The Moral Disarmament of France: Education, Pacifism, and Political Culture, 1914-1940

Mona Siegel

In the autumn of 1923, French schoolteacher Gaston Clémendot addressed the third annual meeting of the newly formed French national teachers’ union. Taking the congress by surprise, Clémendot proposed abolishing permanently the teaching of history in French primary schools. His argument was multifaceted, but he concluded with the damning assertion that historical narratives--once simplified and sanitized for young audiences--served to perpetuate old antagonisms and to reinvigorate desires for war. Clémendot insisted, “history is a constant state of war between peoples.” To bring about an end to war, the French people would first have to abolish history. Though French teachers did not vote to abolish the teaching of history in 1923, they did take the proposal seriously. For an entire year, they debated the merits of scholastic history in local conferences and in the pedagogical and union press. Scholars, politicians, and journalists joined in the chorus, anxious to contain a potentially volatile issue. These debates focused on the very real limitations of history, when written for and presented to children, but they also ultimately emphasized the central importance of historical narratives to the moral and civic education of young citizens. This paper will analyze the meaning of French teachers’ debates over abolishing the discipline of history in the aftermath of World War I. It will demonstrate, first, that the issue was taken so seriously because teachers--long before professional historians--faced the challenge of narrating the history of the Great War to an audience that had no memories of the event itself. Second, this paper will argue that French schoolteachers continued to see history as a tool for human progress even after the trenches of Verdun. They argued, however, that the heroes, plot, and even structure of these historical narratives would have to change. Scholastic histories of the Great War were transformed from triumphant epics into national tragedies. The story became one without heroes, but as I will demonstrate, it was also a story firmly set in the scarred landscape of northern France. The tragedy carried broad humanitarian implications, but it remained, at the same time, patriotic at its core.

About Mona Siegel

Mona Siegel is an assistant professor of history at the University of Cincinnati. Her primary areas of teaching and research are modern European history, women's history, and the history of education. Her current research project examines the divergent influences of pacifism and patriotism in French primary school education between the two world wars of the twentieth century. Professor Siegel has published several articles deriving from this research, including one in the journal French Historical Studies, which examines the gendered logic behind female teachers' dedication to pacifist activism after World War I. Siegel also has another article forthcoming in the Journal of Modern History, which examines the role of French teachers in shaping a national memory of World War I in the immediate postwar period. Siegel dedicated her fellowship year to completing a book manuscript entitled "The Moral Disarmament of France: Education, Pacifism, and Patriotism from the Great War to the Strange Defeat."