Moroccan Goumier
The Moroccan Goumiers were indigenous Moroccan soldiers who served in auxiliary units attached to the French Army of Africa, between 1908 and 1956. While nominally in the service of the Sultan of Morocco, they served under French officers, including a period as part of the Free French Forces.
Employed initially as tribal irregulars, then in regular contingents, the goumiers were employed extensively during the French occupation of Morocco from 1908 to the early 1930s. They then served in North Africa, Italy, and France during World War II between 1942 and 1945. During this period four Moroccan tabor groups were created, each comprising three tabors, and each tabor comprising three or four goums. Goumiers subsequently served in Indochina from 1946 to 1954.
Etymology
The term goum designated a company of goumiers. It originates from the Arab Maghreb gūm and the Classical Arabic qawm, designating ”tribe” or ”people”. The term also refers to mounted contingents of Arab or Berber horsemen employed by tribal leaders during North African campaigns.The term tabor is originally a Turkish designation of tabur making reference to a battalion or by the intermediary Arab ṭābūr, also originally a Turkish designation.
The word originated in the Maghrebi Arabic word Koum, which means "people". The non-specific designation "goumi" was used to circumvent tribal distinctions and enable volunteers from different regions to serve together in mixed units for a "common" cause. The president of Egypt Jamal Abdel Nasser also used the same designation to build the new United Arab Republic.
In French military terminology, a goum was a unit of 200 auxiliaries. Three or four goums made up a tabor. An engine or groupe was composed of three tabors. A goum in this case was the equivalent of a company in regular military units and a tabor would thereby be equivalent to a battalion. A tabor was the largest permanent goumier unit.
In addition to colonial campaigns during the first half of the 20th century, goumiers were employed as auxiliaries by the French Army in Italy during World War II. These irregular infantry came from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco where they were recruited from the indigenous Berber tribes.
Origins
The designation of "goumiers" was originally given to tribal irregulars employed as allies by the French Army in southern Algeria. These mounted auxiliaries operated under their own tribal leadership and were entirely distinct from the regular Muslim cavalry and infantry regiments of the French Armée d'Afrique. After 1870 the Algerian goums were replaced by the permanent indigenous corps.Subsequently, tribal police auxiliaries serving with the French gendarmerie in the settled areas of Morocco were also known as goumiers.
Morocco, 1908–1934
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, and initially mostly Algerian NCOs, both of whom were usually seconded from the Spahis and Tirailleurs. Moroccan sous-officers were in due course appointed.These semi-permanently employed Moroccan goumiers were initially raised as six separate detachments of local militia by General Albert D'Amade in 1908, to patrol recently-occupied areas. Goumiers also served as scouts and in support of regular French troops, and in 1911 they became permanent units.
Nominally, the goumiers 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. However, their biggest involvement was in Morocco itself during the period of French "pacification". As noted below, the goum units had the formal status of local police, though they fought and served as an integral part of the French Army of Africa. This had initially been a political subterfuge, since following the Algeciras Conference of 1906, France had undertaken not to recruit regular Moroccan troops while the Sultan remained nominal ruler of the country. With the outbreak of World War I this restraint was lifted and the French enlisted large numbers of regular Moroccan tirailleurs, spahis and artillerymen. The goumiers had however proven so valuable as auxiliaries that they continued their dual roles as tribal police and combat troops.
Initially, the Moroccan Goums wore tribal dress with only blue cloaks as uniform items, but as they achieved permanent status they adopted the distinctive brown and grey striped jellaba 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.
World War I
The Moroccan Goumiers did not see service outside Morocco during the First World War, although the term was sometimes used for detachments of Algerian spahi irregulars employed in Flanders in late 1914. Their existence did, however, enable General Hubert Lyautey to withdraw a substantial portion of the regular French military forces from Morocco for service on the Western Front.Between the world wars
By 1924 twenty-seven Goum units were in the French service. They comprised mixed detachments of about three-quarters infantry and one-quarter cavalry. Together with partisan tribal irregulars the goumiers numbered about 10,000 men. French officers and NCOs continued to be seconded from regular units. Remaining separate from the regular Moroccan regiments of the French Armée 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.World War II
Four Moroccan groups served with 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 1942–1945. Goumier units were also used to man the front lines in mountainous and other rough terrain areas, freeing regular Allied infantry units to operate along more profitable axes of advance.North Africa 1940–1942
In May 1940, 12 Moroccan Goums were organized as the 1st Group of Moroccan Auxiliaries and used in combat against Italian troops operating out of Libya. After the armistice of 1940, the Goums were returned to Morocco. To evade strict German limits on how many troops France could maintain in North Africa, the Goumiers were described as having Gendarmerie-type functions, such as maintenance of public order and the surveillance of frontiers, while maintaining military armament, organization, and discipline.Tunisia, 1942–43
The 1st GSM fought on the Tunisian front as part of the Moroccan March Division from December 1942, and was joined by the 2nd GSM in January 1943.The 15th Army Group commander, British General Harold Alexander considered the French Moroccan Goumiers as "great fighters" and gave them to the allies to help them to take Bizerte and Tunis.
After the Tunisia Campaign, the French organized two additional groups and retitled the groups as Groupement de Tabors Marocains Each group contained a command Goum and three Tabors of three Goums each. A Tabor contained four 81-mm mortars and totalled 891 men. Each infantry Goum was authorized 210 men, one 60-mm mortar, two light machine guns, and seven automatic rifles.
Separate from the groups, the 14th Tabor did not participate in the fighting in Europe and remained in Morocco to keep public order for the remainder of the war.
Italy, 1943–1945
The 4th Tabor of Moroccan Goums fought in the Sicilian Campaign, landing at Licata on 14 July 1943, and was attached to the U.S. Seventh Army, commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton. The Goumiers of the 4th Tabor were attached to the U.S. 1st Infantry Division on 27 July 1943 and were recorded in the U.S. 26th Infantry Regiment's log files for their courage. Upon their arrival many Italian soldiers surrendered en masse, while the Germans began staging major retreats away from the known presence of Goumiers.The Italian campaign of World War II is perhaps the most famous and most controversial in the history of the Goumiers. The 4th Group of Moroccan Tabors shipped out for Italy in November 1943 and was followed in January 1944 by the 3rd Group, then reinforced by the 1st Group in April 1944.
A total of 73,000 Moroccans served in Italy during 1943-45. All were volunteers under the terms of the agreement establishing the Protectorate in 1912.
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 French Expeditionary Corps's attack, through the Aurunci Mountains during Operation Diadem, the fourth and final Battle of Monte Cassino. The corps was under the orders of General Alphonse Juin. "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' manoeuvre as the critical victory that finally opened the way to the Italian capital of Rome."
The U.S. Fifth Army commander, Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, also paid tribute to the Goumiers and the Moroccan regulars of the Tirailleur units:
During their fighting in the Italian Campaign, the Goumiers suffered 3,000 casualties, of which 600 were killed in action.