
Charles Mangin (6 July 1866-12 May 1925) was a General of the French Army during World War I. He was nicknamed "the Butcher" for his poorly-planned and impetuous attacks, and his occupation of the German Rhineland in 1920 was infamous for his forcing of German mayors to provide brothels and women for his Senegalese soldiers.
Biography[]
Charles Mangin was born in Sarrebourg, France in 1866, and he went to the Saint-Cyr Military Academy before serving in the French Army in Sudan and Mali, learning the Bambara language of Mali and being wounded three times. From 1901 to 1904, he commanded a battalion in French Indochina, and he rose to command the Tenth Army at the Second Battle of the Marne during World War I. He was nicknamed "the Butcher" for his espousal of the belief in all-out war, and he won notable victories at Charleroi in 1914 and at the Battle of Verdun in 1916. Mangin believed that his Arab and black soldiers felt less pain than his white soldiers, and he presided over the mass recruitment of African troops. After the war, Mangin presided over the occupation of the Rhineland, which he sought to turn into a separatist republic which would deny the Germans the west bank of the Rhine and be pro-France. In 1920, he ordered German mayors to provide brothels for his Senegalese soldiers, and, when they protested his providing of German women for his Senegalese soldiers, he infamously replied, "German women are none too good for my Senegalese." He died in 1925, and, when the Germans occupied Paris in 1940 during World War II, they dynamited his statue in revenge for his racism.