“Brutal by temperament and taste”: Violence between comrades in France’s Armée d’Afrique, 1914-1918

Central to the historiography of the First World War, scholarship on violence has focused on abstract, impersonal forms of violence between opposing forces or on more personal manifestations between civilians and enemy combatants. In contrast, this article uses military justice archives to explore instances of serious interpersonal violence and sustained brutality between soldiers within the same combat unit. It provides a new vantage point to explore the complex entanglement of violence and camaraderie and how that played out within the specific context France’s multi-ethnic Armée d’Afrique. Unpacking the accusations, explanations, and justifications that emerge from multi-vocal military justice sources illustrates what it meant to commit and be criminalized for certain acts of violence within a context that was utterly saturated with violence; how and where the line was drawn between acceptable and unacceptable conduct; and, most importantly, what violence reveals about individual combat experiences and relationships between comrades. Granting access to the perspectives and internal worlds of this diverse group of soldiers, many from racially and otherwise marginalized communities, military justice evidences a complicated and rich set of situational responses and social relationships that enhances our ability to reflect on the conflict’s impact upon the men caught up in it.