Joost van Vollenhoven

Joost van Vollenhoven
Born	Joost van Vollenhoven 21 July 1877 Rotterdam
Died	20 July 1918 Parcy-et-Tigny, Aisne
Cause of death	War
Resting place	Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne
Nationality	Dutch, French
Occupation(s)	colonial administrator and soldier

Joost van Vollenhoven (21 July 1877, Rotterdam – 20 July 1918, Parcy-et-Tigny, Aisne) was a Dutch-born French soldier and colonial administrator. Van Vollenhoven died in the Second Battle of the Marne.

Early life

Joost van Vollenhoven was Dutch by birth. His parents had commercial interests in

His most important early postings were as acting governor of Senegal and Guinea (1907). Moved to Asia, he became acting Governor-General of French Indochina from January 1914 to 7 April 1915, when he was replaced by Ernest Roume. Later he, like Roume, would be named and Governor-General of French West Africa (1917–1918).

First World War

After 1914 van Vollenhoven had an enormous desire to return to Europe and fight for his adopted country.

In April 1915 he got his chance, having been relieved of his Civil duties he entered the African colonial forces of the RICM (Régiment d'infanterie coloniale du Maroc, later renamed the Régiment d'infanterie-chars de marine). Initially a sergeant, he was almost immediately promoted to position of Sous Lieutenant.

In his first period at the front he was wounded numerous times and received numerous citations for valour. After being wounded in Arras on 25 September 1915, he remained in hospital for 7 months. In April 1916 he is appointed as Chief of the General Staff of the 6th Brigade 6me Brigade Chasseurs au Pied.). He serves on the staff for over a year, until mid-May 1917. Alsace, in the Somme, and in Champagne. He is wounded again in 1917.

Governor General of French West Africa

In May 1917 van Vollenhoven returned to his Civil duties as Governor General of French West Africa - this at the age of 40. His tenure as Governor General had an importance which belies its brevity. It marked a change in both the philosophy and tactics of colonial rule in French West Africa, brought on by crises and revolts which preceded him, and completed by post-war Governors General.^{[citation needed]}

Crisis in the AOF

Van Vollenhoven was recruited to return to West Africa in the midst of crisis both there and in the Metropole. The war was going poorly for the French in Europe. The Governors General Ponty (1908–1915) and Clozel (1915) were under pressure to produce both resources and colonial troops for the war effort. The year 1915 was punctuated by a number of revolts in rural French West Africa over forced conscription into the Senegalese Tirailleurs and growing direct taxation of Africans who had no voice in the governing of the colonies.^[1]

Reforms

Van Vollenhoven suspended conscription in the Second zone of West Africa: those area's where the population was governed not by French citizenship law but by the decree system of the Indigénat. Instead he offered inducements to those Africans who held nominal French citizenship in the Four Communes in modern Senegal. Here he induced African leaders such as the elected representative Blaise Diagne^[2] and the Senegalese Marabout Amadou Bamba to recruit for the military, with the promise of an extension of democracy after the war.^[3] In 1916 the originaires (those Africans born in the theoretically free cities of Saint-Louis, Dakar, Gorée, and Rufisque) were granted full voting rights while maintaining legal protections offered by local customary law. Prior to this, most originaires had feared abandoning their rights to face local courts, and never begun the often arduous process of becoming French citizens.

In 1908, most African voters in Saint-Louis had been removed from the rolls by Governor General Ponty, and in the Decree of 1912, the government said that only originaires who complied with the rigorous demands of those seeking French Citizenship from the outside, would be able to exercise French rights. Even then, originaires were subject to customary and arbitrary law if they stepped outside the Four Communes. The protracted battle by Senegalese Deputy Blaise Diagne, and his help to Van Vollenhoven in recruiting thousands of Africans to fight in World War I, won legal and voting rights were to the originaires with the Loi Blaise Diagne of 29 September 1916 ^[4][5]

Economic centralisation

Economically, Van Vollenhoven used the colonial state system to enter into centralised trade and production agreements with the largest French companies. This had been the norm in French Equatorial Africa for twenty years, where monopoly concessions had pushed out the smaller French trading firms. Historians have analysed the post-war colonial system in the AOF as monopolistic, extractive, and mercantilist. France's West African colonies now longer existed as part of a great diplomatic rivalry, or to serve the interests of specific (if influential) firms. Rather they were to pay their way. Though they never did, this market oriented government logic, combined with a market free monopoly system was first formed by van Vollenhoven's administration.^[6][7] Clozel had helped create a board to coordinate colonial exports for the war effort which produced results at the expense of famine, revolt and huge flight of populations away from French colonies. Van Vollenhoven didn't change this approach so much as soften it. Under his rule the French demanded less, and did so through appointed African "chiefs". This was a model of how the French would operate after the war.^[8]

New model of administration

Philosophically, van Vollenhoven was a proponent of the Association: a variant of

But at the time, these changes were quickly reversed. By the end of the year he was engaged in a major disagreement with the French Government over the recruitment of African soldiers. Blaise Diagne had been appointed to Clemenceau's War Cabinet, and the French government felt that with his help, they could again begin recruiting African Subjects, a move resisted by van Vollenhoven. With the Governor General unwilling to put the plan into practice, the government threatened to appoint Diange a co-equal Governor General of Military Affairs. Angry and this coup, worried for the stability of the colony, and jealous of the success of Diange,^[13] van Vollenhoven resigned.^[14]

Second service at front

On 28 Jan 1918 he rejoined his old regiment as Captain of the 1st Company of the first Bn.

Launching their attack from the Forest of Retz on the morning of 18 July 1918 the RICM had taken Longpont within 45 minutes of the commencement at 04:35 hours. Two hours later having secured the village the Regiment had advanced a further 4 kilometres and seized Mont Rambœuf. By midday on 19 July Parcy had fallen - their objective achieved the regiment secured their line that evening. It was during this final assault on Parcy that van Vollenhoven was fatally wounded leading his men into the attack at Montgobert, in the Longpont Forest (Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne). Captain van Vollenhoven was "observing, upright, without helmet, amid the ripe corn," when a bullet struck his skull. He had the power to get himself up and staggered to the first aid post. He died at the age of 41 while being transported to the field hospital of his division. He is buried in Montgobert not far from the village of Longpont.

There now stands a monument there to the RICM, marking their furthest point of advance on 19 July 1918. Over three days of fighting the regiment captured 825 prisoners, 24 pieces of artillery and 120 machineguns. Their own losses however were considerable - in advancing seven kilometres the RICM lost 754 men killed and wounded. Both the regiment and Captain van Vollenhoven received further citations for their achievements during the battle, and it is these that are inscribed on his monument. On 22 July 1918 the French 38th Division (of which the RICM were a part) was relieved by the British 34th Division.

Monuments

• A memorial to Captain van Vollenhoven is located on departmental highway No. 2 (between Villers-Cotterêts and Longpont).
• The central secondary school in Dakar, Senegal named for Joost van Vollenhoven in 1940 was renamed after independence Lycée Lamine Guèye.
• Avenue Van Vollenhoven in Cotonou, Benin is named after Joost van Vollenhoven.

See also

• History of Senegal
• French West Africa
• French Indochina

Bibliography