Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 9, Number 50, DeMotte, Jasper County, 2 November 1939 — African Troops Are Prepared To Help France on Battlefield [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

African Troops Are Prepared To Help France on Battlefield

THESE PICTURES show two scenes from along the French colonial empire border in Africa and demonstrate how native troops have been trained under conditions similar to those they would fight under on European battlefronts. In Africa. France has a “Mareth” defense line with many military devices not unlike those along the famous Maginot and Siegfried lines on the Franco-German border.

Colonial Soldiers Are Valuable to Mother Country. Prepared by National Geographic Society, “ Washington, D. C.—WNU Service. France has received assurance of the loyalty of citizens of her colonies in West Africa, including the colony of Senegal which is smaller than Nebraska or South Dakota. French West Africa—the group name for France’s half dozen or more colonies in the western portion of the Dark continent has a population of nearly fifteen million. Included are the colonies of Senegal, French Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Mauritania, the Sudan and the Niger. In the World war, Senegal alone provided France with several hundred thousand n en. They proved courageous fighters, according, to the Germans, who spoke of them as strong, wild fellows who dashed over no-man’s land with a grin-, their black heads wrapped in dirty rags, some with rifles and bayonets fixed, others armed only with knives. While often preserving their superstitions and pagan practices, .throbbing tom-toms and strenuous dances, the majority of the Senegalese profess Mohammedanism. This religion permits the retention of their-fundamental Customs, particularly polygamy, long practiced especially in the middle classes. World’s Peanut Capital. Dakar, the principal seaport, has been called the peanut capital of the world. (Americans are sometimes confused because peanuts, in translated reports arid statistics, are called “groundnuts.”) During the harvesting season the quays are piled high with peanuts, from which ships are loaded to the hatches. Peanuts constitute the principal crop of Senegal, the production some years exceeding a billion pounds. About one-third of the 1,600,000 population of Senegal is made up of Jolofs, the more intelligent

TYPICAL NATIVE SOLDIER. This picture shows one of the typical native soldiers ready to serve France. According to reports from the U orld tear of 1914-18. these natives are courageous and daring fighters.

and influential of the many Negro tribes. Many are skillful workers in gold and silver, weavers and dyers. They largely dominate the colonial council which has considerable power both with respect to taxation and general legislation. Senegalese women are more interested in coiffeurs and trinkets than in clothing; their dress may be a loin cloth or an elaborate cotton print.

The French claim to have traded with the west African coast since sometime in the Fourteenth century. St. Louis, capital of Senegal, is said to have been the site of a European settlement in the Fifteenth century. French occupation is dated from the founding of St. Louis in 1626, when a fort was built on the island at the mouth of the Senegal river.