Revolt broke out first in 1915, in the Western Sudan in the circle of Beledougou, located to the east of Bamako in an area inhabited by the Bambara peoples. … Subsequent analyses revealed that although hostility to recruitment was the immediate cause for the revolt, an overly zealous application of Ponty's circular on the poli- tique des races in the years preceding the war accounted for the chiefs' decision to turn against the French.

Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The …, loc. 511