack of civilization and validated for African American troops their assumed diasporic evolutionary superiority. While the war facilitated a deepened appreciation of various diasporic peoples through the martial heroics of military service, it was nevertheless hierarchal and informed by broader civilizationalist discourses that placed Africans and African Americans at different stages of cultural and political evolution. The observations and reflections of African American soldiers were also deeply influenced by, and continued to reinforce, a racialist perception of Africans as lacking the mental capacity to master the sophistication of advanced weaponry, thus effectively placing them outside the boundaries of a western conception of modernity. Monroe Mason and Arthur Furr, two black soldiers who served as historians of the 93rd Division's 372nd Infantry Regiment, described the participation of the regiment in the fall 1918 Allied Meuse-Argonne offensive. They were particularly struck by the sight of African troops, most likely from Morocco, manning huge artillery guns. Mason and Furr wrote that the African troops "took delight in explaining some of the important features" of these weapons of modern warfare to "interested and curious spectators." 76 It must have been a remarkable sight, witnessing African soldiers providing an education to white people on the use of complicated war machinery. Their demonstration, and the description of Mason and Furr, provided powerful evidence that African peoples possessed the requisite skill to not just be effective soldiers, but to assert their place in the modern world. Nevertheless, Mason and Furr held firm to a hierarchal view of these Moroccan soldiers in comparison to African American troops. The two African American authors describe them as "African," making no effort to acknowledge their ethnic particularity. In describing the Moroccan 2nd Division, they wrote, "A marked impatience and fierceness prevailed among the African troops, whose valor as assaulting forces were unsurpassed by any of the Allies," a simultaneous compliment and civilizationist critique of the Moroccan soldiers. 77 They continued in their description of the fighting that occurred at daybreak on September 26, writing, "Never was there a more appalling sight. The furious Africans plunged onward waving their arms and huge knives with fiendish glee, charging German machine-gun nests with absolute disregard of death and injury. Although their ranks were seriously depleted by the unerring machine-gun fire of the Huns, they drove on taking one position after another, leaving nothing but the wounded and dead, and utter destruction in their wake." The participating African American soldiers, however, "advanced in a more scientific manner, using the wave formation, which made it appear that there were double the number of men." 78 The observations of Mason and Furr spoke to their political goals in writing a history of the 372nd, replete with glorification of the regiment's achievements as proof of African American's contribution to the war, and thus worthiness for equal citizenship. They also reflected a pervasive view of how many African American soldiers viewed their African counterparts, an internalized sense of cultural and evolutionary superiority, and willingness to stress diasporic difference in the cause of promoting full African American inclusion into the American nation. African American troops and their relationship to African colonial soldiers of the French army thus embodied the historical, cultural, and experiential incongruities of diaspora. Service in France provided the opportunities for black soldiers to develop broadened racial, political, and cultural identities that were internationalist in scope. Their interactions with troops from West Africa, Morocco, and Algeria further expanded their sense of globality, but within the particular context of the diasporic dimensions of the war and military service. Nevertheless, the Americanness of African American soldiers, and their susceptibility to misrepresentations of African peoples informed by white supremacist nationalist and imperialist ideologies precluded the development of a transcendent anti-racist diasporic solidarity. Diaspora, as African American troops demonstrated, was a process, one characterized by the looming presence of the nation, which informed deep cultural, linguistic, and ideological tensions between African Americans and various African peoples that would take time and experience to understand. Legacies and Lessons As the possibilities of a racially uninhibited inclusion within the American nation dissipated in the wake of Versailles and the domestic bloodshed of 1919, the possibilities of diaspora as a viable alternative and imaginative space to express aspirations for African American social and political freedom increased. Power to effectively combat American white supremacy, as the war painfully made clear, had to come not just from within but also outside of the nation itself. The most obvious examples of this development were the post-war pan-African Congresses, in particularly those held in 1919 and 1921. Led by W. E. B. Du Bois and Blaise Diagne, the Senegalese deputy from the Four Communes to the French Parliament, the congresses represented important milestones in signaling a new determination on the part of political leaders across the diaspora to forge a common pan-African racial identity rooted in the broader collective advancement of all peoples of African descent. 79 While having little immediate impact on the course of European colonialism and white supremacy, the congresses nevertheless inspired a spirit of diasporic solidarity, as witnessed by the actions of René Boisneuf, the black deputy from Guadeloupe, who dramatically stood before the French General Assembly on July 25, 1919 and delivered an impassioned denunciation of the August 1918 "Secret Information Concerning Black American Troops" directive, prompting the assembly to reaffirm its commitment to the rights of man. 80 This political milieu informed the aesthetic nature of various forms of African American cultural production, ranging from literature to jazz, which became increasingly disseminated within and shaped by diasporic circuits of exchange and collaboration. Socially, culturally, and politically, former soldiers experienced diaspora in ways that were especially acute. African American veterans constituted the core of a burgeoning Parisian expatriate community that regularly interacted with and learned from other peoples of African descent. 81 One of these expatriates, Rayford Logan, a former lieutenant in the 93rd Division who opted to remain in Europe following his thoroughly disillusioning military experience, served as translator for the 1921 Pan-African Congress and played a crucial mediating role between Du Bois and Blaise Diagne. Two other African American veterans, Napoleon Bonaparte Marshall and William Stuart Nelson attended the Congress as well. 82 Eugene Bullard and Opal Cooper were two of several African American veterans who contributed to the popularization of jazz in post-war Paris, a phenomenon initiated by black regimental bands during the war. In the United States, many African American veterans translated their disillusionment into political action by joining radical diasporic organizations such as the African Blood Brotherhood and, most notably, the Universal Negro Improvement Association led by Marcus Garvey, who rhetorically and organizationally drew upon former servicemen to act as leaders of his movement. These men constituted part of a broader diasporic community of ex-soldiers of African descent who stood at the vanguard of post-war radical protest against western imperialism and race and class inequality. A number of discharged tirailleur sénégalais, most notably Lamine Senghor, emerged from the war as a radical advocates of African independence and diasporic solidarity, while disgruntled veterans of the BWIR led a wave of working-class strikes in Trinidad and Jamaica and joined the UNIA en masse. 83 Indeed, the post-war international New Negro was, in many respects, the veteran of war. 84 Just as the war and the experiences of black people established the groundwork for the emergence of interwar black internationalist and diasporic movements of racial commonality and affinity, it also foreshadowed the significant tensions, differences, and misunderstandings that characterized this period. Ideological divisions underlay the post-war pan-African Congresses, as Du Bois and Diagne, despite both men owing much of their wartime stature to the participation and record of black soldiers, approached their leadership positions with distinctly divergent racial and political sensibilities. Whereas Du Bois favored an unequivocal stance in support of African and Caribbean independence, Diagne and other black Francophone leaders strenuously objected, asserting that France's colonial subjects desired not independence, but equal citizenship and greater inclusion into the French body politic. Pan-Africanism, of course, was far from a monolithic concept or movement. Both Du Bois and Diagne had vocal critics in the form of individuals such as Marcus Garvey, Cyril Briggs, Lamine Senghor, and René Maran, among others, who offered alternative and in some respects more radical programs of pan-Africanism and diasporic resistance. Even the refuge of France had its limitations for African Americans in search of social, political, and spiritual freedom. While Paris’ dynamic diasporic community maintained a strong attraction for African American expatriates, they could not fully escape their Americanness and the pull of the nation, as many individuals, such as former soldier Rayford Logan, eventually returned to the United States. The hybrid nature of African American racial identity, when interconnected with the variegated and multidimensional social and political dynamics characterizing the conditions of other peoples of African descent, made diaspora as experienced by African Americans a highly volatile process, replete with fissures, incongruities, and disagreements. But, if anything, the war and the experiences of black soldiers in France demonstrated that these tensions and differences were worth grappling over, debating, and wrestling with. The issues articulated by the African American press, and later experienced first hand by African American soldiers in France were far from abstract; they contained a concreteness that shaped a broader political dynamic within which peoples of African descent began to re-think and reimagine their place in the world and their relationships to each other. The war and the place of black people in it fostered social and ideological conditions that proved fertile for a broadening of the internationalist and diasporic subjectivities of African Americans, both within and outside of the army. Discursively and experientially, African Americans idealistically latched onto France as a site where racial democracy and aspirations for freedom could become a reality, and where creating bonds of diasporic unity were indeed possible. The nation and western civilizationist racial ideologies continued to loom large in the consciousness of African Americans, often contributing to cultural and political misunderstandings that impeded the formation of true diasporic solidarity. Appreciating this fact, however, only adds to our understanding of the richness and complexity of diaspora and its methodological utility in developing a nuanced approach to the history of peoples of African descent. The war and the African American experience in it laid a crucial foundation for the future development of black internationalism and diasporic mobilization, processes that would continue to evolve and mature during the post-war period and throughout the 20th century.