German medical orderly with a wounded Senegalese Rifleman POW, November 28, 1914. .

 German medical orderly with a wounded Senegalese Rifleman POW, November 28, 1914.


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This photograph, colourised by @in.colore.veritas and @colourbyrjm, was taken today 109 years ago at a German bandaging station in Etterbek, Belgium.

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Some 192,000 Senegalese Riflemen (Tirailleurs Sénégalais) fought for France in the First World War, of whom 134,000 fought on the Western Front. Although the name would suggest they were all from modern-day Senegal, the Senegalese Riflemen were recruited from all over French Colonial West and Central Africa.

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The Senegalese troops fought with distinction, often being deployed as stormtroopers, leading the French attacks and suffering heavy losses in doing so, but usually being very effective at conquering the German positions. For this reason, the Senegalese soldiers were notorious and feared among the Germans for their ferocity (accompanied by racial prejudices of Africans being barbarous savages).

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The Senegalese Riflemen fought in the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914, in which they suffered up to 4,800 casualties. The Senegalese troops took part in the recapturing of the Fort de Douaumont during the Battle of Verdun on October 24, 1916. In the Second Battle of the Aisne in April 1917, they led the attacks and suffered some 7,000 casualties out of 15,500 total soldiers.

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By the end of the First World War, some 37,000 Senegalese soldiers had died, 19% of all those who fought. In total, up to 900,000 colonial soldiers fought for France during the First World War, of whom at least 100,000 died, although estimates go as high as 263,000 colonial deaths.

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"Dying in a foreign country, for a foreign country".

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