Citation:
Thesis Type:
PhD dissertationAbstract:
This dissertation examines the lives of Tunisian veterans who fought for the French during the First and Second World Wars. My thesis breaks new ground in that it attempts to place the story of Tunisian veterans in the wider global context of the World Wars and decolonization. Earlier studies of Tunisian veterans, while comprehensive in some aspects, limit their inquiry to a specifically Tunisian context. My research into recently-released French archives documenting Tunisian veterans in the 1950s also contributes to the importance of my thesis. Whereas most Tunisian historians have considered the veterans as "collaborators" with the French, my research indicates that such generalizations simply do not describe the complex relationship between the veterans and French colonial rule. Rather, I argue that veterans participated in and, in some cases, seem to have organized armed resistance to French rule. In contrast to similar research on African veterans from French Equatorial Africa (AOF), my research on North African veterans reveals that the political roles open to Tunisian veterans in the post-independence period were few and far between, unlike the situation in the Ivory Coast or Mali. Finally, my limited interviews with Tunisian veterans and my use of interviews transcribed by other Tunisian scholars provide unique insights as to how veterans themselves interpreted the wartime and post-war environment.
The introduction functions as an historiographical overview positioning Tunisian veterans within the wider context of veterans' movements in France, North Africa, and elsewhere. Specifically, I pose the question of why Tunisian veterans did not become politicized as did other Arab veterans (notably in Iraq and Morocco). The first chapter deals with the establishment of the French Protectorate in Tunisia and the First World War. I explore the depth of pan-Islamic and pro-Ottoman sympathies among the troops, as well as the experience of Tunisian troops in German prisoner-of-war camps. The second chapter deals with the aftermath of the First World War and the halting efforts to define social benefits for the veterans. The veterans and their descendants use their correspondence with the French administration to negotiate benefits on the basis of their wartime sacrifices. The third chapter deals with the Second World War and the enormous upheaval of the French defeat in 1940. I use an appeal by Marshal Pétain and a Free French Franco-Arabic military journal Al-Nasr, published from 1943-1946, to detail the intense French propaganda efforts to retain the loyalty of Muslim soldiers. The fourth chapter details belated French efforts to reinvigorate their policies towards the veterans, while exploring the increased militancy of some veterans as French power waned in the late 1950s. The fifth chapter deals with the post-independence period (1956-Present) and describes how Tunisian veterans were pushed to the margins of historical memory (both in France and in Tunisia). The chapter ends with a discussion of how and why the veterans have once again emerged as a potent symbol for national unity and pride in both France and Tunisia in recent years.