Many North African
soldiers fought for France during the Great War and played a decisive role in
it. Today we’d like to direct our attention especially to the French
colonial troops, whose history still remains marginal in the commemoration of
the centenary. In 1914 about 15.000 Moroccan soldiers were organised in
different military formation and according to recent statistics their number
oscillates between 34.000 und 40.000 throughout the war. Among the different
companies of the Moroccan troops special attention is due to the Goums (from an
Arabic word meaning “people”). At least 23 Goums were employed from 1914 till
1916, each of them comprising between 200 and 300 Berber auxiliaries.
Goumiers first came
from Algeria and were employed during the first intervention in Morocco in 1908
by the French Army. The format of these indigenous irregular troops was then
adopted to enlist the Moroccan Muslim levies. Moroccan Goums were made up of
men all from the same tribe or region, who often lived together in dourars
with their families and were therefore tied together by strong community bonds.
These companies remained separate from the regular Moroccan regiments of the
French African Army, and usually mixed cavalry and infantry in one unit (an
unusual thing for that time). Their element was the mountainous terrain of the
Atlas range. Their skill and fierceness were renowned, contributing so to the
“Berber myth”: Goumiers were believed to not fear death and have all
physical and cultural qualities of endurance that make them perfectly fit for
combat. We can find this image also in the international press, as the photo we
offer today testifies. It is taken from the magazine L’illustrazione
italiana, January 1915, where it was originally published to depict how the
Goumiers used their horses as shield to protect themselves. But to us, today,
this photo represents rather a further testimony of the hopeless symbiosis
between animals and human beings in the battlefields of the Great War.
We thank Eugenio
Bucciol, the author of the book Animali al fronte and the editor of the same for
the permission to publish this picture.
