Module Content and Indicative Topics

This module aims to examine the most important facets of France’s experience of the First World War, exploring this key moment in French history from a predominantly socio-cultural perspective, whilst also integrating political, economic, and military developments. You will engage with a series of interconnected themes and concepts throughout, including: national identity and solidarity, the boundary between military and civilian spheres, contemporary representations and understandings of the war, inter-French conflict, mobilisation, violence, and trauma. The aim is to provide an in-depth, nuanced understanding of France’s four years of conflict, their impact on French society and culture, and their place in modern French history. You will be introduced to key historiographical developments and controversies regarding this period, and hone your analytical skills via engagement with a variety of published and unpublished primary sources, including newsreels, posters, poems, drawings, diary entries, and songs.

The module will cover the following topics, which may be subject to variation depending on developments in academic research and the interests of the class:


	The outbreak of war and the invasion
	
	
	Calls for unity: political truce and religious accommodation
	
	
	Fighting and the front experience
	
	
	War culture and mobilisation
	

	Occupied northern France
	
	
	Home fronts: women and children
	
	
	Colonial subjects in France
	
	
	Mutinies and strikes: opposing war?
	
	
	‘Exiting’ war
	

	Mourning, commemoration, and reconstruction
	
Teaching Delivery

The module is taught via weekly two-hour seminars which involve mini-lectures, group discussion of readings, and close analysis of primary sources. Preparation for seminars involves reading set texts and taking notes, informed by pre-circulated questions.

By the end of the module, you should be able to:


	Demonstrate an in-depth, nuanced understanding of France’s four years of conflict, their impact on French society and culture, and their place in modern French history.
	
	
	Explain and analyse key historiographical developments and controversies regarding this period.
	
	
	Interpret and analyse a variety of published and unpublished primary sources, in English and French.
	
	
	Recognise, categorise and judge key arguments made by authors.
	
	
	Articulate, verbally and in writing, convincing historical arguments regarding the period, based on both primary and secondary sources.
	
Recommended Reading

In preparation for the module, you may wish to read the following core texts, but this is not compulsory. These can be found in the UCL Library:


	John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (London: Yale University Press, 2001).
	
	
	Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, and Annette Becker, France and the Great War, 1914-1918 (Cambridge: CUP, 2003).  
	

	Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, 14-18, Retrouver la Guerre (Paris: Gallimard, 2000).
	
	
	Rémy Cazals and André Loez, 14-18, vivre et mourir dans les tranchées (Paris: Tallandier, 2012).
	
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