Black Shame African Soldiers in Europe, 1914-1922

Black Shame offers a detailed analysis of the recruitment and deployment of – and reactions to – African soldiers in the WWI European theatre of war. In so doing, the book paints a vivid picture of the wider debates of race and national identity provoked by the use of African troops within the main actors on the WWI scene: France, Britain, Germany and even the US. Drawing on war-time attitudes, Dick van Galen Last explores the reality and long-term consequences of the participation of African regiments in the post-war occupation of the German territories. Wide-ranging, both geographically and thematically, the first publication of its kind, Black Shame adds a fresh, truly comparative perspective to the scholarship in the fields of imperial and military history, as well as war studies and postcolonial studies, and will appeal to academics and postgraduate students alike.

Dick van Galen Last was, until his death in 2010, Librarian and Senior Researcher at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Ralf Futselaar is a Researcher at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Bob Moore is Professor of 20th-Century European History at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Introduction
1. From Barbarian to Soldier
2. Recruiting, Deployment and Controversy 1914-1917
3. Mass Recruitment 1918
4. At and behind the Front
5. The Way Home
6. Black Atlantic
7. The 'Black Shame': Africans in the Rhineland
8. Germany: Humiliation and Outrage
9. The World Beyond Germany: Amazement and Outrage
10. Conclusion