This presentation will examine the experiences of North Africans in the French army made prisoners of war by Germany between 1914 and 1918. Some were deserters or chose to collaborate with the Central Powers after their capture, making use of their captivity to oppose France and its colonial rule over their homelands. Others resisted German and Ottoman entreaties to switch sides and take up arms against France, indicating through their words and behaviors the broad range of interests and calculations that lay behind individual choices. Many of these men negotiated a path between these two poles of behavior, for instance by volunteering to serve in the Ottoman army, only to desert at the first opportunity. Looming over German and Ottoman actions was the question of Islam and Muslim identity, since men were encouraged to follow their faith and join in the Ottoman “jihad” against the Entente powers, but often other factors—national and ethnic identities, personal interests, position in the colonial order, military or social status and rank, and many others—shaped the way these men acted in dangerous and uncertain contexts. Probing these matters is possible because of very rich archival resources in numerous repositories in Germany and France, which include not only military and intelligence records, but also original handwritten letters from the captives while in Germany, as well as other personal testimonies from individuals. Ultimately, the experiences of these men shed light on both the possibilities for and the limits to a verity of forms of resistance in military and colonial contexts in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe during the Great War.