Moussa Dansako

Surrounded by his fellow soldiers, Corporal Moussa Dansako waited at the bottom of his sparsely fitted out trench for the order to go over the top. The autumn days on the plateau north of Verdun were freezing and the soldiers of the 36th Battalion of Senegalese Infantrymen felt the cold severely. What can these men from Senegal, Mali, Niger, Guinea, Burkina Faso or elsewhere have been thinking about? Their families? Their villages? Some of them would have thought of their sincere commitment to France, which at this time was having particularly dramatic consequences. Others, the majority, of the way they had been recruited, with threats or violence. Many, like Dansako, would have been asking themselves what they were doing there, in the cold and the mud, on 24 October 1916. The intensity of the explosions brought the corporal back down to earth. The attack was imminent.

At 11.40am, paralysed by cold and fear, Dansako and his fellow soldiers climbed over the parapet and dashed forward to meet their destiny. But after two hours, the advance was halted by enemy fire coming from Fausse-Côte Ravine. They were given the order to dislodge the German machine guns from their nests. There was fierce fighting, feet in the mud, under a hail of bullets, in the middle of the exploding grenades. In the commotion, Corporal Moussa Dansako demonstrated great courage. Four times in a row, despite being injured, he rescued wounded comrades, helping to transport them further back. In the afternoon, the regiment had fulfilled its mission. The ravine had been cleared. Of the 36th Battalion of Senegalese Infantrymen, 84 had been killed or wounded.

Dansako and his fellow soldiers were relieved during the night of 25 to 26 October 1916. They had contributed to the major offensive that enabled Fort Douaumont to be retaken.

His name was Moussa Dansako. Was he Malian, Senegalese, Nigerian, Guinean or Burkinabe? Had his name even been transcribed correctly by the French recruiters? It was as if his memory was lost in the fog of that day, the 24 October 1916. Over a hundred years later, his destiny has emerged from the mists of history.