This chapter focuses on the Second World War and its impact on the French West African territory of Guinea (Figure 23.1), where the war effort and experiences of war inspired the anticolonial agitation that ultimately led to Guinea's independence in 1958. These events played out in the context of a divided France. Following Germany's invasion of France in May 1940 and its victory on the battlefield in June, three-fifths of France was occupied by the Nazis, while a collaborationist regime headquartered in Vichy controlled the rest. A substantial number of French citizens refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Vichy regime. Some resisted Nazi occupation in a broad-based underground movement; others swore allegiance to the Free French government-in-exile and continued to fight the Axis powers on the battlefield. Throughout the French empire, imperial subjects made enormous contributions to the French war effort serving both Vichy and the Free French. African populations played a critical role, contributing labor, resources, and lives. At the historic January 1944 Brazzaville Conference in the French Congo, Free French president General Charles de Gaulle stressed the importance of Africa in sustaining France during the war: “Up to the present, it has been largely an African war,” he declared. “The absolute and relative importance of African resources, communications and contingents has become apparent in the harsh light of the theatres of operations.”

Although this claim was made more than a half century ago, there has been surprisingly little investigation of the contributions of African societies to the French war effort, the impact of the Second World War on African populations, and the implications of wartime experiences for postwar anticolonial agitation. Military veterans have been an exception to this generalization. Since the 1960s, many scholars have argued that African soldiers were radicalized by their wartime experiences, were exposed to new ideas, formed relatively egalitarian bonds with European soldiers and civilians, and witnessed the weaknesses of imperial powers.