Tirailleurs
by Mathieu Vadepied, with Omar Sy in the main role, depicts two Senegalese tirailleurs in 14-18 (a man volunteering to find his young son, conscripted by force).
To reconstruct the fighting, the director secured the assistance of a historical adviser, Colonel Michel Goya, a renowned military historian.
The film, as well as certain assessments of the author and the main actor in their interviews, however, raise important questions.
The Senegalese Tirailleurs were created in 1857 by Faidherbe, then Governor of Senegal, with the approval of Napoleon III.
The very old term tirailleur originally designated a soldier detached from the line and who went forward as a scout.
At the time, Senegal was one of the only French settlements in Africa, a legacy of the Old Regime, and until then limited to a few coastal towns (Saint-Louis, Gorée) founded under Louis XIV.
By relying on the skirmishers recruited on the spot…
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