heavy fighting in Morocco, reinforced by 9,000 additional Senegalese tirailleurs brought up from French West Africa. On the Western Front the served with distinction at Ypres and Dixmude during the Battle of Flanders in late 1914, at the Battle of Verdun in the recapture of Fort de Douaumont in October 1916, during the battle of Chemin des Dames in April 1917 and at the Battle of Reims in 1918. Losses were particularly heavy in Flanders (estimated from 3,200 to 4,800) and Chemin des Mains (7,000 out of 15,500 tirailleurs engaged). In 1915 seven battalions of were amongst the 24 infantry battalions the French sent to the Dardanelles as the Corps expéditionnaire d'Orient. Total French casualties in this campaign reached 27,000 but the Senegalese and regular Colonial Infantry were noted for the high morale that they maintained in spite of losses that reached two out of three in some units. The Senegalese tirailleurs particularly distinguished themselves in the attack during the initial French landings on the southern shore of the Dardanelles. After the withdrawal from the Dardanelles and the redeployment to the Macedonian front, further Senegalese battalions were deployed in this theatre of war. New recruitment drive French military policy towards the use of African troops in Europe changed in 1915. The French high command realized that the war would last far longer than they had originally imagined. They therefore authorized a major recruitment drive in West Africa. As a result, a further 93 Senegalese battalions were raised between 1915 and 1918, of which 42 saw service in France itself. The usual practice was to bring together battalions of white Colonial Infantry () and African Tirailleurs into . (Four such regiments were formed from the seven tirailleurs and five battalions of deployed at Gallipoli.)The harsh conditions of trench warfare were a particular source of suffering to the un-acclimatized African soldiers and, after 1914/15, the practice of hivernage was adopted: withdrawing them to the south of France for training and re-equipping each winter. In spite of their heavy losses in almost every major battle of the Western Front, the discipline and morale of the "Colonial Corps" remained high throughout the war. At the 90th anniversary commemorations of the battle of Verdun, then-president Jacques Chirac made a speech evoking the 72,000 colonial combatants killed during the war, mentioning the 'Moroccan infantry, the tirailleurs from Senegal, Indochina (Annam and Cochinchina), and the of the