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‘There is no god but god – Mohammed is the prophet of god. The hearts of [our] enemies are separated [from god] due to their misdeeds. They make no distinction between the true and the false. If god gives you victory, no one will conquer you. How many small bands of men have overtaken large groups with the aid of God? God is with the patient.’1 This was the (rather lengthy) message written on the great black standard of Kaocen ben Mohammed, a Tuareg leader who besieged Agadez, Niger, for some eighty days from December 1916 to March 1917. While the siege was eventually broken by a French-led relief force arriving from Dakar, by way of Lagos and Kano, fighting continued in the Aïr for another four years, blooming into what is now called the Kaocen War. This would be the most significant and prolonged anti-colonial war in Nigerien history, with some arguing that it laid the groundwork for later Nigerien nationalism.2 The Kaocen War, and the larger Senussi War that it was a component part of, was just one of the many anti-colonial struggles that wracked the French empire during the First World War.
Nearly every major French colony in Africa and Asia experienced some notable anti-colonial rebellion during the course of the First World War. This wildfire of rebellion hit its peak in 1916 with major anti-colonial fighting occurring in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Benin.3 The size, scope, nature, and consequences of these rebellions as a global phenomenon have not yet been seriously addressed in the historiography of the First World War, despite their number, diversity, and local importance.4 These rebellions erupted for many complex reasons reflecting the widely varying histories, societies, and contexts from which they sprung, even if they were all ultimately tied to the realities brought forth by the First World War. This diversity of context and expression includes a wide range of both personal and institutional religious responses. These responses, and the religious traditions which informed them, were as varied as the people who fought against French colonialism.
Of the many religious traditions that existed in European overseas empires in the early twentieth century, none caused more concern for the French (and...