William Tyler
Towards and Into War: 1914

William Tyler - Towards and Into War: 1914

- Welcome to everyone who’s Zooming in tonight, I’ve moved the things around. I’m told by my grandchildren, that there’s a thing called Elf on the Shelf, which I think has come to us… I’m sure it’s come to us from America. So for all of my American friends, I’ve moved things around, so the elf has been busy, since we last talked. I love folklore. It’s one of the things I’m interested in. Now, I’m not going to talk about folklore. I’m going to talk about France, from 1870 to 1914. But before I do so, and before anyone says, why did you not talk about X, can I say very clearly, I am not going to talk about the Dreyfus affair, and the anti-Semitism of the period, because that’s a whole title, and talk, that Trudy is going to give later this week, and we agreed that it would be rather silly of me to start trying to do it, when she is going to be able to do it in detail, and has the time to do it. So the Dreyfus affair has been taken out of my talk, in order that Trudy can do it justice, in a separate talk. I hope that’s clear. Now, I’m beginning, with what I’ve put on my notes in front of me, as a prelude. The year is 1870, and the month is September. One of the most disastrous months in French history. The French suffered a catastrophic military defeat at the hands of Prussia, at the Battle of Sedan, on the Belgian border, on the first of the month. First of September 1870. This was followed, three days later, by the abdication and flight of Emperor Napoleon III, which in turn led to the proclamation of the French Third Republic.

I was asked last week by someone, and I guess if they didn’t understand, other people won’t have understood, or followed me. The First Republic is at the time of the revolution, and the guillotining of Louis XVI. The Second Republic comes with the overthrow of King Louis Philippe in 1848. With Louis Napoleon as President of the Second Republic, until he proclaimed himself, as Emperor of the French. So, when Napoleon III abdicates, then it is the Third Republic that comes into being. And this Third Republic, which came into being in 1870, is to last- In September 1870, is to last through to June, 1940, with the collapse of France, in the face of the German advance in World War II. But for my purposes today, I’m only taking the story as far as the opening of the First World War, in 1914. It makes no sense really, to try and push everything in, and take the Third Republic straight through to 1940. The situation is clearly different after 1918, and the situation in 1939, is very different, than it was in 1870. So today, it’s 1870, the abdication of Napoleon III, the formation of the Third Republic, through to the outbreak of the First World War, in 1914. Back to September 1870… On the 19th of September 1870, Prussian forces besieged Paris, and the French government was meeting in Bordeaux, for safety. On the 28th of September, the great French city in the east of Strasbourg, fell to the Prussians. Strasbourg is one of my favourite French cities.

If you have not been to Strasbourg, and you’re going to visit France, and want to know where to go, and if you are from the other side of the Atlantic, then Strasbourg is a fascinating place. It’s both mediaeval, and 18th century. It’s the home of the Palais de l'Europe, the headquarters of the Council of Europe, and one of the meeting places of the European Union. It’s a fascinating place. So Strasbourg fell to the Prussian forces, by the end of the month of September 1870, and it was to remain in German hands until World War I. It was to remain in German hands, along with the whole region of Alsace-Lorraine, in Eastern France, as part of Germany. I remember putting my historical foot well into it, when I was at a meeting at the Council of Europe and the building is by the Rhine, and it’s a little way out of the centre of the city, and I was with a German colleague, a friend of mine, and she and I were waiting for a bus, to take us back into the centre of the town, because we were going to walk, and it had started to rain. So we waited at a bus stop. And as we were waiting, I was looking around, and I said, these are magnificent buildings here, to which her reply was, well, don’t you know what it is? And I said, well, I think it’s a university. And she said, yes, you’re quite right.

It is the University of Strasbourg. I said, well, those are fantastic 19th-century buildings. And she said, well, of course they are, they’re German. And you are always conscious in Strasbourg, of this tension between German and France. Germany and France. So Strasbourg fell, and with it, Alsace-Lorraine. Meanwhile, the minister of the interior, a man called Gambetta, who was in Paris, which was surrounded by German troops, escaped from Paris by balloon. I mean, this was the new in thing, of transportation. He escaped by balloon, and attempted to rally the army, the French army. Unfortunately, without success. And the French army finally surrendered at Metz on the 27th of October, 1870. So by the end of the year, 1870, France had been overwhelmingly defeated at Sedan. Its army had surrendered a second time at Metz, Paris was being besieged, the government was meeting in Bordeaux, the emperor had taken himself to exile into Britain, everything was in chaos. But 1871 opened with even more chaos, and more trauma for France. In January, Paris finally surrendered to the encircling German troops, and an armistice was agreed at Frankfurt. A treaty was signed. And in that treaty signed at Frankfurt by the French, the French agreed to hand over Alsace-Lorraine to Germany.

They agreed to pay a 5 billion franc indemnity for the war, and they agreed to pay for a German force- A military force of occupation in Eastern France, until the indemnity was paid. Now, there’s defeat and defeat, and this is defeat, rubbing their noses in it. But it wasn’t over yet. That is to say, the horror of defeat. On the 18th of January, Bismark, the man who had engineered this war in the first place, got what he had intending to get, for a long time now. The German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors, at Versailles, and King Wilhelm of Prussia was acclaimed the German emperor. The German emperor. He was rather annoyed, because he thought Bismarck was going to declare him Emperor of Germany, but he wasn’t. He was declared- Isn’t it odd, how people at the very top sometimes get such bees in their bonnets… But he was proclaimed German emperor, in the Hall of Versailles. Now that’s more than rubbing French noses in it. This is the glory, La Gloire, of Louis XIV and who is there being proclaimed emperor? A German. Humiliation piled upon humiliation. Yet, by early March 1871, the government of France felt able to return from Bordeaux, not to Paris, but to Versailles. And from Versailles, they tried to take control of Paris, which was out of control. They tried to disarm the Paris National Guard. These were, in British terms, territorial troops, in American terms, state troopers. They were trying to halt, to stop, and accept the government.

Unfortunately… Unfortunately, they failed. And it led to revolution in Paris. Not in France, in Paris. And the extreme left proclaimed a Commune. Nothing to do with communists, but of course, the same root word, and it was the far left. The Commune, with Communards. And the extreme left had taken charge of the capital. Now, using the Rough Guide History to France, I want to read just a couple of bits, if I may. If I can find the page, I will do exactly that. An attempt to disarm the Paris workers, who made up the majority of the Paris National Guard, led to a bloody accident on the 18th of March. When troops were sent in to seize the cannons situated on the high ground around Paris, the affair turned violent, and two generals were summarily executed in Montmartre. Paris was once again in a state of revolution. Well, if Paris was in revolution, the fear was that the Commune, like Robespierre’s Reign of Terror, might impose this far-left concept of a commune, right across the whole of France. And the government, it was republican. Americans, please remember, we’re not talking about Democrats and Republicans. The republicans, are left of centre, but they’re democrats, and they want another Reign of Terror, like a hole in the head. So this is a very dangerous moment, at the very beginning of the Third Republic. Municipal elections were held in Paris, on the 26th of March, 1871.

It confirmed the revolutionary character of the Commune, marking the start of two hectic months, of idealistic, but unconstitutional government, that set out to introduce measures on workers’ rights, social reform, and the conduct of education. But the forces of the Versailles government, France’s government, were meanwhile being swaled by prisoners of war, who’d escaped, or been released by Germany, who’d been captured at Sedan and Metz, and they were able to put it down, but not without one heck of a loss of life, and blood. They had to put it down. This is memories of Robespierre, and the Reign of Terror. It’s all happening again. This is the horror to the democratic left… And one last piece I wanted to read. On the 21st of May, began what is called the Semaine Sanglante, the Bloody Week. Street by street, government troops reclaimed Paris, crushing the Communards, with an indiscriminate savagery that makes the government troops look like the worst excesses of Robespierre’s Reign of Terror. Some 25,000 Parisians were dead, but only 750 government troops. Buildings across the city, including the town hall, Hotel de Ville, and the Palace of the Tuileries, were in ashes, burnt by the Communards. It was another dreadful moment in the history of France, and do not tell me, please, that the French Revolution ended, when Napoleon came to power, and I mean Napoleon Bonaparte. Here on the streets of Paris in 1871, looked at from outside of France, say from London, or even inside France, from somewhere like Lyon, it looks horrific. It looks horrific. The loss of life.

Now we’re not talking now about the 18th century. We’re talking about the last third of the 19th century. Almost, within living memory, and indeed a number of you listening to me tonight, within living memory of your grandparents, and definitely of your great grandparents. This isn’t mediaeval. This is modern. 25,000 Parisian citizens, slaughtered by government troops. Just think in British or American terms what that would mean. That British troops massacred Londoners, street by street, or American armed forces, federal forces, massacred American citizens in the streets of Washington. And this is 1871. I’m using today, Collin Jones’ Cambridge Illustrated History of France, which was on one of my lists a long time ago, and I’m using it today, because I think it’s particularly good on this part of French history, and Jones writes this, The searing memory of the Commune of 1871, affected both Left and Right in France. It formed a myth, who’s heroic resonance, the Marxist Left, would long exploit. The Right constructed a different myth, of Paris as a hotbed of sedition, home of red revolutionary, wild anarchists, and crazed women. The crazed women were female petrol bombers in 1871.

Even though the Haussmann reforms, were sadly transforming the social composition of the city, forcing workers into the “red suburbs” and producing a conservative inner city. Remember, that’s something I’ve spoken about before, the suburbs are where where the workers lived. The inner Paris, is where the well-to-do lived. The opposite of what happens in England, with it’s consequences. The Commune served as justification for outright reaction. Paris was kept under siege conditions until 1876. For five years, the government didn’t trust the Parisians. They even forbade Paris to elect a mayor. It was controlled by central government, and that’s very un-French, and that went on… until 1976. Paris is different from the rest of France. Sometimes, the French differentiate between Paris, and what is called France profonde, the big piece of France, which isn’t Paris. Paris versus the rest. Now, if you think of it, that takes us right back to the mediaeval Ile-de-Paris, Ile-de-France. All of that, in mediaeval times, separate from the rest of the country. And there is still that feeling today. Wow. But, with the defeat of the Commune, the horrors of the past 18 months began to fade into the distance. The Third Republic was now in being, although one must say, it was barely in charge of France. It was nervously in charge. And given the political history of France in 1789, which we’ve been looking at, no-one in 1871 could possibly forecast that the Third Republic would last as long as 1940, 70 years.

How could you? The chances of it lasting more than another 12 months were thin, and yet it did. And it’s interesting to know why it did, and we must look at that. I suppose one could say, that throughout the period of 1870-1914, the first part of the Third Republic, there was difficulty in establishing political stability. The France of that period, was the Italy that we see today, of changing administrations, and presidents, almost as often as one changes one’s underwear. Because the Left in France had been discredited by the Paris Commune, it was the Right that took control of the National Assembly. In fact, and this is really very bizarre, it was a monarchist right, without a king, that took charge of the Third Republic, in 1873. It’s leader was a marshal. A military man, Marshal MacMahon, one of the many Irish who fled to France. His family had fled a long time before, because of the Jacobite laws in Britain. Marshal MacMahon became president, and his Prime Minister was the great-grandson of Louis XVI’s military commander-in-chief. I mean, that’s right-wing, but it’s not just right-wing, it’s monarchist. And in 1873, it really did look like the monarchy might return. It didn’t, and MacMahon represented the last chance, in the history of France, for a constitutional monarchy to be established. And it didn’t, because in a sense, no one would be able- none of the monarchists agreed who should be the monarch.

There were the descendants of Louis XVI, and then there were the descendants of Louis Philippe, and then of course, there were the descendants of Napoleon Bonaparte. Although, Napoleon III’s son died in the 1870’s, the Prince Imperial, fighting for the British, in South Africa, in the Zulu War. MacMahon couldn’t push France as a whole to want a constitutional monarchy, and thus France was, you might say, lumbered with the Third Republic and the… in one door, out the other door, of the government administrations, between 1870 and 1914. In fact, between 1870 and 1914, what’s that, 44 years? In those 44 years, there were 60 governments. Six, zero. So, actually more than a government a year. And we’ve been panicked in Britain, because we’ve had 3 governments in a very short space of time. They had 60, in 44 years. Now that is an indication, of the political instability of France. But there’s something else. Although France drifted to the middle, to the left of middle, after MacMahon, the truth is, that if French politics were in the middle, there was always the danger of a far right, or a far left coup in France. And France as a democratic country, has always been bothered by the far right, and the far left. And in 1940 of course, the far right took control under Marshal Pétain, and the Vichy government, which was fascist, and pro-Nazi, and dreadful, and all of that.

We will in due-course come to. So France’s history in this moment, when in Louis Philippe’s reign, 1830 to 1848, it looked as though France, constitutionally and politically, would be a French version of English democracy, and therefore, if you like, a French version of American democracy. It turns out to be nothing of the sort. It turns out to be a fragile democracy, with threats from the right and the left, and 60 governments in 44 years proves the point about instability. Now, if you talk to Italians… I talked to an Italian friend and said, how do you cope with politics in Italy, when it keeps changing and it’s so corrupt? And he said, oh well, we simply don’t take any notice. That’s politics. Life goes on. Life is nice and good and comfortable in Italy, and we’re prosperous. We just don’t bother about politicians. And in a sense, that’s what happened in that 40 odd years, between 1870 and 1914. I’ve written on my notes here, if the politics was moribund in France, then other aspects of life were certainly not moribund. The whole period, up until 1941, is sometimes characterised by the French phrase, “la belle epoque”, the beautiful age, or sometimes “fin de siècle”, the end of the century. Some use the whole period, 1870 to 1914, some take the period 1880 to 1914, and some take the period 1890 to 1914. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that culture, for the upper middle classes and the aristocracy, took off, in a major way. And increasingly the lower middle class, the Bourgeoisie, and the working class began to have some benefits from this cultural renaissance in France. And it’s touch-and-go if you like, by this period of the late 19th century, whether it is Paris or Vienna, which is leading the cultural world.

Well we know what happened to Vienna, in terms of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the first World War, but France has continued to be a representative of French, and therefore of European culture, right through the present day. One historian has written, defining the belle epoque in this way… A period characterised by optimism, regional peace- That means peace with Spain, peace with Germany, peace with Britain… A period characterised by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity… That’s industrial advances… Colonial expansion, which benefited France, for all the reasons we know, that we don’t approve of European empires now, the reality was that colonial expansion benefited the “Mother Countries”, we used to call it. There was technological, scientific, and cultural innovations… This was a time to be alive, if you were French, and interested in all aspects of culture. In this era, the historian writes, of France’s cultural and artistic climate, particularly within Paris, the arts markedly flourish, with numerous masterpieces of literature, music, theatre, and visual art gaining extensive recognition. It was one of those moments in French history, when culture took off. And once it takes off, it usually takes off in a whole range of different things. Light entertainment became the honeypot for English milords, and the French elite. The Casino de Paris, the Moulin Rouge, the Folies Bergere, the Can-Can dance, and the art of Toulouse-Lautrec, the Eiffel Tower, built as a grand entrance to the World Fair of 1889.

Culture, in all of it’s forms, dominated France, especially Paris, and reached down into the Bourgeoisie, and into the working class. One of the interesting things that happened in this period in French history, is consumerism. Now, this is happening in other places too, but it has a particular element in France, and in Paris, which links it to this cultural golden age. Consumerism… It’s the the establishment of all those department stores, like Bon Marche which we mentioned last week, Printemps… All of these great, great stores. One of the advantages of the department stores, were women were able to go out to them, on their own, without men, and they were able to lunch with friends, female friends, in female-only restaurants and coffee bars, inside the department store. In fact, you could go into the department store for morning coffee, and not leave until after afternoon tea, and it was considered to be a safe place for women to be, and that’s part of the opening up of society, to the role of women in society. In France, and of course, in other places, but France leads the way with department stores. And this extraordinary consumerism. A department stores exists on people having a disposable income, and if it’s women that are spending the money, one of the things that happens, is that we get French designers of women’s clothes, and we can, for the first time, talk about fashion, and a fashion which is annual. It changes. I said last week that the colour for this year, I’m well advised, is magenta, and that was the- This began in the Paris, of la belle epoque, and so, people began to say, you must, my dear, have the latest creation. You must be with the latest colour.

And they would buy their husbands, what was the latest thing. I don’t know why have I got this shirt this colour? Because my dear, that is the colour of the year. Everyone will be wearing it. So, it’s a whole range of things, that enters right across society, and you go into one… If you eavesdropped on the conversation of the ladies’ luncheon, in Bon Marche, would they be talking about the latest prime minister of France? Absolutely not. They’d be talking about the latest fashion. Is is half an inch above the ankle, or an inch above the ankle? That’s what they’d be talking about. This is a different world. A very different world. What would the men be talking about, in the clubs of Paris, and elsewhere in French cities? Well, they might be talking about, hmm… Gentlemen, I’ve spent a very interesting evening last night, in Montmartre with the, mm, how shall we say, the Demimonde… No word to the wife, please. A Bohemian society in Montmartre, with ladies of the night, the Demimonde… I mean, it’s first meaning, in somewhere like Montmartre. And then of course, the English… Repressed, where sex is concerned, become very… Certainly not repressed when they reach Paris. Not only Edward VII, who had a special sex chair, made for him when he got too fat… I’m sorry I’m not going any further on that. You can look it up on Google, but you… I’ve never quite worked out how it was possible to be used, but anyhow, it still exists, and on Google you can read about it.

And given the nickname of course, by the French, of Edward the Carouser, a play on the name Edward the Confessor, or Dirty Bertie, as the English call him. And then the milords, taking their English sons to Paris, to a brothel. Now of course, a very high class brothel, to learn the arts of sex, before they start dating. This is a loose society, that really doesn’t exist in England, not for this class of person. But, who would frown upon it, and no doubt would give you extremely moral lectures about the laxity of morals in society in Britain, but would go over on the boat to France, and do the opposite. Then, and I was going to miss this bit out, because for an Englishman to talk about this, only a few days after our defeat by France in the World Cup, is slightly galling, but perhaps I should. They also embrace sport. Now, we don’t necessarily… Well maybe that’s an English thing? We don’t necessarily think of the French as great sports. We think of ourselves, in Britain, as great sports, or in England. And that’s why we found the defeat in the World Cup so hard to take. But, Collin Jones writes, sport too, developed during la belle epoque, as a form of mass leisure and entertainment. In other words you could participate, but you could also watch. And then he begins, I’m horrified to say, with one sport. I don’t know why he put this first. Soccer. Rugby, gymnastics… And rowing, developed national organisations in France, only slightly later than they did in England, while in cycling, the famous Tour de France, started in 1903. Sport won approval, for toning up the nation, for forthcoming anti-German conflict. Nationalism was so rife in sport, that even the idealistically internationalist aims of Pierre de Coubertin- Coubertin is the man who started the modern Olympics, he’s French of course.

Pierre de Coubertin, who convened the first Olympic games of the modern era, in 1896, in a speech, he said, this is an opportunity, for us French, to show the boche, to show the Germans. Wherever you look in the France of the Third Republic, from 1870 to 1914, you’re never far away from anti-German feeling. Never very far. Now that of course, is absolutely not true, when it comes to Britain, whose royal family is German. And were far more German then, than it is today. But there’s still jokes and cartoons, in the press, in Britain, about King Charles being German, because we’ve been having such debates about- Horrendous and awful debates, about excluding those who are trying to come into Britain, as refugees. There is a question, in this cartoon, asked by someone visiting the king, who says to the king, is it true sir, that you’re German? And so we can still… It’s also deep in the English psyche. Deep in the French psyche, is anti-Germanism, because of Alsace-Lorraine, because of the defeat at Sedan, and because of the earlier victories at Jena, in 1806, from Napoleon. They do not like playing second fiddle to the Germans. But they do. So, this consumer society, balances the political society. The cultural society of la belle epoque balances the political society.

So, if you were students in a university, writing an essay about this period, you would largely spend it, talking about non political issues in France. And I accept the Dreyfus affair, which will be dealt with by Trudy. And there are moments of politics, And then certainly you could- I chose not to do this today… You could of course do a whole lecture about the expansion of France, from Algeria, into Morocco, into Tunisia, the whole of French North Africa, of French Equatorial Africa, and of French Indo-China, all of which develop in this period. A very similar story to the British expansion of Empire. The 1870s is the scramble for Africa, where the two major players are Britain and France. And so, if you look at an old map, you will see, a sort of, just before the Second World War, that Africa is coloured in either red, or blue. Either British or French, largely. But, having talked about a political culture in France, which is moribund, having talked about the culture, and a consumer society, which merges into this culture… No good having painters, if there’s nobody to buy the paintings they do. No good having wonderful theatres and shows, like the Folies Bergere, unless there’s people with money to buy the tickets.

And all of that is pretty obvious. But there’s a third France, another France, and another Paris, which mirrors that in Britain, and other industrial countries of Western Europe, at the time. There was an urban poor underclass, and there’s a rural peasant underclass. The rural peasant underclass, is far more underclass, and far larger in size than its equivalent in Britain. But the urban poor is exactly the same. In fact, Britain’s is larger, because of it’s greater industrialization in the North and the Midlands, than France. So this is just a difference of degree, between France, Germany, Britain, etc. But these people struggled to survive. And we shouldn’t forget that. What is going to happen to these people? Well, the men are going to be cannon fodder, aren’t they? In 1914, in both Britain and France. And both French officers, and British officers, discover to their horror, that so many of them were unable to read or write. And the First World War, exposed the middle classes of both countries, to the underclass of the poor, whether rural or urban. This is Collin Jones writing. There’s a piece here, that I was going share. On the eve of the 1789 revolution, half of men, and three quarters of women have been unable to sign their own names. In the early years of the Third Republic, the 1870s, the comparable figures were one quarter and one third. And that is still not good, and it’s less than in England.

There is poverty. There is considerable poverty. There’s one further piece I wanted to read. It’s… trying to find it in my book. Oh, here it is. Despite the name, all in the belle epoque was far from sweetness and light. Tension, conflict, played in tantalising counterpoint, to frivolity, consumerism and pleasure seeking. In the event, the belle epoque would run on discordantly, until the horrors and the anguish of World War One. There’s always another story to tell. There’s always nuances in every story. So although I concentrated on the upper-middle class, and to some extent, the Bourgeoisie, in talking about la belle epoque, there’s an underclass, there in France, and beyond that, there was the political issues of a France with 60 governments in 44 years. But one thing that had emerged from this society, was the leisure society, was now something that you could talk about, and it would mean something. And the consumer society was something that you could talk about, and it meant something. And because of both those things, the French were able to ignore the politics. Moreover, even though there’s government succeeding government, there was much social change in the period, spearheaded by anti-Catholicism, and pro-secularism. The power exercised by the conservative Catholic Church, was gradually undermined. They objected to the use of…. French letters, as English visitors called them, or condoms. They objected to cycling, on the grounds that it gave women cyclists sexual excitement. The Church was way behind the developing culture of the Bourgeoisie of France, in the last decades of the 19th century.

But… It was in schools that the Church lost ground, and secularism gained. Now, although in this period we are still talking, as in Britain, only about primary state education. Nevertheless, the groundwork of a secular state education is now well forged. No messing about, as in England, of doing deals with churches, and all sorts of odd things going on with education. The French are clear. Moreover, these schools rigidly follow a curriculum of history, which talks about the nasty, horrible Germans, who’ve taken Alsace-Lorraine away from France. And many schools had a picture on the walls, of a woman representing Alsace-Lorraine, or a map of Alsace-Lorraine, that remained in covered in a black cloth, as indeed did a statue in the middle of Paris. There was a feeling, that the time would come for revenge, for a re-establishment of France, for a re-engineering of the relationship with Germany. All of this, under the name of secularism. The Church in France, never really recovered, from the last decades in the 19th century. Now, in Britain, we often think of France as a Catholic nation. Remember, that Catholicism is not a state religion, as Anglicanism, Protestantism is, in England. There are no bishops serving in French parliament, of right, as there are in England.

There are true, some catholic schools, but a minority. And in terms of attendance at church, the numbers have fallen immensely. And have been falling for some time. This is an example that Jones gives, which I think is a really interesting example, and a rather staggering one, to be honest, because it refers to outside of Paris. In Limoges, the number of children not baptised, rose from 2%, virtually nothing, to 40%, between 1905 and 1914. While the number of civil marriages, outside of the church, increased from 14 to 60%. And that is before 1914. It’s often said, in the past by historians, in many European countries, that the Church’s role in society was destroyed by the First World War. It’s not true. Not true in England, and it’s certainly, is absolutely not true in France. Let me just read you that again. I mean I find these figures are- As they say, statistics don’t lie. And these figures are quite, quite staggering. And it’s worth just sharing them once more, so that they’re fixed in our mind. In Limoges, the number of children not baptised, rose from 2% to 40%, between 1905 and 1914, while the number of civil marriages, outside of the church, increased from 14 to 60%. France was becoming, and recognised that it was becoming, and government pushing it to become, a secular society. Whereas, Britain drifted towards a secular society, without acknowledging it, or recognising it, and in some cases accepting it. France was very different about secularism. So education was a key to lots of things that the French hoped to do. And education of the elite in France… It’s interesting that the French have no hangups about educating elites.

There’s no egalite, where it comes to intelligence. The French are very interesting, in terms of their schools and university structures. And they don’t have to pay heed, to the sorts of things that are paid heed to in Britain, and in America, in Anglo-American society, where equality tends to rule the roost. I’ve mentioned numerous times today, and in recent weeks, the build up of tension, and indeed the explosion of tension in actual events, between France and Germany. We’ve noted today, the defeat at the battle of Sedan. We’ve noted today, the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. And we’ve noted today- Well, let me say something else… There is a demographic problem, and I want to- Because that’s relevant to today, and I want to say something about the demographic problem. And this is, Collin Jenkins, in his History of France, France had a democratic- Demographic problem. A demographic problem. Problem of population, from having a quarter of Europe’s population in 1789. 25% of the population of Europe was in France, in 1789. It now had, by the turn of the century, under 10%. And in particular, it had just under 40 million in 1911, as opposed to almost 65 million for Germany. The German population, since the unification of Germany, in 1871, has exceeded France, by 40 to 65 million.

This was a very obvious concern for the French, since defeat at Sedan in 1870, had left a heavy shadow, and replaced Britain with Germany, as the hereditary enemy of France. And Europe remained unstable and edgy. Moreover, because of a fall in the birth rate, many of the people in France- Many of the men, called to arms in 1914, were older than the Germans they faced. Germany, under the Kaiser, once he sacked Bismarck, the young Kaiser, Wilhelm II, succeeding his father, Frederick, who married Princess Victoria, Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, had died of stomach cancer, a matter of weeks after becoming emperor. And Disraeli, by doing that, hoped to put and end to Prussian militarism, because it’s Prussian militarism, is now leading German militarism. Instead it’s their son, with the withered arm, and a huge chip on his shoulder about Britain, his mother’s country, who is now Emperor of Germany. He sacks Bismarck. And into the 1890s, he wants, what he called, a place in the sun, for Germany. Germany interfered twice in the French… It’s not technically within the French Empire, but the French interest- Firm interest, in Morocco. The Germans interfered… Twice. In 1905, and again in 1911, the so-called, two Moroccan crises, which if you did a course of the First World War at school, you would have done them. I’m not doing that.

What I am doing, is to say that gradually, through those first years of the 20th century, two massive groups of nation states, forged alliances. First, the so-called Triple Alliance, between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. And then to combat that, there is the alliance, the Triple Entente, between France, Britain, and Russia. The original Entente Cordiale, of 1904, between Britain and France, was nothing to do with Europe and Germany at all. It was to do about the exploitation of Africa. To prevent France and Britain going to war in Europe, over Africa. We stopped it. Both sides realised, this was nonsense. Both sides came to realise, that Germany was the bigger threat. And the Entente with England, or with Britain, brought, bringing in Russia, who Britain had an Entente in 1907, brings it all together. Britain, France and Tzarist Russia. An odd assortment of countries, two democratic, Britain and France, and one autocracy from the middle ages, in terms of Russia. PS. For those of you listening from America, this is why America was reluctant to get involved in the First World War, because Wilson could not trust those who had left Russia, particularly Polish Jews, to support a war, in which the Americans would be on the side on the Russians. Remember, when America enters the war in 1917, Tzarist Russia is no more, and they enter the war in that strange period, in 1917, when there is, under Kerensky, a democratic, inverted commas, government.

Neither Tzarist, nor Marxist. That’s another story for another day. And so, we all know what happens. It’s the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, of Austria-Hungary, and Serajevo, that kicks off the First World War, and said, time and time again, the best analogy is dominoes, going down, down and down. And they took France down. And they took Britain down. And they took Russia down. We all end up in war. And I’m ending today, with two primary sources, first of all, this is a British journalist, a man called Henry Hamilton Fyfe, and he was in France, as war broke out, and he sent a report back to his paper in Britain, which was the Daily Mail. The whole country, he wrote of France… The whole country swarmed already with soldiers. Most of them were middle aged, none of them… None of their uniforms fitted. They wore the absurd red trousers, below the blue coat, which had been in fashion since Napoleon. I recall a conversation with a French journalist, who assured me that the army would lose all spirit, if it’s red trousers were taken away. He would not listen to me, when I said the uniform would have to be altered, as the British Red Coats, were altered to khaki, in the Boer War in South Africa. But his attitude was the general attitude of all Frenchmen. They went into battle… Blue jackets, red trousers… And many of them did so, on horseback. William Pressey, who was a British gunner, in the British regiment, of the Royal Artillery, wrote his experiences of the war, in a book called, All for a Shilling a Day.

And Pressey wrote this, of the French that he came in contact with… 1914, coming towards us, were a troop of French cavalry. I should say 150 or 200 strong. Gosh, but they looked splendid. I think word must have got to them, about the German cavalry harassing us, and they had come to put a stop to it. They could never have been told about the machine guns. They laughed and waved their lances at us. We slowed down, as they trotted briefly past us, and everyone was looking back at them. Before reaching the top of the hill, they opened out to about six feet between each horse, and in a straight line. We hardly breathed. Over the top of the hill, they charged, lances at the ready. There wasn’t a sound from us. Then only a few seconds after they disappeared, the hellish noise of machine guns broke out. We just looked at each other. The only words I heard spoken were, bloody hell. That must have been what it was like, over the hill. For not one Frenchman came back. Several of the horses did, and trotted beside us, and were collected at our next stopping place. If only the French cavalry officer had stopped for one minute, and talked to our officers, they would have told them of the mounted machine guns, and that it was certain death over the hill, from where we had come. Who had sent that splendid troop to certain death? What an awful waste of husbands, brothers, sons. Many commanders of the war must have a lot on their minds. The war, to end all wars, had begun, and the horror was to engulf all the armies in that war, the British, as well as the French, the German, and the Russian, and the Austro-Hungarian, and eventually the Americans too. It was a dreadful, dreadful war. And the names still send a chill down one’s spine.

In France it’s Verdun. In Britain, it’s the Somme and Passchendaele. A generation of young men who would never come back, and that is where our story begins next week. Thanks for listening, I think I’m dead on six o'clock, which is what I’d intended to be, and there may be some comments that people wish to make. Oh, there are! Let’s see what… Oh, that’s nice Marian. Happy Birthday to Marian. Valerie says, shirt sleeves must be warmer. Well, it is a bit warm in this flat, I have to say. We are lucky, because we’re protected from the worst of the weather in this part of the coast, and because other people in the flats have a lot of heat on, and we’re in the middle, we benefit. Oh, Alan agrees with me. That’s a first, for someone to agree. I agree that Strasbourg is marvellous, not far- Not far else, a lovely town called Colmar, with strange buildings. Was that also built by Germany? The 19th century buildings in Colmar definitely were. Colmar is another excellent place, I nearly mentioned it, mentioning Strasbourg. Easy to get to by train. Terms of the 1870 defeat- Whoops. Terms of the 1870 defeat, in the treaty at the end of it, sound like those in 1918 in reverse. Yes, and then there’s 1945. It’s all about- It’s all about the German-French clash, and attempting- that is only resolved… Only resolved with the formation of the European Union. That is what brings that clash to an end, if you think, it is over. Is this the revolution in Les Miserables? I can’t remember, I’ve not read Les Miserables, I’m sorry. What was the reason of the 1870 war, between France and Germany?

It was a put up job by Bismarck, who wanted a unification of Germany, and he wanted to make sure that other countries would not interfere. Denmark, Austria and France… And Edwin, France was the last. He defeated Austria. He defeated Denmark, and now it was France’s turn. It was a put up job. There were lots of reasons that he contrived to happen. Napoleon III fell into the trap, went to war, and is defeated. The reason is, Bismarck’s desire for a unified Germany, led, not by Catholic Austria, but by Protestant and militaristic Prussia. I think we are going to do a course on Germany, at some point in next year, in which case, I will deal with that in much greater length. But basically, that’s what it’s about. Did the theo-communism of the late 19th century persist into the 1940s? If you’re talking about France, the answer is yes. If you’re talking about Europe, as a whole, it takes off after the Lenin revolution, October revolution, of 1917 in Russia. And Churchill was aware, for example, during the 1930s, that we would have to defeat Hitler, because he was the greater immediate threat. But in the end, in Churchill’s view, we would have to defeat Russia, which of course, we never did. In terms of France, the fear was actually in 1945… 44, when France was being liberated by Anglo-American and French forces, and others, Canadians, Australians, all of us who are there. There was a great fear by De Gaulle, that the Marxists would organise a commune, like 1871, in Paris, because it was controlled by the Marxist resistance. The resistance in France was in various types, and the Marxist resistance had a big body of support in Paris.

That is why, De Gaulle in 1944, refused to accept the orders given to the French army, by Eisenhower, and insisted that the French army operated separately to the Americans. The British were operating under the Americans. Montgomery under the Americans. The French refused, and De Gaulle ordered them to go straight to Paris. The Americans, and the British were trying to do it slowly, to prevent more loss of life. De Gaulle ordered the French troops forward, and he ordered them to take the road, that Napoleon took, when he fled from Elba in 1815, and the French troops were ordered to enter Paris, on the same entry to Paris, as Napoleon had. De Gaulle himself turns up a few days later, and marches… He’s a huge figure. Tall. Physically tall. Impressive. You can see him for miles. And as he walked to Notre Dame, there were still German snipers in the buildings. And when he got to Notre Dame Cathedral, there was, for the service… There was an explosion outside, caused by the Germans. The French inside, and presumably Americans and British, who might have been there, threw themselves under the pews for safety. Apparently, De Gaulle stood rigidly straight, in front of the alter. Some man, was De Gaulle. Yes, the antisemitism in the army, corruption, all of that… You’re absolutely right Angela, and all will be covered, in the antisemitic talk, emphasising Dreyfus, by Trudy. Henry, did you really? Henry. I saw the king’s chair, the sex chair of Edward VII, at an auction house. Very bizarre. A chair on a stand, with stirrups- Yes, it did. It had stirrups. Oh my God, Henry! Fancy seeing it.

I presume you… I shan’t ask whether you put in a bid. Oh gosh, sorry, I’ve lost it. I’m getting carried away here, but I can’t cope with Henry’s comments about the stirrups, and he’s absolutely right. Beverley says, a friend of mine, an Anglophone, taught the history of the fin de siecle, to junior college students. When he was reading the student’s term papers, he came across many of their references to the fantasy echo. After some time, he realised, his pronunciation of fin de siecle, had been misunderstood. Oh dear. That sounds exactly like me. My pronunciation is diabolical. But I share that with Churchill, so, make of that what you will. What kind of income did you need to be one of those female consumers in Montmartre or the brothels, middle-class… Basically, to be a consumer… in the department stores, you needed to be from the professional middle-class, upwards. So you could be the wife of a doctor, wife of a dentist, wife of an accountant. Those sorts of people. Eventually it drops down to the wives of shopkeepers, and so on. Remember that France is not quite Britain, and so the class issue, although there, is not as it was here. In terms of the men going to Montmartre… Sorry, let me get the question.

Q&A and Comments:

In terms of the- Shelly, in terms of the men going to Montmartre and the brothels, they… There were brothels to cater for all classes. The ones that I was talking about were for the upper classes. That is the professional men. For the English who come, it’s a sort of cut above that. It’s the, what the French call, Milords. Not necessarily a lord, but a person with a lot of money. And the upmarket brothels could be extremely expensive. I don’t know why you’re asking me Shelly, I’m not an expert on the question of French brothels.

Betty-Rae says, 1817-1914 in France reminds me of Abraham Maslow’s, Hierarchy of Needs. Yes! France had satisfied the two, three lower rungs of hierarchy, safety and survival, and had moved up the hierarchy, satisfying personal and national needs. Absolutely spot on. Absolutely agree, Betty. I’ll give you an L for the essay you haven’t written because the introduction is so good. And I’m not being sarcastic. It was a very good observation.

Rosemary, are you aware- You are I think, it’s meant to say- Sorry, you are. Isn’t it awful when we type things, that sometimes it tries to be clever, and put the words in our mouths, or on our screens, which we don’t type. You are aware- You are so right about continuing bitterness. When I stayed with a French family in the mid 80s, the father would not take me to Versailles, because his family had been massacred in 1871, by troops from Versailles. How fantastic. That’s the Commune. His family had been members of the Commune. So he wouldn’t go to Versailles. That’s absolutely fantastic.

Please repeat the name of the book you recommend.

No, all I said was, that the Cambridge Illustrated History- whoops, let’s get rid of that. The Cambridge Illustrated History of France, which is a whole history of France, I think, personally, is pretty good, on this period. That’s all I was saying. But any of the standard histories of France will give you that. And if it’s Dreyfus, some of you might like to read the novel by Robert Harris, which is extremely good. Yeah, extremely good. Lots of friends have read that.

Q: Oh, James that’s an important question. Why did Germany not occupy France in 1870, as they did in 1940?

A: Because they never intended to. They wanted to take the sting out of France, that France would not be a threat to a unified Germany. They succeeded in that. They have never- Bismarck is not Hitler. Bismarck had no intention of European conquest. He just wanted Denmark, Austria and France to remain in their boxes. And to remain in their boxes, he would defeat them. And impose whatever he wanted to impose. He took Alsace-Lorraine. But he was not intending to occupy France. Quite different, who from, either the Kaiser, or Hitler, who had a vision of a German dominated European continent, including Britain. That’s very different from Bismarck.

Q: Were the French schools which were not Catholic, secular or protestant?

A: Secular. Secular.

Q: Shelly. To what do you attribute the changing demographic of France?

A: That’s a very, very difficult question, of why the French birth rate fell. Partly because France suffered, particularly in the 1870s, quite a degree of famine, in the rural areas. So, in times of famine, people simply don’t have children. Because they can’t feed them. Partly because of the use by the middle classes of condoms. There’s a- It’s not an easy question to answer. That’s off the cuff.

Q: Hans… I thought Italy fought on the Allies side?

A: They did. But they changed sides. They changed. For a wonderful account of the run up to the great war, I recommend the The Proud Tower, and The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. Barbara Tuchman, sadly no longer with us, a great American historian of Europe. I completely agree. Margaret MacMillan, who’s British- No, Margaret MacMillan’s Canadian, I think. The War to End all Wars. Yes, all of those are excellent.

Oh, please could we clarify- Yeah, no, Wilson was worried that if he declared war on Germany, he would not get the support of congress, because of the number of Polish Jews. Because Poland, at the time, was Russian. So they’re Russian Jews, who’d escaped from the Tzar. And partly because of the number of Germans, Jews and non-Jewish Germans, who controlled quite a lot of the finances of America. And Wilson was worried, if he declared war, they would not support him, and he felt he could not go to war, without the support of the nation. This is not much different than the position faced by Roosevelt in World War Two. The Boers called the British troops, khakis, as well as rednecks, rooineks, rednecks. Because of their sunburnt necks. Thank you Susan.

Carolyn and Don, I’ve said all I’m going to say about the Franco-Prussian war. It’s not relevant to the history of France. It’s relevant to the history of Germany, and I will do that in due course.

Q: No, we’ve just Austria, have we not? We’ve done the Austrian-Hungarian Empire?

A: I think so. I can never remember what I’ve done and what I haven’t done.

Yeah, Carrie. Thank you, because that’s what I intended to do. Carrie says, utterly devastating report, which you read out at the end. Vivid and unbearable. Thank you. It reminds me of the power of the film, Gallipoli, which is one of my favourite of all time films. Searing. As you say horrendous waste of young men’s lives, leaving a defining scar on this country, UK, identity. Yes, and on France. But although, World War II had a greater effect in France, than it did here. In Britain, it’s World War I, which we haven’t got over yet. The historian of the Battle of the Somme, wrote we didn’t get over it then, and we haven’t got over it still. And she wrote that about 30, 40 years ago, but it still stands. And France finds it difficult to get over Vichy, and those who collaborated, as well as the divisions in the resistance, between democrats and Marxists. It’s really all quite difficult. Richard. My father, giving his age as 17, when he was only 16, was in the British army. A friend’s father was on the other side. Yeah, there were lots of these awful positions that people were in.

Michael, you’re telling me… Fantastic. In the 70s I worked with an elderly colleague, who was shell-shocked in the First World War. He is still suffering the side effects. We did not understand about shell shock. We didn’t understand about post-traumatic stress. We dealt… All countries dealt extremely badly with those who came back from the war, mentally, as well as physically, damaged. It’s a terrible, terrible story, is how we dealt with people, at the end of the First World War. Hang on. Where am I? Michael.

Another Michael. Michael Osfield says, Eisenhower decided that the liberation was not a priority. The resistance advised De Gaulle that the Germans were going to destroy Paris, with demolitions. Yes, but he was very worried, that if he lost Paris to the Left, that would be a threat to what he hoped to establish. And what you say is also true.

Oh, An Officer and a Spy, by Harris, that’s the name of the book about Dreyfus. Thank you Jonathan, for putting that up for people to read. Yeah, yep.

Liberation of Paris- Margaret McMillan is Canadian. I’m glad I got that right. And the granddaughter of Lloyd George? I did not know she was the granddaughter of Lloyd George. Really? You live and learn as they say. How ignorant can people be? I didn’t know that. Well I’m glad I remembered she was Canadian, although I put my foot earlier in.

Yes, absolutely. And neither Wilson, nor Truman, could declare war without consent of congress. And his fear was, that congress wouldn’t give approval, or that it wouldn’t be sufficient large. That was particularly Roosevelt’s concern. That he would get a vote to go to war, but it would be so much opposition, that it would… it would simply not work.

So I think I’ve come to the end of the questions. I think- Can I say, I thought those were rather good questions. And not just because I can answer most of them, but I think the points you made were really interesting. Sometimes I wish we were meeting for a whole weekend, or a week, and we could take some of these points, and just argue ourselves to a standstill, after seven days or something. But that we can do, if you engage.

And I hope you- Remember you do not have to accept my answers. You don’t have to accept what I say. What I hope you all do, is to think again about the- I will put on some more books on the list. I’ve got so many, that I’ve stopped… To be perfectly honest, I’ve been very busy. But I will put another book list on, before…

Where are we? Before next week, I’ll put another book list on, which may be separate from the little blurb I put on my blog, about what we’re going to do next week. So I look forward to seeing everyone next week. In between, keep yourselves healthy and fit. And keep enjoying life. That’s what all of us, in our third and fourth ages can do. We can enjoy life.

So, I’m going to sign off. Bye bye.