Génération du feu or Incommensurable Interpretations?

Génération du feu or Incommensurable Interpretations?
A study of officer enlisted man relations in the French army during the First World War.

              Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research
                      In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
                                   For the Degree of
                                     Master of Arts
                                           in
                                         History
                                 University of Regina

                                         By
                               Bruce Ying Pao Veugelers
                                 Regina Saskatchewan
                                   February, 2020

                             Copyright 2019: B. Veugelers

UNIVERSITY OF REGINA

              FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH

                    SUPERVISORY AND EXAMINING COMMITTEE

Bruce Ying pao Veugelers, candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in History, has
presented a thesis titled, Génération du feu or Incommensurable Interpretations? A
Study of Officer Enlisted Man Relations in the French Army During the First World
War, in an oral examination held on December 19, 2019. The following committee
members have found the thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate
demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material.

External Examiner:          Dr. Sylvain Rheault, La Cité Univrsitaire Francophone

Supervisor:                 Dr. Ian Germani, Department of History

Committee Member:           Dr. Thomas Bredohl, Department of History

Committee Member:           Dr. Philip Charrier, Department of History

Chair of Defense:           Dr. Mchael Trussler, Department of English

Abstract

       What was the nature of relations between French officers and enlisted men during

the First World War? Soldiers’ testimonies from the First World War exist in profusion,

allowing us to examine the interpretations of those who lived through it. Historians

employing the diverse methods military, social, cultural, and quantitative history can

roughly be grouped into schools of “consent” or “coercion” with respect to their attempts

to outline the nature of authority in the French Army during the First World War.

France’s civil social hierarchy was reproduced in the ranks, producing incommensurate

experiences that served to maintain a gulf between officers and enlisted men. At the same

time, French Third Republican culture inculcated a sense of service and duty to the state.

With these factors in mind, we may ask the question of whether the war produced a sense

of unity of purpose and a better understanding of the other or did social and cultural

barriers preclude this? From four soldiers’ private papers come several answers, revealing

a transitional period between nineteenth and twentieth-century ideologies.

                                             i

Acknowledgement

       I would like to thank Dr. Ian Germani at the University of Regina’s History

Department, who was instrumental as a supervisor in both expanding my knowledge of

French history and acting as a guide when concepts or the direction of the thesis were

unclear. Like a master patiently guiding an apprentice, Dr. Germani imparted his

historiographical knowledge, preparing me to write and evaluate in order to properly

situate my own work with knowledge of the established academic discourse. I am

fortunate to have had him as a mentor and advisor. I would also like to thank Dr. Philip

Charrier for his enthusiastic encouragement, kind demeanour, for always being available

to help, and for serving as a member of my thesis committee, alongside Dr. Thomas

Bredohl, to whom I also owe thanks. The kind and generous Dr. Fiorella Foscarini, at the

University of Toronto, was accommodating and provided a reference letter for admission

to this program, for which I am eternally grateful. The History Department as well as the

Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Regina provided me with

funding, without which it would have been impossible to complete this thesis. I also

received T.A. positions under Dr. Germani for two semesters, which familiarised me with

marking and leading class discussions. My parents, Yvonne Yeoh and Jack Veugelers

have been patient and supportive throughout this process. I appreciate all that they have

done for me to allow me to pursue my goals throughout the years. My grandmother

Gisèle Veugelers offered unconditional enthusiasm and wise advice. Their love, and

direction has allowed me to succeed.

Bruce Veugelers

                                             ii

Table of Contents:

Abstract                                                                I

Acknowledgments                                                        II

Introduction                                                            1

1. Three Brothers Defend Their Ancestral Homeland: The Kern brothers   21

2. The Courageous Officer: Georges Lambert                             31

3. The Alienated Expatriate: Jean Norton Cru                           43

4. Cooper to Corporal: Louis Barthas                                   60

Conclusion                                                             68

                                          iii

Introduction

       The historiography surrounding French soldiers of the First World War has shifted

through the decades, as the historiography of the war has evolved from military to social

to cultural history. Relations between officers and enlisted men have generally been

appraised as a peripheral subject in relation to other historical foci. Although there are

excellent studies of the French army in the First World War, as well as of such topics as

military justice, Entente relations, comradeship, the soldier’s experience, and of

command and authority, there is no study which explicitly focuses on officer-man

relations.1 This is not the case for the British army during the First World War. Gary

Sheffield has written an excellent overview of relations between officers and enlisted

men in the British army during the First World War.2 Sheffield cites noblesse oblige as

the primary tenet of the officer corps. He also claims a difference between Territorial and

Regular units: Territorial units expressed a comradeship that aided a sense of unity

whereas Regular units relied on strict (in Sheffield’s words “paternal”) hierarchy. The

author also notes that officers sought to protect their men not only from the enemy and

the malaise of the trench, but also against “…what many perceived as an impersonal and

arbitrary coercive military machine.”3 How did the French army compare to the British

1
  These studies include: Bach, André. Fusillés Pour L'exemple : 1914-1915. Paris: Tallandier, 2003.,
Greenhalgh, Elizabeth. Victory through Coalition : Britain and France during the First World War.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005., Murphy, Libby. The Art of Survival : France and the
Great War Picaresque. 2016., Ducasse André, Jacques Meyer and Gabriel Perreux. Vie et Mort des
Français 1914-1918. Paris: Hachette, 1959., Histoire de l’armée Française 1914-1918 La première armée
du monde. Paris: Tallandier, 2017., Bazin, Paule René, and Philippe Henwood. Écrire en guerre 1914-1918:
Des archives privées aux usages publics. Rennes: Presses Universitaire de Rennes, 2016. Cazals, Rémy,
and André Loez. 14-18: Vivre et mourir dans les tranchées. Paris: Tallandier, 2012.
2
  Gary Sheffield, Command and Morale (South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books Limited: 2014).
3
  Sheffield, Command and Morale, 178. Officers were more likely to be accepted if they worked alongside
the men and did not abuse their power, acting as traditional “gentlemen” (pp. 180). Officers’ superior
privileges were accepted so long as they fulfilled a gentlemanly, paternal role. Of note is that by 1917-1918
40% of officers were drawn from working or lower-middle class backgrounds and these men were accepted
in the ranks more easily as the war progressed. Sheffield says that although most lower-class officers did

                                                     1

army? This study will ask similar questions about the French army to those Gary

Sheffield has asked about the British. The goal is to investigate the nature of relations

between French officers and enlisted men on the battlefields and in the trenches during

the First World War insofar as they can be gleaned from the perceptions of soldiers

serving in the front lines, both officers and enlisted men. By establishing the nature of

relations we can deepen our understanding of the nature of authority in the French army.

The intention is to explore this problem through the use of first-hand accounts which

provide the impressions of soldiers in their own words. From these points of view we can

ask, were authority and discipline unyielding or negotiable? Was there a “front

generation” forged which transcended the barriers of class and rank?

       In the 1930s, soldiers’ victimhood was emphasised in historical literature, to the

extent that they were considered to have been caught in an attritional slaughter that defied

reason.4 An entire French generation was considered damaged or lost, and as such French

troops were considered united by their hardships as a génération du feu.5 This term united

them, alluding to a collective identity. More recently, scholars have debated the extent to

which French soldiers were united in their attitudes and experiences, especially given

refusals and protest throughout the war.

not bear an upper-class comportment, it was their capacities as a competent, paternalistic leader that
determined their troops’ opinions of them. (pp. 179).
4
  Leonard V. Smith, The Embattled Self: French Soldiers’ Testimony of the Great War (Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University Press, 2007), 8.
5
  Literally “generation of fire.” Géneration implies the men who fought were unified roughly by their age,
and feu implies they faced a baptism of fire. The phrase, therefore, suggests the poilus were drawn together
by their common experience. Mariot says: “Reprise par les premiers historiens de la vie quotidienne au
front, souvent eux-mêmes anciens combattants, on la retrouve ensuite disséminée ici et là dans des travaux
contemporains. Certains d'entre eux parlent par exemple de la Grande Guerre comme moment

One event more than any other demonstrated that French soldiers would not fight

indefinitely if they felt they were being slaughtered like sheep in a never ending meat-

grinder. The Chemin des Dames Offensive of April and May 1917 was led by General

Nivelle. He intended this action to echo his success at Verdun, where he had employed

heavy artillery barrages prior to an infantry advance. The Germans had, however, learned

from the earlier battle and subsequently established defense in depth.6 This involved

withdrawal to reserve trenches if enemy artillery bombardments warranted it, thereby

nullifying much of the pre-assault damage. Consequently, the French offensive was a

failure and many French soldiers refused to advance. 7 The earliest authoritative study of

the mutinies was written in 1967 by Guy Pedroncini. The sources he used were mostly

archival, and he gained access to these long before they were opened to the public. As

such, his work remains a seminal and influential work for scholars discussing officer-man

relations. Pedroncini claimed that the Mutinies of 1917 represented a culmination of

causes: Verdun and the Somme had involved protracted and bloody fighting, a third year

of war with no victory over Germany evident, and decimated units in much of the French

army and the average poilu8 had been shown again and again the failure of French

command to prepare sufficiently for assaults.9 Pedroncini’s work is typical of its time,

focusing on correspondence between high-ranking military officers and government

officials as well as documents from the military justice system. This stress on diplomatic

and military matters offers a top-down view of discipline in the French army as it

6
  Elizabeth Greenhalgh, The French Army and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2014), 199.
7
  Guy Pedroncini, Les Mutineries de 1917 (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1967), 8.
8
  Poilus, literally translated to “hairy ones,” the implication being that these men were masculine, rough,
and ready, as evinced by the tendency to grow prodigious beards.
9
  Pedroncini, Les mutineries, 33.

                                                      3

changed throughout the war. In the decades since this influential book was released,

historical inquiry has adopted new approaches. Political and military history have been

supplemented by social and cultural studies that adopt a more bottom-up view which

relies upon the witness of ordinary people, uncovering their views of authority in the

French army.

      Leonard Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, and Annette Becker focused on the

power that the mutinies conferred upon soldiers who refused to advance, likening their

leverage to professional protest akin to a strike.10 These scholars stress that the mutinies

were an exercise of democratic power, reflective of the tenets of their nation. The

numerous refusals to advance, desertions, and in some rare cases violence towards

officers are framed as assertions of the very democratic tenets on which the Third

Republic was based. The mutineers, according to these scholars, were protesting the

nature of the war and not asserting their pacifism or frustration with their officers.

      André Loez disagreed. He chose to address the social factors that prompted refusal

during the mutinies.11 Loez rejected both Pedroncini’s and Smith,12 Audoin-Rouzeau, and

Becker’s theses13 on the grounds that those studies focused on the bargaining power that

refusal lent to poilus, resulting in General Pétain’s introduction of a leave system as well

as rotating units out of front-line trenches. Loez, on the other hand, focused on social

aspects to demonstrate that a coercive social system limited mutineers’ effectiveness and

10
   Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin Rouzeau, and Annette Becker, France and the Great.
War 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 121-131.
11
   André Loez, 14-18. Les refus de la guerre (Paris: Gallimard, 2010).
12
   Leonard V. Smith, Between Mutiny and Obedience: The Case of the French Fifth Infantry Division
during World War I (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1994).
13
   Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin Rouzeau, and Annette Becker, France and the Great.
War 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

                                                  4

ability to coordinate a more transformative movement. 14 Loez claimed that Frenchmen

made no choice to go to war; they simply acted obediently as social order dictated,

expressing their distaste in refusal and complaint.15 He pointed to these refusals and

complaints throughout the war that culminated in the 1917 mutinies due to a confluence

of factors: the Russian Revolution, the change of command of the army, and conflict

between the left and right in the government. These factors, he argued, made an end to

war seem closer for poilus than at most other times during the war.16 The different ways

in which these scholars have framed the mutinies brings further into question the nature

of authority in the French army.

      Often these allusions to the nature of authority return to the ongoing debate as to

whether Frenchmen were coerced into service or whether they consented to it. This

approach can lend itself to tracing a division between front-line and rear-echelon soldiers.

At times, camaraderie is emphasized in the front line, which excludes rear-echelon

soldiers such as the senior staff who remained for the most part behind the trench lines,

but which unites all front-line soldiers, including junior officers and the men they

commanded. Muddying the waters is confusion concerning contemporary understanding

of the words camarade and camaraderie. In his study of camaraderie in the French army,

Alexandre Lafon found that officers employed the term camaraderie in a military sense,

to indicate common values within a group.17 The term, he argues, is central to military

terminology; used to stress the necessary cohesion that allows the organization to

function. It does not denote equality but reinforces hierarchy by implying that each man

14
   Loez, Les refus de la guerre, 540.
15
   Loez, Les refus de la guerre, 6.
16
   Loez, Les refus de la guerre, 542.
17
   Alexandre Lafon, La camaraderie au front 1914-1918 (Paris: Armand Colin Éditeur, 2014), 97-98.

                                                  5

knows his place in a rigidly stratified institution.18 Camarade, he found, was used to

denote one with whom a man shared the barracks, unit or zone of engagement. It denoted

another Frenchman in uniform, and carried little political weight. The exception to this is

if the user was an anarchist or socialist, in which case it was employed in order to break

the mold of its conventional use by including German soldiers in its definition.19 Lafon’s

observation of the employment of these terms suggests that they cannot be taken to hold

the deep meaning many scholars have attached to them when examining primary

accounts. Soldiers might have been comrades yet divided by rank, class, or outlook.

       Nonetheless, Antoine Prost’s view that front-line soldiers underwent a distinctive

experience that cemented a shared spirit and purpose has been influential.20 Prost pointed

to the presence of numerous veterans’ associations after the war to imply that the war

experience had created a wartime solidarity among front-line soldiers, who felt they were

alienated from those who did not share their experience.21 In this instance Prost supported

a unity of cultural values and emotions that united frontline soldiers in the trenches, the

so-called poilus. One must note that the majority of his sources were memoirs written by

officers after the war had ended. One may ask whether these men held the same opinions

during the war, or whether the idea of a shared experience arose only after their return to

18
   Lafon, La camaraderie au front, 50.
19
   Lafon, La camaraderie au front, 99.
20
   Antoine Prost. In the Wake of War (Oxford: Berg Publishers Limited, 1992), 1 “…the reality of the
fighting soldier was vastly different from the image usually presented. This had nothing to do with military
spirit, with factions, or with fascism. It is primarily because it was a mass movement, with more than three
million members: the 1914 war was the nation under arms, and the veterans represented the whole nation.
They included among their number a few authoritarian reactionaries, but, as in the nation as a whole, the
vast majority were peace-loving, patriotic and republican.”
21
   Prost. In the Wake of War, 3-26. Prost’s first chapter describes the impersonal violence of artillery
bombardments and mass death. He includes quotations from Maurice Genevoix, Jean Bernier, and Jean
Norton Cru that emphasise that these men had shared unique experiences that brought them closer together
and endowed them with an exclusive knowledge of the true face of war.

                                                     6

peacetime civil society. Furthermore, his study took little account of the view of semi-

literate paysans22 who represented a disproportionately large percentage of the soldiers

who served in the ranks of the French army.

       Leonard Smith also stressed the unity of those who served in the trenches. He

strongly believes that soldiers consented to go to war with a unified purpose that

transcended social divisions. He claims that:

       In France, consent revolved around the Republic at war — not simply the
       Third Republic, but the Republic as the repository of a political identity under
       evolution for more than a century before 1914. Citizen-soldiers were expected to
       obey an authority whose source and legitimacy lay in themselves and their
       compatriots. In this sense, the Republic implicated citizen-soldiers individually and
       totally in the collectivity.[…] I interpret consent as the function of internalised
       absolutes vitally connected to the war and to continuing it. The citizen-soldier could
       not surrender these absolutes without in some form surrendering who he was as a
       political being. Consent rendered all social relations a matrix on a national scale.
       Families, comrades, compatriots, all made up one big community of the French, to
       whom each citizen-soldier owed an essentially unlimited commitment.23

Moreover, Smith stresses that cultural unity cemented the purpose and motivations of

French soldiery in the union sacrée.24 Did enlisted men share these sentiments during and

after the war? Some scholars disagree that the poilus were ideologically united.

       André Loez is one such scholar. Loez stresses that peacetime social hierarchies

persisted in the trenches. In his study of the mutinies, Loez asserted that men on the front

lines all shared a sense of “war culture,” but one that was projected from the elites, who

22
   Paysan translates literally to peasant, but carries the broader definition of country or rural dweller.
23
   Smith, The Embattled Self, 109.
24
   Smith, The Embattled Self, 125. The term translates to “the Sacred Union.” Smith remarked, “The Union
sacrée under which French went to war in 1914 united them as a citizenry and as a people. Former
Communards shook hands with former soldiers who fired on them, monarchists embraced the tricolor, and
workers, facing the prospect of a general European war, shelved their long- held intentions to strike.” The
Union sacrée was an agreement between the left and the French government that no labour protests or
opposition to government would occur during the war. Jean Jaurès, a French socialist party leader had
previously espoused pacifist sentiment, supported by general strikes but he was assassinated just as war
broke out.

                                                     7

dictated social adaptation, wherein the social hierarchy of peacetime imposed a shared

burden on the lower classes in a war they could not avoid.25 This burden was self-

reinforcing, he claims, due to the values of courage and masculinity that permeated all

social classes, ensuring that each man held all others to conform to these traditional

values.26 Loez thus connects “consent” and “coercion” by suggesting that conformity to

social norms drove men to behave as they did. Loez does not stand alone in his opinion

on the importance of social factors as a source of division within the ranks of the French

army.

        Nicolas Mariot has suggested that intellectuals had very different ideologies to the

less-educated soldier.27 Mariot’s thesis is that nationalist ideals were not all-pervasive in

the French army during the First World War. He posits that intellectuals tried to inculcate

their ideals in a largely indifferent mass of common soldiers. Mariot’s objective is to

dispel the notion of a génération du feu. Mariot’s sociological study relies upon primary

sources from all ranks, but stresses that elites were more likely to be, or become, officers.

Mariot uses sources from men of different social backgrounds to argue his point, and

does so convincingly.28 Because he focuses on social background, he is not primarily

concerned with the influence that rank had upon relations between soldiers.

25
   André Loez, Les refus de la guerre: Une histoire des mutins, (Paris: Gallimard, 2010), 37-39. “Dans cette
hypothèse sociologique, si la ténacité combattante ne tient pas à une choix ou une motivation, elle relève
donc du conformisme social, qui voit les individus, membres de sociétés fortement normés et héirarchisées,
accomplir sous le regard des autres ce qui reléve autant la loi que d'un devoir partagé, et prendre leur part à
une expérience collective évidente.” 39 “La difficulté à affronter la violence de cette experience permet pas
pour autant de s'y soustraire: les soldats de 1914-1918 évoluent dans un cadre qui ne leur laisse que très peu
de choix.”
26
   Loez, Les refus de la guerre, 78-79.
27
   Nicolas Mariot. Tous unis dans la tranchée? Les intellectuels rencontrent le peuple (Paris:
Éditions du Seuil, 2013).
28
   Mariot, Tous unis dans la tranchée?, 51. “Le premier critère pour figurer sur l'étagère du sociologique est
le grade, ou plus exactement l'absence de grade, des soldats diaristes. Si les héros de ce livre sont
exceptionnels, dans l'ensemble des sources possibles, c'est parce qu'une part importante d'entre eux sont à la
fois issus de milieux sociaux privilégiés et simples soldats ou au plus sous-officiers à la mobilisation.”

                                                      8

Mariot focuses on the incommensurable motivations to fight of less-educated men

with those of higher-educated men.29 Higher education increased the chances of entering

the army with a commission, thereby granting authority over those who in peacetime

would be social inferiors. Education, therefore, was correlated to rank in the French army.

Regardless of levels of education, one subject on which most scholars can agree is that

the education system was orchestrated by state authorities to reflect respect for and duty

to the Third Republic.30

       Scholars of both the “consent” and “coercion” schools have recognised the pre-

eminence under the Third Republic of civic service to the patrie.31 Martha Hanna has

written that the universal education that the French received, beginning in 1899, stressed

the importance of both military service and of correspondence with one’s family.32 This

indicates that in times of hardship when performing military service, men could draw a

tangible connection to the patrie for which they fought in their connection to their own

family as a microcosmic reflection of the nation as a whole. To a French paysan from

Bayonne, far from the border with Germany, it was his family back home that reminded

him of his duty to fight, not recovery of Alsace-Lorraine, lost in the last war with Prussia.

Thus, duty to the patrie entailed subjection to nationalist aims. This duty might be

29
   Nicolas Mariot. Tous unis dans la tranchée? Les intellectuels rencontrent le peuple (Paris: Éditions du
Seuil, 2013) Mariot’s thesis is that Third Republican ideals were not pervasive in the French army during
the First World War. He posits that intellectuals tried to inculcate their ideals in a largely indifferent mass
of common soldiers.
30
   Prost. In the Wake of War, 91. Prost indicated that veterans often referred to France, the Republic, and
the Nation interchangeably, suggesting that through their education, Frenchmen associated these three
concepts.
31
   Patrie translates literally to nation. Martha Hanna’s assertion that Third Republic education invested
French metropolitain citizens with a sense of duty towards the patrie suggests that it conveys a sense of a
“motherland.” This feminization of the nation facilitated imprinting a sense of duty on Frenchmen, who
swore duty to defend the patrie, as their masculinity would oblige them to defend a woman.
32
   Martha Hanna. "A Republic of Letters: The Epistolary Tradition in France during World War I." The
American Historical Review 108, no. 5 (2003), 1345. Accessed on 18 Nov. 2018.
Article stable: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/529969

                                                       9

perceived as coercive in soldiers’ representations of the war, and of officers more

particularly. Frédéric Rousseau posited that French soldiers were motivated by differing

factors, but most included a sense of duty, to their families and to a system which they

felt left them no other option but to fight.33 In this sense they consented to defending their

idea of the patrie, while feeling coerced into enduring the authority of both officers and

politicians, men who in peacetime were their social superiors. French wartime hierarchy

therefore closely resembled civil social structure, with all the inherent inequality.

Although a strict hierarchy was maintained, the nature of authority shifted throughout the

war. The wartime army underwent changes that had begun to germinate in the aftermath

of the Franco-Prussian War.

      In 1875, French authorities decided that a permanent officer cadre should be put in

place, in order to ensure speedy mobilisation in the event of war.34 Technological

improvements following the Franco-Prussian War meant an increase in artillery and

engineering officers, all of whom attended the Paris École Polytechnique.35 Officers and

NCOs of all ranks attended their own training schools and captains of notable proficiency

were selected to attend the École Supérieure de Guerre, which trained staff officers.36

The military was a conservative body that resisted the secularization and anti-

monarchical tenets of the Third Republic. But, in 1899 the Ministry of War was

established by a coalition government. This body oversaw the military, ensuring that it

reflected Republican policy. 37 Therefore, older officers did not undergo the same

33
   Frédéric Rousseau, Le procès des temoins de la Grande Guerre: l’affaire Norton Cru (Paris: Éditions du
Seuil, 2003), 17.
34
   Greenhalgh, The French Army, 11.
35
   This school served as a military academy and later became an engineering school.
36
   Anthony Clayton, Paths of Glory (London: Cassell Military Paperbacks, 2003), 238-239.
37
   Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin Rouzeau, and Annette Becker. France and the Great War 1914-
1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 17-18.

                                                   10

education and training as younger ones. Conservative pre-Dreyfus Affair military ideals

were slowly coming to be replaced by progressive, new ideas. Younger members of the

officer corps brought these Republican ideas with them into the First World War. They

gained increasing ascendancy during the war, as regular officers died in droves and were

replaced by younger reserve officers.38 Nicolas Mariot’s study has shown that the

majority of encounters that these new intellectual officers had with less-educated men

exposed a glaring difference concerning the role of Republican ideology in their

motivations to fight. Men from the lower classes who served in the ranks made few

references in their letters home to the patriotic ideals that inspired their officers.

         Moreover, the nature of warfare and a soldier’s life changed throughout the war,

influencing motivations and willingness to fight. In the first few months of the war, the

French army’s strategy was to send massive waves of poorly trained infantry against the

enemy in disastrous offensives.39 This settled into trench warfare, which was impersonal

and approximated to prolonged siege operations. Although trenches have been described

as deplorable places to live, they were preferable to the no man’s land that constituted the

space between them. Periods of inactivity on the front lines meant that the war would be

protracted. Thus, a paradox existed between the relatively safe hum-drum of the trench

and the treacherous but decisive action when one went over the top. There were changes

in strategic and tactical doctrine, as well as of technology, which were accompanied by

both new unit composition and changing perceptions of the role of the front-line officer.

         Michel Goya’s article, “L’armée française et la révolution militaire de la Première

Guerre mondiale” gives an overview of the structure of the French army as it changed

38
     Rémy Cazals and André Loez, Vivre et mourir dans les tranchées (Paris: Éditions Tallandier, 2012), 186.
39
     Greenhalgh, The French Army, 376.

                                                     11

throughout the war. Goya indicates that technological changes necessitated greater

cooperation between different types of units facilitated by officers communicating with

one another as well as coordinating the use of new equipment.40 Use of new weapons

such as machine guns, smokeless powder and field artillery had been limited in the

French army to actions such as engagements in Manchuria and the Balkans. This meant

that the first months of war involved wholesale slaughter as the armies were used much

as they had been one hundred years prior.41 These opening months proved that new

technologies required oversight by well-trained officers in order to be used effectively,

especially in combined arms actions. Machine guns, artillery, and field telephones

demanded effective coordination. The methods that the French command employed at the

beginning of the war did not correspond to tactics so much as strategy, and were very

different from those used in the latter stages of the war. The army’s structure changed to

accommodate this. The infantry went from having 66 officers per 3200 men in 1914, to

66 officers per 2400 men in 1918. That is to say, from one officer for each 48 men to one

officer for 36 men. Tank units at the end of the war had 11 officers for 94 men, around 1

for fewer than 9 men. 42 Michel Goya provides evidence of the necessity for more officers

to accompany the deployment of new weapons. From the spring of 1916 to the summer

of 1917, each company received 24 rifle-grenade launchers with a 180m range (Vivien-

Bessières model), three 37mm cannons capable of suppressing or destroying machine gun

nests with a 1,500m range, flamethrowers (Hersent model), and mortars of 75mm and

40
   Michel Goya, L’armée française et la révolution militaire de la Première Guerre, Politique étrangère,
Vol. 79, No. 1 (Printemps 2014), 87-99. Michel Goya, La chair et l'acier : l'armée française et l'invention
de la guerre moderne, 1914-1918 (Paris: Tallandier, 2004).
41
   Goya, L’armée française, 88.
42
   Général Marie-Eugène Debeney, “Hier et demain: l’officer,” Revue des Deux Mondes , May, 1920. 7-8.

                                                    12

then 81mm. At the beginning of 1916, each section received 6 machine guns (Chauchat).

From 1914-1917 the proportion of machine gunners to Lebel rifle armed men changed

from 1 in 400 to 1 in 5 in 1917.43 It is much easier to effectively direct rifle fire than it is

to coordinate light artillery, machine guns, and flamethrowers. As the complexity of

weapons in a unit increases, so does the need for training and oversight, necessitating the

introduction of more officers into units. The war was begun with 91,300 French officers

and by 1 November, 1918 this had risen to 135,600.44 General Pétain reorganized the

army into smaller units, following the disastrous Chemin des Dames offensive General

Nivelle had ordered in 1917.45 This reorganization from May 1917 to July 1918 saw a

large shift in strategy. No longer were single battles to be treated as decisive. A balance

was to be struck between the operational or strategic and the immediate or tactical

levels.46 Rather than divisions moving in conjunction with one another to engage in grand

maneuvers, smaller units moved with air or artillery support on a tactical level that

ensured a single lost battle was not as detrimental. Thus, to counter the strong German

pushes, little blows were dealt that wore them down slowly. Goya likens the German

army to a heavyweight, seeking a knock-out blow, and the French and British to

lightweights, wearing the opponent down with a succession of smaller blows.47 This

provides further evidence for the importance of capable officers who were able to

communicate with one another to provide rapid assistance. The speed at which units

could respond to one another was aided by the introduction of motorized divisions, tanks,

43
   Goya, L’armée française, 89.
44
   Debeney, “Hier et demain: l’officer,” 6.
45
   Goya, L’armée française, 92.
46
   Goya, L’armée française, 93.
47
   Goya, L’armée française, 93.

                                               13

aircraft, and truck-towed artillery. This combined-arms approach entailed a concerted

attack between elements of an assaulting unit, making officers even more important to

ensure smooth operation between the aforementioned elements. Officers leading from the

rear became increasingly important to this coordination, although it also diminished a

form of obedience, as would be encouraged by officers leading from the front and

displaying their courage. The changes in the structure and composition in the French

army, therefore, also implied changes in command relationships.

      Emmanuel Saint-Fuscien has written on the mechanisms employed to ensure

obedience in the French army during the First World War.48 His study of those

relationships shows that the transformation of the infantry company or section into a

highly specialised combined arms team had a de-hierarchising effect on the French army.

The horizontal relationships between specialists within the unit – machine gunners,

riflemen, grenadiers – became more important than the hierarchical ones between

soldiers, corporals and lieutenants. Command relationships at the front therefore became

more supple and personalized, at the same time as they became less authoritarian.49 The

relationship between example and obedience became inverted as the pre-war model of

officers imposing discipline through their example of courage gave way to the wartime

experience of officers taking inspiration from the example of their men.

Saint-Fuscien, like other historians who have studied the French army, relied heavily on

the evidence of the censors’ reports from the censorship office set up in 1916 to monitor

48
   Emmanuel Saint-Fuscien, “Place et valeurs de l’exemple dans l’exercise de l’autorité et les mécanismes
de l’obéissance dans l’armée française 1914-1918,” in La Grande Guerre: Pratiques et experiences, ed.
Rémy Cazals, Emmanuelle Picard and Denis Rolland (Toulouse: Éditions Privat: 2005).
49
   Emmanuel Saint-Fuscien, A vos ordres? La relation d’autorité dans l’armée française de la Grande
Guerre (Paris: Editions de l’ Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2011), pp. 252-258.

                                                   14

soldiers’ letters. He demonstrates that the hardships and sacrifices of the front that were

shared by both officers and men created a demand from the latter, expressed in their

correspondence, for more equal treatment. This was largely met in the aftermath of the

mutinies, through greater attention to the moral and physical needs of the poilus. While

Saint-Fuscien shows that there were periods when the relationship between officers and

men became frayed, reaching breaking point during the mutinies, Jean Nicot has

compiled excerpts of letters sent by French soldiers from the records of the censorship

office which, overall, demonstrate the effectiveness of Marshal Pétain’s measures in at

least partially alleviating poilus’ concerns regarding leave as well as his suspension of

offensive operations following the failed Chemin des Dames offensive. Nicot claims that

the complaints at this time pertained largely to material conditions.50 He cites evidence

that wages, leave, and the relative privileges of rear-echelon soldiers as well as civilians

were the topic of many poilus’ irritation. One report noted that:

       The postal control of Belfort is reassuring: There are clearly disturbing symptoms
       among the troops. However, this time again we find no trace of indiscipline. The
       allusions to the officers are generally laudatory. The irritation is much more for the
       Allies, the government, the leaders. But it also extends to "the profiteers", and it
       means "all the rich", "fat cats," "War profiteers" or "prolongers of war", all are
       subject to the same hatred.51

50
   Jean Nicot, Les poilus ont la parole (Paris: André Versaille éditeur, 2013), 13.“…refus non de la guerre,
mais d'une certaine forme de la guerre, protestation presque professionalle.”
Nicot, Les poilus ont la parole, 33. “En dehors des grandes péroides d’opérations, les poilus sont absorbés
par les details de leur existence journalière: l’amélioration des conditions matérielles est leur premier
souci.”
“Aside from the major periods of operations, the poilus were absorbed by the details of their daily
existence; improvement of their material conditions was their first concern.”
51
   Nicot, Les poilus ont la parole, 129-130. “Le contrôle postale de Belfort se veut rassurant : Il y a des
symptômes nettement inquiétants parmi les troupes. Cependant, encore cette fois on ne trouve nul par trace
d'indiscipline. Les allusions aux officiers restent en général louangeuses. L'irritation vise beaucoup plus soit
les Alliés, soit le gouvernement, que les chefs. Mais elle s'étend aussi "aux profiteurs", et cela s'entend ‘de
tous les riches’, des ‘gros.’ ‘Profiteurs de guerre’ ou ‘allongeurs de guerre’, tous sont l'objet de la même
haine.

                                                      15

This quotation implies a war-weariness that was ironically exacerbated by the conditions

that soldiers encountered while on leave. The home front was paradoxically both the

inspiration for soldiers to continue fighting and also a reminder of the disparity of social

hierarchy encountered in the ranks. The aforementioned “…rich…” and “profiteers” were

compared to officers at times, and to politicians at others. A soldier of the 217th Infantry

Regiment wrote that if the war continued, “it is because it is the interest of our lords”52

Another man from the 215th Infantry Regiment wrote, “some even place the officer

among the profiteers.”53 Officers were blamed not only for colluding with capitalists, but

also for earning more. A man from the 252nd Infantry Regiment believed that, “(i)f the

(higher) ranks were not paid more than us, the war would be over soon. They all work for

the wallet, and we for France.”54

       According to Jean Nicot, Anti-capitalist sentiment rose from the feeling that

industrialists and capitalists wished to extend the war as long as possible, for their own

profit as well as to wear down the working class.55 Besides the working class, those

conscripted into the French army included many paysans. To a paysan, the army

necessitated dealing directly with, or through the chain of command, their social

superiors. The differences of class were also evident in the wages that Frenchmen

received. A man from the 71st Infantry Regiment opined:

       My poor Marie, with barely 400 francs a year, do what you can to earn bread and
       raise your little daughter; if she were the wife of a captain or a settler, she would
       have 8,000 or 12,000 francs, and it's her job to wage war. Why? And we are in the

52
   Nicot, Les poilus ont la parole, 132 “C'est parce que c'est l'intérêt de nos seigneurs.”
53
   Nicot, Les poilus ont la parole, 138. “…certaines placent même l'officier parmi les profiteurs.”
54
   Nicot, Les poilus ont la parole, 138. 252nd Infantry Regiment, V army
“Si les grades n'étaient pas payés plus que nous, la guerre serait vite finie. Ils travaillent tous pour la porte-
monnaie, et nous pour la France.”
55
   Nicot, Les poilus ont la parole, 131-132.

                                                        16

Republic. Yes, it is clear, but the word equality can be removed; replaced with
       injustice, because there sure is a lot of it.56

Nicot’s work gives a picture of poilus’ negative opinions in the second half of the First

World War, indicating that their resentment was directed towards capitalists and rear-

echelon “shirkers” just as much as at officers. Perhaps, as Emmanuel Saint-Fuscien

posited, poilus labelled shirkers those who did not participate in the front-lines because

they did not conform to a traditional sense of courageous masculinity. At the same time,

enlisted men were aware that they were not being compensated equally to officers for

performing their duty to the patrie. The physical distance between the front-lines and the

rear was complemented by economic and social discrepancies between officers and

enlisted men.

       Having discussed the historiography surrounding this topic, the nature of French

society, culture, and the structure of the army and officer corps, as well as command

relationships, the war-time sentiments of soldiers, particularly as they relate to the

perceptions officers and men had of one another remains to be explored. This study

reviews four sources written by French front-line soldiers. It is a difficult prospect to

choose sources from which to draw evidence of perceptions and subsequent relations

between officers and enlisted men. Written sources are available in profusion, including

letters, journals, and memoirs. Jean Norton Cru, whose letters serve in this thesis,

56
  Nicot, Les poilus ont la parole, 92. “Ma pauvre Marie, avec 400 francs à peine par an, fais comme tu
pourras pour gagner du pain et élever ta petit fille ; si c'ètait la femme d'une capitaine ou d'un colon, elle
aurait 8 000 ou 12 000 francs et c'est son métier de fair la guerre. Pourquoi? Et nous sommes en
République. Oui, on le voit bien, mais le mot égalité peut être retiré; mettre injustice, car il n'en manque
pas.”

                                                       17

critically appraised many of these sources.57 Cru’s work set a precedent for subsequent

scholars to evaluate soldiers’ personal accounts.

       Leonard V. Smith, in The Embattled Self, wrote that he believed soldiers’

testimonies to represent their experience, but not necessarily reality.58 In this sense,

testimonies are both a manner of expressing identity and of forming it.59 Writing allowed

soldiers catharsis, and consequently many tones and styles were employed in order to

help soldiers cope with the war.

       Letters provide a sense of immediacy. Proximity to events offers spontaneity,

meaning that letters are likely to reflect the emotional state of the author. The primary

advantage of this aspect is that it offers, in many cases, unfiltered opinions and

interpretations of events. If letters’ immediacy betrays their author’s emotional

investment, it benefits this study. Emotions inform individual’s perceptions of others,

which in turn shape relations. The disadvantages of using letters as trustworthy historical

sources include self-censorship, due to the fact that French soldiers most often wrote to

their families. Added to this is the fact that contemporary masculinity dictated that

Frenchmen should be ready to defend their land with life and limb. Thus self-censorship

served the dual role of shielding loved ones from the horror of impersonal, industrial

modern warfare as well as maintaining a façade of courage and manliness. The postal

censorship bureau was established in 1916 to dissuade if not completely prevent

potentially morale-damaging or operationally compromising attitudes and information

from reaching the home front. Knowledge of this imposed further self-censorship.

57
   Jean-Norton Cru, Témoins. Essai d’analyse et de critique des souvenirs de combattants édités en français
de 1915 à 1928 (Paris: Les Étincelles, 1929).
58
   Smith, The Embattled Self, X.
59
   Smith, The Embattled Self, 8.

                                                    18

Memoirs, written after the fact, allow for editing to improve the flow of the story,

suit an agenda, or ascribe value to events after one has processed their personal

significance. Many memoirs were written by men who, after the war, perpetuated the

comradeship of the front within veterans’ organisations. Antoine Prost has discussed the

interwar formation of veterans’ associations that were regionally based despite the fact

that during the war men from the same town, city, or region might never have crossed

paths with each other during the war. French army units in which they fought had been

organised not by region but according to the years of military service they had

performed.60 These organisations, therefore, instilled a false sense of solidarity of

experience and purpose, forming a génération du feu. Retrospect allowed men to form

new interpretations of their experience, and frame them within their current ideologies.

Documents written after the war, such as edited memoirs, must be evaluated with the

knowledge that the experiences have been processed, and viewed through the lens of

retrospection and distance.

      Three out of four of the sources selected are collections of letters; the fourth is a

memoir, composed from journals written during the war as well as of postcards and

letters incorporated into the narrative afterwards. The first source compiles letters from

three Manitoban brothers of French descent who grew up on a farm and fought in the

French army as enlisted men.61 Culturally, the brothers felt a connection to France and

the war due to their Catholic faith, and the fact that their parents had immigrated to

60
  Greenhalgh, The French Army, 30.
61
  Claude de Moissac, ed., Lettres des tranchées: Correspondence de guerre de Lucien, Eugène, et Aimé
Kern, trois frères manitobains, soldats de l’armée française durant le Première Guerre mondiale (Saint
Boniface, Manitoba: Éditions du Blé, 2007).

                                                   19

Canada from Alsace. Religion, revanchisme62 and their paysan origin meant that they had

a shared background with other French enlisted soldiers.63 The second source is a series

of letters written by Georges Lambert, the sole officer in this study.64 Rémy Cazals

included several letters from men under Lambert’s command in his collection, such that

we are able to observe how officers and enlisted men addressed one another in

correspondence. The third source is a collection of letters written by Jean Norton Cru,

who was mentioned above due to his influence on his interpretation and critique of

wartime testimonies.65 He served in the French army, working his way from corporal to

warrant officer, serving in the position of interpreter (to the British) thanks to his

background as an English Professor in Massachusetts before the war. Cru was selected

because his critical appraisal of soldiers’ testimonies, Temoins, had a great effect on

historiography. My final source comes from a socialist and pacifist: enlisted man Louis

Barthas. His memoir, Poilu, recounts his experiences as a corporal throughout all the

years of the war.66 The book has been very popular67 in circulation and offers a window

into trench life.

         Having provided the historiographical background and introducing the sources, it

remains to examine them in detail.

62
   Revanchisme translates to “revengism.” Because Alsace and Moselle had been taken by Prussia in the
Franco-Prussian War, revengism existed as the concept that these territories should be retaken.
63
   Greenhalgh, The French Army, 26-36. Greenhalgh outlines the structure of the French army at the
outbreak of war.
64
   Rémy Cazals, Je suis mouton comme les autres (Valence : Peuple Libre : Notre Temps, 2002).
65
   Cru, Témoins.
66
   Louis Barthas, Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918,
Trans. Edward M. Strauss (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014).
67
   Poilu has reached a wide audience due to several editions, including an english version. The book is cited
frequently in academic texts and Barthas’ presence in the trenches throughout the war offers insight into the
quotidian life of a poilu.

                                                     20

1. Three Brothers Defend Their Ancestral Homeland: The Kern brothers

Ed. Moissac, Claude de. Lettres des tranchées: Correspondence de guerre de Lucien,

Eugène, et Aimé Kern, trois frères manitobains, soldats de l’armée française durant le

Première Guerre mondiale. Saint Boniface, Manitoba: Éditions du Blé, 2007.

      The Kern family letters consist of correspondence between three brothers born in

Manitoba, Canada of French lineage, who chose to fight in the French army during the

First World War. Their father, Eugène Kern, was born on 03 April, 1856. He emigrated,

alongside his wife Constantine Curry68 from Alsace to the region of Pembina Hills,

Manitoba.69 The couple left their homeland on 18 July, 1881, unwilling to live under

German rule. The family’s flight was prompted by the loss of Alsace and parts of

Lorraine to the newly-fledged German nation in the Franco-Prussian War. Of Alsatian

origin, they were prime candidates for instilling revanchist ideas in their children. The

letters contained in this collection reflect two family traits: first and foremost, a shared

hatred of German culture; secondly, a deep Catholic fervor.70 Eugène and Constantine

had four children: Eugène, born 04 May, 1882; Marguérite born 04 February, 1888;

Lucien born 13 February, 1889 and; Aimé born 03 October, 1891.71

      The eldest son, Eugène, visited France in 1905, and then again the following year.

Aimé and Lucien accompanied him on the second visit. They stayed in the Catholic

Parish of Saint Léon and their religious conviction was maintained if not increased.72

Catholic faith permeates nearly all of the letters penned by the three brothers from the

68
   Claude de Moissac, ed., Lettres des tranchées: Correspondence de guerre de Lucien, Eugène, et Aimé
Kern, trois frères manitobains, soldats de l’armée française durant le Première Guerre mondiale (Saint
Boniface, Manitoba: Éditions du Blé, 2007) 9.
69
   Moissac, Lettres des tranchées, 7.
70
   Moissac, Lettres des tranchées, 9.
71
   Moissac, Lettres des tranchées, 9.
72
   Moissac, Lettres des tranchées, 9-11.

                                                   21

trenches. The brothers routinely refer to God and Mary-- appealing to them, praising

them, and thanking them.73 The early letters were written by all three brothers together,

until they were sent to their respective units.

       On 13 September, 1914 the three brothers wrote a letter to their mother en route to

Montréal, in which they mentioned an officer for the first time. They said, “…a colonial

infantry lieutenant who joined us, took the responsibility to give us a little confidence in

having us execute various military movements, raising our morale by theoretical and

patriotic lessons.”74 Like the majority of the millions of Frenchmen who served alongside

them, the brothers had no idea of the nature of the war they would encounter, where they

would be faced with tedium, mud, and widespread death. Regardless, the letter implies

that the Kerns were, at the onset of their venture, amenable to military discipline and

tutelage. It bears noting that these young men had not undergone the mandatory military

service to which native-born Frenchmen had been subjected, and so their positive outlook

on the military may be attributed largely to inexperience. Enthusiastically anticipating

military life, they also viewed their service as the burden of duty to their parents’

homeland.

       The brothers’ deep patriotism for France is most significantly demonstrated in a

letter sent before any had engaged in combat. Aimé’s letter to his mother on 20 October,

1914, was written in lofty prose. In it he claimed that he was ready to pay in blood for his

73
   Moissac, Lettres des tranchées, 25. On 01 September, 1914 the three brothers, in Montréal after their
departure for the war, wrote a letter to their mother in which they hoped God would keep both them and her
safe; “Nous espérons que le Bon Dieu vous préservera jusqu’à notre retour.” Then later in the same letter,
page 29; “Nous prions que le Bon Dieu vous garde et vous protège et nous demandons - je sais qu'il n'est
pas necessaire de le faire - que vous priez encore et toujours.” Nearly every letter contains a reference to
“Dieu” and/or “Marie.”
74
   Moissac, Lettres des tranchées, 34. “…un lieutenant d'infanterie coloniale qui nous rejoignait, se
chargeât de nous remettre un peu d'aplomb en nous faisant exécuter divers mouvements militaires, en
relevant notre moral par des leçons théoriques et patriotiques.”

                                                    22

motherland, that he said, “nourished [me] with her blood, and who made of [us] a

generous, ardent, boiling race, waiting only for the day which would permit [us] to pay to

the dear Motherland the debt which [we] owe…to her.” 75 Such florid language, when

considered in light of Nicolas Mariot’s thesis that intellectual Frenchmen were far more

gung-ho than their less-privileged compatriots, in evidence that patriotic sentiment was

not the exclusive preserve of the “intellectual.”

       Lettres des tranchées provides a case of French soldiers who entered the war with

filial duty at the forefront of their motivations. During their first encounter with a French

officer on their way to Montréal, their letter indicates that the officer’s role was

appreciated as a source of morale, as the lieutenant “took care” of the brothers, delivered

through drill and instruction. This suggests that, at least initially, the brothers expected

that the relationship between officers and enlisted men in the French military would be

similar to what Gary Sheffield outlined in his study of the British army; a relationship in

which officers would assume a paternal role. The brothers’ religiosity likely made them

suitable candidates to aspire to filial loyalty, with submission to the military hierarchy

echoing that which they pledged to God. Thus, perhaps they expected officers to fulfill a

paternal role much as the regular unit officers did in the British army.76 The long war,

however, wore down the participants’ morale, markedly when Eugène was declared lost

75
   Moissac, Lettres des tranchées, 37. Frenchmen were mustered in units according to the year in which
they carried out their military service, hence the mention of the “classe de 14”, Aime wrote; “D'ici un mois
la classe 14 dont je fais partie, et qui mobilizable vers le 20 novembre, sera appélee à payer s'il le faut,
même au prix de son sang, la dette sacrée qu'elle doit au sol de ses glorieux ancêtres qui l’a vu naître, qui
l’a nourrie de son sang et qui en a fait une race généreuse, ardente, bouillante, n'attendant que le jour qui lui
permettra de solder à la si chère Patrie la dette qui lui tient tant au coeur - me garder et me ramener le plus
tôt possible dans les bras caressants de la cherie tendrement aimée, oui tendrement aimée, oh ! bonne
maman.”
76
   Sheffield, Command and Morale, 179.

                                                       23