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.