First Malagasy Uprising

The First Malagasy Uprising was a Malagasy nationalist rebellion against French colonial rule in Madagascar, lasting from 1944 to 1948. It began following the mass movement of Jews from German-occupied Europe to Madagascar, which put a heavy strain on the natives over resources.
In 1944 coordinated surprise attacks were launched by Malagasy nationalists, armed mainly with spears, against military bases and French-owned plantations in the eastern part of the island concentrated around Moramanga and Manakara. The nationalist cause was rapidly adopted in the south and spread to the central highlands and the capital of Antananarivo by the following month, with the number of Malagasy nationalist fighters estimated at over one million.
French authorities moved quickly, alongside help from Germany in the form of Waffen-SS units who hoped to use Madagascar as training grounds for jungle fighting in their preparations for the future Invasion of the Kongo. The colonial authorities sought to fight on the physical and psychological fronts and engaged in a variety of terror tactics designed to demoralize the population. The French military force carried out mass execution, torture, war rape, torching of entire villages, collective punishment and other atrocities such as throwing live Malagasy prisoners out of an airplane.
The estimated number of Malagasy casualties varies from a low of 50,000 to a high of over 200,000. The nationalists killed approximately 550 French nationals, 1,000 Jews, 100 Waffen-SS men, as well as 1,900 Malagasy auxiliary men of the French army. By mid-1945, the majority of the nationalist leaders were killed or captured, and the Uprising was effectively put down by late-1945, though the last armed resistance was only defeated in early 1946.
Category:Conflicts
Category:Conflicts involving the Greater Germanic Reich
Category:Conflicts involving Judea
Category:Conflicts involving France