“ Sacred Union » or erasure of the memory of social distinctions experienced at the front ? By analyzing the discourse of intellectuals on other social classes, Nicolas Mariot revisits the myth of the Great War as a patriotic crucible. An analysis to be continued.
The idea of a union built in the trenches, in the sharing of common suffering, was disseminated between the wars, recalls Nicolas Mariot, historian at CNRS. According to him, this myth is the effect of a double screen: nostalgia, based on the impossibility, for veterans, of transmitting their experience to those behind ; the erasure of the memory of social distinctions experienced at the front, through a commemoration prioritizing the merit of the dead in relation to the survivors.
This myth of war as a patriotic crucible, Nicolas Mariot revisits it based on a survey analyzing the discourse of intellectuals on the other social classes they had to meet in the trenches. In doing so, he opposes the idea of an osmosis – even momentary – of social classes. It thus extends the approach undertaken by historians of CRID 14-18 aimed at discussing the concepts proposed by Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Annette Becker and researchers from the Historial de la Grande Guerre de Péronne, for which the combatants shared a “ war culture » based, among other things, on hatred of the enemy, sacrifice, the trivialization of death and a lasting consent to war. Criticizing the current use of stories from elites, Mariot discusses sources and concepts in this area.
Social gathering in the trenches
We will read with interest the scaffolding of this social investigation, presented in the appendix, which allows us to follow both the historiographical and technical approach of the researcher. Of the 733 published testimonies of combatants that he noted, Nicolas Mariot retained 42, according to the following criteria: these writers were sent to the front, especially in the infantry ; they are recognized as “ intellectuals » by the other fighters ; their writings left a lasting echo. Mariot also emphasizes that, in 1914, the majority of them were simple soldiers. Among them, Guillaume Apollinaire, Henri Barbusse, Marc Bloch, Georges Duhamel, Maurice Genevoix, Fernand Léger, to name the best known.
He also chose them because they combine, according to the definition of Edmond Goblot, the “ indices of belonging, particularly cultural, to the bourgeoisie of the beginning of the XXe century » (p. 42). So, 2 % of an age group (7,000 individuals per year out of 300,000 conscripts) reaches the baccalaureate: all combatant intellectuals have necessarily encountered men of the people, the opposite not being true. Mariot endeavored to note, in the publications selected, all the references to this social meeting. What he seeks to understand is the existence or absence of common reactions of intellectuals towards other poilus. Rather than describing the plurality of behaviors, he wants to capture, “ by comparison, what is modal behavior » (p. 21) of these writers, to find out if it reveals a class reflex in the face of their comrades of popular extraction.
The materiality of this meeting is first analyzed. The meeting is very real between these circles which crossed paths, but did not rub shoulders in times of peace. However, the class relationships existing before the conflict, although they can be attenuated by the experience of common suffering, are not abolished: the uniform in no way makes social perceptions of the world disappear. The stripe clearly distinguishes the officer from the rank and file, by functions, remuneration (the pay of a second lieutenant is 147 times higher than that of a soldier, 10 times higher than that of a sergeant ), the contents of the packages received, the help of an ordinance which maintains the domesticity present in civil society.
Even more, life in the trenches has “ crystallized social distances » (p. 10). In fact, these intellectuals experience isolation and feel downgraded among these men of a more primitive culture, with whom conversations turn short. Also, on the defensive, they seek to find their peers, the sharing of the same interests favoring “ the confusion of hierarchies » (p. 66), since the simple literate soldier will more easily discuss and debate with cultured officers than with his peasant and worker comrades.
Bridge and wine
Mariot then describes the “ world behind the trenches “. Those who are “ accustomed to imposing their opinion, to “knowing”, sometimes to leading, are obliged to admit, vis-à-vis the workers and peasants, their incompetence » (p 25) in daily activities (earthworks, walks, exercises, etc.). Writers must deal with men whom, before the war, they often viewed with superiority and condescension. Their position as intellectuals is negatively confirmed by mockery and sidelining ; it is thus socially constituted.
During the war, their view of fighters from working-class backgrounds did not change. On the contrary, the harshness of the experience anchors them more in their habitus, thus characterizing a class ethos: hierarchies are maintained, while they show, towards their comrades of lower condition, paternalism and miserabilism. The gap is also maintained in cultural practices during periods of rest. If the intellectual reads, plays cards, drinks alcohol, like the other poilus, his practice differs and signals his social belonging. Solitary reading, suitable for withdrawing into oneself, is preferred to participation in collective games. Bridge attracts him more than manilla, wine more than brandy, and without excessive abuse (p. 218-219).
Finally, Nicolas Mariot clearly rejects the idea of sharing an ambient patriotism. There is a clear dichotomy between these writers, who mostly share a sense of patriotic commitment, and men who, on the whole, do not really know what they are fighting for. Their attitude, marked by resignation and fatalism, seems close to “ culture of the poor » analyzed in his time by the sociologist Richard Hoggart.
In front of a “ apparent absence, among the majority of them, of any national feeling » (p. 24), intellectuals cannot help but lecture, doubling down on the discourse of authority, which results in indifference, if not conflict. Drawing on the reading of Léon Werth, the author describes patriotism as a habit incorporated through lessons learned at school, “ a mental element external to the individual » (p. 369). This is what, according to him, distinguishes the intellectual from the trooper: the first proclaims a thoughtful patriotism, while the second refers to it to color an inscription suffered in the war.
Patriotism, a ready-to-think ?
Through songs, objects, the press, patriotism is internalized as a ready-to-think, a frame of reference which the intellectual uses knowingly, while the other classes internalize it with submission, resignation and without reflexivity. The debate on war culture » thus finds a new twist.
In conclusion, Nicolas Mariot disagrees with the idea of a mixing carried out by the Republican regime “ through the recognition of a citizenship embodied in electoral, educational and military institutions » (p. 377). To this vision, defended by the historians of Péronne, which implies reflexivity, a consent of the combatants, renegotiating their relationship and the political and social contract during the conflict, he opposes the adaptation of individuals who are most often indifferent, registering their actions within a patriotic frame of reference imposed by a dominant elite.
If we can follow the author on the myth of social mixing or when he specifies that consent could only be socially differentiated, if the description of the diversity of social practices maintained in the trenches seems fair, his conclusion, which projects the behavior of writers onto all the elites (bourgeois, executives and functionaries of the nation-state), is more questionable.
By crossing the sources of a fraction of the elites with a few examples from the working classes, by insisting on the officer-trooper comparison, based on the dominant-dominated dichotomy, this book eludes the diversity of social affiliations. This is to forget the role of non-commissioned officers and junior officers not necessarily coming from social elites, access to these ranks – as he recalls by citing the work of Jules Maurin and William Serman – has been democratizing since the middle of XIXe century.
On the evolution of the social composition of the army, much remains to be done. It would be interesting to know how, at each level of the military hierarchy, we consider those we command and we evoke those who are more “ braided » than yourself. As for patriotism, its expression undoubtedly varies according to social belonging, over time and from effusion to indifference. ; but the idea that it would be a conformist ready-to-think imposed by the elites deserves debate.
Ultimately, by introducing the social focus at the intersection of the cultural, Nicolas Mariot rightly emphasizes the representations of social categories. It opens avenues for the study of social groups who went through the ordeal of the Great War.