lecture 17 -- "the popular front"
john merriman
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France in the 1920s and 1930s has to be understood in the context of the international situation in Europe--and, in particular, the rise of fascism.
by 1939, only, in Central and Eastern Europe, only Czechoslovakia remained a parliamentary regime--when you think of fascism you think of Mussolini and Hitler, but it's important to remember that there were no parliamentary regimes left in the entire region. and even where democracy survived in W. Europe, there were indigenous Fascist movements (not to mention the case of the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939).
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so, today, the rise of the Right in France; and its relation to the Popular Front.
the Popular Front era in France is remembered as one of the "magic" moments of French history.
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the political details of the Cartel de Gauche (Left-leaning) that came to power after World War I can be left to the reading. but, for all these countries, the right-wing temptation of the 1920s was evident. Mussolini was on the cover of Time magazine eight times in the US--known as the man who got the trains running on time (even if it was only to the ski resorts that American journalists frequented, quips prof).
Hitler doesn't come to power till 1933--and Hitler was of course only the most successful of a bunch of right-wing leaders in Germany agitating for the overthrow of the Weimar Republic.
one of the salient tactics is corporatism--the philosophy that you can get rid of social strife by organizing industries in a vertical way. Mussolini talked a good game in this regard.
so: Fasicsm was a European phenomenon, as well as a French one.i
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the spiritual leader of French fascism was [de la Rochelle?]. a novelist whose work was obsessed with suicide. in his autobiographical novel he thought Fascism could resurrect a medieval, Christian spirituality in France. Accion Frances was also, at this time, a pro-Monarchist group operating on similar principles. in France, the extreme right and Catholicism were interlnked.
and these groups begin to create paramilitaries (which is obviously what happened with the Nazis in Germany, and Mussolini in the early 1920s). the Accion France, then, takes the tactics of the early Boulanger movement and resurrects them. you have, also, the growth of right-wing groups through the trade union federation, the CGT.
they want to abolish parliamentary democracy. this activism develops to the extent that they are condemned by the Pope. and, indeed, many members leave the organization at this time, fearing ex-communication.
a number of other groups, who are even more radical, start up. Faisceau, which had begun in 1919, but increases its membership, and believes in violent struggle ("will to power"). another, the "Cross of Fire," attracted war veterans--founded in 1928 as a non-political organization, and its membership swells to 60,000 people.
of course, there has to be money behind these movements. interestingly, a bunch of producers of luxury products were funding these folk. and, because the newspapers,etc. are controlled by the right, much of these groups have ready means to disseminate their message.
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why were middle-class people attracted to these movements? (a phenomenon characteristic of Italy and Germany, as well)
has to be seen in the context of the hard times of the 1920s--Europe is basically in a long depression, with the exception of the period from 1924-1929. E. Europe is in a very severe agricultural depression the entire time.
with this rampant inflation (of course nothing comparable to Germany), the people who get burned are middle-class people on pensions. people who have saved their entire life, and their savings are wiped out.
in Germany this is quite clear--you had bourgeois families forced to sell silvers/antiques in order to make ends meet.
these grievances are expressed, then, through various components of fascist ideology, which are virulently anti-communist, anti-Bolshevik, anti-communists, and virulently anti-semitic (Hitler begins as a socialist-hater, before he despises the Jews).
in the 1930s, of course, you have huge numbers of Spanish refugees into France. a further grievance.
furthermore, these groups despise parliamentary regimes. the Europe of the 20s and 30s was dictatorships. characterized by an aggressive nationalism.
this ties into xenophobia in France quite obviously--the population in France was basically stagnant, remember. France has relatively few numbers of people under the age of 20 (only about 30%), and relatively more people who were elderly. and beginning in 1935, more people died in France than are born there. who makes up the difference? Italians, Poles, Spaniards, Belgians, Jews--all are significant minorities (half of the 325,000 Jews had come after 1918).
7.5% of the French population consists of immigrants--highest of any country.
why, with the exception of Oswald Mosley, does the UK remain relatively immune? immigration in that country was relatively small compared to these other places (despite the fact that it was only in London that you would run into people of color, as early as the 18th century, because of the British empire, prof is noting).
you only need to look at the success of the National Front, prof is noting, today, to see the continuities.
the idea of "True France" is being threatened. immigrants are not included, of course. (Hitler's own pernicious view, prof is arguing, took this to its extreme--the power of deciding who remained part of the German people lay with the Fuhrer).
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this culminates in February 6th, 1934. a political scandal gives the extreme right an opportunity for action (this is a country that had political scandals before, of course). and so now the Republic is accused not only of being soft (not virile--a weak system without a strong executive), but also of being corrupt. the France of "camping out" will conquer the France of the Apertif(!).
the police look the other way as the right mobilize their forces on the street.
a Ukranian Jew, con-man, who made an illict fortune. gradually it all collapses on his head--in December 1933 he flees to the Alps, rents a villa. revelations pile up, one after the other. Stavisky was protected by government minister, who happened to be the brother of the Prime Minister. the Right takes full advantage, and urges a full protest against the Chamber of Deputies.
the Police move in to arrest him, and Stavisky blows his brains out. he leaves a suicide note to his son, though, which didn't seem quite right--the right-wing suspected the Republic was covering itself. on top of that he was a Jew, of course.
these demonstrations turn into riots, toppling the gov't (which is replaced by a coalition government).
on February 4th, 1934, every right-wing group plans to march in front of the Chamber of Deputies, plans to perhaps even overthrow the Republic. the police batter them back--prof's uncle claims to have been in a counter-demonstration.
14 demonstrators were killed, and several thousand were injured. several hundred policemen hurt.
on February 8th, the prime minister resigns, again.
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on February 12th, the largest demonstrations in French history occurs (until May 1968), in defense of the republic. organized by the Popular Front, which was organized in the wake of these right-wing demos. millions of people march, 24-hr strike following. the Republic seemed to have a new lease of life--but it could also be called, of course, a new "lease of death."
"something had changed," prof says, "these three parties--communists, socialists, radicals--were frightened."
in 1920, the Communist Party split from the Socialist Party. it retained some elements of the Guedist party; it was fairly top-down, along lines of democratic centralism. in 1922-1923, intellectuals were tossed from the party, as it obeyed quite faithfully orders from Moscow. provided very good social services, however, and so it had a prestige that quite predated their resistance during WWII. (330,000 members by 1936--particularly strong in the red belt around Paris, and with railroad workers/engineers)
they considered the socialists (and Leon Blum) to be a reformist party, so this was a painful alliance for them.
Blum himself was "bourgeois." Blum was an intellectual, literary critic, socially radical ("on Marriage"), etc. when Jaures was killed on 31st of July 1914, Leon Blum was the logical successor. he becomes the dominant figure in the socialist party.
Leon Blum was also Jewish. and one thing that you heard in 1934/1935/1936, right-wing students would chant "better Hilter, than Blum." at one time he was almost beaten to death by right-wing thugs.
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in the meantime, government after government falls.
in June 1934, the Communist party repudiates class vs. class strategy--allowing their alliance with the "bourgeois" socialists. and the three parties meet and decide on a compromise program--tax reform, shorter work week, unemployment benefits, international disarmament,, support for league of nations, dissolution of fascist league.
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on the 7th of March, 1936, German armies move into the Rhineland. Hitler wins the big bluff against the League of Nations and the Allied Powers (his advisors warn him against the move, but Hitler gets away with it)
this leads to May 1936, when the Popular Front wins the election (57% of the vote--386 of 608 seats in the Chamber of Deputies). the communists refuse to participate in the cabinet, but their adding to the mix of three has made this victory possible.
on 3rd June, 1936, Leon Blum becomes prime minister.
what happens now, however, is that the largest wave of strikes (until May 1968) break out in France. in June 1936, there are 12,000 strikes, involving 2 million workers (for the first time ever, workers occupy factories; this happens in Flint, Michigan too, at the same time). there are pre-existing grievances, fanned by Popular Front rhetoric before the election (Taylorism, as well; "killing one's soul 8 hrs of day," factory as prison).
what is interesting is that the strikes take the labor federation and the communists by surprise. this isn't the last time this happens--happens in May 1968 as well, prof notes.
Leon Blum calls the government and employers together, and sign the Matignon Agreements, which promise 15-20% raises, 40-hr work week, paid vacation for a month, and free admission to the Louvre. (working-class resorts at beach develop in this period, prof is noting--"the working-class vacation"). an important conquest.
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but why does the Popular Front fail in the long run?
one of the reasons is because the employers have no intention of obeying their imperatives.
but really, it's the fact of the economic crisis--can't really bear the burden of these reforms, prof is arguing. wealthy people, also, run with their gold/silver to Switzerland. (Leon Blum does not put controls on currency).
and so at this point the Popular Front begins to unravel. in March 1937, police fire on demonstrating workers in Paris--the Communist Party denounces the gov't. the stock market goes into a tumble, the gov't has to devalue the Franc several times because of the outflow of gold.
but there's yet another reason that the Popular Front fails, says Prof, and that is Spain. people who lived in the late 1930s saw the war on Spain as a "war of Civilization." at the time people realized that it was a dry run for a war that was to come, later. the counter-revolution really starts in 1936 in Morocco--by 1939, an atrocity-filled war (but atrocities overwhelmingly on the side of the Fascists, no question, says prof) is ending.
the question was what was going to happen in Spain? but, of course, nobody gave arms to the Republicans. German planes strafe Guernica, though, and Italians try out their tanks.
there's a moment in France, when Blum is facing a crowd chanting "arms for spain, arms for spain"--and with tears streaming down his cheeks, Leon Blum says "I can't, I can't" (because the British and the Americans didn't want him to).
and, of course, Franco's regime lasts until 1975.
the Spanish Civil War is one of those moments, perhaps--maybe history would have been different if Hitler had been stopped at the Rhineland. or if Franco had been defeated.
as it pertains to the Popular Front in France, it survives, but in name only, until 1939. all this takes its toll. the government is defeated. Leon Blum ends up in jail, survives the war, and is active in politics during the Fourth Republic.
we live in a time of historical nostalgia, of course. prof's generation grew up listening to these tales of "arms for spain, etc." lots of the things that are good about France, prof is arguing, came out of this period of the Popular Front.
Showing posts with label john merriman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label john merriman. Show all posts
Thursday, April 2, 2009
lecture 16, "the great war, grief and memory"
bruno cabanes (john merriman)
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the great war, "grief and memory"
mass death and mourning a fact of life in France well before the end of the first world war: around 50% of the soldiers killed during WWI lost their lives in the seventeen month period from August 1914-December 1915.
one must also add the deaths of the Spanish Flu in 1918, which killed up to 20 million people(!)
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but these figures mean nothing, prof argues, if one does not consider them in relation to private and collective mourning. i.e., we need more than a statistical, demographic understanding of mass death.
the challenge, then, is to grasp this process in its fullness.
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first, who were the people who were mourning? who were these "communities in mourning"?
second, the specificity of mourning in the aftermath of WWI--it can be studied, in this sense, in a comparative perspective, as well.
third, examine the mourning process itself--the relationship between personal suffering, and collective mourning--how grief becomes a collective process.
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from a demographic perspective, this is difficult. war widows lost their benefits, and so vanished from the statistics in 1920 and 1921. the numbers then that you find about 600,000 widows and 760,000 orphans is very rough--and this is not to mention the extended families.
so the concept of "communities in mourning" is a very useful one, as a way to grasp the scale of mourning after WWI.
EVERY social structure went into mourning after the WWI, prof is arguing.
"circles of mourning," as well.
the first: fellow soldiers--"mourning the dead." what did soldiers do on armistice day? first tried to find the bodies of their fellow soldiers, in order to bury them.
notion, also, of the "survivor's syndrome"--guilt at having been spared. predominant amongst French soldiers after WWI.
the second: parents, grandparents, family, etc.--larger family group has, most times, been underestimated. mourning a lost relative becomes a way to participate in the conflict, in a distant sense.
the third: friends--the story of friendship in wartime still needs to be written--especially from the perspective of the history of bereavement.
-----------------
second larger point--specificity of WWI mourning.
the generational mourning had been reversed--a whole generation was lost. many people in the cities were suffering from depression (Emile Durkheim died of grief, only one year after his son's death in 1915).
death was also experienced by the soldiers in a very solitary way--must be seen specifically in the extreme violence of the war, and in light of the religious rituals that were prevalent in the war. one of the pervasive fears was of dying alone in no man's land, abandoned by comrades. soldiers who fell wounded between the lines lay dying for hours, sometimes days. (1/3 of the 20,000 men who died on the Sommes in 1916 might have been saved had they been seen to). and this added an unbearable toll to the bereavement. "horrible, pitiful deaths on the fields of honor."
all the traditional stages of grieving, as per the Catholic tradition, were eliminated--absence of dead bodies (around 30% of the dead bodies were completely destroyed, could not be identified; after 1918, bodies remained on the battlefield until the French gave permission to repatriate them, which did not happen until 1920!--they were arguing for the abstract equality of the mourning process, even as prof is stressing the specificity, as well)
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third point: new rituals, new traditions
the violence of the war experience, the absence of dead bodies required new ways of commemorating the dead.
two major cultural processes, in particular, as personal grief was translated into collective mourning
(1) the nationalization of mourning--in the 1920s and 1930s, the battlefields were converted into commemorative sites, through a network of military cemeteries, parks, etc. these new sites of memory were often represented in objects, paintings, pictures, and a number of ceremonies were organized to pay homage.
and they clearly played a role in forging a new conception of french national unity. on november 11th, each commune would name the dead from "the lost generation," at their respective war memorials (unity of time, space, action).
(2) the spiritualization of mourning--the 1920s and 1930s were characterized by a type of spiritual revival. prof giving one emblematic example.
bruno cabanes (john merriman)
------------
the great war, "grief and memory"
mass death and mourning a fact of life in France well before the end of the first world war: around 50% of the soldiers killed during WWI lost their lives in the seventeen month period from August 1914-December 1915.
one must also add the deaths of the Spanish Flu in 1918, which killed up to 20 million people(!)
---------------
but these figures mean nothing, prof argues, if one does not consider them in relation to private and collective mourning. i.e., we need more than a statistical, demographic understanding of mass death.
the challenge, then, is to grasp this process in its fullness.
---------------
first, who were the people who were mourning? who were these "communities in mourning"?
second, the specificity of mourning in the aftermath of WWI--it can be studied, in this sense, in a comparative perspective, as well.
third, examine the mourning process itself--the relationship between personal suffering, and collective mourning--how grief becomes a collective process.
--------------
from a demographic perspective, this is difficult. war widows lost their benefits, and so vanished from the statistics in 1920 and 1921. the numbers then that you find about 600,000 widows and 760,000 orphans is very rough--and this is not to mention the extended families.
so the concept of "communities in mourning" is a very useful one, as a way to grasp the scale of mourning after WWI.
EVERY social structure went into mourning after the WWI, prof is arguing.
"circles of mourning," as well.
the first: fellow soldiers--"mourning the dead." what did soldiers do on armistice day? first tried to find the bodies of their fellow soldiers, in order to bury them.
notion, also, of the "survivor's syndrome"--guilt at having been spared. predominant amongst French soldiers after WWI.
the second: parents, grandparents, family, etc.--larger family group has, most times, been underestimated. mourning a lost relative becomes a way to participate in the conflict, in a distant sense.
the third: friends--the story of friendship in wartime still needs to be written--especially from the perspective of the history of bereavement.
-----------------
second larger point--specificity of WWI mourning.
the generational mourning had been reversed--a whole generation was lost. many people in the cities were suffering from depression (Emile Durkheim died of grief, only one year after his son's death in 1915).
death was also experienced by the soldiers in a very solitary way--must be seen specifically in the extreme violence of the war, and in light of the religious rituals that were prevalent in the war. one of the pervasive fears was of dying alone in no man's land, abandoned by comrades. soldiers who fell wounded between the lines lay dying for hours, sometimes days. (1/3 of the 20,000 men who died on the Sommes in 1916 might have been saved had they been seen to). and this added an unbearable toll to the bereavement. "horrible, pitiful deaths on the fields of honor."
all the traditional stages of grieving, as per the Catholic tradition, were eliminated--absence of dead bodies (around 30% of the dead bodies were completely destroyed, could not be identified; after 1918, bodies remained on the battlefield until the French gave permission to repatriate them, which did not happen until 1920!--they were arguing for the abstract equality of the mourning process, even as prof is stressing the specificity, as well)
-----------------
third point: new rituals, new traditions
the violence of the war experience, the absence of dead bodies required new ways of commemorating the dead.
two major cultural processes, in particular, as personal grief was translated into collective mourning
(1) the nationalization of mourning--in the 1920s and 1930s, the battlefields were converted into commemorative sites, through a network of military cemeteries, parks, etc. these new sites of memory were often represented in objects, paintings, pictures, and a number of ceremonies were organized to pay homage.
and they clearly played a role in forging a new conception of french national unity. on november 11th, each commune would name the dead from "the lost generation," at their respective war memorials (unity of time, space, action).
(2) the spiritualization of mourning--the 1920s and 1930s were characterized by a type of spiritual revival. prof giving one emblematic example.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
lecture 15, "the home front"
john merriman
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1917 and 1918--the mutinies.
the mutinies have to be seen in the context of all this, but in particular they have to be seen in the context of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, which was the darkest period in four years of dark days.
began on July 1st, 1916--on the first day, almost 40,000 British soldiers were wounded, 20,000 were killed. there was a casualty for every half-meter of the front line. there were more British soldiers killed in the first three days of this battle than there were Americans killed in WWI, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq combined(!). those are phenomenal losses.
it's easy, perhaps, to poke fun at Oxbridge class society--but, in WWI, the flower of British youth perished in these battles.
1917 is the crucial year in determining the outcome of a war that seemed like it was going to go on forever. by the end of 1917 and into March 1918, the military planners begin to think that they'll win the war by 1920, 1921. as so many people died, to win a few kilometers, there were wags who said we'll reach the Rhine by 2007(!).
but two things happen in 1917, that are crucial.
(1) Bolshevik Revolution, after the February 1917 overthrow of the Tsar--people wake up and discover that the Emperor has no clothes. Kerensky's provisional government keeps Russia in the war. But by October the Bolshevik's take power, and withdraws Russia from the war by March 1918 at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (there was a deceleration in the war effort before this; and there were any way quite a number of desertions, though less than you might have thought.) (2) the other thing that happens is that the Americans enter the war. they were officially neutral, though the majority of the population supported the Allies, but it's not really that that brings the US into the war. the German High Command had decided that the only way they could win was to knock Britain out of the war. and the way they were going to do that was to sink ships supplying munitions, etc. to the British (a submarine campaign). they placed warnings at ports in US and Philadelphia. sunk the Lusitania on her maiden voyage on 1915, killing 1,200 civilians. (in the 1960s/1970s divers found that the ship was carrying munitions, and that was the German claim). over the long run, the man that was going to keep the US out of the war, Woodrow Wilson, ends up taking the US into WWI (despite widespread domestic opposition--Wilson couldn't get the Treaty of Versailles ratified by Congress, after returning home).
what did the entry of the Americans really mean? not so much troops--troops don't really make the difference, really. the big difference is that the curves cross--the ability of the Germans to supply their own war-machine cannot compete with the combined power of American industrial might. factories easily transformed into the production of arms. and it's at that point when many people in the French and British High Command realize that they will win the war--though they're still unsure at what cost.
all this helps set up March 1918, when the Germans decide that "it's now or never"
--------------
what about the mutinies?
most people in France did not want war in 1914. but because it was easy to portray Germany as the aggressors, the vast majority of the population recognized the urgency of the fight.
to be sure, there are tensions within French society re: the war. there was tremendous resentment. at the Opera, they distributed coal as per rations--as people waited in line, they saw the fancy people in their big cars going off to the restraunts (people who had profited tremendously from Big Business' role in war). so there is class tension fueled by the War.
more than that, you have tensions felt by peasants, who are conscripted without any real possibility of refusing (unless they've already had two brothers killed!).
you have refugees, as well--refugees from the North (sometimes even German-speaking, and Flemish), settling in other areas, as a strain on local resources. you have grumbling, then, about these "Germans" of the North.
many women and men also go on strike in 1917 (689 strikes, affecting 300,000 workers--as compared to 98 strikes in 1916)--not defeatist strikes, but they're agitating for better conditions. why should you work in terrible conditions when the "Big Hats" are simply getting more wealthy?
there are attempts to break these strikes.
but, in sum, 1917 is a year when morale on the home front is lower than ever. (prof just noting that conditions are worse in Berlin than they are in Paris; better in London than in either place)
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what about the mutinies? how serious?
there were probably only two totally reliable divisions standing between Paris and the Germans, after these mutinies.
nobody on the home front really knew about them (part of this is that letters sent home were censored, remember). nor did the Germans, nor did the British.
it's not too hard to say why these mutinies take place when they do. or why they take place at all. it is not defeatism, but these tactics of trench warfare were killing hundreds of thousands of people for nothing--for no reason. there isn't any hope, in this sense.
the mutinies were, indeed, widespread--refusals to "go over the top" simply spread like wirefire. soldiers say they don't want to get killed any more for five cents a day (in some places red flags go up--in some places black flags). though remember socialists had joined the war effort (jules guesde ends up a minister in 1915).
two regiments decide that they're going to march on Paris, and convince the Chamber of Deputies to stop the war. most of the Generals foolishly claim Bolshevik propaganda behind this.
in May and June about 40,000 soldiers were involved in collective acts of refusal (other statistic goes as high as 70,000). the first signs that the soldiers supposed to go "over the top" started ba-ing like sheep on their way to the slaughterhouse. there was socialist and anarchist literature that had gotten into the trenches, but it was obviously not a Bolshevik conspiracy.
a General ends the policy of these mad attacks, over the tops. there were some people who were put up against the wall and shot, for sure, but we don't know. there were 3427 condemnations--about 10% of the people who were court-martialed. 49 were condemned to death, which were carried out immediately.
----------
in the Spring of 1918, the Germans launch a major offensive (Ludendorf Offensive)--their first since 1914.
at the same time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire is having all sorts of problems (Franz Joseph I, Emperor-King since 1867, dies in 1916). all the predictable cracks are opening up--the Germans are quite unsure whether the Austrian-Hungarian Empire will be able to hang on, fighting against the Italians, for example.
the Americans have, by the Spring of 1918, 325,000 soldiers.
so Ludendorf decides on a massive offensive. encouraged by the fact that there are younger soldiers, barely 18, that have newly arrived in the ranks. and older troops have arrived, as well. so on the 21st of March, 1918, after a relatively brief bombardment of 5 hours, 1.6 million men attack the allied defenses in five separate offenses across a front of 40 miles. and they do break through--some pass 40 miles to the other side.
on Easter Sunday, shells fall on Paris, and they begin taking lives.
but what happens, is predictable. as on a small scale, the Germans begin to outrun their cover and supplies. they begin to encounter stiff resistance at all of these five points. in July, they try a final offensive, they fail, and know that they're simply not going to win.
at that point, morale plunges dangerously in Germany. in January 1918, 250,000 workers had anyway defined the government by going on strike. in July, the British, French, Americans counter-attack quite effectively, using tanks. on the 8th of August, 1918, the German army's darkest day, a British force moves 8 miles(!). at this point, Ludendorf tells Wilhem II that "it's all over but the shouting."
and, at the end, Willhelm the II will slink over the Dutch border, and sign an armistice in a railroad car north of Paris. the war ends on the 11th of November, 1918 (people were killed, afterward, because they didn't know that the armistice had come along).
and, alas, the Spanish Flu comes on the tail of the War. the biggest pandemic since the Black Death.
-------------
the statistics, which are simply staggering:
Russia (1.8 million dead, 5 million wounded--nothing like WWII, of course, when 25 million died)
France (at least 1.4-1.5 million dead, 4.3 wounded)
British, including the Empire (908,000 dead, 2 million wounded)
Italy (508,000 dead)
Serbia (208,000 dead)
Belgium (38,000 dead)
Germany (2 million dead, 4 million wounded--how do you explain losing this many and losing the war? well that's something that the Right would latch on to, in the war's aftermath. it was the socialists, of course)
Austria-Hungary (1.1 million dead, 3.6 million wounded)
in France, there are 36,000 communes, and there were only 12 that didn't have somebody killed. that's why you see war memorials everywhere.
"if God exists, how could he let this happen?"
-------------
john merriman
------------
1917 and 1918--the mutinies.
the mutinies have to be seen in the context of all this, but in particular they have to be seen in the context of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, which was the darkest period in four years of dark days.
began on July 1st, 1916--on the first day, almost 40,000 British soldiers were wounded, 20,000 were killed. there was a casualty for every half-meter of the front line. there were more British soldiers killed in the first three days of this battle than there were Americans killed in WWI, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq combined(!). those are phenomenal losses.
it's easy, perhaps, to poke fun at Oxbridge class society--but, in WWI, the flower of British youth perished in these battles.
1917 is the crucial year in determining the outcome of a war that seemed like it was going to go on forever. by the end of 1917 and into March 1918, the military planners begin to think that they'll win the war by 1920, 1921. as so many people died, to win a few kilometers, there were wags who said we'll reach the Rhine by 2007(!).
but two things happen in 1917, that are crucial.
(1) Bolshevik Revolution, after the February 1917 overthrow of the Tsar--people wake up and discover that the Emperor has no clothes. Kerensky's provisional government keeps Russia in the war. But by October the Bolshevik's take power, and withdraws Russia from the war by March 1918 at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (there was a deceleration in the war effort before this; and there were any way quite a number of desertions, though less than you might have thought.) (2) the other thing that happens is that the Americans enter the war. they were officially neutral, though the majority of the population supported the Allies, but it's not really that that brings the US into the war. the German High Command had decided that the only way they could win was to knock Britain out of the war. and the way they were going to do that was to sink ships supplying munitions, etc. to the British (a submarine campaign). they placed warnings at ports in US and Philadelphia. sunk the Lusitania on her maiden voyage on 1915, killing 1,200 civilians. (in the 1960s/1970s divers found that the ship was carrying munitions, and that was the German claim). over the long run, the man that was going to keep the US out of the war, Woodrow Wilson, ends up taking the US into WWI (despite widespread domestic opposition--Wilson couldn't get the Treaty of Versailles ratified by Congress, after returning home).
what did the entry of the Americans really mean? not so much troops--troops don't really make the difference, really. the big difference is that the curves cross--the ability of the Germans to supply their own war-machine cannot compete with the combined power of American industrial might. factories easily transformed into the production of arms. and it's at that point when many people in the French and British High Command realize that they will win the war--though they're still unsure at what cost.
all this helps set up March 1918, when the Germans decide that "it's now or never"
--------------
what about the mutinies?
most people in France did not want war in 1914. but because it was easy to portray Germany as the aggressors, the vast majority of the population recognized the urgency of the fight.
to be sure, there are tensions within French society re: the war. there was tremendous resentment. at the Opera, they distributed coal as per rations--as people waited in line, they saw the fancy people in their big cars going off to the restraunts (people who had profited tremendously from Big Business' role in war). so there is class tension fueled by the War.
more than that, you have tensions felt by peasants, who are conscripted without any real possibility of refusing (unless they've already had two brothers killed!).
you have refugees, as well--refugees from the North (sometimes even German-speaking, and Flemish), settling in other areas, as a strain on local resources. you have grumbling, then, about these "Germans" of the North.
many women and men also go on strike in 1917 (689 strikes, affecting 300,000 workers--as compared to 98 strikes in 1916)--not defeatist strikes, but they're agitating for better conditions. why should you work in terrible conditions when the "Big Hats" are simply getting more wealthy?
there are attempts to break these strikes.
but, in sum, 1917 is a year when morale on the home front is lower than ever. (prof just noting that conditions are worse in Berlin than they are in Paris; better in London than in either place)
------------
what about the mutinies? how serious?
there were probably only two totally reliable divisions standing between Paris and the Germans, after these mutinies.
nobody on the home front really knew about them (part of this is that letters sent home were censored, remember). nor did the Germans, nor did the British.
it's not too hard to say why these mutinies take place when they do. or why they take place at all. it is not defeatism, but these tactics of trench warfare were killing hundreds of thousands of people for nothing--for no reason. there isn't any hope, in this sense.
the mutinies were, indeed, widespread--refusals to "go over the top" simply spread like wirefire. soldiers say they don't want to get killed any more for five cents a day (in some places red flags go up--in some places black flags). though remember socialists had joined the war effort (jules guesde ends up a minister in 1915).
two regiments decide that they're going to march on Paris, and convince the Chamber of Deputies to stop the war. most of the Generals foolishly claim Bolshevik propaganda behind this.
in May and June about 40,000 soldiers were involved in collective acts of refusal (other statistic goes as high as 70,000). the first signs that the soldiers supposed to go "over the top" started ba-ing like sheep on their way to the slaughterhouse. there was socialist and anarchist literature that had gotten into the trenches, but it was obviously not a Bolshevik conspiracy.
a General ends the policy of these mad attacks, over the tops. there were some people who were put up against the wall and shot, for sure, but we don't know. there were 3427 condemnations--about 10% of the people who were court-martialed. 49 were condemned to death, which were carried out immediately.
----------
in the Spring of 1918, the Germans launch a major offensive (Ludendorf Offensive)--their first since 1914.
at the same time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire is having all sorts of problems (Franz Joseph I, Emperor-King since 1867, dies in 1916). all the predictable cracks are opening up--the Germans are quite unsure whether the Austrian-Hungarian Empire will be able to hang on, fighting against the Italians, for example.
the Americans have, by the Spring of 1918, 325,000 soldiers.
so Ludendorf decides on a massive offensive. encouraged by the fact that there are younger soldiers, barely 18, that have newly arrived in the ranks. and older troops have arrived, as well. so on the 21st of March, 1918, after a relatively brief bombardment of 5 hours, 1.6 million men attack the allied defenses in five separate offenses across a front of 40 miles. and they do break through--some pass 40 miles to the other side.
on Easter Sunday, shells fall on Paris, and they begin taking lives.
but what happens, is predictable. as on a small scale, the Germans begin to outrun their cover and supplies. they begin to encounter stiff resistance at all of these five points. in July, they try a final offensive, they fail, and know that they're simply not going to win.
at that point, morale plunges dangerously in Germany. in January 1918, 250,000 workers had anyway defined the government by going on strike. in July, the British, French, Americans counter-attack quite effectively, using tanks. on the 8th of August, 1918, the German army's darkest day, a British force moves 8 miles(!). at this point, Ludendorf tells Wilhem II that "it's all over but the shouting."
and, at the end, Willhelm the II will slink over the Dutch border, and sign an armistice in a railroad car north of Paris. the war ends on the 11th of November, 1918 (people were killed, afterward, because they didn't know that the armistice had come along).
and, alas, the Spanish Flu comes on the tail of the War. the biggest pandemic since the Black Death.
-------------
the statistics, which are simply staggering:
Russia (1.8 million dead, 5 million wounded--nothing like WWII, of course, when 25 million died)
France (at least 1.4-1.5 million dead, 4.3 wounded)
British, including the Empire (908,000 dead, 2 million wounded)
Italy (508,000 dead)
Serbia (208,000 dead)
Belgium (38,000 dead)
Germany (2 million dead, 4 million wounded--how do you explain losing this many and losing the war? well that's something that the Right would latch on to, in the war's aftermath. it was the socialists, of course)
Austria-Hungary (1.1 million dead, 3.6 million wounded)
in France, there are 36,000 communes, and there were only 12 that didn't have somebody killed. that's why you see war memorials everywhere.
"if God exists, how could he let this happen?"
-------------
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
lecture 14, "trench warfare"
john merriman
-------------
the war up through 1916, today
-------------
on the last day of his life, jean jaures was troubled by what he was going to write about WWI--whether workers of France should fight workers of Germany.
his decision reflects what is called the "sacred union" between all political parties in the war effort. he wrote, then, an article with the headline "Forward/Let's Go," and he went out to a cafe after writing it--and a right-winger put a pistol through a curtain into the restaurant and blew him away. there was tremendous turmoil in the street, a sense that things would never be the same again.
--------------
the way the war started, the way the military planners wanted it to start. german soldiers were going to put Paris/France into a headlock--they would march into Belgium (netrual since 1830s), and wrap around France. Germany is under pressure, again, to win the war quickly.
on the 2nd of August, however, the Belgian government rejected German demands--they fought against overpowering German stregnth. eventually Liege falls after a huge bombardment on the 16th. and once the Germans get through the hills of Eastern Belgium, they move fairly quickly.
the German commander, however, uses some divisions to try and pin down the Belgians. and he has some concerns with regards to the home front (how far the French will go into Alsace). and they have to transfer some troops to the home front, there. so they have fewer troops than in the original plan. and sure enough, the British expeditionary force finally arrives on the 20th of August, in Southern Belgium. but everyone is fairly sure that the war will be over, relatively soon. four divisions, also, are sent to Russia, where the Tsar has advanced far more quickly than had been anticipated.
despite huge losses, on both sides. German forces soon come within 35 miles of Paris (so close that they bombard Paris on Easter Day 1918)--and you can hear the fighting in the city. if someone wants an explanation for how the French home front is able to hold, "spectacularly", throughout the war, there are two key factors: (1) pressure is obvious, and response is heroic; (2) the "sacred union" is extremely effective in mobilizing people across France. (this is unlike Berlin, which is another story).
so, as Germans are trying to drive to Paris, we're also seeing the dawn of air warfare (attempts to drop small bombs from planes). there's a recon pilot, however, who's noting that the Germans are leaving a flank open--at that point the French rush every available soldier to exploit this weakness in the Battle of the Marne (5th September to 12th September 1914). Even the Parisian taxis are conscripted to take soldiers to the front. The British help, pouring through another gap, forcing a 40 mile retreat. And that is the largest exchange of real estate that will take place until 1918. And, without question, this saves Paris.
this is the beginning of trench warfare (a race to the sea to capture ports). the Germans start to dig trenches to fortify themselves. the famous "Western Front."
it had been noted that in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, this had been seen. and this is what happens here, the spade, shovel, the machine gun, artillery, and gas/flame-throwers become the weapons of the war--two armies facing each other across no-man's land. trenches all the way from Switzerland to the English Channel.
attempts to break through don't work. and it's not difficult to understand why--the trenches have very strong defense lines behind them.
the strategy that they adopt is what is known as "creeping barrages"--you try and soften up your opposition by killing as many people as possible, in the area you're going to charge. and all this does is alert your opponent where you are going. thus, besides killing lots of people, these creeping barrages simply kill a lot of people--they create craters on no-man's land where you try and hide, but you are inevitably taken out by the line of machine-guns. horrific.
there's a vigorous historical debate on "did they know what they were doing?"--image of higher-ups drinking champagne in a Chatauex, sending young people to their deaths. it was clear, to the soldiers, that there wasn't going to be a break-through--but there isn't one until the Germans break through in the Spring of 1918. (real estate is exchanged in yards. gains of a couple kilometers are rare.)
a huge discontinuity between soldier and civilian life--popular press exaggerates virtues, bravery, etc., whereas soldiers obviously enormously jaded and scarred. impossible for soldiers to discuss their experiences with those who believe that they wake up every morning and shout "Long Live France."
------------
by the end of 1914 (half-year of fighting), German and French troops had combined casualties of 300,000 (600,000 wounded--terribly wounded, generally).
------------
story of Christmas Day, 1914, where they sung songs and played football with each other. in 1915, a British soldier suggested that they do it again--his officers put him against the wall and shot him, for treason. there was a rumor in the trenches that there were troops from both sides with light wounds who were surviving happily in an underground cavern.
------------
new ways of dying, new ways of going nuts--living amongst mice, lice, dead bodies, fallen comrades, etc. new miseries.
------------
there are countless atrocity stories that circulate on both sides. most of the atrocities on the western front were committed by the Germans. 500 Belgian civilians executed; rape, limited, not yet a weapon of war.
-------------
why do the Germans try and push through, at Verdun, from February to December 1916. prof is contending that they believe that they can do so by virtue of their greater birth rate--i.e., they will win any battle of attrition, and can therefore afford greater casualties. "we will bleed them."
-------------
what made this war "total warfare"? the mobilization of an entire society--its entire productive capacities--for an extended period of time, towards these martial aims.
-------------
Germany losing this war, after being far inside France for an extended period of time, made it easy for Hitler and other right-wing leaders to say, "we were winning? how did we lose it? we were stabbed in the back by the anti-nationalists--the communists, the socialists, the jews."
john merriman
-------------
the war up through 1916, today
-------------
on the last day of his life, jean jaures was troubled by what he was going to write about WWI--whether workers of France should fight workers of Germany.
his decision reflects what is called the "sacred union" between all political parties in the war effort. he wrote, then, an article with the headline "Forward/Let's Go," and he went out to a cafe after writing it--and a right-winger put a pistol through a curtain into the restaurant and blew him away. there was tremendous turmoil in the street, a sense that things would never be the same again.
--------------
the way the war started, the way the military planners wanted it to start. german soldiers were going to put Paris/France into a headlock--they would march into Belgium (netrual since 1830s), and wrap around France. Germany is under pressure, again, to win the war quickly.
on the 2nd of August, however, the Belgian government rejected German demands--they fought against overpowering German stregnth. eventually Liege falls after a huge bombardment on the 16th. and once the Germans get through the hills of Eastern Belgium, they move fairly quickly.
the German commander, however, uses some divisions to try and pin down the Belgians. and he has some concerns with regards to the home front (how far the French will go into Alsace). and they have to transfer some troops to the home front, there. so they have fewer troops than in the original plan. and sure enough, the British expeditionary force finally arrives on the 20th of August, in Southern Belgium. but everyone is fairly sure that the war will be over, relatively soon. four divisions, also, are sent to Russia, where the Tsar has advanced far more quickly than had been anticipated.
despite huge losses, on both sides. German forces soon come within 35 miles of Paris (so close that they bombard Paris on Easter Day 1918)--and you can hear the fighting in the city. if someone wants an explanation for how the French home front is able to hold, "spectacularly", throughout the war, there are two key factors: (1) pressure is obvious, and response is heroic; (2) the "sacred union" is extremely effective in mobilizing people across France. (this is unlike Berlin, which is another story).
so, as Germans are trying to drive to Paris, we're also seeing the dawn of air warfare (attempts to drop small bombs from planes). there's a recon pilot, however, who's noting that the Germans are leaving a flank open--at that point the French rush every available soldier to exploit this weakness in the Battle of the Marne (5th September to 12th September 1914). Even the Parisian taxis are conscripted to take soldiers to the front. The British help, pouring through another gap, forcing a 40 mile retreat. And that is the largest exchange of real estate that will take place until 1918. And, without question, this saves Paris.
this is the beginning of trench warfare (a race to the sea to capture ports). the Germans start to dig trenches to fortify themselves. the famous "Western Front."
it had been noted that in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, this had been seen. and this is what happens here, the spade, shovel, the machine gun, artillery, and gas/flame-throwers become the weapons of the war--two armies facing each other across no-man's land. trenches all the way from Switzerland to the English Channel.
attempts to break through don't work. and it's not difficult to understand why--the trenches have very strong defense lines behind them.
the strategy that they adopt is what is known as "creeping barrages"--you try and soften up your opposition by killing as many people as possible, in the area you're going to charge. and all this does is alert your opponent where you are going. thus, besides killing lots of people, these creeping barrages simply kill a lot of people--they create craters on no-man's land where you try and hide, but you are inevitably taken out by the line of machine-guns. horrific.
there's a vigorous historical debate on "did they know what they were doing?"--image of higher-ups drinking champagne in a Chatauex, sending young people to their deaths. it was clear, to the soldiers, that there wasn't going to be a break-through--but there isn't one until the Germans break through in the Spring of 1918. (real estate is exchanged in yards. gains of a couple kilometers are rare.)
a huge discontinuity between soldier and civilian life--popular press exaggerates virtues, bravery, etc., whereas soldiers obviously enormously jaded and scarred. impossible for soldiers to discuss their experiences with those who believe that they wake up every morning and shout "Long Live France."
------------
by the end of 1914 (half-year of fighting), German and French troops had combined casualties of 300,000 (600,000 wounded--terribly wounded, generally).
------------
story of Christmas Day, 1914, where they sung songs and played football with each other. in 1915, a British soldier suggested that they do it again--his officers put him against the wall and shot him, for treason. there was a rumor in the trenches that there were troops from both sides with light wounds who were surviving happily in an underground cavern.
------------
new ways of dying, new ways of going nuts--living amongst mice, lice, dead bodies, fallen comrades, etc. new miseries.
------------
there are countless atrocity stories that circulate on both sides. most of the atrocities on the western front were committed by the Germans. 500 Belgian civilians executed; rape, limited, not yet a weapon of war.
-------------
why do the Germans try and push through, at Verdun, from February to December 1916. prof is contending that they believe that they can do so by virtue of their greater birth rate--i.e., they will win any battle of attrition, and can therefore afford greater casualties. "we will bleed them."
-------------
what made this war "total warfare"? the mobilization of an entire society--its entire productive capacities--for an extended period of time, towards these martial aims.
-------------
Germany losing this war, after being far inside France for an extended period of time, made it easy for Hitler and other right-wing leaders to say, "we were winning? how did we lose it? we were stabbed in the back by the anti-nationalists--the communists, the socialists, the jews."
lecture 13, "the origins of WWI"
john merriman
------------
showing a map of "the new imperialism"--from the mid 1880s to 1914. (in particular, the "scramble for Africa")
------------
so, just to put this in context--the diplomatic origins of WWI
the traditional image is not a bad one: entangling alliances that create a house of cards, ready to collapse.
how does it happen? (for France, this is also the story of a shift from England seen as France's greatest rival, to Germany)
much of the diplomatic history of this period revolves around the rivalry of France and Germany--one can debate the extent to which revenge played a role (most people in the 1890s would have likely said France were more likely to go to war with Britain).
the other major issue upon which WWI hinged on was the hatred between Russia and Austria-Hungary--Russia sees itself as the protector of the Slavic peoples, and that Austria-Hungary is a polyglot Empire (about 15 national communities--a perpetual destabilizing factor in their national politics). particularly when Russia is fanning the flames of pan-Slavism and Slavic nationalisms within the A-H Empire (which had become the dual empire in 1867).
by 1900, Russia is fanning the flames of pan-Slavic fervor in the mountainous territories of Bosnia-Herzogivina, which includes Serbs, Muslims, and Catholic Croats.
now, the alliance system of the late 19th century hinges on German and French antagonism, and the competing interests of A-H and Russia in the Balkans, and Germany's fear of being attacked from both East and West by Russia and France. you have two potential free agents, Italy (which goes to highest bidder in 1915), and Great Britain (it wasn't a given that it would ally with France and Russia, remember--Britain and Russia and Britain and France had been fighting each other for ages).
so, how does it happen that it in 1914 that France finds it with these bizarre bedfellows? (remember, if you're a republican/socialist, how do you explain an alliance with the Tsar, represser of the peoples and encourager of vicious pogroms against the Jews).
later on, i will make the case that, most of the people who looked at such things expected a war in their lifetimes. they're had not been a major conflagration since Waterloo, basically. you have wars, but basically this period is referred to as the Pax Britannica. but most people thought there would be a war in their lifetime--and many people wanted one.
but nobody wanted one that would carry away four empires, a million lives, and last for four years, and unleash the demons of the 20th century.
in 1879, Bismarck forges the cornerstone alliance, between Germany and Austria-Hungary, against Russia's activity in the Balkans. and this is one of the continuities of the entire period.
and this explains why, in July 1914, the Germans give the famous blank cheque to Austria-Hungary--you can do whatever you want to Serbia, and we will back you all the way (even if it involves going to war with "these guys"). (they all know that it will take Russians two weeks to mobilize--furthermore they had lost badly to Japan in 1905, remember).
this is the first chip, the first block.
a year later, 1n 1880, Italy allies itself with these two, but there are all sorts of conditions, and it's more of a free agent.
the last thing that Bismarck wants (remember he's out of it by 1894) was to see Germany attacked from both sides. they don't want France, in other words, to ally with Russia.
so how does that happen?
well, it has to do with a fear of Germany (aside from some scattered cultural tries; some Russian elite spoke French). other facts: tied together by economic investment (French investors are frequently investing outside of France, remember, and they have invested heavily in Russia--particularly in railroads). these economic ties help solidify the arrangements of Great Powers. think of the irony of the Russian Tsar being received France in 1892, when they sign a military treaty! there is a formal alliance in 1894--and everybody knows the rough outlines of this. this ends what Bismarck had intended, which was the diplomatic isolation of France.
how does Britain get into this?
because Germany becomes a much bigger economic rival than anyone else--the German economy grows rapidly (nipping at British heels in terms of steel production, they're producing huge battleships, and that sort of thing). they go way ahead, in chemistry. so, with this economic rivalry (expressed in Africa, as well), goes the naval rivalry, that heats up after the turn of the century. industrialists, of course, love to build big ships. Britain's control of the seas has persisted for centuries, don't forget.
so the last thing the British think they can do, is lose control of the seas.
for a long time, Britain has not seen the need for an alliance, but now looking towards the French in the face of this economic and naval tension. again, in the 1890s, people in Bourdeaux/London, etc. had expected to go to war with Britain/France (people were writing future war novels at this time, don't forget--and one of the more ridiculous ones was a novel in England that predicted a war with France, after the French arrive in Dover, digging a tunnel under the English channel!).
events in 1905--the first Moroccan crisis, followed by, in 1911, the second Moroccan crisis--demonstrate German saber-rattling in Morocco. and this convinces the British that maybe allying with the French isn't such a dumb idea after all. they begin to have informal military talks, that develop into a military understanding viz-a-viz Germany (French on Mediterranean, England on North Sea).
so this explains how these two unlikely allies came together. moreover, the birth-rate--the French realize, that if it's more than just a short encounter, their birth-rate is so miniscule that they'd better have allies. and military planners know this stuff. that means that it's all that more important, if they're contemplating that war, to rely on allies.
remember: when the Tzar orders Russia to mobilize, it is well-known that it will take two weeks. So: the Germans know, then, that they have two weeks to defeat France. they're sure that they can do it, but then they'd better get ready for the Russians on their Eastern frontier. and the only way that they can do that is by violating Belgian and Dutch neutrality (Alsace-Lorraine is not a viable place to launch invasion from). That guarantees, above all else, that the British will go to war--it's bad enought hat they have the French across the Channel. now they have the Germans, as well. you can't have that, so you're going to go to war.
why was that a risk that the Germans were willing to take? because the English do not have a conscript army, but only an expeditionary force. it would take them a month to raise an army that could make any difference, in effect.
these are the competing alliances/considerations that precede 1914, essentially. and this is why the assasination of the Archduke triggers the Great War (prof recounting putting his feet where the 16-yr old gunner had killed Franz Ferdinand). this leads to the blank cheque, and it brings this dreadful war.
-----------
now, like revolutions, wars don't entirely break out according to the hydraulic model--that things get worse and worse and worse and then BOOM, war. but there are moments that raise tensions, and make it possible for the popular press to target potential enemies.
and that's why the incident of Zabern is interesting to discuss, says prof.
the German empire doesn't really trust its Alsatians--residents of the area are not allowed to vote on certain key policy matters (war, treaties, constitutional amendments), for example. Alsace-Lorraine, though, at the same time--is basically German-speaking. 77% of the communes in Alsace-Lorraine are German-speaking, YET, many people consider themselves French. (multiple identities, etc.).
Alsace, is, of course, terribly important, strategically/military.
and what this incident in 1913 does is it confirms the image of German aggressiveness (there are other reasons, too, that Germany does not trust Alsatians--Bismarck is terribly anti-Catholic, don't forget, and this region is overwhelmingly Catholic).
this incident, then: a German officer, speaking to some Alsatian soldiers that were there, refers to them in very scatalogical terms. then, someone else says, "I don't care if you kill these bastards..." And word spreads. tensions build--some German officer slept with a 14 year old Alsatian girl, he's beaten up. the French and German press picks this up and inflames the tensions on both side. they don't go to war, but it confirms the stereotypes that take off during the first years of the war.
so this minor incident, essentially a shouting match, a rape, and a fight, has huge implications. it confirms these military plans. it confirms, for the French, that when the war starts, you'd better get into Alsace-Lorraine and take it back (they're not really going to go into Belgium, are they?).
1914-1944 becomes a new, terrible Thirty Years War. and there were anti-war sentiments, but it was unclear what could be done to stop it.
-------------
in conclusion: it's not just these diplomatic factors and military planning, of course, but really there are deeper, underlying factors. the imperial rivalry helps create this culture of popular imperialism, and popular aggressive nationalism. and the Other, becomes an object of perpetual disdain. jingoism explodes--feeds this expectation that war with come. everyday people dreaming of the next war. social darwinist rivalries, almost. have to pay attention to the popular imaginaire, prof is arguing--public jingoism. only this can help us explain the initial, public, urban enthusiasm for the war (and of course people did not know what it would portend).
john merriman
------------
showing a map of "the new imperialism"--from the mid 1880s to 1914. (in particular, the "scramble for Africa")
------------
so, just to put this in context--the diplomatic origins of WWI
the traditional image is not a bad one: entangling alliances that create a house of cards, ready to collapse.
how does it happen? (for France, this is also the story of a shift from England seen as France's greatest rival, to Germany)
much of the diplomatic history of this period revolves around the rivalry of France and Germany--one can debate the extent to which revenge played a role (most people in the 1890s would have likely said France were more likely to go to war with Britain).
the other major issue upon which WWI hinged on was the hatred between Russia and Austria-Hungary--Russia sees itself as the protector of the Slavic peoples, and that Austria-Hungary is a polyglot Empire (about 15 national communities--a perpetual destabilizing factor in their national politics). particularly when Russia is fanning the flames of pan-Slavism and Slavic nationalisms within the A-H Empire (which had become the dual empire in 1867).
by 1900, Russia is fanning the flames of pan-Slavic fervor in the mountainous territories of Bosnia-Herzogivina, which includes Serbs, Muslims, and Catholic Croats.
now, the alliance system of the late 19th century hinges on German and French antagonism, and the competing interests of A-H and Russia in the Balkans, and Germany's fear of being attacked from both East and West by Russia and France. you have two potential free agents, Italy (which goes to highest bidder in 1915), and Great Britain (it wasn't a given that it would ally with France and Russia, remember--Britain and Russia and Britain and France had been fighting each other for ages).
so, how does it happen that it in 1914 that France finds it with these bizarre bedfellows? (remember, if you're a republican/socialist, how do you explain an alliance with the Tsar, represser of the peoples and encourager of vicious pogroms against the Jews).
later on, i will make the case that, most of the people who looked at such things expected a war in their lifetimes. they're had not been a major conflagration since Waterloo, basically. you have wars, but basically this period is referred to as the Pax Britannica. but most people thought there would be a war in their lifetime--and many people wanted one.
but nobody wanted one that would carry away four empires, a million lives, and last for four years, and unleash the demons of the 20th century.
in 1879, Bismarck forges the cornerstone alliance, between Germany and Austria-Hungary, against Russia's activity in the Balkans. and this is one of the continuities of the entire period.
and this explains why, in July 1914, the Germans give the famous blank cheque to Austria-Hungary--you can do whatever you want to Serbia, and we will back you all the way (even if it involves going to war with "these guys"). (they all know that it will take Russians two weeks to mobilize--furthermore they had lost badly to Japan in 1905, remember).
this is the first chip, the first block.
a year later, 1n 1880, Italy allies itself with these two, but there are all sorts of conditions, and it's more of a free agent.
the last thing that Bismarck wants (remember he's out of it by 1894) was to see Germany attacked from both sides. they don't want France, in other words, to ally with Russia.
so how does that happen?
well, it has to do with a fear of Germany (aside from some scattered cultural tries; some Russian elite spoke French). other facts: tied together by economic investment (French investors are frequently investing outside of France, remember, and they have invested heavily in Russia--particularly in railroads). these economic ties help solidify the arrangements of Great Powers. think of the irony of the Russian Tsar being received France in 1892, when they sign a military treaty! there is a formal alliance in 1894--and everybody knows the rough outlines of this. this ends what Bismarck had intended, which was the diplomatic isolation of France.
how does Britain get into this?
because Germany becomes a much bigger economic rival than anyone else--the German economy grows rapidly (nipping at British heels in terms of steel production, they're producing huge battleships, and that sort of thing). they go way ahead, in chemistry. so, with this economic rivalry (expressed in Africa, as well), goes the naval rivalry, that heats up after the turn of the century. industrialists, of course, love to build big ships. Britain's control of the seas has persisted for centuries, don't forget.
so the last thing the British think they can do, is lose control of the seas.
for a long time, Britain has not seen the need for an alliance, but now looking towards the French in the face of this economic and naval tension. again, in the 1890s, people in Bourdeaux/London, etc. had expected to go to war with Britain/France (people were writing future war novels at this time, don't forget--and one of the more ridiculous ones was a novel in England that predicted a war with France, after the French arrive in Dover, digging a tunnel under the English channel!).
events in 1905--the first Moroccan crisis, followed by, in 1911, the second Moroccan crisis--demonstrate German saber-rattling in Morocco. and this convinces the British that maybe allying with the French isn't such a dumb idea after all. they begin to have informal military talks, that develop into a military understanding viz-a-viz Germany (French on Mediterranean, England on North Sea).
so this explains how these two unlikely allies came together. moreover, the birth-rate--the French realize, that if it's more than just a short encounter, their birth-rate is so miniscule that they'd better have allies. and military planners know this stuff. that means that it's all that more important, if they're contemplating that war, to rely on allies.
remember: when the Tzar orders Russia to mobilize, it is well-known that it will take two weeks. So: the Germans know, then, that they have two weeks to defeat France. they're sure that they can do it, but then they'd better get ready for the Russians on their Eastern frontier. and the only way that they can do that is by violating Belgian and Dutch neutrality (Alsace-Lorraine is not a viable place to launch invasion from). That guarantees, above all else, that the British will go to war--it's bad enought hat they have the French across the Channel. now they have the Germans, as well. you can't have that, so you're going to go to war.
why was that a risk that the Germans were willing to take? because the English do not have a conscript army, but only an expeditionary force. it would take them a month to raise an army that could make any difference, in effect.
these are the competing alliances/considerations that precede 1914, essentially. and this is why the assasination of the Archduke triggers the Great War (prof recounting putting his feet where the 16-yr old gunner had killed Franz Ferdinand). this leads to the blank cheque, and it brings this dreadful war.
-----------
now, like revolutions, wars don't entirely break out according to the hydraulic model--that things get worse and worse and worse and then BOOM, war. but there are moments that raise tensions, and make it possible for the popular press to target potential enemies.
and that's why the incident of Zabern is interesting to discuss, says prof.
the German empire doesn't really trust its Alsatians--residents of the area are not allowed to vote on certain key policy matters (war, treaties, constitutional amendments), for example. Alsace-Lorraine, though, at the same time--is basically German-speaking. 77% of the communes in Alsace-Lorraine are German-speaking, YET, many people consider themselves French. (multiple identities, etc.).
Alsace, is, of course, terribly important, strategically/military.
and what this incident in 1913 does is it confirms the image of German aggressiveness (there are other reasons, too, that Germany does not trust Alsatians--Bismarck is terribly anti-Catholic, don't forget, and this region is overwhelmingly Catholic).
this incident, then: a German officer, speaking to some Alsatian soldiers that were there, refers to them in very scatalogical terms. then, someone else says, "I don't care if you kill these bastards..." And word spreads. tensions build--some German officer slept with a 14 year old Alsatian girl, he's beaten up. the French and German press picks this up and inflames the tensions on both side. they don't go to war, but it confirms the stereotypes that take off during the first years of the war.
so this minor incident, essentially a shouting match, a rape, and a fight, has huge implications. it confirms these military plans. it confirms, for the French, that when the war starts, you'd better get into Alsace-Lorraine and take it back (they're not really going to go into Belgium, are they?).
1914-1944 becomes a new, terrible Thirty Years War. and there were anti-war sentiments, but it was unclear what could be done to stop it.
-------------
in conclusion: it's not just these diplomatic factors and military planning, of course, but really there are deeper, underlying factors. the imperial rivalry helps create this culture of popular imperialism, and popular aggressive nationalism. and the Other, becomes an object of perpetual disdain. jingoism explodes--feeds this expectation that war with come. everyday people dreaming of the next war. social darwinist rivalries, almost. have to pay attention to the popular imaginaire, prof is arguing--public jingoism. only this can help us explain the initial, public, urban enthusiasm for the war (and of course people did not know what it would portend).
Monday, March 30, 2009
lecture 12, "french imperialism"
charles keith (john merriman's course)
----------
topic of lecture: French imperialism from 1871-1914
citing a novel from an army officer who speaks about his expedition to Sudan as compensation/consolation for the anger at Alsace-Lorraine's annexation.
during the period we're discussing, the French empire exploded: at the outset, had been little more than outposts in Algeria, military presence in parts of North Africa, Southeast Asia, few "small spits of land" in the Pacific and the Carribean--exploded to include large swathes of North Africa, West Africa, most of mainland Southeast Asia, parts of the Middle East, and territories in the Pacific/Carribean.
by the end of WWI, the French Empire exercised sovereignty over 100 million inhabitants--twice as many people as lived in metropolitan France at that time, roughly.
the passage captures the two central themes at this juncture in French imperial history
(1) serving in the army to recapture prestige lost in the disastrous war with Prussia. officer sees the site of revenge overseas--French nationalism, in this sense, became increasingly inseparable from the idea of a strong, healthy French empire. the fusion of a more modern, French nationalism was new to French history at this period.
(2) the passage comes from a novel, a part of popular culture--during the late 19th century, Empire became something that more and more French people experienced directly, either through popular culture, serving in the army or colonial administrations, or settling lands for the motherland.
take-away from the lecture: Empire, during the Third Republic, became central to French nationalism--it was in the national curriculum, in the national newspapers, and in political discussion. in many ways, it became a "common experience." Empire was a central part of making people French, in sum.
----------
Empire, of course, had a long past in French history.
during the 17th and 18th centuries, French had a colonial history in the Caribbean and in North America, though many of these possessions were lost around the time of the French revolution. one of the revolution's powerful legacies, in fact, was a conviction to carry the revolution across French borders--to bring the rights of man to the monarchies of the continent. Napoleon of course, continued this--who carried the reach of the Empire across Europe, all the way to Russia.
at the turn of the 19th century, in fact, Napoleon even tried to colonize Egypt--an event which spoke to his messianic belief in science/progress and French civilization. an absence of any real knowledge, of course, about the non-Western world (and a predisposition to the idea of non-Western inferiority). This potent combination, the mission civilizatrice, was to drive French empire until the end.
at the birth of the Third Republic, however, the various tumult in French history prior meant that the Empire was pretty small. it was, correspondingly, fairly marginal in national imaginary. in the years before the French defeat to Prussia, the main urge to expand often came from soldiers/sailors and/or missionaries. even the bulk of Algerian expansion after 1830 was largely the work of Generals, who defied the national government in Paris. at this stage, in a way, the French empire was a giant system of relief for the French military (something to "occupy" them).
BUT: after the loss to Prussia, an acute sense of national inferiority prevailed. Critics attacked the Republic as a cesspool of corruption, etc. Emasculated militarily, slumping economically, shrinking demographically--at this juncture, many people obviously turned to colonial expansion. Jules Very was perhaps the most prominent advocate of this belief.
in his words, "colonial policy was the daugher of industrial policy... export is an essential factor in public prosperity" -- colonies were essential to a strong national economy. France needed exclusive access to new markets and raw materials. furthermore, closely tried to these objectives were political-strategic ones--a policy of abstention was "the road to decadence". Expansion in Africa and Asia was necessary to make France great in the panoply of nations, according to Very.
he also believed in the civilizing mission: "superior races have a right, but also a duty" to bring civilization to other nations. it was the colonial empire that would save France, and elevate their subjects.
----------
So: colonial objectives were brought into national politics, big-time, especially after Very and the Republicans came to power in 1879.
first attempt to expand was in Vietnam, where the endeavored to take over what is now its Northern half (then called Tonkin--had failed on several occasions before). on the pretext of protecting catholics and prosecuting pirates; the campaign was unpopular and failed. general's head ended up on a pike-staff.
nevertheless, this prefigured Empire's future prominence--colonial expansion accelerated from this point on, as France rushed to compete with Britain and Germany.
debates over colonial policy would become a standard part of French political discourse in the 1890s. every government after Jules Very presided over a steadily expanding colonial Empire.
----------
this new prominence was, in many ways, due to the influence of a growing colonial lobby in French society--this lobby was very influential in spreading the idea of Empire as national redemption. it was a diverse group of individuals, who put forth the idea for expansion in many different ways (it was not particularly organized)--included men like informal group of explorers/geographers, shipbuilders, railway magnates, factory owners (path to material wealth), missionairies (converts in the heathen races--declining religiosity in the homeland, don't forget), writers and journalists.
so they weren't united by the same interests--but it is precisely their diversity that shows how compelling Empire had become, for France.
the assumption had become, indeed, that Empire served France, as a whole. Empire as a solution to domestic, national problems ("colonies as a laboratory for modernity"). before the Third Republic, the social value of colonies was little more than a way to get rid of people that the State considered undesirable (French penal colony in New Colony, where over 4,000 of the communards had been sent). but toward the end of the 19th century, this began to change--a potential home for landless peasants, unemployed workers, etc, even.
French engineers, and social planners, came to see colonies as a vast work-site--building from scratch, in a sense. Colonies:France, as what Far West:America (says a colonial administrator in Morocco). a "training ground", for many of these bureaucrats.
----------
in popular culture: schoolchildren began reading about colonies in textbooks (Ministry of Education directive: "it must not be forgotten that France is a world power... Let us not have any scruples about...giving them as rich an image of their country... the mother country and her distant daughters"). the urban middle-classes visiting the Museum of Natural History began to see objects collected in the colonies. and in the massive expositions (in 1900, colonies given their own staging grounds--entire buildings were transported from the Empire).
the Empire was more than a periodic spectacle--crept into the most mundane forms of everyday life. in newspapers, day-in day-out--articles focused on military encounters, of course (vs. a "savage enemy"). captured in novels, as well.
the French encountered an Empire in cafes, dance halls, etc. even goods that people bought evoked the Empire (the yellow "banana" box). even in Church--the last third of the 19th century was a time of intense missionary activity, and people heard financial pleas from these missionaries.
----------
of course, no better way to experience it than go there. though, by the late 1880s and 1890s, there were few Frenchpeople in the colonies (with the exception of Algeria: 300,000 French settlers in 1871)--little more than administrators and garrison--gradually, though, more and more came.
the most drastically affected, of course, were soldiers in the military, as France attempted to expand, and consolidate her Empire (in the face of fierce resistance). long sea journeys, tropical diseases, and miserable pay.
missionairies, too, went overseas more and more.
settlers went to the colonies in order to stay--often committed for life. took to the colonies whatever Capital and possessions they may have had. distance from home, hostility from natives, etc., were all serious obstacles. many were drawn by inducements from people who owned large tracts of land (land-owners also sought Italian and Spanish immigrants, when they couldn't find enough Frenchfolk).
-----------
as Empire grew, life in the colonies became more regularized. administrators/civil service generally took over from soldiers/military, and started to collect taxes, keeping law and order--often having to sanction violence against deviants and those who resisted. increasingly, these people came not from the military, but from civilians who were trained at specific schools in the metropole (Ecole Colonial, for example--founded in 1877).
French government also did its best to draw professionals to the colonies (lawyers, doctors, etc.). Paris offered subsidies.
more and more women came, as well, to these places. in a way, this reflected the taming and the "making domestic" of the colonies--the regularization. women going to seek husbands, etc. many women worked in humanitarian capacities, which is ironic considering what their husbands would be doing.
----------
by WWI, there would be almost 500,000 French citizens scattered throughout the French empire. what was life like? few people found adventure, of course. disease took a large toll (malaria, yellow fever, etc.). attack/accidents were almost always a concern. medical care was often inadequate. colonial goods were often susceptible to rapidly changing market conditions, meaning that settlers didn't always thrive. social life, in the colonies, was fairly limited--in many places (presumably rural), some citizens might even spend months without seeing other Europeans (!).
most never relinquished their sense of superiority. these attitudes were reinforced by French laws and institutions, and well-established spatial and social segregation.
-----------
to WWI--when "Guns of August" began to roar in 1914, the French empire was at its peak (second only to the British). colonial promoters lauded the benefit of the colonies: (1) prestige, (2) secure site of investment, (3) captive markets, (4) raw materials/cheap labor, (5) reserve army of soldiers. Empire had become a popular part of popular culture. in short, Empire had become a fundamental part of national identity/hubris (as in the rest of Europe).
few French people in 1914 could see few things that might threaten this happy equilibrium. for many people, France had recovered from the loss of Alsace-Lorraine (and Empire was central to this national revival). "The renewal of France," in the words of a colonial official in 1912.
----------
of course, not all was well in the Emipre. haven't spoken about the effect of French colonialism on those in the colonies. needless to say, French imperialism didn't coincide with the "best of French civilization"
few accepted French expansion without struggle; but few, of course, could match the technology of the French, at the same time.
as French police, legal systems, etc., replaced the overtly military presence of the earlier age--occupation and repression paraded as "integration"/"assimilation"
by 1914, cracks began to appear in the edifice. not everyboy had been swept up by French dreams. a small anti-colonial lobby in the homeland began to appear. for some, expansion seemed a dangerous overextension of French power. others, seeing that promised financial concerns were underwhelming, began to criticize it practically. others yet protested on moral grounds--at a protest in 1906, the famous novelist Anatole France thundered, "whites do not communicate with blacks and yellow men but through arms... the people we call barbarians know us through" our barbarism. Jean Jaures went even further--refuting the mission of the civilizing mission (in this case, in Morocco)--arguing that a civilization existed, in Morocco, that had hope for the future. "And I cannot pardon those who have crushed this hope."
during the 1920s and 1930s, anti-colonialism would become a more potent voice in the metropole. (in 1931, a famous anti-colonial exposition would be organized, in opposition to the colonial expo--nothing similar had happened in 1900).
however: it was not the French themselves who would eventually succeed in crumbling the edifice of Empire. ultimately, it collapsed, first and foremost, because of the many forms of resistance waged by those under their yoke.
in many ways, WWI was a tipping point--the myths sustaining French rule had been very powerful, many in the colonized world had asked themselves whether colonial power was unchallengable and inevitable (and, for some intellectuals, maybe a "good thing"). during the war, about a half a million colonial subjects were conscripted--donning the blue uniform and fighting for France. many others came to the metropole to work. those who came saw religious, economic, political rifts at the home--and they saw a war that gave the lie to French civilization.
for countless people across the world, the Great War showed that France could not and did not correspond to its lofty myths. it dealt a terrible blow to their moral standing; Europeans savagely killing each other, for four years. the contrast between savagery and civilization was now reversed.
after WWI, for growing numbers in France, Emipre seemed to expensive (especially during the depression), immoral, and unwieldy to retain. what had been a source of unification became a source for disunion.
the opposite was true in the colonies. in the 1930s and 1940s, an anti-colonial nationalism was born--in the years after WWI, this would culminate in widespread liberation.
charles keith (john merriman's course)
----------
topic of lecture: French imperialism from 1871-1914
citing a novel from an army officer who speaks about his expedition to Sudan as compensation/consolation for the anger at Alsace-Lorraine's annexation.
during the period we're discussing, the French empire exploded: at the outset, had been little more than outposts in Algeria, military presence in parts of North Africa, Southeast Asia, few "small spits of land" in the Pacific and the Carribean--exploded to include large swathes of North Africa, West Africa, most of mainland Southeast Asia, parts of the Middle East, and territories in the Pacific/Carribean.
by the end of WWI, the French Empire exercised sovereignty over 100 million inhabitants--twice as many people as lived in metropolitan France at that time, roughly.
the passage captures the two central themes at this juncture in French imperial history
(1) serving in the army to recapture prestige lost in the disastrous war with Prussia. officer sees the site of revenge overseas--French nationalism, in this sense, became increasingly inseparable from the idea of a strong, healthy French empire. the fusion of a more modern, French nationalism was new to French history at this period.
(2) the passage comes from a novel, a part of popular culture--during the late 19th century, Empire became something that more and more French people experienced directly, either through popular culture, serving in the army or colonial administrations, or settling lands for the motherland.
take-away from the lecture: Empire, during the Third Republic, became central to French nationalism--it was in the national curriculum, in the national newspapers, and in political discussion. in many ways, it became a "common experience." Empire was a central part of making people French, in sum.
----------
Empire, of course, had a long past in French history.
during the 17th and 18th centuries, French had a colonial history in the Caribbean and in North America, though many of these possessions were lost around the time of the French revolution. one of the revolution's powerful legacies, in fact, was a conviction to carry the revolution across French borders--to bring the rights of man to the monarchies of the continent. Napoleon of course, continued this--who carried the reach of the Empire across Europe, all the way to Russia.
at the turn of the 19th century, in fact, Napoleon even tried to colonize Egypt--an event which spoke to his messianic belief in science/progress and French civilization. an absence of any real knowledge, of course, about the non-Western world (and a predisposition to the idea of non-Western inferiority). This potent combination, the mission civilizatrice, was to drive French empire until the end.
at the birth of the Third Republic, however, the various tumult in French history prior meant that the Empire was pretty small. it was, correspondingly, fairly marginal in national imaginary. in the years before the French defeat to Prussia, the main urge to expand often came from soldiers/sailors and/or missionaries. even the bulk of Algerian expansion after 1830 was largely the work of Generals, who defied the national government in Paris. at this stage, in a way, the French empire was a giant system of relief for the French military (something to "occupy" them).
BUT: after the loss to Prussia, an acute sense of national inferiority prevailed. Critics attacked the Republic as a cesspool of corruption, etc. Emasculated militarily, slumping economically, shrinking demographically--at this juncture, many people obviously turned to colonial expansion. Jules Very was perhaps the most prominent advocate of this belief.
in his words, "colonial policy was the daugher of industrial policy... export is an essential factor in public prosperity" -- colonies were essential to a strong national economy. France needed exclusive access to new markets and raw materials. furthermore, closely tried to these objectives were political-strategic ones--a policy of abstention was "the road to decadence". Expansion in Africa and Asia was necessary to make France great in the panoply of nations, according to Very.
he also believed in the civilizing mission: "superior races have a right, but also a duty" to bring civilization to other nations. it was the colonial empire that would save France, and elevate their subjects.
----------
So: colonial objectives were brought into national politics, big-time, especially after Very and the Republicans came to power in 1879.
first attempt to expand was in Vietnam, where the endeavored to take over what is now its Northern half (then called Tonkin--had failed on several occasions before). on the pretext of protecting catholics and prosecuting pirates; the campaign was unpopular and failed. general's head ended up on a pike-staff.
nevertheless, this prefigured Empire's future prominence--colonial expansion accelerated from this point on, as France rushed to compete with Britain and Germany.
debates over colonial policy would become a standard part of French political discourse in the 1890s. every government after Jules Very presided over a steadily expanding colonial Empire.
----------
this new prominence was, in many ways, due to the influence of a growing colonial lobby in French society--this lobby was very influential in spreading the idea of Empire as national redemption. it was a diverse group of individuals, who put forth the idea for expansion in many different ways (it was not particularly organized)--included men like informal group of explorers/geographers, shipbuilders, railway magnates, factory owners (path to material wealth), missionairies (converts in the heathen races--declining religiosity in the homeland, don't forget), writers and journalists.
so they weren't united by the same interests--but it is precisely their diversity that shows how compelling Empire had become, for France.
the assumption had become, indeed, that Empire served France, as a whole. Empire as a solution to domestic, national problems ("colonies as a laboratory for modernity"). before the Third Republic, the social value of colonies was little more than a way to get rid of people that the State considered undesirable (French penal colony in New Colony, where over 4,000 of the communards had been sent). but toward the end of the 19th century, this began to change--a potential home for landless peasants, unemployed workers, etc, even.
French engineers, and social planners, came to see colonies as a vast work-site--building from scratch, in a sense. Colonies:France, as what Far West:America (says a colonial administrator in Morocco). a "training ground", for many of these bureaucrats.
----------
in popular culture: schoolchildren began reading about colonies in textbooks (Ministry of Education directive: "it must not be forgotten that France is a world power... Let us not have any scruples about...giving them as rich an image of their country... the mother country and her distant daughters"). the urban middle-classes visiting the Museum of Natural History began to see objects collected in the colonies. and in the massive expositions (in 1900, colonies given their own staging grounds--entire buildings were transported from the Empire).
the Empire was more than a periodic spectacle--crept into the most mundane forms of everyday life. in newspapers, day-in day-out--articles focused on military encounters, of course (vs. a "savage enemy"). captured in novels, as well.
the French encountered an Empire in cafes, dance halls, etc. even goods that people bought evoked the Empire (the yellow "banana" box). even in Church--the last third of the 19th century was a time of intense missionary activity, and people heard financial pleas from these missionaries.
----------
of course, no better way to experience it than go there. though, by the late 1880s and 1890s, there were few Frenchpeople in the colonies (with the exception of Algeria: 300,000 French settlers in 1871)--little more than administrators and garrison--gradually, though, more and more came.
the most drastically affected, of course, were soldiers in the military, as France attempted to expand, and consolidate her Empire (in the face of fierce resistance). long sea journeys, tropical diseases, and miserable pay.
missionairies, too, went overseas more and more.
settlers went to the colonies in order to stay--often committed for life. took to the colonies whatever Capital and possessions they may have had. distance from home, hostility from natives, etc., were all serious obstacles. many were drawn by inducements from people who owned large tracts of land (land-owners also sought Italian and Spanish immigrants, when they couldn't find enough Frenchfolk).
-----------
as Empire grew, life in the colonies became more regularized. administrators/civil service generally took over from soldiers/military, and started to collect taxes, keeping law and order--often having to sanction violence against deviants and those who resisted. increasingly, these people came not from the military, but from civilians who were trained at specific schools in the metropole (Ecole Colonial, for example--founded in 1877).
French government also did its best to draw professionals to the colonies (lawyers, doctors, etc.). Paris offered subsidies.
more and more women came, as well, to these places. in a way, this reflected the taming and the "making domestic" of the colonies--the regularization. women going to seek husbands, etc. many women worked in humanitarian capacities, which is ironic considering what their husbands would be doing.
----------
by WWI, there would be almost 500,000 French citizens scattered throughout the French empire. what was life like? few people found adventure, of course. disease took a large toll (malaria, yellow fever, etc.). attack/accidents were almost always a concern. medical care was often inadequate. colonial goods were often susceptible to rapidly changing market conditions, meaning that settlers didn't always thrive. social life, in the colonies, was fairly limited--in many places (presumably rural), some citizens might even spend months without seeing other Europeans (!).
most never relinquished their sense of superiority. these attitudes were reinforced by French laws and institutions, and well-established spatial and social segregation.
-----------
to WWI--when "Guns of August" began to roar in 1914, the French empire was at its peak (second only to the British). colonial promoters lauded the benefit of the colonies: (1) prestige, (2) secure site of investment, (3) captive markets, (4) raw materials/cheap labor, (5) reserve army of soldiers. Empire had become a popular part of popular culture. in short, Empire had become a fundamental part of national identity/hubris (as in the rest of Europe).
few French people in 1914 could see few things that might threaten this happy equilibrium. for many people, France had recovered from the loss of Alsace-Lorraine (and Empire was central to this national revival). "The renewal of France," in the words of a colonial official in 1912.
----------
of course, not all was well in the Emipre. haven't spoken about the effect of French colonialism on those in the colonies. needless to say, French imperialism didn't coincide with the "best of French civilization"
few accepted French expansion without struggle; but few, of course, could match the technology of the French, at the same time.
as French police, legal systems, etc., replaced the overtly military presence of the earlier age--occupation and repression paraded as "integration"/"assimilation"
by 1914, cracks began to appear in the edifice. not everyboy had been swept up by French dreams. a small anti-colonial lobby in the homeland began to appear. for some, expansion seemed a dangerous overextension of French power. others, seeing that promised financial concerns were underwhelming, began to criticize it practically. others yet protested on moral grounds--at a protest in 1906, the famous novelist Anatole France thundered, "whites do not communicate with blacks and yellow men but through arms... the people we call barbarians know us through" our barbarism. Jean Jaures went even further--refuting the mission of the civilizing mission (in this case, in Morocco)--arguing that a civilization existed, in Morocco, that had hope for the future. "And I cannot pardon those who have crushed this hope."
during the 1920s and 1930s, anti-colonialism would become a more potent voice in the metropole. (in 1931, a famous anti-colonial exposition would be organized, in opposition to the colonial expo--nothing similar had happened in 1900).
however: it was not the French themselves who would eventually succeed in crumbling the edifice of Empire. ultimately, it collapsed, first and foremost, because of the many forms of resistance waged by those under their yoke.
in many ways, WWI was a tipping point--the myths sustaining French rule had been very powerful, many in the colonized world had asked themselves whether colonial power was unchallengable and inevitable (and, for some intellectuals, maybe a "good thing"). during the war, about a half a million colonial subjects were conscripted--donning the blue uniform and fighting for France. many others came to the metropole to work. those who came saw religious, economic, political rifts at the home--and they saw a war that gave the lie to French civilization.
for countless people across the world, the Great War showed that France could not and did not correspond to its lofty myths. it dealt a terrible blow to their moral standing; Europeans savagely killing each other, for four years. the contrast between savagery and civilization was now reversed.
after WWI, for growing numbers in France, Emipre seemed to expensive (especially during the depression), immoral, and unwieldy to retain. what had been a source of unification became a source for disunion.
the opposite was true in the colonies. in the 1930s and 1940s, an anti-colonial nationalism was born--in the years after WWI, this would culminate in widespread liberation.
lecture 11, "paris and the belle epoque"
john merriman
----------
the belle epoque was not "good," for most people of France--the image of nostalgia for this period's France is really a creation of post-WWI France.
we have to look, of course, at the reconfiguration of Paris by Baron Haussmann in the 1850s and 1860s (the "Alsatian Attila"). he only went back to Paris three times after he left in scandal at the end of the 1860s.
the great boulevards that became identified with modern Paris can only be understood during this "urban renewal" project--it was the largest, in history (only comparable were the re-building of Tokyo, after the fire; or London (when?)).
----------
pre-1860 Paris, the first thing you notice, of course, is its small size (prof is showing map). tremendously over-crowded place--and the most densely populated parts of the city were the Isle de Cite, and the Marais (central right-bank districts). their population density was three times what it is today.
in 1851: 1,053,000
in 1861: 1,696,000
in 1872: 1,825,000 (minus the 25,000 slaughtered)
in 1881: 2,269,000
in 1896: 2,500,000
European cities only grow in the first 2/3 of the 19th century through migration (otherwise more people die than are born--disease, infanticide, infant morality, etc.). large-cities replenish themsleves only through immigration. this produces a hyper-density in the central districts of Paris. it's not until the 1880s that you have the huge wave of Breton migration (from Brittany).
so you have an extraordinarily crowded city, the ranks of the poor swollen by immigration.
one of the differences between the 19th century and now is that the people coming into paris, then, the people coming into Paris were people who were poorer than those already there. this is different than middle-class immigration in the immediate aftermath of WWII (not well-explained...)
Haussman himself was born in the Western, prosperous parts of Paris (he was a law student there). in 1852, Napoleon the III orders Haussman to build him great boulevards--it was a time when the gap between the rich and the poor was increasing.
you see, as a consequence of the re-configuration/demolition of the centre and eviction by high rents, the flight of working-class populations from the center to the periphery (the growth, then, of working-class, poor suburbs).
the principle of the planning, itself, is built upon classical principles associated with absolute monarchs--"the imperialism of the straight line." if you think of St. Petersburg, Madrid, Berlin, or Versailles--there were power alleys, down which you marched troops. very different from the cities that had grown organically from the middle ages (Strasbourg, as an example).
the problematique, of course--how do you build this magnificent boulevard from point A to point B? you simply take a ruler, and barge through!
three reasons that Paris is re-built:
(1) more light and air--make it healthier
(2) to liberate Capital, for business--it's not a coincidence that all the major department stores sit on the boulevards.
(3) how do you build a barricade across the boulevards? Haussman says this in his memoirs--"we want to build barricade-proof boulevards"
---------
now, what about the people chased from the central districts?
if you rented (and almost everyone did), and you were kicked out, you were given the equivalent of about a day's wages, and that was it.
---------
freeing the flow of Capital, of course, was a "worthy goal", and it came with a massive exhibition in 1864, and a proliferation of department stores. and what this does, of course, is destroy local craftsmen/businessmen. (there are some dept stores already by the 1820s, and even before that, but it is the 1850s and 1860s that brings to Paris THE Department Store).
it creates jobs for working-class and peasant women (in terrible conditions, of course), and it attracts the rich to consume. in that sense a re-organization of the economy.
----------
Haussman is not a terribly interesting man--he's technocrat. but he was very good at what he did; he frees up the flow of circulation of Capital, etc. and there are visual effects of the reorganization--imperial order is re-inforced, in a sense.
but the effects on the Parisian poor were horrific, again; all of this makes the West-East/Center-Periphery contrasts more important.
----------
to be sure, there were boulevards in European cities, before Haussmann. but they had been built on the peripheries, mainly, on the outskirts (where walls once used to be). Vienna is an example of this. and there is some of this in Paris, too.
Renoire described the Boulevards as soldiers. (prof is showing pictures, at this point)
paintings portraying the anomie of boulevard life--the isolation of modern city-life. one can over-emphasize this theme too much, perhaps, but it's still critical to keep in mind.
----------
you still have traditional work done in Paris--so there is some conversion of old buildings into new industries, and there is some re-organization of work, in a sense (unclear, this point)
but prof is again stressing the marginaliztion of poor and working-class life (and culture). the contrast between what happened to the Western periphery and the Eastern periphery. the Western half of Paris was very different (though one shouldn't over-estimate this).
working-class industrial suburbs became the source of serious support for the communists during the 1920s and 1930s, partly because of how badly they were housed. and they become places feared by the center. the growth of these industrial suburbs is an important feature of large-scale industrialization (many of the "dirty" industries are forced toward the periphery--that's where the factories are, etc.)
-----------
why are European suburbs so different from American suburbs?
in 1992, at the time of the Rodney King riots in LA, prof was writing an edited book on the "Red Suburbs" in Paris (and their identification with radical politics). and people on France kept asking, as they couldn't understand the concept of wealthy suburbs and poor interiors, as prevails in Paris.
in the early 1830s, one of Louis Phillippe's ministers called the industrial periphery the "cord that will one day wring our neck." fear of the periphery, not fear of the center.
in 1831 and 1834, silk workers from Lyon poured down into the city and were kept out of invading the center by Police. prof describing, as contrast, 1968 Detroit, and the riots and fire--one of the suburbs tried to change the street patterns so that the poor of the center couldn't come out to the suburbs.
how did this happen? the pattern is just the opposite--can't be exaggerated, but these spatial tensions do count for something.
Haussmann was part of setting this trend, ultimately--factory owners look for cheap labor on the periphery, prices in the center get higher and higher.
the sense of not belonging to the center, in a sense, offers hope to peripheral activism.
john merriman
----------
the belle epoque was not "good," for most people of France--the image of nostalgia for this period's France is really a creation of post-WWI France.
we have to look, of course, at the reconfiguration of Paris by Baron Haussmann in the 1850s and 1860s (the "Alsatian Attila"). he only went back to Paris three times after he left in scandal at the end of the 1860s.
the great boulevards that became identified with modern Paris can only be understood during this "urban renewal" project--it was the largest, in history (only comparable were the re-building of Tokyo, after the fire; or London (when?)).
----------
pre-1860 Paris, the first thing you notice, of course, is its small size (prof is showing map). tremendously over-crowded place--and the most densely populated parts of the city were the Isle de Cite, and the Marais (central right-bank districts). their population density was three times what it is today.
in 1851: 1,053,000
in 1861: 1,696,000
in 1872: 1,825,000 (minus the 25,000 slaughtered)
in 1881: 2,269,000
in 1896: 2,500,000
European cities only grow in the first 2/3 of the 19th century through migration (otherwise more people die than are born--disease, infanticide, infant morality, etc.). large-cities replenish themsleves only through immigration. this produces a hyper-density in the central districts of Paris. it's not until the 1880s that you have the huge wave of Breton migration (from Brittany).
so you have an extraordinarily crowded city, the ranks of the poor swollen by immigration.
one of the differences between the 19th century and now is that the people coming into paris, then, the people coming into Paris were people who were poorer than those already there. this is different than middle-class immigration in the immediate aftermath of WWII (not well-explained...)
Haussman himself was born in the Western, prosperous parts of Paris (he was a law student there). in 1852, Napoleon the III orders Haussman to build him great boulevards--it was a time when the gap between the rich and the poor was increasing.
you see, as a consequence of the re-configuration/demolition of the centre and eviction by high rents, the flight of working-class populations from the center to the periphery (the growth, then, of working-class, poor suburbs).
the principle of the planning, itself, is built upon classical principles associated with absolute monarchs--"the imperialism of the straight line." if you think of St. Petersburg, Madrid, Berlin, or Versailles--there were power alleys, down which you marched troops. very different from the cities that had grown organically from the middle ages (Strasbourg, as an example).
the problematique, of course--how do you build this magnificent boulevard from point A to point B? you simply take a ruler, and barge through!
three reasons that Paris is re-built:
(1) more light and air--make it healthier
(2) to liberate Capital, for business--it's not a coincidence that all the major department stores sit on the boulevards.
(3) how do you build a barricade across the boulevards? Haussman says this in his memoirs--"we want to build barricade-proof boulevards"
---------
now, what about the people chased from the central districts?
if you rented (and almost everyone did), and you were kicked out, you were given the equivalent of about a day's wages, and that was it.
---------
freeing the flow of Capital, of course, was a "worthy goal", and it came with a massive exhibition in 1864, and a proliferation of department stores. and what this does, of course, is destroy local craftsmen/businessmen. (there are some dept stores already by the 1820s, and even before that, but it is the 1850s and 1860s that brings to Paris THE Department Store).
it creates jobs for working-class and peasant women (in terrible conditions, of course), and it attracts the rich to consume. in that sense a re-organization of the economy.
----------
Haussman is not a terribly interesting man--he's technocrat. but he was very good at what he did; he frees up the flow of circulation of Capital, etc. and there are visual effects of the reorganization--imperial order is re-inforced, in a sense.
but the effects on the Parisian poor were horrific, again; all of this makes the West-East/Center-Periphery contrasts more important.
----------
to be sure, there were boulevards in European cities, before Haussmann. but they had been built on the peripheries, mainly, on the outskirts (where walls once used to be). Vienna is an example of this. and there is some of this in Paris, too.
Renoire described the Boulevards as soldiers. (prof is showing pictures, at this point)
paintings portraying the anomie of boulevard life--the isolation of modern city-life. one can over-emphasize this theme too much, perhaps, but it's still critical to keep in mind.
----------
you still have traditional work done in Paris--so there is some conversion of old buildings into new industries, and there is some re-organization of work, in a sense (unclear, this point)
but prof is again stressing the marginaliztion of poor and working-class life (and culture). the contrast between what happened to the Western periphery and the Eastern periphery. the Western half of Paris was very different (though one shouldn't over-estimate this).
working-class industrial suburbs became the source of serious support for the communists during the 1920s and 1930s, partly because of how badly they were housed. and they become places feared by the center. the growth of these industrial suburbs is an important feature of large-scale industrialization (many of the "dirty" industries are forced toward the periphery--that's where the factories are, etc.)
-----------
why are European suburbs so different from American suburbs?
in 1992, at the time of the Rodney King riots in LA, prof was writing an edited book on the "Red Suburbs" in Paris (and their identification with radical politics). and people on France kept asking, as they couldn't understand the concept of wealthy suburbs and poor interiors, as prevails in Paris.
in the early 1830s, one of Louis Phillippe's ministers called the industrial periphery the "cord that will one day wring our neck." fear of the periphery, not fear of the center.
in 1831 and 1834, silk workers from Lyon poured down into the city and were kept out of invading the center by Police. prof describing, as contrast, 1968 Detroit, and the riots and fire--one of the suburbs tried to change the street patterns so that the poor of the center couldn't come out to the suburbs.
how did this happen? the pattern is just the opposite--can't be exaggerated, but these spatial tensions do count for something.
Haussmann was part of setting this trend, ultimately--factory owners look for cheap labor on the periphery, prices in the center get higher and higher.
the sense of not belonging to the center, in a sense, offers hope to peripheral activism.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
lecture 9, "general boulanger and captain dreyfus"
john merriman
--------
today, two very well-known crises in the third republic (Boulanger and Dreyfus affair). the latter is perhaps more poignant given that dreyfus' granddaughter died at auschwitz.
Boulanger affair portends the rise of the far-right in France--parallels the rise of the far-right in austria, etc.
--------
the background to all this, of course, is the rise of anti-semitism.
in a way, WWI released the demons of the twentieth century, to a great extent. for adolph hitler, it transformed his anti-socialism/anti-communism into a frenzy, but it added this dimension of anti-semitism.
but, of course, anti-semitism was already out there. not invented by the third republic, either.
but, certainly, the political dimensions of anti-semitism in the 1880s and 1890s made these two affairs so salient (it preoccupied dinner-table discussions, etc.).
the continued growth of anti-semitism also needs to be explained in the context of two further dynamics: (1) there was the question of revenge--the re-capture of Alsace-Lorraine from the german empire; by the end of the 1880s, this is an important part of French discourse; (2) the perceived weakness of French republicanism; in order to protect France from further Caesarism, they create a constitutional framework that vested a lot of authority in the Chamber of Deputies (and this chamber is basically a "political club", of swinging door ministries and the same people--the accomplishments are rather "pale," prof is arguing).
----------
All this frustration gave rise to an anti-parliamentarian movement--and a temptation to find a strong man who will right these wrongs, and re-attach Alsace-Lorraine to France. Impression that the Republic was at the end of its rope.
In May of 1882, the League of the Patriots is created--an anti-parliamentarian, ultra-nationalist movement. Quickly has 180,000 members(!). With this began the rapidly rising career of General Boulanger, born in 1837. He was a veteran of four campaigns (Africa, Italy, Vietnam/Indochina). He was a brave, heroic figure, and wasn't associated with the reprisals after the Paris commune as he had been injured earlier. Lots of energy/bravery, though not many brains.
He fit the image of what many people believed France needed. He was sent to the US to celebrate the centennial of the revolution (and caused a stir by refusing to get off the boat until the German flags were taken down)--this makes him the darling of the press (right-wing press, which dominates the newspapers). On good terms with Georges Clemenceau, an electoral leader of the Radical Party--both had graduated from the same high school. Boulanger had an anti-clerical streak, which he would have to temper later as he sought right-wing support. Saw the civilian population as meddlesome, prof is saying. Took every possible opportunity to be seen in front of his troops--it was his idea to paint all the sentry boxes red, white, and blue.
In 1886, during a miners' strike, he said that French soldiers were sharing their rations with workers--so he gave the impression of a kind of Napoleonic figure who had broad interests at heart. People start writing songs about him (General "Victory"). Tensions with the German empire increase his popularity; Bismarck himself was aware of Boulanger, and he uses Boulanger's popularity for his own support. One of the few ways the Reichstag could reign in the authority of the Kaiser.
This begins to worry people--Jules Grevy says that he's got to go. But this threatened to make Boulanger a martyr. He is not allowed to run for office--but as a write-in candidate, he gets something like 39,000 votes. So they opt to send him away, away from Paris--huge crowds block the tracks of the train on which he's on (singing the Marsellaise--a mix of people...)
In the early days he got some votes from the Left, and a lot of money from the Right and the Monarchists).
Clemenceau, then, dumps Boulanger as a friend.
---------
This is the stage at which the crisis re: Grevy's son-in-law takes place (trafficking medals of honor). And who comes along to become President of France, but Sadi-Carnot, who will be assasinated in 1894 (elected by the deputies). Arguably voted in because he was the stupidest(!).
The contrast between Boulanger and the impotent republic, then, become more and more marked. One thing leads to another, but it comes down to the fact that he's sitting in a restraunt in Paris, in 1889 (he's already a member of the chamber of deputies)--and there's a crowd that gathers in the street, shouting for him to take action. To go out, greet his adorers, and who knows? To end the impotent republic, perhaps. But he just sits there--finishes his elaborate meal. And then goes upstairs with his mistress. And the opportunity is passed. (And while he hesitates, his enemies do not--the electoral procedure that allowed him to be elected is eliminated). He flees to Belgium, which makes him seem less brave/dashing.
There's a committee working for him in France, but he remains aloof. His mistress, whom he loves, dies in 1891, after a long illness--on the 30th of September, 1891, he goes alone to her grave, and blew his brains out.
The republic emerged strengthened, by this crisis. But that's only one aspect--what's very interesting, is what was happening to the Right, at this time.
The crisis (and response to it), prof is arguing, is one of the best examples of this new world of mass politics. The question of how the message got out? How did people know about Boulanger, in different regions across France. For centuries, one of the only ways in which people imagined religious/military/political events, was by reading "comic strips"--they would show you pictures of Saints, Generals, etc. These were peddled to villages, through an elaborate distribution network. And so Boulanger is plugged into this popular library, at a time when most people could read, anyway--and his pamphlets, etc., get distributed via these networks (and, of course, assisted by trains). These images just inundated these places.
---------
Two things are particularly interesting, then, about the Boulanger affair:
(1) origins of the modern right.
(2) the beginnings of mass politics, even in rural areas. (and we see, with Boulanger's images, the beginnings of an enormous propaganda campaign against Jews--departments without Jews used to denounce this "Other." They flood the countryside with images, messages, etc.).
This anticipates the 1920s and 1930s in the sense that this is the first time that the Right is out in the streets--Paris is changing, with this, it's no longer the Paris of the radical sans-culottes. Until 1968, the big demonstrations are of the right (for the canonization of Joan of Arc, for the end of the Republic in 1934).
Of course, you can't always look through hindsight--if you want to explain Auschwitz, or the arrests of Jews in Paris in 1942/1943, but we can, at the very least, say that this was all out there. It was part of the mythology of Boulanger, of course.
----------
The Dreyfus Affair--more obvious, in some senses, than the Boulanger affair--reflects the anti-semitism that had been exacerbated by the economic crisis that begins in the mid-1870s. Where it was easy to blame it on the Jewish bankers, etc.
Edward Drumont's newspaper had been at the forefront of denouncing the scandals of the Republic (arguing that it was inherent in the structure of the Republic, and that the Jews were prominent). He had published a book in which he had argued that Jewish financiers were conspiring to dominate France.
He is at the forefront of this affair, which pits the Right, the Church, and the Army against the Republicans, Socialists, etc. (who supported Dreyfus). He was the son of an old Jewish family from Alsace--his family had been peddlers, and became textile manufactures. But they were well assimilated, and considered themselves French. But, in 1871, of course, they move to Paris, to a wealthy part of the city.
At this time, you have a huge contrast between assimilated Jews and poor immigrants from Russia/Poland, etc., who settle in Paris (And some of the former don't want the latter, because they "fit the stereotype").
In 1894, evidence surfaced that someone was passing secret information to the Germans, about German military operations on the new frontier. Circumstantial evidence pointed to Dreyfus (looked like his handwriting). Presented him with a pistol! He said, "it's not me." But a court-martial found him guilty of treason--sent to Devil's Island, off the coast of South America.
However, more documents were leaked in the aftermath of his sentencing. The new chief of army intelligence, Picard, came to the conclusion that it wasn't Dreyfus. That the handwriting was the same--he was an unlikely hero, actually, because he himself was a vicious anti-Semite. He comes to the conclusion that they were penned by another immigrant, a Hungarian. BUT: high-ranking officers come together, and argue that it's better to have this Jew, imprisioned, than to admit we made a mistake. The Right and the Catholic Church say the same thing; he's a Jew, and he's guilty. Picard is sent to Tunisia.
At this point, Zola takes up the case. He writes a famous article on the cover-up. This is where the controversy explodes.
Soon, some more documents are "discovered." A man called Henry had forged them, actually, to try and make it more clear. Finally, however, Henry slits his throat, where he had been condemned for this forgery. They bring Dreyfus back, however. And find him guilty! Send him back to Devil's island.
He's finally pardoned in 1899/1900, but not fully exonerated until 1906. Reinstated in the French army, left after his health deteroriated in 1907--but returned to serve during WWI!
This was another moment for the anti-Republican right, who had convicted him essentially on the basis of his Jew-ness. Dreyfus retreated to his own life; amazingly forgiving for all that had happened (and one of the ironies, of course, is the fact that his granddaughter dies at Auschwitz).
john merriman
--------
today, two very well-known crises in the third republic (Boulanger and Dreyfus affair). the latter is perhaps more poignant given that dreyfus' granddaughter died at auschwitz.
Boulanger affair portends the rise of the far-right in France--parallels the rise of the far-right in austria, etc.
--------
the background to all this, of course, is the rise of anti-semitism.
in a way, WWI released the demons of the twentieth century, to a great extent. for adolph hitler, it transformed his anti-socialism/anti-communism into a frenzy, but it added this dimension of anti-semitism.
but, of course, anti-semitism was already out there. not invented by the third republic, either.
but, certainly, the political dimensions of anti-semitism in the 1880s and 1890s made these two affairs so salient (it preoccupied dinner-table discussions, etc.).
the continued growth of anti-semitism also needs to be explained in the context of two further dynamics: (1) there was the question of revenge--the re-capture of Alsace-Lorraine from the german empire; by the end of the 1880s, this is an important part of French discourse; (2) the perceived weakness of French republicanism; in order to protect France from further Caesarism, they create a constitutional framework that vested a lot of authority in the Chamber of Deputies (and this chamber is basically a "political club", of swinging door ministries and the same people--the accomplishments are rather "pale," prof is arguing).
----------
All this frustration gave rise to an anti-parliamentarian movement--and a temptation to find a strong man who will right these wrongs, and re-attach Alsace-Lorraine to France. Impression that the Republic was at the end of its rope.
In May of 1882, the League of the Patriots is created--an anti-parliamentarian, ultra-nationalist movement. Quickly has 180,000 members(!). With this began the rapidly rising career of General Boulanger, born in 1837. He was a veteran of four campaigns (Africa, Italy, Vietnam/Indochina). He was a brave, heroic figure, and wasn't associated with the reprisals after the Paris commune as he had been injured earlier. Lots of energy/bravery, though not many brains.
He fit the image of what many people believed France needed. He was sent to the US to celebrate the centennial of the revolution (and caused a stir by refusing to get off the boat until the German flags were taken down)--this makes him the darling of the press (right-wing press, which dominates the newspapers). On good terms with Georges Clemenceau, an electoral leader of the Radical Party--both had graduated from the same high school. Boulanger had an anti-clerical streak, which he would have to temper later as he sought right-wing support. Saw the civilian population as meddlesome, prof is saying. Took every possible opportunity to be seen in front of his troops--it was his idea to paint all the sentry boxes red, white, and blue.
In 1886, during a miners' strike, he said that French soldiers were sharing their rations with workers--so he gave the impression of a kind of Napoleonic figure who had broad interests at heart. People start writing songs about him (General "Victory"). Tensions with the German empire increase his popularity; Bismarck himself was aware of Boulanger, and he uses Boulanger's popularity for his own support. One of the few ways the Reichstag could reign in the authority of the Kaiser.
This begins to worry people--Jules Grevy says that he's got to go. But this threatened to make Boulanger a martyr. He is not allowed to run for office--but as a write-in candidate, he gets something like 39,000 votes. So they opt to send him away, away from Paris--huge crowds block the tracks of the train on which he's on (singing the Marsellaise--a mix of people...)
In the early days he got some votes from the Left, and a lot of money from the Right and the Monarchists).
Clemenceau, then, dumps Boulanger as a friend.
---------
This is the stage at which the crisis re: Grevy's son-in-law takes place (trafficking medals of honor). And who comes along to become President of France, but Sadi-Carnot, who will be assasinated in 1894 (elected by the deputies). Arguably voted in because he was the stupidest(!).
The contrast between Boulanger and the impotent republic, then, become more and more marked. One thing leads to another, but it comes down to the fact that he's sitting in a restraunt in Paris, in 1889 (he's already a member of the chamber of deputies)--and there's a crowd that gathers in the street, shouting for him to take action. To go out, greet his adorers, and who knows? To end the impotent republic, perhaps. But he just sits there--finishes his elaborate meal. And then goes upstairs with his mistress. And the opportunity is passed. (And while he hesitates, his enemies do not--the electoral procedure that allowed him to be elected is eliminated). He flees to Belgium, which makes him seem less brave/dashing.
There's a committee working for him in France, but he remains aloof. His mistress, whom he loves, dies in 1891, after a long illness--on the 30th of September, 1891, he goes alone to her grave, and blew his brains out.
The republic emerged strengthened, by this crisis. But that's only one aspect--what's very interesting, is what was happening to the Right, at this time.
The crisis (and response to it), prof is arguing, is one of the best examples of this new world of mass politics. The question of how the message got out? How did people know about Boulanger, in different regions across France. For centuries, one of the only ways in which people imagined religious/military/political events, was by reading "comic strips"--they would show you pictures of Saints, Generals, etc. These were peddled to villages, through an elaborate distribution network. And so Boulanger is plugged into this popular library, at a time when most people could read, anyway--and his pamphlets, etc., get distributed via these networks (and, of course, assisted by trains). These images just inundated these places.
---------
Two things are particularly interesting, then, about the Boulanger affair:
(1) origins of the modern right.
(2) the beginnings of mass politics, even in rural areas. (and we see, with Boulanger's images, the beginnings of an enormous propaganda campaign against Jews--departments without Jews used to denounce this "Other." They flood the countryside with images, messages, etc.).
This anticipates the 1920s and 1930s in the sense that this is the first time that the Right is out in the streets--Paris is changing, with this, it's no longer the Paris of the radical sans-culottes. Until 1968, the big demonstrations are of the right (for the canonization of Joan of Arc, for the end of the Republic in 1934).
Of course, you can't always look through hindsight--if you want to explain Auschwitz, or the arrests of Jews in Paris in 1942/1943, but we can, at the very least, say that this was all out there. It was part of the mythology of Boulanger, of course.
----------
The Dreyfus Affair--more obvious, in some senses, than the Boulanger affair--reflects the anti-semitism that had been exacerbated by the economic crisis that begins in the mid-1870s. Where it was easy to blame it on the Jewish bankers, etc.
Edward Drumont's newspaper had been at the forefront of denouncing the scandals of the Republic (arguing that it was inherent in the structure of the Republic, and that the Jews were prominent). He had published a book in which he had argued that Jewish financiers were conspiring to dominate France.
He is at the forefront of this affair, which pits the Right, the Church, and the Army against the Republicans, Socialists, etc. (who supported Dreyfus). He was the son of an old Jewish family from Alsace--his family had been peddlers, and became textile manufactures. But they were well assimilated, and considered themselves French. But, in 1871, of course, they move to Paris, to a wealthy part of the city.
At this time, you have a huge contrast between assimilated Jews and poor immigrants from Russia/Poland, etc., who settle in Paris (And some of the former don't want the latter, because they "fit the stereotype").
In 1894, evidence surfaced that someone was passing secret information to the Germans, about German military operations on the new frontier. Circumstantial evidence pointed to Dreyfus (looked like his handwriting). Presented him with a pistol! He said, "it's not me." But a court-martial found him guilty of treason--sent to Devil's Island, off the coast of South America.
However, more documents were leaked in the aftermath of his sentencing. The new chief of army intelligence, Picard, came to the conclusion that it wasn't Dreyfus. That the handwriting was the same--he was an unlikely hero, actually, because he himself was a vicious anti-Semite. He comes to the conclusion that they were penned by another immigrant, a Hungarian. BUT: high-ranking officers come together, and argue that it's better to have this Jew, imprisioned, than to admit we made a mistake. The Right and the Catholic Church say the same thing; he's a Jew, and he's guilty. Picard is sent to Tunisia.
At this point, Zola takes up the case. He writes a famous article on the cover-up. This is where the controversy explodes.
Soon, some more documents are "discovered." A man called Henry had forged them, actually, to try and make it more clear. Finally, however, Henry slits his throat, where he had been condemned for this forgery. They bring Dreyfus back, however. And find him guilty! Send him back to Devil's island.
He's finally pardoned in 1899/1900, but not fully exonerated until 1906. Reinstated in the French army, left after his health deteroriated in 1907--but returned to serve during WWI!
This was another moment for the anti-Republican right, who had convicted him essentially on the basis of his Jew-ness. Dreyfus retreated to his own life; amazingly forgiving for all that had happened (and one of the ironies, of course, is the fact that his granddaughter dies at Auschwitz).
lecture 8, "dynamite club: the anarchists"
john merriman
--------
life and death of one man, emile henry (guillotined in 1894, when he was 21)
--------
anarchists, unlike socialists, did not want to seize control of the state, but wanted to "destroy" it. they saw political life as irredeemably bourgeois and corrupt.
first anarchist, prof is saying, was prodhoun (from east of france, active in 1850s and 1860s). he wrote a pamphlet titled "property is theft" (he meant, prof argues, that "unearned" property is theft)--"to be governed is to be...checked, valued, estimated, commanded...that is government, that is justice, that is its morality"
followed by two russian anarchists, peter kropotkin and mikael bakunin. both were nobles(!). the former was once toasted by the king of england--he was among those that came up with the term, "propaganda of the deed", which was premised on the idea that the masses were like a tinder-box, and all that was needed was a spark.
depending on how one counts, anarchists assasinated about 6 or 7 heads of state.
---------
begin with a bomb in the cafe terminus. february 12, 1894, a pale, thin man named emile henry hid a bomb in his clothes, and headed for the elegant boulevards near the paris opera. he wanted to kill as many peopole as possible. he stopped before the opera itself, where there was a fancy ball going on, but he didn't think he could get past the guards. he was a flanuer, an intellectual who had been a bit of a dandy--but if he was, he was an impoverished flanuer, who hated and killed.
at 8pm he reached the cafe terminus--as it was filling up he ordered two beers and a cigar (paying for them, in an un-anarchist gesture). an hour later, he lit the fuse with his cigar, and he threw the bomb into the packed cafe (paris had become a staging ground for the belle epoque, prof is saying--the "cathedrals of modernity").
rebuilding of paris by hausman had chased thousands of workers to north-eastern paris, don't forget, to make way for these boulevards packed with dept stores. indeed, paris seemed no longer the capital of revolution--"boulevards lined up like soldiers"--but the capital of Capital, in a sense. a centralized state, with strong police and army presence. (on may day 1891, troops fired on protestors.)
it was in this context, in the 1890s, that the anarchists began to organize. above all in mont matre, and in industrial regions and worker suburbs.
this was a time of scandal--the memory of the paris commune loomed large for the anarchists. they "hated" paris, and admired bakunin and the others. the modern state had erected itself on the corpses of the communards.
a wave of anarchist bombings swept the capital from 1892-1894--assasination noted by the king of italy as a "professional risk".
prof is arguing that many of the anarchists, however, were people of peace--for propotkin and proudhoun the goal was to create communities, to survive away from the state.
at the same time, propotkin had accepted the phrase "propaganda by the deed" (and maybe even coined it). the belief that a single act of violence would be the spark. he did later have his doubts, but he refused to condemn those driven by despair (he had celebrated the permanent revolution of the word and pen)
dynamite was invented by alfred nobel in 1868--it seemed, in some sense, to level the playing field. a german anarchist had written that it was "within the power of dynamite to destroy capitalism", just as it was "within the power of gunpowder to destroy feudalism."
rabba scholl(sp.?) took this to heart--born into poverty, shamed in school as someone wearing beggar's clothes. he took to crime and anarchism. he was arrested, escaped the police wagon, and made it to paris. after the police firings and arrests in 1891--rabba scholl's two "deeds" followed these incidents, when he bombed the homes of two magistrates. he was subdued later by 10 policemen, and was guillotined the next year.
he so terrified contemporaries, that his name became a verb. after his death the anarchists of paris debated the wisdom of his attacks. some sympathizers thought of him as a martyr, a violent jesus christ (both were 33 when they were executed).
in his eulogy of scholl, an art critic warned that the murder of scholl was going to act as a trigger. someone else penned, "what do the victims matter if the gesture is beautiful"(!).
people of means were afraid to go to fancy restraunts, to rent to magistrates, etc. (a climate of fear). hundreds of scrawled threats arrived to property owners, people of means, etc. (signed by the avengers of rabba scholl, etc.--"finally the day when social justice will arrive"). "the dynamite polka."
on the 9th of december 1893, an unemployed worker who couldn't feed his family tossed a small bomb full of thumbtacks into the chamber of deputies--his goal was not to kill, but to call attention to the plight of the poor. he was guillotined almost immediately, after a brief trial. "long live anarchy," he shouted.
--------
emile henry's father had been a communard--he fled, under the sentence of death, to spain, where he worked in the mines (turning from republican socialism, to anarchism--in spain anarchists were terribly influential). he had two brothers--following his father's death in 1882 from mercury poisoning, his mother and the kids returned to paris. his mother had a bit of family land, and started up an inn (in the countryside, basically). he is very smart, becomes a scholarship student. the last report on his scholarship reads "he will become a student at one of the best schools in paris" (but he failed the oral exam, alas--though he could have taken it again).
he precipitously returned to paris. he lost his footing, a friend said, and became attracted to spiritism, trying to contact the dead soul of his father. worked here and there while living on the margins of urban life. his brother became an anarchist, and was a prominent orator in smoky cafes (he went to jail in 1894, for things that he had written). emile, now 20 years of age, was called "microbe." he was devoted to his mother, and would walk/take the train to go visit her. gave about a third of his monthly earnings to his mother.
began meeting with some anarchist groups, read some propotkin and other counterparts. his two targets were "private property" and "authority", two cancers he believed had to be destroyed. though he remained detached from the intellectual anarchist scene, he did fancy himself an intellectual. he was different from the man that through the tack bomb (malatoun(sp.?)), in that emile only loved the "idea"--didn't love the people, but the "deed", according to prof. (this was a common thread amongst elite anarchists, whose hate for bourgeois society could translate into a hate for the "people").
emile was a loner--he never spoke in public, allegedly. arrested with his brother after his brother was mistaken for having dynamite in his coat-pocket (it was actually a pen case). emile lost his job after his arrest/release--he bounced between bad jobs (once working as an apprentice to a watch-maker...). in 1892, he briefly served as a manager for an anarchist literary newspaper. but all this while he was preparing his bombs.
police informers, remember, were everwhere! (g.k. chesterton's book). he was overheard saying something about nitro-glycerin. a police spy reported that the old ways of the anarchists no longer seemed in play--the ones that you had to worry about were not the speech-makers, but the ones lurking in the shadows with evil "deeds" in mind.
they reflected, of course, a debate within anarchism--between the associanists and the believers in individual autonomy of the dynamiters.
---------
this lecture's title, "dynamite club", reflects the police's misinterpretation that all these bombings were co-ordinated.
---------
on the 11th of november, 1892, an employer of a mining company found a suspicious looking package outside the company door. they carried it downstairs quite stupidly, and policemen came along and decided that they had to take it to the police station (it was a bomb that would explode after chemical reaction). when they put it down on a table in the police station it exploded! the bomb was wrapped in a newspaper that related the arrest of emile henry!
emile fled to london--a friend of oscar wilde's remembered meeting him there. he was proud. he had exterminated 6 enemies. the policemen, however, didn't think of him as a serious suspect--a policemen didn't believe that his routine of the day was possible (i.e., that he had an alibi...)
anyway, emile is in london, now. what converts him to anarchism, of course, is the appaling gap between the poor and the rich in paris. never had people lived it up in such egregious ways, as in the "belle epoque." everywhere he lived had been on the edge of paris--and from where he lived, he could see the monuments/buildings he hated in paris (notre dame, for example).
he once wrote that "love" could lead you to "hate"--he loved humanity in the abstract, and hated society in very concrete ways.
---------
the explosive device that emile henry threw into the terminus injured 20 people and killed one. henry had been seen, and so he wouldn't be caught, he said, "where's the scoundrel that did this?" but then he ran, and then was finally caught--he fired with his pistol, hitting a policeman's wallet(!).
he's put in a prison--the prison guards were trying to get information out of him, even as he's trying to convert the guards to anarchism. his friends actually broke into the prison and stole dynamite, putting paris on high alert.
at his trial he says you have "shot us in spain, hung us in germany... but what you can never do is extinguish anarchy, because its roots are too deep."
he was executed on the 21st of may, 1894. (the last public execution, actually, was 1936 (people bought tickets to sit on neighboring roofs!)--the last execution in france was in 1972, with the guillotine, of course).
these guillotine scenes were important to anarchists, as well, as scenes of martyrdom, of course.
---------
was this a form of indirect suicide? (some have argued this, presumably?)
he had fallen in love with a woman, the wife of a fellow anarchist. he proclaimed his love, but was blown off. she, after his execution, gives interviews to journalists--"oh, he loved me so much..."
no, not indirect suicide.
--------
how did this represent the origins of modern terror, prof is asking? what was new about it? a couple of things.
(1) most of the anarchists in western europe had been ordinary workers, but emile henry was an intellectual--instead of targeting a head of state, he threw a bomb at the petty-bourgeois that sustain capitalism. that's really new about it, prof is saying.
(2) in modern terrorism you have an alliance between intellectuals/students and the down-and-out, which is reflected in emile henry's life.
(3) you have revolutionary immorality--martyrdom.
(4) they all set out to attack the state/capitalism, imperialism/state--an institution that stands for a whole system/ideology.
(5) again, seen as leveling the playing field--you proved you were strong, even when, in reality, you were weak.
(6) not a centrally organized, massive conspiracy--yet individuals and small groups were critical.
(7) when you think of the word "terrorism" -- this was originally applied to describe the violence of the state. it is often forgotten, professor is saying, that the vast majority of victims of terror are victims of state terror. and the anarchists, in this sense, had obvious grievances. you cannot understand it without this. anarchists killed perhaps up to 60 people in this era; the state, of course, many more (260:1, in someone's estimates).
terrorism has thus become part of the political process, in a sense. mutual need, in a sense--dissidence stoked and encouraged the overzealous response of the State (when States take tactics that swell hatred for them).
john merriman
--------
life and death of one man, emile henry (guillotined in 1894, when he was 21)
--------
anarchists, unlike socialists, did not want to seize control of the state, but wanted to "destroy" it. they saw political life as irredeemably bourgeois and corrupt.
first anarchist, prof is saying, was prodhoun (from east of france, active in 1850s and 1860s). he wrote a pamphlet titled "property is theft" (he meant, prof argues, that "unearned" property is theft)--"to be governed is to be...checked, valued, estimated, commanded...that is government, that is justice, that is its morality"
followed by two russian anarchists, peter kropotkin and mikael bakunin. both were nobles(!). the former was once toasted by the king of england--he was among those that came up with the term, "propaganda of the deed", which was premised on the idea that the masses were like a tinder-box, and all that was needed was a spark.
depending on how one counts, anarchists assasinated about 6 or 7 heads of state.
---------
begin with a bomb in the cafe terminus. february 12, 1894, a pale, thin man named emile henry hid a bomb in his clothes, and headed for the elegant boulevards near the paris opera. he wanted to kill as many peopole as possible. he stopped before the opera itself, where there was a fancy ball going on, but he didn't think he could get past the guards. he was a flanuer, an intellectual who had been a bit of a dandy--but if he was, he was an impoverished flanuer, who hated and killed.
at 8pm he reached the cafe terminus--as it was filling up he ordered two beers and a cigar (paying for them, in an un-anarchist gesture). an hour later, he lit the fuse with his cigar, and he threw the bomb into the packed cafe (paris had become a staging ground for the belle epoque, prof is saying--the "cathedrals of modernity").
rebuilding of paris by hausman had chased thousands of workers to north-eastern paris, don't forget, to make way for these boulevards packed with dept stores. indeed, paris seemed no longer the capital of revolution--"boulevards lined up like soldiers"--but the capital of Capital, in a sense. a centralized state, with strong police and army presence. (on may day 1891, troops fired on protestors.)
it was in this context, in the 1890s, that the anarchists began to organize. above all in mont matre, and in industrial regions and worker suburbs.
this was a time of scandal--the memory of the paris commune loomed large for the anarchists. they "hated" paris, and admired bakunin and the others. the modern state had erected itself on the corpses of the communards.
a wave of anarchist bombings swept the capital from 1892-1894--assasination noted by the king of italy as a "professional risk".
prof is arguing that many of the anarchists, however, were people of peace--for propotkin and proudhoun the goal was to create communities, to survive away from the state.
at the same time, propotkin had accepted the phrase "propaganda by the deed" (and maybe even coined it). the belief that a single act of violence would be the spark. he did later have his doubts, but he refused to condemn those driven by despair (he had celebrated the permanent revolution of the word and pen)
dynamite was invented by alfred nobel in 1868--it seemed, in some sense, to level the playing field. a german anarchist had written that it was "within the power of dynamite to destroy capitalism", just as it was "within the power of gunpowder to destroy feudalism."
rabba scholl(sp.?) took this to heart--born into poverty, shamed in school as someone wearing beggar's clothes. he took to crime and anarchism. he was arrested, escaped the police wagon, and made it to paris. after the police firings and arrests in 1891--rabba scholl's two "deeds" followed these incidents, when he bombed the homes of two magistrates. he was subdued later by 10 policemen, and was guillotined the next year.
he so terrified contemporaries, that his name became a verb. after his death the anarchists of paris debated the wisdom of his attacks. some sympathizers thought of him as a martyr, a violent jesus christ (both were 33 when they were executed).
in his eulogy of scholl, an art critic warned that the murder of scholl was going to act as a trigger. someone else penned, "what do the victims matter if the gesture is beautiful"(!).
people of means were afraid to go to fancy restraunts, to rent to magistrates, etc. (a climate of fear). hundreds of scrawled threats arrived to property owners, people of means, etc. (signed by the avengers of rabba scholl, etc.--"finally the day when social justice will arrive"). "the dynamite polka."
on the 9th of december 1893, an unemployed worker who couldn't feed his family tossed a small bomb full of thumbtacks into the chamber of deputies--his goal was not to kill, but to call attention to the plight of the poor. he was guillotined almost immediately, after a brief trial. "long live anarchy," he shouted.
--------
emile henry's father had been a communard--he fled, under the sentence of death, to spain, where he worked in the mines (turning from republican socialism, to anarchism--in spain anarchists were terribly influential). he had two brothers--following his father's death in 1882 from mercury poisoning, his mother and the kids returned to paris. his mother had a bit of family land, and started up an inn (in the countryside, basically). he is very smart, becomes a scholarship student. the last report on his scholarship reads "he will become a student at one of the best schools in paris" (but he failed the oral exam, alas--though he could have taken it again).
he precipitously returned to paris. he lost his footing, a friend said, and became attracted to spiritism, trying to contact the dead soul of his father. worked here and there while living on the margins of urban life. his brother became an anarchist, and was a prominent orator in smoky cafes (he went to jail in 1894, for things that he had written). emile, now 20 years of age, was called "microbe." he was devoted to his mother, and would walk/take the train to go visit her. gave about a third of his monthly earnings to his mother.
began meeting with some anarchist groups, read some propotkin and other counterparts. his two targets were "private property" and "authority", two cancers he believed had to be destroyed. though he remained detached from the intellectual anarchist scene, he did fancy himself an intellectual. he was different from the man that through the tack bomb (malatoun(sp.?)), in that emile only loved the "idea"--didn't love the people, but the "deed", according to prof. (this was a common thread amongst elite anarchists, whose hate for bourgeois society could translate into a hate for the "people").
emile was a loner--he never spoke in public, allegedly. arrested with his brother after his brother was mistaken for having dynamite in his coat-pocket (it was actually a pen case). emile lost his job after his arrest/release--he bounced between bad jobs (once working as an apprentice to a watch-maker...). in 1892, he briefly served as a manager for an anarchist literary newspaper. but all this while he was preparing his bombs.
police informers, remember, were everwhere! (g.k. chesterton's book). he was overheard saying something about nitro-glycerin. a police spy reported that the old ways of the anarchists no longer seemed in play--the ones that you had to worry about were not the speech-makers, but the ones lurking in the shadows with evil "deeds" in mind.
they reflected, of course, a debate within anarchism--between the associanists and the believers in individual autonomy of the dynamiters.
---------
this lecture's title, "dynamite club", reflects the police's misinterpretation that all these bombings were co-ordinated.
---------
on the 11th of november, 1892, an employer of a mining company found a suspicious looking package outside the company door. they carried it downstairs quite stupidly, and policemen came along and decided that they had to take it to the police station (it was a bomb that would explode after chemical reaction). when they put it down on a table in the police station it exploded! the bomb was wrapped in a newspaper that related the arrest of emile henry!
emile fled to london--a friend of oscar wilde's remembered meeting him there. he was proud. he had exterminated 6 enemies. the policemen, however, didn't think of him as a serious suspect--a policemen didn't believe that his routine of the day was possible (i.e., that he had an alibi...)
anyway, emile is in london, now. what converts him to anarchism, of course, is the appaling gap between the poor and the rich in paris. never had people lived it up in such egregious ways, as in the "belle epoque." everywhere he lived had been on the edge of paris--and from where he lived, he could see the monuments/buildings he hated in paris (notre dame, for example).
he once wrote that "love" could lead you to "hate"--he loved humanity in the abstract, and hated society in very concrete ways.
---------
the explosive device that emile henry threw into the terminus injured 20 people and killed one. henry had been seen, and so he wouldn't be caught, he said, "where's the scoundrel that did this?" but then he ran, and then was finally caught--he fired with his pistol, hitting a policeman's wallet(!).
he's put in a prison--the prison guards were trying to get information out of him, even as he's trying to convert the guards to anarchism. his friends actually broke into the prison and stole dynamite, putting paris on high alert.
at his trial he says you have "shot us in spain, hung us in germany... but what you can never do is extinguish anarchy, because its roots are too deep."
he was executed on the 21st of may, 1894. (the last public execution, actually, was 1936 (people bought tickets to sit on neighboring roofs!)--the last execution in france was in 1972, with the guillotine, of course).
these guillotine scenes were important to anarchists, as well, as scenes of martyrdom, of course.
---------
was this a form of indirect suicide? (some have argued this, presumably?)
he had fallen in love with a woman, the wife of a fellow anarchist. he proclaimed his love, but was blown off. she, after his execution, gives interviews to journalists--"oh, he loved me so much..."
no, not indirect suicide.
--------
how did this represent the origins of modern terror, prof is asking? what was new about it? a couple of things.
(1) most of the anarchists in western europe had been ordinary workers, but emile henry was an intellectual--instead of targeting a head of state, he threw a bomb at the petty-bourgeois that sustain capitalism. that's really new about it, prof is saying.
(2) in modern terrorism you have an alliance between intellectuals/students and the down-and-out, which is reflected in emile henry's life.
(3) you have revolutionary immorality--martyrdom.
(4) they all set out to attack the state/capitalism, imperialism/state--an institution that stands for a whole system/ideology.
(5) again, seen as leveling the playing field--you proved you were strong, even when, in reality, you were weak.
(6) not a centrally organized, massive conspiracy--yet individuals and small groups were critical.
(7) when you think of the word "terrorism" -- this was originally applied to describe the violence of the state. it is often forgotten, professor is saying, that the vast majority of victims of terror are victims of state terror. and the anarchists, in this sense, had obvious grievances. you cannot understand it without this. anarchists killed perhaps up to 60 people in this era; the state, of course, many more (260:1, in someone's estimates).
terrorism has thus become part of the political process, in a sense. mutual need, in a sense--dissidence stoked and encouraged the overzealous response of the State (when States take tactics that swell hatred for them).
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