This Pamphlet has now been officially prohibited from circulating throughout 

the entire Occupied area. But the truth will not be stifled. 


:Pamphlet No. 44a. Sth Edition. ‘Price 6d. 

jmm_ 

THE 

HORROR 

ON THE 

RHIN 

By E. D. MOREL. 

(With a Preface by Arthur Ponsonby 
and a New Foreword by the Author.) 


April, 1921. 


“ We appeal to the whole civilised world, to all right-thinking and 
chivalrous men and women, to use every effort in order that an end 
may be put to the occupation of a European country by coloured troops 
and the unavoidable consequences connected therewith.” 

Protest signed by Prince Max von Baden and others. Freiburg , June 2oth. 

‘‘We appeal to the women of the world to support us in our protest 
against the utterly unnatural occupation by coloured troops of German 
districts along the Rhine.” 

Frau Rohl , Socialist Member of the Reichstag, speaking in the Reichstag, May 20. 



First Edition 
Second Edition • 
Third Edition - 
Fourth Edition - 
Fifth Edition - 
Sixth Edition 
Seventh Edition 
Eighth Edition 


August, 1920. 
August, 1920. 
September, 1920. 
October, 1920. 
November, 1920. 
December, 1920. 
February, 1921. 
April, 1921. 


Published by the Union of Democratic Control, Orchard House, Great Smith Street", 
London, W.C., and printed by St. Clements Press, Portugal Street, Kingsway, 

London, W.C.2. 



















PREFACE 


The indictment contained in these pages of the policy pursued by the 
French Government in investing their zone of the occupied area with 
coloured troops and the description of the consequences of that policy 
need no further elaboration by me. Mr. Morel has made a careful 
investigation into all the relevant facts and circumstances, and states 
the case without exaggeration and with convincing eloquence. If his 
appeal fails to elicit a sympathetic response and an indignant protest it 
will not be because those who read it remain unconvinced by his state¬ 
ment of facts It will fail only in those cases where deep-rooted prejudice, 
begot of war hatred, remains indifferent to any indignity or outrage per¬ 
petrated against the German people. 

I may, perhaps, emphasise three points: — 

(i.) I have myself examined copies of the documents relative to the 
specific cases he quotes. Apart from the fact that none of these cases are 
even improbable, the date, time, place, names of witnesses, as well as 
victims (given in each case), and the names of civil and military authorities, 
French and German, to whose notice the incidents were brought, would 
make it possible to trace each one and test it. But, as he rightly explains, 
the force of his argument does not rest on the number of cases of rape, or 
attempted rape, which can be produced, but on far larger grounds. 

(ii.) There is no indictment here of the coloured troops themselves. 
On the contrary, their cause for complaint is in some ways stronger than 
that of the population among whom they are forced to reside. If Europe 
is to become accustomed to the employment of coloured soldiers for 
political purposes, there is a danger in store for the African populations 
as well as the European, the full extent of which we can only faintly 
realise. 

(iii.) There is no indictment here against the French people. They 
have been most deliberately and carefully kept in the dark by their 
Government with regard to the facts. Their indignation, were they fully 
enlightened, would be sufficient, I feel confident, to secure the abandon¬ 
ment of this pernicious policy. 

E. D. Morel has espoused the cause of African natives before to-day, 
and by persistence he succeeded. May success attend his present effort on 
behalf of the best interests of civilisation. 


ARTHUR PONSONBY. 




CONTENTS 


1'«K‘ 


Preface By Arthur Ponsonby ... ... ... ... . . 2 

New Foreword By E. D. Morel ... ... ... ... ... 4 

Part I. First intimation of the presence of African troops in the 

Occupying Force ... ... ... ... ... ... 5 

Part II. Denials ... ... ... ... .. ... ... 7 

Part III. Burking the main issue ... ... ... ... ... 8 

Part IV. The value of the denials ... ... ... ... ... 9 

Part V. With the gloves off ... ... ... ... ... 11 

(a) Brothels as Military Institutions ... ... ... 11 

(b) Outrages upon women ... ... ... ... 12 

(c) A prolonged scandal ... ... ... ... 16 

(i d) Murderous assaults ... ... ... ... 17 

Part VI. A general process of debasement and degradation ... ... 17 

Part VII. Demoralising tendencies ... ... ... ... ... 19 

Part VIII. Conclusion ... ... ... ... ... ... 20 

Some letters received by the Author ... ... ... ... ... 23 


AUTHOR’S NOTE TO EIGHTH EDITION- 

Since the appearance of the Seventh Edition, the subject with which 
this pamphlet deals has led to passionate controversy in the United 
States. In so far as any of those taking part in it may be doing so 
from motives of race prejudice, I much regret the fact : if fact it be. 
There is no attack upon Africans in this pamphlet, as anyone can 
see who reads Part IV. On the other hand, the excuses (and even the 
denials of the presence of African troops on the Rhine) which have 
been put forth in certain quarters in America are merely childish. 
The problem assumes an additional gravity with the extension of 
the French occupation. The Rhenish Women's League have issued 
a further pamphlet as the result of investigations on the spot. It 
makes sad reading, but does not add materially to our knowledge. 
I hear that a Swedish Commission has also been investigating the 
facts. I note with appreciation an outspoken Editorial in the New York 
Freeman , whom not the bitterest partisan would accuse of negrophobia. 

April, 1921. 






FOREWORD TO SEVENTH EDITION 

By E. D. MOREL. 


Although it has been found necessary to increase the price of this Pamphlet from 
d. to 6d., its sale continues to be steady. 

The action of the Rhineland Commission in prohibiting its circulation will 
certainly not affect its sale. 

The truth about this horrible business is permeating throughout the civilised 
world. 

Investigations recently undertaken on the spot by the representative of the 
New York World have fully corroborated the accuracy of the facts here set forth. 

A petition has been sent to the League of Nations on the subject, signed by the 
Women’s Social Welfare Societies of Holland. 

Public meetings are being held in the United States where several organisations 
are at work propagating the facts. 

A Swedish officer well known in Stockholm, Colonel Petersen, has recently 
published the result of his personal observations in the Aflonbladet of January 18. 
After remarking that the “ Conscience of the whole civilised world has been 
outraged, and "the reputation of France seriously damaged,” he describes his 
experiences in Wiesbaden : 

I have been in the position to see the misery caused by this policy, notably at 
Wiesbaden. Under expert guidance I inspected the long row of houses of 
which the windows were pasted over with paper (curtains were inadequate to 
conceal what was going on behind the windows). These houses are situated in 
the immediate neighbourhood of the Wilhelmstrasse which is the main artery of 
Wiesbaden .... In French garrison towns such houses are called ” maisons 
tolerees” (e.g., tolerated houses—brothels). Here they may rather be called 
“ maisons ordonnees " (e.g. enforced houses) for they have been established by 
order of the French military authorities and are maintained at the expense of 
the Municipality. I have unimpeachable data to prove this statement. Nothing 

of the kind has ever been done in Germany before. During my visit I 

had the opportunity of witnessing the mounting of the guard with accom¬ 
paniments of much pomp and ceremony. First came the Military Rands 

headed by a Frenchman. The musicians were not all pitch black. 

Brown was the predominant colour, but many of them were as black as 
Numidian boot-polish. To the strains of this Negro music, the French Band- 
Master performed the ceremony of the mounting of the guard, which resembled 
a military cotillion, the like of which I have never seen in any other quarter of 
the globe. If the French think that such an exhibition enhances their own 
self-importance, that is their affair. It assuredly produced a loathsome 
impression upon us Scandinavians. In order to show the existing conditions I 
will give one more instance. A prominent citizen belonging to a distinguished 
patrician family in a town situated within the occupied area was for some reason 
or other (and reasons are easily found nowadays) confined in a French 
military prison guarded by Blacks. I wonder what the Swedish public would 
say if our country were occupied by a revengeful enemy and the Burgermeister 
of Stockholm had been thrown into a military prison under the guard of 
Dahomey Negroes or Khirgis. Then the Swedish people would perhaps realise 
the shame of the outrage which the French are indicting on a civilised kindred 
nation. 

It remains to be said that Dutch and German Editions of the pamphlet have 
been issued, and that French and Italian Editions are probable in the near future. 

The Author, February, 11)21. 









THE HORROR ON THE RHINE 

By E. D. MOREL. 


Article 428 of the Treaty of Versailles provides that all German terri¬ 
tory west of the Rhine, together with the bridge-heads on the right bank, 
is to be occupied by the military forces of the Allies for a period of fifteen 
years “ as a guarantee ” for the Treaty’s execution.' 

The French occupy the largest area of the territory affected—the 
Palatinate. They have also established a military occupation in the Saar 
Basin, whose coal mines are ceded to France under Article 45 of the 
Treaty, although there is no provision for such in the Treaty. 2 

I. 

FIRST INTIMATION OF THE PRESENCE OF AFRICAN 
TROOPS IN THE OCCUPYING FORCE. 

In March of the current year it became known to me that the French 
Army of Occupation had included from the beginning of the occupation 
large numbers—estimates varied between 30,000 and 40,000—of African 
troops, from Algeria, Tunis, Morocco, Madagascar, and Western Africa. 
This fact had been kept out of our Press. A certain number of outrages 
committed by these African troops upon women and girls; the erection of 
brothels for their use and other information of a like character also reached 
me, from private persons in Germany, from their relatives and friends in 
England, and from correspondents in France and in neutral countries. 

I first drew attention to the matter in a letter to the Nation 
(March 27), laying empha.is not upon specific acts of outrage (“It does 
not matter—I wrote—whether available reports are few or numerous ”), 
but upon the fact itself, i.e., the presence of these African troops—many 
of them conscripted among races in a primitive stage of civilisation—the 
inevitable local effects which must accompany their presence, and the poli¬ 
tical consequences both in Europe and in Africa which must eventu¬ 
ally ensue. 

Early in April the French moved further into Germany. They occu¬ 
pied Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Offenbach, and other German towns on the 
right bank of the Rhine (from which they have since withdrawn), and 
they carried out that occupation very largely with African troops, moving 

(') The occupation may cease over certain areas under specified conditions at the 
end of five years; in others at the end of ten years, if the clauses of the Treaty are 
“faithfully carried out” (Art. 429); ibut it can '.be renewed, even after the expiration 
of the fifteen years, if Germany fails to observe even a part of her obligations under 
the Treaty (Art. 430). The occupation will cease should Germany comply “ with all 
tha undertakings ” -in the Treaty 'before the expiration of fifteen years (Art. 431). 

( 2 ) The Treaty provides that the government of the territory shall be entrusted to a 
Commission representing the League of Nations. Article 30 stipulates that “only a 
local gendarmerie for the maintenance of order may be established.” 

( s ) In April last the total number of African troops in the Rhineland, the Saar, and 
Frankfurt was reliably reported to consist of some 28,000 Moroccans and Algerians, 
2 000 Malagasies, and 8,000 West and Central African negroes (the so-called 
“ Senegalese.”) 





them from the left to the right bank of the river. This fact they adver¬ 
tised to the world, and it was only then that the general public became- 
aware that French militarist policy towards an enemy defeated in war 
included the quartering of African conscript levies upon that defeated 
enemy in time of peace. 


I thereupon went a step further, and published a comprehensive 
indictment of the policy in the Daily Herald of April 10. This exposure 
was reproduced 1 all over the world. It opened many mouths which had 
hitherto remained closed, in quarters where the facts had long been known. 
People plucked up sufficient courage in Germany to speak out. That they 
had not done so before appears at first sight remarkable, and a word or two- 
of explanation is necessary. 


The attitude of mind prevailing in Germany in connection with this 
and other matters arising out of the Versailles Treaty can only be under¬ 
stood by those who realise the psychological conditions which prevail in 
Germany. The character of the Versailles Treaty and the continuance of 
the blockade during the Armistice coming on top of the general disaster 
of the war have momentarily stunned the German people. They look upon, 
the Treaty as a betrayal so stupendous and so overwhelming in its conse¬ 
quences that they have sunk under it like a pole-axed ox, and the cruelty 
of the prolonged blockade has induced in them 1 something of the feeling 
of a man who sees his last faith in humanity wither before his eyes. Mr". 
Keynes, who is not a tender critic of the misdeeds of old Imperial Ger- 
many, has done something to convey to his countrymen a notion of what 
the ultimate judgment of history is likely to be on the Versailles Treaty. 
He describes it as a breach of engagements and of international morality 
comparable with their (the Germans) own offence in the invasion of 
Belgium. But it is safe to say that the mass of the British people are 
still ignorant to-day that their Government were parties to any breach 
of international morality at all: so well has the truth been kept from 
them by their newspapers. Many of us go further than Mr. Keynes. 
Yielding to none m our condemnation of the invasion of Belgium, we 
place it in the perspective which history will give to it—the ruthfess open¬ 
ing of a ruthless war in which Imperial Germany trampled upon human 
nghts on the plea of strategic necessity, as other Governments have done 
and will continue to do as long as war lasts. That the action taken by the 
rulers ol Germany had long been foreseen and predicted by strategists and 
writers did not lessen its moral obliquity, but did invest, the capital 
made out of it by the Allied Governments with insincerity. But no plea of 
strategic or political necessity in the face of a desperate national crisis can 


as oils of llT Llo e vd n ( 1 ,W~ The n °? nd Tabl ?’™ hos <> fche '> editor has since acquired fame 
wMtled ‘‘ The Banln^f 8 P ubl,shod iu its >®ue of June, 1913, an article 

Wl,i , ? 1 Balkan War and the Balance of Power.” In the course of that article 

<^ntra?Powe e ™W W ^ BvT*'"# th ? P °'^ Cal iUld strategic moves in a war between the 
y .'? , t S e drtanco-Russian alliance, the writer says:—‘‘If therefore Gar- 

would h-we an^almmstrtirmris ‘"d w H* 6 frontl T er actually common to the two countries she 
ihrouth tliev wvnnld VT 9 y * 0 ta ? k ’ ’ ’ ’ If the Germana consider that they cannot go 
of smoll’er .?/r,vL 0 “Id certiamly try to get round; and it is hardly likely that the rights 

to be gained by"viSng°the^^ SaCTed by “ Uiei ' sk ' B ‘ f there was an >’ advantage 

reier«i^i°o^n“T tl“ ^ roblem ° f a German advance by way of Switzerland, and 
Germinv hoJevfr^^t ^ the ™ nter § oes ?n:-“The violation of Belgium by 
tical certain tv in S T* ‘1* Ver ^ different footing. It may be regarded as a prac 

t> i • ■ ® ©vent ot war. . . . Indeed, there is a considerable body of 

couiiry Sh° 0 f tkat °k * ‘"wi“ ,^ er owa interests Belgium should treat all the 
Powers nn f ^T^ 8 and t ,e ilaas as a sort »f no man’s land, where the bigger 

wonder Behri™ G >able to protect herself unaided'. M . 
gum w.shes to sit on the fence and side with the winner.” 


6 







be advanced in defence of tbe Versailles outrage. Tliat outrage was. in¬ 
flicted, in flat defiance of tlieir plighted word, upon a defeated enemy which 
had not surrendered unconditionally but on the agreed upon terms of a peace 
based on President Wilson’s fourteen points, by victorious Governments 
whose professions of exalted moral purpose had rung through the world 
for five years, and who had explicitly pledged themselves to a Wilson peaoe 
on the condition that, Germany accepted Armistice terms which rendered 
her helpless in their hands. That experience, together with the main¬ 
tenance of the blockade to compel Germany’s signature to the Treaty, i.e. r 
the maintenance of a war weapon whose effect had been to double child 
mortality and to slaughter some 800 people daily, 5 has to a large 
extent broken the morale of Germany, and is accountable for 
the fact that the presence of African troops in the Rhineland and the 
reign of terror ensuing were passively endured until there came from out¬ 
side Germany some indication that in this respect, at least, public protest 
from within Germany might not prove altogether hopeless. 


II. 


DENIALS. 

But it was not only in Germany that the effect of the Daily Herald 
article was felt. Meetings were held in England and in neutral countries. 
The Swedish Premier referred to the matter in the Rigsdag. The branches 
of the Women’s International League got moving. Fifty thousand 
Swedish women signed a protest. Similar emphatic expressions of opinion 
were heard in Norway, Italy, and elsewhere. Notable protests were 
uttered by responsible Frenchmen—by Romain Rolland, Henri Barbusse, 
Jean Longuet, Paul Louis. Private representations were made to the 
French Government. On July 14 the American Colony in Berlin held a 
public meeting of protest, so largely attended that an overflow meeting 
was necessary, and passed a resolution calling for the sympathy of 
American women/ 

The question now enters a new phase—with official denials, not, of 
course, of the presence of these troops, or of the brothels forced upon 
even the smallest towns by the French Command; but of specific outrages 
upon women committed by them. The occupied regions are supervised by 
a body known as the “Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission.” This 
body appears to have investigated conditions. The French Government 
ha 3 issued a statement to the effect that chargee against the conduct of 
the African troops have been grossly exaggerated by “ German publicists,” 
that action has been taken in regard to the few substantiated cases, and 
that all the Allied representatives have signed a report to that effect.’ An 
echo of these official statements was heard ini the House of Commons on 
July 21 when, replying to a question put by Mr. Allen Parkinson (Wigan, 
Labour), Mr. Bonar Law said:—“The Inter-Allied Rhineland High 
Commission recently pronounced a sentence of suspension for fifteen days 
from June 16 as regards seven German publications, of which the two most 

( 5 ) Prince (Max von Baden’s statement based upon the report of Professors Enibner, 
Thomas, Zunitz, Moritz, Pflugge, and Hahn, in the New York Nation, December 20, 
1919. The continuation of the blockade during the five months of the Armistice is 
reliably computed to have killed outright 100,000 persons. 

(') A verbatim report of the speech delivered hv the writer at the Central Hall. 
Westminster, can be found in Foreign Affairs for May, and also in a pamphlet issued 
by the British Branch of the Women’s International League 

(’) The French Government issued a summons against Le Populaire, of Paris, 
which M. Longuet edits, and which reproduced portions of the Daily Herald article. 
But the threatened prosecution has not materialised. The French Government has 
evidently thought better of the matter. 



important were the Kolnische Volkszeitung aud the Hheinische Zcituruj, 
for articles attacking the French coloured troops.* The High Commission 
are satisfied that the accusations made against these troops are devoid of 
any substantial foundation. Several of the newspapers which published 
these charges having apologised, the period of suspension was reduced to 
five days. The British representative on the High Commission has 
reported in this sense.” 

As to the conditions in which this inquiry was held, its character, the 
witnesses interrogated, the ground it covered—and so on, we are told, of 
course, nothing. 


III. 

BURKING THE MAIN ISSUE. 

I have had a good deal of experience of this kind of thing, and some 
practice in handling it. It will be at once observed that Mr. Bonar Law’s 
statement burks the main issue. It deals vdiolly with charges brought 
against the conduct of African troops. The actions of individual members 
of France’s African Army on the Rhine is not the main issue; but an 
ancillary one. The indictment is not primarily against them. They, too, 
are the victims of a policy. The indictment is against French militarism. 

The indictment is against French militarism for conscript¬ 
ing the peoples of Africa and thrusting tens of thousands of 
African conscripts into the heart of Europe. 

The indictment is against French militarism for quartering 
tens of thousands of African troops upon European communi¬ 
ties in time of peace. 

The indictment is against French militarism for initiating a 
policy which is bound to have demoralising effects in Europe. 

The indictment is against French militarism for initiating a 
policy which is bound to have incalculable evil consequences in 
Africa and for Africa. 

And from that indictment neither French militarism nor its apologists 
in this country or elsewhere will be allowed to escape by a side door. That 
indictment will continue to be pressed home. It has got to be. We are 
dealing here with a tremendous problem. The little men wlm are playing 
with it will not be allowed to throw dust in the eyes of the world. A 
European Power has determined to use the manhood of Africa—of all 
Africa, even the most primitive regions of the Continent—for the pursuit 
of Imperial ends in Europe and elsewhere. It has imported and is main¬ 
taining on European soil an army of African mercenaries, which can bo 
used as a handy instrument for its domestic as well as for its Imperial 


(') The facts as bo the alleged apology are, I am informed, these:—The Kolnisef/rr 
Volkszeitung (Centrum 1 and the Jlheiwisher Zeilung (Socialist) published, under the 
duress described by Mr. Bonar Law with no sign of disapproval, statements to the 
effect that some of the articles they had published were calculated to produce strained 
relations between the population and the Army of Occupation. They have not » u 
drawn their statements as to the acts of the African troops. Three of the Palatinate 
papers categorically refused to acquiesce in tho order to repudiate the facts they had 
published. 




policy. The consequences of its action are not confined to the national 
interests of the Power concerned. They are international, both in their 
European and African aspects. 

That is the main issue. 


IV. 

THE VALUE OF THE DENIALS. 

But this denial, even in its limitations, is valueless. I am concerned 
here mainly with the local effects incidental to the policy of the French 
militarists. What is involved in our acceptance of this denial? We are 
asked to believe that tens of thousands of African troops, men in the 
prime of life, separated from their womenkind, can be permanently 
stationed among a European population without deplorable social results 
ensuing. We are incidentally invited to forget that the population among 
which these African troops are stationed is a population beaten in a war 
in which these African troops have been active participants; a population 
upon which this occupation is inflicted despite its protests; a population 
among which these African troops move as armed conquerors. Let us see 
just what acceptance of these demands upon our credulity and thoughtless¬ 
ness means—and for once let us set aside the national pliarisaism, and 
look things squarely and honestly in the face. 

If this occupation were not accompanied by deplorable social results 
it would mean that the sexual requirements of tens of thousands 
of Africans, living in an enforced state of celibacy, had (o) either mysteri¬ 
ously disappeared or (6) could be satisfied with thei services of professional 
prostitutes. Will anyone outside a lunatic asylum uphold the first postu¬ 
late ? It has been suggested that to attribute strong sexual instincts to 
the African, and especially to the African negro, is to do the African a 
wrong. Why ? In a letter which Sir Harry Johnston wrote to the 
Women’s International League, he used as an argument deprecating what 
he termed attacks upon French African troops, the fact that many of them 
were Mohammedans. This fact merely reinforces the contention T 
advance. Polygamy is the recognised social relationship in sexual matters 
of the Mohammedan world. It is sanctioned by the Koran, which allows 
four wives to the believer. Openly recognised polygamous unions sanc¬ 
tioned by law, religion, and custom may be infinitely preferable as a 
social institution to the unrecognised polygamy which prevails in nominally 
monogamous Europe, or it may not. It may be the most decent and the 
most racially preservative practice for Arabia and for Africa, or it may 
not. But where are the wives of these polygamous African Mohammedans 
whom French militarism has implanted among the population of western 
Germany? They are in Africa! Will it be seriously maintained that the 
sexual desire is less strong among polygamous Mohammedan Moors and 
Arabs of North Africa than among the peoples of Western Europe? Will 
anyone who knows anything of tropical and sub-tropical Africa, whose 
tribes the French have been conscripting for the past eight years, contend 
that sex does not play an immensely important part—and rightly—in the 
sociology of that part of the world ? The admission that it does implies no 
reproach to the African negro in Africa. Nature opposes! such obstacles 
to man in tropical Africa that strong sex instinct is essential to racial 
survival. If that strong sex instinct were non-existent, what between 
Nature and the abominations of the old and the modern slave-trades, the 
negro race would long ago have vanished from the face of the earth. 
Again, and speaking generally, will it be denied that among the more 

9 


primitive—or the more natural, if that word be preferred—races inhabit¬ 
ing the tropical and sub-tropical areas of Africa, the sex-impulse is a more 
instinctive impulse, and precisely because it is so, a more spontaneous, 
fiercer, less oontrollable impulse than among European peoples hedged in 
by the complicated paraphernalia of convention and laws. 

It is obvious, then, that the sexual requirements of the North and 
West Central African troops which French militarism has thrust upon the 
Rhineland must continue to exist, and that in the absence of their own 
women-folk must be satisfied upon the bodies of white women. Assuming 
these requirements to be fully met by professional prostitutes, the French 
Government would still be responsible for introducing into Europe, and in 
■aggravated form, the seeds of racial hatred and racial prejudice which is so 
disturbing a feature iu the social conditions of the southern States of the 
American Union. It would still be responsible for the after-effects of 
that policy in European-administered Africa. I say in “ aggravated 
form,” because in professional prostitution in the States the separation 
of the races is maintained, and a white prostitute who has connection with 
a black loses caste among her own class. But the habitual sexual connec¬ 
tion between African troops and European professional women in Europe 
is going to intensify—has already begun to do so—the complexities of 
European administration in Africa in a hundred subtle ways. It will be 
the African who will suffer primarily from the upshot of this. The Editors 
of negro newspapers in the States who attack me would be far better 
employed in an endeavour to visualise the political effects in Africa which 
will certainly follow the sexual promiscuity between white and black in 
Europe that the policy of French militarism has made inevitable. The 
European is not going to clear out of Africa in our generation, at any rate, 
and all influences tending to exacerbate the relations between the white 
governing power in Africa and the black governed is going to be a bad 
thing for the African—for the Negro especially. One might, too, be 
pardoned for assuming that some sympathy might be aroused among these 
gentlemen of the pen of African descent for men of their original race who 
have been torn from their homes, separated for years from their kinsfolk, 
subjugated to every kind of hardship, and used as mere cannon-fodder for 
the benefit of French capitalistic militarism and imperialism in Europe, in 
Syria or elsewhere. 

But. apart from the evidence which I shall presently produce, is it 
rational to suppose that the services of professional unfortunates do, or can, 
suffice to satisfy the sexual appetites of the tens of thousands of African 
troops scattered over the Palatinate and the Saar? Is it rational to suppose 
that these powerful men, leading a more or less idle life, subjected, let it 
be pointed out once more, to an enforced celibacy—although belonging, n 
the main, to a race and to a society where polygamy is the recognised social 
institution—moving freely and armed about the countryside among a 
disarmed population which they have helped to defeat after five 
bloody years of warfare, do not. on numerous occasions yield to temptations 
from which European occupying troops are certainly not exempt? Of 
course it is not, and those who pretend otherwise are guilty of an hypocrisy 
which has not even the merit of deceiving. 

I desired to emphasise these general arguments before dealing with 
inncrete facts, in order to make it clear that the case against the policy of 
French militarism in the occupied regions of Germany is a case which does 
not require to be buttressed with evidence as to its local concomitants .n 
order to be condemned by public opinion in every civilised country. It is 
on the face of it a monstrous policy. If the women of the Rhineland are its 


10 



helpless victims so also are the Africans whom it conscripts. Indeed the 
peoples of Europe and of Africa are all alike its victims, for it is keeping 
alive the slumbering fires of hate in Europe as nothing else is doing and 
rt is kindling new fires in the relations of Europe with Africa. If we can 
imagine what our feelings would be were the parts reversed, and if the 
West Country, or South Wales, or the lowlands of Scotland were occupied 
by African troops in German pay, with the prospect of fifteen years of such 
an experience, while a Reparations Commission composed of our 'ate enemies 
were sitting in London squeezing every ounce of national wealth out of ua 
and threatening us every few months with an extension of the occupation; 
if we can imagine these things, if we can picture to ourselves the psycho¬ 
logical effect of this Black terror perpetually in our midst, the haunting 
thought of the insecurity of our women folk as we went to our work in the 
fields or in the factory, the knowledge that in the event of our working 
classes striking against intolerable conditions of labour imposed by the 
conditions of a Treaty forced upon us by our conquerors, these African 
troops would be used to shoot them down ; the affront of their continual 
presence rubbing us on the raw in a thousand ways — if we can imagine these 
things and their consequences upon us, then we may be able to form some 
-soit of idea of the passion of resentment which must be burning in the heart 
and brain of every German of normal instincts. 


V.—WITH THE GLOVES OFF. 

And now, since the French militarists and their accoir plices are 
persisting in their policy and deny its necessary and fatal accomp -.aliments, I 
propose to take off the gloves and to describe the actual conditions prevailing 
in the French area of occupation west of the Rhine. 


A.—BROTHELS AS MILITARY INSTITUTIONS. 

One of the inevitable factors in the permanent establishment of an 
-army of occupation in a foreign country is the brothel. Under the French 
occupation tile brothel ranks as a military institution. The French 
-Command is much concerned about this Institution, and has impressed upon 
the civic authorities of the occupied areas the absolute essentiality of setting 
aside houses in the towns for the purpose, especially in the case of African 
troops. Many a small German town -which never boasted a brothel has 
been compelled to set one up. In the great majority of cases the civic 
authorities of the town must pay for their upkeep—it is part of the cost of 
the army of occupation, which is a first charge upon German revenues, and 
which amounts to a fabulous figure. In some instances houses are selected 
out of which the inhabitants must needs be bundled neck and crop. In 
Ludwigshafen the inhabitants of the selected houses were turned out to live 
in cubicles in the school gymnasium. At Landau three families, together 
with the landlords of the selected houses, had to leave within three days. 
At Saarbrucken tile occupants had to clear out with twenty-four hours’ 
notice. The brothel at Landau lias cost the Municipality up to April cC 
this year 10,835 marks; the Municipality is also required to pay for the 
weekly examination of the prostitutes—from 32 to 40 marks per week. At 
Wiesbaden, where tw r o brothels for French troops -have existed for some 
time at a cost of 41,000 marks, the French Command has now requisitioned 
another for African troops in a public-house which has had to be set aside 
by the Municipality. There is a brothel for African troops at Kreuznach. 
X/ast month a brothel for African troops -was demanded at Dietz—in this 


11 





case the order is for the establishment of an “ Arabic brothel. Ate- 
Saarbrucken the two houses commandeered for brothels are situate in a 
prominent part of the town—a demand for a third was successfully opposed 
by the clergy of all denominations and by the local medical association. 
Last year the firewood which the Municipality had here collected during the 
summer to help in the coal shortage was requisitioned to heat the brothel. 
At Mainz the brothels for African troops cost the Municipality 
70,000 marks. At Kostheim, where there is a large camp of African troops, 
the brothel (into which some coloured women have been imported) costs the 
Municipality 130,000 marks. At Bingen, where there is another brothel 
for African troops, the cost to the Municipality is 40,000 marks. At 
Hochst/a/M the brothels cost the town 29,000 marks. At Langen- 
schwelbach the town is saved expense, as a contractor has taken on the job 
of managing this military Institution. 

Maximilian Harden, the famous Editor of the Zukunft, has recently 
published a- French Army Order setting out the regulations for the brothel 
at Munchen-Gladbach (Gasthausstrasse 7). It has been reproduced in 
other German papers and in Le Populaire of Paris. Here is an extract 
from this document, which begins by explaining that “ owing to the shortage 
of municipal funds " no more than two women are available to “ do she 
work,” and that they complain of being overworked. So the Brigadier- 
General who 6igns tire order, moved by a desire to avoid the disorderly 
scenes which he alleges to be taking place, elaborates a time-table :— 

" Working days in the brothel.— All weekdays; on Sundays the house 
is closed. Maximum limit. —Each woman receives daily ten men. 

Visiting hours from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. . . . Scales of charges. —For a 

quarter of an hour's visit (including entering and leaving), 5 marks. . . - 

Distribution. —The six weekdays are apportioned as under: Monday, 1st 
Battalion of Regiment 164; Tuesday, 1st Battalion of Regiment 169; 
Wednesday, 2nd Battalion of Regiment 164 ; Thursday, 2nd Battalion of 
Regiment 169 ; Friday, 3rd Battalion of Regiment 164 ; Saturday, 3rd 
Battalion of Regiment 169. . . . In each battalion there will be 

delivered on the respective days twenty tickets by the Sergeant-Major, five 
for each company. Men desirous of visiting the brothel must apply for the 
ticket which will give them priority on that day.” 

As already stated, several of the smaller towns occupied by the French 
had not previously attained the height of civilisation exemplified in the 
public brothel. A representative of the Rhenish Women’s League, whom 
I recently questioned at considerable length, pointed out that one of the 
saddest and most demoralising features connected with these Institutions 
was the effect upon young children of the sight of long files of African troops 
waiting outside for their turn. The Mayor of a certain town in the 
Palatinate who demurred when requested to set up a brothel was told that 
hesitation on his part would render him liable to be brought before a 
military court. He was also informed that if a brothel was not established 
“ German women, girls and boys would suffer the unavoidable conse¬ 
quences.” They do suffer the “ unavoidable consequences ” of French 
militarist policy, brothels or no brothels, as I shall now demonstrate. 


B.—OUTRAGES UPON WOMEN. 

For the general reasons already given the official denial of cases of 
violence and outrage upon women and girls by African troops is bound to 
be untrue. I have before me details of some eighty cases of rape and 





attempted rape. But if these recorded cases, consisting of depositions by 
the victims before the civic authorities—their depositions being frequently- 
accompanied by the statements of witnesses and sometimes by magistrates’ 
reports and doctors' certificat es—were five times as numerous they would not 
in themselves adequately portray the state of affairs prevailing in the 
occupied area. It is in the very nature of these happenings that the victims 
should be reluctant to report them. To this 'natural reluctance many factors 
in the general situation contribute. In the first place the occupied area is, 
as it were, isolated from the rest of Germany. There is the censorship. 
There is the passport system. There is the bullying of the local Press, so 
disingenuously vouched for by Mr. Bonar Law. There is the general 
disorganisation of civilian life produced by the occupation; the fears and 
timidities engendered among the common people and among the civic 
authorities themselves—Germany is presumably not free from officials 
inclined to take the line of least resistance, especially when a simple decree 
of expulsion can put an end to activities regarded as pestilent by the French 
Command. There is the general atmosphere of intimidation and insolence 
which prevails; the feeling of helplessness which teaches that it is better 
to be beaten with whips than chastised with scorpions, which teaches, too, 
that protests are futile and attended by unpleasant consequences for the 
plaintiff; the lack of redress (°); the difficulty of identification; the vista of 
long years ahead with this burden to be borne. Add to this the capacity for 
silent suffering which characterises a rural population everywhere, intensified 
in this case by five years’ mental, moral and physical strain. 

But from the abundant documentary evidence available it is not difficult 
to form an accurate notion of the conditions. Danger lurks everywhere for 
women and girls in the French area of occupation. Women are afraid to 
walk alone after sunset. 'Strolling in the woods is no longer possible. Girls 
doing agricultural work in the fields often need the protection of their 
men-folk. Girls and boys are molested on their way to and from school. 
The towns and villages and the roads leading to them are alike unsafe. In 
ones and twos, sometimes in parties, big, stalwart men from warmer climes, 
armed with sword-bayonets or knives, sometimes with revolvers, living 
unnatural lives of restraint, their fierce passions hot within them, roam uhe 
countryside. Woe to the girl returning to her village home, or on the way 
to town with market produce, or at work alone hoeing in the fields. Dark 
forms come leaping out from the shadows of the trees, appear unexpectedly 
among the vines and grasses, rise from the corn where they have lain 
concealed. Then—panic-stricken flight which often availeth mot. 

Most of the cases I shall now epitomise are full of abundant detail; the 
exact spot where the outrage occurred is usually stated with minute pre¬ 
cision. So copious are the details that the documents recording them would 
fill a volume. I suppress the name in every instance for reasons which he 
preceding remarks will make plain. The description of the assailant, or 
assailants, is in every case quoted from the deposition. 

Reported from Frankfurt. —April, 1920 (doctor’s deposition attached). 

“ Black ” French soldier forces his way into a woman’s house, assaults her 

(“) As an instance of the lack of redress, take the case of the girl student Maria 
Schnur, of Heinitz, which occurred on December 20, 1918. This unfortunate girl, 
daughter of a foreman in the mines at Heiinitz, was attacked by a French soldier on 
the road between Elversberg and Friederichstat and mishandled so terribly that she 
died a day or two afterwards in the hospital of Neunkirchen, whither she had been 
conveyed. The case was taken out of the hands of the public prosecutor at Saarbriieken 
by the request of the French military authorities. Full investigations were promised. 
The judicial authorities of Saarbriieken have received no further information on the 
case from that day to this—at least, not by April, 1920. The facts leaked out, and 
the victim’s coffin was followed by a large concourse of people. 

_13 











with extreme violence almost strangling her, drags her to the floor, sticxs 
& knife in it within reach of his hand while he rapes her. When she is 
released she rushes from the house, and seeing a party of French soldiers, 
complains. She is told in reply that her assailant has not been home for 
two and a-half years, that these things must happen. One of the soldiers, 
pointing to her fair hair, remarks that the Black soldiers are specially 
partial to hlondes. 

Reported from Pori. —Easter, 1920. Attempted rape of a woman of 
sixty-five by a “ Coloured ” soldier. 

Reported from Elsdorf . —May 15, 1920. Attempted rape of a woman 
of thirty-five' failure after desperate resistance; great violence used. 

Reported from Urhcu'h. —March. 1920. Two women and a young man, 
the son of one of them, fetching wood in a cart; assaulted by four 
" Coloured " soldiers; girl escapes; sou holds his mother in his arms; their 
cries attract attention and the soldiers make oil. 

Reported from Bensherg. —March, 1920. Matchmaker walking »-h 
his wife; attacked by four “ Coloured ” soldiers, demanding that woman 
should yield herself; both man and woman severely mauled; their cries 
bring passers-by, and the soldiers move off without accomplishing their 
purpose. 

Reported from Eaiserlauten. —A batch of cases ranging from December, 
1918, to May, 1920. Cases include two cases of indecent assault upon boys 
aged seven and eleven respectively, in the latter case a medical examination 
reveals that the victim has contracted syphilis; and eight cases of attempted 
rape by soldiers, variously designated'as “Coloured, “Moroccan and 
“ Black.’’ These attempted cases of rape include two accompanied by 
housebreaking—one of them the virtual siege of an inn, in which a girl, 
pursued by a “ Coloured ’’ soldier, had taken refuge, by some thirty African 
soldiers, until relieved by the “ French police. ’ In the six remaining 
cases the assaults took place in the fields. 

Reported from Trier.— Several cases, ranging from September, 1919, 
•fco June, 1920. The cases include indecent assault upon a boy, accompanied 
by serious laceration, by the “ Moroccan ” servant of the French Captain 
Laurent, billeted in the house (punishment promised) ; and a particularly 
horrible case of rape, accompanied by robbery, of a servant girl aged 
twenty-one, in the neighbourhood of the barracks, by three “Coloured” 
soldiers. Victim taken to hospital. 

Reported from Maim. —May, 1920. Working girl of nineteen seized 
on tlie road to Wiesbaden by a “ Moroccan” soldier guarding a waggon- 
shed. Raped with great violence after being threatened with bayonet.( I0 ) 

Reported from .Karlsruhe. —Batch of cases, June, 1920. The cases 
include the raping of a woman by two “ Blade ” soldiers. A man and 
woman, on the way to Eueneheim, sprung upon by “ five or six Coloured 


( ,0 ) In this case the documents (include a letter from the French officer in the 
district. It reads as follows : “ I beg to acknowledge receipt of your communication 
No. 324, dated* May 5, on the subject of the rape perpetrated upon .... of 
Weisenau. This is admittedly the second time within a short period that a similar 
act of violence has been perpetrated upon German women. Such incidents are wholly 
deplorable (De pareils fails sont parfaitement deplorables). I havd sent your report 
to the General commanding the army on the Rhine. The guilty party, whom it was 
possible to discover immediately, will he prosecuted, and certainly punished, with all 
the necessary rigour.” This letter, which does credit to the writer, is significant 
from many points of view. 



soldiers’’ hidden in the corn; man threatened with bayonet, woman 
dragged into the cornfield and raped by three of the soldiers, and robbed. 
Two cases of attempted rape in the same neighbourhood. 

Reported from Siegbury. —April, 1920. A girl and boy attacked by 
four “ Coloured ” soldiers, girl dragged into the wood, and raped. May. 
—Two separate cases of attempted rape in the same neighbourhood by 
three “ Coloured” soldiers. In both cases the girls were threatened, with 
a revolver and bayonet respectively. In both cases their cries attracted 
attention, and the assailant made off without accomplishing his purpose. 

Repotted from Erbcnltcim .—(In this case, the principal deposition is made 
by the head of the local Police Force.) May, 1920.—Three girls, aged respec¬ 
tively sixteen, fourteen, and fifteen, attacked by two “ Moroccans,” one of 
the girls seized, dragged into a cornfield and raped, the others escape and 
get help from the village, assailant seized by the villagers, and overpowered 
after a furious resistance, in the course of which he tries to draw his sword 
bayonet. The Report says that, as a result of this and similar incidents 
in the neighbourhood, women and girls refuse to work in the fields without 
male protection, as ‘‘Moroccan” soldiers are always wandering about the 
country side. 

Reported from Julich.- —February, 1920. A woman of thirty-four 
attacked by three “ Coloured ” soldiers, several people attracted by her 
cries for help; soldiers made off without accomplishing their design, clothes 
ripped and torn from girl’s body; victim suffering from shock. 

Reported from Ludwigshafen. —Batch of cases ranging from January 
to May, 1920. Cases include the breaking into a house by a “ Moroccan n 
soldier, and the rape of a woman of thirty-one, preceded by threats with a 
razor. An attack upon a woman and girl working in the fields by four 
” Black ” soldiers, the woman (aged fifty-nine), raped by all four soldiers, 
the girl (aged fifteen), raped by two of them. An attempted rape of a 
girl of sixteen by two “ Black” soldiers; girl escapes, and takes refuge in 
a neighbour’s house, robbed of her wrist watch in the struggle. An 
attempted rape of a girl, aged twenty-four, by two “ Black” soldiers, who 
beat her with their belts, as she resisted; interrupted before being able to 
accomplish their purpose. And a terrible case, in which a young woman, 
twenty years old, walking with her sweetheart, was set upon by a detach¬ 
ment of “Black” soldiers: the man, stunned with a blow and badly 
wounded; the girl, dragged by the throat int-o a field, and successfully 
raped by the who’s detachment. 

Reported from Enskirchen. —Batch of cases, ranging from January to 
June, 1920. The cases include: Attempted rape by aNative” soldier 
of a girl of sixteen, walking on a country road; girl flung into a ditch, 
treated with horrible violence, clothes torn to pieces. Attempted rape by 
a “Moroccan” soldier: Woman attacked on a bridge, clothes torn, 
wounded in arm and breast by sword bayonet (medical evidence), rescued 
by passer-by. Attempted rape of a girl of eighteen: Seized by the leader 
of a “ Native” detachment coming along the road. Attempted rape of 
a woman by a “ Moroccan ” soldier, great violence used, three times flung 
upon the ground, bruised throat and arm (medical evidence). 

Reported from Wiesbaden. —Batch of cases ranging from October, 1919, 
to January, 1920. Cases include attempted rape, accompanied by theft f 
a gold brooch, by two “ Moroccans,” of a woman walking towards the town; 
an attack upon a girl near the drill ground by “ Moroccan ” soldiers, who 
attempted to drag her away, cries attracted attention, the soldiers then left 


is 




her, one striking lier iu the face with his fist and stunning her; attempted 
rape of a young woman by a “ Coloured ” soldier, who sprang upon her 
with an open knife in his hand, flung her to the ground, tore her under¬ 
clothes to shreds and heat her on the head, assailant disturbed by passers-by, 
and made off without accomplishing his purpose; two other attempted rapes 
by " Moroccan ” soldiers. 

Reported from Cologne. —June, 1920. Two boys on the way to Eusk 
kirchen indecently assaulted by three “ Coloured ” soldiers. 


C.—A PROLONGED SCANDAL. 

Nearly all the cases epitomised above are of recent date. But there is 
a goodly list of earlier ones recorded in 1919, including, among many others, 
the rape by a “ Moroccan ” soldier of a woman of fifty-six returning from 
a visit to her daughter at Andernach (medical evidence); the rape of a 
woman on her way to Gersheim by a “ Madagascar ” soldier; the rape of 
three young women returning from work in the fields by a party of 
" Coloured ” soldiers near Rodelheim; the rape of a young woman by two 
" Black ” soldiers near Ludwigsliafen, assailants tore clothes from her body 
and hit her over the head, rendering her unconscious; the rape of a woman 
of seventy-three by a “ Brown” soldier on the road to Laumersheim; the 
rape of two girls by “ Coloured ” soldiers near Julich; the rape of a girl near 
Trier by two “ Moroccan ” soldiers, girl raped three times, had to go to 
hospital: attempted rape of the wife of the chief land assessor in a certain 
town in the Palatinate (I withold the name of the town), etc., etc. 

Indeed, the shame of this damnable business is aggravated by the fact 
that it has been going on for more than a year. The alleged situation in 
the Saar valley as far back as last October may be estimated from the 
following extracts from issues of the Rheinische Knrrespondenz of that 
month:— 

The girl murders at Saarbriicken.— The terrible explanation of the disappearance 
of numerous young girls in the Saar valley as now revealed is causing tremendous 
excitement in the population. In spite of hushing up by the French military 
authorities, who simply deny the bestial deeds perpetrated on German girls by their 
Black soldiers, the conviction is gaining ground more and more that all the girls thus 
far reported missing have been used in this abominable manner by the Black soldiers 
in the Foch barracks (formerly Uhlan barracks) at Saarbriicken, and have afterwards 
been murdered in order to bide these crimes, and thrown into the manure pits. It is 
now remembered that all these suddenly missing young girls were missed at Saar- 
briicken, and that most of them had been near the Foch barracks shortly before their 
disappearance. As the French Military Command of the Rhine Army have but lately 
tried to represent their Black soldiers as “good-natured and gentle creatures,” it is 
now, of course, very difficult for them to admit these ghastly girl murders. Just as 
the many other murders which have taken place in the Saar district since its occupation 
by the French, so these latest murders will remain unpunished. Moreover, all persons 
who report these cases or in any way endeavour to have them cleared up are heavily 
punished. 

The long list of young girls from the Saar district who were reported as missing 
has been further added to by two cases of mere children. One is the fourteen-year-old 
daughter of the miner Jacob Paul in Guiersclieid, the other the ten-year-old child of 
the printer and publisher Pechner at Saarbriicken. Both children were well developed. 
In the other parts of the territory occupied by the French, too, complaints are 
increasing as to the disappearance of juvenile females. 

That the German Government has been making official representations 
to the Allies from the first was made clear by Dr. Roster, then Foreign 
Minister, in his speech in the Reichstag on May 20 last. In the course of 
his speech Dr. Roster said : — 11 The Government is grateful for the interpel¬ 
lation, which gives it the opportunity to voice the anguish of the German 









people on this subject. For months this incubus has weighed upon the 
German people, and has now begun to arrest the attention of neutrals and 
opponents. . . . The German Government is not inspired by racial 

prejudice. . . . But we can say, without exaggerating, that the intro¬ 

duction of nearly 50,000 coloured troops in the centre of white Europe is 
a crime against the whole of Europe. . . . It is a moral crime, a moral 

degradation, to place a people which for a year has been plundered 
economically and nationally, under the domination of 50,000 Africans. 
Apart from this, these troops are a terrible danger liygienically not only for 
Germany, but for all Europe. The ceaseless brutalities, the murder of 
harmless citizens, the violation of women, girls and hoys, the gigantic 
increase in prostitution, the opening of numerous brothels, as well as the 
rapid spread of sexual disease, all this represents a policy whch can only be 
called a continuation of war with the most ruthless of weapons . . . the 

result of which will be that the western parts of Germany will be per¬ 
manently infected. . . . The German Government has protested ever 

since the armistice, but w'itliout avail. . . . Our brothers in the west 
must be freed from this scourge. If they were not 60 exhausted, mentally 
and physically, they would have defended themselves more energetically, and 
the echo in the whole of Germany would have been stronger were our whole 
people not so tired out.” 

Needless to say the British people were not allowed to read this speech. 

D—MURDEROUS ASSAULTS. 

Cases of murderous assault are naturally less frequent. Those of which 
I have particulars occurred last year. They include murders of men and 
women by “ Black ” soldiers, chiefly from the banks of the Rhine by shooting. 
So numerous were these cases in the summer of last year that the organised 
raftsmen of the Rhine and tributaries issued a public protest. 


VI—A GENERAL PROCESS OF DEBASEMENT 
AND DEGRADATION. 

As I have already stated, these specifically recorded sexual outrages, 
horrible as they are, cannot in themselves, taken alone, convey a full com¬ 
prehension of the real state of affairs in the districts west of the Rhine 
under French occupation. A general process of debasement and demorali¬ 
sation is going on. It operates in a variety of directions. If the reader 
has grasped the implications of the main fact, which I once more accentuate, 
viz., the permanent presence in the Rhineland of an enforced celibate 
army of conscripted, polygamous Africans, whose sexual needs must some¬ 
how be met, he will understand that the French command is under an 
•obligation to provide for those needs, lest the men become uncontrollable, 
and military discipline, which from all accounts appears lax enough as it 
is,(") be wholly undermined. This, again, is a fact. The French Command 

( 11 ) Numerous affrays between African troops and French gendarmerie have 
appeared in the German newspapers from time to time. A French correspondent, re¬ 
siding in Germany, writes me : "A friend of mine hae recently returned from the 
•occupied region of the Saar. He had the following significant experience. Several 
Black soldiers, and two French 6oldiers, got into his carriage. The Blacks took the 
available seate, leaving the Frenchmen standing. One of the latter said to my friend, 
who had expressed his astonishment, “ What can yon expect ? We cannot help it. 
They helped us a good deal in the war. Now they think they are the masters, and 
act accordingly.” My friend had subsequently a few words with the Black soldiers. 
One of them said to him : “ It is we who won the war. Without us the French would 
never have got the best of the Germans.” 






is hardly to be blamed for recognising that fact, and acting upon it. The 
blame rests upon the shoulders of the politicians and the militarists who 
have created the situation. The compulsory establishment of brothels is 
the obvious, public admission of the fact by the French Command. But 
the brothel is insufficient. 


The various societies which deal with rescue and other similar work 
for girls, in the Rhenish provinces, to the number of twenty-five, have now 
banded themselves together into a League with the object of helping the 
women and girls in the French occupied areas. The membership of these 
societies runs into millions. The League is non-political and non-sectarian. 
The French Command does not interfere directly with the work of these 
societies, but, it is alleged, hampers them indirectly at every turn. No one 
is allowed to prevent girls from having intercourse with the French troops. 
The general allegation is that complaints by parents and guardians are 
ignored, or, if pressed unduly, are twisted into a criticism of the Army of 
Occupation, which is treated as a punishable offence. Indeed, it would 
seem that any action taken with the object of protesting against the con¬ 
dition of affairs existing, is represented as an “ attack upon the security of 
the French Army." Rescue work is naturally made extremely difficult 
while this attitude prevails. 


The French Command lives in a state of nervous tension, and is 
always suspecting plots—which is hardly to be wondered at. Moreover, 
there is-bitter annoyance at the failure which has so far attended the per¬ 
sistent attempts to foster a feeling among the population in favour of 
setting up a Rhenish Republic. Numerous are the ways in which rescue 
work is subtly interfered with. Powerful subterranean influences are per- 
eeived to be at work to prevent girls who have contracted sexual relations 
with the soldiery from being removed from the influences surrounding 
them. In one case it took five months to rescue a girl of sixteen from 
a brothel. In the case of a girl of seventeen, who had been swept into one 
of these houses, every effort to remove her has failed up to the present. 
Ihe billeting of African troops in private houses is not an unusual prac¬ 
tice, especially in the case of orderlies and servants. Much dread is felt, 
as to what may happen if autumn manoeuvres are ordered, as in that event 
the troops cannot, of course, be relegated to barracks, and the practice of 

KiTe 111 P f Vate hoUS ® 3 wil1 be lar ? e L v extended. There is something 
like a house-famine m Germany, as there is in England, and the evils 

and nrivate P houFe 1Vat8 blllefch ’? are thereb T intensified. School buildings 
and private houses are requisitioned often in the most arbitrary fashion 

ingTniSvat WeT t 01lt ° f P-tice" of biS 
i! p t houses, the victim in one case beino- a girl of fourteen Tn 

afc *f ainz -“ eim ’ r Moroccan ” criminally 

her husband When the hu '-hT le ,^ as tutted, in the absence of 

o s, ss d 4S)! w ° hour ' h ° '-■»<* 

It must also be borne mind that barracks are only available in the larger 

irrr n ViiK a11 Vlllages in the Palatinate - 

° f ’“ : al disease is a necessary accompaniment of the 
Saar militarism has imported into the Palatinate and the 

•Saar. Positive data on this subject is still lacking, at least as far as I am 

taTS tospit f, r MI to ° TCril »™fr -ia a.™ ZLZ 

admitted. The worst account I have read of the spread of venereal disease 


18 






in the Fiench occupied area I have read in a French paper and I am unable 
to control the source of the information. The Lohal Anzeiqer (Berlin) of 
iMay § last said :—- 

Many young German .gills, some not more than fourteen or fifteen, are brought to 
the hospitals. . . . This is equally true of Coblenz, Bonn and Treves. . . The 

hospitals no longer suffice. Public buildings have had to be requisitioned. For 
instance, at Coblenz the Catholic Teachers’ Seminary and the .State archives buildinc 
iiaxe been taken over. T.he moral health of the Rhineland is being poisoned. 

It is stated, with what truth I have been unable to discover, that a lar^e 
proportion of the African troops are syphilitic. 


VII. DEMORALISING TENDENCIES. 

In addition to these various factors making for the corruption and degra¬ 
dation of the population of the Rhineland, the effect of certain tendencies 
must not be lost sight of. When an active agency for evil is imported into a 
community—and the existence of an African army camped among a white 
population must be regarded as an active evil—the bad elements within the 
community respond. There are bad parents and viciously disposed girls in 
the Rhineland as everywhere else. The bad parent’s opposition to the work 
of the Rescue Societies is naturally strengthened by the attitude of the 
French Command—the difficulty of arresting a girl's downward course is 
proportionately increased. _ That is one tendency. Another arises from the 
economic conditions. Owing to the state of the mark the African private 
in the French Army of Occupation is in fact a wealthy man, relatively 
speaking. His pay, in marks, exceeds the pay, in marks, of a German officer 
of high rank. He stalks, a man of means, through a countryside whose 
inhabitants are hit by the same cause which ministers to his opulence. 
Poverty is probably the greatest of all incentives to prostitution the world 
over. .Speaking roughly, wages in Germany have increased by 500 per cent., 
while the cost of living has increased to over 1,600 per cent., and the price 
of clothes is enormous. 

And there is a third tendency—viz., the “ tone ” of the French Com¬ 
mand towards the population of the occupied area. The Berlin corre¬ 
spondent of Le Populaire, of Paris, has recently drawn attention to this in a 
striking letter. There are, of course, individual exceptions among the' 
officers—men who behave as “ officers and gentlemen,” as the old saying 
has it. It would be strange, indeed, if France, which contains so many 
chivalrous souls, counted none of these in the French Command. But the 
policy dictated by the politicians and militarists in Paris inspires the general. 
“ tone ” west of the Rhine. And the policy would appear to be deliberately 
directed to humiliate and to insult. It finds expression in acts which, in 
some cases, are almost unbelievable. Take the following incident, which was 
recorded in the Neve Badischer Landeszeitung of May 29. Its accuracy is 
certified by the Burgomaster of Caub in a communication (in response to an 
inquiry), the original of which is in my possession. (The Burgomaster’s 
communication is dated June 7) :— 

" On Friday, May 7, at 2 p.m., an officer and about thirty-five men of a 
French Infantry Regiment, and a sailor, landed from Kostheim at the town 
of Caub, district of St. Goarshausen, situated in the unoccupied territory. 
The illegally-landed party assembled at the Bliicher statue, and the officer 
made' a speech which obviously delighted the men. It ended in the invita¬ 
tion to the men to sully the statue by urination. The officer preceded the 
men in this action. The incident drew a large crowd to the statue, and 
it was only due to the sober and quiet attitude of two (German) sergeants- 

— 19 



that the provocative action of the soldiers and their leader did not result in 
bloodshed. The justified indignation of the public was answered by the 
•officer with threats with his loaded revolver and by gesticulating with his 
riding whip. After the party had embarked in the motor-boat to re-cross 
the Rhine this gentleman called back to the crowd, ‘ Tas de cochons! (Set 
of pigs).” 


Numerous occurrences exhibiting the same kind of spirit are reported. 
“ Many of these gentlemen,” writes an inhabitant of the Palatinate to an 
English friend, 11 have no more respect for a German than for a wild beast, 
•or less.” The following incidents would appear to justify the statement. 
They are among a batch communicated to a well-known British philanthro¬ 
pic society by°a German lady doctor, who received them from Princess 
Marie zu Erbach, President of the German National Union of Friends of 
Young Girls. Their accuracy is vouched for, but the places are not men¬ 
tioned in the brief epitome forwarded: — 

“A school teacher sent in a complaint, because his sister had been molested by 
a Black soldier. Asked for the name of the assailant, he was, of course, unable to 
give it. He was then told that anonymous complaints were insults to the French 
Army. He was compelled to withdraw the complaint, and to apologise.” . . . “ A 

mother had forbidden her daughters to dance with French soldiers. As a punishment, 
the woman had to sweep the street for a fortnight, and the girls had to report 
themselves daily.” . . . “A village was occupied by troops. The Commander, 

after having got his room, demanded the Mayor to procure him a young girl for 
the night.” ... “A young girl of the better class, returning with a girl friend 
from a row on the river, where she had been annoyed by Frenchmen, disembarked 
near thirty to forty soldiers. One of these embraced her, and handled her in a 
grossly objectionable manner. As she pushed him away, stones were thrown at her 
by the man’s comrades. At the tram terminus the soldier overtook her, and gave her 
a severe blow on the ear, so that she fell against an adjoining garden railing. An 
officer was looking, and laughed.” . . “In a small village, a young girl, who 
unwittingly annoyed a Frenchman (the cause was quite trivial) was locked up for 
three hours in a dark hole of a pumping-house. She shared her imprisonment with 
three Moroccan prisoners and a Frenchman.” 


It is natural that the African troops should take their cue from their 
masters. 


V 51!. CONCLUSION. 


Such is the hell created west of the Rhine by French militarism. I 
have recently been informed from an unquestionable American source that 
when the British and American representatives at Versailles became aware 
that the French Military authorities intended using large numbers of 
African troops in their particular zone of occupation, earnest efforts were 
made to dissuade them from their contemplated step. It is a little late in 
the day to try and shield French militarism from the sham© attendant 
upon its deeds. 

A faint hope might have existed that publicity, combined with friendly 
unofficial representations by third parties, the protests of prominent 
Frenchmen and of neutrals, the discomfort of the British authorities (of 
which the French Government has had proofs) would have sufficed to turn 
French militarism from a course of action in the highest degree prejudicial 
to France, condemned by French working-class opinion and by all decent- 
minded people in France who know the facts. For no valid reason can 
be urged in support of French policy in this respect. It is deliberate, cal¬ 
culated, purposeful. The military requirements of France do not make 
it necessary. Germany is helpless. She is virtually disarmed. In no 
quarter is it suggested that it would he possible for her within measurable 
distance of time to raise and equip an array wherewith to fight even the 
French alone. Her own internal troubles are, moreover, notorious. The 


on 



French, on the other hand, are still armed to the teeth. They still have 
a force of, I believe, some 600,000 men under arms. They have lent 
hundreds of officers to the Poles. They have got military instructors in 
Czecho-Slovakia, and, I understand, in Hungary. They have but recently 
embarked upon an Imperialist war in Syria, in which they are using masses 
of African troops. The militarist spirit was never stronger among the 
ruling classes in France than it is at present. The French Labour Press 
records continuous proofs of this. 

But, since French militarism—contrary to the interests of the 
French people—persists in its course of action in the occupied regions of 
Germany, then the shame of this thing shall be blazoned to the four 
corners of the earth, and our people shall know that their own Govern¬ 
ment cannot escape complicity in a policy which provides for a fifteen 
years’ military occupation of German soil, in order to “ guarantee” the 
execution of a Treaty which is literally impossible of being executed, and 
which, in fact, is in constant process of being revised, although the word 
“ revision ” must only be mentioned with bated breath. 

I repeat once more that, given the fact of an occupation of German 
territory in time of peace by African troops, conscripted by their white 
masters from the North African coast to the Congo forests for the purpose 
of killing white men in Europe, in which task they have been engaged "or 
five years, occurrences of the kind mentioned in this pamphlet, the brothel 
system, the growth of prostitution, and the general debasement of the 
population, were alike inevitable. And the politicians and the militarists 
in Paris were perfectly well aware of it. The full details can never be 
wholly known. The full effects of a gigantic evil of this kind do not become 
immediately visible. They take years to disclose themselves. But the 
real issue is not in the effects. Nor need the truth, or otherwise, of the 
capacity of the French Command to control its African auxiliaries greatly 
concern us. It is the cause; it is the fact itself which matters. That fact 
constitutes an outrage upon Europe as a whole. 

The appeal to the women of Europe and of the United States, to Inter¬ 
national Labour, to those who in every land are working for peace and 
international reconstruction, should be irresistible. 

The appeal to humanitarians, to societies, and to individuals who have 
for years laboured for justice to the African, should be no less emphatic. 
Here the issue is quite simple. Are the races of Africa to be militarily 
enslaved, and, as an eventual result, is war to rage all over Africa in order 
that the ambitions of European Imperialism in Europe, in Asia, and in 
Africa, may be fulfilled ? (") No irrelevancies should be allowed to obscure 
this plain question. 


( ) Up to July, 1918, according to the statement of the Colonial Minister in 
the French Senate, the French Government had employed just under one million 
Coloured men in the war—the vast majority of which were Africans, viz., 680 000 
fighting men and 238,000 labourers. The great bulk of the fighting men were Africans. 
To this total must be added the units recruited later in the year in French Equatorial 
Africa numbering 15,000. Of the fighting men, French West Africa and French 
Equatorial Africa (French Congo) furnished 181.152. Algeria, Morocco, Tunis, Mada¬ 
gascar, the French Somali Coast, the French West Indies and French Cochin-China 
produced the remainder. Recent decrees apply conscription to the whole of French 
tropical and sub-tropical Africa—an area as large as Europe. The French military 
authorities reckon that this will produce a permanent Negro Army of 100,000 men, 
and estimate a further 100,000 from Madagascar, the French West Indies, and the 
French Somali Coast—mainly Negroes in each case. These African conscripts are to 
serve three years, two out of which are to be spent in France—read. Europe. These 
figures do not take into account the contingents raised in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis 
—mainly Berbers (Moors) and Arabs. It is stated in the book, “ Martyrfd Tunis” 

_ . 21 







To the people of Britain the appeal is direct, precise and dual in 
character. As a governing - Power in Africa the French policy of con¬ 
scripting African manhood faces us with two alternatives, that of ulti¬ 
mately conscripting the peoples of our African colonies and dependencies ; 
or running the risk of haviug our own territories invaded, sooner or later, 
by masses of African levies in revolt against the slender chain of an allegiance 
which can be snapped at any moment. Either alternative involves 
bloodshed and profound disturbance, an undoing of the work of years— 
perhaps irremediable d saster. As a world-power, whose continental foreigu 
policy largely determines the national destinies, we are confronted by two 
alternatives: the crea-ion of a real League of Nations; or military alliance 
with one or more Continental Towers. The first alternative would mean 
for our people a long period of peace—perhaps a stabilisation of peace 
conditions, or at least of anti-war conditions. But a real League of Nations 
is impossible while France wages war upon Western Germany with African 
troops. The other alternative involves certain war. Let the facts be 
faced. A democratic, a Socialist. France would mean a peaceful France, 
ready to co-operate in building a real League of Nations. The present 
militarist and imperialist France has no more use for a real League of 
Nations than have the militarist and imperialist influences in Great 
Britain. The France of to-day may not be, let us hope will not be, the 
France of to-morrow. But the policy of the France of to-day is a military 
alliance with Britain, America and Belgium, against the Germany of to¬ 
morrow, which French militarism is goading into a fury of revengeful 
emotion. America will have none of this alliance. If Belgium chooses 
to rush upon her ruin that is her look-out. But the question for us is: 
Are our infant sons to be doomed to a violent and senseless death in 
manhood because French militarism is sowing the seeds of ineradicable 
hatreds in Europe? Are we to reap the crops? Are we, presently, to 
suffer once again because German boys are being told to-day: “They 
obtained our surrender under false pretences. They promised us an 
honourable peace. We laid down our arms. When we were helpless they 
forced us to sign a Treaty which condemned us to death-in-life. They 
went on starving us for months and months. They stole our territory. 
They seized our colonies. They filched our coal and iron. They laid 
hands upon the property of our citizens abroad. They piled humiliation 
upon humiliation on us. All this they did. These things we can forget, 
though hardly. But that was not enough. They inflicted upon us the 
supreme outrage. From the plains and forests, from the valleys and the 
swamps of Africa they brought tens of thousands of savage men, and 
thrust them npon us. Boys, the.se men raped your mothers and sisters ! 
This, neither you, nor we, nor they, must ever be allowed to forget.” 


{La Tunisie mar tyre), published in Paris this year (Jouve et Cie : 15, rue Racine) 
that 65,000 conscripted Tunisians were sent to the Western Front during the war, 
45,000 of whom were killed and wounded ; a further 50,000 were conscripted and sent 
to France as labourers—“ thousands ” of them died of disease. The book is a fierce 
protest against the French treatment of the Tunisians. The process of conscripting 
the Negro levies in French West Africa has led to extensive bloodshed, and vast 
disturbance. The full facts have been concealed from the French public. But the 
French Governor-General threw up his post in protest against a policy which he 
declined to carry out, and which, he said, caused the Native people to declare 
that the Slave Trade had been revived. 










SOME LETTERS RECEIVED BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS 

PAMPHLET. 


From George Branded. 

I desire to associate myself in the fullest way with your protest. 


From Henri Barbusse. 

I am heartily with you in your protest against the use of black troops. Your 
action does not surprise me. You were subjected to abuse, and you incurred honour, 
in denouncing the abominable outrages committed upon the humble inhabitants of the 
Dark Continent. It is natural that you should protest against the inhuman tasks to 
which they are being set to-day. Moreover, the fact that from martyrs they should 
have become executioners does not affect the irresponsibility of these primitive beings 
whom civilisation uses merely as instruments. The hoTdes who to-day are poured over 
German towns are precisely what they -were yesterday—unhappy slaves, in whose 
primitive minds the scientific European has, for his own purposes, rekindled the taste 
and the idea of degradation, rape, and murder. 

We know the methods adopted to fetch them out of their own country. We 
know how they have been torn from their natural life by armed raids and incendiary 
fires, to be carried off into captivity and thrust into barracks, to be slaughtered by 
being used in attacks made in open country where masses of them perish, to die of 
cold and of diseases, which they did the more easily since their suffering awakened 
no echoes and they themselves hardly knew how to explain their troubles. 

How many—while I was at the front—have I not seen die of consumption, exhaus¬ 
tion, and melancholy, poisoned by our northern fogs, collapsing little by little like 
mere things, deprived of that southern sun which they needed. 

On the Riviera, where the rich enjoy all the subtleties of luxury and live princely 
lives, I have seen these unhappy blacks herded like animals in a pen. The arms of 
many were marked by weals from the ropes with which they had been tied to bring 
them from their country and to prevent them, once landed in Europe, from running 
away. Many of them committed suicide from wretchedness and through pining for 
their own land. 

All this has not prevented the pernicious Jingo Press from exalting the heroism 
of the traders in black flesh, whose energies had secured this additional number of 
soldiers for the home country, or from, lavishing praise upon the clever manoeuvres 
which enabled us to benefit from the sacrifice of the black troops. 

These lyrical outpourings appear to me to resemble the odes to the dead, because 
the primitive men whom civilisation allows to be brought over in shiploads are hardly 
less capable of protesting and defending their poor cause than those who perished on 
the field of battle. 

For all these reasons, my comrades of the war and I protest once more against 
the barbarism and the duplicity of the men who rule us, and we add that the policy 
you denounce, a policy disastrous for the native races and on which France has 
embarked, tends to induce all the other nations more or less, and in so far as they 
are able, also to make use of black human cannon-fodder. 

It may be that British jingoism will interpret your justified and noble protest in 
the light of a special attack upon France. We are familiar with the procedure which 
consists in framing a great question in an incidental and secondary one in order by 
underhand methods to fight it the more effectively. But all this will not prevent 
you once again from winning through. 


From Jean Longuet (of the French Socialist Party and Editor of 

Le Populaire). 

I beg you to inform our British comrades at the Central Hall that we are abso¬ 
lutely at one with them in their protest against the crime of employing black troops 
in the occupied provinces on the left and right banks of the Rhine. It is one of the 
most odious aspects of contemporary militarism and imperialism. Just as we are at 
one with you in protesting against outrages in India, in Egypt, and now in Ireland 
for which your governing classes are responsible, so do we entirely approve of your 


23 


protest against the use of African or Asiatic troops for the occupation of European 
cities. Tile occupation by these troops of the house where Goethe was born is a 
symbol which has painfully affected the whole of thinking Europe and all those who 
in France desire to remain faithful to the noblest and most glorious traditions of our 
country. But beyond this our working class population realises that it is confronted 
with a danger affecting it particularly. To-morrow these Moroccan and Senegalese 
troops will be employed against French Labour and when French Labour demands 
its rights. And that is why I desire, on behalf of our friends of the French Socialist 
Party, to proclaim in the most emphatic manner that your action can in no way 
whatsoever be considered as anti-French. On the contrary, the best way in which 
you can show that you remain attached to the most noble traditions of the France of 
Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Michelet, and Jean Jaures is to protest as you are doing 
against the outrage inflicted upon our country by our Government. 


From General C. B. Thomson. C.B.E., D.S.O. (British Military Repre¬ 
sentative on the Supreme War Council at Versailles, May, 1918-June, 
1919). 

1 have read you letter dn to-day’s Daily Herald with great interest, and share to 
the full your horror and disgust at the employment of black French troops in 
Germany. Having had some experience of the West Coast of Africa, I can confirm 
what you say as to the sexual proclivities of these men, to whom, in default of women 
of their own race, intercourse with European women is a necessity which has to he 
met. The contamination is mutual, both from a physical and moral point of view 
and, in pre-war days, formed one of the worst features of Military Tournaments and 
Coronation Reviews in which coloured troops took part. 

There is another side to this question, which, though not so physically revolting, 
is even more serious—savages are being trained to the use of arms and taught to 
despise the European races, at one and the same time. Their worst qualities are 
being stimulated, and they will return to their native lands restless, dissatisfied, ripe 
for any mischief, and the ready tools of those who wish to stir up strife. France is, in 
fact, engaged in militarising Western Africa. The consequences will be incalculable 
and uncontrollable, they will first be felt in the French African colonies, but will 
extend and creep over the whole continent of Africa. 

This suicidal policy is the work of a small clique of reactionaries and militarists 
who serve the interests of industrial magnates. Ever since the signing of the 
Armistice, both the French and British Governments have submitted to dictation by 
these men, and until they are reduced to impotence no remedy will be found. 

The publicity you are giving to these atrocious happenings in Germany will, it 
is to be hoped, rouse an apathetic public to sane realisation of the iniquities sanctioned 
by the Peace Treaties and also of the total incapacity of the men who made those 
Treaties to deal with modern problems either at home or abroad. 

By your plucky action in exposing these horrors you are, in my opinion, rendering 
a great public service, and that success will attend your efforts must be the wish of 
every honest man. 


From Fabrizio Maffi, Claudio Treves, Enrico Ferri, and Francesco 
Ciccotti (Socialist Deputies i'n the Italian Parliament). 

The employment of coloured troops in the crushing of the peoples that were 
defeated by famine is an episode both instructive and symbolical. We are filled with 
loathing at the shamelessness against which you protest. 


From General Marazzi (President of the Roman Branch of the Italian 
Association for Popular Control). 

We protest emphatically against the occupation of German cities by coloured 
troops. 


From Prince Max von Baden. 

I fail to understand the attitude of mind which hesitates to speak out on this 
subject, for the wrong done to the black troops is not less than the wrong done to 
the German people.