The traditional images of the French Army in World War I on the Western<br />Front from Cyril Falls’s to Marc Ferro’s surveys (both entitled The Great War 1914–<br />1918) have been that of the grizzled yet determined French peasant or worker – the<br />poilu. It is clear from recent research that this is far from accurate and that the<br />French forces were far more heterogeneous than portrayed by previous images.1<br />Men were called from all over the French empire to serve in the frontline and in<br />logistics units. Virtually every part of the French Empire responded, although<br />somewhat grudgingly, even including Tahiti, which provided a Bataillon Pacifique.<br />Bringing men to a foreign land and culture to fight in a new type of horrific war was<br />quite a strain on these 600 000 soldiers.2 The bulk of these soldiers were drawn from<br />North and West Africa, with smaller numbers coming from Madagascar, Indochina<br />and Equatorial Africa. This article is an attempt at giving an impressionistic glimpse<br />of this subject describing colonial morale both at the frontlines and behind the lines,<br />seeing how they compare to their metropole comrades and trying to gain an<br />understanding of the vie quotiedienne of the colonial soldier.