November 11: the sad fate of 73 Senegalese riflemen who died for France… in the Gers

Today, November 11, throughout France, commemorations are being held to celebrate the armistice signed in 1918 and pay tribute to those who died for France. No Gers village is an exception to the rule, and many monuments will be decorated with flowers in the morning.

In Lectoure, there is a special military cemetery to honor the soldiers of the Great War, the one that the Lectourois have taken to calling the “Carré des Sénégalais”. 73 soldiers who died in Lectoure are buried there. Affi Koadé, Boni Boba, Koffi Diaha, Lamine Diallo etc., we can read on the graves. Part of the 141st Battalion of Senegalese Tirailleurs (BTS), which arrived in August 1918 in Lectoure to garrison, tragically died there. The first death dates from August 1918, the last from August 1919. What happened to these soldiers?

Severe winter

“At the end of the major offensives of 1918, the general staff and the government had decided to bring reinforcements from Africa after having suffered heavy losses. These were young conscripts who arrived and who were put in garrisons in the south of France, in regions likely to put them in favorable weather conditions to make the transition”, explains General Eric Boss, president of Souvenir français de Lomagne. “A battalion was sent to Lectoure. Originally, two battalions were to be stationed there.”

But the men who made up the 141st battalion would never join the front. They will be demobilized and repatriated home in April 1919. The winter of 1918-1919 is harsh and the riflemen will suffer from illnesses due to bad weather to which they are not accustomed. The disease took away 73 of them, who today remain buried in Lectoure.

Anthony Guyon, associate professor and doctor in history, who devoted his thesis to the Senegalese riflemen from 1919 to 1940, and author of “The Senegalese riflemen. From the native to the soldier, from 1857 to the present day”, was interested in the question. “The Gers was not a preferred destination for foreign fighters. They were more generally stationed between the Var and Menton. There had been a camp near Bordeaux, but it was a dismal failure, due to the oceanic climate which was not working for the Africans.

Regarding the Lectoure garrison, there was a peak in deaths during the months of December 1918 and January-February 1919 (50 out of 73). The winter was fatal to these young soldiers while waiting for their return home. But why did they stay in Lectoure until April 1919, when peace had been signed 6 months ago?

“We took a long time to return them to their territory. We are demobilizing as a priority French troops who have been under the flag for a long time. If these men were recruited late, it is normal that we demobilize them later. repatriation is very long, and we precisely want to avoid a health tragedy due to the Spanish flu Already on the way there, in 1914-1915, epidemics spread rapidly during troop shipments from Africa. also the question of the financial cost”, specifies Anthony Guyon. “As for the reasons for the deaths, there is obviously the Spanish flu which is a possibility. But above all it was soldiers who were very resistant to the cold, who had frostbite, who caught pneumonia etc. As early as 1914 in fact , the general staff takes the decision to withdraw these men from October to April from the North to send them to the South, this is what we call the wintering period.

Time

At the beginning, these Senegalese riflemen were buried near the Saint-Esprit cemetery. It was not until 1935 that a military cemetery was created. “But after its creation, it was quickly left abandoned, especially during the Second World War, no one took care of it. After the war, it was former prisoners, during their free time, who decided to restore it,” says General Boss.

“It took time, and little by little, this military square improved. The decision was later made to create a monument for this 141st battalion. And later, in the 1990s-2000s, the cemetery was once again taken in hand and rebuilt Le Souvenir français participated in this restoration. It took time, but from an archaic place at the beginning, there is today a real cemetery and monument to honor these soldiers. “.