Army of Africa (France)

The Army of Africa (French: Armée d’Afrique) was an unofficial but commonly used term for those portions of the French Army recruited from or normally stationed in French North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) from 1830 until the end of the Algerian War in 1962.

The Army of Africa included indigenous Arab or Berber volunteers; (spahis, Goumiers and tirailleurs); regiments largely made up of French settlers doing their military service (zouaves and chasseurs d'Afrique); and non-French volunteers (French Foreign Legion). The divisions were not absolute and (for example) volunteers or conscripts from mainland France might choose to serve with the Muslim rank and file of the spahis and tirailleurs, while Arab volunteers might appear amongst the ranks of the zouaves. Prior to World War I, one battalion of each of the four zouave regiments then in existence, was recruited in France to provide a link between the African and Metropolitan armies.

In May 1913 a limited form of selective conscription was applied to the Muslim population of Algeria. Only 2,000 conscripts a year were obtained by this method out of approximately 45,000 possible candidates and Muslim enlistment remained predominately voluntary in peacetime. As in France itself, military service was an obligation of citizenship and all physically fit male settlers of French origin were required to undertake two years of compulsory service (three years from 1913).

Officers of all branches of the Army of Africa were predominantly French, though a certain number of commissioned positions up to and including the rank of captain were reserved for Muslim personnel in the spahis and tirailleurs.

In 1956, in the course of the Algerian War, a new policy of greater racial integration was adopted in the remaining units of the old Army of Africa. Algerian tirailleur regiments were to be made up of roughly 50% "Frenchmen of North African stock" (i.e. Arab and Berber Muslims) and an equivalent number of French volunteers and conscripts, largely drawn from the European settler community. At the same time, additional Muslim soldiers were to be incorporated into previously mostly European units such as the zouaves, until they made up to 25% of the total. Growing tensions within mixed units as the war continued, plus the threat of rebel FLN reprisals against Muslim volunteers, largely nullified this attempted reform.

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