The "Black Horror on the Rhine": Race as a Factor in Post-World War I Diplomacy

In the bitter struggles which attended the early enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles in western Europe, perhaps the most surprising and certainly the most treacherous weapon which France and Germany mobilized against each other was that of race. To be sure, many weapons (economic, political, educational, etc.) were available to the antagonists and many were employed, but of the latter none was as destructive as the attempt by each nation to exploit its opponents' fears and prejudices regarding French colonial soldiers in the Rhineland. Originally, the French had begun the process by assigning Africans to the occupation at least in part in order to demonstrate to the enemy the extent of his defeat. Before long, the Germans had retaliated with a concerted propaganda effort, attempting to utilize the black horror on the Rhine to discredit France and the occupation in the eyes of the civilized world. For almost three years, until the Ruhr crisis had radically altered the international situation, both sides clung doggedly to policies which could only result in increasing recrimination and widespread ill will. It is true, of course, that colonial troops had constituted a sizable portion of the Allied military establishment for some years previously. During the war, both Britain and France had supplemented and strengthened their armies with vast amounts of African and Asian manpower. India alone had provided 800,000 soldiers and 400,000 laborers, while the French colonies had supplied more than half a million combatants and 200,000 workers.1 Even before the war, under