Goumier

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Goumier is a term used for Moroccan soldiers, who served in auxillary units attached to the French Army, between 1908 and 1956. The term was also occasionally used to designate native soldiers in the French army of the French Sudan and Upper Volta during the colonial era.

1 Description
2 Origins
3 Morocco, 1908-34
4 World War I
5 World War II
6 Indochina, 1948-1954
7 References
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Description

The word originated in the Moroccan Arabic word qum (قم), which means "stand up". Later a goum was a unit of 200 soldiers. Three or four goums made up a tabor. An engine or groupe was composed of three tabors.

Each goum was a mix of different tribes. Initially they were recruited predominantly from the Chaouia regions of Sidi Boubaker, Ouled Said, Settat, Kasbeth Ben Ahmed, Dar Bouazza, and Sidi Slimane.

[edit] Origins

The designation of "goumiers" was originally given to tribal irregulars employed as allies by the French Army during the early 1900s in southern Algeria. These mounted allies operated under their own tribal leadership and were entirely distinct from the regular Muslim cavalry (Spahi) and infantry (Tirailleur) regiments of the French Armee d'Afrique.

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[edit] Morocco, 1908-34

Algerian goumiers were employed during the initial stages of the French intervention in Morocco, commencing in 1908. After their terms of enlistment expired the Algerians returned to their homeland but the advantages of indigenous irregulars were such that they were replaced by Moroccan levies. Retaining the designation of goumiers, the Moroccans served in detachments under French officers, who were usually seconded from the Spahis.

These semi-permanently employed Moroccan goumiers were initially raised by General Albert D'Amade to patrol recently occupied areas. Goumiers also served as scouts and in support of regular French troops. In 1911 they became permanent units. Nominally they were under the control of the Sultan of Morocco but in practice they formed an extension of the French Army and subsequently fought for France in third countries (see below). However, their biggest involvement was in Morocco itself during the period of French "pacification".

Initially the Moroccan Goums wore tribal dress with arm bands but as they achieved permanent status they adopted the distinctive brown and grey striped jellaba (a hooded Moroccan cloak) that was to remain their trademark throughout their history with the French Army. Their normal headdress was a turban. Goums included both infantry and cavalry elements. Their traditional and favoured weapons were sabres or elongated daggers.

An equivalent force known as the Mehal-La Jalifiana was raised in Spanish Morocco using France's goumiers as a model.

[edit] World War I

The Goumiers did not see service outside Morocco during 1914-18. Their existence did however enable Marshal Hubert Lyautey to withdraw a substantial portion of the French forces in Morocco for service on the Western Front. Remaining separate from the regular Moroccan regiments of the French Armee d' Afrique, the Goumiers gave valuable service during the Rif wars of the 1920s. They subsequently became a form of gendarmerie keeping order in rural districts of Morocco.

[edit] World War II

Four Moroccan groupes served in the Allied forces during World War II. They specialised in night raiding operations, and fought against the forces of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during 1942-45.

[edit] Tunisia, 1942-43

An anonymous junior officer from the U.S. 26th Infantry Regiment, which fought alongside the Goumiers in Tunisia, wrote that:

Two companies of Goums...were stationed next to our CP, and these had sent out two raiding parties the same night... Mostly mountain men from Morocco, these silent, quick-moving raiders were excellent at night raids, and in surprise attacks. How successful they had been was attested by the two [French] officers who had command of the companies of the Goumiers. The companies lacked most of the clothing, equipment and weapons necessary for warfare. Several raids had remedied that. Inspection of their clothing revealed a good many German articles of clothing under their conventional brown and white vertical striped robes. Their rifles were mixed German and Italian, with a few old French rifles firing clips of four. Mess equipment, and a good deal of the food was also of enemy origin, as were the knives, pistols, blankets and toilet articles. From questioning of the Italian prisoners, it was evident that they had either heard or experienced the merciless raids of the Goums, and they wanted no part of them. Part of the Goums' success lay in their silence as they moved forward, and in their highly perfected art of camouflage. One anecdote ran that one warrior had so successfully camouflaged himself all day in full sight of the Germans that a German officer had wandered over to what he thought was a bush, and had urinated on the motionless head of the Moroccan soldier who bore the trial well, but who marked that particular officer down for special attention that night. Goums did not take any prisoners, and it was well-known to the Germans and Italians what befell anyone who ran afoul of those Moroccans. There was certainly no desire to have our battalion tangle with either of the two raiding parties sent out the same night.[2]

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[edit] Italy, 1943-45

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Please see the discussion on the talk page.

The Italian campaign of World War II is perhaps the most famous and most controversial in the history of the Goumiers.

In Italy, the Allies suffered a long stalemate at the German Gustav Line. In May 1944, three Goumier groupes, under the name Corps de Montagne, were the vanguard of the Corps Expéditionaire Français (CEF or FEC) attack through the Aurunci Mountains during Operation Diadem, the fourth Battle of Monte Cassino. "Here the Goums more than proved their value as light, highly mobile, mountain troops who could penetrate the most vertical terrain in fighting order and with a minimum of logistical requirements. Most military analysts consider the Goumiers' maneuver as the critical victory that finally opened the way to Rome."[3]

The Allied commander, U.S. General Mark Clark also paid tribute to the Goumiers and the Moroccan regulars of the Tirailleur units:

In spite of the stiffening enemy resistance, the 2nd Moroccan Division penetrated the Gustave [sic] Line in less than two day’s fighting. The next 48 hours on the French front were decisive. The knife-wielding Goumiers swarmed over the hills, particularly at night, and General Juin’s entire force showed an aggressiveness hour after hour that the Germans could not withstand. Cerasola, San Giorgio, Mt. D’Oro, Ausonia and Esperia were seized in one of the most brilliant and daring advances of the war in Italy... For this performance, which was to be a key to the success of the entire drive on Rome, I shall always be a grateful admirer of General Juin and his magnificent FEC.

However, the military achievements of the Goumiers in Italy were accompanied by widespread allegation of war crimes: "...exceptional numbers of Moroccans were executed—many without trial—for allegedly murdering, raping, and pillaging their way across the Italian countryside. The French authorities sought to defuse the problem by importing numbers of Berber women to serve as "camp followers" in rear areas set aside exclusively for the Goumiers."[4] According to Italian sources, more than 7,000 people were raped by Goumiers.[5] [6] The victims, later known in Italy as Marocchinate, included women, children and men, including some priests. The mayor of Esperia (a comune in the Province of Frosinone), reported that in his town, 700 women out of 2,500 inhabitants were raped and that some had died as a result. In northern Latium and southern Tuscany, it is alleged that the Goumiers raped and occasionally killed women and young men after the Germans retreated, including members of partisan formations.[7] (The film Two Women, based on a novel La Ciociara by Alberto Moravia, and directed by Vittorio De Sica and starring Sophia Loren, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance depicts the rape of Loren's character and her daughter by a group of Goumiers.)

[edit] Corsica, 1943

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The Goums formed an important part of the French Forces that took Elba from the Germans in June 1944. The operation was called Operation Brassard. The island was more heavily defended than expected, and there were many casualties on both sides as a result of the severe fighting.

[edit] Mainland France, 1944

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[edit] Germany, 1944-45

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[edit] Indochina, 1948-1954

Following the War goum units saw service in French Indo-China until the fall of Dien-Bien-Phu in 1954, taking part in the Hoa Binh campaign against the Viet Minh forces. With Moroccan independence in 1956, the Goums were incorporated into the new Royal Army of Morocco.