Who Lost the Franco-Prussian War?

Blame, Politics, and Citizenship in the 1870s

Rachel Chrastil
Yale University

I would like to open with two contrary opinions of why

France lost the Franco-Prussian War and international
prestige in 1870-71. The first is an editorial from 1874
from the newspaper L'Union de la Sarthe, based in Le
Mans. "If we are isolated in Europe," the author wrote, "if
we can find neither alliance, nor aid, nor true sympathy
from our neighboring nations, it is the fault of the French
Republic, which is a calamity."1 The second opinion comes
from the mayor of a small town near Le Mans, an opponent
of Napoleon III's Second Empire, who wrote in 1873: "Let
this . . . disastrous experience instruct us and convince us
that we must never give the fatherland to one man, whoever
the man may be and whatever the circumstances."2 These
two selections are typical of the highly politicized
commentary about the war carried out in the press and in
legislative campaigns during the 1870s. They do not tell us
very much about why France lost or what the authors
thought France ought to do next. Instead, they illustrate
common strategies and policies across political divides.
Debate over the Franco-Prussian War contributed to three
crucial aspects of French politics during the 1870s: France's

1
E. S., L'Union de la Sarthe, 6 Sept. 1874.
2
Charles-Victor Fournier, Une Commune de la Sarthe pendant
l'Invasion (Angers: L. Hudon, 1874), 42-43.

1
278 Rachel Chrastil

policies concerning Germany, the establishment of the

Third Republic, and the role assigned to ordinary citizens in
times of national crisis.
The German Empire was not the focus of French
politicians' animosity. The Prussians were the instruments
of the defeat, but they were not to blame. Blind resentment
of the victors, it was believed, would be politically and
diplomatically disadvantageous. Instead, each side
reassured the country that it would promote peace and
stability. Republicans in particular managed to reconfigure
themselves as the representatives of peace, which
contributed to their critical electoral successes in the 1870s.
In their second point of agreement, political candidates
argued that France had to look to itself for the reasons for
the defeat. Specifically, French political and military
leaders should bear the brunt of the responsibility for their
military and diplomatic preparations for war and for their
actions during the conflict.
Third, politicians agreed that ordinary citizens, whether
soldiers or civilians, had done the best they could under the
circumstances. With few exceptions, no politician
demanded more of them in the face of invasion. This stance
diminished the potential role for civilians in future national
defense. In sum, politicians from across ideological
categories shared the same general strategy for winning
over voters: promote peace with Germany and focus
attention on the failings of prominent individuals.
The republicans won votes and gained control of the
government using this strategy. The formula failed to
satisfy some groups, however, even if they accepted
republican candidates. Men of letters and people living in
areas that had been severely disrupted by the war, such as
the northeastern department of the Meurthe-et-Moselle,
tended to look to the French nation as a whole for the

Proceedings of the Western Society for French History

 Who lost the Franco-Prussian War? 279

causes of the defeat. In the debate over who was to blame

for the loss of the Franco-Prussian War, the important
conceptual division did not fall between republicans,
Bonapartists, and conservatives, but rather between
politicians and men of letters.

Revanchisme
The historical term revanchisme broadly refers to
supposed French antagonism toward Germany during the
early French Third Republic. It evokes a mythologized
national goal of wreaking revenge for the humiliation of
1870 by recovering Alsace-Lorraine. Revanchisme was in
reality more complicated and less potent. Over time it
varied in the extent of its popularity, its precise goals, its
links to particular political or intellectual persuasions, and
the extent of organized movements to promote it. While it
would be foolish to dispute that xenophobia and
nationalism ran high in some quarters in late-nineteenth-
century France, the desire for revenge played only a minor
role in French politics during the 1870s.
Revanchisme was largely confined to men of letters and
science, such as Ernest Renan and Louis Pasteur. They
deplored the German Empire's embrace of Bismarckian
calculation and authoritarianism, which appeared to
subordinate all that was lofty, subtle, and spiritual about
German culture to the doctrine of might makes right.3 The

3
For example, Ernest Renan, La Rforme intellectuelle et morale,
3rd ed. (Paris: Michel Lvy Frres, 1872); letters between Louis
Pasteur and the dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Bonn at the
Bibliothque nationale de France, Mfiche 4-Z le Senne-2177; see also
Charles-Olivier Carbonnell, "Les Historiens franais chroniqueurs de la
guerre Franco-allemande et de la Commune: Naissance du nationalisme
historiographique en France (1871-1875)," Bulletin de la Socit
d'Histoire Moderne 4:13 (1976): 15-24.

Volume 32 (2004)
280 Rachel Chrastil

raw violence and state power exercised during the Franco-

Prussian War permanently altered their faith in the spirit of
cooperation that governs intellectual endeavor. It should be
noted, however, that intellectuals in the early 1870s were
far less interested in using military action to pursue
nationalistic goals than were influential writers and
activists of later generations such as Maurice Barrs,
Charles Maurras, and Charles Pguy.4 Most scholarship on
revanchisme through the 1970s concerned these later and
more aggressive writers and intellectuals.5
Turning from intellectuals to politicians, the picture is
quite different. The revanchiste perspective argues that the
Franco-Prussian War provided a national political objective
for revenge, which unified the French through the difficult
first months of the Third Republic and molded the central
government's policies on military reform.6 Since the late
1970s, however, most scholarsnotably Allan Mitchell and
Bertrand Jolyhave rightly diminished the role that
revanchisme played in French politics during the early

4
See Maurice Barrs, Violons de Lorraine: Recueil de chants
lorrains de Maurice Barrs (avec une introduction) (Bayonne: Louis
Lasserre, 1912); Robert Soucy, Fascism in France: The Case of
Maurice Barrs (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972);
Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1979); H. L. Wesseling, Soldier and Warrior: French
Attitudes toward the Army and War on the Eve of the First World War,
trans. Arnold J. Pomerans (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000).
5
Claude Digeon, La Crise allemande de la pense franaise
(1870-1914) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1959); Socit
d'Histoire Littraire de la France, Les Ecrivains franais devant la
guerre de 1870 et devant la Commune (Paris: Armand Colin, 1970).
6
Wesseling, 5; Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Culture of Defeat: On
National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery, trans. Jefferson Chase
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2003), 128; Henry Contamine, La
Revanche 1871-1914 (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1957).

Proceedings of the Western Society for French History

 Who lost the Franco-Prussian War? 281

Third Republic.7 Politicians and journalists during the early

1870s were in fact more concerned with securing their
political vision for a renewed French nation than with
focusing on Germany.8 Ministers opposed any domestic
calls for revenge, and the government sought to emulate the
German Empire, not to confront it. For most of those
involved in politics, revanchisme quickly fell by the
wayside.

Politics of Peace, Politics of Blame (1871-77)

The problems with France itselfnot its relationship
with Germanycould not be ignored. Candidates hoped to
convince the public that the defeat was the fault of other
political parties. Even the most concrete cause for the
defeat, such as a lack of equipment for the army, could be
probed for political origins. A careless phrase could be
taken to signify the illegitimacy of an entire political

7
Bertrand Joly, "La France et la revanche (1871-1914)," Revue
d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 46: 2 (April-June 2002): 326-28;
Allan Mitchell, The Divided Path: The German Influence on Social
Reform in France after 1870 (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1991), idem., The German Influence in France after
1870: The Formation of the French Republic (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1979), and idem., Victors and Vanquished:
The German Influence on Army and Church in France after 1870
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984); Bndicte
Grailles, De la Dfaite l'Union Sacre ou les chemins du
consentement: Hommages publics et commmorations de 1870 1914:
l'exemple du Nord de la France (Ph.D. diss., Universit Lille III
Charles de Gaulle, 2000), 312. A recent exception is Schivelbusch.
8
Joly, 335; Stphane Tison, Guerre, mmoire et traumatisme:
comment champenois et sarthois sont-ils sortis de la guerre? 1870-
1940 (Ph.D. diss., Universit Paris III, 2002), 452-65.

Volume 32 (2004)
282 Rachel Chrastil

regime.9 Each side argued that it alone aimed to preserve

the peace.
The elections to the National Assembly in February
1871 demonstrated the extent to which French voters and
their candidates desired peace. Conservatives, whether they
supported the Empire or a form of monarchy, argued that
the nominally republican wartime Government of National
Defense should have sued for peace immediately instead of
continuing to fight. The leaders of this government had
gambled that they could turn the disaster into the
springboard for a new political system, and they lost. In the
February 1871 elections, just weeks after the armistice,
conservative monarchists won brief vindication.10 Although
conservatives split among themselves, their political
critique of the Government of National Defense as
dictatorial, unstable, and bellicose remained popular in the
early 1870s.11

9
Few expanded the scope to call into question European values or
human nature. Guillaume Monod, who lamented the corruption of
Protestantism by the Germans in La France et la rformation en deuil
(Paris: Librairie protestante, 1871), might be considered an exception.
10
Scholars disagree over the number of republicans elected, with
estimates ranging from 150 to 250 of the 635 seats (Stphane Audoin-
Rouzeau, 1870: La France dans la Guerre (Paris: Armand Colin,
1989), 307; Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times, 5th ed. (New
York: Norton, 1981), 208; David Hanley, Party, Society and
Government: Republican Democracy in France (New York: Beghahn
Books, 2002), 49-54. Campaigns for conservatives for peace in
L'Esprance, Courrier de Nancy, 3 Feb. 1871; Henri Duchesne, "Les
Elections," La Sarthe, 5 Feb. 1871.
11
In the 1870s the National Assembly published an inquiry aimed
at exposing the dictatorship of the Government of National Defense
during the war: Rapport fait au nom de la Commission d'Enqute sur
les actes du Gouvernement de la Dfense Nationale (Versailles: Cerf et
fils, Imprimeurs de l'Assemble Nationale, 1873-75); Bertrand Taithe,

Proceedings of the Western Society for French History

 Who lost the Franco-Prussian War? 283

Over the five years following the elections of 1871,

republicans made a series of steady gains in by-elections.12
As we know from the scholarship of Sanford Elwitt, Philip
Nord, James Lehning, and P. M. Jones, republicans won
over voters not only through ideological argument, but also
by strengthening ties with the bourgeois capitalist class,
encouraging the use of the ballot rather than demonstration,
and convincing urban and rural voters that a republican
government would serve their economic interests.13 These
strategies succeeded in large part because republicans
recast themselves as the promoters of peace. They
completely remade their hawkish image, which dated from
the 1790s. The republicans recognized that they could not
realistically regain Alsace-Lorraine through a new
offensive war. France's best chance to reclaim its former
glory was to present a united, peaceful front to the rest of
Europe. It was politically advantageous both within France
and internationally to distance the Third Republic from the
wars of the French Revolution, from the imperial pursuits

Citizenship and Wars: France in Turmoil 1870-1871 (New York:

Routledge, 2001), 11.
12
Ninety-nine republicans won and only twelve monarchists and
three Bonapartists (Wright, 213).
13
Sanford Elwitt, The Making of the Third Republic: Class and
Politics in France, 1868-1884 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1975); P. M. Jones, Politics and Rural Society: The
Southern Massif Central c. 1750-1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985); Philip G. Nord, The Republican Moment: The
Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); James R. Lehning, To Be a
Citizen: The Political Culture of the Early French Third Republic
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).

Volume 32 (2004)
284 Rachel Chrastil

of the first Napoleon, and from the revolutionary fervor of

the Commune.14
In addition to reformulating themselves on the side of
peace, republicans attacked Napoleon III and the ministers
of the Second Empire.15 Two infamous, careless phrases
haunted the leaders of the late Second Empire for decades.
First, in a speech to the Legislative Corps on 15 July 1870,
Council President mile Ollivier, leader of the reform
party, stated that he and his ministers accepted
responsibility for the war "with light hearts." This flippant
remark came to symbolize the insouciance and over-
ambition of the entire imperial regime.16 Second, Minister
of War Leboeuf's claim on 14 July 1870 that "We are
ready, very ready!" for war, reportedly adding, "to the last
gaiter button," was immediately revealed to be false.17
Mobilization of men, arms, and supplies dragged slowly.
Critics complained that the Empire had failed to train
officers and military planners, especially in science and
geography.18 These problems were immediately well

14
"Les Annonces des journaux nanciens," La Feuille du Village,
6 March 1872.
15
On Bonapartism after 1870 see John Rothney, Bonapartism after
Sedan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969).
16
The phrase popped up in commentaries on the war in the early
1870s, often without explicit reference to Ollivier: A. Garnier, Le Lyce
du Mans pendant la guerre contre la Prusse (Le Mans: Edouard
Monnoyer, 1872), 6; Les Murailles d'Alsace-Lorraine: Metz,
Sarreguemines, Strasbourg, Haguenau, Saverne, Nancy, etc. (Paris: L.
Le Chevalier, 1874), preface.
17
Thomas J. Adriance, The Last Gaiter Button: A Study of the
Mobilization and Concentration of the French Army in the War of 1870
(New York: Greenwood, 1987), 3.
18
Jules Chautard, Du Rle de la science dans la guerre de 1870-
1871 (Nancy: Sordoillet et fils, 1871), 7; [J. Latour], Le Moyen de
payer cinq millards et de prparer la revanche (Toulouse: L. Hbrail,
Durand et Cie, 1871), 23; Gabriel Monod, Allemands et franais:

Proceedings of the Western Society for French History

 Who lost the Franco-Prussian War? 285

known, and the National Assembly blamed the Empire in a

resolution overwhelmingly passed in March 1871.19
Although politicians often made these criticisms with the
intent of achieving the political goal of establishing a
republic, subsequent historians of the Franco-Prussian War
demonstrate that these initial judgments were usually quite
sound.20
Republicans and conservatives seized every opportunity
during the early 1870s to use the war to their political
advantage, but the next major moment came with the
election of a new Chamber of Deputies in February 1876.
Though divided among moderates, opportunists, and
radicals, republicans continued to cast themselves as the
supporters of conservatism and peace, maintaining the
status quo between monarchists, who would disrupt the
government yet again, and revolutionary radicals. A
pamphlet supporting Lopold Galpin, candidate for La
Flche (Sarthe) explained the republican position: "After
the war and the invasion, the legacy of the last reign,

Souvenirs de campagne Metz-Sedan-La Loire (Paris: Sandoz et

Fischbacher, 1872), 124-25.
19
[Latour], 10; La Touanne, Histoire du 33e Mobiles (Dpartment
de la Sarthe) (Le Mans: Imprimerie de la Sarthe, 1872), 101; Hubert
Dbrousse, "La Libration du territoire," La Sarthe (reprint from Le
Courrier de France), 4 Feb. 1872; Jules Claretie, Histoire de la
Rvolution de 1870-71, 5 vols. (Paris: G. Decaux, 1875-76), 1:184-85,
2:38-39, 47; Anatole Claveau, Souvenirs politiques et parlementaires
d'un tmoin, vol. 2, Le Principat de M. Thiers, 1871-1873 (Paris: Plon,
1914), 33.
20
Adriance; Audoin-Rouzeau, 1870, 75-87, 100; Michael Howard,
The Franco-Prussian War: The German Invasion of France, 1870-
1871 (New York: MacMillan, 1961), 57, 63-71, 120-82; Franois Roth,
La Guerre de 70 (Paris: Fayard, 1990), 21-26, 116-18, 141-74;
Geoffrey Wawro, The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of
France in 1870-1871 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003),
16-84 and references to Bazaine throughout.

Volume 32 (2004)
286 Rachel Chrastil

France seeks repose; it wants to be assured not only of

peace for today, but also security for tomorrow. The
Republic is today the legal government: it is in
consolidating it . . . that we can give our country durable
prosperity."21 Conservative candidates in 1876 also
supported order, peace, and French grandeur, as they had in
1871, but they rarely made explicit references to the war.
Republicans were better able to convince voters that they
via the negotiations of President Thiers in 1873had
brought an end to the German occupation and that they
would do a better job of handling a future war than would
the conservatives.
The new legislative elections held in October 1877
following the 16 May crisis became a referendum on the
Republic. President MacMahon was the monarchists' hope
for holding power until a true monarch could be enthroned,
yet he was a military man who had served the Empire. His
heightened presence during the campaign of 1877 made it
easier for republicans to portray royalists and Bonapartists
as having the same goals: to overthrow the Republic and
install rule by one man. Once again, republicans and pro-
MacMahon conservatives tried to outdo each other in
convincing voters that they represented the side for peace.22

21
Archives Dpartementales [hereafter AD] Sarthe, 3 M 566,
Lopold Galpin, Messieurs les lecteurs de l'arrondissement de La
Flche, 8 Feb. 1876 (also republicans Rubillard (1st Le Mans), 1876,
and Lemonnier, (Saint-Calais), 1876). See also Cordelet (2nd Le
Mans), in Chambre des dputs (1876-1940), Recueil, Documents
lectoraux pour les lections lgislatives du 20 fvrier 1876
[collections in this series hereafter Documents lectoraux], Sarthe-
Deux-Sevres, 1876, and AD Sarthe, 3 M 567, Cordelet, 1876; Cosson
(Lunville), Documents lectoraux, Manche-Morbihan, 1876.
22
On this point across France, see Jean-Franois Chanet, Arme
nouvelle et rpublique conservatrice, 1871-1879 (unpublished paper,
October 2002), 318, and Mitchell, German Influence,153-70.

Proceedings of the Western Society for French History

 Who lost the Franco-Prussian War? 287

An official government flyer signed by President

MacMahon read, "After so many trials, France wants
stability, order and peace." Few voters would have
disagreed with this sentiment, but many did not believe that
MacMahon would help France achieve that goal. Copies of
the flyer, preserved at the Departmental Archives of the
Meurthe-et-Moselle, testify to the public's divergent
responses. On one, a royalist supporter wrote, "No
confidenceYou have to know how to command a division
to command a great people," adding, apparently without
irony, "Long live King Henry V." On another copy, a
republican repeatedly wrote after MacMahon's name "=
Sedan." At MacMahon's words "They tell you that I want
to overthrow the Republic," the individual wrote, "It's the
truth."23
Republican deputies pushing for peace appealed in an
open letter to the commercial interests of Lorrainers whose
businesses were interrupted by war scares. These deputies
promoted their record for peace: they had assuaged any fear
that France would become involved in the Russo-Turkish
War, and they had resisted conservative efforts to restore
the Pope's temporal power. Now they needed votes in order
to stay in office and maintain the Republic. One hundred
ten men in the Meurthe-et-Moselle, including many
municipal councilors and businessmen, signed a response

MacMahon supporters: Welche (1st Nancy), AD Meurthe-et-Moselle

(hereafter M-et-M), 3 M 83, Welche, M. Welche devant les lecteurs
(prof de foi), 1877; Masson (2nd Nancy), AD M-et-M, 3 M 81,
Masson, 1877; Michaut (Lunville), in Documents lectoraux, Manche-
Meuse, 1877. Republicans: AD M-et-M, 3 M 81, Mzires (Briey),
1877; Senators Bernard and Varroy in support of republicans in France,
in Documents lectoraux, Manche-Meuse, 1877; campaign booklet
against "Les Candidats de la coalition monarchique" and material for
Duvaux (1st Nancy) and Berlet (2nd Nancy) in the same.
23
AD M-et-M, 3 M 81, MacMahon, and anonymous, 1877.

Volume 32 (2004)
288 Rachel Chrastil

lending their support. As representatives of industry,

commerce, and commercial agriculture, they needed to be
assured of reliable transportation, market confidence,
uninterrupted productivity, and a steady labor force. They
regarded a moderate republic as their best hope for
protecting these interests. MacMahon's power play of 16
May had disrupted their business, and they feared a return
to rule by one man. In 1870, the populations in the east had
been, as they put it, "the first victims of personal
government"not victims of German aggression"and . . .
are particularly interested in maintaining peace."24 Without
republican promises of peace, these businessmen might
have used their political clout to support conservatives.
The surprisingly infrequent calls for specific military
reform in the legislative campaigns of 1876 and 1877
reflected this lack of emphasis on revenge within the realm
of politics. It was no secret that the army needed to change
in order to face the new standard set by Germany. Former
officers called for the reform of military service laws,
including the implementation of universal service.25 But
after the military laws of 1872 and 1873, the principle of
universal service was still not put into practice, and issues
surrounding military education remained unresolved.26 Yet

24
Berlet, Cosson, Duvaux, and Petitbien, Adresse de MM. Les
dputs rpublicains aux lecteurs de Meurthe-et-Moselle, (Nancy: E.
Reau, [1877]). Response included in the same document.
25
[Latour], 12; La Touanne, 107-9; Antoine Chanzy, Campagne de
1870-1871: La Deuxime Arme de la Loire, 8th ed. (1872; Paris: Plon,
1885), 477. Chanzy was also elected deputy and senator.
26
On the changing conscription laws and the place of the army in
French society, see Michel Auvray, L'ge des casernes: Histoire et
mythes du service militaire (Paris: Aube, 1998), esp. 88-124; Jean-
Jacques Becker and Stphane Audoin-Rouzeau, La France, La Nation,
La Guerre: 1850-1920 (Paris: Seds, 1995), 41-50, 150-51, 216;
Chanet; Raoul Girardet, La Socit militaire de 1815 nos jours

Proceedings of the Western Society for French History

 Who lost the Franco-Prussian War? 289

promises for military reform or any other policy targeted at

improving France's performance in a later war rarely
surfaced in campaign propaganda.27
Another indication that French politicians were not
consumed with revenge is that they rarely emphasized their
own experiences during the war, whether in military
service or in positions of civilian leadership. Those who
campaigned on their service records found that this strategy
was by no means a guarantee of success.28 Lack of service
was not a hindrance to being elected, either. Candidates
very rarely attacked their opponents for their wartime
actions or inaction, even though the principle of universal
service was gaining momentum.29 Neither French electors
nor political parties felt that it was necessary for their
legislators to have military experience in order to help

(Mesnil-sur-l'Estre: Librairie Acadmique Perrin, 1998); David M.

Hopkin, Soldier and Peasant in French Popular Culture, 1766-1870
(Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003); Paul B. Miller, From Revolutionaries to
Citizens: Antimilitarism in France, 1870-1914 (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2002); David B. Ralston, The Army of the Republic:
The Place of the Military in the Political Evolution of France, 1871-
1914 (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1967); Wawro, 41-64.
27
Table 1:
Number of Candidates for whom Campaign Materials are
Available from Three Departments.
Hrault M-et-M Sarthe Total
1876 7 9 7 23
1877 6 12 1 19

Sources: AD M-et-M 3 M, AD Sarthe 3 M, and Documents

lectoraux 1876, 1877.
28
Of the twelve candidates from the Hrault, the Sarthe, and the
Meurthe-et-Moselle who mentioned their service during the war over
the period 1876-93 (nine military, three civilian), only four won.
29
One known example: the Ladoucette campaign (Briey, Meurthe-
et-Moselle, 1876), in Documents lectoraux, Manche-Morbihan, 1876.

Volume 32 (2004)
290 Rachel Chrastil

France recover from the Franco-Prussian War. Political

affiliation mattered more than military experience or a
specific agenda for reform.

Citizens, Politics, and Blame

By 1877, the republicans had managed to secure their
form of government by convincing enough people that they
would maintain security and stability in France. However,
they achieved this goal by defining the war problem as a
political issue, which could be solved by political means.
The highly politicized uses of the Franco-Prussian war
poorly camouflaged very real issues stemming from the
war that continued through the early Third Republic. I have
already argued that their discussions lacked serious debate
over specific policies concerning military organization and
decision-making processes. In addition, they avoided
suggesting that civilians or ordinary soldiers might have
acted differently in the field of operations. It was not
politically useful to attack the very citizens whose votes
they were trying to attract, so they reserved scapegoating
for the defeat for politicians and generals. Ordinary soldiers
received little blame for the poor performance of the
military, even though drunk, undisciplined career soldiers
populated the French regular army at the time.30 Instead,

30
Wawro, 41-64, 76-78. A few contemporary critics - not
politicians - referred to indiscipline or alcohol abuse among the
soldiers: Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot, La Dfense de Paris (1870-1871),
4 vols. (Paris: Dentu, 1875-78), 1:76; 1:82; Doctor Jules Bereron,
"Rapport sur la rpression de l'alcoolisme," Annales d'Hygiene
publique et de mdecine lgale 38 (July-Dec. 1872): 6; AD Sarthe, 1 M
195.

Proceedings of the Western Society for French History

 Who lost the Franco-Prussian War? 291

the soldiers routinely received praise for their bravery and

sacrifice.31
In addition, politicians in the early 1870s rarely asserted
that civilians ought to have put up a stronger resistance to
the invasion by engaging in guerilla warfare, resisting
requisitions, running hospitals, cutting telegraph lines, or
passing information. When these actions occurred, the
government and the public praised them, but no politicians
in the early 1870s, regardless of political persuasion or
region, argued that civilian sacrifice or activity during war
should have been greater. This strategy diminished the
possibility that citizens might have something to offer the
nation in the future. Individual citizens were no longer
viewed as the raw material for the next people's army. The
wartime Government of National Defense had hoped for a
repeat of the 1792 victory of the people's army at Valmy,
but the improvised volunteers could not match the trained
Prussian army. The Paris Commune crushed any lingering
desire for an armed citizenry. Furthermore, the government
did not envision any non-military role for women or
civilian men as charity workers, even though voluntary
associations had raised and distributed aid and the Red
Cross had treated thousands of wounded soldiers during the
war. Politicians did not expect average citizens to
participate actively in the war and did not directly blame
them for the invasion and defeat.32
But despite what the politicians saidor did not sayin
their official discourse, many intellectuals and journalists

31
La Touanne, 106-7; Mallet, "Le 12 Janvier," La Sarthe, 13 Jan.
1872; Hubert Dbrousse, "La Libration du territoire." See also
Audoin-Rouzeau, 1870,101, and Grailles, 279-86.
32
Republican politicians did, of course, plan to reform the
populace, notably through education, but they did not link education to
the Franco-Prussian War in their legislative campaigns.

Volume 32 (2004)
292 Rachel Chrastil

blamed the general French population for its indirect

contributions to France's military woes. Men of letters and
science, the same men who were more inclined than
politicians to promote the cause of revenge, were also more
likely to point to the shortcomings of their fellow citizens
for the causes of the war and its upheaval. For men who
viewed the Franco-Prussian War as a clash of nations, it
was persuasive to believe that the weaknesses of the French
national character had determined the outcome. In his first
lecture at the Faculty of Sciences in Nancy after the war in
April 1871, Jules Chautard declared, "Our political faults
have basically the same origin; each seeking pleasure in the
underworld of material well-being . . . each neglected his
right, had disdain even for his duties as a citizen." Authors
in Paris and the provinces alike shared the belief that a lack
of religion had contributed to the downfall of France. For
some authors, such as historian Gabriel Monod, religious
failing was a character flaw that had social and indirect
military consequences.33 Without faith and a sense of duty
toward God and society, men had no reason to fight
selflessly and effectively for the nation. For others, the lack
of religion led directly to war and defeat, as a lesson or
punishment from God. All these men believed that the
population could indeed make changes that would improve
France's military capabilities in a future war.

Conclusion
The silences surrounding the political legacy of the
Franco-Prussian War are as revealing as the ringing
trumpet of peace that the republicans hoped would be heard
both in the provinces and in Berlin. French politicians were

Monod, Allemands et franais, 103, 116-17. On the advice of

33

Carol Harrison, I would like to push the analysis of religious responses

to the war further with continued research.

Proceedings of the Western Society for French History

 Who lost the Franco-Prussian War? 293

not interested in pursuing a policy of revenge against

Germany. Revanchisme and military reforms very rarely
appeared in legislative campaigns. Instead of focusing on
specific policies, politicians attacked each other's political
systems. They argued that the form of government was the
key to helping France recover and to preventing a future
disastrous war.
But many observers found the legacy of the war to be
much more complicated. For some, the French needed to
undergo moral or character change in order to reclaim their
former glory. For others, the difficult legacy of Sedan and
the Paris Commune complicated the supposed triumph of
the Republic. Candidates understood that appealing to the
example of the war could be a useful campaign device,
especially in areas that had suffered from the war such as
the Meurthe-et-Moselle. However, those French citizens
who were inclined to worry that their government was not
adequately preparing France for a future warwhether an
offensive war of revenge or a defensive war to protect their
homes and familieswere unlikely to be satisfied by the
evidence supplied in legislative campaigns. Many citizens
were disillusioned by the improvisation they saw in the
National Assembly instead of real reform and plans for
future national defense.34 This disappointment had a
profound effect on the development of citizen activists in
the decades following the Franco-Prussian War. Many
citizens challenged the state to speed the postwar recovery
of France, commemorate the soldiers who died, prepare
medical service through the Red Cross, or train future
soldiers. From the central government's perspective,
however, peace in Europe and the preservation of the
Republic remained the primary objectives.

34
Mitchell, German Influence, 143; Chanet, 435.

Volume 32 (2004)