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World War I and the reconstruction of the countryside
in Belgium and France: a historiographical essay
Dries Claeys <[email protected]>
Interfaculty Centre for Agrarian History (ICAG), University of Leuven
The consequences of the First World War were almost as dramatic for the rural landscape and
farmsteads as they were for the inhabitants of the war-torn countries.1 The plains of Western
Belgium and Northern France were the theatre of more than four years of industrial warfare. At
the end of 1918, more than 3,430,000 ha of land had been destroyed in Belgium and France
alone. 4926 French towns and villages and 866,844 dwellings and farmsteads had at least
partially to be rebuilt in France. The Belgian numbers were less impressive, but still 242
municipalities were adopted by their national government to complete the reconstruction of
some 100,000 public and private properties.2 And although the recovery of the countryside
seems to be completed quite fast in hindsight,3 inhabitants of the devastated regions complained
frequently about the (slowness and lack of quality of) work carried out by the state
organizations. Especially the Belgian Dienst der Verwoeste Gewesten [Devastated Regions
Service] and the Service des Travaux de Première Urgence [Emergency Works Service] in
France were held responsible by the so-called sinistrés. These were Belgian or French citizens
who suffered direct, material and certain war damages.4 Statesmen and civil servants defended
themselves, stressing that the restoration of the nation’s territory was a financial, technical and
organizational effort without precedent.
It is thus rather surprising that, while the restoring of the landscape brought forward
unprecedented financial transactions and building activities, rural historians have paid little
attention to this particular branch of First World War studies. Aspects related to food production
and consumption during and shortly after the war years have already been subjected to more
thorough research.5 However, in the slipstream of a renewed academic interest in the First
World War since the early 1990s, new research areas have come into the limelight. 6 The
reconstruction of the countryside during and after the First World War is one of those topics
that has gained academic and popular attention during the last three decades, especially in
France and Belgium. The reconstruction processes in these two countries were strikingly
similar, but little publications have yet clarified the situation in other war-torn areas (on the
Eastern Front and elsewhere).7 After a hesitating start in the 1980s, the approaching centenary
of the First World War and the availability of new source material certainly had a positive effect
on research activities during the 1990s and 2000s. Winter and Prost find a more structural
explanation in the cultural turn that has affected the humanities and social sciences from the
l980s on. They describe the third generation of Great War historiography as a product of a
general shift towards cultural history and a depreciation of the Marxist paradigm after the
collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Grand narratives and explanatory models
were replaced by micro-history and subjective experiences. According to both authors, military,
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political, social and economic histories of the First World War were influenced by this paradigm
shift, as were memory studies.8 The question whether research on the restoring of the post-war
countryside has equally been influenced by this turn towards culture, is thus a legitimate one.
The academic literature on the reconstruction of the rural landscape after the First World War
is embedded in a highly interdisciplinary tradition, which led to a heterogeneous ensemble of
publications from the 1980s on.9 In this historiographical essay, we give a first outline of this
relatively young field of study in Belgium and France.10 Research has been conducted along
three different lines: historians and other social scientists have researched the role of different
public and private actors in the reconstruction process, whereas (historical) geographers have
investigated the post-war recovery of the rural landscapes. Architects and art historians have
particularly concentrated on the rebuilding of rural dwellings and farmsteads in Belgium and
France. These three fields of inquiry have chiefly been based on common grounds, as most
scholars have stressed human agency and mentalities as determining factor to understand the
reconstruction of the Belgian and French countryside. The lack of homogeneous statistical data
further drove historians and geographers into more qualitative directions and away from
positivist methodologies.
1. KEY ACTORS
The restoring of the rural landscape was the work of many hands. Already during the war, the
French and Belgian governments were preparing the recovery of the devastated regions. The
Koning Albertfonds [King Albert Fund] was set up by the Belgian government as early as 1916
to foresee provisional housing for returning refugees. The year before, the government in exile
had issued a resolution that prohibited the devastated villages to make up alignment plans.11 A
similar law passed French parliament in 1919. This was also the year in which the French
Sinistrés Charter, that defined the compensation system, and the somewhat plagiarized Belgian
law of May 10th came into effect. The flows between the legislative bodies of the two countries,
however, are not yet disclosed. Non-governmental organizations also played an important role
in the restoration process. Local cooperatives defended the rights of the sinistrés, while farmer
unions did the same for the agricultural sector. Architects, contractors and building companies
tried to capitalize on the temporary rise of building activities. Historians generally agree that
the reconstruction of the rural landscape was interventionist in nature. But the question to what
degree state services controlled the restoration of the countryside remains open for
interpretation.
A first set of historical writings analyses the effect of government policy on the efficiency and
effectivity of the post-war restoration process. It is striking that this perspective looms large
within the modest Belgian historiography on the subject. One possible explanation is the greater
involvement of the Belgian Devastated Regions Service in permanent housing. As one of the
few Belgian writings solely devoted to the reconstruction of agriculture, Hortensius’s Citizens
and farmers: their goods, their cattle strongly emphasizes the importance of state policy on
three levels: taking care of the refugees, creating a system to provide war compensations and
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restoring legislative power in the devastated municipalities.12 In contrast to what the title
suggests, other actors such as the local governments and sinistrés are merely passive victims of
a “failed” state policy. The aforementioned King Albert Fund and the Belgian Minister of
Interior Jules Renkin in particular, are criticized for their inability to elaborate a good
restoration policy.13 However, this master’s thesis lacks the comparative or conceptual
framework to define what “good” restoration is.
This negative viewpoint is endorsed by Sven Carnel in his work on the reconstruction of NeuveEglise, a rural village just south of Ypres. Carnel examines to what extent the successive
Belgian governments managed to successfully restore the devastated regions. Two restoration
phases are distinguished. During the preparatory phase, lasting from 1918 to 1921, Belgian state
services held a hegemonic position in his analysis. Carnel portrays the provisional housing
policy by the King Albert Fund and the Ministry of Interior merely as patchwork. Permanent
reconstruction was carried out or influenced by an array of governmental and non-governmental
actors, who often frustrated each other. The political instability during the early 1920s and the
fact that Belgium, in contrast with France, did not have a Ministry of Liberated Regions, did
not encourage a quick restoration of the countryside either. Various restoration programs
existed simultaneously, for rebuilding activities as well as the restoring of the farming lands.
State services failed to provide provisional housing or to steer permanent restoration in the right
direction because of an underestimation of financial and organizational costs as well as the
agency of the sinistrés. The Rechtbanken voor Oorlogsschade [Restoration Courts] were
undermanned to deal with the thousands of compensation requests. Other actors, such as the
reconstruction cooperatives, architects and contractors rarely maintained cordial relations.
Unfortunately, Carnels reading of these private actors is rather superficial.14
Shifting away from this state centred perspective, much work deals with the discordant relations
between state services and the sinistrés. Jean-Marie Baillieul, for example, does not only have
an eye for the Belgian Devastated Regions Service or the Dienst voor het Herinrichten van de
Landbouw [Agricultural Reconstitution Office], but also for the local cooperatives in the
villages surrounding Ypres.15 For France, abundant and excellent work has been done by Hugh
Clout. As a professor in human geography, Clout is one of the first scholars to integrate the
restoration activities of both the French government and the sinistrés (who were organized in
reconstruction cooperatives). Nine articles examine the restoration processes in different
departments, with two publications having a broader geographical focus.16 For Clout, the
hardships of reconstruction do not only have to be sought in government policies, but rather in
the dialectic relationship between state and civilian services. State organizations nevertheless
remain the leading players, determining the chronological framework of the post-war
restoration period. More specifically, he distinguishes a rupture between the first few years of
emergency works (i.e. clearing and levelling of the land) and a recovery phase. During the
emergency phase, which already started during the war,17 most work was done by state agencies
and voluntary groups. While the Emergency Works Service was responsible for the clearance
of military equipment and the filling of trenches and shell holes, the Service de la Motoculture
[Motorized Agriculture Service] accounted for the preparation of land for cultivation. A third
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institution, the French Office de Reconstitution Agricole [Agricultural Reconstitution Office],
collected, repaired and distributed agricultural equipment. By the start of 1922, most work had
been handed over to private initiative. This is the start of what Hugh Clout describes as the
recovery phase. Since permanent reconstruction was not the responsibility of emergency
services, cooperatives now played a major role in the restoring of arable land and farmsteads.
This was also the case for architects, contractors and workers, who were assigned by
cooperatives or individual land owners.18 This is not to say that the state was completely absent,
since the legal and financial framework for reconstruction was largely set up by the Sinistrés
Charter and other national laws.19
This shift of the French state from a direct actor towards an indirect supervisor of the
reconstruction is also present in Véziats work on the reconstruction of the Aisne department.20
In convergence with Clout, Véziat has a more positive view on the reconstruction than Carnel
and Hortensius. He states that some modernizations ensued from post-war restoration, such as
the expansion and amelioration of the electricity grid, the improvement of settlement patterns,
land consolidation and the mechanization of agriculture. However, in the same breath he argues
that rationalization did not went too fast and fierce opposition from local populations sometimes
thwarted initiatives launched by state services. Successive governments therefore progressively
loosened their grip on the restoration process.21
Patrice Marcilloux implicitly disagrees with Clout and Véziat on the changing nature of state
interventionism. According to him, there was a shift from a night-watchman state towards a
providence state. This is especially the case after 17 April 1919, when the French government
worked out a legal framework for the sinistrés. Marcilloux looks at this “swelling of the state”
as a political answer to the organization of the sinistrés in cooperatives and the foundation of
other private associations. In their search for power, politicians tried to hold on to their
electorate through enacting laws that benefitted the inhabitants of the devastated regions. In this
sense, the post-war restoration laws were a leg up to the new social contract that took definitive
shape after 1945.22 Bedhome supports this viewpoint in his doctoral dissertation on the
reconstruction of the Chemin des Dames. Especially non-wealthy sinistrés had feelings of
resentment, since Bedhome claims that a (weak) linear correlation existed between the amount
of compensations and the sinistrés’ position on the social ladder.23 To defend the interests of
the latter, cooperatives were founded and formed a counterweight for the established regional
elite, what eventually caused a transformation of the pre-war social order.24
Thousands of reconstruction cooperatives were thus established in France and Belgium to
defend the interests of the local war victims. Cooperatives guided (non-wealthy) sinistrés
through numerous formalities, clustered demands for reconstruction, safeguarded members’
interests…25 Agricultural cooperatives defended the interests of the West Flemish farmers.26
Unfortunately, no research has been conducted on the ideological or socio-economic
backgrounds of the cooperatives’ members. Clout investigates the unequal spread of
cooperatives along the French front line and adopts a structuralist explanatory model. He
thereby discloses a dichotomy between the reconstruction process in Lorraine (and to a lesser
extent Artois and French Flanders) and other regions in Northern France. In the former regions,
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cooperatives found earlier acceptance. Clout attributes this to socio-cultural contrasts based on
religious observance, the decline of self-sufficient family farming, the subsequent market
orientation of agriculture and the local influence of trade unions.27 Delvits exposition throws
more light on the judicial status of the cooperative societies. Philippe Delvit draws the picture
of the cooperative societies as vital organizations for the restoration of the Northern French
villages, albeit they not always rightly represented their associates.28
In accordance with the third generation of First World War publications, scholars explore the
experiences of the sinistrés returning to their devastated home ground. Bedhome calls this a
société ruine that arose in reaction to the événement ruine: this society was composed of
sinistrés as well as other (public or private) actors that interacted to restore the French
devastated regions.29 Letters of refugees unravelled the desire to return to their home towns in
Northern France as quickly as possible. Once returned, feelings of despair and abandonment
led to a quasi-revolutionary attitude among a good part of them.30 Paradoxically, Lobry also
emphasizes the courage of the French sinistrés to take matters in their own hands. Amidst the
ruins they made a living for themselves, awaiting permanent reconstruction.31 Experiences of
French and Belgian returnees were strikingly similar. Baert estimates the number of refugees
(from the arrondissements of Ypres, Diksmuide and Veurne alone) on 150,000. At the end of
1920, approximately 90,000 inhabitants had turned back, although it has to be noticed that many
“Eastern” Belgians moved to the devastated regions to take over the farmlands of non-returning
owners or tenants. Like their French counterparts, the frustrated returnees did not await the
provisional housing of the state services and built their own shelters with all material available.
They also bravely started to clean, level and cultivate the surrounding land; permanent
rebuilding, however, only got under way some five years after the Armistice.32
Local mandatories have but sporadically been taken into account on this matter. As a
consequence, the role of mayors and other municipal and provincial representatives remains
somewhat unclear. For the Belgian case, Cornilly and Vandewalle make a praiseworthy attempt
to get these actors out of obscurity. Already during the war, local mandatories were entrusted
with tasks that were often too aggravating for the many small villages of West Flanders. After
the Armistice, municipal (and provincial) powers were curtailed by the introduction of the
Devastated Regions Service. Between 1922 and 1925, most municipalities and the province of
West Flanders regained full authorities, whereby the latter was responsible for the restoration
of public buildings. The authors conclude that mayors were merely puppets of the national
government, but nevertheless played an important role as contact persons for the sinistrés.33
Guislin examines the way in which French representatives and dignitaries fulfilled their
functions as mediators between the state and the sinistrés. Mayors, councillors of the devastated
arrondissements and parliamentarians employed various means to serve the devastated regions.
Cooperation between local representatives on horizontal and vertical scales were a matter of
course. Conservatives and leftists also used the parliamentary majority to impose their demands.
According to Guislin, electoral results show the successfulness of local representatives to
defend the rights of the sinistrés. This is true for right and left wingers, although they both had
a different (ideological) view on the restoration process.34
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Civil society organisations too tried to gain influence by participating actively in the restoring
of the countryside. The Belgische Boerenbond [Belgian Farmers’ Union] is a textbook example
here. Both from a humanitarian and an expansionist perspective, the catholic pressure group set
up the Dienst voor het Herstel van Westvlaanderen [Service for the Recovery of West
Flanders].35 This organisation advised local farmers and helped to restore farmsteads and land.
They gave advances to members and even had an own building service.36 How successful this
strategy to attract new members was, has yet to be discovered. The fact that many local branches
were erected in West Flanders shortly after 1918, can be interpreted as an indication of the
Farmers’ Unions’ growing influence. The remarkable growth of the French Union des Syndicats
Agricoles de l’Aisne [Union of Agricultural Syndicates of the Aisne (UASA)] during the early
1920s can also be explained by its participation in post-war reconstruction.37 Especially in the
regions where large agricultural exploitations were active, new cantonal syndicates were
established. Their aims were very similar to those of the Farmers’ Union, but the UASA did not
distribute advances nor intervene directly into the restoration of farmsteads. According to
Marival, they succeeded in diminishing state interventionism via protest actions and lobby
work. The Belgian Nationale Commissie ter Verfraaiing van het Landleven [National
Commission for the Embellishment of Rural Life (NCERL)] attempted to convince clients of
its traditionalist building principles. Like the Sociéte Centrale d’Architecture de Belgique
[Central Society for Belgian Architecture], the NCERL pleaded for a modern construction,
hygienic requirements and techniques, but a traditional outlook. Inspired by regional
architecture, they propagated their views on the embellishment of the countryside as an attempt
to halt the rural exodus.38 But in contrast to the previous interest groups, the NCERL seems to
have had little impact on post-war rebuilding activities.39
Due to the local conservatism and the political reluctance to force through far-reaching land
reallocations, only three Belgian villages were not straitjacketed in their pre-war settlement
pattern.40 Moreover, since the rebuilding of dwellings and farmsteads was left over to the
proprietors’ own discretion, architects and planners were generally overlooked and even
distrusted by segments of the rural dwellers of West Flanders. Architects themselves quarrelled
about supposed favouritism and the monopolisation of commissions. Few managed to make a
name for themselves during the restoration period.41 Cappronnier comes to the same
conclusions for France. According to him, this was a result of the weak institutionalisation and
appreciation of the architectural profession.42
The recovery of the former battlefields was partially accomplished by merit of domestic and
foreign non-profit organizations. Already during the war, charitable organizations were erected
to help the French and Belgian citizens in their primary needs. A well-known example is the
Comité Americain pour les Régions Dévastées [American Committee for Devastated France
(ACDF)], headed by the wealthy philanthropist Anne Morgan and operating under patronage
of the Ministry for Liberated Regions. Dopffer analyses the objectives and activities of this
organization. First, the ACDF devoted itself to the moral and social reconstruction of a handful
of villages in Aisne, by organizing feasts and opening refugee centres and small libraries.43 But
more importantly, the Committee distributed agricultural equipment, seeds for sowing and
cattle to French farmers. After the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line, more than 3000 ha
were brought back into cultivation as the ACDF was assisted by agricultural cooperatives and
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military services. Once the war was over, 10,000 ha in the cantons of Vic-sur-Aisne, Coucy-leChâteau, Anizy-le-Château and Soissons were again restored with the help of German prisoners
of war.44 Additionally, the ACDF promoted permanent reconstruction in seventy-seven
Axonian villages by training tractor drivers and supporting agricultural syndicates. 45 To what
extent international charity organizations were concerned about the Belgian post-war recovery
of the countryside, has not yet been investigated in depth.46
2. RURAL LANDSCAPES
Within a decade after 1918, most of the former front zone had been restored: roads and rivers
were reconstructed, forests replanted, farmland was brought back into cultivation. This was not
the case for the red zone in France. These were the areas where costs of restoration work
exceeded the land value and where afforestation thus had to take place. Because of fierce
opposition from local landowners, the red zone shrunk from 178,511 ha in 1918 to 48,820 ha
ten years later.47 In the Meuse department alone, 13,404 ha were to be afforested. In Belgium,
the state did not opt for afforestation. Under pressure of the local population, the pre-war rural
landscape did serve as an example for the post-war restoration.48 Land reallocation was rarely
carried out. Although land consolidation had been encouraged by the French government, only
120,050 ha had been reallocated by 1929.49 French farmers preferred a quick restoration of the
agricultural land: in 1928 90% of the pre-war arable land was again in use. Roads and villages
were restored by 1930, mostly reflecting their pre-war pattern.50 Neither in France nor in
Belgium, had the First World War thus brought forth a radical modernization of the rural
landscape. But some new elements, such as barbed wire and remaining shell holes, slightly
changed the outlook of the countryside.51
Roads were vital for the transport of food and building materials and therefore restored with
urgency. Military roads were soon applied for civil purposes. (Narrow-gauge) railroads were of
great importance for the same reasons.52 The restoration of the road system has only been
studied in depth for the Pas-de-Calais department. Berthonnets contribution stands midway
historical geography and business history. Besides the qualitative study of enterprises
specialized in road works, attention is given to the reconstruction of national, main and local
roads and structural works. Which human, financial and industrial capital was invested? Do we
speak about reconstitution or modernization? As soon as the war was over, the French Ministry
of Public Works assumed to recover the entire road network of Pas-de-Calais at the expense of
the National Treasury. More than three-quarters of the national roads, two-thirds of main roads
and half of local roads were ravaged; 355 bridges had to be repaired. These destructions did not
prompt an alteration of the pre-war street pattern. During the early 1920s, restoration delayed
because of a shortage of manpower and raw materials. This led to skyrocketing prices:
construction costs sextupled between 1914 and 1927. Scarcity of money hindered the
mechanization of building activities. On the other hand, the increasing specialization of
enterprises and the emergence of motorized traffic stimulated new techniques and surfaces
capable to support modern vehicles.53
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Historians and geographers have been interested in the restoring of the agricultural landscape.
In West Flanders alone some 100,000 ha of arable land had to be brought back into cultivation,
which corresponded to an estimated cost of 1.4 billion Belgian francs.54 In France, the Ministry
of Liberated Regions estimated the wartime damage of farmland at 3.5 million hectares.55
Temporary research confirms that the restoration of arable land was the result of interplay
between state services and the sinistrés, as was the case in other reconstruction works. Carnel
describes how Belgian state services coordinated the restoration of the rural economy directly
as well as indirectly. The latter was done by granting premiums and organizing contests to
repair farmland or build (provisional) constructions. Local agriculturalists gathered in farmers’
guilds to take part in these competitions, which on their turn organized themselves to form the
Landbouwverbond der Verwoeste Streek van West-Vlaanderen [Agricultural Federation of
Devastated Flanders]. Carnel argues that the Belgian Ministry of Agriculture saw the sinistrés
as entrepreneurs, contracting them to restore their own lands single-handedly. The Belgian
government, however, provided in the possibility to hand over the land to the state
(temporarily), but this course was rarely followed.56 In France, three state services were
established to restore the devastated regions. While the Emergency Works Service cleared up
and levelled the former battle zone, the Motorized Agriculture Service and the Agricultural
Reconstitution Office were involved in reclamation and cultivation activities.57 In both
countries, these preparatory works were carried out for the most part by the end of 1921.
In 1919, the Service de la Reconstitution Foncière [Service for the Reconstitution of Landed
Property] was established in France to promote and execute land consolidation. Clout states
that local farmers irrationally eschewed reallocation, so only 441 consolidation schemes were
embraced by 1929, with the Somme containing two-fifths of what was achieved.58 These
findings were later shared by the late history professor Gilbert Noël and some five of his
students at the Artois University. Unfortunately, these writings lack a comparative or theoretical
background that would have given more insight into the abundance of qualitative and
quantitative information. In their studies on the agricultural reconstruction of Pas-de-Calais,
they stress the resistance of the local proprietors to reallocate the fragmented farmlands. The
conservative attitude and the emotional attachment of small farmers to the ancestral farmlands
are cited as the main reasons for the restoration of the old parcel structure.59 This was certainly
the case in regions with a high demographic pressure.60 Moreover, some farmers feared that the
newly allocated land would be of inferior quality. Lacking a long-term vision, they preferred to
restore their exploitations in their pre-war form.61 So in the post-war years, state services did
not succeed to improve the structure of the many small-scale exploitations. Only nine
municipalities had opted for a partial or full reallocation by 1922 and three others stood in the
queue to undergo remembrement the next year. In total, land reallocation occurred in thirteen
municipalities and covered just 2750 ha. According to Trupin, the reconstitution fitted in with
nineteenth century agriculture, when small and medium-sized farms dominated the rural
economy.62
The reconstruction of the arable land elaborated on the pre-war trend away from cereal
production in favour of dairying.63 In his master’s thesis on the agricultural reconstruction of
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Cambrin, Kukula argues that as early as 1922, cereal production reached pre-war levels.64 This
corresponds with Clouts more general statement that the surface of arable land peaked that year
to decrease slightly during the 1920s.65 Research for other cantons confirms this evolution.66 In
the immediate aftermath of the war, in absence of a performant transport and commercial
system, local food supply was indeed vital. Most crops had equalled pre-war figures by 1925.
This was the case for sugar and fodder beets as well as for potatoes. Vegetables like beans,
(green) peas and lentils increased in popularity. On the contrary, areas of industrial harvests
like tobacco and flax shrunk after the First World War. Pasture surfaces increased during the
1912-1928 period, but the restoration of livestock passed off difficultly.67 The dissertations
unanimously show that the post-war reconstruction of arable land and pastures merely reflected
evolutions that had started before 1914. The tentative mechanization and rationalization of
Northern French agriculture were, according to Noël, not a consequence of the will of the
farmers to modernize, but an answer to the shortage of manpower and the (alleged) need for a
quick restoration.68
Surprisingly little research pays attention to the evolution of other landscape elements. Given
the enormous devastation of the rural landscape after the First World War, much work has still
to be done to unravel how the countryside was restored. Were drainage systems modernized?
Were farmsteads banned outside the village centres? Did the spread of barbed wire as a fence
material meant the end of tree and hedgerows as an integral part of the rural landscape? Heyde
gives us a clue with regard to this last question. His research applies to the bocage landscape of
the Ypres region. This southern part of Maritime Flanders was particularly woody in the eve of
the First World War: spinneys, orchards and trees and hedges bordering the farmlands defined
the landscape’s image.69 Heyde’s detailed examination of the restored landscape elements at
the domains of the noble family De Gheus d’Elzenwalle suggests excessive similarities with
the pre-war outlook. Coppice with standards, orchards and pollard trees were mostly replanted
as before. But some subtle changes were implemented. Elms were replanted to a larger extent
than before the First World War, replacing other varieties such as ashes. 70 Barbed wire was
almost systematically preferred to hedgerows as a fence material. Heyde points to the legal
principle of “reinvestment”, which took the pre-war value of goods as the basis for
compensation, as the main reason for this conservative restoration of small landscape
elements.71
Heavy bombardments and explosions had reshaped the battle zones in France and Belgium
beyond recognition. While in densely populated Flanders a state-led afforestation was never
seriously considered, the French Génie Rural [Agricultural Engineering Corps] was ordered to
define a red zone with lands that were deemed too mutilated for restoration.72 Despite several
revisions during the 1920s, the greening of the red zone in Northern France led to an increase
of the wooded surface by 11,527 hectares.73 The question for the underlying dynamics of
afforestation occupies centre stage in publications on the red zone. Amat adopts the concept of
sylvosystems for his biogeographical analysis of the forestation of the front region.
Sylvosystems are forest ecosystems adapted and administered by humans, for civilian as well
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as military purposes. It underlines the limits of human ability to shape the post-war landscape,
since the natural dynamism of pioneering vegetal groups preceded the afforestation works of
the Ministry of Liberated Regions. The forests around Verdun, for example, were influenced
by legal, economic and biogeographical factors. These elements created three complementary
sylvosystems. The sylvicultural sylvosystem responded to existing social and economic needs,
while a military sylvosystem administered by the French military was mainly aimed at the
protection of the French borders. A polemological sylvosystem developed after 1918 by an
interplay between natural dynamics and the human redevelopment of the devastated regions.74
Amat contends that not only demographic evolutions, but natural forces as well, influenced the
delimitation of the latter. This brought about a dual redevelopment of the red zone, whereby
some 4000 ha in Meuse were restored and eventually resold by the state and 14,000 ha were to
be afforested by the Administration des Eaux et Forêts [Waters and Forests Service].75 Land
pressure was higher in Pas-de-Calais, where the red zone shrunk drastically from 26,409 ha in
1919 to 484 in 1927. A total of 200 ha were eventually reforested; other lands were brought
back into cultivation or were ceded to the Canadian government.76
The supply of wood for military purposes jeopardized national wood resources. In France, an
estimated 36.2 million solid metres of timber and firewood were sawn during the First World
War. According to Puyo, overexploitation in German-occupied areas ravaged some 350,000 ha
of wooded surface.77 In Belgium, almost 11,500 ha of public forest were abusively exploited
by the German occupier, whereas 10,500 ha of private woods were deforested or destroyed
during the war years.78 Approximately one million solid metres of cut wood was registered by
the Commissie voor Herstel [Reparations Commission].79 From the Versailles Treaty in which
Germany committed itself to compensate for war damages, public forests were restored almost
completely by 1927. This cannot be said for the private forests, which never reached their prewar levels. Lagging compensations are certainly a part of the explanation for this delay. Tallier
even suggests that Belgium’s successful territorial claims on the woody Eupen-Malmedy region
were, among other things, founded on the wish to restore the national forest patrimony.80
Other historical geographers incorporate the physical and symbolic elements of the replanted
forests. Following Nora’s seminal work on French lieux de mémoire, historians have been
interested in the (socially constructed) meanings of the forests of the red zone. Unlike
biogeographical publications, human agency here predominates over biological or demographic
explanatory models. Conflicting visions on the permanence of the red zone were key for its
delimitation and ultimately for the outlook of the post-war rural landscape. While the Ministry
of Liberated Regions opted to permanently abandon agriculture in the red zone for financial
reasons, farmers wanted to revise the peremptory character of the delimitation. In opposition to
the patrimonial discourse developed by certain cantonal councillors, farmers and local
representatives managed to scale down the red zone of Chemin des Dames in the course of the
1920s. In the end, only 574 ha were transferred to Waters and Forests Service to be integrated
in the national forest of Vauclerc. In contrast with the situation in Meuse, the forests of Aisne
indeed did not become places of remembrance.81 This was first of all due to the negative image
of the Chemin des Dames as a place of mutiny.82 Buridant and Marival also attribute the
unsuccessful rehabilitation of Aisne’s red zone as a site of memory to the wish of the local
population to erase the traces of the First World War. In their blind obsession for reconstruction,
10
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farmers trivialized the former battlefield, whereas afforestation similarly had its part in the
occultation of memory. Paradoxically these Axonian woodlands are now hailed as preservers
of physical remnants of the First World War, which is the exact opposite of their initial
meaning.83
3. FARMSTEADS AND RURAL DWELLINGS
The tabula rasa created by the First World War provided a unique opportunity for architects
and planners to construct model towns and farmsteads. Architectural historians have been
interested in this reconstruction architecture from the 1980s on. This might be explained by the
general revival of First World War studies. Adding to this, Smets points out that the
simultaneous decline of modernism as the dominant architectural style allowed an impartial
appreciation of regionalism.84 During the same period, postmodernism deconstructed
(regionalist) architecture as a social construction. Bekaert notes that postmodern critics on
modernist architecture paralleled the regionalist negation of Modernism sixty years earlier.
Both approaches repudiate its self-proclaimed ability to construct a new society without
considering the past. Instead, history is looked upon as a tool box, which contains all tools to
re-construct towns and cities.85 During the interwar years, this toolbox was used by policy
makers, local representatives and other stakeholders to restore towns and villages in conformity
with their ideas and interests.86 Two questions have frequently been asked in this context. How
were dwellings and farmsteads reconstructed after the First World War? And why were they
the way they did? It should nevertheless be remarked that the rebuilding of farmsteads has all
too often been overlooked, as one has favoured the study of the restoration of monumental
buildings such as churches, town halls and other landmarks. Still, the works mentioned below
are of great value due to their innovative method to integrate the regionalist debate within the
framework of the post-war reconstruction.
Probably the first work on the rebuilding of houses after the First World War was published by
Jean-Marie De Busscher in 1983. It is noticeable that he adopts a transnational perspective,
taking into account Belgian as well as French reconstruction processes. For those two countries,
De Busscher examines the spirit of the age of which the “war damage architecture” was a
reflection. Architecture is quite simply considered as a cultural product of the interwar years. It
is argued that the architecture of reconstructed buildings answered to the broader social
evolutions of the time. The strict separation of residential buildings and stables, for example,
mirrors the then concern with hygiene. Following from this line of argument, reconstruction à
l’identique is unmasked as a creative process. Pre-war buildings were not copied, but slightly
adjusted to new aesthetic, comfort and technical requirements. Moreover, regionalist references
to the pre-war townscapes supported the widespread wish to forget the atrocities of war.87
Unlike other authors, De Busscher states that (young) modernists and regionalist architects
never profoundly debated on post-war reconstruction, since emotional arguments
predominated. The presence of other social actors marginalized the role of architects. As a
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consequence, the “reconstitution-reconstruction”, as he names it, lacked an underlying theory
and was neither a return to traditional architecture, nor a modernist project.88
Echoing the influential Berkeley School of geography, whether conscious or not, Cappronnier
and Delorme emphasize the importance of regional culture and geography for the architectural
outlook of farmsteads.89 Medieval monastery farms, reorganized during the nineteenth century,
characterized Aisne prior to 1914. After the first months of battle, plans were already made to
rebuild these farms in a more rational, hygienic and prestigious manner. Case studies of various
farm types in different regions led to the conclusion that rationalization occurred more
frequently in larger farms. Nonetheless, floor plans were inspired mainly on pre-war
settlements. The authors therefore conclude that the reconstruction of farmsteads suggests large
cultural stability. According to him, this inertia was fuelled by the parsimonious application of
hygienist prescriptions and the preoccupation with a quick rather than an innovative
reconstruction.90
Other scholars search for particular meanings and ideologies represented by the reconstructed
buildings. Regionalist architecture does not reflect the spirit of the age or geological and cultural
environments, but incorporates power relations, interests and preferences.91 This becomes clear
when one looks at the German initiatives to rebuild Flemish towns destroyed during the early
months of the war. The German reconstruction policy fitted well within the Flamenpolitik that
intended to tighten the socio-cultural bonds between Dutch-speaking Flanders and Germany.
This was done by promoting regionalist architecture from the 17th and 18th centuries, when
German and Brabantian culture were most closely related. At the same time, the German
occupier tried to purge oneself of its barbarian image that it had received during its destructive
march through Belgium. Economic motives played a role as well: building enterprises from
Germany were hired to restore roads and buildings.92 Cortjaens examines how German
architects were quick to promote their regionalist visions on town planning. Their concern with
traditional architecture has to be linked with the then-current Heimatschutz, the preservation of
historic landscapes. However, very few reconstruction plans were eventually realized. The everchanging situation on the front, logistic and administrative difficulties all had a negative impact
on the German initiatives.93
When the war ended in November 1918, almost all destructed dwellings in Belgium still had to
be rebuilt. Regionalism soon became the quasi-official ideology of reconstruction. Meganck,
Van Santvoort and De Maeyer consider the versatility of the regionalist concept to fully grasp
its predominance during the post-war years.94 First of all, it ensured continuity within a
modernizing and rapidly changing society. Meganck deepens our understanding of how
architects conceived regionalism as a way to restore the nation’s identity. Restoring regional
architecture for patriotic purposes was not regarded paradoxical, since it was generally agreed
among architects that regional climate, soil and mentalities had to be respected. At the same
time, architects employed regionalism as a tool to subtly introduce modern standards of hygiene
and economics and as a starting point to deal with the aesthetics of rural buildings as an object
of study in itself.95 This confirms regionalisms strategic role in toning down modernity to
acceptable levels. The rebuilding of Zonnebeke gives us an example of how modernist
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reconstruction projects were confronted with resistance. After Huib Hoste was assigned to
rebuild this rural village near Ypres, his ambitious plans were gradually downturned by the
municipal council, the local priest and the inhabitants, adjusting the modernist outlook of public
buildings to “acceptable” levels. For them, Hoste’s designs were too different from the pre-war
outlook of the village.96 Other architects, such as Raphaël Verwilghen, Jules Coomans and Jozef
Viérin, did subscribe a regionalist rebuilding. After the First World War, regionalism was also
conveyed as a means to force through political and ideological thoughts. In Zemst, a village
north of Brussels, regionalist architecture was not objected by the actors involved. The Oeuvre
Suisse Belge, which supplied practical and financial aid, rebuilt a couple of farmsteads in
picturesque style. Various pressure groups also tried to gain influence through participation in
the post-war reconstruction activities.97 Intermediary organization linked material-physical and
ideal-mental discourses. Promoting more comfortable, rational and hygienic housing, catholic
pressure groups hoped to create a bigger attachment of agricultural families with their dwellings
and the creation of a rural pride that could form a counterweight for the ever-growing
urbanization.98 Nevertheless, most farmsteads were reconstructed by the farmers themselves,
within the framework set up by the Administration. This was generally seen as the best solution
to balance the individual right to reconstruct private properties with the principle of national
solidarity.
The rebuilding of dwellings and farmsteads in France already started in 1917, when the German
Army retreated to the Hindenburg Line and consequently left 1223 villages in allied hands.
Professional planners and architects gradually institutionalized their influence in official state
services such as the Comité Interministériel pour la Reconstruction [Interministerial
Reconstruction Committee]. Most architects preferred a reconstruction that was engrafted onto
the pre-war outlook of the destroyed villages. Standardization and foreign influences had to be
avoided whatever the cost.99 However, recent publications on the regionalist debate have
unanimously revised the modernist discourse on regionalism as retrogressive architecture.
Regionalist architects indeed acknowledged the importance of modern building materials such
as concrete and reckoned with contemporary functional or hygienic standards. New building
techniques changed the traditional rural architecture profoundly and contributed to the
uniformity of the rural landscape. Voldman explains the ambiguity of regionalism as the wish
to forget the war without ignoring the post-war force de vie.100 But why have different actors
identified themselves with regionalism? According to Mihail, architects strategically set
themselves up as defenders of both tradition and technical innovations. He even goes further to
argue that most reconstruction projects after 1918 were utilitarian in nature. This variant of
regionalism, which he labels traditionalism, was not so much preoccupied with a thorough
reconstruction of past architecture; form was secondary to technical and economic imperatives.
For Mihail, traditionalist architecture was an integral part of a reconstruction process that served
the ideological and economic interests of the mainly conservative elite of Nord. The recovery
of the landscape had to lessen the attractive power of the (industrialized) cities and restore the
pre-war social order.101 Furthermore, regionalist reconstruction was equalled with the
restoration of French national identity. Doucet states that in Lorraine, the architectural diversity
that drew on the pre-war outlook of towns reinforced regional identity. Gothic and Romanesque
buildings referred to Lorraine’s golden ages. This was also the case in French Flanders. 102 But
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regionalist building plans were eventually downplayed by the returning sinistrés. Like in
Belgium, dwellings were for the most part restored by private owners themselves. The local
Northern French population had its own priorities; a quick restoration was preferred over
stylistic issues. Together with the economic reality of the time, architects had to give up at least
a part of their regionalist ideals.103 To what degree regionalist guidelines have eventually
influenced the restoration of farmsteads, is still an open question.104
4. CONCLUSIONS
The growing scholarly interest in the reconstruction of the countryside in France and Belgium
during and after the First World War has firmly been imbedded in the cultural turn that affected
First World War studies from the 1980s on. Historians have increasingly put mentalities,
particular interests and feelings of public and private actors at the basis of the reconstruction
process. Belgian and French sinistrés themselves desired a quick restoration of their homeland
and participated actively to obtain this goal. They formed local cooperatives to make their
voices heard and to lower the barrier for legal and financial aid. Foreign charity organizations,
such as the ACDF provided financial and technical assistance. This also applied for pressure
groups, who had a double agenda. Charitable motives were certainly present, but a strategic
undertone was never far away. The Belgian Farmers’ Union, for example, saw their
participation in the restoration of West Flanders as a unique opportunity to gain a foothold in
this peripheral Belgian province.
Historians and geographers seem to agree that the rural landscape was restored with only minor
revisions. When the Armistice put an end to the war on 11 November 1918, local inhabitants
returned to the devastated regions and started to clean, level and cultivate their home grounds.
The red zone in France, which was first deemed too devastated for reconstruction, shrunk from
178,000 ha in 1918 to 48,820 ha in 1927. While restoring the farmlands of Belgium and
Northern France, local farmers did not have much attention for the modernization of the
countryside. Land reallocations and the rationalization of settlement patterns were rarely carried
out. Especially in Belgium, the population density precluded drastic land reforms, so pre-war
landscape transformations persisted. Other driving forces had an impact too. Cheap imports of
grain caused a shift towards dairying and horticulture, while the rise of motorized traffic
demanded for broadened roads and the expansion of the electricity grid brought about landscape
transformations as well.
The rebuilding of farmsteads and rural dwellings has mainly been investigated within the
framework of the regionalist debate, although few publications have entirely been dedicated to
the reconstruction of farmsteads. Architects and art historians have emphasized regionalism as
a multifaceted concept, serving not only as a counterweight and facilitator for modernity but
also as a means to construct national identity. They thereby revised modernists’ claim that
regionalism was a retrograde ideology. Regionalist architecture indeed integrated a
traditionalist outlook of farmsteads with modern hygienic, comfort and technical standards.
This contributed to the (Catholic) conservative agenda to call the rural exodus to a halt.
Moreover, reconstruction à l’identique supported the widespread wish of the local populations
to forget about the atrocities of war and go on with their lives.
14
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Without underestimating the value of this mainly qualitative research, the call for a
quantification of the reconstruction process is pertinent. The application of alternative sources,
such as aerial photographs, topographic maps and cadastral documents, can complement the
available quantitative material. It also allows to study the recovery of previously overseen
landscape elements such as pools or waterways. The integration of quantitative and qualitative
analyses can create an explanatory model that provides more insight into the correlation
between post-war landscape transformations and the underlying driving forces. On the one
hand, this might be done by adopting a micro-perspective and integrating the conclusions within
the existing literature on the topic. On the other hand, the reconstruction process might be
placed within a broader historical and geographical framework. Putting the Belgian and French
reconstruction processes in a transnational perspective could give refreshing views on the
material, capital and knowledge flows between these two countries (and other areas in Eastern
Europe and elsewhere).
1
We use the concepts ‘countryside’ and ‘rural landscape’ as synonyms, referring to a physical entity that
contrasts with townscapes and cityscapes.
2
With reconstruction, we mean the material recovery, whether identical or not, of buildings and other
landscape elements during and after the First World War. Thus the term reconstruction does not exclude
modernization, rationalization and adaption of pre-war real property. Hugh Clout, “Restoring the Ruins: The
Social Context of Reconstruction in the Countrysides of Northern France in the Aftermath of the Great War,”
Landscape Research 21, no. 3 (1996): 214-215, doi:10.1080/01426399608706489; Hugh Clout, After the Ruins:
Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996),
280; Georges Smets, “Les Régions Dévastées,” in La Belgique Restaurée. Etude Sociologique, ed. Ernest Mahaim
(Brussels: Maurice Lamertin, 1926), 102-107; Smets, “Les Régions Dévastées,” 116–117.
3
At the end of the 1920s, almost all reconstruction work had been done in France. 96% of private buildings
were restored by 1931, whereas 90% of arable land was in cultivation as early as 1928. For more information,
see for example Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 280–
281 or Hugh Clout, “La Grande Reconstruction: Un Itinéraire Personnel,” in Les Reconstructions En Picardie, ed.
Anne Duménil and Philippe Nivet (Amiens: Encrage, 2003), 171.
4 We prefer the French term over its unsatisfying English equivalent war victims.
5
A concise bibliography on this topic is available for Belgium on: Yves Segers, Leen Van Molle, and Bert
Woestenborghs, “Oriënterende Bibliografie Geschiedenis van Landbouw, Platteland En Voeding (19de en 20ste
Eeuw België),” n.d., http://www.hetvirtueleland.be/bronnen/bibliografie/#3.2.12.
6
Heather Jones, “As the Centenary Approaches: The Regeneration of First World War Historiography,” The
Historical Journal 56, no. 3 (2013): 857–878, doi:10.1017/S0018246X13000216.
7
For this essay, we restricted ourselves to an overview of academic publications written in English, French and
Dutch. No literature has been found on the recovery of the countryside along the Eastern Front or elsewhere.
8
Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Winter now observes the emergence of a fourth transnational
generation of World War I historiography in Jay Winter, The Legacy of the Great War: Ninety Years On
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2009), 6-17.
9
Contemporary (i.e. interwar) publications of politicians, architects or scholars are not included. These works
mostly lack the scientific methodology present in recent publications on the post-war reconstruction.
10
This overview draws on and rounds out a set of six recent historiographies on the First World War and/or
modern agricultural history: Jean-Pierre Jessenne and Dominique Rosselle, “Agriculture et Société Rurale En
France Du Nord Du XVIe Siècle Au Milieu Du XXe Siècle. Orientations Bibliographiques,” Revue Du Nord 375376, no. 2 (2008): 335–348, doi:10.3917/rdn.375.0335; CRID, “Bibliographie et Recensions,” n.d.,
http://www.crid1418.org/bibli/; Erik Thoen and Leen Van Molle, eds., Rural History in the North Sea Area. An
Overview of Recent Research (Middle Ages - Beginning Twentieth Century) (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers,
15
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2006); Brecht Demasure, Boeren, Boter En Bezetters (Leuven: Interfaculty Centre for Agrarian History, 2013);
Sofie De Caigny et al., Het Gekwetste Gewest: Archievengids van de Wederopbouw-Architectuur in de Westhoek
(Antwerpen: Centrum Vlaamse Architectuurarchieven, 2009); Pierre-Alain Tallier and Sven Soupart, België En
de Eerste Wereldoorlog: Bibliografie. Deel 2 (werken Uitgegeven van 1985 Tot 2000) (Brussels: Royal Museum
of the Armed Forces and Military History, 2001).
11
Koen Baert, “Wonen in de Verwoesting. Omstandigheden En Getuigen,” in Bouwen Aan Wederopbouw
1914/2050: Architectuur in de Westhoek, 2009, 22; Jeroen Cornilly and Chris Vandewalle, “Onzichtbare
Pleitbezorgers. Tussen Bewoners En Hogere Overheden,” in Bouwen Aan Wederopbouw 1914/2050:
Architectuur in de Westhoek, 2009, 54.
12
Lambertus Hortensius, “Burgers, Boeren. Hun Goed, Hun Vee. De Frontstreek Na 1914-1918.” (Universiteit
Gent, 1989). Except for the master’s theses of Hortensius and Baillieul, few historical studies on the
reconstruction of the countryside have been conducted. Given the scarcity of Belgian publications on the
subject, we incorporated these theses in our historiographical overview.
13
While the King Albert Fund did not manage to provide sufficient provisional houses for the returning
population, Jules Renkin was blamed by Hortensius for his improvised policy that was too expensive and
discourages private initiative. (Ibid. 95-98 and 121-125.)
14
Sven Carnel, La Reconstruction Des Regions Dévastées Après La Première Guerre Mondiale: Le Cas de NeuveEglise (Brussels: States Archives of Belgium, 2002).
15
Jean-Marie Baillieul, “Problematiek Omtrent de Wederopbouw van België Na de Eerste Wereldoorlog: casus
Ieper en Omgeving (1918-1924)” (Universiteit Gent, 1976).
16
Hugh Clout studies the reconstruction of the countryside in the following departments : Hugh Clout, “Rural
Revival in the Pas-de-Calais after the Great War,” in Géographie Historique et Culturelle de l’Europe, ed. JeanRobert Pitte (Paris: Paris-Sorbonne University Press, 1995), 189–207; Hugh Clout, “Reconstructing the
Countryside of the Eastern Somme after the Great War,” Erdkunde 48, no. 2 (1994): 136–149; Hugh Clout,
“Rural Revival: The Recovery of Moselle after World War I,” Modern and Contemporary France 2, no. 4 (1994):
395–403, doi:10.1080/09639489408456200; Hugh Clout, “War and Recovery in the Countryside of NorthEastern France: The Example of Meurthe-et-Moselle,” Journal of Historical Geography 23, no. 2 (1997): 164–
186, doi:10.1006/jhge.1996.0049; Hugh Clout, “Rural Reconstruction in Aisne after the Great War,” Rural
History 4, no. 2 (1993): 165–185, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0956793300000273; Hugh Clout, “Devastation
and Reconstruction in the Countryside of Nord Département 1914-1930,” in Recherches de Géographie
Humaine: Hommage Au Professeur Charles Christians, ed. Jean-Paul Donnay et al. (Liège: Geographical Society
of Liège, 1996), 35–43; Hugh Clout, “Rural Reconstruction in Meuse after World War I,” Acta Geographica
Lovaniensia 28 (1992): 599–607; Hugh Clout, “Devastation and Reconstruction in the Countryside of Ardennes
Department,” Annales de Normandie 46, no. 3 (1996): 381–398, doi:10.3406/annor.1996.4738; Hugh Clout,
“Rural Revival in Marne, 1914-1930,” Agricultural History Review 42, no. 2 (1994): 140–155. A regional focus is
used in Hugh Clout, “The Revival of Rural Lorraine after the Great War,” Geografiska Annaler. Series B Human
Geography 75, no. 2 (1993): 73–91, doi:10.2307/490701; Hugh Clout, “La Reconstruction de La Campagne Au
Nord de La France, 1918-1930,” Hérodote. Revue de Géographie et de Géopolitique 74/75 (1994): 111–126;
Hugh Clout, “La Reconstruction Rurale En Picardie,” in Reconstructions En Picardie Après 1918 (Arras: Réunion
des Musées Nationaux, 2000), 116–125.
17
Clout, “Rural Revival in the Pas-de-Calais after the Great War,” 203.
18
Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 107, 122, 145, 207210 and Clout, “War and Recovery in the Countryside of North-Eastern France: The Example of Meurthe-etMoselle,” 173-177.
19
Clout regards this law as a compromise between the individualism of the sinistrés and the economic and
financial capacities of the French government. Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern
France after the Great War, 180.
20
Emmanuel Véziat, “La Reconstruction Dans Le Département de l’Aisne Après La Grande Guerre,” Fédération
Des Sociétés d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de l’Aisne: Mémoires 46 (2001): 179.
21
Véziat, “La Reconstruction Dans Le Département de l’Aisne Après La Grande Guerre.”
22
Patrice Marcilloux, “Le Défi Administratif: Entre Interventionnisme, Contrôle et Efficacité,” in La Grande
Reconstruction. Reconstruire Le Pas-de-Calais Après La Grande Guerre, ed. Eric Bussière, Patrice Marcilloux, and
Denis Varaschin (Arras: Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais, 2002), 48–52.
23
Stéphane Bedhome, “Reconstruire Le Chemin Des Dames” (Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier III, 2012),
128–131. Bedhome sketches four possible explanations for the unequal distribution of reinvestment
coefficients: the attribution date, the degree of devastation of the personal and real properties, the building
type and the social status of the sinistrés. Since the first three variables had no effect, Bedhome concludes that
16
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social status was the only reasonable explanation for unequal coefficients. However, many other elements
might play a part in these disparities: the cost of building materials, the quality of the pre-war goods…
24
Ibid., 257.
25
Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 209–210.
26
Cornilly and Vandewalle, “Onzichtbare Pleitbezorgers. Tussen Bewoners En Hogere Overheden,” 66.
27
Clout, “Restoring the Ruins: The Social Context of Reconstruction in the Countrysides of Northern France in
the Aftermath of the Great War.”
28
Philippe Delvit, “Les Sociétés Coopératives de Reconstruction. Une Lecture Juridique?,” in La Grande
Reconstruction. Reconstruire Le Pas-de-Calais Après La Grande Guerre, ed. Eric Bussière, Patrice Marcilloux, and
Denis Varaschin (Arras: Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais, 2002), 53–64.
29
Bedhome, “Reconstruire Le Chemin Des Dames,” 390.
30
Philippe Nivet, “Le Retour Des Réfugiés Ou La Violence Des Ruines,” in Reconstructions En Picardie Après
1918 (Arras: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2000), 22–33.
31
Gérard Lobry, “La Vie Au ‘Provisoire,’” in Reconstructions En Picardie Après 1918 (Arras: Réunion des Musées
Nationaux, 2000), 34–48.
32
Baert, “Wonen in de Verwoesting. Omstandigheden En Getuigen,” 18 and 38.
33
Cornilly and Vandewalle, “Onzichtbare Pleitbezorgers. Tussen Bewoners En Hogere Overheden,” 73.
34
While left-wingers preferred an equal and just distribution of compensations and therefore state
interventionism, right-wing politicians stressed the individualist character of the Sinistrés Charter and defended
the rights of private property. Jean-Marc Guislin, “Ediles et Notabilités Face à La Reconstruction (1919-1927),”
in La Grande Reconstruction. Reconstruire Le Pas-de-Calais Après La Grande Guerre, ed. Eric Bussière, Patrice
Marcilloux, and Denis Varaschin (Arras: Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais, 2002), 77–96.
35
In Dutch: Dienst voor Herstel van Westvlaanderen.
36
Leen Van Molle, Ieder Voor Allen. De Belgische Boerenbond 1890-1990 (Leuven: Leuven University Press,
1990), 152–156.
37
Guy Marival, “Reconstruction et Syndicalisme Dans l’Aisne,” in Reconstructions En Picardie Après 1918 (Arras:
Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2000), 126–137.
38
Bruno Notteboom, “‘Ouvrons Les Yeux!’ Stedenbouw En Beeldvorming van Het Landschap in België, 18901940” (Ghent University, 2009), 367–389.
39
Sofie De Caigny, “Tussen Filantropie En Macht. In de Bres Voor de Belangen van de Achterban,” in Bouwen
Aan Wederopbouw 1914/2050: Architectuur in de Westhoek, 2009, 162–167.
40
Dominique Dendooven, “Het Terrein Effenen. Aanleg, Infrastructuur En Landbeheer,” in Bouwen Aan
Wederopbouw 1914/2050: Architectuur in de Westhoek, 2009, 86–89.
41
Jeroen Cornilly, “Gevraagd: Architecten. Kiezen Tussen Alternatieven,” in Bouwen Aan Wederopbouw
1914/2050: Architectuur in de Westhoek, 2009, 115–141.
42
Jean-Charles Cappronnier, “Penser La Reconstruction En 1917,” in Reconstructions En Picardie Après 1918
(Arras: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2000), 65.
43
Anne Dopffer, “Le Comité Américain Pour Les Régions Dévastées,” in Reconstructions En Picardie Après 1918
(Arras: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2000), 70–86.
44
Jean-Pierre Laurant, “Anne Morgan et Le Comité Américain Des Régions Dévastées (1917-1923),” in La
Grande Guerre: Pratiques et Expériences, ed. Rémy Cazals, Emmanuelle Picard, and Denis Rolland (Toulouse:
Privat, 2005), 377–379.
45
Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 84.
46
Two short articles have been written on the reconstruction works of the Oeuvre Suisse Belge: Marc
Aspeslagh, “Buitenlandse Hulp Bij de Wederopbouw van België. Het Oeuvre Suisse Belge,” Rollarius. Bulletin
van Het Geschied- En Oudheidkundig Genootschap van Roeselare En Ommeland 38, no. 5 (2009): 195–198;
Dieter Nuytten, “Het Oeuvre Suisse Belge En de Heropbouw van Landelijke Woningen En Hoeves Tijdens de
Eerste Wereldoorlog in de Streek van Zemst,” Land in Zicht. Koninklijke Vereniging Voor Natuur- En
Stedenschoon 76, no. 4 (2007): 10–15.
47
Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 261–262.
48
Except for two patches of woodland in Zonnebeke and Houthulst; for further information: Cornilly and
Vandewalle, “Onzichtbare Pleitbezorgers. Tussen Bewoners En Hogere Overheden,” 101 and 106.
49
Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 249 and 261–262.
50
This corresponds to 3,228,000 ha of farmland. (Ibid., 280-281 and 287.)
51
Cornilly and Vandewalle, “Onzichtbare Pleitbezorgers. Tussen Bewoners En Hogere Overheden,” 101–102.
52
Dendooven, “Het Terrein Effenen. Aanleg, Infrastructuur En Landbeheer,” 94–97. For an introduction on the
activities of contractors and building enterprises in Belgium: Inge Bertels, “De Uitvoerders Op Het Terrein. Een
17
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Braakliggend Onderzoeksdomein,” in Bouwen Aan Wederopbouw 1914/2050: Architectuur in de Westhoek,
2009, 175–191.
53
Berthonnet, “La Reconstruction Du Réseau Routier (1919-1927),” 141.
54
This is approximately 5% of Belgian GNP at market prices in 1920. Sven Carnel, “La Reconstruction Agricole
Dans Les Régions Dévastées,” Memoire de La Société D’histoire de Comines-Warneton et de La Région 38
(2008): 257–258; Erik Buyst, “New GNP Estimates for the Belgian Economy during the Interwar Period,” Review
of Income and Wealth 43, no. 3 (1997): 357–375.
55
Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 160.
56
Carnel, “La Reconstruction Agricole Dans Les Régions Dévastées”.
57
Gilbert Noël, “La Restauration Des Structures Agricoles. Priorité à L’exploitation Du Terroir et à
L'équipement,” in La Grande Reconstruction. Reconstruire Le Pas-de-Calais Après La Grande Guerre, ed. Eric
Bussière, Patrice Marcilloux, and Denis Varaschin (Arras: Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais, 2002),
162–167.
58
Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 249 and 259. The
441 consolidation schemes compromised the same number of villages and a total of 120,050 ha.
59
Noël, “La Restauration Des Structures Agricoles. Priorité à L’exploitation Du Terroir et à L'équipement,” 174177.
60
The First World War marked a rupture in the emigration pattern of Belgian farmers. While before 1914
migrztion to France was primarily seasonal in nature, permanent migration to Normandy, Oise and other
departments became predominant during the 1920s. This compensated the loss of agricultural labour in France
as a consequence of the war. Henk Byls, “Rester Catholique En France: Une Histoire de L’encadrement
Religieux Destiné Aux Migrants Belgo-Flamands Du Lillois, de Paris et Des Campagnes Françaises (1850-1960)”
(University of Leuven, 2013), 263–298.
61
Eve Pruvost, “La Reconstruction Agricole Dans Le Canton de Vimy Après La Première Guerre Mondiale”
(Université d’Artois, 1999), 94–95; Noël, “La Restauration Des Structures Agricoles. Priorité à L’exploitation Du
Terroir et à L'équipement,” 174.
62
Samuel Trupin, “La Reconstruction Agricole Du Canton de Bapaume de 1919 à 1929” (Université d’Artois,
1999), 160.
63
Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 281.
64
Freddy Kukula, “La Reconstruction de L’espace Agricole Dans Le Canton de Cambrin Au Lendemain de La
Première Guerre Mondiale” (Université d’Artois, 1999), 119.
65
Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 281.
66
Trupin, “La Reconstruction Agricole Du Canton de Bapaume de 1919 À 1929”; Pruvost, “La Reconstruction
Agricole Dans Le Canton de Vimy Après La Première Guerre Mondiale”; Philippe Carpentier, “La Reconstitution
Agricole Des Champs de Bataille de l’Artois (1915)” (Université d’Artois, 2000).
67
Kukula, “La Reconstruction de L’espace Agricole Dans Le Canton de Cambrin Au Lendemain de La Première
Guerre Mondiale,” 124. Pre-war levels were not yet reached in 1929; Kukula does not commit himself to
investigate the quality of the French livestock after the First World War.
68
Noël, “La Restauration Des Structures Agricoles. Priorité à L’exploitation Du Terroir et à L'équipement,” 177.
69
Steven Heyde, “Het Herstel van Het Bocagelandschap in de Zuidelijke Westhoek Na de Eerste Wereldoorlog,”
M&L. Monumenten, Landschappen En Archeologie 33, no. 1 (2014): 28–29.
70
Except for the 1923-1924 period, when an elm disease caused a temporary shift towards poplars or oaks.
71
Ibid., 38.
72
Clout, After the Ruins: Restoring the Countryside in Northern France after the Great War, 23–25.
73
Jean-Paul Amat, “Nettoyer, Restaurer, Réaffecter Le Champ de Bataille: La Zone Rouge,” in Finir La Guerre.
Les Cahiers de La Paix, 7th ed. (Nancy: Nancy University Press, 2000), 130.
74
Jean-Paul Amat, “Guerre et Milieux Naturels : Les Forêts Meurtries de l’Est de La France, 70 Ans Après
Verdun,” Espace Géographique 16, no. 3 (1987): 223–224, doi:10.3406/spgeo.1987.4253, 220 and 232–233.
75
Amat, “Nettoyer, Restaurer, Réaffecter Le Champ de Bataille: La Zone Rouge,” 115–121.
76
Jean-Paul Amat, “Bois et Forêts Du Champ de Bataille Arrageois: Une Reconstitution Entre Anonymat et
Gloire,” in La Grande Reconstruction. Reconstruire Le Pas-de-Calais Après La Grande Guerre, ed. Eric Bussière,
Patrice Marcilloux, and Denis Varaschin (Arras: Archives départementales du Pas-de-Calais, 2002), 149 and
152–153.
77
Puyo notifies that these numbers might not be accurate (i.e. exaggerated) within the context of the Versailles
negotiations. (Jean-Yves Puyo, “Les Conséquences de La Première Guerre Mondiale Pour Les Forêts et Les
Forestiers Français,” Revue Forestière Française 56, no. 6 (2004): 577-579, doi:10.4267/2042/5123.)
18
This is a work in progress. Please do not quote without permission.
78
Pierre-Alain Tallier, “La Reconstruction Du Patrimoine Forestier Belge Après 1918,” in Forêt et Guerre, ed.
Andrée Corvol and Jean-Paul Amat (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1994), 218.
79
The Belgian Reparations Commission investigated the amount and the method of payment of war
indemnities by Germany.
80
Ibid., 221–223.
81
Guy Marival, “Agriculteurs et Élus Locaux Contre La Zone Rouge (1919-1929). La Première Bataille de L’aprèsGuerre Sur Le Chemin Des Dames,” in La Grande Guerre: Pratiques et Expériences, ed. Rémy Cazals,
Emmanuelle Picard, and Denis Rolland (Toulouse: Privat, 2005), 383–392.
82
Jérôme Buridant, “Effacer La Guerre: La Reconstitution Forestière de La Zone Rouge,” in Forêt Carrefour,
Forêt Frontière: La Forêt Dans l’Aisne, ed. Jérôme Buridant (Langres: Guéniot, 2005), 162.
83
Marival, “Agriculteurs et Élus Locaux Contre La Zone Rouge (1919-1929). La Première Bataille de L’aprèsGuerre Sur Le Chemin Des Dames,” 390–391; Buridant, “Effacer La Guerre: La Reconstitution Forestière de La
Zone Rouge,” 162–163.
84
Marcel Smets, “Inleiding. De Wederopbouw Als Onderzoeksopgave,” in Resurgam. De Belgische
Wederopbouw Na 1914, ed. Marcel Smets (Brussels: Gemeentekrediet, 1985), 10.
85
Geert Bekaert, “Wederopbouw of Het Uur van de Waarheid,” in Resurgam. De Belgische Wederopbouw Na
1914, ed. Marcel Smets (Brussels: Gemeentekrediet, 1985), 29–32.
86
Smets, “Inleiding. De Wederopbouw Als Onderzoeksopgave,” 10–11.
87
Jean-Marie De Busscher, L’architecture de Dommages de Guerre: Aspects de La Reconstruction Des Régions
Dévastées de La Reconstruction Des Régions Dévastées de La Première Guerre Mondiale. (Brussels: Archives
d’architecture moderne, 1983), 5-7. According to De Busscher, avant-gardist and regionalist architects were in
agreement on this point.
88
Ibid., 198 and 254–256.
89
Jean-Charles Cappronnier and Franck Delorme, “La Reconstruction Des Fermes Dans Le Département de
l’Aisne Après 1918,” In Situ 21 (2013): 3, doi:10.4000/insitu.10403.
90
Cappronnier and Delorme, “La Reconstruction Des Fermes Dans Le Département de l’Aisne Après 1918.”
91
John Horton and Peter Kraftl, Cultural Geographies: An Introduction (London-New York: Routledge, 2014), 91.
92
Johan Van den Mooter, “German Reconstruction in Belgium during World War I. A Regionalist Experiment,”
in Regionalism and Modernity. Architecture in Western Europe 1914-1940, ed. Leen Meganck, Linda Van
Santvoort, and Jan De Maeyer (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2013), 55–56 and 60–63.
93
Wolfgang Cortjaens, “‘The German Way of Making Better Cities.’ German Reconsstruction Plans for Belgium
during the First World War,” in Living with History 1914 - 1964: Rebuilding Europe after the First and Second
World War and the Role of Heritage Preservation, ed. Nicholas Bullock, Luc Verpoest, and Luc Vints (Leuven:
Leuven University Press, 2011), 49 and 55–56.
94
Leen Meganck, Linda Van Santvoort, and Jan De Maeyer, “Introduction,” in Regionalism and Modernity.
Architecture in Western Europe 1914-1940, ed. Leen Meganck, Linda Van Santvoort, and Jan De Maeyer
(Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2013), 7–13.
95
Leen Meganck, “Patriotism, Genius Loci, Authentic Buildings and Imitation Farmsteads. Regionalism in
Interwar Belgium,” in Regionalism and Modernity. Architecture in Western Europe 1914-1940, ed. Leen
Meganck, Linda Van Santvoort, and Jan De Maeyer (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2013), 73–75.
96
Patrik Jaspers, “Huib Hoste and the Reconstruction of Zonnebeke, 1919-1924,” in Living with History 1914 1964: Rebuilding Europe after the First and Second World War and the Role of Heritage Preservation, ed.
Nicholas Bullock, Luc Verpoest, and Luc Vints (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2011), 218–229.
97
Linda Van Santvoort, “Wederopbouwarchitectuur in de Fusiegemeente Zemst,” M&L. Monumenten,
Landschappen En Archeologie 33, no. 3 (2014): 6–29.
98
Sofie De Caigny, Bouwen Aan Een Nieuwe Thuis: Wooncultuur in Vlaanderen Tijdens Het Interbellum (Leuven:
Leuven University Press, 2010), 193–196.
99
Cappronnier, “Penser La Reconstruction En 1917,” 50 and 60.
100
Danièle Voldman, “La France D’un Modèle de Reconstruction à L'autre, 1918-1945,” in Living with History
1914 - 1964: Rebuilding Europe after the First and Second World War and the Role of Heritage Preservation, ed.
Nicholas Bullock, Luc Verpoest, and Luc Vints (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2011), 69.
101
Benoît Mihaïl, “Les Ambiguïtés Du Régionalisme Architectural Après La Grande Guerre. L’exemple de La
Flandre Française,” in Living with History 1914 - 1964: Rebuilding Europe after the First and Second World War
and the Role of Heritage Preservation, ed. Nicholas Bullock, Luc Verpoest, and Luc Vints (Leuven: Leuven
University Press, 2011), 104–125.
102
Jean-Claude Vigato, “Between Progress and Tradition. The Regionalist Debate in France,” in Regionalism and
Modernity. Architecture in Western Europe 1914-1940, ed. Leen Meganck, Linda Van Santvoort, and Jan De
19
This is a work in progress. Please do not quote without permission.
Maeyer (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2013), 36–37; Hervé Doucet, “Searching for a New Image. An
Idealized Regionalism in Lorraine,” in Regionalism and Modernity. Architecture in Western Europe 1914-1940,
ed. Leen Meganck, Linda Van Santvoort, and Jan De Maeyer (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2013), 40–47;
Mihaïl, “Les Ambiguïtés Du Régionalisme Architectural Après La Grande Guerre. L’exemple de La Flandre
Française.”
103
Cappronnier, “Penser La Reconstruction En 1917,” 65.
104
This question was raised by Jeroen Cornilly for the Belgian case, but counts just as well for the
reconstruction of French farmsteads after the First World War (Jeroen Cornilly, “Een Streekeigen Hoeve,” In de
Steigers 14, no. 3 (2007): 86).
20