For more than a century, army photographers and cameramen (and operators) have produced a record—employing the technical equipment available to them and toeing the ministerial line—of the conflicts that affected their contemporaries at the time and continue to affect society today. Their news images broadcast through every media channel, from the written press to the Internet, have depicted the course of our modern history and kept the memory of our dedicated troops alive. While the French military authorities knew the benefits of photography since the technology first appeared in the 1830s, they did not immediately jump on it as a means of representing the strategy and supporting the instruction of troops. In 1895, the Lumière brothers patented the Cinématographe, a combination film camera and projector.

In 1915, the French army engaged in the First World War established, as did the German army, two units dedicated to taking still and moving images of its operations: the army photography unit and the army cinematographic unit. From that point on, the military authorities profited from these technological innovations to take and produce, in times of war as well as of peace, photographs and films that helped relay their message and document their history.

Banned image: German prisoner amongst the infantrymen, at "La Fauvette", Talou region in Meuse, 20 August 1917.
© Albert Samama-Chikli / ECPAD / Défense

ON THE FRONT OF THE GREAT WAR

In May 1915, four French ministries—the War, Foreign Affairs, National Education and Fine Arts ministries—joined forces to create the Army Photography Unit or Section photographique des armées (SPA) following the enemy’s example. The photographers were a mix of conscripted civilians who worked for photography companies affiliated with the national photography trade association and servicemen. The Army Cinematography Unit or Section cinématographique des armées (SCA), established at the same time, was run by four major French production companies involved in producing newsreels: Gaumont, Pathé, Éclair and Éclipse.

In 1917, the French War Ministry turned producer and sole distributor after both units were merged into one and named the Army Photography and Cinematography Unit (SPCA). Its mission was threefold: to produce images for the purpose of propaganda, primarily through newsreels; build up the historical archives, and create content for the military archives. At the front, photographers and cameramen worked in concert. Their actions were under rigorous supervision. They were only permitted to travel by order of the War Ministry or the French army general headquarters and were always chaperoned by a staff officer. It would be the operator’s responsibility to transport with him the photographic or film camera, tripod, and cellulose nitrate reels or glass plates. The filming conditions and strict supervision somewhat encumbered by heavy equipment meant that the unit primarily ‘shot’ the battle adjacent: the ferrying of the troops or artillery, the wounded, the prisoners and the camps. Images of the front and the injured were not shown until after the French victory.

Germaine Kanova, SCA photographer, carrying a Rolleiflex, Bade-Würtemberg, 11 April 1945
© ECPAD/Défense

At the start of the war, the equipment was supplied by civilian production companies and later the cameras were hired. Each operator would send his negatives to the production company he worked for, which would then develop and print the films. The prints would be mounted and annotated on boards and the photographs captioned before being presented to the military censorship commission. Any photos or footage of the dead or wounded, frequently taken by camera operators such as Pierre Machard and Albert Samama-Chikli, were prohibited by the censorship commission lest they weaken national morale. Photographers and cameramen in the SPCA were interested in every aspect of the Great War. However, the distribution of their images was strictly regulated. While not every image was destined for public distribution, all photography and footage had to be archived. Censorship was exercised at the point of distribution.

During the interwar period, and at the time of the Spanish Civil War in particular, the war reporter, such as Robert Capa or Gerda Taro, became a familiar figure in civilian life. At a time when the illustrated press was growing in popularity, the political impact of published photos became sensitive to public opinion. Conscious of this shift and helped by the technical development of cameras, which became lighter and more easily transportable, photojournalists sought to get as close to the action as they could. However, exposure to risk was just as prevalent, especially owing to their restricted field of view when looking through the lens. Nevertheless, risking their life to capture images was an occupational hazard they willingly accepted. In 1937, Gerda Taro was crushed to death by a tank.

“UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH TROOPS”

Conscious of the stakes at play in managing photographs and film footage, the warring parties engaged in the Second World War employed both media as an implacable psychological weapon serving a cleverly orchestrated propaganda campaign in support of the war effort. On the French side, the co-existence of two governments each claiming legitimacy was reflected in the management of images. Official teams of photographers and cameramen were active in Vichy (attached to the General Commission for Information) as well as in London and Algiers (with the Office of Information through Cinema). From 1944, in mainland France, other operators accompanied the liberating forces and witnessed first hand the horrors of war. Indeed, Germaine Kanova took photographs endowed with realism and a profound humanism, emphasising the dignity of men scarred by an environment devastated by years of war. Jacques Belin, meanwhile, observed attacks by the troops, and captured the energy of battle and immortalised the soldiers.

When the Second World War broke out, army reporters wanted to be as close to the troops as possible. In the post-war period, in mainland France, the photography and cinematography units had a hand in building the identity of the country’s national defence. At the same time, reporters were sent to Indochina to garner public support for a far-flung conflict. Their main mission was to show the face of the enemy. Yet these directives put reporters in tough circumstances. For instance, Paul Corcuff who after enlisting in June 1944 was sent to Indochina in 1949 to observe the military operations at close range, accompanying the withdrawals, and experiencing the living conditions and general feelings of exhaustion. From the inside, he witnessed the daily reality of the fighting forces but was appointed by the Press Information Service (SPI), a unit attached to the army’s department of propaganda. Army photographer Pierre Ferrari also wanted to be as close as possible to his subject. In the heat of action his images neither elude war nor death.

Soldiers of the 1st RBFM (Armoured Marine Regiment) and 2nd DB (Armoured Division) aboard a jeep during the liberation of Strasbourg near the Montafgne Verte rail bridge, November 1944.
© Jacques Belin/Roland Lennad/ECPAD/Défense

However, neither photographer had any power over the future of their images, which were subject to the obligatory information controls before they were published in the international press. This way of working—which would become the accepted standard of many photographers including Henri Huet during the Vietnam War—was exacerbated by the necessity to employ equipment (such as the Rolleiflex 6x6) that was cumbersome and poorly suited to the subjects in hand. The Arriflex used by Pierre Schoendoerffer and already the motion picture camera of choice of cameramen during the Second World War had only three minutes of battery life and took very short reels. The camera operator was obliged to carry around equipment including chargers, films and spare batteries, weighing in at over 20 kilos. Transporting such a heavy load, operators were unable to film at will, instead forced to capture short albeit well planned shots that today are some of the most iconic images of the conflict (parachutists, Diên Biên Phu and so forth).

The photographs taken by army reporters depicted the reality of the battlefield. But the editorial choice had to dovetail with a communications strategy that extended outside the French borders. The images of military operations in Indochina had to specifically meet the communications objectives defined by the French government within a tense international context. While civilian reporters were less beholden to the imperatives of political communications, military reporters, some of whom were veterans, could more easily integrate into the forces.

After Indochina, the French army was deployed to Algeria. During this conflict, the French Ministry of Defence deliberately avoided sharing any images of large-scale military action. In the field, the General Government of Algeria set about developing its local action, such as distributing tracts and installing loud speakers (under the orders of the 5th Bureau of Psychological Warfare). The SCA unit stationed in Algiers was organised and scaled up to meet the growing demand for news images. The unit enjoyed an almost exclusive monopoly in terms of producing “operational” images to be sent out to press organisations and the military. These images were chiefly images of captured prisoners or psychological warfare operations led by the 5th Bureau against the civilian population. At this time, one photographer who adopted an alternative approach emerged: Marc Flament, a photographer appointed by Lieutenant Colonel Bigeard. He took part in all the operations conducted by the men of the 3rd Colonial Parachutists Regiment (RPC) and immortalised the parachutists and commandos in aestheticised shots that showed the soldiers as heroes. His images, which were shot outside the regulatory confines of the 5th Bureau and the filter of institutional censorship, reflected the harsh realities of war.

THE ERA OF OVERSEAS OPERATIONS

Deployed principally to produce instructional and informational films from a more institutional angle, military reporters followed armies in peace time but also during periods of international conflict. Indeed, during the 1970s and 1980s, the teams of reporters employed by the Army Photography and Cinematography Establishment (ECPA) took part in overseas operations in Kolwezi, Lebanon and Chad. The French army was then a participant in international operations and it was not long before its deployments would be exclusively under the mandate of the UN or NATO.

Photographer Marc Flament, Algeria.
​​​​​​​© Arthur Smet/ECPAD Collection Smet

Photographic and audiovisual equipment was improving all the time. This meant reporters could work more autonomously and move around more easily. Reporters worked with several cameras, which might be colour or black and white. From the 1980s, army reporters enjoyed a certain amount of freedom, such as François-Xavier Roch who immortalised far more than just the action of the French army in Lebanon and started a career as a photojournalist. However, as soldiers first and foremost, army reporters undoubtedly tended towards self-censorship, which was likely guided by a sense of propriety among brothers in arms. Pierre Schoendoerffer, for example, always refused to film a soldier in agony. Similarly, during the attack on the Drakkar barracks in Beirut on 23 October 1983, killing 58 French parachutists, Joël Brun, the ECPA photographer stationed there, refused to film the first hours of the dramatic scenes but waited until the next day to photograph the searches and act on behalf of the forensic identification team, documenting the identity of the victims and the collection of the ID tags. Consequently, he did not capture the initial explosion or the terror on the servicepeople’s faces.

During the 1970s and 1980s, photographers and cinematographers had to send their reels and films to the head quarters based at the Fort d’Ivry to be developed. This somewhat delay their publication. In the 1990s, the use of satellites to transmit analogue video images via Inmarsat revolutionised practices. During the Gulf War, camera operators sent their footage of warfare and the Allied breakthroughs in Saudi Arabia and Iraq directly. This development allowed for rapid broadcasting on TV following authorisation by the military command. In subsequent years, this system of transmission remained expensive and heavy (around 10 kilos) but did allow operators in the French army to document, almost instantly, the action of the French armed forced in combats or in contact with civilian populations in Rwanda, former Yugoslavia and Kosovo, through news items covered to rally French support. Until the 2000s, operators would even entrust their films to those able to transport them back to France, such as pilots.

From the start of the new millennium, digital technology began to replace analogue technology. ECPAD, the French delegation for defence information and communication (DICoD), and the Army Information and Public Relations Services (SIRPA) deployed to the field photographers, camera operators and sound recorders as well as journalists (civilian and military) who had the capability to publish their work almost instantly, after authorisation by the army military command, and to produce written press reports for army publications or for external use (TV media, for example).

In the field, however, technology was not the only constraint. Photographers and camera operators might have orders to follow and objectives given by the military communications advisor in the field. The photos or footage they produced was then contingent on the decisions of the communications officers. In Côte d’Ivoire between 2003 and 2005, they produced less archive images than evidentiary images and news images.

Paul Corcuff, photographer for the SPI, with his Rolleiflex hanging from his neck, during Operation Mouette in Indochina, 23 October 1953.
© ECPAD/Défense

Framing a precise and restricted subject gives the impression there is no reverse angle for the troops, but also makes it possible to produce images endowed with certain characteristics: the camera is closer to the troops, in particular at moments which are rarely captured on film by civilian journalists. The images thus become weapons in the hands of both parties, especially in the case of asymmetrical warfare. Operators in this situation form a Combat Camera Team.

“COMBATANTS IN THEIR OWN RIGHT”

The 2000s also beckoned in a change in how subjects were treated. In Afghanistan, for example, photographers and videographers recorded the main missions to which the French army was deployed. However, the prisoners and dead of the enemy were never photographed to ensure the material was never used for the purpose of propaganda. The French army took with them journalists from outside the institution who were required to abide by the rules issued by the communications officer. Photographic and film coverage of contemporary events related to the fight against terrorism necessitates a different approach. As evidenced in the Sahel where France has stationed troops since 2013. At the start of intervention, only official photographers were authorised to observe operations, as much to abate the military command’s fears of seeing journalists being taken hostage as to manage communications surrounding military operations. In fact, when hostilities broke out, the only images available were those of preparations and logistics, which immediately told the journalism world that Operation Serval in Mali was going to be a war without images. The photos produced by the ECPAD, shot in close proximity to the troops, were only published after the first operations, while the possibilities of observing these same operations were more restricted for journalists. In the battle against terrorism, controlling the image, from when it is taken to where it is distributed, constitutes an alternative war zone, above all in the realm of new media.

In Afghanistan or in Mali, photographers and videographers found themselves once more in the position of directly witnessing skirmishes targeting French troops. This explains why, for several years now, army officers have been equipped with individual firearms in addition to their photographic or film equipment. They might, in fact, be called on to exchange fire to defend their brothers in arms. They are combatants in their own right, exposed to the same risks, as we are reminded by the death of Sergeant Sébastien Vermeille, photographer for the SIRPA Terre (SIRPA’s land army unit based in Lyon) on 13 July 2011 in Afghanistan. In October 2013, the DICoD attached to the French Army Ministry founded the Prix Sergeant Vermeille to honour the fallen officer. It was set up to promote the work of professional civilian and military photographers who accompany, in the field, men and women deployed by the army ministry in France in domestic or overseas operations.

Troops looking for survivors in the ruins of the Drakkar building in Beirut following the attack on 23 October 1983.
© Joël Brun/ECPAD/Défense
 

For a hundred years, the images produced by army war reporters, archived since the earliest days of the very first units established, have provided a record, evidence and information to support defence communications. Not to mention that they also help the policy of remembrance pursued by the Army Ministry for educational, cultural and scientific purposes. The exhibitions, audiovisual productions and publications made from these images are windows into the history of contemporary conflicts, and pay homage to both their victors and victims. The image collections are an essential medium for educational actions that call on academics to study an archive document and examine the question of engagement, in particular from a modern perspective. As such, the work carried out by war reporters for over a hundred years is an importance feature of remembrance for French citizens, our younger citizens especially.

The period of demobilisation that came in the wake of the First World War was exceptional not only because it was on a scale never seen before but also owing to the diverse backgrounds of those affected, a mixture of those born and bred in mainland France, others from overseas France, i.e. the former colonies, but also men and women recruited to work for the war effort.

From the moment the armistice was declared, four million mobilised troops in the French army (including around 300,000 soldiers from the former colonies) were given the prospect of returning home, an unquestionable source of joy for soldiers and their families alike. The government was well aware of their hopes. Yet it also had a duty to maintain a strong army until the signing of the final peace treaty imposed on a defeated Germany, an act that did not happen until 28 June 1919 in the form of the Treaty of Versailles. Caution was also paramount due to other international concerns going on at that time (in central and eastern Europe, Russia and the Levant).

A demobilised soldier trying on the national suit, nicknamed the "Abrami", Paris, École militaire, 13 February 1919.

© © Joly/ECPAD/Défense

ORGANISATION OF THE DEMOBILISATION

The act of sending the soldiers back to civilian life was carried out in stages with priority afforded to the most senior. From late November, the oldest men (between 49 and 51) were permitted to go home. This was followed by the return of men aged 32 to 48 between December and April. Circumstances changed when the Allied leaders became alarmed at Germany’s reticence to accept the terms of the armistice, which it deemed too harsh, and started to consider military intervention with the explicit intention of forcing the defeated nation into submission.

The demobilisation process was therefore put on hold. The classes comprising the active reserve forces, i.e. soldiers under 32, were kept in service until July 1919. While more than a million soldiers were demobilised by this time, the French army still had a further 2.5 million men in its troops compared to just over four million on 11 November 1918.  Demobilisation was then resumed and carried out in four stages through to September. It wasn’t until 14 October 1919 that the general decree of demobilisation was signed, cancelling out the sadly famous mobilisation decree of 1 August 1914. The return of those originating from the colonies was carried out along the same lines. However, for many of them who enlisted for the duration of the war, their contracts stipulated that demobilisation was not an option until six months from the end of hostilities, which meant the month of May 1919 at the earliest, taking the armistice as the base date. In September 1919, about 15,000 indigenous troops remained in France including 13,000 Indochinese soldiers, above all Vietnamese, nurses and drivers for the most part. They returned to their native countries between September and November.

A demobilised soldier is given a medical inspection, Paris, École militaire, 13 February, 1919

© © Joly/ECPAD/Défense

The staggered return was rarely appreciated by those affected, even if it did give some of them the chance to attend the parade on 14 July 1919 through the Arc de Triomphe. It brought disarray to the formation of the units which had to be reorganised to factor in the demobilised troops. Furthermore, there was a lapse in discipline with soldiers and citizens feeling that the end of the German threat no longer justified the application of rules and regulations to which the large majority were subjected in silent revolt and which they strongly resented.  For the demobilised, quitting the army brought its own set of problems. The procedure itself was simple: having a medical inspection, updating one’s military papers, then being sent to the demobilisation centre which was the holding place for the regiment to which each demobilised soldier belonged. But there was frequent chaos, especially as concerned the trains: the soldiers, to protest against the slow convoys and the uncomfortable carriages, frequently smashed windows and doors.  Demonstrations were held by the Senegalese riflemen from the Saint-Raphaël Camp who, during a review, jostled a general and noisily demanded their return. When you factor in the lack of marine transportation, the repatriation of overseas soldiers was even further problematic.

QUITTING THE ARMY, RETURNING HOME

For the first to leave, returning home meant facing disappointment.  The demobilised men were treated quite indifferently by the authorities and there was no ceremony of any sort welcoming them back. To replace the clothes left behind in the barracks, abandoned or unwearable, they received nothing but an ill fitted suit (called an Abrami after the Under-Secretary of State for War Léon Abrami) or, if they refused it, the paltry sum of 52 francs, equivalent to about 50 euros in today’s money.  They were even summoned by the tax office to pay their back taxes, since the moratorium was lifted at the end of the hostilities. It was only in March 1919 that more comprehensive measures were introduced to compensate for the earlier gaffes: the tax moratorium was reinstated; a demobilisation bonus was paid, calculated on a fairer basis (250 francs plus 20 francs for each month stationed on the front), and a law on pensions paid to war invalids or families of men killed in action was passed. The welcome home was also changed.

From the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the regiments who returned to their home town were now celebrated: festivities commenced with a parade of the troops, cheered on by crowds of compatriots, in streets bedecked in decorations and foliage. The celebrations were especially emotional for many of them in the procession who, despite mixing with other regiments during the course of the conflict, were still sons of the soil. The parade was sometimes, though not always, followed by various other festivities, including concerts, balls, fireworks or torch-lit processions. Even when the festivities took place, nothing could hide the obvious grief that would ensue for years to come for the walking wounded and the widows and families whose black mourning wear was a constant reminder of all those who would never return home.

Spahis in parade at the victory celebration in Paris, 14 July 1919

© © Albert Harlingue/Roger-Viollet

The demobilised troops also had to make huge efforts to readapt. They had lived, for several years, five in some cases, amongst their fellow troops, far away from home, and cut off from civilian life with the exception of rare periods of leave. They first had to find a job, which was not always easy. Despite the passing of a law in 1918 obliging business owners to rehire their former workers or employees, not all of these owners were still in business or in a position to take on staff. They were also forced to carry out a series of formalities, which were time-consuming and often humiliating, to obtain the benefits to which they were, by rights, entitled. But finding work was not their only problem. The liberated man, whose daily routine up until that point had been governed by the army, had forgotten how to live an ordinary life, meet their individual needs and know how to feed and dress themselves. More especially, family life had to be reorganised, with wives who, whether they liked it or not, had taken on the responsibilities in their capacity as the new head of the household and children who had lost many years with their father, if they had ever known him at all. Couples separated and divorces were more common than before the war.

The demobilised also felt that they had nobody with whom to share their personal experiences since the people they’d left behind could not even begin to imagine the suffering, fears and solidarity they had shared with their brothers in arms. A portion of the six and a half million veterans (about one adult male in two) did find an association in which they could express their sense solidarity and grievances in French society. Their main state of mind was a feeling of pride of surviving such an ordeal and clinging to their positions, as they did in Verdun, to stop masses of German troops spilling across the country. They felt infinitely more a sense of satisfaction from fulfilling their duty than the exhilaration of the daring exploit of war, even if not everyone was entirely indifferent to it. The further the war receded into the past, the stronger the sense of peaceful, and even pacifist, patriotism grew in the majority of the troops, marked above all by a condemnation of the war and a rejection of anything that might facilitate it, most notably militarism, the excitement of daring heroism and even, in some extreme cases, the honour of choosing death over servitude.

WHAT FUTURE FOR THE OTHERS “MOBILISED” FOR WAR?

Other categories of soldier were also affected by the end of the war. French prisoners, whose number is estimated in the region of 500,000, were able to leave their camp as soon as the armistice was signed. Many took the initiative to return home by their own means, not without difficulty. The French authorities took responsibility for the repatriation of all others. It took two months, from mid-November 1918 to mid-January 1919, to complete the majority of returns. Those that did return had to deal with the indifferent attitude of the authorities and public opinion, as if these veterans were somehow tainted with dishonour when most of them had no reason to shoulder any blame, The law also assimilated them with the other veterans for the compensation owed to them.

Just as discreet, perhaps understandably so, was the demobilisation of men from Alsace and Lorraine from the territories annexed to the Reich since 1871, who had served in the imperial army (250,000 of them during the war). In an attempt to counter the lack of understanding and the injustices born of their situation as Frenchmen having served in an enemy army, a first association was set up in 1920 under the patronage of the great patriotic writer Maurice Barrès, and explicitly named ‘malgré-nous’ (against our will), which was once again used following the even more tragic circumstances that unfolded during the Second World War.

Further neglected still was the demobilisation of a small number of women, conscripted into the war to carry out work until then largely attributed to men in industry and services. They were forced to quit their jobs and return to being housewives or domestic workers under pressure from the authorities (the minister of armaments Louis Loucheur issued a circular to this effect on 13 November 1918). The transfer of these women was done with little noise and left few traces behind.

French prisoners repatriated from Germany, November 1918

© © Maurice-Louis Branger/Roger-Viollet

TO CHALLENGE OR MAINTAIN THE COLONIAL ORDER?

The return of demobilised troops from the colonies was often marked by some form of ceremonious wecome. In a speech delivered in Algiers, General Nivelle, who had come to welcome the riflemen and Zouaves returning to their garrisons, praised "their heroism, their spirit of sacrifice and their unconquerable faith, in Marne, Ypres, on the Somme, in Aisnes, in Verdun, and in Château-Thierry, in Champagne". He reminded them that he had always stationed them at posts of honour. This greeting was addressed above all, admittedly, to only the first repatriated contingents while those that followed were welcomed with far greater indifference. In certain cases, the authorities seemed to take an interest in planning the readaptation of troops. One brochure handed out to demobilised troops from Indochina explained the formal procedures to follow to ensure they received the benefits to which they were entitled. They were given a medical inspection and any injured or sick were treated in medical facilities.

This outpouring of solicitude did not mean a total disregard of surveillance. In Indochina, one regiment of repatriates, established in September 1917, was instructed to centralise information on the indigenous troops in mainland France, so as to report any potential problems, but also any sign of divergences in individual behaviour, which was then passed on to the local security services. In some regions, incidents occurred in response to returning troops. In Djibouti, in the spring of 1919, demobilised troops, some of whom earned a name for themselves in battle (in particular during the liberation of Douaumont in October 1916) mutinied. Some who returned to their camps set about looting the place. Incidents broke out in town. Other similar disturbances happened in French West Africa (AOF), especially in Senegal and Guinea. None of these incidents deteriorated into serious trouble. Workers recruited in the colonies to support the war effort (whose number is estimated at 200,000) also returned to their home country in their masses. The authorities had no desire to keep them in France. They feared these workers had been corrupted by revolutionary ideas which seemed to be gaining ground amongst the French proletariat. They felt that sending them back was an opportunity to give popularity-seeking satisfaction to popular discontent, at a time when troops returning from the front were still seeking employment. Managers in the colonies wanted to reinstate all of the “indigenous” manpower, vital for ensuring the economic recovery in overseas France while receiving wages pushed down to the lowest level by pressure from the returnees. To meet the needs for rebuilding France, there was a general preference for calling on people originating from Europe, deemed more efficient and more accepting by the trade unions owing to their working class tradition. A small number of colonial and Chinese workers were employed to work on the first sites established to clear rubble from the front, in conditions that were often punishing and dangerous. The return journey of demobilised troops was in principle paid by the state, but the administration was in no rush to honour its obligations. The last Vietnamese returnees did not make it home until July 1920.

As their comrades in mainland France, veterans, be they European or indigenous, expressed little the realities of war. Some tended to attribute the attitude of these troops to a “fatalism” that rendered them indifferent to the most momentous events and not to the need to forget that was very common amongst veterans. Back home, these same indigenous citizens were just as ready to challenge the pre-war order and the order imposed by the colonial authorities not to mention the order of traditional societies. They were not prepared to submit to their civic leaders or their elders.

Chinese workers in a munitions factory, Lyon region, September 1916.

© © Piston/Excelsior-L’Équipe/Roger-Viollet

They relied on their status as veterans in the French army to try to avoid the orders imposed by the administration. In AOF, business owners criticised the arrogant attitude of demobilised troops and accused them of picking up lazy habits while in service that was driving them to delinquency. However, many were enjoying, amidst the general population, the consideration shown to them owing to their apparent command of “white manners”: they smoked tobacco, knew a smattering of French and could show official “papers”. Their military actions were admired in a society in which the combatant was held in high esteem. Their demobilisation bonus, paid in one go and often spent on gifts, also gave them, at least in the beginning, a certain prestige in parts of the country forced into a frugal existence.

Furthermore, some repatriates acquired from their time in Europe a new political conscience and new ideas for action. One former soldier, Dorothée Lima, founded in 1920 the first newspaper in Dahomey, La Voix du Dahomey. One returnee worker from France, Tôn Duc Thang, who may have participated in the Black Sea mutinies, created the first trade union in Saigon. For others, a spell in the army confirmed a political vocation, such as Jean Ralaimongo, a teacher who was voluntarily conscripted at the age of 32 and went on to become one of the first leaders of the Madagascan emancipation movement, or accountant Galandou Diouf who soon became the rival of Senegalese political leader Blaise Diagne.  We might wonder if this type of behaviour was frequent amongst the former combatants. In fact, most of them returned home with a desire to enjoy a peaceful life and the benefits extended to them by the government and the respect of their loved ones.

Veterans and former soldiers of European origin, especially the French in Algeria, had a different attitude. While their mentality might seem not so dissimilar to their compatriots in mainland France, the colonial context brought a slight nuance to their patriotism. Their war experience, the brotherhood of arms that forged links between many of them and indigenous soldiers, the countless examples of heroism and devotion shown by these troops, seemed to plead in favour of maintaining a colonial order that produced impeccable conduct. Their very positive opinion on their former comrades in battle took scant consideration of the often tough living conditions the latter would return to in civilian life or their aspirations to escape the condition of “subjects”. While feeling more affection and respect towards the indigenous troops than in the past, those who were yet to be known as the “Pieds noirs” were scarcely more prepared to listen to the demands of their representatives. These exaggeratedly optimistic sentiments were further reinforced by the exemplary participation of the soldiers from the colonies during the Second World War.

Overall, demobilisation might appear to have been successful: the soldiers made a seamless integration into civilian life. Veterans in mainland France continued to express their loyalty to the Republic, which seemed to have come out of the war stronger. But their expectations were commensurate with the sacrifices they had made: a happier life, a more attentive government. As for the men enlisted from the colonies, the pride of having been good soldiers nurtured a claim for dignity that would fuel aspirations of independence.

French troops occupying Germany’s chemical warfare centre: outposts at the exit from the bridge outside Mannheim, March 1919. Photograph published in the Excelsior daily magazine on Sunday 5 March 1919.

© © Excelsior-L’Équipe/Roger-Viollet

Originally centred around the “citizenship pathway” (census registration at the age of 16, defence education at middle school and high school, defence and citizenship day), that task now extends throughout the school career and on to university.

Teaching about defence and national security means focusing on three aspects. First, historical perspective, to resituate defence issues within a broader timeframe: from the threat to borders to the threat without borders, and hence from the defence of borders to defence without borders, from national independence to strategic autonomy, from national defence (the white paper of 1972 on national defence) to defence (the white paper of 1994) to defence and national security (the white papers of 2008 and 2013); second, France “among the peoples of the world”, in the context of internal and external threats, its alliances and commitments, the military actions and operations conducted by its armed forces, and a continuum of internal and external security, on which the fight against terrorism is a major marker; and third, defence as public policy, i.e. a political authority which decides it, operators who implement it and the resources that are assigned to it by the nation, based on an analysis of the land, air, maritime, interministerial and inter-Allied aspects of defence.

The central issue is clearly the participation of students - future citizens - in the defence and national security of their country. Defence interrogates citizenship first, not the other way round. The end of conscription has meant a new relationship between citizens, defence and national security; a new civic contract between France and its armed forces.

Final year primary school students at École Paul Bert
© Laurent Villeret / Picturetank / Ministère de l’Éducation nationale

At the same time, the organisation of defence is no longer restricted to the national setting alone: under multilateral, in particular European, treaties and agreements, France participates in multiple overseas international security operations, in the name of the values it champions and the law it promotes, in the community of nations. The middle-school and high-school history and geography syllabuses fit into this context. In the face of threats that cross borders, the traditional distinction between external defence and internal security becomes blurred, and resistance and resilience must draw on the whole of the national community.

The core role of the national education service, in this context, is to teach all students the essential skills and knowledge that comprise these subjects, to consolidate them as part of a coherent progression, and to test them, with the aim of building a shared defence culture. An official curriculum and teacher training are necessary conditions for this to take place.

DEFENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY AT THE HEART OF MAKING STUDENTS INTO CITIZENS

The primary school curriculum devotes considerable space to “moral and civic education” (éducation morale et civique, or EMC). The points of reference that enable pupils, according to their age, to better situate themselves in time and space place them, ipso facto, in the context of our period and country. At middle school (collège), where basic skills and knowledge are consolidated, students learn to recognise and respect the symbols and emblems of the French Republic and the characteristics of the French Nation, and to situate France within the European Union, the French within the European context and France in the world.

Primary school class
© Phovoir

In 3ème (age 14-15) and Première (16-17), two “defence” modules were clearly identified in the 2010-2012 curriculum. The former “civic education” course in 3ème devoted 20% of class time to the theme of “defence and peace”. With the new EMC syllabus, the situation has changed significantly. Not only is it not articulated with the history and geography syllabuses, it is not immediately clear where the elements that teach about defence and national security are to be found in the texts. The absence of references to a level of education also poses a problem. The need for articulation with the history and geography syllabuses led to the recommendation that the three aspects mentioned above should be taught to students of 3ème, i.e. at age 14-15.

In the section on “Engagement”, the title refers to “Learning the governing principles of national defence”. In the face of threats that cross borders (other than tensions linked to migration, which reinforce them or lead certain states to invent new ones), the distinction between internal and external security has become blurred. France's overseas military operations are presented in this context. Under the heading “Explain the link between commitment and

responsibility”, an entry entitled “The security of people and property: organisations and issues” makes the link between defence and national security.

In the section on “Judgment”, under the heading “Understanding how the French Republic's two values of liberty and equality can come into conflict” is the title “Problems of peace and war in the world and causes of conflicts”. It is up to us to give coherence to these sparse elements, by closely articulating them with the history and geography syllabuses in 3ème.

At the lycée (high school), part of the EMC syllabus in Première (age 16-17) is devoted to defence. It is theme 4: “The structure and challenges of national defence”. Since the late 1980s, “national defence” has seen in-depth changes and reforms, in response to changes in the world affecting the conditions for both peace and war; the organisation of defence is no longer limited to the national setting alone; under alliances and agreements, in particular at European level, France participates in multiple overseas international security operations; the end of conscription, the professionalisation of the armed forces and the sophistication and growing costs of equipment have meant a new relationship between citizens, defence and national security.

By researching and analysing two themes chosen from a list, students are encouraged to think about these questions: the roles of defence and national security (new forms of insecurity such as terrorism, piracy and the proliferation of weapons and means of destruction, global defence, France between peace and war, protection of national territory and foreign operations, the justification for international missions of the armed forces); means of defence (French forces, international defence alliances and commitments, bilateral agreements); defence actors (institutions, citizens, information, defence careers, the military reserve, the feminisation of the armed forces, current debates such as the concept of military ethics, respect for the rule of law).

NEW CONCEPTS IN THE HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY CURRICULUM

At collège, the history syllabus in 4ème (age 13-14) looks at “the Revolution, the Empire and war”. It also discusses the spread of nationalist feeling across Europe, thus enabling students to understand the revival of such feeling today. The geography syllabus, devoted to globalisation, takes as its felicitous starting point the theme “Seas and oceans: a maritime world”, to look at ports, coastlines, maritime trade and the strategic role of straits, opening up a broad discussion of maritime geostrategy.

Collège Jean-Philippe Rameau, Champagneau- Mont-d’Or
© Philippe Devernay / Ministère de l'Éducation nationale

In 3ème (age 14-15), the history syllabus begins with the First World War and culminates with present-day conflicts, taking in the two World Wars, totalitarian regimes and including map-based work on operations like Stalingrad and the Pacific War. It goes on to look at the Cold War and the main emphases of global geopolitics since the early 1990s, thus building a picture of the context of France's power and defence interests. Still in 3ème, the geography syllabus addresses “France in today's world”. It situates metropolitan France and the French overseas territories in the world, and introduces the concept of “power”, which can be usefully explained and expanded upon, both for France and for Europe. It presents the European Union as a major economic cluster “founded on the financial power of the euro, but whose diplomatic and military role remains limited”.

In this way, it lays the foundations for historical, geopolitical and strategic reasoning, while also considering the political, material and moral challenges facing defence. More generally, the history and geography syllabuses encompass the recent past, giving students the keys to understanding current conflicts and the challenges inherent to the difficult, incomplete process of building peace in the world. At collège, it is on the basis of these disciplines alone (history, geography, and moral and civic education), in combination with our programmes, that “practical interdisciplinary education” (EPI) can be developed: in it, defence and national security, in all its aspects, will have the place teachers choose to give it.

The curricula of the different types of lycée (general, technical and vocational) show a clearer presence of defence and national security issues, and a more extensive articulation with the history and geography syllabuses (2010-2012 syllabuses, revised in 2013).

In Première (age 16-17) at the general lycée, Theme 2 of the combined history-geography syllabus is “War in the 20th century”, which looks at the two World Wars, the Cold War and the new forms of conflict since 1990 (an armed conflict: the Gulf War; a place: Sarajevo; a terrorist act: 11 September 2001). The history syllabuses focus on the recent past, reinforcing students' understanding of current conflicts.

The history syllabus in Terminale (final year, age 17-18), for students of the S (sciences), ES (economic and social studies) and L (literary studies) series, is on the theme of “Historical perspectives on today's world”. For Theme 1, students choose between “The historian and memories of the Second World War” and “The historian and memories of the Algerian War”. By studying the history of the Resistance (in Première) and memories of the Resistance (in Terminale), for instance, students learn, on the one hand, to distinguish history as an activity from memory as a subject of history and, on the other, to analyse the history of the Resistance since 1945 and that of the interlocking and competing memories which appear today.

Theme 2 in S series (Theme 3 in ES and L series) looks at “Major powers and conflicts in the world since 1945”, “The paths of power” (the USA and the world since 1918/1945, China and the world since 1919/1945) and “A hotbed of conflict” (the Near and Middle East, a hotbed of conflict since the end of the Ottoman Empire/Second World War).

The challenges of defence and security are approached in relation to the topicality of these issues. The geography syllabus in Terminale at the general lycée - on the theme of “A geostrategic approach to the seas and oceans” - similarly fits into this approach.

Collège Michelet, Vanves
© Xavier Schwebel / Picture Tank / Ministère de l'Éducation nationale

Students at technical lycées can choose, depending on their course, from a range of themes including “Living and dying in wartime”. Meanwhile, “Europe, a region marked by two World Wars” is a compulsory subject for Première students of the “management science and technology” and “health and social science and technology” courses.

At the vocational lycée, the civic education syllabus in Première “particularly stresses the duty of defence”. In Terminale, the chapter of history on “The world since the watershed of the 1990s” looks at the collapse of the Soviet model and emphasises the “crises which marked the start of this new period”: genocides in Africa and Europe, terrorism, the war on terror, France's international responsibility, and citizens' awareness. For the Certificat d'aptitude professionnelle (CAP), Theme 4 of the history syllabus (“Wars and conflicts in 20th-century Europe”) presents the challenges to defence and national security.

Thus the school curriculum offers rich and varied subject matter, structured in a progressive way so as to equip students with the skills and knowledge of defence and national security which they need to fulfil their duties as citizens and economic, social, cultural and environmental actors, founded on the French Republican values promised by the schools system. Students are taught a critical perspective, distance from events, and their responsibility as future citizens. By thinking about, grasping and accepting complexity - the basic tenets of learning about defence and national security - students are able to progress in their education as young citizens: accept nothing without first discussing, challenging and understanding it.

Teachers of history, geography and civic education, as well as those of other disciplines, need to be prepared to teach these concepts, which also need to be clearly identified. This requirement is all the more crucial since the Instituts universitaires de formation des maîtres (IUFMs) were replaced by the Écoles supérieures du professorat et de l'éducation (ESPEs), enabling the previous approach to the subject to be called into question.

DEFENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY IN INITIAL TEACHER TRAINING

High school (lycée) class
© Sophie Brandstrom / Ministère de l'Éducation nationale

In 2012, at the request of the director-general for schools, the French education inspectorate drew up a system of reference to serve as a benchmark for the new ESPEs. The document was circulated to them, and began being used by some in autumn 2013. It is intended to support those teaching staff involved in broad-based teaching about military, defence and national security issues. It comprises four modules, each lasting two hours, plus one revision module with case studies.

The material begins by looking at “The importance of military events in national history”, through France's involvement in conflicts, the part played by the French

navy in France's global influence, and the role of the armed forces in defence and national security. This means approaching defence as public policy, in a historical perspective, over the long-term duration of an organisation and institution, with elements of comparison in time and space and references to the army, air force, navy and Gendarmerie Nationale. It then goes on to analyse the contemporary bases of defence and national security.

“From the link between the nation and its armed forces to the relationship between defence and society” focuses on defence in its political, social and cultural setting (roles, history, military traditions). A central place is given to the issue of the French people's participation in defence and the participation of the armed forces in the emergence of citizenship. The relationship between schools and the armed forces is looked at. Useful parallels are drawn concerning the influences between military events and literature, philosophy, the arts and the sciences.

“New settings, new references: France's defence and national security environment (from the 1970s to the present)” considers the changing risks and structure of international life, and analyses the contemporary bases of France's defence policy, in the spirit of the key changes seen in the successive white papers. The issues of defence and national security are looked at through the prism of major threats, weapons of mass destruction and national resilience.

The final part addresses the most recent challenges to French defence and national security. “Governing in stormy weather: how to organise the security of the nation?” looks at the setting, context and actors that make up France's defence and security architecture, and the emergence of a new government defence and security culture which has the continuity of national life as its objective, foreign operations as an extension, and deterrence as the ultimate insurance.

Teacher training at an École supérieure du professorat et de l’éducation (ESPE)
© Xavier Schwebel / Ministère de l'Éducation nationale

Published in December 2013 in the form of a DVD and booklet, Enseigner la défense (Teaching about defence) reinforces teaching through an academic approach and suggested activities. A national web portal, under the aegis of the inspectorate-general, also provides up-to-date references on the issues of defence and national security. Continuing professional development - crucial for all teachers - must be based on training, for which the prime responsibility, within the regional education authorities, lies with the regional inspectorates, in particular as part of the trinômes académiques, or 'academic triads'. That training must be both joined up and consistent at national level, and it is the inspectorate-general's job to ensure that it is.

Composed on the night of 25 to 26 April 1792, with the title Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin (Battle song for the Army of the Rhine), La Marseillaise was sung for the first time by its composer, Joseph Rouget de Lisle, an officer in the engineers popular among his fellows for his guitar playing and singing. Versions differ as to the circumstances of that first rendition: whether it took place that same evening at a dinner at the home of Dietrich, mayor of Strasbourg, the next morning after a night's composition, or at an officers' dinner. History has preserved the account immortalised by Lamartine in his Histoire des Girondins and Isidore Pils's painting, made in 1849, amid the euphoria of the proclamation of the Second Republic. The first edition of the score was printed without the composer's name, in Strasbourg, by Dannbach. It was dedicated to Marshal Luckner, making it possible to date it no later than May 1792, when Luckner was appointed commander of the Army of the North, before dying on the scaffold in January 1794. Dietrich would meet the same fate, being guillotined in 1793. Opposed like the others to the deposition of the king, Rouget would escape the death sentence, although he would be imprisoned from August 1793 to July 1794.

To begin with, the song was circulated around France by clubs and newspapers. It was introduced in Montpellier by future general François Mireur. It was then adopted by the battalion of Marseille volunteers, called upon by the Theodorian Convention to participate in the overthrow of the constitutional monarchy, on 10 August 1792, which saw the Revolution descend into terror. The song then became a rip-roaring success. The circumstances of its arrival in Paris and its adoption by the inhabitants of the capital caused it to be named La Marseillaise.

Gossec ironed out a few weaknesses in Rouget's score and wrote its first arrangement for orchestra, with the title L'Offrande à la Liberté (The Offering to Liberty). That version opened all concerts and performances. Chosen by the Thermidorian Convention as the official anthem in 1793, it was declared the “national song” by the Convention on 14 July 1795 (26 Messidor Year III, in the Republican Calendar). La Marseillaise quickly became known throughout Europe. It was translated into English and German as early as 1792, reached Sweden by 1793, and was introduced to the United States in 1795.

Associated with the excesses of the Revolution, La Marseillaise was banned under the Empire in favour of Chant du départ and Veillons au salut de l'Empire. It reappeared during the Hundred Days, but was banned once again under the Restoration. It was sung during the July Revolution, in 1830, and Berlioz made a masterful arrangement of it for orchestra and choir, which he dedicated to Rouget de Lisle. Even so, La Marseillaise did not regain its national anthem status either under the Second Republic or the Second Empire. Its resurgence during the popular risings that brought down the regimes of the 19th century confirms how deeply embedded it was in the French psyche, from years of performance combined with the thrilling memory of the Revolution. La Marseillaise remained a subversive song, restricted to the poor neighbourhoods of big cities.

A CONTESTED PATERNITY

Bonaparte commissioned Rouget de Lisle to write a new anthem, but his Chant des combats, performed at the Opéra Comique on 3 January 1800, was a flop, as was Vive le roi, composed for the return of the Bourbons in 1815. With only a single masterpiece to his name, Rouget de Lisle's authorship of the melody of La Marseillaise was contested, especially since the first editions did not bear his name. Some saw in it the work of Pleyel, Holtzmann, or even Mozart. In 1863, the musicologist Fétis was summoned to court for having attributed the composition to Navoigille, but he withdrew. In 1886, French historian Arthur Loth found the theme of the piece in Les Stances de la calomnie, taken from the oratorio Esther, a score predating the Revolution, written by Jean-Baptiste-Lucien Grisons, choirmaster at the chapel of Saint-Omer from 1775 to 1787. The case caused a furore, and led Constant Pierre to publish his research on the musical repertoire of the Revolution, and Julien Tiersot his history of the anthem, both of which defended Rouget. More recently, a score by virtuoso Italian violinist

Giovanni Battista Viotti, Tema e variazioni in Do maggiore, thought to date from 1781, has been found to contain the theme of La Marseillaise. There was no such thing as copyright at that time, and borrowings were frequent, so the debate is far from over.

First score of La Marseillaise by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, 1792. BnF
© Roger-Viollet

AN ANTHEM SEEN AS SUBVERSIVE

The Second Empire was keen to forget La Marseillaise, and permission to perform it on stage was systematically denied, except at the declaration of war in July 1870. This song of insurrection was resumed under the Commune. It was sung on 8 September 1877, at the funeral of Adolphe Thiers. The same year, following a performance of the song at a theatre in Nantes, republican deputies tried to have it reinstated as the national anthem. On 30 June 1878, the musical director of the Republican Guard, Adolphe Sellenick, was reprimanded by the commander of the Guard. This unprecedented treatment of the musical director of the army's - and the regime's - most prestigious orchestra was intended by war minister General Borel to be exemplary. The grounds he gave for banning the song drew on the argument invoked since the Restoration: “Quite apart from any political significance one might wish to ascribe to it, which it is important to avoid in all matters affecting the army, La Marseillaise was written for wartime and is therefore not appropriate to the army today, since we are, and wish to remain, at peace with the entire world.” This case occurred towards the end of the crisis of 16 May 1877, which toppled the regime, with institutions awaiting the restoration of the monarchy being replaced by a radical republic that would make repeated symbolic gestures asserting its revolutionary past. Almost certainly in concert with the Parisian authorities, who were inaugurating a monument to the Republic, Sellenick's performance heralded a return to favour for the revolutionary song. The affair did not affect his career, for he went on to be made a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and the Minister for War commissioned a military march from him for the Bastille Day celebrations of 14 July 1880. He also remained in his post until the age limit, in 1884.

A NATIONAL ANTHEM IS ADOPTED

On 14 February 1879, a bill was presented by Gambetta, then withdrawn. Six days later, at the proposal of General Gresley, Minister for War, Parliament declared La Marseillaise the official national anthem by confirming the decree of 14 July 1795 (26 Messidor Year III, in the Republican Calendar). A letter from the war minister of 24 February 1879 states that “the anthem entitled Hymne des Marseillais shall be performed in all circumstances where military bands are called upon to play an official tune”. The letter would have one believe that the piece had never ceased to be the official anthem, as if the other regimes had been nothing but historical parentheses: “A decree-law dated 26 Messidor Year III (14 July 1795), published in the Bulletin of Laws and which has never been revoked, provides that the piece of music entitled Hymne des Marseillais shall be performed by military bands.” 1879 was too soon, for the republicans had yet to decide upon a date for France's national day. The first Fête Nationale, or Bastille Day, was therefore on 14 July 1880, with the handing over of military flags at Longchamp racecourse, parades, gun salutes and public dances. Since that date, La Marseillaise has been performed at all official ceremonies.

AN OFFICIAL SCORE

When an official anthem is adopted, there needs to be a reference score, to avoid differences of execution when more than one band perform together. In 1845, the adoption of the instruments of Adolphe Sax had resolved the issue of instrumentation and organisation. All that remained was to agree on the score. Gossec's arrangement was not suitable and that of Berlioz was really intended to accompany a choir, not to be played by itself. In 1886, General Boulanger, then Minister for War, launched a competition among musical directors and formed a jury of the leading musicians of the time. The official version for orchestra was adopted on 20 May 1887. A new score was adopted in 1912 to be performed with choirs. It was adapted by Pierre Dupont, whose version became the official one in 1938, and remains so to this day, the only exception being the presidency of Giscard d'Estaing, who asked for it to be played more slowly.

NATIONAL ANTHEMS ACROSS EUROPE

From 1792 onwards, the revolutionary ideas disseminated by the French armies had unsettled the peoples of Europe. Between 1809 and 1813, students and soldiers of the German Freikorps turned to the writings of their poets (Arndt, Weber, Uhland, etc.). Schiller's Ode an die Freude (Ode to Joy) was set to music by Beethoven. This musical theme, the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, would become the European anthem in 1986. In Poland, Sienkiewicz and Kurpinsky wrote La Varsovienne (The Song of Warsaw) in 1831. In Belgium, the revolt of 1830 which led to independence was triggered at the opera by the words of Auber's La Muette de Portici. In Italy, it was Verdi, whose very name symbolised unity: in the mouths of the partisans of unification, “Viva VERDI” meant Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re d'Italia (Long live Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy). Written in 1840 and set to music in 1854, Die Wacht am Rhein (The Watch on the Rhine), served as the official national anthem of the German people during the Franco-Prussian War. The question of nationhood also inspired the poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. In 1841, he wrote Das Lied der Deutschen or Deutschlandlied, which he set to music by Haydn, the third couplet of which is the present-day German national anthem. The model came from the British, who were the first to compose patriotic anthems. As early as the mid-18th century, they adopted Rule Britannia (1740), God Save the King (1745; the melody is borrowed from a composition by Lully, which is still contested by the British) and Heart of Oak (1759), the anthem of the Royal Navy.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN PEOPLES

Besides expressing collective identity through singing, national anthems are also a means of addressing other nations. In this sense, they established a kind of dialogue between peoples, a concert of nations. Music and song act on the long-term memories of people. Songs we learn as children, or hear as teenagers, are remembered for the rest of our lives. Thus, they leave indelible marks on successive generations. These pieces of music permeate the collective memory, influencing its evolution, which is necessarily slow in this context. Europe sang in one voice up until Luther. Not popular songs, but the sacred repertoire. Without necessarily speaking Latin, the people sang it and understood what it meant. By making German a liturgical language, Luther broke the unity of Latin. National anthems can therefore be interpreted as an attempt to establish a dialogue between peoples, between nations, for want of refinding that lost unity. In the days when recording and modern broadcasting techniques like radio, film and television were as yet unknown, song was a essential medium.

A COLLECTIVE BOND IN CONSTANT DEBATE

A national anthem is viewed in the country that has adopted it as a tool of cohesion, of collective identity. Beyond its words, melody and history, the composition takes on its own significance, enabling all to recognise themselves in it. When a song is raised to the status of national anthem, any subversive significance is toned down. La Marseillaise had been used since the French Revolution as a political song, but now workers preferred L'Internationale, for which the music was composed in 1888. This change was also seen overseas. From February to November 1917, La Marseillaise served as the official anthem for Russia's provisional government, until the Bolsheviks replaced it with the Internationale. In France, Jean Renoir's 1938 film La Marseillaise contributed to reconciling the song with the popular masses, even though questions continued to be raised about its institutionalisation. Today, only the first and sixth couplet and the chorus by Rouget de Lisle are sung, together with the seventh couplet (known as the “children's couplet”), which is ascribed to Abbé Pessonneaux. The other verses are almost never performed.

Questions, criticisms and challenges, however legitimate they might sometimes be, also call into question the validity of its role and therefore of the collective bonds uniting the individual members of a nation. Despite its complex history, for more than two centuries La Marseillaise has moved to the rhythm of the history of France. While it may not be above controversy, and may at times have been snubbed, the anthem continues to be viewed as a symbol of union and remains irrevocably associated with the Republic. It rings out at all its celebrations: commemorations, official ceremonies, memorial celebrations and international sporting events. La Marseillaise has been protected against the offence of desecration since 2003, and has been required to be taught in schools since 2005.

Transfer of Rouget de Lisle’s ashes to Les Invalides: the procession, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris, 14 July 1915.
© Wackernie / Excelsior - L'Équipe / Roger-Viollet

WITH THE FRENCH IN THEIR HARDSHIPS

The institutionalisation of the anthem has involved its being taught to the younger generations. In 1911, in the face of increasing tensions across Europe, French education minister Maurice-Louis Faure made it compulsory for La Marseillaise to be taught in schools.

With the outbreak of the First World War, it became the song of the “sacred union”, the pledge of political unity on the home front as the last bastion against German aggression. It was sung and played both at the front and in the civilian zone, on café terraces and at the theatre as well as at official ceremonies. A symbol of this fervour, on 14 July 1915 the ashes of Rouget de Lisle were exhumed from the cemetery of Choisy-le-Roi and interred under the Dôme des Invalides, in Paris, following a formal ceremony.

La Marseillaise remained the national anthem under the Vichy government, and was not really challenged by Maréchal nous voilà, which never became an official anthem. It was sung by French soldiers in England, by prisoners in the Stalags and by members of the Resistance movement. The constitution of 1946, then that of 1958, both make express reference to La Marseillaise as the national anthem. In 1962, it was sung both by the partisans of French Algeria and the supporters of General de Gaulle, who would break into it in his speeches before those present were able join in. On 30 May 1968, it was sung by supporters of de Gaulle on the Champs-Élysees.

Some renditions of La Marseillaise have been highly acclaimed, such as those by Jessye Norman in the Place de la Concorde at the bicentenary of the Revolution, on 14 July 1989, and Mireille Mathieu; others, like Serge Gainsbourg's 1979 reggae version, have gone down less well, and its use at football matches is often controversial. More recently, at the National Assembly's tribute to the victims of the terrorist attacks of 7 January 2015, deputies sang it in unison to symbolise national unity in the face of the terrorist threat. This symbolic act was repeated when Parliament met at Versailles following the terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015.

Gustave Doré (1832-1883), La Marseillaise, allegorical engraving, 1870. BnF
© Albert Harlingue / Roger-Viollet

A SANCTIICATION OF THE COLLECTIVE BOND

An expression of the bonds uniting a people, national anthems have a sacred dimension too. Performers and listeners are expected to adopt a respectful posture, which means standing with the head uncovered. It is not the song itself which is sacred, so much as what it represents to society. La Marseillaise has been on official record since the early days of the Revolution, when it replaced the traditional Te Deum: “Upon receipt of the news, the Convention decreed the celebration of a civic festival, at which, on war minister Servan's proposal, it was decided that, instead of the Te Deum, the Hymne des Marseillais would be sung. This session of the National Assembly at which Rouget de Lisle's composition was acknowledged by name (28 September 1792) was the first at which mention was made of the future national anthem, and the performance which followed was the first official rendition of it.”

In the Roman liturgy, the Te Deum is sung at formal thanksgiving services (victories, national days, royal births, disease remission, the benediction, processions, etc.) and in all circumstances where thanks are offered to God. By replacing this hymn with La Marseillaise to celebrate a victory, its sacred function is transferred. It is no longer God who is celebrated by the people; instead, the people celebrate their own victory, as masters of their own destiny.

IN WHAT CONDITIONS DID THE BATTLE START?

Antoine Prost: At the end of 1915, the war seemed to be stuck in a rut. The Allies had failed to break through and their failures at Artois and Champagne persuaded Falkenhayn, the German commander in Chief, that a breakthrough was impossible. But he wanted to get back to a war of movement. He held the British army in great esteem but believed the French army was exhausted. How could these people who do not have children continue the war? Hence the idea of inflicting a major defeat on them in an area where the British could not help them. He believed this would lead them to seek a separate peace. A political miscalculation due to his underestimating his opponents. But why attack Verdun?

The President of the Council Georges Clemenceau at Mort-Homme during a visit to the battlefield, September 1917.

© ECPAD 1917 / Albert Samama- Chikli

Once the battle had gotten bogged down, Falkenhayn claimed he wanted to bleed the French white because the symbolic importance of this site would force them to defend it no matter what. And this was what happened. But in the German headquarters, no one spoke of a blood-letting prior to the battle. Moreover, Verdun was much less important than Reims for the French. In September 1914, the order had even been given to evacuate it. In fact, Falkenhayn's reasons were military. The fortified region of Verdun was a dangerous salient threat along his lines. On the other hand, it was difficult to defend. Firstly, it had very fragile links to the interior: the railroad to Nancy was cut off at Mihiel by the Germans and that of Sainte-Menehould came under their artillery fire. There remained a slow narrow-gauge train and a rocky road that was enlarged in 1915 and which no one could have imagined how intensely it was to have been used by the French. As well as that, the French would have great difficulty fighting on the right bank because the Meuse was a major cut-off point on which there were less than a dozen bridges. So Falkenhayn initially decided to only attack on the right bank and not on both banks as requested by the Chief of Staff of the attacking army.

This choice was also a tactic intended to save his troops. He was counting on his heavy artillery which was much more powerful than that of the French, to crush French positions to such an extent that they would no longer be able to defend them. In fact, the German attack was not a headlong rush forward, the infantry were confident; if they met resistance, the order was to wait for another bombing. This tactic focused all fire on a relatively narrow but deep zone to get the most intense shelling and prevent the arrival of reinforcements.

The offensive was decided on in December and quickly put together: it was ready on 12 February but bad weather put it back to the 21st. Joffre, who believed the major battles would take place on a broad front could not imagine that the Germans would engage massively into this deep ravine terrain and only realised the danger at a very late stage. He was not aware of how dramatically unprepared the Verdun front was and his artillery was quantitatively and qualitatively greatly inferior to that of Falkenhayn. He took the necessary precautions at the last minute. We cannot say that the French were surprised, but they were not prepared. The first week of the battle almost ended in disaster.

Ceremony at the Douaumont ossuary under construction, 1927.

© Suddeutsche Zeitung / Rue des Archives

WHY DID THE BATTLE OF VERDUN BECOME A SYMBOL OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR?

Antoine Prost: Verdun is not a symbol of the First World War everywhere. For the English, the Somme or Passchendaele matter much more. But for the French, yes, it summarises and symbolises the entire war. The fighters were saying it already in 1916: "If you weren't at Verdun you weren't in the war." In fact Verdun and the Armenian genocide is all that lower secondary school pupils are taught about the war.

For the soldiers, this battle was the peak of violence: they had never seen such hell. It was worse than that of previous battles. But then they were not in a position to compare Verdun to the battles that followed such as the Somme or Le Chemin des Dames. Yet these were probably worse, because the technological war continued to escalate with more massive bombings and ever more machine guns. Witnesses everywhere tell of the same horrors: the thirst, mud, the stench, exhaustion, the distress of shells falling all round, the cries of the wounded, the dislocated corpses, death present everywhere. There are no scales to measure the horror of battle and this one resulted in 143,000 German deaths and 163,000 French deaths but the monthly toll in the Somme was higher than that of Verdun.

Other reasons have been put forward to explain the exceptional status of Verdun: the fact that this was the only battle in the war in which the Allies did not play a direct role, or the "noria" that moved 73 of the 100 divisions in the French army to Verdun, with the result being that, of all the battles in the war, it was the one in which the largest number of French soldiers took part. Yet these explanations are secondary.

In fact, at the time, Verdun was experienced as an exceptional battle, "The" battle that we could not lose. Since 1914, the Allies had had the upper hand. And here now were the Germans attacking. And what an attack! Within days, they had advanced 6 to 8 kilometres, the front was at breaking point, defeat loomed. The French feared losing the war and they knew what that meant: they had lost the previous one and it had cost them Alsace and Lorraine. It was essential to prevent the Germans from getting through. Anguish was widespread: among politicians, journalists and the population at large. The soldiers understood how important this was and in the decisive moments of the battle, at the end of February or in June, when the German advance came to within 4 km of the city, they fought with unimaginable fury in absolutely abominable conditions. In fact they took legitimate pride in this and as a result we have a considerable volume of accounts of the battle with publishers and the public keen to be informed.

The remains of the unknown soldier leave Verdun for the 11 November 1920 ceremonies in Paris.

© Neurdein / Roger-Viollet

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE SPECIAL PLACE VERDUN HAS IN THE FRENCH IMAGINATION?

Antoine Prost: I have already answered in part, but we must be more precise. The myth of Verdun is focused on the right bank of the Meuse: between the city and Douaumont ossuary. The left bank was of much less importance, to such an extent that the French claimed victory in December 1916 after taking back the two forts of Douaumont and Vaux but not Hill 304 or the Mort-Homme which had been the subject of fighting that was just as fierce and that the Germans still held. This dissymmetry can be explained by the choice made on 25 February by the military and politicians to defend Verdun on the right bank. It was playing tough because militarily it would have been possible to retreat behind the Meuse. This possibility had in fact been discussed several times. But this decision gave the right bank exceptional symbolic value.

Ceremony at the Douaumont ossuary with the arrival of the coffins of 52 unidentified soldiers, 1927.

© Albert Harlingue / Roger-Viollet

In 1916, everybody who was anybody, ministers, parliamentarians, journalists, academics, artists, everyone wanted to go to Verdun and to say they had been there. Poincaré went there six times. In September, he decorated the city with the Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre and the town also received a dozen foreign decorations. In November, the City created a medal for Those of Verdun. In 1920, it was from the citadel of Verdun that one of the eight coffins of unknown soldiers was chosen to be buried under the Arc de Triomphe. Cities named streets after Verdun. Numerous players contributed to making the battlefield a sanctuary where normal life was at a standstill. It was the building of the ossuary by a Committee that collected fourteen million in donations pending a grant from the State that enabled it to be completed in 1932. It was the grouping of twenty-two small cemeteries into one big one of 16,000 graves in front of the ossuary. The pilgrimages by veterans, tourism and commemorations rounded off this work. In July 1936, 30,000 veterans from ten countries, mostly French, Italians and Germans came to Douaumont to take an oath to defend peace. Between 1962 and 1967, the National Verdun Remembrance Committee built a memorial beside the destroyed village of Fleury to perpetuate the memory of the soldiers when the witnesses will have all disappeared.

But the context is changing. Because Douaumont was an epicentre of national pride, but a peaceful pride: that of a France that does not attack, but that can defend itself, this was the ideal place to seal the reconciliation between the two peoples, two peoples who had fought so hard against each other. A reconciliation marked by a silent yet powerful gesture, that of François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl holding hands.

WHAT PLACE DOES THE BATTLE OF VERDUN OCCUPY IN THE EUROPEAN CONSCIENCE?

Gerd Krumeich: What has been said about the "uniqueness" of this battle is also of great importance in the European memory.

The First World War had tremendous consequences for Europe; it definitely lost its global pre-eminence. and the Battle of Verdun was of such a nature that it will forever be the symbol of the Great War. If fact it had this status right from the time of the battle, when "Verdun" was made into this shrine by the French political and military establishment, a place where "you shall not pass", a place visited not only by the President of the French Republic, Raymond Poincaré but by numerous representatives of allied and neutral states who came to visit the city and who decorated it many times in numerous different forms.

50th anniversary of the battle of Verdun: General of Gaulle and Pierre Messmer, Minister of Defence at Douaumont ossuary, 29 May 1966.

© Rue des Archives / AGIP

After the war, everyone knew that Verdun was the impassable location of massacre and horror; to those who might be considering the possibility of war, it demonstrated the futility of any war. Verdun became a sort of European peace capital. And this all the more since the French memory of Verdun was not a triumphalist one of victory, but rather a delicate mix of pride in what had been accomplished and deep mourning for the dead, whose horrible fate was beyond commemoration...

So the memory of the Battle of Verdun quickly became the memory of the great sacrifice that had been asked of so many soldiers - soldiers from two neighbouring peoples who had been enemies for centuries. It was acknowledged in both countries, who have now formed the nucleus of the new Europe taking shape, that Verdun was only the triumph of death. And this is also the reason why we started to commemorate this battle together, French "poilus" and German feldgrau side by side. And this was the case as early as the end of the twenties when meetings between veteran organisations were organised. This movement towards a common memory came to an insurmountable peak on 12 and 13 July 1936 when over thirty thousand veterans from ten countries, mainly French, Germans and Italians met in the Douaumont cemetery opposite the ossuary and pronounced an "oath" of peace, as follows:

"Because those who rest here and elsewhere have gone to the peace of the dead only to establish the peace of the living...

And because it would be sacrilege for us to allow what the dead abhor,

we swear to safeguard and to will the peace which we owe to their sacrifices."

This was the first step towards a final reconciliation, but it had no significant effect at the time since the Germans wanted revenge before peace could be made. But once the "interlude" of the Second World War was over, Verdun could ultimately resurface as an emblematic place of reconciliation and confirm the city's function as a symbol of peace that it had taken on in the twenties and thirties.

Today in the European consciousness, "Verdun" is still the emblem of war so "absolute" it ultimately crushed any desire for war.

WHAT PLACE DOES VERDUN HAVE IN THE GERMAN MEMORY?

Gerd Krumeich: Today, the Germans are not very aware of the fact that Verdun is of concern to them as an integral part of their history. For most of our contemporaries it is a distant battle as remote as Sedan or Leipzig. This follows from the fact that as a whole the Great War is in no way as important to Germany as it is to the French or British. The memory of the Great War was "swallowed up" by that of an even greater war, that of 1939-1945, when Germany was devastated and where its crushing responsibility continues to concern us right down to the present day. If Verdun is present in the German memory it is more in the form of the war history rather than German history. There are no more grieving associations. We do not personally make any difference between a grandfather or great-grandfather who fell at Verdun or the Somme or on the eastern front. All that is so far away...

And this is all the truer, of course, since Verdun was not only a lost battle but it is also marred by a deep feeling of complete absurdity.

François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl at Douaumont ossuary 22 September 1984.

© Picture Alliance / Rue des Archives

This is the effect of the so-called "Christmas Memorandum" from Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, who claimed he did not want to take Verdun, but saw it as a suitable place to "bleed the French white". Yet it is now established that this Memorandum is most likely a fake, produced after the war to explain away the failure. Nevertheless, the feldgrau at Verdun and then the public as a whole were deeply shocked in 1920 to discover this version of the battle: the Germans knew only too well that their army had been "bled out" at Verdun just as much as had their enemy. A useless battle therefore, and Falkenhayn's so-called plan was seen to be a kind of stab in the backs for his soldiers: they had sacrificed themselves at Verdun with the aim of taking Verdun and by this victory put an end to a war that nobody wanted any more and now they were being told that the only purpose was to bleed out the French. An that's why they themselves had been bled out! A useless sacrifice therefore and which took away any "sacred" aspect the memory of Verdun might have had.

WHAT WAS SO SPECIAL ABOUT THIS BATTLE?

Gerd Krumeich: There are several peculiar features about the battle of Verdun. This is why it remains one of the great battles not only in The Great War but in world history.

This is firstly due to the lasting nature of this battle. The battlefield was relatively small (between 30 and 40 km2) and a hundred years later, the site remains ravaged by the war. A landscape where the shell holes - slightly levelled - still give the land a dune appearance in which the vegetation has finally won out but with great difficulty. In such a way that we always easily imagine what it was like at the time. There are also the huge forts, all places and names that recreate the horror of the time: Douaumont fort, Vaux fort, Tavannes tunnel, Mort-Homme etc. And overshadowing the site is the Douaumont ossuary, this impressive building, where one can peek through small basement windows to see the huge pile of bones kept there. About 135,000 French and German soldiers whose name nobody knows. "All that" was scattered all over the battlefield and buried in the earth, then collected in the 1920s and later. All this brings home the carnage of Verdun to all and for all time, a formidable - even unspeakable - 10 months of carnage. Close combat, a real archaic "corps à corps" which had the particularity of being accompanied by the pounding of shells of all calibres from huge guns located some 10 km away. This form of combat was unique; it was like a transition to the truly industrialised warfare that would later bring death at a distance across an "empty" battlefield as in the Somme and Flanders But Verdun remains unique: there was no other battle that combined archaic warfare in which soldiers literally strangled each other and industrial death from afar.

Commemorating "Verdun" therefore means commemorating the Great War as a whole, on a site where death is still present, whose landscape is dominated by military cemeteries where some two hundred thousand young French and German soldiers rest not to mention those in the ossuary. French and Germans - since the battle only opposed these belligerents and this too is a unique case in the entire Great War. Commemorating the battle of Verdun is therefore important on several levels and for several reasons: Verdun is the symbol of the war in all its forms and its devastations. Verdun is also a key site in the huge conflict one hundred years ago between France and Germany, a conflict that was so absolute that it could only lead to definitive peace between both nations. Peace and agreement perfectly symbolised by François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl hand in hand on 22 September 1984. An agreement that is the basis of a peaceful Europe in which no one ever thinks of a war of conquest.