History B357-Spang
Modern France: Society, Culture, Politics
22 October 2012
Modern Memory and the Great War
Ossuary and cemetery
Douaumont (near Verdun), Meuse
Battle of Verdun, Feb.-Dec. 1916
French forces commanded by General Philippe Pétain
German forces headed by General Erich von Falkenhayn
total dead: approx. 300,000 (nearly half left no known remains)
wounded: approx. 400,000
French illustrated newspaper from May 1916;
imagine what it looked like after seven more months of bombs
World War One in France: Introduction
. Verdun
World War One, August 1914-November 1918
Overall casualties:
10,000,000 military deaths
20,000,000 military seriously
wounded and disabled
As an average figure :
900 French soldiers killed,
1300 German every day
Cost: US $80,000 every minute
of the war (enough at the time
munitions plant in Aubervilliers (Paris suburb)
to pay rent on six-room house
for ten years)
World War One in France: Introduction
The GREAT War
United States in World War Two
• population: 131 million
• military war dead: 400,000
• military wounded: 670,000
France in World War One
• population: 40 million
• military war dead:1.4 million
• military wounded: 4 million
The Western Front, 1914-1918
Paris
Sources of World War One
Alliance System—meant to prevent
European conflict
nationalism in the Balkans; weakness
of Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires
glorification of war and militarism in
era of continental peace
“cult of the offensive”
“Give your gold for France. Gold is fighting
for victory” (French war loan poster, 1915)
France and the Alliance System, 1892-1914
1892 Alliance of France
and Russia
1904 Entente Cordiale
between France
and Great Britain
Origins of the War: International alliances meant to prevent war
Francis Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria,
leaving Sarajevo Town Hall in June 1914
Origins of the War: Reaction to assassination of Austrian Archduke by pan-Slavic nationalist
1815-1914: The Hundred Years’ Peace?
Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, 1792-1815
Crimean war, 1853-1856
Wars of German unification, 1864-1871
overseas expansion
“Death of the Spanish General in Morocco”
cover of illustrated supplement to
Petit Journal 13. Nov. 1893
“If this keeps up, I am going to kick you all out” (France to the protagonists in the Dreyfus Affair, 1898)
Origins of the War: War culture in a time of (comparative) peace
“In two weeks, we shall defeat France, and then we will turn around,
defeat Russia, march to the Balkans and establish order there”
—German Interior Minister, Friedrich Wilhelm von Loebell, 1914
Origins of the War: Past Experience (short wars and cult of the offensive)
French Mobilization in World War One
1914-1918
8.7 million Frenchmen mobilized (total population of 40 million)
-- approx. 300,000 from African colonies and Algeria
Experiences of war: men and mobilization
22 August 1914 - 27,000 French combat deaths
Aug.-Dec. 1914 - 300,000 French combat deaths
Reims (approx. 80 miles from Paris)
Reims Cathedral (1918)
Second Battle of the Marne
Experiences of war: death and destruction
Atrocities and Total (Propaganda) War
The Red Picture Book of
German Atrocities (1915)
L’Illustration, 29 August 1914 “How they fight a war”
les boches = the Huns
German postcard, 1915
Experiences of war: civilian victims
Barbarism and Civilization?
“Some Indian gentlemen coming to defeat
the German barbarians” (postcard labelled in French
and English)
Experiences of War: Can the barbarian be civilized?
African Army and Colonial Troops Days
New War and Old Weapons
C.R. Nevinson, Paths of Glory (1917)
Experiences of War: Trenches, Barbed Wire, Gas
Trench Warfare on the Western Front
Western Front approx. 475 miles long
25,000 miles of trenches
Army used 1000x more shovels annually
Sept. 1914-April 1917: Fifth French Infantry division
spent 60 days in active battle
“Studying French in the trenches,”
The Literary digest, 20 Oct 1917
Experiences of War: Trenches, Barbed Wire, Gas
France in the First World War
population: 40 million
•military war dead:1.4 million
•military wounded: 4 million
Anti-aircraft guns on the platform of the Eiffel Tower, 1916
Experiences of war: The Home Front
Post-war France
5 million acres of northern France ruined
60 feet blown off the height of one hill
near Verdun
1990—22 tons of unexploded
shells removed from département
of the Somme alone (approximate
size and location shown on map)
“Destroyed Village”
trenches, 2005
The War “after” the War: the Landscape
Memorials and Monuments
The War “after” the War: Monuments
Ossuary and cemetery
Douaumont (near Verdun), Meuse