FROM THE EDITORS

Abstract

Editors of academic journals are confronted with choices and trade-offs.A wide variety of factors are influencing the choice of articles and themes for aparticular edition. Scientia Militaria, the South African Journal for Military Studies,is a journal with a particular focus and covers a wide spectrum of military-relatedtopics. As an academic discipline, Military Science, though, is characterised by itsinterdisciplinary nature. This interdisciplinary nature is once again demonstratedthrough the variety of articles in this particular edition.Prof. William Dean from the US Air Command and Staff contributed aninteresting article on morale among French colonial troops on the Western Frontduring the First World War. He pointed out that the traditional images of the FrenchArmy on the Western Front during the First World War have been that of thegrizzled yet determined French peasant or worker. However, recent researchportrays a different view of the French Army on the Western Front. Dean’s articleprovides an overview of the morale of the 600 000 men from across the Frenchempire who served in the frontline and in logistics units in France. Bringing thesecolonial soldiers to a foreign country and culture to fight in a new type of horrificwar was strenuous, while at the time perhaps not contentious. The article providesan impressionistic overview of the morale of these colonial forces in France. Theauthor argues conclusively that the French colonial empire paid a high price in thewar. The colonies were economically and demographically dislocated and thereturning colonial veterans of the First World War played a part in the growingnationalism of the inter-war years. Their experiences and views contributed towardsthe setting of the stage for post-1945 revolutions in the French empire.