(_a_) The average number of Negro troops in the French Army of the
Rhine was 5,200 men.
(_b_) The average number of French colonial troops composed of natives
of Africa not of pure Negro blood, including distinct races such as
Arabs from Algeria, Moroccans, etc., and mixed blood races, such as the
Malgaches from Madagascar, who are Negroids, was 20,000 men. During the
entire period from the first day of the occupation in 1918, to the 1st
of June, 1920, 66 cases of alleged rape, attempted rape, sodomy, or
attempted sodomy have been officially reported to the French military
authorities, against their colored colonial troops in the occupied
territories of the Rhinelands. Among these cases, there have been 28
convictions, including several cases where the intent was not fully
proved, but punishment was given by minor courts corresponding to
our summary and garrison courts, for indecent proposals and obscene
handling of women and girls against their will. There have been 11
acquittals. There have been 23 investigations leading to trials, the
results of which have not been published yet. There have been 6 cases
where the offenders could not be found. The penalties inflicted have
been varied; from 10 years at hard labor for aggravated cases of rape,
to 30 days in prison for indecent mishandling of women.
3. At the present time, the Senegalese brigade having all left the
Rhinelands between June 1 and 6, 1920, there actually remains but one
regiment of troops of Negroid origin, the First Regiment of Chasseurs
Malgaches. There are, however, a few individual Negroes or Negroids in
the other French colonial regiments.
4. A very violent newspaper campaign attacking the French colonial
troops, especially the Negro troops, broke out simultaneously
throughout Germany coincident with the time of the French evacuation of
Frankfurt and Darmstadt, and has continued up to the present time. It
is unquestionably a fact that many gross exaggerations were circulated
in the German press concerning the conduct of the French colonial
troops. The allegations in the German press have been, for the most
part, so indefinite as to time and place, and circumstance, as to leave
it impracticable to verify the alleged facts, or to disprove them.
5. After all proper allowance is made for the natural difficulties,
which always are to be expected in tracing crimes of this nature,
due to the shame and distress of the victims, the great mass of the
articles in the German press, by the simultaneous appearance all over
Germany, and by the failure to cite time, place, and circumstance
sufficiently clear to enable the truth to be ascertained, give to an
impartial observer the impression of an adroit political move which
would tend to sow antipathy to France in the other lands of the allied
and associated powers, especially in America, where the Negro question
is always capable of arousing feeling.
6. The Rheinische Zeitung and the Kolnische Volkszeitung, recently
suspended for publishing attacks on the French colored colonial
troops, admit under date of June 15, that they employed certain terms
and expressions which they might better have omitted, due to the
imperfection of the news coming for the most part from outside sources,
says the Volkszeitung, and from Berlin says the Rheinische Zeitung.
This tends to bear out the opinion noted above, which is further
strengthened by dissentant voices in the South German press which
protests against exaggerated accusations by other German papers against
colored French troops.
7. These exaggerated attacks in the German press outside of the
Rhinelands have, in several cases, been refuted by responsible
officials (German) and citizens of the Rhinelands.
Herr Kohler, mayor of Worms; Herr Bischoff, police commissioner of
Worms, referring to the Senegalese troops, reports to the Interallied
Rhineland High Commission, that with the exception of one incident, the
Senegalese troops in Worms have not committed any misdemeanor and have
been under perfect discipline during their entire stay in Worms.
Herr Levy, from Kreuznach, and several Germans, have written open
letters protesting against what they term unfair exaggerations in the
German press against the troops.
8. Among gross exaggerations in the German press may be cited the
following:
(_a_) Claim that there are 40,000 colored French troops in the
Palatinate.
(_b_) Claim that Frankfort was occupied by 20,000 men entirely formed
of Negro (Senegalese) troops. French official report shows that
no Senegalese occupied Frankfort, but first Moroccan and Algerian
tirailleurs and later French troops (white).
(_c_) Numerous atrocities in the Saar, where young women are said
to have been forcibly abducted, raped, mutilated, killed, and their
bodies thrown into manure piles. The burgermeister of Saarbrucken, the
inspector of the Caserne Petain, Herr Welsch, proprietor of the manure
pile; Wilhelm Roth, caretaker; Herr Geppert, employee, have all given
written and oral testimony wholly refuting the accusations.
(_d_) Claim of the German press that large numbers of young Austrian
girls who had come to the vicinity of Mainz to get away from the famine
in Austria were raped. The Austrian Government is reported to have made
an investigation through its consular service and to have found that
not a single such case had occurred.
(_e_) Investigation by Col. Bonvialle, commanding the Twelfth
Tirailleurs, May 21, 1920, concerning charges of sodomy near
Euskirchen, with medical report, indicates that the charges could not
be sustained.
(_f_) Claims in the Nauen Radio Service on April 29, 1920, that the
working people of Alsace-Lorraine had protested, demanding the removal
of the Moroccan division from Alsace-Lorraine, when there was no part
of those troops in Alsace-Lorraine.
9. On the other hand, undoubtedly many instances have occurred where
women or girls have been assaulted and some where boys and men have
been sodomized by members of the French colored colonial troops. See
report above as to the official figures. There are undoubtedly cases
which are not included in the official figures, due to the natural
desire to keep out of obscene notoriety. For example, a case of
attempted assault was reported June 14, 1920, from Saarbrucken which is
not included in the French official figures. Some cases will never come
to light, due to the natural feeling of shame of the women concerned,
but they are, in my opinion, cases such as generally occur in any land
when soldiery is for a long time quartered upon the population.
10. The impression gained from contact with and observation of the
French colonial troops is that, as a general rule, they are quiet,
orderly, and well behaved. Discipline has a purely relative value
and is hardly of the same order as that which we would require. That
the discipline of the Senegalese brigade was not always good, is
established by the incidents which recently occurred at Marseille, when
a part of these troops committed serious infractions of discipline when
ordered aboard their transports.
11. The attitude of certain classes of German women toward the colored
troops has been such as to incite trouble. On account of the very
unsettled economic conditions, and for other causes growing out of
the World War, prostitution is abnormally engaged in and many German
prostitutes and women of loose character have openly made advances
to the colored soldiers, as evidenced by numerous love letters and
photographs which are now on file in the official records and which
have been sent by German women to colored French soldiers. Several
cases have occurred of marriages of German women with French Negro
soldiers. One German girl of a first-class burgher family, her father
a very high city functionary of a prominent city in the Rhinelands,
recently procured a passport to rejoin her fiance in Marseille. He was
a Negro sergeant. Other Negro soldiers have had French wives here, and
the color line is not regarded either by the French or the Germans as
we regard it in America; to keep the white race pure. At Ludwigshafen,
when the Seventh Tirailleurs left for Frankfurt, patrols had to be sent
out to drive away the German women from the barracks, where they were
kissing the colored troops through the window gratings.