Tirailleurs – Trials and Tribulations – Reader

The Tirailleurs Reader retraces the history of the so-called Tirailleurs—troops conscripted from French colonies to fight in Europe's wars since the late nineteenth century. With the end of the Second World War and the defeat of the Nazis, the blanchiment (whitening) campaign of Charles de Gaulle's government pushed the valiant contributions of these soldiers to the outer margins of post-war European history. Expanding on the contested term beyond its specific use in the French colonial context, the Tirailleurs Reader explores the wider histories of conscription and recruitment of foreign, often colonized soldiers for faraway wars as an ongoing social and political phenomenon. It examines its legacy amid current reappraisals of previously unimpeachable post-war narratives.