Picturing the Western Front: Photography, practices and experiences in First World War France 9781526151919

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Picturing the Western Front

Cultural History of Modern War Series editors  Ana Carden-​Coyne, Peter Gatrell, Max Jones, Penny Summerfield and Bertrand Taithe

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Already published Carol Acton and Jane Potter  Working in a world of hurt: Trauma and resilience in the narratives of medical personnel in warzones Michael Brown, Anna Maria Barry and Joanne Begiato (eds) Martial masculinities: Experiencing and imagining the military in the long nineteenth century Quintin Colville and James Davey (eds)  A new naval history James E. Connolly  The experience of occupation in the Nord, 1914–​18: Living with the enemy in First World War France Lindsey Dodd  French children under the Allied bombs, 1940–​45: An oral history Peter Gatrell and Liubov Zhvanko (eds)  Europe on the move: Refugees in the era of the Great War Julie Gottlieb, Daniel Hucker, and Richard Toye (eds)  The Munich Crisis, politics and the people: International, transnational and comparative perspectives Grace Huxford  The Korean War in Britain: Citizenship, selfhood and forgetting Linda Maynard  Brothers in the Great War: Siblings, masculinity and emotions Duy Lap Nguyen  The unimagined community: Imperialism and culture in South Vietnam Lucy Noakes  Dying for the nation: Death, grief and bereavement in Second World War Britain Juliette Pattinson, Arthur McIvor and Linsey Robb  Men in reserve: British civilian masculinities in the Second World War Spyros Tsoutsoumpis  A history of the Greek resistance in the Second World War: The people’s armies

www.alc.manchester.ac.uk/​history/​research/​centres/​ cultural-​history-​of-​war//​

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Picturing the Western Front Photography, practices and experiences in First World War France Beatriz Pichel

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Beatriz Pichel 2021 The right of Beatriz Pichel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 5190 2 hardback First published 2021 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-​party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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To Borja, my favourite

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A note on language

All translations from French to English were done by the author unless stated otherwise. If translated from primary sources, the original French version has been cited in the footnotes. The names of all French institutions have been kept in their original form, with translations to English on their first occurrence.

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Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements

page viii xiii

Introduction 1 1 Recording: the photographic archive of the war 25 2 Feeling: private, official and press photography as emotional practices 67 3 Embodying: the multiple meanings of the body of the combatant, the mutilated and the dead 107 4 Placing: broken trees, ruins, graves and the geographical imagination of France 149 5 Making visible and invisible 186 Conclusions 219 List of primary sources Bibliography Index

224 225 242

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Figures

0.1 First page of Gérald and Berthe’s photographic album. ‘Notre voyage de noces. Souvenirs du 4 Septembre 1919’. Album 026139. Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. page xvi 0.2 Page depicting the ‘Saint Quentin’ attack. Saint Quentin. Album 026139. Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. 2 1.1 Photographer from the French military cinematographic service photographing an injured British man in November 1916. ‘Bois d’Aveluy, Novembre 1916. Opérateur de la section cinématographique de l’armée française photographiant un blessé britannique. CI British oficial photo (II.551)’. Album Valois 436. Collection La Contemporaine. 24 1.2 SPA photographer and a military officer discussing instructions in March 1916. ‘Bornes frontières des trois pays, opérateur de la Section Photographique de l’armée, 15 Mars 1916’. Rechésy, n. 38,782. Album Valois 474. Collection La Contemporaine. 37 1.3 German prisoners in a French camp. ‘Prisonniers’, SPA, 1917: La victoire prochaine du droit (Paris: E. Paul, 1917), p. 12. Bibliothèque nationale de France. 39 1.4 Kodak Vest Pocket, author’s collection. 48 1.5 SPA photographic classification room at the Palais Royal. ‘Section photographique de l’armée. Palais Royal, rue de Valois. Salle de classement des clichés’, Septembre 1916, Paris. N. 62,579, Z. 2319. Album Valois 382. Collection La Contemporaine. 54

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Figures 2.1 Page of the private album, showing a man holding two men, with a fourth one appearing from behind. ‘Un fort de la Halle’, Ambulance Album (Album 005634). Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. 2.2 Photograph of several men cooking. ‘On fait cuire les champignons (les cuisiniers sont en permission)’, Ambulance Album (Album 005634). Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. 2.3 Page showing two photographs of men posing with photographs in the candlelight. Album 5bis, Album Commandeur. Collection La Contemporaine. 2.4 Three men ‘celebrating military promotions’. ‘On fête les nouveaux galons’, Ambulance Album (Album 005634). Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. 2.5 SPA photograph of the Spanish mission gathering in a military cemetery near the Calonne trench in Verdun. SPA 50 L 2436 ‘La mission se recueille dans un cimetière militaire, près de la tranchée de Calonne’. ECPAD. 2.6 Page from Le Miroir. ‘L’exposition photographique française à Londres. L’inauguration de l’exposition photographique’. Le Miroir, 20 Août 1916. Bibliothèque nationale de France. 2.7 SPA exhibition in Biarritz. SPA 31 X 1284 ‘Exposition à Biarritz’. ECPAD. 3.1 SPA photographers with women and children in Port de l’Ouedj, 1917. SPA 17 CB 261d, Port de l’Ouedj, 1917. ECPAD. 3.2 SPA photograph of two amputees, at work at the municipal school for amputees. ‘École municipale de mutilés, 5 rue de la Durance. Atelier de menuiserie amputés munis d’un bras artificiel au travail’, 29 Avril 1916. Album 387. Collection La Contemporaine. 3.3 Page depiciting the health stages of injured men. ‘Plate XVIII. Les étapes du blessé’, SPA, La guerre (Paris: Armand Colin, 1916), p. 104. Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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3.4 Photographs showing the evolution of the injuries and facial reconstruction of Cecillon. ‘Cecillon’, Musée du Service de santé des armées, Val-​de-​Grâce, Paris. 118–119 3.5 SPA photograph showing two men walking past the body of a French soldier. SPA 42L 2075 ‘Sur la route de Verdun à Douaumont’. ECPAD. 122 3.6 SPA photograph, ‘On the road to Verdun, the bombed ground and corpses’. ‘Fort de Douaumont (près et au S) Sur la route de Verdun, le terrain bombardé et cadavres’. 20 Février 1917. Album Valois 195. Collection La Contemporaine. 123 3.7 Photographs showing ‘A destroyed Zeppelin in Compiegne’ with a censored image in the middle. ‘Un Zeppelin abattu à Compiegne’, Sur le Vif, 17 Avril 1917, p. 4. Bibliothèque nationale de France. 126 3.8 ‘Burial of a soldier’. ‘Enterrement d’un soldat’, SPA, Recueil. Documents de la Section photographique de l’armee francaise 1914–​16, Album 1. (Paris: A. Serment, 1916). Bibliothèque nationale de France. 128 3.9 Photograph depicting German prisoners drinking from a barrel. ‘Dans un champ de prisonniers’, SPA, 1917: Du langage de la renommé et de la photographie (Paris: Émile Paul, 1917), p. 8. Bibliothèque 130 nationale de France. 3.10 Page depicting a mine attack on German trenches. Images 12, 13 and 14, ‘Leur morts’. Album 1 La guerre de mines, Album commandeur, Collection La Contemporaine. 136 3.11 French bodies, captioned ‘Our dead’. Images 1, 2 and 3, ‘Nos morts’. Album 1 La guerre de mines, Album commandeur. Collection La Contemporaine. 137 4.1 ‘Injuries to the land of France –​an apple orchard at Champien, Somme’, SPA, 1917: La France d’aujourd-​ hui (Paris: E. Paul, 1917), p. 12. Bibliothèque nationale de France. 148 4.2 Page dedicated to the desctruction of the French city Péronne. ‘À Péronne–​At Péronne–​Em Péronne–​En Péronne–​In Péronne’, SPA, 1917: Le monde avec la

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Figures France pour la liberté (Paris: E. Paul, 1917), p. 7. Bibliothèque nationale de France. 4.3 Front cover. SPA, En territoire reconquis. Ce qu’ils ont fait (Paris: Section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée, 1917). Bibliothèque nationale de France. 4.4 Photograph of Coucy le Chateau in ruins. ‘Coucy le Chateau, les ruines de la ville’, SPA, En territoire reconquis. Ce qu’ils ont fait (Paris: Section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée, 1917). Bibliothèque nationale de France. 4.5 Image of a cut-​down tree captioned ‘Spring-​tide and war’. ‘Printemps de guerre’, SPA, 1917: La victoire prochaine du droit (Paris: E. Paul, 1917), p. 9. Bibliothèque nationale de France. 4.6 Several broken trees surrounding the upper body of a crucified Christ. ‘Au bord de la route’, SPA, 1917: La victoire prochaine du droit (Paris: E. Paul, 1917), p. 21. Bibliothèque nationale de France. 4.7 Photograph of several men in the trenches with destroyed trees in the background. SPA 49 L 2398. ECPAD. 4.8 Self-​portrait of SPA photographer Albert Samama-​ Chikli in Verdun. SPA 49 L 2249. ECPAD. 4.9 A soldier sitting in a hole in the wall. Image 21. Album 3 Villages ruinés, Album commandeur. Collection La Contemporaine. 4.10 Photography in the mine tunnels. Album 1 La guerre des mines, Album Commandeur. Collection La Contemporaine. 4.11 ‘From an aeroplane’, SPA, 1917: Le sang n’est pas de l’eau (Paris: E. Paul, 1917), p. 28. Bibliothèque nationale de France. 4.12 Photograph of a tomb near the ruins. ‘Ferme de Léomont, 26 Avril 1917. Tombes près des ruines’, Album Valois 528. Collection La Contemporaine. 4.13 Soldier’s graves. ‘Ferme de Léomont, 26 Avril 1917. Tombes de soldats’, Album Valois 528. Collection La Contemporaine.

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4.14 Several mean digging the tombs of a military cemetery. ‘Verdun, Cimetière de soldats. 11 Décembre 1915. 63.342, Meuse’, cf. Capitain Moreau. Album Valois 528. Collection La Contemporaine. 4.15 Photograph of the crematory oven. ‘Le four crématoire’, Ambulance Album 005634. Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. 5.1 ‘First series of the glorious war missing’. ‘Premier série des glorieux disparus de la guerre’, Sur le Vif, 14 Novembre 1914. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 5.2 ‘8th series, war missing portraits’. ‘8ème série, portraits des disparus’, Sur le Vif, 2 Janvier 1915. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 5.3 Photographs of a colonial solider suffering from ‘pithiatic emotional discordance’. ‘Discordance émotionelle pithiatique’. Porot, ‘Le problème des fonctionnels et les solutions militaires qu’il comporte’. Musée du Service de santé des armées, Val-​de-​Grâce, Paris.

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Acknowledgements

I became a historian of photography by accident. Way back in December 2007, I was starting my research and Javier Ordóñez asked me: ‘why don’t you look at photographs?’ I, a philosophy and history of science graduate with no previous knowledge or interest in photography, foolishly said: ‘okay!’ When I came back to Paris, where I was spending the year, I made an appointment at the Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine (now La Contemporaine) to look at their First World War photographic collection. Being in the archive, opening drawers full of pictures and handling albums made by veterans and nurses almost a century before was like nothing I had ever experienced in my academic life. By the end of that project, it was clear that photographic history was my thing. I will always be grateful to Javier for opening that door for me, as well as for always encouraging and supporting me ever since we first met in 2003. This book is the product of the years I have spent at the Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC, De Montfort University). Elizabeth Edwards is not only the most influential thinker in photographic history alive, but also one of the most generous scholars I have ever met. Having her as a mentor between 2014 and 2016 changed my career and made me a better scholar. I could say the same about Kelley Wilder. Her mentorship and friendship have been invaluable while I was writing this book, as I asked her for advice or cried in her office far too many times –​ I wish everyone had a Kelley in their life. Gil Pasternak and Jenifer Chao (my teaching partner in crime) have also been genuinely

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excellent, inspiring colleagues, always providing support, intelligent remarks and good laughs. My colleagues in the History department have been a constant source of support. I am extremely lucky to be friends with Heather Dichter, who has read chapters, corrected my English, given me feedback and provided both literal and metaphorical food for thought. Sophie Brockmann also read some chapters and, most importantly, has kept me sane during the final year of this book. Panikos Panayi read an early version of the introduction and his support meant (and still means) a lot. Special thanks go to my ‘Photography and Conflict’ students over the years for allowing me the privilege to discuss many of the ideas of this book with them. I would also like to thank my academic friends and colleagues who have endured with me the writing of this book. María González Aguado has taught me everything I know about STS and is always there for me. Leticia Fernández Fontecha always has the right words to make me think and feel better. Many of the ideas in Chapter 2 were developed while I was co-​editing the collective volume Emotional Bodies with Dolores Martín-​Moruno, and I owe to our many conversations my thinking about emotions. Katherine Rawling, Harriet Palfreyman, Jennifer Wallis, Rebecca Wynter and Stef Eastoe are brilliant historians who inspire me every day. Tracey Loughran gave me key writing advice and is a feminist hero all around. Thanks to all my Twitter friends for cheering me up with hilarious gifs and supporting me when I shared my struggles writing this book (Academic Twitter can be a really nice place). The team at Manchester University Press has been an excellent partner in the publishing process, and their patience and support have enabled me to finish this book. The manuscript is better as a result of the feedback from the series editors and anonymous reviewers who have read chapters at different stages, and I greatly appreciate their time and comments. Special thanks to David Lashley, a brilliant proofreader and friend, for his work in early drafts and Lou Harvey, who proofread the final manuscript in the midst of the Covid-​19 crisis. I would like to thank the personnel at the Établissement de Communication et de Production Audiovisuelle de la Défense, La Contemporaine, Historial de la Grande Guerre, Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Musée du Services de Santé

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Acknowledgements

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des armés Val-de-Grâce for their support while I was doing research in their archives, and for allowing me to use their images. With support from the Institute of Arts and Design and VC2020 funding at De Montfort University I have been able to publish a heavily illustrated book. I am incredibly fortunate to have family and friends who have constantly supported me. I have danced my cares away with my Leicester friends, and every time I see my friends in Madrid it is like glitter is exploding inside me. My late grandmother, la yaya, passed away aged 102 as I was finishing this book, and I want to thank her for always believing in me, no matter what. My sister Ana, always laughing and never planning, helps me not to take myself too seriously. I count the days to see my nieces, Ari and Zoe, who amaze me every time with their intelligence, kindness and spark. Millones de gracias a mis padres, Jesús y Margarita, por todo lo que han hecho y siguen haciendo por mí. Finally, thanks from the bottom of my heart to my (civil) partner Borja for being my rock and making everything better.

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Figure 0.1  First page of Gérald and Berthe’s photographic album, showing pictures of their wedding, 4 September 1919.

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Introduction

For their first wedding anniversary, the First World War veteran Gérald Debaecker offered to his wife, Berthe, a photographic album (Figure 0.1).1 Like many other couples, they had gathered photographs of their wedding and honeymoon, as well as professional images of the places they had visited. What sets this album apart is that Gérald and Berthe’s honeymoon mirrored his war experience along the Western Front between 1914 and 1918. They departed from Mont Saint Michel, in Northern France, and continued their trip stopping at the places in which Gérald had fought, including war landmarks such as Yser, Nieuwpoort, Brussels and Diksmuide.2 In the pages belonging to these cities, Gérald also included portraits of him during the war. In this way, images of Berthe at the seaside or with a bicycle interspersed with photographs of him in uniform and pictures of the cities they visited. The honeymoon album intertwines, therefore, several narratives, mainly the husband’s experience of the war and the couple’s experience of the honeymoon. In so doing, the album shows not only the complex process of demobilisation that followed the Armistice, but also the intricate ways in which combatants and civilians made use of photography to tell their war stories. A particularly important episode in the album is the visit to Saint Quentin, where Gérald had received a facial injury. As usual, the two pages dedicated to this event include both photographs of Gérald during the war and images of the couple. Yet, unlike the rest of the album, the honeymoon photographs show the couple almost re-​enacting the event. They are not simply visiting the place but fully recreating the moment when shrapnel impacted on Gérald’s face and he had to run to the aid station. For instance, he bends down

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Figure 0.2  Page depicting the ‘Saint Quentin’ attack. The photographs taken during the honeymoon recreating the attack are the smaller photographs surrounding the portrait of Gérald in military uniform and the image of the landscape of the forest.

next to the bushes ‘behind which I was sheltered for a few minutes’, as if he were hiding again. Meanwhile, Berthe poses in her dress and heels next to the place where Gérald ‘was heading to when I was injured in the face’. Other images represent the ‘shell hole where I found myself, probably when I received the shrapnel in the jaw’, ‘Berthe on the railway embankment that I followed to go behind enemy lines’ and ‘the entrance to the aid station’ (Figure 0.2).3 As exceptional as this album is, it nonetheless provides an excellent example of how photographs helped to document and represent people and places. Photography had an active role in the construction of war and post-​war narratives. In the case of the honeymoon album, having a camera meant that the couple could take new images of the battlefield of Saint Quentin, and more importantly, reconstruct the attack. By exchanging the roles of photographer and

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Introduction

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photographed, Gérald made Berthe an active part of his war experience and his demobilisation process.4 The album was intended as a private object (some captions simply read ‘you …’ and ‘me!’), yet the war experience articulated in the album is not merely individual. It also integrated public narratives such as the final page’s homage to the Soldat Inconnu buried at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The story of Gérald during the war (where he fought, his regiment, his injury) intermingles with the story of the first days of the newly married couple (hiring a car, visiting places and enjoying the seaside) and the history of the war (shown in before and after photographs of landmarks). Such complexity could not have been achieved solely by travelling along the Western Front. What interwove the multiple stories and allowed Gérald to share his war experience was the practice of photography: photographing and posing for the camera in the fields, as well as collecting and arranging photographs in the album. This book places photographic practices at the centre of the historical analysis of the war experiences of combatants and civilians. Authors such as Leonard V. Smith, Michael Roper and Stéphane Audoin-​Rouzeau among many others have examined how narratives constructed and mediated war experiences and identities.5 Dealing with a similar problem, this book shifts the focus away from written accounts to examine how photography articulated war experiences. The systematic analysis of the photographic production of the military photographic service Section photographique de l’armée (SPA), private albums and the French illustrated press brings into light how practices such as taking, exchanging and looking at photographs mediated and shaped daily life under the new war conditions. With this aim, this book examines photography beyond representations.6 As the wedding album shows, photography is primarily a doing: a set of actions such as operating a camera, posing, collecting, purchasing, captioning, cropping, curating and arranging photographs, which always have particular effects. For instance, some private albums channelled grief, while official publications mobilised civilians’ emotions, particularly hatred against the Germans and pride for the French troops. Picturing the Western Front argues that photography engaged photographers, photographed subjects

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and viewers in particular relations by means of the practices of recording, feeling, embodying, placing and making war events visible and invisible. These practices, which correspond with the five chapters of the book, became frames through which combatants and civilians structured collective war experiences.

The great photographic war The First World War saw an exponential increase in the number of photographs produced both in the home front and the front lines. This was particularly true for France, which had heavily invested in the development and dissemination of photography since 1839, when François Arago announced the daguerreotype, created by Louis-​Jacques-​Mandé Daguerre and Joseph Nicéphore Nièpce, at the Académie des sciences.7 The daguerreotype was not the only photographic method available in 1839 (Henry Fox Talbot invented his own photographic process, the calotype, at the same time), and by the 1860s it was largely in disuse. Yet, the early support of the French state towards photography by making the patent of the daguerreotype public meant that photography flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century. The rapid multiplication of photographic studios in Paris, the creation of the Société Française de la Photographie in 1854 and the organisation of universal exhibitions in which photography had a prominent role fostered a growing community of photographers who shared and discussed techniques, ideas and aesthetic conventions.8 Photographs also became common currency in conflicts. One of the first photographers to document a battlefield was Roger Fenton, who accompanied the British troops during the Crimean War (1853–​ 1856). Commissioned by the Manchester publisher and arts dealer Thomas Agnew & Sons, Fenton mainly produced group portraits and views of the war landscape such as the famous ‘Valley of the Shadow of Death’. His were not the first photographs taken in a conflict, but the publication of Fenton’s images in the press in the form of illustrations gained him worldwide recognition.9 Since then, photographers have been present in conflicts such as the American Civil War (1861–​1865), the Franco-​Prussian War (1870) and the Sino-​Japanese War (1904–​1905).10 Improvements

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in photomechanical printing such as the development of the halftone process in the 1880s and the multiplication of illustrated magazines meant that, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the public had become familiar with war images.11 A market in France therefore existed by 1914 ready to consume and produce photographs. French companies such as Gaumont, Pathé Frères, Lumière & Jougla, Éclair and Guilleminot manufactured photographic equipment such as cameras, glass plates, film, stereoscopic visors, projectors and enlargement devices used by both professional and amateur photographers. Foreign cameras such as the German Goertz were also very popular in the early 1900s, but the outbreak of war and ensuing trade restrictions favoured the consumption of national products such as the Gaumont Spido or the Vérascope Richard. The Spido was a medium-​large camera that could hold up to 12 glass plates (up to 18 in the case of small format plates) and weighed 1.5kg.12 It could be used without a tripod, but travelling with the whole equipment was cumbersome. The Vérascope, also advertised in the French press during the war, was a stereoscopic device with two lenses. Slightly smaller and lighter than the Spido, the Vérascope took 12 stereoscopic or 24 single images.13 Other devices, such as the Citoscope, could even be used to take either still or moving images, as they worked with both glass plates and film.14 While these cameras were aimed at professionals as well as amateurs, it was the development of small, portable and affordable cameras such as the Kodak Brownie Box (1900) and the Kodak Vest Pocket (1913) that had encouraged many people to become amateur photographers before the war. Aware of this trend, Kodak started to promote its Vest Pocket as the perfect gift for the soldier in 1915.15 Press advertisements introduced ‘Le Kodak du soldat’ (the soldier’s Kodak) as a key gadget in wartime, claiming that ‘when your sons and grandsons ask you about the role you played during the Great War, you will be able to open your Kodak album and tell them the exciting story of each page’.16 In parallel, the illustrated press grew over the war years, and the government invested in their own photographic service. Illustrated journals such as L’Illustration and Le Miroir adapted their previous style to the conflict, while others such as J’ai Vu and Sur le Vif were created precisely to document the war. These journals were cheap (J’ai Vu cost 0.25 francs, while Sur le Vif was sold for 0.15 francs)

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and addressed mainly women and non-​mobilised men. Photographs came from press correspondents and military photographers, as well as from readers who contributed with their own images to Le Miroir and J’ai Vu. As a means of counteracting and controlling the flood of amateur and press photographs, countries such as Great Britain and Canada hired their own military photographers.17 In France, they centralised the photographic production, and three difference ministries contributed towards the creation of the first military photographic service, the SPA, in March 1915.18 The SPA aimed to promote the French cause among national and international audiences and created the military archives of the war, which preserved and classified photographs related to all war events. Amateur, press and official photographers photographed the war extensively, resulting in thousands of photographic prints, albums and illustrated journals and books now preserved in French archives.19 Despite the sheer number of photographs produced, the First World War is not usually remembered as a visual conflict. Later wars such as the Spanish Civil War (1936–​1939) or the Second World War (1939–​1945) also generated thousands of photographs, many of which have gained the status of cultural icons.20 Capa’s ‘Fallen Soldier’ and Rosenthal’s ‘Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima’, for instance, have become iconic. The public recognises these images, which often illustrate articles on the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War because they have come to summarise the conflict in which they were taken. In contrast, the symbols of the First World War are mostly literary (the ‘Flanders fields of poppies’, for instance) rather than photographic. First World War photography might not be iconic, but it has become an attractive topic for historians and media scholars in recent years. In the late 1980s, Jane Carmichael wrote the first book on First World War photography in which photographs were not mere illustrations of battles and personalities but the centre of the analysis.21 Focused on the development of British photography on the front lines, Carmichael’s work demonstrates the central role that photography played in war propaganda. Since then, scholars have examined the press and photojournalism, censorship, propaganda, amateur photography, albums and memory, among other

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topics.22 The centenary has also contributed to a renewed interest in First World War photography, with exhibitions opening all over the world.23 French photography has featured prominently in the French historiography of the war. Joëlle Beurier has published extensively on photography in the illustrated press, amateur practices of photography and the visual culture of violence during the war.24 Stéphane Audoin-​Rouzeau and others have edited books with the images of some amateur photographers such as the soldier Marcel Felser.25 In relation to official photography, Helène Guillot has written the most detailed accounts on the origins and functioning of the SPA, the work of SPA photographers and their visual production.26 With the exception of Guillot, who is mainly interested in the institutional and bureaucratic practices of photography, French scholarship has mostly focused on the visual aspects of photography. Audoin-​ Rouzeau, for instance, examines the ‘figurations and mental representations’ of combatants through photographs.27 This interest in the visual culture of photography has materialised in books that often crop or enlarge images in order to highlight a particular element. The results are emotionally impactful and visually engaging. Yet, these photographic operations distance the reader from the primary sources, as the focused, digitally enhanced images have little to do with the original photographs, especially amateur photographs, which are usually small and with fading colours. It is common to associate amateur photographs with personal experiences. Beurier has written about photographs as a ‘social act, that is, the photographer’s means of expression’.28 In the same line, Winter has examined the production of one photographer who ‘used photography to present the material realities of mass death as part of his visual memory of his military service’.29 Private photographs seem to be, therefore, the visual equivalent of a written testimony, a sort of access to the photographer’s inner life. But, how? How exactly can photography become a means of expression? How did photography constitute individual and collective experiences in the past, and how can historians understand past experiences through photography? Picturing the Western Front aims to provide a theoretical and historical response to these questions, which have not yet been sufficiently explored. The main question this book

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asks is not, therefore, about the what of experience, but about the how: how historians can use photographic sources to retrieve past experiences, and how doing photography structured individual and collective experiences of the war.

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Practising photography Since Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart published Photographs, Objects, Histories in 2004, the idea of materiality has dominated debates in photographic history.30 In their book, Edwards and Hart contended that ‘there is a need to break, conceptually, the dominance of image content and look at the physical attributes of the photograph that influence content in the arrangement and projection of visual information’.31 The emphasis on the materiality of photography has resulted, therefore, in an epistemological shift in the analysis of photography. Images matter but photographs are visual objects, and the material characteristics of a photograph affect how it will be read, interpreted and used. In the example of the honeymoon album, it is impossible to separate the content of the images from their material forms of presentation. The size and shapes of the photographs made it possible for the couple to arrange them in an album, while the structure of the album created narratives and meanings that the images by themselves lacked. Materiality therefore not only refers to the physical substrate of photographs but is also a key concept in understanding what photography does.32 Considering photographs as visual objects leads to the examination of their social biography. In line with material culture studies, Edwards and Hart argue that ‘an object cannot be fully understood at any single point in its existence but should be understood as belonging in a continuing process of production, exchange, usage and meaning’.33 Every iteration of a particular image in a different material format (as a print, reproduced in a journal or digitised) and every usage of a single photographic object (from a personal object to archive material) define a step in the life of a photograph which should be examined as such. If photographs are objects that circulate and are transformed in this circulation, it is because people do things with them, and

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they do things to people. Photography is therefore a practice. As such, it is culturally and socially encoded and thus guided by rules and expectations which are often tacit.34 For Christopher Pinney and Nicolas Peterson, photography is ‘a cultural practice with no fixed outcome’.35 The instability of this outcome might refer to the photograph itself, which can be altered by manipulating the image, for instance. However, this non-​fixed outcome also refers to photographic practices themselves. Sharing a photograph has effects on the photograph itself, whose paper can deteriorate due to the usage, as well as on the person or institution that share the photograph. In the previous example, gathering the honeymoon photographs together in an album and offering it as a wedding anniversary gift probably mobilised the couple’s emotions in new ways, different from what they had experienced when the photographs were taken. This characterisation of material photographic practices resonates with James Hevia’s concept of the photography complex, a reformulation of Bruno Latour’s Actor-​ Network Theory.36 According to Hevia, the photography complex includes: a network of actants made up of human and nonhuman parts, such as the camera (including its container, lenses, treated plates, moving parts, and the many variations of its form), optics theory, negatives and chemicals for the development of ‘positive’ prints … There is also the staggering array of reproductive technologies through which images move and circulate, especially those for printing photographs in books and newspapers … Then there is the photographer, that which is photographed, the transportation and communication networks along which all of these parts travel, and the production and distribution networks that link far-​way places to end-​users. There is also the question of storage and preservation; the image cannot be redistributed unless it is saved, so there must be a photographic archive.37

This definition decentralises traditional approaches to photography in which the image is the fundamental element.38 The photography complex acknowledges the importance of the materiality of photographs not only to better understand images, but also to open up the field of photography. As Hevia concludes, ‘photography seems to be a heading under which a range of agencies, animate and inanimate, visible and invisible, are clustered’.39 Therefore, photography cannot be reduced to images, or even to the triad

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photographer–​ camera–​ photographed. Photography might also include other elements that are not photographic per se but that belong to a photographic network at a particular moment. These networks will prove unstable, and each chapter of this book will focus on different actors, such as archival classification systems (Chapter 1) and the legal definition of ‘Mort pour la France’ (Dead for France) (Chapter 3).40 Opening up the notion of photography involves exploring not only its elements, but also its effects. The ‘non-​fixed outcomes’ mentioned by Pinney and Peterson, that is, what doing photography does in other subjects and the world, is the most important consequence of this approach, which this book will often emphasise. Photography always ‘mobilises new material realities’.41 Picturing the Western Front examines what photographic practices did during the First World War in France. It aims to determine how doing photography had an influence on shaping experiences that were not intrinsically photographic, for instance, losing a friend due to the war. Photographic practices thus serve as an analytical prism to grasp how combatants and civilians articulated their war experiences.

War experiences in historical perspective John Horne has recently noted that ‘experience’ has been a fundamental concept in the development of the cultural history of the Great War.42 For him, ‘what distinguished the most innovative work in cultural history from older-​style social history was the idea of experience as a primary category rather than as a secondary effect deduced from other factors’.43 The primacy of experience in cultural history also appears in Prost and Winter’s analysis of historiographical trends in the history of the First World War, arguing that ‘representations, feelings, emotions of men and women became of central interest to historians. Cultural history is a history of the intimate, the most moving experiences within a national community. It is a history of signifying practices; it studies how men and women make sense of the world in which they live’.44 In this sense, cultural historians such as Audoin-​Rouzeau, Annette Becker, Winter,

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Smith and many others have examined ideas and representations in order to recover the experience of both combatants and civilians.45 Experience is a very broad term, and, therefore, these works have often been partial, focusing on nations, genders or marginalised groups such as prisoners, displaced populations and children.46 The cultural history of combatants’ experiences can be traced to Jean Norton Cru’s Témoins (Witnesses).47 By assembling first-​hand accounts from different sources, Norton Cru aimed to deliver an objective account of the war as lived by combatants. This approach is inherently problematic, as historians have argued at length.48 Yet, Témoins already prefigures two central questions in cultural history. The first one is the intimate link between experience and memory.49 In Norton Cru’s model, the witness both experiences and remembers the war: experience and memory are two sides of the same coin. However, who remembers what, when and how are more complex questions that require a subtler approach. As Winter has argued, the term ‘remembrance’, which indicates a subject or a collective actively engaging in the act of remembering, does a better analytical work than common terms such as ‘collective memory’.50 In this sense, historians have examined practices of remembrance and commemoration in the context of combatants’ and civilians’ experiences during and after the war.51 Secondly, Norton Cru’s work shows that any study of experience needs to deal with both historical and methodological questions. The analysis of (war) experiences cannot avoid the interrogation of the category of experience itself. In this sense, Christophe Prochasson and Smith have both written about the ‘return to experience’ (‘retour d’expériences’) to understand how different actors, from veterans to historians, have used this concept to talk about the war.52 In particular, Smith points out that veterans informed the writing of the history of the war based on their testimony (‘témoignage’). For them, reconstructing the experience of the war was reconstructing their own experience from first-​hand accounts. As a result, history and experience became entangled, and first-​hand testimonies became a prominent source in later historiographical developments.53 The concept of experience itself has been the object of multiple debates. Philosophers have discussed what constitutes experience,

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whether the subject can access the experience of others or only its own, and how history can retrieve past experiences.54 Feminist historian Joan Wallach Scott has famously argued that ‘it is not individuals who have experience, but subjects who are constituted through experience’.55 In this regard, subjects do not ‘have’ experiences, because that would involve an individual who exists prior to or separate from experience. Individuals and experiences shape each other. Similarly, Smith has argued in The Embattled Self that ‘authors created and were created by the testimonial text’.56 He continues explaining that experience is not merely what happens to the subject because it is intimately linked to language. Following Paul Ricoeur, Smith argues that ‘experience makes sense through narrative, through the emplotment of events in time’.57 What people live becomes an experience through words and a temporal structure of past, present and future.58 Scott, Smith and Ricoeur characterise ‘experience’ in terms of distance (temporal or formal) from the raw flow of life events. As Scott puts it, ‘what counts as experience is neither self-​evident nor straight-​forward; it is always contested, and always therefore political’.59 In this tradition, experience is always the result of an elaboration. Recent developments in the history of emotions have opened up the concept of experience, as Rob Boddice has convincingly argued.60 While early theorisations highlighted the role of language in shaping the meaning and experience of emotions, Monique Scheer and others have demonstrated that not just language but also gestures, objects and spaces influence emotional lives.61 A key breakthrough in this regard has been the understanding of emotions as practices; something that people do, rather than something that they have.62 Experience, in this regard, is not mediated by language and narrative alone, but by what the subject does. Among all the potential doings that form experiences, this book considers practices of photography such as taking, posing, circulating, consuming and looking at photographs. In particular, it asks under which conditions photographic practices became meaningful ways of shaping experiences. This approach does not equate experience and memory, but instead focuses on the distinctiveness of experience. Photography mattered as a framework for experiences when it allowed the recording and archive of an event, establishing affective

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relationships, giving a visual and material body to abstract ideas, situating oneself in the environment and making war events visible (or invisible).

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Recording, feeling, embodying, placing and making visible and invisible An extensive study of all the photographs taken, circulated and consumed during this period is impossible to achieve in a single monograph. For this reason, this book focuses on the photographic production of the SPA, amateur photographers mobilised on the Western Front and national illustrated journals, only using photographs that can be attributed to an individual, an institution or a publication and whose material characteristics are known. Each chapter examines photographic practices and the making of individual and collective experiences from a distinct point of view. The chapter titles (‘Recording’, ‘Feeling’, ‘Embodying’, ‘Placing’ and ‘Making visible and invisible’) work as an umbrella under which photographic practices related to archives, emotions, bodies, places and visibility can be analysed. Thus, each chapter engages with different historiographical traditions, such as archive theory, the history of emotions, the history of the body and environmental history. The book does not follow a chronological structure or divide the material by their creators, with official, private and press photographs examined throughout. Some overlaps between chapters exist and a few amateur albums and official publications appear at several points. While each chapter could be read independently, they work together as a whole. photography: Chapter 1 analyses the most basic function of ­ recording. Focused on the creation and development of the SPA in May 1915 and the regulation of amateur photography on the front lines later that year, this chapter explores the material conditions in which photographers worked, the business of war photography and the creation of the war archive. This analysis demonstrates that the logic of the archive, which imposed a totalising ambition of recording everything as well as a classification of subjects according to categories, lies at the core of the SPA photography. The creation

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of the SPA followed the military authorities’ desire to control the creation and distribution of photographs, as well as the narratives photography produced. Reading the SPA photography from the point of view of its material practices and the logic of the military archive throws new light onto this production, showing, ultimately, that the SPA never achieved its desire for total control over photography. Chapter 2 examines the emotional effects of doing photography, arguing that both private and official photography became emotional practices. The first part of the chapter examines amateur albums compiled by combatants and nurses. The practices of photography involved in the making of these albums demonstrates that amateur photographers used their cameras to bond with others and domesticate their war surroundings. In this sense, photographing other people cooking or keeping photographs in a personal album were actions through which photographers performed their emotions towards others and turned the hostile environment of the trenches into a home. The final part of this chapter examines SPA photography from an emotional point of view. Focusing on the SPA’s propagandistic purpose demonstrates that emotions were central to SPA propaganda, and that photography became a key propagandistic device because of its flexibility. Tailoring images to particular audiences and distributing photographs in several formats became the main mechanism through which the SPA achieved the emotional mobilisation of France. Focusing on photography as a technology of embodiment, Chapter 3 examines both representations of bodies and how doing photography enabled particular bodily relations. The analysis of the visual characteristics, circulation and uses of photographs of mutilated men and dead bodies shows that French photographers portrayed difficult, painful and visually challenging topics quite extensively. Both the military and the public tolerated graphic images if they reinforced French propaganda messages. The first part of the chapter addresses photographs of facial and bodily mutilations, arguing that only the latter gained public visibility because amputees could embody discourses of rehabilitation and recovery. The second part examines the SPA photographs of French dead bodies. Although only a few photographers took

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this kind of image, photographs of French victims were an essential element of the war archive. These images gave a material and visual body to the notion ‘Mort pour la France’, a legal status for the war dead that guaranteed rights to relatives such as pensions for widows and orphans. Finally, photographing German and French dead bodies helped amateur photographers to articulate their relationship to victims, materialising feelings such as grief or the duty to kill. Chapter 4 considers the close relationship between photographers, viewers, the war landscape and the dead. Years of fighting on the Western Front profoundly changed the French landscape. As a result, photographs of ruined villages and broken trees presented viewers with images that mobilised a new geographical imaginary of France dominated by the destruction of its natural and artistic patrimony. The SPA mobilised these images as part of its propaganda effort using the nationalist rhetoric of the ‘cult of the land and the dead’, presenting the destruction of fields and buildings as injuries to the collective French identity. Beyond representations, practising photography also helped combatants to develop a new sense of place. Doing photography on the front lines or consuming images from the home front helped combatants and civilians to reconstruct their relationship to the environment through different visual and tactile engagements. As the examples of stereoscopic and aerial photography reveal, key to this new relationship were the new ways of seeing afforded by photography. A key aspect in rebuilding a sense of place in the war landscape was the relationship between combatants and the dead. The many photographs of cemeteries and graves on the French fields were intended to reassure the population that the army was burying the dead. The comparison between these images and those taken by specialists reveal deeper sanitary concerns, bringing to light yet another perspective on the new geographical imagination of France. The final chapter explores the conditions under which photography made war events visible and the effects of this visibility. While making visible seems like the main function of photography, photographic visibility is in fact a complex operation reliant on social and cultural codes and which always involves making other things invisible. The dynamics between making visible and invisible

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and the effects that these operations had on the formation of collective war experiences become clear through the comparison of the photographic treatment of two case studies: missing soldiers and soldiers who died by suicide. Missing soldiers were invisible to the relatives who were searching for them, but their families made them visible by sending their portraits to magazines such as Sur le Vif. By publishing these photographic portraits, magazines incorporated the war missing into public narratives of the war, encouraging readers to become invested in the search for the missing soldiers. In contrast, there are almost no images of soldiers who died by suicide. This chapter argues that the photographic invisibility of suicide was not accidental but necessary to the whole photographic enterprise. Dying by suicide was a taboo, and men who took their own lives were not awarded the distinction ‘Mort pour la France’, as suicide was not considered an event provoked by the war. The photographic invisibility of suicide prevented the collective recognition of these men in public commemorations. The comparison between the invisibility of suicide and the publication of the portraits of the war missing in national magazines demonstrates that photographic visibility matters because of the practices and relationships that it enabled through the making, circulation and consumption of photographs. The conclusion brings all the themes of the book together by considering photographic practices as frames of experience. Photography created a framework that delimited what could be seen and experienced and what could not be seen and experienced. Making something visible involved a series of relationships (recording, feeling, embodying and placing) that acknowledged the fact that something or someone had existed as part of the war. In contrast, making invisible (not photographing) prevented those relationships, hindering the making of collective experiences. In sum, Picturing the Western Front aims to provide a historical and theoretical analysis of First World War photography that demonstrates the importance of photography not just as a provider of images, but mainly, as a practice that articulated individual and collective experiences.

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Notes 1 Voyaye de Noces. Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne, 5 PHO 131.1. Clémentine Vidal-​Naquet has retraced the names and life of the couple in Couples dans la Grande Guerre. Le tragique et l’ordinaire du lien conjugal (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2014), pp. 470–​483. Some images in this album have appeared in the exhibition ‘Amours en guerre’ curated by Clémentine Vidal-​Naquet at the Historial de la Grande Guerre, 19 May –​9 December 2018. 2 A complete list of the places shown in the album can be found in Vidal-​Naquet, Couples dans la Grande Guerre, p. 610. 3 ‘Bouquet d’arbres derrière lequel je me suis abrité quelques minutes alors que blessé je m’en allais au poste de secours’; ‘Trou d’obus où je me trouvais, probablement quand je reçus mon éclat d’obus à la mâchoire’; ‘Boqueteau vers lequel je me dirigeais quand j’ai été blessé à la figure’; ‘Berthe sur le talus du chemin de fer que je suivis pour aller vers l’arrière, et que battait sans repris l’artillerie allemande’; ‘L’entrée du poste de secours où j’ai été me faire panser en premier lieu’. Voyaye de Noces. 4 See Vidal-​Naquet, Couples dans la Grande Guerre, pp. 479–​483. See also B. Cabanes, La victoire endeuillée. La sortie de guerre des soldats français 1918–1920 (Paris: Seuil, 2014) and S. Audoin-​Rouzeau and C. Prochasson, Sortir de la Grande Guerre. Le monde et l’après-​1918 (Paris: Tallandier, 2015). 5 In France, this tradition started with Jean Norton Cru’s Témoins (Paris: Les Étincelles, 1929) and the shortened version Du Témoignage (Paris: Gallimard, 1930), see L. V. Smith, ‘Jean Norton Cru et la subjectivité de l’objectivité’, in J. J. Becker (ed.), Histoire Culturelle de la Grande Guerre (Paris: Armand Colin, 2005), pp. 89–​100. In cultural history, P. Fussel’s The Great War and Modern Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975) and P. Leed’s No Man’s Land. Combat and Identity in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) remain the classics. For approaches to the French war experience, see L. V. Smith, The Embattled Self. French Soldiers’ Testimony of the Great War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007); S. Audoin-Rouzeau, Cinq deuils de guerre 1914–1918 (Paris: Noesis, 2001) and C. Trevisan, Les fables du deuil. La Grande Guerre. Mort et écriture (Paris: Press Universitaires de France, 2001). See also M. Roper, The Secret Battle. Emotional Survival in the Great War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010). 6 See E. Edwards, ‘Photography and the Material Performance of the Past’, History and Theory, 48:4 (2009), 130–​ 150, and Edwards,

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‘Objects of Affect. Photography Beyond the Image’, The Annual Review of Anthropology, 41:1 (2012), 221–​234. 7 On the history of the invention of photography, see T. Sheehan and A. M. Zervigón (eds), Photography and its Origins (London/​ New York: Routledge, 2015). 8 E. A. McCauley, Industrial Madness. Commercial Photography in Paris, 1848–​1871 (New Haven/​London: Yale University Press, 1994); A. Gunthert, ‘Naissance de la Société française de la photographie’, in M. Poivert and C. Trouffléau (eds), L’utopie photographique (Paris: Le Point du Jour, 2004), pp. 14–​24. 9 T. Gervais, ‘Witness to War. The Uses of Photography in the Illustrated Press, 1855–​1904’, Journal of Visual Culture, 9:3 (2010), 370–​384. 10 D. E. English, The Political Uses of Photography in the French Third Republic, 1871–​1914 (Essex: Bowker Publishing Company, 1981). 11 F. Robertson, ‘Half-​Tone Printing and the Age of Photomechanical Reproduction’, in Print Culture. From Steam Press to eBook (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 78–​ 97; J. E. Hill and V. R. Schwartz (eds), Getting the Picture. The Visual Culture of the News (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). See also G. Belknap, From a Photograph. Authenticity, Science and the Periodical Press, 1870–​ 1890 (London: Bloomsbury, 2016) and T. Gervais, ‘Photographies de presse? Le journal L’Illustration à l’ère de la similigravure’, Études Photographiques, 16 (2005), 166–​181. 12 Photo-​Plait, 1914, p. 29. 13 Ibid., p. 26. 14 Brevet Hansen n° 434 877, 4 October 1911, ‘Cinématographe démontable pour applications multiples’. 15 N. West, Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia (Charlottesville/​ London: University of Virginia, 2000), see especially Chapter 6, ‘ “Let Kodak Keep the Story”. Narrative, Memory and the Selling of the Autographic Camera in World War I’, pp. 166–​199. 16 Photo-​Plait, 1916, p. 17. 17 See J. Carmichael, First World War Photographers (London: Routledge, 1989) and Chapter 1. 18 H. Guillot, ‘La section photographique de l’armée et la Grande Guerre. De la création à la non-​dissolution’, Revue Historique des Armées, 258 (2010), 110–​117 and Guillot, ‘Le métier de photographe militaire pendant la Grande Guerre’, Revue Historique des Armées, 265 (2011), 87–​102. 19 The main archives are the Médiathèque de l’Établissement de production audiovisuelle de la Défense (ECPAD), La Contemporaine, Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine (MAP), Historial de

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la Grande Guerre, Service Historique de la Défense (SHD), Musée du service de santé des armées, Val-de-Grâce and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF). 20 On the cultural work of iconic photographs, see R. Hariman and J. Lucaites, No Caption Needed. Iconic Photographs, Public Culture and Liberal Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 21 Carmichael, First World War Photographers. 22 See P. Roberson, ‘Canadian Photojournalism During the First World War’, History of Photography, 2:1 (1978), 37–​52; J. Taylor, War Photography. Realism in the British Press (London: Taylor & Francis, 1991); M. Griffin, ‘The Great War Photographs. Constructing Myths of History and Photojournalism’, in B. Brennen and H. Hardt (eds), Picturing the Past. Media, History and Photography (Urbana and Chicago: Illinois University Press, 1999), pp. 122–​ 157; M. Jolly, ‘Composite Propaganda Photographs During the First World War’, History of Photography, 27:2 (2003), 154–​165; R. Dixon, ‘ “Where are the Dead?” Spiritualism, Photography and the Great War’, History of Photography, 28:3 (2004), 247–​260; S. Callister, ‘Picturing Loss. Family, Photographs and the Great War’, The Round Table. The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 96:393 (2007), 663–​678; S. Remus, German Amateur Photographers in the First World War. A View from the Trenches on the Western Front (Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2008) and J. Court, ‘Picturing History, Remembering Soldiers. World War I Photography Between the Public and the Private’, History & Memory, 29:1 (2017), 72–​103, among others. 23 See, for instance, ‘Fotografie im Ersten Weltkrieg’, Museum für Fotografie, Berlin, 07/​11/​2014–​22/​03/​2015, curated by Ludger Derenthal and Stefanie Klamm; ‘The Great War: The Persuasive Character of Photography’, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 25/​ 06–​16/​11/​2014, curated by Ann Thomas and ‘Images Interdites de la Grande Guerre’, Centre Panthéon-​Sorbonne, Paris, 01–​23/​10/​2014, curated by Helène Guillot. 24 J. Beurier, ‘Voir ou ne pas voir la mort? Premières réflexions sur une approche de la mort dans la Grande Guerre’, in T. Blondet-​Bisch, R. Frank, L. Gervereau and A. Gunthert (eds), Voir, ne pas voir la guerre. Histoire des représentations photographiques de la guerre (Paris: Somogy, 2001), pp. 62–​ 69; Beurier, Images de violence. Quand le Miroir racontait la Grande Guerre … (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2007); Beurier, ‘L’apprentissage de l’événement’, Études Photographiques, 20 (2007), 68–​83; Beurier, ‘Information, Censorship or Propaganda? The Illustrated French Press in the First World War’, in H. Jones, J. O’Brien and C. Schmidt-​Suppran (eds), Untold War. New

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Perspectives in First World War Studies (Leiden/​Boston: Brill, 2008), pp. 293–​324; Beurier, 14–​18 Insolite. Albums-​photos de soldats au repose (Paris: Coédition du Nouveau Monde, 2014); and Beurier, Photographier la Grande Guerre. France-​ Allemagne. L’héroïsme et la violence dans les magazines (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016). 25 See S. Audoin-​ Rouzeau, Un regard sur la Grande Guerre. Photographies inédites du soldat Marcel Felser (Paris: Larousse, 2002); P. Minvielle, La guerre de mon père. Un photographe dans les tranchées, 1914–​1918 (Anglet: Atlantica, 2004); and J. Moreau, 1914–​1918, nous étions des homes (Paris: Martinière, 2004). 26 Guillot, ‘La section photographique de l’armée’; Guillot, ‘Le métier de photographe militaire pendant la Grande Guerre’; Guillot, ‘Photographier la Grande Guerre. Les soldats de la mémoire’ (PhD thesis, Université Paris I Pathéon Sorbonne, 2012); and Guillot, Les soldats de la mémoire. La section photographique de l’armée, 1915–​ 1919 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2017). 27 Audoin-​Rouzeau, Un regard sur la Grande Guerre, p. 15. 28 Beurier, 14–​18 Insolite, p. 10. 29 J. Winter, ‘Photographing War. Soldiers’ Photographs and the Revolution in Violence since 1914’, in War Beyond Words. Languages of Remembrance from the Great War to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 35–​68. See also J. Court, ‘Picturing History, Remembering Soldiers. 30 See L. Jordanova, The Look of the Past. Visual and Material Evidence in Historical Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), E. Edwards and J. Hart (eds), Photographs, Objects, Histories. On the Materiality of Photography (London: Routledge, 2004) and J. Tucker, ‘Entwined Practices. Engagements with Photography in Historical Inquiry’, History & Theory, 48:4 (2009), 1–​8. 31 E. Edwards and J. Hart (eds), Photographs, Objects, Histories, p. 4. 32 See E. Edwards, ‘Thinking Photography Beyond the Visual?’, in J. J. Long, A. Noble and E. Welch (eds), Photography. Theoretical Snapshots (London: Routledge, 2009). 33 Edwards and Hart, Photographs, Objects, Histories, p. 4. 34 Ariella Azoulay considers this set of rules and expectations ‘the civil contract of photography’, in A. Azoulay, The Civil Contract of Photography (New York: Zone Books, 2008). 35 C. Pinney and N. Peterson (eds), Photography’s Other Histories (Durham, NC/​London: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 14. 36 B. Latour, Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-​ Network-​Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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37 J. L. Hevia, ‘The Photography Complex. Exposing Boxer-​ Era China (1900–​ 1901), Making Civilisation’, in R. C. Morris (ed.), Photographies East. The Camera and its Histories in East and Southeast Asia (Durham, NC/​London: Duke University Press, 2009), pp. 79–​119. 38 R. Barthes, Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography. Trans. R. Howard (New York: Hill & Wang, 1980); S. Sontag, On Photography (New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1977); Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003). 39 Hevia, ‘The Photography Complex’, p. 81. 40 On the instability of assemblages, see Latour, Reassembling the Social, p. 12. 41 Edwards, ‘Objects of Affect’, p. 223; Hevia, ‘The Photography Complex’, p. 81. 42 J. Horne, ‘End of a Paradigm? The Cultural History of the Great War’, Past & Present, 242:1 (2019), 155–​192. 43 Ibid., p. 165. 44 A. Prost and J. Winter, ‘Three Historiographical Configurations’, in J. Winter and A. Prost (eds), The Great War in History. Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 29. 45 French historiography in the early 2000s mostly approached the question of experience through the lens of the debate on consent and ‘culture the guerre’. See P. Purseigle, ‘A Very French Debate. The 1914–​1918 “War Culture” ’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 1:1 (2008), 9–​14 and L. V. Smith, ‘The “culture de guerre” and French Historiography of the Great War of 1914–​1918’, History Compass, 5:6 (2007), 1967–​1979. 46 See, for instance, S. Audoin-​Rouzeau Cinq deuils de guerre 1914–​ 1918; A. Prost, Les anciens combattants et la société française (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale de Sciences Politiques, 1977); H. Jones, Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World War. Britain, France and Germany, 1914–​1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); M. Pignot, Allons enfants de la patrie: génération Grande Guerre (Paris: Seuil, 2012); and M. H. Darrow, French Women and the First World War. War Stories of the Home Front (Oxford/​New York: Berg, 2000). 47 Norton Cru, Témoins. 48 Smith, ‘Jean Norton Cru et la subjectivité de l’objectivité’. 49 Horne, ‘End of a Paradigm?’, pp. 171–​176.

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50 J. Winter, Remembering the War. The Great War Between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century (New Haven/​London: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 3–​6. See also E. Sivan and J. Winter, War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 51 See, among others, J. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning. The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); D. Sherman, ‘Bodies and Names. The Emergence of Commemoration in Interwar France’, The American Historical Review, 103:2 (1998), 443–​466; Sherman, The Construction London: University of of Memory in Interwar France (Chicago/​ Chicago Press, 1999); T. Laqueur, ‘Names, Bodies and the Anxiety of Erasure’, in T. R. Schatzki and W. Natter (eds), The Social and Political Body (London/​New York: Guilford Press, 1996); G. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers. Reshaping the Memory of the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); and G. Koureas, Memory, Masculinity and National Identity in British Visual Culture, 1914–​ 1930 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). 52 C. Prochasson, 1914–​1918. Retour d’expériences (Paris: Tallandier, 2008); L. V. Smith, ‘France, the Great War and the “Return to Experience” ’, The Journal of Modern History, 88:2 (2016), 380–​415. 53 Audoin-​Rouzeau and Becker even characterise it as the ‘tyranny of the witness’ in S. Audoin-​Rouzeau and A. Becker, 14–​18. Understanding the Great War. Trans. C. Temerson (New York: Hill & Wang, 2002), p. 39. 54 M. Jay, Songs of Experience. American and European Variations on a Universal Theme (Berkeley/​Los Angeles/​London: University of California Press, 2005). 55 J. W. Scott, ‘The Evidence of Experience’, Critical Inquiry, 17:4 (1991), 773–​779, at p. 779. 56 Smith, The Embattled Self, p. 7. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 Scott, ‘The Evidence of Experience’, p. 797. 60 R. Boddice, A History of Feelings (London: Reaktion Books, 2019); Boddice, ‘The Developing Brain as Historical Artefact’, Developmental Psychology, 55:9 (2019), 1994–​1997. 61 W. Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling. A Framework for the History of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); M. Scheer, ‘Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (and is That What Makes Them Have a History)? A Bourdieuian Approach to Understanding Emotion’, History & Theory, 51:1 (2012), 193–​220; Boddice, ‘The

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Developing Brain’; D. Martin Moruno and B. Pichel (eds), Emotional Bodies. The Performativity of Emotions (Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2019). 62 Scheer, ‘Are Emotions a Kind of Practice?’; J. Labanyi, ‘Doing Things. Emotion, Affect, Materiality’, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 11:3–​4 (2010), 223–​233; S. Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (New York: Routledge, 2004).

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Figure 1.1  SPA Photographer photographing an injured British man in November 1916. Photograph taken by the British photographer John Warwick Brooke and preserved in the French archives.

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Recording: the photographic archive of the war The Battle of the Somme was coming to an end when an injured British combatant posed stoically in front of a camera (Figure 1.1).1 He had a bandage over his head and his uniform was still covered in dirt and mud. Appearing from behind the camera, the photographer was talking to him, possibly giving him instructions on how to pose or simply engaging in small talk to make the moment more comfortable. His clean uniform, different from the men in the background, denotes that he was not British but French. He worked for the SPA, the military photographic service created by the French government in 1915. Figure 1.1 presents the photograph as it was classified in the French military archives: mounted on a cardboard plate, under the topic ‘Bois d’Aveluy’ in the Album Valois dedicated to La Somme.2 The caption simply describes the scene as ‘Photographer from the French military cinematographic service photographing an injured British man’, but the top left corner provides more information.3 The reference ‘C.I. British official photo. (II.551)’ indicates that, even if it portrayed a French photographer, the image had been taken by a British photographer. This was John Warwick Brooke, the second photographer officially appointed to work on the Western Front by the British government.4 When war broke out in July 1914, men and women were ready to photograph it. An appetite for photography existed as newspapers and magazines increasingly included illustrations while the price and size of photographic cameras dropped. Yet, as the Western Front settled and both the military and civilians began to accept that the war would not be over quickly, it became clear that photography would play an important, if potentially dangerous, role. Photography could provide useful documents of the different stages of the war, but the massive circulation of images could

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Picturing the Western Front

inadvertently share key details of positions and weaponry with the enemy, compromising military missions. With a growing photographic market and a robust industry, it would seem that France was well positioned to organize photography on the front lines in a swift and effective way. Yet, it was not until May 1915 that the French government decided to officially allow some photographers to operate on the war fronts. Almost a year later, in March 1916, the British government sent the first official photographer to the Western Front, the photojournalist Ernest Brooks.5 Following the efforts of Wellington House, which wanted to increase the amount of visual documentation that could be used for propaganda, the government appointed a second photographer (John Warwick Brooke) in July, with others following in 1917.6 Allied countries such as Canada and Australia sent their first photographers in April and November 1916 respectively.7 By 1917, most countries had deployed official photographers on the war fronts, but the ways in which they organised the photographic enterprise differed. The creation of an entirely new photographic service, instead of hiring photographers on an individual basis, marked the way in which photographers worked in France. The Section photographique de l’armée (SPA), which became the Section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée in 1917 (SPCA) to integrate moving images, was a complex organisation that employed photographers, filmmakers, laboratory technicians, administrators and archivists. The SPA centralised all the photographic operations: from hiring and sending photographers to the front lines to developing the glass plates and films, distributing photographic prints and storing and classifying images in the archives. Setting up a whole new photographic service involved investing in photographers’ salaries, transportation and accommodation, as well as photographic equipment. Photography was expensive but it also became a source of profit. Buying photographic supplies from national companies gave a boost to the damaged French economy, and selling prints to the press reported monetary benefits. War photography became a profitable business that justified the existence of such a complex service in a time of scarcity. In conjunction with the creation of the SPA, the French government forbade private photography in military areas as of August

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1915.8 This prohibition affected all amateur and professional photographers who were not working for the SPA, the press or other institutions. Yet, French authorities never issued a total ban on photography. Citizens and combatants could still apply for a three-​ month permission to take images in war zones, under the condition of keeping the documents private.9 The main aim of the 1915 law was not to suppress photography altogether, as both military and governmental authorities believed in the benefits that a good use of photography could bring. The prohibition of private photography on military areas, as well as the creation of the SPA, sought to control photography. As military authorities soon realised, even more important than having control over the content of the images was monitoring the distribution of the photographs. Rather than regulating what could and could not be photographed, the French determined who could practice photography, when and where. To increase the military control over the photographic production, the French government also created the military archives of the war. Mirroring the activity of the Service des monuments historiques (SMH) and other nineteenth-​century projects, the military archive became central to the organisation, functioning and activity of the SPA. The archive became much more than the mere physical space housing photographs. The ways in which archivists collected photographs, classified them according to geographical and thematic categories and the captions they wrote created a framework to interpret the photographs. The aim of the archive, therefore, was not just to preserve images but to actively create historical meaning. The history of the creation and organisation of the SPA is a history of the ‘documentary impulse’ among French combatants and civilians during the war.10 The SPA aspired to provide a complete picture of the war, and the archive became central to this project.11 Recording and classifying the war events became a means to define by visual means what the war was, and the position of the French in relation to the conflict. Amateur photographers also manifested a desire to record their war experience, sending applications to the relevant authorities to continue to take images for private use. Photographic records, therefore, played a key role in the construction of public narratives of the war, giving shape to collective experiences of the front lines and home front.

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The Section photographique (et cinématographique) de l’armée (SPCA) and the pursuit of control The history of official French war photography began on 10 March 1915, when the Ministère des affaires étrangères (Foreign Office) realised that photographs of war destruction had a great propagandistic potential. Apparently, according to foreign colleagues, ‘the publication or exhibition of these documents is considered desirable in order to act upon the opinion of the neutral countries’.12 Théophile Delcassé, from the Ministère des affaires étrangères (Foreign Office), then contacted Albert Dalimier, sous-secrétaire d’État aux Beaux-Arts, Ministère de l’instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts (undersecretary of Fine Arts), as photographers working for his department had been capturing damaged monuments since the mid-​nineteenth century. In his letter, Delcassé asked if ‘it would be interesting to extend this photographic survey’ to all war destruction, as photographs ‘would be very useful for the dissemination of the most interesting or striking evidences, let alone the documentary and likely pedagogic interest of such a collection’.13 In return, he offered ‘to facilitate their reproduction in journals, magazines, albums, postcards, etc., and exhibitions in libraries abroad’.14 Some days later, Dalimier confirmed that ‘the Service des monuments historiques (SMH), which has already started a similar task but limited to the classified buildings, seems to me the most adequate administration to carry out the work that you request’.15 Willing to organise the photographic enterprise promptly, Dalimier’s letter urged Delcassé to provide him with further instructions. He also suggested contacting the Ministère de la guerre (War Office) in order to obtain ‘the agents of execution, the necessary means of transportation and the widest circulation facilities’.16 In a meeting between the Ministère des affaires étrangères, the Ministère de la guerre and the Ministère de l’instruction publique et des BeauxArts, French authorities agreed to create a new military photographic section, independent from the existing SMH and similar to Section cinématographique de l’armée (SCA) created in February 1915 by the Ministère de la guerre.17 The new photographic service was established under two conditions. Firstly, photographers and laboratory technicians should belong to the military for the sake of discipline and surveillance. Secondly, the photographs

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would not only serve propagandistic aims, but they would also be ‘useful to the Ministère de la guerre for setting up its documentary Archives’.18 The official correspondence between Delcassé and Dalimier in March 1915 marked the creation of the first military photographic service in France, the SPA.19 These early documents already prefigure some of the main characteristics that later defined the service. Firstly, the SPA depended on three different offices: the Ministère des affaires étrangères, the Ministère de l’instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts and the Ministère de la guerre. Each of them played a different role in the organisation, which allowed a fair distribution of manpower and resources. The Ministère des affaires étrangères was in charge of distributing the documents among neutral and Allied countries, the Ministère de l’instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts provided the laboratories at 3 Rue de Valois in Paris and photographic equipment, and the Ministère de la guerre took care of the expenses related to the transportation of photographers and their salaries.20 Secondly, while the most pressing reason to create a photographic service was the dissemination of propagandistic images in neutral countries, the official correspondence demonstrates that propaganda was never the sole factor. Delcassé defended a photographic ‘survey’ as having a ‘documentary’ and a ‘pedagogic’ value, and the Ministère de la guerre agreed to the creation of a photographic service only if archives accompanied it. Photographs became, at the same time, rhetorical devices that supported visual propaganda and documents that bore evidence of the war events. Only two months after the initial letter, on 8 May 1915, the Bureau des Informations à la Presse (Press Bureau) announced the ‘creation of a military service and a military laboratory of photography’.21 Pierre Marcel Lévi, former professor at the Parisian École des Beaux Arts, became the head of both the SPA and the photographic laboratory.22 The instruction also specified that the service would comprise seven photographers and six laboratory technicians. The following day, 9 May 1915, the General Commandant in Chief (GCC) informed the generals in charge of each division that he ‘had authorised the creation of a photographic service in the Army’.23 This announcement consolidated the main interests of the SPA: keeping records of the historical and artistic devastation, producing propagandistic documents and building the archives of

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military operations. The GCC notice established that photographers should portray ‘anything that could be interesting’: 1st From an historical point of view (destruction, ruins …)

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2nd From the point of view of visual propaganda (propagande par l’image) in the neutral countries 3rd From the point of view of military operations in order to constitute the documentary archives of the Ministère de la guerre.24

The SPA remained faithful to these principles over the years. Yet, their actual implementation proved to be problematic because these broad aims established the future use of photographs instead of indicating what the content of the images should be. They justified the existence of a photographic service and provided guidelines to the photographers on the field but when photographers tried to put them into practice, their boundaries blurred. For instance, photographs of churches in ruins materialised the first objective (destruction of historical monuments) but also became propagandistic material, fulfilling the second aim. More importantly, the military archives collected all the photographs. No essential differences thus existed between photographs intended to implement the second aim (propaganda) and those taken with the third aim in mind (military history). With the overlap between the three objectives, further instructions on what to photograph and how were similarly vague. The 9 May GCC announcement also specified the composition of the new photographic service. Due to the national interest and strategic value of the SPA, the recruitment of photographers was more problematic than initially expected. To guarantee a fair selection of photographers that did not benefit only the biggest or most renowned photo studios, the SPA stated photographers should belong to the French photography union Chambre Syndicale de la Photographie (CSP). The CSP included most of the studios in France. However, the SPA hired photographers from only four firms considered as representative of members of the CSP (Vitry, Valois, Vaillant and Gorce). They also hired a photographer from the Maison Manuel, which did not belong to the CSP but was too big to be left out. These five studios would be in charge of the taking, selling and reproduction of photographs, and each of them appointed one photographer.

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The arrangement proved unsatisfactory for both the CSP and the military authorities. As Helène Guillot has argued, the agreement could not work because there was an ‘incompatibility’ between ‘the uniform’ and the ‘financial gain of private studios’.25 The contract signed in May left the studios in an ambiguous situation in which private and state funding intermingled. While photographic studios lent the equipment and paid for the laboratory material, they were able to claim the expenses back from the Ministère de l’instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts. Equally, the studios hired the photographers, but their salaries came from the Ministère de la guerre, and military authorities decided where they would work and the views they should take. More importantly, the studios kept the right to trade with the photographs they produced, selling them to individuals and newspapers. Therefore, the state ultimately funded the SPA, but the sale of photographs generated private gains for the firms. This situation was problematic for the military as well as the general public, which condemned war profiteering.26 The benefits of the sale provoked an important discussion between the CSP and the SPA, as both claimed rights over the photographic production. The disagreement obviously posed the question of who owned the photographs: the SPA, which funded the photographic enterprise, or the studio firms that provided cameras and photographers. One of the ways to set the intellectual property rights was the use of captions. According to the contract, the photographs taken by the SPA ‘will not have any signs of the photographic studio. The caption will be only the subject matter of the image followed by the label “Service photographique des armées.” An identification number will be added in order to recognise the author’.27 However, many studios published and sold the photographs under their own signatures, contravening the law.28 Branding the photographs was problematic because it challenged the uniformity of the visual discourse, as it associated war images with private companies. Moreover, signatures highlighted the fact that not all French photographic companies belonged to the CSP, and that important firms had been left out. This situation provoked numerous criticisms, as studios denounced the privilege of a very few companies which were profiting from the business of military photography, but which were not representative of the whole of French photography.29

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To make matters worse, the four companies that had signed the contract with the SPA on behalf of the CSP had had trouble finding photographers. Not only had they provided only five of the seven photographers required, but some of the studios had been accused of corruption and nepotism. The only photographer sent by Maison Gorce was the son of the company’s director, and Valois had nominated the owner’s son-​ in-​ law. As Contrôleur adjoint (deputy controller of the army) Jaillet noted in his 1917 SPA report, these appointments raised the suspicion that studios only sought financial profit.30 Even the head of the SPA, Pierre Marcel Lévi, faced accusations of pursuing private benefit rather than the public good.31 For Dalimier, these commercial disputes jeopardised the SPA’s aim of ‘pure documentation’ and therefore called for rescinding the contract with the CSP.32 The hiring of photographers also raised another problem. According to the Dalbiez law, passed on August 1915, only the military belonging to the auxiliary service (that is, not considered fit for fighting) could work as photographers for the SPA.33 This law was intended to guarantee that only military personnel would penetrate into the conflict zones, and that no fit men would be wasted on auxiliary services. Three out of the five photographers provided by these studios had been considered fit for service, and therefore had to return to the front lines. By September 1915, only Frédéric Gadmer (Vitry) and Edouard Brissy (Vaillant) remained as SPA photographers.34 Business and military concerns over the control of both photographers and the photographic production provoked the termination of the contract between the SPA and the CSP on 2 September 1915.35 After the split between the SPA and the CSP, the photographs already taken remained the property of the photographic studios, and the SPA would return censored photographs as soon as they no longer fell under restrictions. Equally, the SPA would return all the photographic equipment to the CSP before 1 November 1915.36 Following the ending of the CSP contract, the Ministère de la guerre and the Ministère de l’instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts would now split the duties in relation to the hiring, salaries, equipment and mobility of the SPA personnel. The Ministère de la guerre started to liaise directly with the SPA personnel, while the general quarters facilitated the mobility of the photographers.37 For its part, the Ministère de l’instruction

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publique et des Beaux-Arts became responsible for the accommodation of the photographers as well as the administration of the SPA budget.38 Two years later, the Section cinématographique de l’armée (SCA) and the filmmakers’ union (Chambre Syndicale de la Cinématographique, CSC) and the four main film companies in the country (Gaumont, Pathé, Eclipse and Éclair) also terminated their contract on 24 February 1917.39 In March 1917, the SPA and the SCA combined into one organisation, the Section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée (SPCA). The newly created SPCA aimed ‘to gather a complete documentation of the war industry, the national activity, the navy, the devastated regions, the destroyed historical monuments, the news, etc. in summary, everything that is directly or indirectly related to the war’.40 The memorandum defined the new SPCA as consisting of  the services of ‘the General Administration, the services at the army, the technical services and the laboratory, the dissemination and sale of photographs, the dissemination and sale of films, the archive and the service of cine-​cantonnement and the cine-​regions’.41 The labour conditions of photographers and filmmakers, as well as the organisation of the laboratory and the archives remained the same. Photographers and filmmakers joined particular units according to military needs, often photographing and filming together, and sent the glass plates and films to the laboratories in Paris to develop and print positive copies. The SPCA continued sending copies of all the photographs and films to the censorship committee, which belonged to the Bureau des informations à la presse. Established in February 1915 as the intermediary between the government and the press, the Bureau des informations à la presse aimed to ‘provide information about the impact of military operations, indicating the way in which they should be commented upon’ and to ‘support propaganda abroad by multiple means: telegrams, radio-​telegrams, refuting German dispatches and journals, etc.’.42 In line with these objectives, the censorship committee prevented the dissemination of sensitive military or political information. Framed within the discourse of the ‘Union Sacrée’ promoted by French president Raymond Poincaré as a means to unify the country against the enemy, Oliver Forcade has argued that ‘a more pragmatic “preventive censorship” of information (what it is hidden) and systematic propaganda (what it

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supposed to be believed)’ turned, in a few months, into a ‘methodical “information system” that related censorship and propaganda in subtle ways’.43 In this way, censorship became ‘a privileged tool to control public opinion’.44 The committee reviewed all the photographs produced by the SPA but, as Guillot and Beurier have shown, it was never too effective as it was down to the individual to judge whether a particular image was apt for public consumption or not.45 According to Guillot, only 8 per cent of the SPA images were censored, the majority because they revealed strategic military information.46 Only a minority of photographs fell under censorship regulations for showing French cadavers, as Chapter 3 discusses.47 The SPCA gained ‘absolute and exclusive control’ over all personnel, included photographers, laboratory technicians and ­archivists.48 The centralised model imposed in September 1915 and reinforced in 1917 continued until the dissolution of the SPA in 1921.49 The SPA progressively increased the number of photographers, technicians and archivists working for it. The unification of the SPA and the SCA only introduced stronger control over photographic and cinematographic practices and the unification of the archives. A centralised production relied on only one organisation to ensure that still and moving images sent the same message. Underpinning this reorganisation was the idea that the visual production had to be a consistent whole.50 Consistency was not achieved through explicit guidelines that described what to photograph or film and how, but rather through systems of distribution, classification and storage.

The SPA at work: organisation, equipment and business The SPA was a complex organisation which depended on several departments and employed people in different roles (photographers, technicians, administrators and archivists) in multiple spaces (the war fronts, the laboratories and the archives). All these people coordinated with each other not through images, but through material networks such as the glass plates the photographers sent to the laboratories and the prints the laboratories sent to the archives. The creation of an official photographic service involved

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the mobilisation of state, military and private resources. It was an economic investment in a time of scarcity, as well as a source of revenue. The role different governmental departments played in the constitution of the SPA and their responsibilities vis-​à-​vis photographers, equipment and offices shows how deeply ingrained photography became in the state and the military. Working for the SPA was not a bad option for professional and keen photographers during the war. By November 1915 it consisted of ‘four strictly military operators, two operators from private firms, fourteen photographers in charge of the laboratory, seven office employees, three archivists and four operators that have been requested to replace the four operators sent back to the army in application of the law of the 17 August 1915’.51 The number of photographers grew over the years to 27 by 1917.52 All the photographers belonged to the military auxiliary services and received compensation of 2.5 francs per day, regardless of whether they had been sent to the front or remained in Paris, and had permission to sleep in town whenever possible.53 The attractiveness of the job is clear in the many voluntary applications the SPA received in which photographers related their background and accomplishments.54 According to Guillot, the most successful candidacies came from photographers who had studied at the École des Beaux Arts (where SPA director Marcel Lévi had taught before the war), had worked as technicians at Lumière & Jougla (the company owned by SPA under-​ secretary Joseph Jougla) or had recommendations from renowned personalities such as Albert Kahn.55 In spite of the volume of applications, the recruitment of photographers was not without problems. A 1917 report on the SPA recognised the difficulty of finding men who ‘perfectly know their job but also have a sense of the current agenda and a sufficient amount of tact to be well received by officers, despite their lack of stripes’.56 Colonel Jaillet, the author of a report on the SPA in 1917, proposed to change the Dalbiez law and its complementary Meurier law (August 1917), so that not only military personnel of the auxiliary service could work as SPA photographers and filmmakers.57 His proposal was not successful, and the problems of recruitment remained throughout the war. Another aspect the SPA had to solve after the break with the CSP in 1915 was the provisioning of photographic equipment, which

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had previously fell under the studios’ responsibilities. Generally, the SPA rented photographic and cinematographic cameras for 100 francs per month from both companies and individuals, such as the photographers Achille Desboutin, Alexandre Goestchel and Albert Samama-​Chikli, who worked as a filmmaker at the SPA.58 Both Desboutin and Goestchel offered one of the most famous devices in France, the Gaumont Spido camera with a Zeiss shutter, which worked with glass plates of 9 × 12cm.59 While the price was stable over the years (100 francs per month), the invoices indicate that the SPA normally rented cameras for a period of three months, suggesting that they were intended to cover particular needs. The range of brands reflected the preferences of photographers and filmmakers, who were allowed to continue using the same equipment as before the war.60 As a consequence, photographers and filmmakers on the field used equipment that was not fit for purpose because it had been designed for studio use. Cameras such as the Gaumont were heavy and, even if they did not need a tripod, constricted the mobility of the photographer, who had to stand still to prevent any movement that would result in a blurred image. The use of glass plates instead of film not only added more weight to photographers’ bags, but also limited the number of shots that photographers could take, as cameras could only charge 12 plates at most. Once on the front lines, photographers and filmmakers were under military rule.61 The SPA assigned them to a particular military unit for a limited period, and the generals in charge of the sections would determine the scenes photographers had to portray in relation to the military information that they wanted to keep or hide. Figure 1.2, for instance, shows the collaboration between an SPA photographer and a French officer in Réchésy in 1916.62 The photograph was surely staged for the camera, but it still exemplifies how photographers operated on the front. The image presents two men discussing a piece of paper. One of them is wearing the French military uniform and holding a rifle, while the other one wears a different uniform and is carrying several small bags. The uniforms and the accessories point out who is who in the image: the man with the bags was the photographer, while the man with the rifle was the officer. Accordingly, the officer was holding the paper while

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Figure 1.2  SPA photographer and a military officer discussing instructions in March 1916.

the photographer was leaning into it, trying to understand the instructions being given to him. Regardless of whether this scene was staged or not, the image illustrates how SPA photographers came to take the photographs the way they did. All SPA photographers were experienced photographers who had studied fine arts or worked in studios. This means that they had their own style and their own ways to approach subjects. As SPA photographers, however, they were not and could not be subjective. They had to implement the state’s vision of the war and generate a consistent photographic production. Photographers therefore had to negotiate between their own artistic and photographic tendencies and what the SPA, the government and the military expected of them.63 In order to guide photographers and filmmakers in the field, Lieutenant Colonel Dupuis, head of the Bureau des informations à la presse, issued an instruction on 1 November 1915.64 Defined by archivist Thérèse Blondet-​Bisch as a ‘great nationalist discourse’, the document urged photographers to demonstrate that the French army was ‘not inferior, in any aspect, to the enemy’s army’.65

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Divided into three sections, the memo specified the themes photographers and filmmakers should capture in relation to the three SPA objectives (propaganda, general history and military archives). Dupuis’ instruction was an important document because the SPA general aims had not provided instructions regarding the content of the images, only indicating the purpose of the images. This November 1915 document was the state’s best attempt to define what photographers should picture at the front lines. In relation to the first aim, which established that the SPA should generate documents that could serve as visual propaganda in France and among neutral countries, Dupuis’ recommendation was To multiply the parades of all armies, in particular the artillery, divisions, parades of infantry, cavalry and engineers, displays of artillery, aviation and aerostations, armoured trains and prisoners, etc... etc... which gives the impression of material strength [as well as] scenes showing the good state and organisation of our troops, facilities, functioning of food supply and health services, organisation inside trenches and shelters, abundance of ammunition, etc.66

Dupuis’ instruction insisted that propaganda photographs should show anything that proved ‘material or moral power’ by means of ‘multiplying the parades, etc.’. The interpretation of the first line is ambiguous today, and it might have been ambiguous at the time. On the one hand, Mark Levitch has argued that the instruction was intended to multiply the objects represented, with photographs showing large numbers of soldiers marching, weapons and prisoners.67 ‘To multiply’, however, can refer to the number of views taken. In this sense, what would give a sense of material strength were the multiplication of photographs of the artillery and German prisoners, regardless of the number of subjects and objects represented in the photographs. Both interpretations fit with the photographic production of the SPA, with Figure 1.3 as an example.68 Reproduced in an SPA album published in 1917, the page showed several images of groups of prisoners, highlighting the sheer number of them. In this case, the propagandistic aim was fulfilled by multiplying both the subjects represented in the image (prisoners) and the photographs of this subject matter in SPA publications.

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Figure 1.3  German prisoners in a French camp as depicted in the SPA album 1917: La victoire prochaine du droit, p. 12.

Dupuis’ instruction also provided guidelines for photographers taking images that could fulfil the general or artistic history aim of the SPA, recommending that In the areas earlier invaded or bombed by the enemy, we should methodically record the destruction of civil or religious monuments and come back periodically to important centres such as Arras, Soissons and Reims in order to note the successive damage from different periods of bombing. Photographers will take different angles of the monuments in order to allow the complete reconstruction of their appearance on these various dates.69

Documenting the destruction of the monuments was a way to keep a record of the extent of damages from the war, which would help facilitate future reconstruction tasks. This use of photographs followed the model of the SMH, which had embarked on a similar project some years earlier. Following Dupuis’ instruction,

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photographers often took several images of the ruins of historical and religious monuments, documenting both internal and external damage. As Chapter 4 will discuss, the SPA not only photographed monuments that had been identified for their historical or artistic value carefully, also documenting villages in ruins and devastated fields. Finally, Dupuis asked photographers and filmmakers to create a military history of the war by investigating ‘panoramas, as well as views of the trenches and shelters or the enemy’s positions, to capture the different aspects of the battlefields from the beginning of the operations, to record scenes of food provisions, health service, to photograph the [military] material themselves’.70 The instruction tried to include everything that was directly or indirectly related to the war effort because the war archive classified all the photographs. All of the SPA images, therefore, fell under the ‘history of the war’. While this part of the instruction was necessarily vague in relation to the content of the image, its purpose was clear. Dupuis stated that photographs and films should ‘in a word, fix in images the general characteristics of each of the various stages of the war so that in the future, the historian can precisely evoke the essential facts of this war’.71 In line with the aims of the war archive, photographs should work as records that visually documented the war events for posterity. As important as the images were the captions. The dispute with the CSP had demonstrated that captions were essential to the SPA project because the military affiliation of the photographers and the ownership of both the photographic prints and the images went hand in hand. The military did not allow photographers to sign the photographs with their own name and surname, so the SPA assigned them individual identification letters. The images received captions such as ‘SPA 13X 464’, where 13 stands for the series, X for the photographer (Jacques Aigé in this case) and 464 for the number of the image in the series.72 Dupuis had also asked photographers to provide additional data such as ‘the object to which [the photograph] refers, the orientation of the photographed or filmed spot in relation to the photographer, the (approximate) distance between the photographed object and the photographer and the day and time when the image was taken’.73 However, preserved notebooks

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and documents attest to the failure to adhere to these instructions. When the photographers were in Paris, they often had to visit the archives in order to ‘allow the correct printing’ of their documents, providing more information in case it was missing.74 Marcel Lévi had to issue another note on 6 July 1917 to remind photographers to follow the abovementioned instructions.75 In it, he complained that captions were often incomplete, missing essential pieces of information such as dates and places, and that the orthography was also very poor. Although the note advised that ‘the photographers who do not proceed according to the rules would be subjected to rigorous measures’, the preserved documents do not provide evidence that this practice improved.76 The centrality of the war archive should not obscure the fact that, if SPA photographs were viewed, it is because they were bought and sold.77 An economic transaction mediated the access to the images, photographers received a salary, and their equipment cost money. The establishment and functioning of a photographic service increased Ministère de la guerre expenses, but it also reported economic benefits. For instance, the SPA had an agreement to send images available for publication in the British press to the British company Newspaper Illustrations Ltd every week. The reproduction rights cost 7 shillings per image, which guaranteed an income of £125 per week.78 By July 1917, the sale of photographs to journals and individuals amounted to 425,263.80 francs.79 Both military and commercial reasons, therefore, provided the motivation for a stronger centralisation of the SPA as war photography had become a propagandistic issue as much as a business. The SPA photography was an activity deeply embedded into the French war economy. Economic constraints determined not only the procedures of hiring photographers, but also the choice of photographic suppliers. In spite of the long photographic tradition in France, by the outbreak of war the French photographic industry had experienced a decline. Germany led the international market of chemicals, lenses and shutters, while the United States dominated the market of ordinary cameras.80 Importing photographic materials became a problem when, on 27 September 1914, a new law forbade commercial relationships with the enemy.81 While German products were technologically superior, French photographers had

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to rely on national and Allied industries to supply photographic equipment.82 The invoices preserved at the Mediathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine (MAP) indicate a trade dominated by French companies and not compromised by commerce with American corporations.83 The MAP collection is not complete and only covers the business from 1917 but it offers a glimpse of the expenses which the SPA incurred, the products they bought and the brands they favoured. In relation to film rolls, for instance, the invoices attest to larger payments to the American company Kodak (a total of 63,111.95 francs) than to national companies Pathé Frères (13,000 francs) and Éclair (1,837.5 francs), even if Pathé Frères offered better prices (0.45 francs per metre) than Kodak (0.50 francs per metre in 1917, and 0.70 francs per metre in 1918).84 Although the business with Pathé Frères was smaller than with Kodak, it nonetheless contributed to the growth of the company and, therefore, the growth of the national economy. In fact, supporting French companies became an important element of the SPA.85 The case of Pathé Frères in particular is significative of the impact of the SPA in the photographic business. Richard Abel has characterised Pathé Frères as the leading pre-​war French film company, which ‘industrialised’ cinema and internationalised the industry, opening subsidiary offices in foreign countries including the United States and cinemas all around France.86 In addition, Pathé Frères had started to produce its own negative film in 1911 in order to counteract the monopoly of Kodak, which supplied almost 90 per cent of the world’s negative film.87 According to Abel, internal documents at Pathé Frères in the 1920s reveal that ‘the production of film negative would become “the principal and most vital component” of Pathé Cinéma’s business all through its various reorganisations after the war’.88 The business with the SPA, and possibly with other photographers and studios in the same period, turned Pathé Frères into one of the key companies in the film industry in the interwar years. Supporting war photography became a way to support national businesses. Besides buying cameras from Eclipse, Marcel Matel, Gaumont and Éclair, and positive and negative film rolls and glass plates from E Crumière, Lumière & Jougla, Guilleminot, Pathé Frères, R Washington Morlot, Éclair and the Union Photographique Industrielle, the SPA invested in diverse photographic products.89 The laboratories needed chemicals, enlarging lanterns, lenses and

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shutters, boxes to preserve films and camera bags. The archives also needed stationery and typewriters, purchased from the Smith Premier Typewriter company in the United States. Finally, the SPA also paid for camera repairs to Guillon & Gratioulet and E Lorillon. The analysis of the organisation of SPA photographers on the field, the vague instructions they received from the Bureau des informations à la presse and the trade between SPA and national photographic companies demonstrates that history of the SPA is a visual history, as well as a history of material practices. While the SPA had been created with the aim of providing the war images to the archives and the press, as important as the content of the images was the bureaucratic organisation of the SPA. Controlling who became an SPA photographer, the places they could visit, the equipment they should use and the captions they had to write were essential activities for the good functioning of the SPA. As Chapter 2 will discuss, images alone did not necessarily communicate any messages: it was the framing of the images what made them meaningful. The organisation of the SPA in Paris and on the front lines precisely aimed to constitute a war photographic culture aligned with the interests of the French government.

Amateur photographers: regulations, permissions and photographic material The aim of creating a photographic and a film military service was to control photographers and the circulation of photographs. Both the military and the state wanted to avoid the production and distribution of visual information that could be useful for the enemy or counterproductive in relation to national and international propaganda. It should not be surprising, then, that the military banned private photography on the front lines in conjunction with the creation of the SPA and the SCA in 1915. This ban, however, was never total. The government recognised that images taken by combatants and civilians might have documentary or personal value. In consequence, it established a system for granting temporary permissions to those who requested it, with the condition that they would not make the images public. Regulating, rather than forbidding, the practice of photography in military zones reveals both the hopes

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and the fears military authorities had about photography, which they viewed as either a valuable or a threatening activity depending on who did it. The first document to regulate private photography appeared on 4 August 1915. In instruction number 6550, Chef d’Etat-​Major Desticker established that both civilians and the military were forbidden to carry or use photographic cameras unless they were in possession of an authorisation.90 The instruction specified authorisations would be valid only for one month and exclusively in the area requested.91 This regulation went into effect on 15 August 1915, but only applied to the area belonging to the 36th Corps. Months later, on 13 March 1916, Major Général H. Janin wrote to the Grand Quartier Général (GQG) to warn about the ‘serious inconvenience’ of the circulation of images between the front lines and the home front.92 Quoted at length by historians Jean-​Marie Linsolas and Beurier, this document reiterated the prohibition of photography on the front lines unless photographers had the authorisation of the GCC, as well as sending images from the front that carry ‘useful information for the enemy’ to the home front and developing and printing photographs taken in militarised regions.93 It also established that any infraction would be treated as a spying matter and therefore judged at a military court.94 After Janin’s directive, the government issued additional directives on 22 and 24 March, 15 April and 10 November 1916.95 The 24 March letter expanded on some aspects of the directive N. 6550, forbidding the delivery of images representing ‘war material such as defensive organisation, military facilities and artillery shots, and in general, any photograph that can provide useful information to the enemy. It is also forbidden to send plates or films to develop’ by post.96 Equally, the directive stated the images allowed to circulate should avoid any indication of the place where they had been taken. On 15 April 1916, Général Maurice Pellé made this regulation effective in the region of Chantilly. On 10 November, Pellé completed his previous instruction by adding a request to ‘send to the Press Service of the GQG, a copy of every photograph representing war scenes or landscapes, including date and title’.97 Despite these directives, both combatants and civilians took photographs and sent them to the home front and even the press. According to Evelyn Desbois this situation was possible because

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officers, who were more likely to own cameras, were also responsible for applying the restrictions against the use of photography.98 However, this explanation remains speculative. To understand why combatants and civilians took photographs in contravention of the prohibition, the key is to focus not on the restriction and the punishment but on the authorisations. All these directives forbade photography unless photographers had explicit authorisation from the GQG. It could seem that the authorisations were actually difficult to obtain or that they would only be granted to professional photographers. However, this was not the case. The Service historique de la Défense (SHD) preserves more than 200 authorisations granted in 1916 alone, and just in the region of Chantilly.99 These documents constitute an incredibly rich sample to examine who asked for permissions, how they did so, who granted the authorisations and for how long. Additional information, such as character references and descriptions of the photographic equipment the applicants intended to use, reveal the similarities and differences of this group of photographers in relation to the SPA. All the requests in the examined sample came from Chantilly, in the northeast of France. Both civilians and the military followed more or less the same structure in their requests. For instance, on 21 April 1916, the administrative officer 2nd class Menin wrote to Lieutenant-​Colonel Commandante, GQG, that ‘applying the  directive N. 9507, 15 April 1916, I am pleased to request the authorisation to carry and use, in the territory of Chantilly, the following photographic cameras: 1. West Pocket Kodak (sic),  2. Sétero-​ panoramic Leroy 6–​13’.100 These letters always made reference to previous regulations (often the 15 April 1916 direction, but also the 24 April expansion) and stated the profession of the applicant. Many applicants worked as telegraphists, and other professions mentioned in the letters included baker, car driver, electrician, railway employer and solicitor, in addition to different military occupations and ranks.101 While most of the requests came from men, at least three women obtained permissions to take photographs in the region of Chantilly. For instance, Elisabeth Marie Jeanne Odette, born in Paris in 1898, obtained authorisation to photograph with her Kodak Vest Pocket on 24 April 1916, until 31 June 1916.102 After the end of this period, her request was renewed for another three months.103

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Many of these letters also explained the reasons why men and women were applying for photographic permissions. Some of them described themselves as ‘amateur’, although professional photographers also sent requests. Amateur photographers claimed that they would make a ‘private use’ of photographs, keeping them as a ‘souvenir’.104 One request, sent on 21 May 1916, specified the desire to take photographs ‘as an entertainment and for personal satisfaction’.105 Many of the applicants declared that they would not engage in any commercial or publicity activities, would not send the images to the press nor would compromise national defence.106 The military accepted most of these requests with authorisations valid for three months. The SHD also preserves, together with these requests, the authorisations granted to the applicants, as well as eventual three-​month renewals. This collection demonstrates that photography was widespread not because combatants and civilians were systematically side-​stepping the laws but because the authorisations system worked. The prohibition’s aim was not to prevent the taking of images but to be in control of who would become a photographer and where. The demand to send copies of some photographs to the Press Service reinforces this interpretation, and aligns with the military archives’ ambition of collecting all the photographs related to the war. Some requests also specified the photographic camera that the applicant intended to use, shedding light upon the conditions in which they worked. The embargo on German products and the emphasis on promoting the national industry meant photographers increasingly relied on French products. It is not surprising, therefore, that five applicants mentioned their Vérascope Richard (Jules), a stereoscopic camera produced in France, which could load up to 12 glass plates and take images in both stereo and single format.107 The Vérascope was a popular camera, not particularly cheap (its price ranged from 192 to 797 francs), but marketed to amateur photographers. The illustrated magazine L’Illustration often advertised it as ‘the most robust, precise, perfect and elegant device’, which provided ‘the correct shape, the exact size, the correct perspective and the true colour of reality’,108 and the photographic catalogue Photo-​Plait qualified it as a ‘worldwide success’.109 Another letter mentioned a Stéreo-​panoramique Leroy, a French device capable of taking single, stereoscopic and panoramic views.110 In spite of

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the promotion of French companies in the press and the ban of German products, these documents demonstrate amateur photographers also used foreign cameras. For instance, Sergeant Lambert requested authorisation on 26 April 1916 to use his Ernemann 9–​12.111 Ernemann was a German company whose models Klapp and Heag II Photo-​Plait promoted until 1914. It is not clear when Sergeant Lambert had bought his camera, but the production of both models started before the war (1907 and 1913 respectively), and therefore it is highly possible that he owned the camera before 1914 and the embargo on German products. Kodak was, unsurprisingly, the most cited photographic company, with up to 19 references between April and August 1916. Some applicants only specified the brand and the format of the films used by their cameras (9 × 9 or 6.5 × 11), while others named the particular models, such as Brownie n. 2, one of the earliest and cheapest Kodak cameras, and Kodak ‘cartouche 4’, which probably referred to Kodak n. 4 Cartridge, a rare device from 1900.112 The most-​mentioned camera was, undoubtedly, the Kodak Vest Pocket (or the West Pocket Kodak, as some of them called it) (Figure 1.4). The production of the Kodak Vest Pocket had started in 1913, but its popularity and sales increased during the war. The success was due to several factors, including its small size (it fit into a vest pocket when folded) and its cheap price, as well as how easy it was to operate. Contrary to the French models in use at the time, the Kodak Vest Pocket used film, which was charged and developed in Kodak’s laboratories. This feature made it perfect for amateur photographers, who needed no technical knowledge to operate it. As the Kodak advertisement campaigns said, one should only ‘press the button’ and they would ‘do the rest’.113 This marketing campaign contributed significantly to the popularity of the Vest Pocket.114 Both in France and abroad, posters and advertisements presented this camera as the ‘Kodak du soldat’, the perfect device to portray the war experience. The camera included the so-​called ‘autographic’ feature, a small window on the back, which ran across the side of the film. A little pen allowed the photographer to inscribe in this window a short caption, normally a date and the name of the place or the person. Photographers could, therefore, personalise their views, annotating whatever was important for them to preserve in the film. The ‘Kodak du soldat’ allowed, as Photo-​Plait

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Figure 1.4  Kodak Vest Pocket camera.

advertised, ‘to keep memories of the role that yourself and your regiment have played during the war’.115 The simplicity of its usage and the personal nature of the images meant that most of the photographs taken with this camera were ‘snapshots’, pictures taken in the moment without little to no preparation in relation to exposure times or light.116 The Kodak Vest Pocket, therefore, was very different from the cameras that professional and SPA photographers used. Consequently, the images produced with this device as well as the uses of the photographs differed from SPA photography, as Chapter 2 shows.

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Both SPA and amateur photographers, therefore, coexisted on the front lines. As the authorisations kept at the SHD show, both men and women, military or civilian, were interested in practising photography in military areas. Many already owned cameras which they used for personal purposes and promised to keep their photographic production private. The series of directives issued between August 1915 and April 1916 regulated the use of photography with a view to limiting the number of views and the circulation of images in order to avoid leaks. At the same time, the authorisations system demonstrate that the military also recognised the intrinsic value of photography. Asking amateur photographers to send their images to the military archives was a way of acknowledging the validity of their images as historical documents and the continuity between these photographs and the SPA production.

The archive of the war and the making of historical evidence The archive became an integral part of the SPA. Even if the idea of creating a photographic service had initially responded to propagandistic concerns, propaganda was never the sole purpose, and in fact not even the main one. Photographs became key documents that recorded the present, constituting ‘a chronological and systematic history as complete as possible’.117 The idea of photographs as sources for history and a future historian learning the facts about the war through photographs permeates the whole of the SPA production, from the photographer working on the front lines to the laboratory technicians developing and printing the photographs and the archivists cataloguing the pictures. The insistence that photographic archives would provide historical evidence of the war is hardly surprising, as the constitution of the military archive followed nineteenth-​century and early twentieth-​century projects such as the SMH, Albert Kahn’s ‘Archives de la Planète’ and other survey movements. The examination of the practices of preservation, cataloguing and classification at the SPA archive in the light of previous photographic projects illuminates the processes of making historical evidence in the archive, its totalising ambition and how the SPA’s project to control photographic meaning ultimately failed.118

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The relationship between the practice of photography and the constitution of archives in the nineteenth century has been examined at length.119 In the French context, it is important to note, as Joan M. Schwartz does, that the creation of the modern archive in the years 1837–​1839 coincided with the public announcement of photography in 1839. In 1839, the Ministre de l’Intérieur, Duchâtel, ‘divided departmental archives into historical d ­ ocuments –​those before 1789 –​and administrative documents –​those after 1789’, creating what it is still known as the fonds. Selecting 1789 as the cut-​off date that separated historical from administrative archives was a politically charged decision which presented a ‘stable, uniform and homogeneous’ vision of the state. For Schwartz, the chronological coincidence of the creation of the fonds and the invention of photography is more than a simple anecdote, as the archive and photography belonged to the same epistemological project. As Schwartz has pointed out, ‘photographic records, like archival records, were assumed to be accurate, reliable, authentic, objective, neutral, unmediated’. At the heart of this rhetoric was the idea that ‘photography “fixed” a moment in time … Archives also “fixed” a moment in time’.120 This idea resonated during the war. Camille Bloch, general inspector of archives and libraries, wrote, in relation to archives, that, ‘to know the concrete reality in retrospect, there cannot be a superior evidence than the one supplied by the direct impression of objects on the plate through a purely mechanical process’.121 The value of photographs as scientific and historical evidence, however, was neither obvious nor guaranteed. As Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison have shown, nineteenth-​century scientific practice was guided by what they call ‘mechanical objectivity’, an attempt to produce knowledge that was free of the scientist’s values and judgement. The photographic camera, which recorded whatever was in front of the lenses without human intervention, provided a perfect opportunity to fulfil the ideal of recording nature ‘as it is’. But, as Daston and Galison also argue, mechanical objectivity always remained an ideal. Photography never fulfilled its promise of objectivity, not only due to the unachievable nature of such an ideal, but also because even defenders of mechanical objectivity at the time questioned the camera’s power to create objective images. Jennifer Tucker has also demonstrated that photographs were never

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taken at face value. Their status as scientific evidence was the result of social processes in which gender and class played a key part. For Tucker, the way in which scientists, institutions and the press mobilised scientific photographs is what turned them into scientific evidence. It was not about the quality or the content of the images but about what people did with the photographs.122 The creation of photographic archives provided physical repositories for photographs as well as the conditions under which photographs could be understood as scientific and historical evidence. The SMH greatly shaped the making of photographic historical evidence in France. Established in 1837, the purpose of the SMH was to classify historical and artistic monuments in France and document their eventual damage with a view to preparing plans of reconstruction.123 Part of the SMH’s activity was to organise reconnaissance missions which sent men all over France to document the state of artistic and historical monuments. One of the most famous SMH reconnaissance missions was the so-​ called ‘Mission héliographique’, a group of five photographers (Baldus, Bayard, LeSecq, Le Gray and Mestral) who documented architectural monuments around France in 1851.124 The ‘Mission héliographique’ has become one of most celebrated nineteenth-​ century photographic projects, even if the SMH never used their photographs. While it was not the first photographic expedition organised by the SMH, the scale of the project and its publicity was unprecedented. The ‘Mission héliographique’ was innovative from an institutional as well as a photographic point of view. The adjective ‘héliographique’ came from the technique employed by Le Gray and others: the calotype. Invented by Henry Fox Talbot in 1839, the calotype captured images in negative, which could be developed later in positive images, allowing, therefore, the production of multiple copies.125 The images the ‘Mission héliographique’ produced are beautiful, with an almost eerie quality. The sepia tones and the sharp contrast between shadows and light have come to define a whole photographic style, which greatly influenced the style of SPA photographers. Beyond the aesthetic quality of the images, the SMH photographic project is important because it established the grounds for the formation of a national identity based on political readings of historical monuments through the use of photography.

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The idea of establishing photography as a source of historical knowledge by deploying photographers all over France and creating an archive to classify the images was not exclusive to the SMH. Albert Kahn’s project ‘Archives de la Planète’ intended to document modern everyday life through non-​fiction films and colour photographs.126 With this purpose, Kahn hired photographers and filmmakers who travelled around the world between 1908 and 1930 (with some of them working for the SPA during the war). A ‘documentary impulse’ guided the whole operation, which aimed to become an inventory of modern life in all its aspects. Such an enterprise necessitated an archive. As Paula Amad has convincingly argued, ‘the archive is not simply the neutral space in which Kahn’s films of daily life were stored; it is the logic acting upon each frame of the film’.127 While the films and photographs by themselves were interesting and representative of certain aspects of society, it was the entirety of the production, registered and classified in the archive, which turned single images into the image of the world. Just like the SMH and Albert Kahn’s ‘Archives de la Planète’, the SPA was driven by a ‘documentary impulse’, which aimed at recording everything. It is for this reason that the military archive not only collected SPA photographs but any document relevant to the visual history of the war in France. The SPA archive collection thus included photographs taken by Allied photographic services (such as Figure 1.1) and by generals and colonels equipped with cameras at the front lines, as well as images published in the main French and foreign magazines. The archive gave unity and coherence to photographs from disparate sources. Just like Kahn’s films, the SPA photographs cannot be fully understood outside the archive. The filing cabinets, albums and cards, as well as the principles and categories that guided the organisation of the archive impregnated the whole documentation. The SPA archive was not a mere storehouse but an active agent that created historical meaning. The power of the archive as a maker of history also came from the material performance of photography, as Elizabeth Edwards has argued.128 The archive provided a complete image of the war because it contained thousands of images, and also because it actively collected photographs, had a network of photographers working on war fronts and the front lines systematically sending

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pictures back, and had standardised the methods to develop, print, mount, catalogue and label photographs. These ‘material performances’, as Edwards calls them, constructed the historical value of the photographs in the archive.129 Even the choice of photographic materials reflected the historical aims of the SPA production, as Helène Guillot has argued. Against photographic film, which was cheaper but deteriorated quickly, the glass plates used by SPA photographers guaranteed the material preservation of the images for a longer period of time.130 The SPA archive consisted of four kinds of objects: photographic prints, a registration book, file cards and albums.131 The first step when photographs arrived at the archive was to assign them an identification number and a caption, which simply reproduced the information in the photographers’ notebooks or the journals in the case of published images. The archivist then duly noted the identification number and the caption in the registration book, together with the SPA reference, the title of the journal or the name of the donor. Secondly, the archivist wrote file cards for each photographic document, which included the place and the theme of the photograph, the date on which it had been taken or had arrived at the archives if this was unknown, and the identification number. The letter ‘D’ preceded the identification number if an individual had donated the photographs, and the letter ‘R’ if it was a magazine reproduction. Finally, archivists collected photographic prints and clippings in albums, writing in pencil on each page the identification number, the complete caption and the SPA reference/​name of the donor or the journal (see Figures 1.2 and 1.5).132 All these objects connected through the identification system (the identification number, the captions and the reference of origin) and the registration book, which acted as a link between the file cards and the albums. After identification, archivists classified the photographs geographically. The file cards organised the photographs under the heading ‘Villes, villages, monuments, paysages’, while the albums followed a geographical classification by départment (Meuse, for instance). In both cases, larger regions were then divided up into smaller areas (for instance, Charny in the Meuse’s file cards). Every album also included a map of the region, an alphabetical list of all

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Figure 1.5  SPA photographic classification room at the Palais Royal, in Rue de Valois (Paris) in September 1916.

the places included in that album, and an index of the topics covered. To facilitate research, the archivists also made an alphabetical list of people and places related to each départment, specifying the album which included them. The archive also used the file cards to make an alphabetical classification of the people portrayed in the documents.133 Archivists annotated essential information on the album pages, as shown in Figures 1.2 and 1.5. Captions tended to be short and descriptive, pointing out relevant details such as the place where the image had been taken, the date and, on occasion, the names of the people involved. As a result, captions tended to be accurate but generic. For instance, Figure 1.5 shares the caption ‘Section photographique de l’armée. Palais Royal, Valois Street. Classification room’ with other photographs taken in the same room, even if what the images show are different operations in the archive as well as different archivists.134 In line with the SPA’s anonymity policy, the cardboard plates did not mention the name of the photographer, or the intention with which he had taken the picture. The erasure

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of the photographer’s individuality is clear in photographs such as Figure 1.2, which does not name either the photographer who took the image or the photographer who was posing. The austerity of the captions aimed to let images speak for themselves, presenting them as objective evidences of war events. However, this task was more complex than it seemed, particularly in the case of the photographs classified by themes. Conceived as a way to complement the geographical classification, the thematic categories proposed topics such as ‘a model of cannonball, a type of place, a ship, a regiment, etc.’.135 The thematic albums included ‘the most typical photographs’ of a category, as well as the images whose geographical origin was unknown.136 Thematic classification was more problematic than the geographical or personal classifications. Archivists added new documents every day so the repertoire of categories was ‘more and more developed as the collection grew’.137 Accordingly, the albums had the capacity to integrate eventual changes in the classification. The binding system of the pages allowed for modifying their order and adding new documents, and archivists annotated the captions in pencil to simplify amendments. Like Kahn’s ‘Archives de la Planète’, which needed constant updating, the SPA was an archive of the present and therefore always in the making. The thematic categories shed light upon the narratives the SPA aimed to promote, but their provisional character makes its study challenging. As new documents entered the archive and new themes emerged, the list of categories grew. In fact, different archives such as MAP and La Contemporaine preserve lists of thematic categories, but they are all different. For instance, La Contemporaine’s document divides the category ‘life at the front lines’ between ‘quarters, the army, at rest and on the front’, but the MAP document points out to ‘general staff of the armies, divisions, etc., military justice, chaplains, campaign troops, offensives, connections, command and observation posts, quarters, camps, shelters, kitchens, works, occupations, distractions and life in the trenches’.138 Equally, the thematic albums did not follow the same classification system.139 As the classification of documents was in constant development until the end of the war, these differences might point to the evolution of the subcategories.

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The changing nature of thematic categories might suggest that they were descriptive, made after the material had arrived. However, as archives were supposed to fix history in time, the categories which classified documents were also prescriptive. Any categorisation already imposed a particular reading upon the image. The thematic classification, which selected one of the elements in an image (a cannonball, for instance) and took it as the prevalent one, relegated the rest to the background. Together with the short captions, thematic categorisation operated as mechanisms to contain and control the meaning of the images. As historians have noted, nineteenth-​and twentieth-​century critics both praised and criticised the excess of information that all photographs provided.140 Precisely because the camera captured everything that was in front of the lens, photographic images did not differentiate between relevant details and noise, as an artist would. The SPA’s austere captions and the classification categories aimed to define the correct reading of the images, making sure that the photographs provided the correct historical evidence. Captions and thematic categories led the interpretation of the photographs in a particular direction, and this direction was Dupuis’ 1915 military instruction. It is not surprising that the categories coincided with these guidelines, as photographers were sent on missions and had to photograph what the generals demanded. The thematic classification helped to control the photographic production by aligning the existing images with the topics that the military authorities sought to disseminate. This control was important because the archives collected all the photographs. No censorship existed in the archives, nor did mechanisms for avoiding certain images. Thematic categories, thus, contained the meaning of the images within certain margins. As the archive aimed to record the history of the war, military and government authorities sought to tell this story on their own terms. These categories reveal what the military saw as the main elements of the war and what they wanted to preserve as ‘History’. The thematic categories are key to understanding SPA photography. As a collection, the SPA photographs created a public narrative in direct connection with the archives –​a discourse in Foucault’s terms.141 The captions, archive labels and the logic of

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the archival classification delimited what could be said, as well as what could not be said. The archive, which aspired to contain the totality of war events, constructed a framework within which the war could be understood. Events that did not fall into the SPA categories were left out of the framework, preventing their inclusion in public narratives and collective experiences. As Chapters 3 and 5 show, a good example of the effects of the alignment between military and archive categories is the case of the war dead. The French state only granted the distinction ‘Mort pour la France’ (dead for France) to those who had been killed by the enemy or due to a war event.142 Accordingly, the war archive created the category ‘mort à l’ennemi’ (dead by the enemy) to classify pictures of the French war dead. The overlapping between the meanings of ‘Mort pour la France’ and the archive category ‘mort à l’ennemi’ guaranteed that the discourse around the war dead remained consistent. However, some combatants who died during the war were not killed by the enemy and military authorities did not consider their deaths as a war event. This was the case of soldiers who died by suicide. They did not receive the distinction ‘Mort pour la France’ and their death was not recorded photographically. Their absence from the war archive mirrored their absence from public narratives of the war. The military archive became the cornerstone of the military control over photography. It aimed to gather documentation from all photographic agents (the SPA, the press and amateur photographers) and images concerning all war events. The totalising ambition of the photographic archive mirrored and encouraged the documentary impulse of French photographers, who aspired to photograph everything. At the heart of this project was the belief that photographs would provide objective historical evidence of the war. With this aim, short captions and thematic classifications in the archive became mechanisms of control that sought to frame photographic meanings within certain margins. Yet, military and governmental authorities never gained total control over photography. This project was bound to fail: no one can ever fix the meaning of a photograph once and for all. As the next chapters will show, amateur photographers disobeyed military instructions, the public interpreted SPA images in many different, even opposite, ways and some events never became part of the

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archive. The history of the SPA is the history of a failed attempt to control photography. Nonetheless, as this book demonstrates, it is also the history of how the documentary impulse of photographers and the public became central in the formation of war experiences.

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Notes 1 Album Valois 436, ‘Bois d’Aveluy, Novembre 1916. Opérateur de la section cinématographique de l’armée française photographiant un blessé britannique. CI British oficial photo (II.551)’. La Contemporaine. 2 See album here: https://​argonnaute.parisnanterre.fr/​ark:/​14707/​ a011466534071oAXIvU 3 ‘Opérateur de la section cinématographique de l’armée française photographiant un blessé britannique’. 4 Unidentified French official cameraman of the Section Photographique et Cinematographique d’Armee filming a British casualty possibly of the 51st (Highland) Division. Aveluy Wood, 13 November 1916. Catalogue number Q 4504. Imperial War Museum. On the role of the Imperial War Museum during the war, see G. Kavanagh, ‘Museum as Memorial. The Origins of the Imperial War Museum’, Journal of Contemporary History, 23:1 (1988), 77–​97. 5 J. Carmichael, First World War Photographers (London: Routledge, 1989). 6 Ibid., see especially Chapter 3, pp. 46–​75. 7 Ibid. 8 See J. M. Linsolas, ‘Photographie, un miroir du vrai?’, in A. Rassmussen and C. Prochasson (eds), Vrai et Faux dans la Grande Guerre (Paris: La Découverte, 2004), pp. 96–​111. 9 These authorisations have been preserved in the collection SHD/​GR 16N 11, Service Historique de la Defense. 10 G. Mitman and K. Wilder, ‘Introduction’, in G. Mitman and K. Wilder (eds), Documenting the World. Film, Photography and the Scientific Record (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2016), p. 3. 11 In this regard, this chapter will engage with J. Schwartz, ‘ “Records of Simple Truth and Precision”. Photography, Archives and the Illusion of Control’, Archivaria, 50 (2000), 1–​40, and P. Amad, Counter-​ Archive. Film, the Everyday, and Albert Kahn’s Archives de la Planète (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010). 12 ‘La publication ou l’exposition de tels documents est jugée désirable pour agir sur l’opinion des neutres.’ Letter from Delcassé, Ministre des

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Affaires Etrangères, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Instruction Publique, Paris, 10 March 1915. Jaillet, ‘Rapport sur la création, le fonctionnement, les résultats de la Section Photographique et Cinématographique de l’Armée’, 10 October 1917, La Contemporaine. Pièce annexe n. 1, p. 21. 13 ‘J’ai été amené à me demander s’il n’y aurait pas intérêt à étendre cette enquête photographique … Sans parler de l’intérêt documentaire et peut-​être scolaire que pouvait avoir une belle collection, elle serait, très utile pour la diffusion à l’étranger des preuves les plus intéressants ou les plus saisissants.’ Ibid. 14 ‘Je serais disposé à en faciliter la reproduction dans les journaux, revues, albums, cartes postales, etc. et les expositions dans les librairies à l’étranger.’ Ibid. 15 ‘Le service des Monuments Historiques, qui a déjà commencé une enquête de ce genre, limitée aux édifices classés, me parait tout désigné pour mener à bonne fin le travail dont vous m’entretenez.’ Letter from Dalimier to Delcassé, March 1915. Pièce annexe n. 2, Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 22. 16 ‘Le moment venu, je vous demanderai de voir joindre à moi à l’effet d’obtenir de notre collègue, M le Ministre de la Guerre, les agents d’exécution, les moyens de transport nécessaires et les plus larges facilités de circulation.’ Ibid. 17 See L. Véray, La Grande Guerre au cinéma (Paris: Ramsay, 2000) and V. Challéat, ‘Le cinéma au service de la défense’, Revue Historique des Armées, ‘Guerre et cinéma’, 252 (2008), 3–​15. 18 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 3. 19 For a history of the SPA, see H. Guillot, Les soldats de la mémoire. La section photographique de l’armée, 1915–​1919 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2017) and her dissertation, ‘Photographier la Grande Guerre. Les soldats de la mémoire’ (PhD dissertation, Université Paris I Pathéon Sorbonne, 2012). 20 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 5. 21 Bureau des informations à la presse, ‘Création d’une Section Militaire et d’un Laboratoire Militaire de Photographie’, 8 May 1915. Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, Pièce annexe n. 3, p. 23. 22 In particular, he belonged to the Corps des ouvriers militaires de l’administration (COA). On Pierre Marcel Lévi, see J. Caumont, ‘Lévi Pierre, Marcel’, in J. Maitron (ed.), Dictionnaire biographique du movement ouvrier français, 4e partie ‘1914–​1939, de la Première à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale’, vol. XXXIV (Paris: Éditions Ouvrières, 1981), pp. 352–​353. 23 Note n. 3527, 9 mai 1915. Carton 80/​074/​02, MAP. 24 Ibid.

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25 H. Guillot, ‘Le métier de photographe militaire pendant la Grande Guerre’, Revue Historique des Armées, 265 (2011), 87–​102. See also Guillot, Les soldats de la mémoire, pp. 57–​66. 26 F. Bouloc, ‘  “War Profiteers” and “War Profiters”. Representing Economic Gain in France During the First World War’, in H. Jones, J. O’Brien and C. Schmidt-​ Supprian (eds), Untold War. New Perspectives in First World War Studies I (Leiden: Brill, 2008), p. 328. 27 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 30. 28 ‘Contrat passé avec la Chambre Syndicale de la Photographie’, Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, pp. 6–​9. 29 Pièce annexe n. 8, 26 juillet 1915, Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, pp. 31–​33. 30 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 8. 31 Pièce annexe n. 13, Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, pp. 42–​43; Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 6. 32 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 44. 33 See P. Boulanger, ‘Les conscrits de 1914. La contribution de la jeunesse française à la formation d’une armée de masse’, Annales de Démographie Historique, 103:1 (2002), 11–​34. 34 ‘État du Personnel de la Section et Indication des Emplois’, Pièce annexe n. 9, Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, pp. 34–​35. 35 Pièce annexe n. 15, 2 September 1915, Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 44. 36 Ibid. 37 Note n. 3527, MAP. 38 Pièce annexe n. 2, Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 103; Pièce annexe n. 11, 10 août 1915, Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 39. 39 ‘Convention entre le Ministère de la Guerre et le Sous-​Secrétariat des Beaux Arts’, Pièce annexe n. 24, janvier 1917, Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 106. 40 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 49. 41 ‘Project de reorganization administrative de la section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée’, Carton 80/​074/​03. MAP. 42 ‘Note sur le fonctionnement générale du Bureau des informations à la presse’, GR5N550, SHAT. 43 O. Forcade, La censure en France pendant la grande guerre (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 2016), p. 10. 44 Ibid. 45 See J. Beurier, ‘Information, Censorship or Propaganda? The Illustrated French Press in the First World War’, in C. Schmidt-​ Supprian, J. O’Brien and H. Jones (eds), Untold War. New Perspectives on First World War Studies (Leiden/​Boston: Brill, 2008), pp. 293–​324 and H. Guillot, ‘Les images interdites de la Section photographique de l’armée: quand l’État censure ses propres clichés’, 1895. Mille huit cent quatre-​vingt-​quinze, 74 (2014), 85–​111.

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46 Guillot, ‘Les images interdites de la Section photographique de l’armée’, p. 107. 47 Ibid., p. 109. See also H. Guillot (ed.), Images interdites de la Grande Guerre (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014). 48 ‘Project de reorganization administrative de la section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée’, Carton 80/​074/​03. MAP. 49 Guillot, ‘La section photographique de l’armée’. 50 See M. Levitch, ‘The Visual Culture of Modern Art. Photography, Posters and Soldier’s Trench Art in World War I France’ (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2008), p. 54. 51 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 9. 52 Ibid., p. 115. 53 Ibid. 54 These letters are unclassified material preserved at the ECPAD. 55 Paula Amad has traced some photographers who worked for both the SPA and the Kahn archives in Counter-​archives and Guillot has written about the life of some SPA photographers such as Jacques Aigé and Albert Samama Chikli in Guillot, Images interdites de la Grande Guerre. See also the collective book V. Perles (ed.), Réalités (In)Visibles. Autour d’Albert Kahn, les archives de la Grande Guerre (Paris: Bernard Chaveau Édition, 2019). 56 ‘[hommes] connaissait parfaitement leur métier, mais ayant de plus le sens de l’actualité et suffisamment de tact pour pouvoir, malgré l’absence des galons, être reçus et bien vus des officiers.’ Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, pp. 115–​116. 57 Ibid. 58 Carton 80/​01/​73–​75, MAP. 59 F. Denoyelle, La lumière de Paris. Le marché de la photographie 1919–​1939, vol. 1 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), p. 18. 60 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 163. 61 Guillot has also examined this topic in ‘Le métier de photographe’. 62 ‘Bornes frontières des trois pays, opérateur de la Section Photographique de l’armée, 15 Mars 1916.’ Album Valois 474. La Contemporaine. 63 See R. Kelsey, Archive Style. Photographs and Illustrations on US Surveys, 1850–​1890 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), pp. 16–​17. 64 Dupuis, ‘Instruction relative au choix des Films ou clichés’, 1 November 1915. MAP. 65 T. Blondet-​Bisch, ‘Vues de France’, in T. Blondet-​Bisch, R. Frank, L. Gervereau and A. Gunthert (eds), Voir, ne pas voir la guerre. Histoire des représentations photographiques de la guerre (Paris: Somogy,

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2001), p. 56; Dupuis, ‘Instruction relative au choix des Films ou clichés’. 66 ‘Il convient de multiplier les défilés de toutes les armées, en particulier l’artillerie, les groupements, parades d’infanterie, de cavalerie, de génie, les parcs d’artillerie, de génie, d’aviation et d’aérostation, les trains blindés, les prisonniers, etc… etc… qui donnent l’impression de force matérielle. Les scènes montrant le bon état et la bonne organisation de nos troupes, leur installation, le fonctionnement des services de ravitaillement et de santé, l’organisation intérieure des tranchées et arbis, l’abondance de munitions, etc’, Dupuis, ‘Instruction relative au choix des Films ou clichés.’ 67 Levitch, ‘The Visual Culture of Modern Art’, p. 46. 68 ‘Prisonniers’, SPA, 1917: La victoire prochaine du droit (Paris: E. Paul, 1917), p. 12. 69 ‘On doit reproduire méthodiquement sur les territoires précédemment envahis ou bombardés par l’ennemi les destructions de monuments civils ou religieux et revenir périodiquement dans les centres importants tels qu’Arras, Soissons et Reims, pour constater les dégâts successives aux différentes périodes du bombardement. Les opérateurs prendront les monuments sous les angles différents de façon à permettre de reconstituer intégralement leur aspect à ces diverses dates.’ Dupuis, ‘Instruction relative au choix des Films ou clichés’. 70 ‘Il y a lieu de rechercher les panoramas, ainsi que les vues de tranchées et abris ou de positions ennemies, de prendre les différents aspects des champs de bataille depuis le début des opérations, de reproduire les scènes de ravitaillement, du service de santé aux armées, de photographier le matériel lui-​même.’ Ibid. 71 ‘En un mot de fixer par l’image les caractères généraux de chacune des diverses phases de la guerre de manière que l’historien puisse dans l’avenir évoquer exactement les données essentielles de cette guerre aux diverses phases de son évolution.’ Ibid. 72 The ECPAD preserves the list of all photographers and filmmakers and their respective identification letters. 73 Dupuis, ‘Instruction relative au choix des Films ou clichés’. 74 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 115. 75 P. Marcel, ‘Note pour les opérateurs photographs et cinématographes’, 6 July, 1917, MAP. 76 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’. 77 On the business of war photography, see the special issue edited by Tom Allbeson and Pippa Oldfield, ‘War, Photography, Business. New Critical Histories’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 9:2 (2016), 94–​114.

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78 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 152. 79 Ibid., p. 156. 80 Denoyelle, La lumière de Paris, pp. 51–​55. See also P. A. Nelson, ‘Competition and the Politics of War. The Global Photography Industry c. 1910–​1960’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 9:2 (2016), 115–​132. 81 E. Braud, ‘Le renseignement économique en France à partir de 1916. Impératifs strategiques et economie de guerre’, Revue historique des armées, 246 (2008), 84–​93. 82 The article 6 of the abovementioned SPA memorandum explicitly stated that the SPA should respect the blockade to Germany in relation to propaganda in foreign countries, the importation and exportation of films and the edition of technical films. ‘Project de reorganization administrative’, MAP. 83 Carton 80/​01/​73–​75, MAP. For a better understanding of trading relations between France and the United States, see M. Horn, Britain, France and the Financing of the First World War (Montreal: McGill-​ Queen’s University Press, 2002), especially Chapter 3, ‘Relations with the United States, 1914–​1916’, pp. 57–​75. 84 Carton 80/​01/​73–​75, MAP. 85 Denoyelle, La lumière de Paris. 86 R. Abel, ‘In the Belly of the Beast: The Early Years of Pathé-​Frères’, Film History, 5:4 (1993), 363–​385. 87 Ibid., p. 376. 88 Ibid. 89 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 161, Carton 80/​01/​73–​75, MAP. 90 N. 6550, Note de service, Chef d’état-​major Desticker, 36eme Corps d’armee. SHD/​GR 16N 11, Service Historique de la Defense. See also Linsolas, ‘Photographie, un miroir du vrai?’; Beurier, Photographier la Grande Guerre, pp. 57–​58; and E. Desbois, ‘La vie sur le front de la mort’, La recherche photographique (1989), 41–​45. 91 ‘Ces authorisations qui seront delivers aver la plus grande circumspection ne pourront en aucun cas d’passer la duress d’un moms et deviant specifier aver precision la zone pour laquelle elles son valuables.’ Ibid. 92 SHD/​GR 5N 360. 93 Beurier, Photographier la Grande Guerre, pp. 57–​ 58; Linsolas, ‘Photographie, un miroir du vrai?’, pp. 104–​105. 94 SHD/​GR 5N 360. 95 SHD/​GR 16N 11. 96 Arrete 24 March. SHD/​GR 16N 11. 97 n. 7687, Le general commandant en chef, Pelle, GQ. SHD/​GR 16N 11.

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98 Desbois, ‘La vie sur le front de la mort’, p. 44. 99 SHD/​GR 16N 11. 100 Letter 5, SHD/​GR 16N 11. 101 Telegraphists are mentioned in the letters 7, 10, 11, 28, 31, 33, 34, 37, 38, 40, 45, 62, 63, 64 and 65 while other professions are mentioned in letters 27, 39, 44 and 56. 102 Letters 6 and 114, SHD/​ GR 16N 11. Her father applied for the authorisation on her behalf. 103 Letter 114, SHD/​GR 16N 11. 104 Letters 31 and 48, SHD/​GR 16N 11. 105 Letter 69, SHD/​GR 16N 11. 106 Letter 29, SHD/​GR 16N 11. 107 Letters 2, 8, 16, 32 and 48. SHD/​GR 16N 11. 108 L’Illustration, 1916. Several issues. 109 Photo-​Plait, 1918, p. 48. 110 Ibid., p. 42. 111 Document n. 20, SHD/​GR 16N 11. 112 On the link between Brownie Kodak cameras and amateur practice, see M. Olivier, ‘George Eastman’s Modern Stone-​Aged Family. Snapshot Photography and the Brownie’, Technology and Culture, 48:1 (2007), 1–​17. 113 See N. West, Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia (Charlottesville/​ London: University Press of Virginia, 2000). 114 See West, Kodak, Chapter 6, ‘ “Let Kodak Keep the Story”. Narrative, Memory and the Selling of the Autographic Camera during World War I’, pp. 166–​199. 115 Photo-​Plait, 1916, p. 14. 116 Jon Cooksey, VPK. The Vest Pocket Kodak & the First World War (Lewes: Ammonite Press, 2017), p. 28. 117 Archives de la section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée, MAP 80/​074/​03. 118 On the idea of photographic archives as a ‘resourceful archive’ against archives as ‘passive resources’, see E. Edwards, ‘Photographs. Material Form and the Dynamic Archive’, in C. Caraffa (ed.), Photo Archives and the Photographic Memory of Art History (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011), pp. 47–​56. 119 Constanza Caraffa explores the question of photographs as evidences and its relation to the archive in ‘From “Photo Libraries” to “Photo Archives”. On the Epistemological Potential of Art-​Historical Photo Collections’, in C. Caraffa (ed.) Photo Archives and the Photographic Memory of Art History (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011), pp. 11–​44, especially pp. 16–​20.

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20 Schwartz, ‘ “Records of Simple Truth and Precision” ’, p. 34. 1 121 Letter from Camille Bloch, L’inspecteur géneral des archives et des bibliothèques, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Instruction publique et des Beaux Arts. Paris, 20 May 1918. MAP. 122 The history of the epistemological value of photographs as evidence, neutral or objective documents has been examined in J. Tucker, Nature Exposed. Photography as Eyewitness in Victorian Science (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) and L. Daston and P. Galison, Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 2007). 123 A. Auduc, Quand les monuments construisaient la nation. Le service des monuments historiques de 1830 à 1940 (Paris: Comité d’histoire du Ministère de la Culture, 2008), pp. 78–​81. 124 See more in A. de Mondernard, La mission héliographique. Cinq photographes parcourent la France in 1851 (Paris: Centre des Monuments Nationaux/​Monum, Ed. Du Patrimoine, 2002); C. Boyer, ‘La Mission Héliographique. Architectural Photography, Collective Memory and the Patrimony of France, 1851’, in J. M. Schwartz and J. R. Ryan (eds), Picturing Place. Photography and the Geographical Imagination (London: I. B. Tauris, 2003), pp. 21–​54; A. Rouillé, ‘Exploring the World by Photography in the Nineteenth Century’, in J. C. Lemagny and A. Rouillé (eds), A History of Photography. Social and Cultural Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 53–​60; and S. Forero Mendoza, ‘Fotografía y patrimonio. La Misión Heliográfica de 1851 y la consagración del monumento histórico en Francia’, Ería, 73:74 (2007), 273–​280. 125 See A. Cartier-​Bresson, ‘Dessin photogénique’, in A. Cartier Bresson, Vocabulaire technique de la photographie (Paris: Marval, 2008) pp. 56–​58. 126 Mitman and Wilder, Documenting the World; Amad, Counter-​Archive. 127 Amad, Counter-​Archive, p. 17. 128 See E. Edwards, The Camera as Historian. Amateur Photographers and the Historical Imagination 1885–​ 1918 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012). 129 E. Edwards, ‘Photography and The Material Performance of the Past’ History and Theory, 48:4 (2009), 130–​150. 130 Guillot, Les soldats de la mémoire, p. 89. 131 The ECPAD currently preserves the glass plates, the photographers’ notebooks and the file cards, La Contemporaire holds the albums and the photographic prints, and the MAP preserves the registration book. Helène Guillot has reproduced images of these objects in Les soldats de la mémoire, pp. 91–​98, see also pp. 85–​89.

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132 Archives de la section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée, MAP 80/​074/​03. Album Valois 382, ‘Section photographique de l’armee, Palais Royal rue de Valois. Salle de classement des cliches’. La Contemporaine. 133 Archives de la section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée, MAP 80/​074/​03. 134 Album Valois 382, ‘Section photographique de l’armee, Palais Royal rue de Valois. Salle de classement des cliches’, August 1915. https://​ argonnaute.parisnanterre.fr/​ a rk:/​ 1 4707/​ a 011515418829tpqa38/​ 0c3cf7f13b (accessed on 30 January 2021). 135 Archives de la section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée, MAP 80/​074/​03, p. 6. 136 Ibid., p. 10. 137 Ibid., p. 6. 138 Classement thématique 1917–​18, MAP, 80/​07/​03, pp. 2–​3. 139 According to a MAP document, there were 27 albums on the following subjects: colonial troops, French health services, health services of the enemy, Allied aviation, enemy aviation, Allied and enemy navy, French artillery, Allied artillery, enemy artillery, French transportations, German prisoners, Allied prisoners, tombs, French portraits, Allied portraits, German portraits, enemy portraits, French documents, German documents and camouflage. 140 See C. Morton, The Anthropological Lens. Rethinking E. E. Evans-​ Pritchard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 79–​80. 141 M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge. Trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (London: Routledge, 2002). 142 See A. Deperchin, ‘La guerre, la mort et le droit’, in I. Homer and E. Pénicaut, Le soldat et la mort dans la Grande Guerre (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016), pp. 99–​112.

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Feeling: private, official and press photography as emotional practices Like many women of her generation, Dorothy Allhusen wanted to contribute to the war effort.1 In spite of being British, she opened in France, between 1915 and 1917, two hospitals for convalescent soldiers and one canteen, where sick and wounded soldiers could rest, after learning about the shortage of beds and overcrowding in French hospitals. Not being a nurse herself, Mrs Allhusen became the director of the hospitals, managing daily life and arranging diversions for the convalescents.2 Among other leisure activities, she photographed patients and staff throughout the years, documenting both day-​to-​day activities such as tea time, and special events, including a costume party. One of the three photographic albums she composed (one per hospital) includes four photographs of men dressing in women’s clothes.3 The men’s attire included fur coats, nurse uniforms and typically female objects such as an embroidered umbrella, a bouquet of flowers and fancy hats. The contrast between the female clothes and the moustaches gave the photographs a comical look of which the convalescents seem to be aware, judging by their smiles and intense gazes towards the camera. In an atmosphere dominated by violence and rigid gender expectations, adopting feminine attributes, such as clothes and poses, became a form of escapism.4 Dressing as their nurses, playing guitar or putting on a fur coat gave these men a break, allowing them to ‘experience what was forbidden’ in civilian life.5 Besides the costumes, the very act of taking the picture also contributed to the men’s momentary relief. Other photographs taken during the same day confirm not only the willingness of the men to be pictured as women, but also that being portrayed was part of the fun. The smiles and looks reveal complicity and intimacy

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between the men and the female photographer, evident in the fact that they were wearing the nurses’ clothes, including the uniform. Even if cross-​dressing for a theatrical performance was a common joke during the war, posing fiercely in women’s clothes suggests that posing for the camera was a key part of the entertainment. Through the act of photography, these men, Mrs Allhusen and the nurses bonded. Photography was, therefore, a key practice that mediated, facilitated and fostered emotional relationships, as this chapter argues. While Chapter 1 examined the organisation of photography on the front lines, including the creation of the Section photographique de l’armée (SPA), the regulation of private photography and the constitution of the military archives, this chapter explores the emotional effects of war photography on combatants and civilians. In particular, it focuses on the emotional mobilisation of civilians that SPA publications and the press encouraged, and the uses of amateur photography among combatants on the front lines. In this context, ‘amateur photography’ refers to a diverse group of photographers who did not work for the SPA, the press or any other institutions, such as the health services. This means that this category ranges from men and women who bought their first camera during the war to experienced photographers. In spite of the variety of members in such an heterogeneous group, it is generally assumed that amateur photographers followed a more personal approach, turning photographs into a sort of visual diary, which could remain private or become public by sending their images to illustrated magazines.6 In line with the SPA’s aim of completing a visual inventory of the war events, amateur photographers documented their daily lives, photographing apparently banal activities such as cooking, the view from the trenches, and celebrations. Photographic companies like Kodak encouraged amateur photography throughout the war. An advertisement for the best-​selling Kodak Vest Pocket in 1916, for instance, stated that ‘the value of photography’ was its ability to offer durable memories of an inestimable value, not just for you but also for your children and loved ones, because no personal notebook can be more interesting or convincing. The small views of the Vest

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Pocket will help history and will literally become History. When your children and grandchildren ask you about the role that you played during the great war, you will be able to open your Kodak album, and tell them the exciting story of each page. Every scene, from the first days of mobilisation to the end of the war, will remain alive and as impressive as reality.7

The kit of the amateur photographer included, therefore, the camera and the album, which allowed the telling of a story. Photographs were not individual instances, but part of a larger narrative that the album could shape and share every time it was opened.8 This personal, almost intimate interpretation of photography did not prevent Kodak stating that these stories would also become ‘history’ owing to the importance of the event.9 A Kodak camera was not just a device to take photographs. Rather, it was a way to keep war experiences alive through visual memories that could be shared with others. This shareable character of albums is what helped combatants and their families, as Stéphane Audoin-​Rouzeau has put it, to initiate ‘a process of appropriation of the war experience’.10 Personal photographs and private albums have become, therefore, key objects in the formation of cultural memory.11 This chapter, however, takes a different approach. Instead of analysing the role of photographs and albums in remembrance practices, it focuses on how taking, circulating, consuming and posing for photographs articulated combatants’ and civilians’ emotional experiences during wartime.12 Emotions were not limited to intimate circles and personal albums. The regulation of photography on the front lines had granted limited authorisations to amateur photographers, provided that they kept their photographs private.13 However, not all complied with the regulations. Amateur photographers sent photographs to their loved ones and even submitted their images to the press. Joëlle Beurier has written extensively about the collaboration between amateur photographers and Le Miroir since the magazine announced that it would ‘pay whatever price to documents related to the war presenting a particular interest’ in August 1914.14 To make its offer more attractive, Le Miroir organised several contests for ‘the most striking war photograph’, which would be compensated with 30,000 francs.15 Other illustrated journals soon followed

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this trend. In March 1915, J’ai Vu announced that ‘we have decided to allocate 52,000 francs to pay for photographs that relate to war events or world news from this issue onwards’.16 These photographs, which were frequently edited by the magazine to highlight the most shocking aspects of the war, shaped public opinion and collective feelings about the war. As potentially published authors, amateur photographers were also emotionally invested in the magazine’s selection of their images. The circulation of photographs in journals and SPA publications stimulated emotions among combatants and civilians alike. As part of its propagandistic aim, the SPA published its own albums and magazines which told the history of key battles and war episodes from a nationalistic point of view. However, the military authorities soon realised that different viewers reacted differently to the same images. Tailoring the image content and captions to national and international audiences became, in this way, the primary propagandistic strategy of the SPA. Visual propaganda, therefore, worked not only through documentation of war events. To be effective, the public needed to be emotionally invested in what the photographs showed. The distribution of the SPA photographic production through different means, including national and international exhibitions, postcards and bookmarks, aimed to connect viewers with the images. The diversity of images and formats demonstrates that, for the SPA, the context in which the public consumed photographs mattered as much as the content of the images. The examination of the emotional dimensions of photography in the context of amateur photography, SPA propaganda and the illustrated press demonstrates that emotions were not confined to representations. Many images show soldiers laughing or civilians mourning, but emotions permeated all aspects of the practice of photography. Taking photographs of convalescent soldiers dressed up with their nurses’ uniforms, organising photographic exhibitions and requesting ‘striking’ images from the front lines were all activities that had an emotional impact on the people involved. Photography thus became an emotional practice: an action that shaped, embodied and communicated emotions.

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Photography as an emotional practice As often happens in family photography, amateur photographs tend to focus on happy memories. Historians have often argued that private photographs ‘remained silent’ about death, mutilation and suffering, unlike wartime narratives, which described the violence and pain in great detail.17 According to Stéphane Audoin-​ Rouzeau, the concealment of pain responded to ‘self-​censorship’, as soldiers wanted to avoid ‘the particular pornography linked to the exhibition of death in combat’.18 The limitations, therefore, came from the photographers themselves, rather than from external directives. One potential explanation for this self-​censorship is what Annette Kuhn has called the ‘past-​in-​the-​future’: the projection of what one thinks she or he will want to remember in the future.19 If a photographer in the field anticipates that they (or their relatives) will only want to remember happy moments, then they will avoid representing painful events. However, official and private photography is full of distressing events. Photographs not only hinted at death and suffering. Both private and official photographers portrayed its most dreadful aspects, including carbonised bodies or a crematory oven, and even directly represented personal losses. Although happy memories dominate, many photographers did not spare the most painful aspects of the war. Instead of investigating amateur photographers’ motivations for representing or not representing distressing events, this chapter focuses on practices: how women and men took and collected pictures, and the emotional effects of photography in these contexts.20 Rather than examining representations of emotional expressions (that is, analysing the content of the image and how this is presented), this approach examines the material effects of doing photography, including emotions. Shifting the focus from representations to practices shows how photography allowed combatants to navigate feelings of horror, love, loss and domesticity. The concept of ‘emotional practices’ illuminates what photographers such as Mrs Allhusen were doing when taking and collecting photographs. Scholars such as Monique Scheer, Jo Labanyi and Sara Ahmed have proposed the term ‘emotional practices’ as a new way of understanding emotions in their social, political and bodily

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contexts.21 Coming from different traditions, these three scholars coincide in the characterisation of emotions as something that we do, rather than something that we have. They do not examine, therefore, what an emotion such as love is, but how love ‘circulates between bodies’ and is enacted in the intersection between the subject and the world, including other subjects, as well as ideas, performances and material objects.22 Focusing on emotional practices leads to the interrogation of the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’ of emotions: how subjects have historically enacted particular emotions in different scenarios through rituals, language, objects, images, gestures, etc. As Scheer puts it, this analysis ‘entails thinking harder about what people are doing, and to working out the specific situatedness of these doings. It means trying to get a look at bodies and artefacts of the past’.23 Photography offers exceptionally rich material to examine combatants and civilians’ emotional practices. The most obvious way is through images, as they represent bodies and facial expressions which can be identified as displays of particular emotions. For instance, Figure 2.1 shows men laughing and smiling. But photographs give access to emotions in more nuanced and complex ways too. Each photograph is the remnant of a practice: an action that involves certain uses of bodies and objects. At a basic level, photography involves someone pressing the camera’s shutter, someone printing, collecting or storing the photograph, and someone looking at it.24 All these uses can mediate emotions, becoming emotional practices. For instance, Figure 2.1, which shows a man picking up another two while a third appears from behind, represents emotions –​most obviously, joy.25 Yet, merely pointing out what is visible in the image (the smiles) does not help to understand the men’s joy or the role that photography might have played in it. As the next section will discuss, the photographer was a friend of theirs who took hundreds of images during his mobilisation on the Western Front. The scene was funny not only because one man was strong enough to hold two men, but also because it was a performance for a friend’s camera. The men looking straight at the photographer and the use of a chair suggest that it was not a snapshot randomly captured by a passing photographer, but a staged photograph. One could imagine the conversations that happened before the taking of the image, how

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Figure 2.1  Page of the private album, here called Ambulance Album, showing a man holding two men, with a another one appearing from behind.

the photographer waited until they were all ready, and maybe the many attempts that they had tried before getting this shot. In this context, joy is what these men and the photographer did through the mediation of photography. This nexus of subjects, doings and artefacts, together with what the images show, forms the basis for the analysis of photography as an emotional practice. This approach enables a method to not only read emotions into images but also to articulate how photography creates emotions. Mrs Allhusen’s albums offer a privileged insight into how photography mediated emotions, particularly affective bonds. Mrs Allhusen first opened the Hôpital Bénevole N. 6 bis for Convalescent Soldiers in a friend’s house in Céret (East Pyrenees) in May 1915.26 A year later, in June 1916, she inaugurated a second hospital, the Etablissement de l’Assistance Aux Convalescent Militaires Français in Le Martouret, near Valence (Dôme, southeast France). This hospital, a house with 45 beds, specialised in nervous and rheumatic

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cases and closed its doors in May 1919.27 Finally, in May 1917 and in collaboration with the French Red Cross, Mrs Allhusen founded the Cantine des Dames Anglaises in Vertus. Unlike the previous ones, the Canteen was not a hospital, but a place where wounded and tired soldiers could rest and have access to refreshments and cigarettes.28 The three albums contain more than a hundred photographs in total, plus other memorabilia such as postcards, newspaper clippings, programmes of activities, etc. In exceptional cases, the captions indicate that the photographer had been another nurse named Miss Overton, who does not appear anywhere else in the albums.29 As all the documents are either about, signed by or addressed to Mrs Allhusen, she can be easily identified as the author of the albums and, most likely, the photographs. Most of the photographs in the three albums depict the daily life in the hospitals and their surrounding areas. The album dedicated to Ceret includes several formal group portraits of patients and medical staff, but most of the images are candid shots of nurses or patients.30 Only two photographs show the interior of the hospital, in particular the bedrooms. The beds, however, are empty and there are no traces of medical instruments. Only the presence of a nurse indicates that this is a hospital. Likewise, the photographs taken in Martouret do not overtly show medical conditions, treatments or facilities.31 Rather, the pictures tend to focus on patients relaxing outdoors, sitting under the sun, having tea or even playing tennis. There are only two images of patients in positions that suggest their convalescent state: a man in a wheelchair, and another one in bed. In both cases, the subjects were in a sunny garden, and did not show any explicit signs of pain or suffering. The images, therefore, highlighted the recovery rather than the illness. The Canteen album, however, is slightly different. Once again, the photographs mainly show social gatherings, such as tea in the garden or a glass of wine with a sandwich. But this album has very detailed captions with personal information such as names of the patients, military ranks, family members and medical conditions. For instance, a caption explains that a photograph belongs to Emile, ‘Aviateur Mitralleur Exadrile. Breguet 66 11th dragons. Wants a young English Godmother of War with whom he can correspond to help him with English’.32 Regarding another soldier, Mrs Allhusen wrote

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that he had ‘no parents living. One sister aged 12 in Brussels with an Uncle and Aunt. No news since 1914’.33 These details point to the intimacy between Mrs Allhusen and her patients and the role of photography in consolidating these affections. The emotional burden of Mrs Allhusen’s photographic activity is clear in a group of four photographs of patients in playful poses, making theatrical gestures or playing musical instruments during an afternoon performance. Instead of captions, these photographs had inscriptions written on the margins by the patients themselves: ‘To Madame Allhusen, a grateful patient’, ‘To Madame Allhusen, respectful homage’, ‘To Madame Allhusen, our kind director’ and ‘To Madame Allhusen in memory of the afternoon performance on the 22/​10/​16 in Martouret’.34 The same person had signed all of them. As in the example of the costume party, not only had an entertainment activity been photographed, but taking photographs had also acted as encouragement for these men to act in comical ways. A self-​declared ‘grateful convalescent’ was clearly aware of the camera while he declaimed (or acted as if he were declaiming), while another was caught addressing the photographer while playing with others. Photographing the afternoon performance was part of the fun. The photographs as objects also created new possibilities for expressing feelings of gratitude towards Mrs Allhusen, as they allowed the scribbling of names, messages and dates. Photographs of what was once an amusing afternoon became objects of gratitude through which patients expressed their feelings towards Mrs Allhusen. The importance of photographs as objects which someone could annotate and collect as a manifestation of personal affect is evident in postcards and photographs sent by former patients to Mrs Allhusen. Pierre Magnon, from the 5th regiment of infantry, sent her a postcard decorated with his portrait surrounded by maroon fabric and embroidered flowers in August 1917, while another patient sent her a postcard with his photograph attached in January 1917.35 Others sent her letters accompanied by photographs of them and their family members, such as the letter of 24 June 1918, which included the photograph of the first communion of a convalescent’s daughter.36 All this material attests to the centrality of photography in Mrs Allhusen’s relationship with her patients. The

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exchange of portraits became the means through which current and former patients articulated their gratitude towards Mrs Allhusen and made sure they stayed in touch. But not everything was amusement and entertainment. Mrs Allhusen and the rest of the nurses were aware of the vulnerable state of these men, who would put on costumes and participate in afternoon performances in spite of their illnesses. In a letter to her mother, Lady St Helier, she wrote about a patient, ‘a sailor from St Malo’, who ‘spends his time climbing trees, as then he feels he is on a ship, and that if he can only clamber high enough he will be able to see the sea. It is very pathetic to see the poor fellow, and he is one of many who suffer in this cruel way’.37 In another letter, she stated that ‘the soldiers here are as nice as those I had at Céret, but they are not so gay, as many of them are bad nervous cases which makes them sad and depressed, and some of them are very ill indeed’.38 She also took note of the conditions and treatments of some patients, integrating these stories into the album’s narrative. One of the photographs shows ‘a poilu who has lost his voice after a gas attack’.39 In this case, it is not that Mrs Allhusen avoided the representation of pain in an act of self-​ censorship, but rather that the condition (the loss of voice) was invisible to the camera. Next to it, another photograph showed the ‘cure d’air’ (air treatment) of a patient who was playing with a puppet.40 The environment in this case was not just the scenery, but part of a medical treatment that the modern viewer might not recognise as such. The most painful aspects of war appear a few pages later, which include six photographs of a military cemetery. The captions indicate that they were ‘Wreaths sent for an Artillery man’s grave, who died of “La Grippe” at Ambulance 77, Versus, Marne’. Another photograph shows several graves, with one in the main focus dedicated to ‘Sargent Wilkinson, severely wounded in July attack and died at Hotel Dieu. Sent the Canteen Union Jack for the funeral. Mrs Angus and I went to the funeral at 8 am’. A third one was dedicated to ‘Alexander Donaldson, grievously wounded in the July attack, died at Hotel Dieu, Vertus, a few days later, leaving young wife and two children’. Two other photographs also indicated that Mrs Allhusen had either sent the Canteen Union Jack or had attended the funeral. All these men had died following the July

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attack at Hotel Dieu or as result of the 1918 influenza and therefore were probably not her patients. In spite of this, Mrs Allhusen had engaged with the community beyond the Canteen, and attended funerals and photographed graves even if she did not personally know the deceased. Mrs Allhusen’s albums exemplify different ways in which photography became an emotional practice. She was not simply documenting the life at the hospital, or merely collecting pieces that would eventually remind her of the war. Her photographic practice became an active agent that shaped her emotional relationships with patients and staff. Taking photographs of both routine activities such as tea time and special events such as a costume party created the material conditions under which emotions such as gratitude could develop. Afterwards, collecting photographs in albums along with memorabilia articulated her war experiences in a visual narrative. In both cases, the photographs, the taking and the collecting of pictures, acted as points of contact between Mrs Allhusen and her patients, where they enacted and materialised their feelings for each other. The next two sections will further develop this analysis, focusing on two particular mechanisms through which photography became an emotional practice: the domestication of the front lines and the SPA propagandistic uses of photography.

The domestication of the front lines Mrs Allhusen’s photographs of tea time and patients eating sandwiches are not exceptional. Many amateur albums also contain photographs of meals and domestic activities such as cooking, writing letters and washing clothes, along with others of leisure and celebratory moments. These seemingly banal activities were prominent among amateur photographers because of their significance in wartime. Amidst the chaos, menial tasks brought a sense of homeliness to the Western Front. Photographing the kitchen, a party or even a grave helped combatants to domesticate the new inhospitable environment. Through photography combatants tried to tame a wild territory, turning it into a home, a domestic space in which civilian norms of eating, resting and treating each other could apply again. These attempts reflect an emotional investment

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in creating a home, and the key role of photography in developing these homely feelings. This section will focus on two amateur albums that represent domestic life at the heart of the war experience. The first one documents the daily life of the Surgical Ambulance 6/​6 in Argonne, Champagne, Verdun, Lorraine, La Somme and the Battle of Aisne between 1915 and May 1917 –​referred to as the ‘Ambulance Album’ in this book.41 The second one is the so-​called ‘Album Commandeur’, a series of six albums which document the war experience of an engineer.42 Both albums share common themes as well as being anonymous. Unlike Mrs Allhusen, these amateur photographers did not sign their albums or include any personal information about themselves except for the occasional self-​portrait. The archives that keep them, the Historial de la Grande Guerre and La Contemporaine, do not preserve any information about their origin either. The anonymity of the albums makes them interesting artefacts for the analysis of emotional practices. As I discussed earlier, the psychological motivations behind the representation of certain topics are not as relevant as the analysis of the emotional effects of taking, collecting and consuming photographs. Focusing on anonymous albums allows identification and comparison of photographic practices without framing them within the individuality or personality of the photographer. The conclusions drawn from this analysis, therefore, can be extrapolated to other amateur albums. The two albums also differ in many ways. The Ambulance Album contains more than 200 photographs, organised chronologically and by location. Each photograph has a caption written by the author, explaining details about the place, the people in it or what they were doing. This was probably the photographer’s first attempt to take pictures, as the images in the opening pages show the subject decentred or leaning, but improve as the album advances. The narrative of the album is quite personal, interspersing details such as names with generic comments about places and facilities. There are no sections or clear narratives, only places, dates and names. In contrast, the six albums that constitute the Album Commandeur are organised thematically (‘1. Mine War’, ‘2. Battle of Champagne’, ‘3. Devastated Cities’, ‘4. In Memory of Lt Georges’, ‘5. In Macedonia’

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and ‘5bis. Supplementary Photographs’). At the beginning of the first album (‘Mine War’), the author introduces his photographs as the ‘memory and personal collection of a veteran during the war 1914–​18’.43 He continues assuring that the photographs were taken ‘by myself’, and were ‘authentic and unpublished’ to this date.44 The tone of this presentation suggests that the albums were not a personal souvenir to show to his family, but rather a collection intended for the public. In fact, at least one of the photographs in this album was published in the journal J’ai Vu.45 Both the Ambulance Album and the Album Commandeur include several examples of photographs of actions intended to domesticate the Western Front. For instance, the author of the Ambulance Album took photographs of the kitchen in all the regions in which he stayed.46 As military units moved along the front lines, they never had proper kitchens, only basic kitchenware and a fire. The fact that he took so many photographs of these attests to the importance of photographing them as a way to consolidate their status as a kitchen. In Argonne, for instance, he photographed the cooks, while in Champagne he pictured his colleagues ‘cooking mushrooms (the cooks are on leave)’ (Figure 2.2)47 He also documented some of the hygiene measures at the front lines, such as the shower and the bathroom sink.48 Photographs of domesticity represented an inversion of photographic codes from civilian life. Civilian amateur photography usually focused on extraordinary moments and happy memories such as celebrations, while cooking and showering were all too common activities to deserve being photographed. However, in the context of the war, the ability to eat hot food and have a shower was key to survival.49 The place of these photographs in the album demonstrates the importance of photographing chores. For instance, the first Album Commandeur includes images of men around a pot cooking food, as well as carrying out other chores such as doing laundry.50 They follow the photographs of a mine attack over German trenches, which show the military preparations and the casualties. As the next chapter will discuss, the photographs of both German and French bodies are very graphic in this album. The images of men relaxing and cooking might seem insignificant next to them. But it is precisely the contrast between the life-​threatening military events

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Figure 2.2  Photograph of several men cooking, captioned ‘Cooking mushrooms (the cooks are on leave)’.

and the civilian activities that seek to sustain life that makes the photographs of domestic tasks relevant. The circulation of photographs of domesticity also contributed to the construction of a new home. As several authors have pointed out, there was a traffic of images between combatants and civilians to prove to each other that they were alive and well.51 As important as sending images back home was bringing photographs to the front lines. Keeping photographs in the trenches or ambulance settings also allowed men to feel at home. For instance, the Album Commandeur includes two photographs of men posing with the photographs of their loved ones by candlelight (Figure 2.3).52 These are very intimate images that demonstrate the power of photographs in materialising feelings. As Gillian Rose has argued, ‘photographs articulate absence, emptiness and loss as well as togetherness. Photographs of distant relatives’, such as those visible in Figure 2.3, ‘can turn a house into a “home” ’.53 Taking images of cooking and cleaning, as well bringing photographs of loved ones

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Figure 2.3  Page from the so-​called Album Commandeur showing two photographs of men posing with photographs in the candlelight.

to the trenches, became ways to appropriate the space, transforming it into a home, if only a provisional one. Capturing the celebration of joyful moments such as parties in funny snapshots was also another way to domesticate the front.

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Amateur albums are full of pictures of men laughing and having fun.54 Sometimes the entertainment was directly related to their military duties, as in Figure 2.4, which portrays the celebration of a promotion.55 Taken during a relaxed time after the formal ceremony, which the author also photographed, three men laugh as one is seemingly falling off the bench. None of them were looking to the camera, but they were probably aware of the presence of the photographer. Maybe the laughs came from trying a pose for the camera, as they did in Figure 2.1, where being photographed holding two men was part of the joke.56 In these examples, the emotional relationship between them was mediated by, enacted for and created by the presence of the camera. The power of the camera to incite moments of fun turned it into a way to kill time. Another anonymous album preserved at the Historial de la Grande Guerre includes several photographs of two soldiers playing around female statues, acting as if they were kissing or holding them.57 The men are looking directly into the camera, posing as if they were flirting with real women. Once again, the joke seems to have been made for the photographs. Both the

Figure 2.4  Three men ‘celebrating military promotions’ in the Ambulance Album.

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photographer and the men playing with the statues were laughing at each other, bonding. Photography, in this way, not only captured funny scenes, but played an active role by either framing the relationship between photographer and photographed (Figure 2.4) or encouraging particular behaviours (Figure 2.1). Conversely, acknowledging suffering and paying tribute to the dead also became an important element in these albums. Most amateur photographers pictured the landscape of graves, funerals and burials that they encountered on the front lines. Others, such as the author of the Ambulance Album, took gruesome pictures that showed prisoners digging graves, a crematory oven (see Figure 4.15), a man suffering from a severe back wound, and a patient with facial injuries.58 These photographs coexisted alongside joyful images such as Figures 2.1 and 2.4. Equally, the Album Commandeur did not remain silent about death, including both close-​ups of German corpses who had been killed in the mine attack in which he had participated, and images of French casualties, some of them falling during the battle (see Figures 3.10 and 3.11).59 These direct representations of death are rare, but they are not unique. Pain and death were essential elements of the war experience, and as such, they made their way into private photography. Just as amateur photographers adapted civilian codes of representation to depict their new home, they also found ways to integrate their experiences as victims, carers and even killers. These amateur photographs, however, domesticated these experiences. They did not make killing an acceptable act in the domestic sphere of civilian life. Rather, the juxtaposition of photographs of bodies with photographs of graves and menial tasks such as cooking integrated death and the duty to kill into a distinctive new experience, the war experience. Photography helped to enact feelings of grief and to process mourning. The fourth Album Commandeur was dedicated to the memory of the photographer’s friend, Lieutenant Georges, killed in Verdun.60 The album introduces Lieutenant Georges as ‘a loved chief among the troops, due to his presence among them and always up at the forefront, in all the dangerous missions’.61 The photographs show casual moments of the time Lieutenant Georges and the photographer spent together. He remembers that ‘in his spare time, which I used to spend with him, he liked illegal fishing

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at the Canal de la Somme, as well as swimming’.62 After these candid pictures, the album completely shifts the narrative. Over the next three pages, the images of the two friends are replaced by nine photographs of nurses and wounded men in a hospital garden. Although the captions do not mention it, it is safe to assume that this is the hospital where Lieutenant Georges died. The content and narrative of this particular album sets it apart from the rest of the Commandeur albums. While other albums by the same photographer, such as ‘The Mine War’ or ‘The Battle of Champagne’, consisted of photographs taken during a limited period of time and in a singular space, ‘In Memory of Lieutenant Georges’ revolves around one person, collecting all the images taken of him during the course of the war. The photographs of Lieutenant Georges swimming at the Canal de la Somme, therefore, would have made part of a different album had he not died. Making the album had repurposed the photographs. What, at the moment of taking the photographs, was a sign of the friendship between these two men, ended up becoming a ‘memento mori’. The photographic practices of taking the photographs of the hospital, collecting past images, repurposing them, composing a special album, and writing the captions were all actions that articulated mourning. Photography as an emotional practice worked at many levels. Sometimes photography was an event where emotions such as joy were enacted by both the photographer and the photographed. At other times, taking images allowed photographers to appropriate the scene and integrate it into the personal narrative. Finally, photographs also became emotional objects through which emotions such as grief and gratitude could be navigated. In all these instances, photography was a means to articulate emotional experiences of the war through words, actions, images and objects.

The circulation of photographs and the emotional mobilisation of France The public circulation of photographic material mobilised the feelings of French audiences. The SPA published its own albums, organised exhibitions and sent prints to delegates in Allied countries as part of its propaganda enterprise. As this section will show, each

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photographic product was tailored to particular audiences and each photographic medium worked in slightly different ways to support patriotic feelings and the union sacrée. The press also invested in photography, publishing war images in both newspapers and illustrated magazines. Focusing on the amateur contests that journals such as Le Miroir and J’ai Vu organised shows that, unlike the patriotism promoted by the SPA, the press triggered morbid curiosity by actively seeking ‘the most striking’ images.63 Visual propaganda in France and neutral countries had been one of the main reasons why the French government and the military had created the SPA in 1915.64 Yet military authorities soon realised that different audiences interpreted images in different, even opposite, ways. Lieutenant Colonel Dupuis, from the Bureau des informations à la presse, was the first to warn about the ambiguity of some images. In 1915 he issued the ‘Instruction relative à la choix des films et clichés’ to provide guidelines to photographers and filmmakers on the field.65 Besides recommendations on the topics they should capture, Dupuis discussed how some photographs had been misread outside France. In particular, he identified three types of problematic pictures: photographs of soldiers relaxing on the front lines; representations of colonial soldiers; and images of ruins. In relation to the first type, Dupuis encouraged photographers to document the ‘fantastic ability of the French soldier to accommodate himself to all the requirements of military life’ and his ‘steady good humour’.66 This recommendation materialised in images in which soldiers were living in healthy conditions, with the comforts of time to play cards and writing letters. In this way, the  domestication of the front lines became a good barometer of the ‘excellent moral state’ of the French army among national audiences.67 However, Dupuis highlighted that relaxed behaviour ‘was not exempt from criticism from the point of view of military conduct’. In his view, foreign audiences could interpret these images as a relaxed attitude and a lack of military discipline. The photographs of colonial troops were similarly controversial. According to a delegate in Stockholm, ‘under the influence of the Germans, the Swedish tend to exaggerate the role and the number of the units’ of colonial troops.68 Based on racist prejudices against colonial soldiers, underlying the Swedish delegate’s comment was the idea that if France needed the help of Arab, black and Algerian troops, it

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must be because the French were not as powerful as they seemed.69 Finally, Dupuis commented on the potentially pernicious effects of images of ruins, which could provoke not only indifference but even ‘admiration for the destructive power’ of the German army. Apparently, this was especially true in Muslim countries, in which images of devastation did not incite hatred but appreciation for such a demonstration of strength. The reports coming from Sweden and Muslim populations brought the intrinsic uncertainty of photographic meanings to light. What the French received with pride and admiration, international audiences interpreted as a sign of weakness. From these opposing emotional reactions, the SPA learnt that the audience and the context in which photographs were consumed were as important as the content of the images. As a result, the SPA attempted to counteract the uncertainty of photography by two means. First, as Dupuis’ instruction suggests, it started to adjust the photographs to the intended audience. The documents sent to international audiences were not necessarily the same as those circulated in France. Secondly, the SPA multiplied the formats in which photographs circulated. Each audience not only received particular images adapted to their own tastes and expectations, but also consumed photographs in different ways. The variety of photographic products (albums, prints, exhibitions, etc.) allowed for a better and broader distribution of photographs and films, which helped facilitate the SPA’s propagandistic aim. The diversification of SPA photographic material, therefore, sought to contribute towards greater control of photographic messages, and in particular, their emotional effects. One of the most effective methods of dissemination of SPA propaganda was the publication of photographic albums. Edited or illustrated by the SPA in conjunction with French presses such as Armand Colin, or journals such as Le Flambeau or Le Pays de France, the albums were sold at low prices nationally and internationally.70 Combining images and text, the SPA albums became powerful tools in the dissemination of patriotic feelings among the French and the reinforcement of Allied collaboration. From 1915 onwards, the SPA issued thematic albums such as La Bataille de Champagne (1915), La Défense de Verdun (1916), En territoire reconquis. Ce qu’ils ont fait (1917) and the more varied La France

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et ses Allies (1918).71 Others such as Kriegsgefangenschaft in Frankreich, Picture Records of the European War, Visione della Grande Guerra, Panorama and America-​Latina targeted particular international audiences in Switzerland, the UK, Italy, North Africa and Latin America.72 Finally, the SPA also published two magazines, La Guerre (1915–​16) and 1917 (1917), comprising several issues published bimonthly and monthly, respectively. Each issue of La Guerre covered a particular topic, from life on the front lines (‘La vie du soldat’ and ‘Abris et tranchées’) to key battles such as Champagne or La Marne. In contrast, 1917 opened with a text commenting upon themes such as ‘Le monde avec la France pour la liberté’ (‘The world with France for freedom’), ‘L’hommage de l’Italie’ (‘The homage of Italy’) and ‘La victoire prochaine du droit’ (‘The upcoming victory of the law’).73 While the photographs of each 1917 issue were not limited to showing what the opening text was about, these texts helped to frame the images within the themes of inter-​Allied cooperation, French pride and hatred for the Germans. Two important factors turned the SPA albums into propagandistic devices: publication patterns and photographic style. According to Jaillet’s military report, the album that sent more copies abroad in September 1917 was 1917, which dispatched 9,758 copies.74 To compare, La Bataille de Champagne only sent abroad 60 copies (10 to Holland and 50 to Russia), La Guerre 126 copies (mostly to the UK, US and Italy), and Ce qu’ils ont fait did not send any, despite being published that year.75 While these numbers only account for one month in 1917, they reveal wider patterns as they align with the national or international character of these publications. 1917 and Ce qu’ils ont fait offer the greatest contrast in this regard. 1917 included captions written in six languages (French, English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch) and contributions by personalities such as the Italian politician Romeo Gallenga Stuart and the writer Rafael Altamira, professor at the University of Madrid.76 The themes discussed in the introductory texts often boasted about the international scope of France’s mission during the war and inter-​Allied collaboration. In contrast, Ce qu’ils on fait made an obvious display of the French perspective of the war for the French, blaming the Germans for the destruction of their villages and landscape.77 Ce qu’ils ont fait relied on an aggressive rhetoric which

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worked among the French population, but not necessarily in Allied and neutral countries. While the main aim of 1917 was to incite admiration for the French, Ce qu’ils ont fait fed the hatred against the Germans, hence their different distribution patterns. The photographic style of SPA publications depended on the emotional reaction that was expected in national and international readers. Dupuis had made recommendations in this regard, but the evidence shows that they were not implemented in full. While images of resting soldiers appeared more often in the nationally distributed La Bataille de Champagne and La Défense de Verdun, most of the issues of 1917 also published these kinds of photographs. Similarly, photographs of ruins were systematically printed in all the albums, while images of colonial soldiers were so scarce that there were no significant differences between albums of national and international reach. The main difference was the approach to German prisoners and bodies, with national albums displaying an aggressive anti-​German rhetoric. For instance, La Bataille de Champagne presented a photographic narrative that followed the preparation, attack and aftermath of the battle of Champagne, illustrating each stage chronologically. After the images of the military preparation of the French attack focused on the Rimailho cannons, the reader could see their ‘good job’: a half-​ buried German body in the forefront, with more victims clearly visible in the background.78 The next three pages offer more graphic images of German corpses.79 While no other SPA albums published images of this kind, they often included photographs of German prisoners behaving in what they presented as dishonourable ways, mainly being happy because they had left the front lines and the French were treating them well. The accompanying texts in the SPA albums became key in this regard. Used as ‘extended captions’, text elaborated on the meanings of the photographs, promoting particular readings.80 The SPA also sent print copies to its agents abroad. Once the censorship committee had considered the photographs suitable for public consumption, the Bureau des informations à la presse sent images to the UK and the US daily, as well as to official and unofficial correspondents in other Allied and neutral countries such as Denmark, Spain, Greece, Holland, Norway, Italy, Portugal,

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Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, China, Japan and Belgium, and regions such as Central America and Africa. These countries received a selection of news stories once a week, and photographs related to more general information every two weeks or once a month.81 Following Dupuis’ instructions, the Bureau des informations à la presse dispatched a different selection of images according to its taste and the relationship of each country with France. The number of photographs also varied. The aforementioned military report stated that in September 2017 a total of 29,924 prints had been sent abroad. Although the UK and the US received daily parcels, most of the prints arrived in neutral countries such as Spain (5,655) and Switzerland (2,995).82 The photographs that Spanish delegates received provide a good example of how the SPA photographic production adapted to the taste of international audiences. For instance, between 12 and 14 March 1917, the SPA photographer Albert Samama-​Chikli documented the visit of a Spanish delegation to the battlefield of Verdun.83 Samama-​Chikli photographed the welcoming of Spanish and French bishops, and recorded scenes at the church at Chiffon and a Mass at Verdun Cathedral, emphasising the religious elements of the visit.84 More importantly, the photographs showed the religious mission interacting with soldiers in uniform and paying their respects to the dead at the military cemetery (Figure 2.5).85 In the context of France’s international propaganda, these photographs were key to building a friendly relationship with Spain. Although officially a neutral country, there was an ongoing cultural battle between Francophiles and German supporters in Spain. At the beginning of the war, Germany had been faster and more effective than France in disseminating propagandistic material.86 As a result, the Spanish population, especially the conservative and Catholic sectors, had favoured the German Empire.87 This situation started to change in 1915 when two key actors emerged. On the one hand, a young generation of intellectuals educated at the progressive Residencia de Estudiantes and Ateneo declared their explicit support for the French.88 On the other, the Rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris, Alfred Baudrillart, created the Comité catholique de propagande française (Catholic Committee of French Propaganda, CCPF) in February 1915.89 The CCPF

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Figure 2.5  SPA photograph of the Spanish mission gathering in a military cemetery near the Calonne trench in Verdun.

aligned with Poincaré’s Union Sacrée and allowed Baudrillart and other government and press officers to promote a religious alliance between the Catholic population in Spain and France.90 With this aim, Baudrillart travelled twice to Spain, and hosted Spanish visits to France. The image of Spanish bishops in the French trenches surrounded by crosses helped Catholic Spaniards to identify with the French fight, giving France the advantage in the cultural battle against the Germans. In fact, Captain Delorme, a government delegate in Spain, noted that ‘the most striking fact that has motivated this evolution [to support France] is, without a doubt, our resistance in Verdun’.91 Tailoring images to resonate with the main interests in each country and mobilise the population’s emotions

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in favour of France became, in this way, an effective propagandistic tool. To support the national and international reception of its images, the SPA organised photographic exhibitions both in France and abroad.92 Often showcasing the work of other official photographic services in Allied countries, these exhibitions aimed to bring the front lines to the home front. Of course, the images had been carefully curated and did not represent all aspects of the war. However, the sheer number of photographs on display (more than 2,000 in one of the exhibitions), the grouping of images on walls with no blank spaces, as seen in Figures 2.6 and 2.7, and the international origin of the photographs created an overwhelming feeling in the visitor, giving the impression that civilians could actually see the war through them. The French press supported and praised the SPA exhibitions for being ‘instructive’ while recognising the key role that they played in propaganda.93 Echoing Poincaré’s Unión Sacrée, the socialist journal Le Radical described the SPA exhibitions as ‘the close union between the army and the nation in a common effort’.94 Framing these exhibitions in the context of the Unión Sacrée mobilised a particular emotional rhetoric. As a commentator in the Journal des débats politiques et littéraires wrote, ‘by showing the tragedy of landscapes destroyed by bombs, the devastated and burnt villages’, the exhibition made civilians ‘understand and feel the superhuman effort of these men’.95 Understanding and feeling were two complementary reactions that aimed to foster support for the French cause. The first international exhibition opened at the Exhibition Galleries in London in August 1916.96 After a successful run, the exhibition toured around the UK before settling in a popular neighbourhood in London. In order to attract the support of the popular classes, the catalogue accommodated topics and images to the British taste. For instance, the caption to one of the images referred to a ‘French Tommy’ instead of French poilu, indicating the will to present the French cause in terms that were familiar to the British audience.97 The images of the exhibition followed the same topics that appear in other propagandistic formats, such as Reims (images 12 to 20), the Battles of La Marne (66–​69), Champagne (74–​75), Verdun (249–​255) and La Somme (728–​738), visits of military and political authorities such as the Generals Joffre and Pétain (196) and King George V (257), and the collaboration between France

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and Allied countries (617–​676).98 The aim of this particular exhibition, therefore, was to show the joint effort of France and Britain and the success of Allied countries. This is why the French press echoed the success of the exhibition, with Le Miroir publishing two photographs that showed both the display of the images and its inauguration by the French minister Painlevé and Lord Newton (Figure 2.6).99 The SPA also organised itinerant local exhibitions in France in 1916 and 1917.100 Between the autumn of 1916 and the summer of 1917, the SPA opened further exhibitions in Italy, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Mexico, Panama, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile and Venezuela. From October 1916, it also participated in inter-​Allied exhibitions in Paris, the US and the UK, which showcased the work of the military photographic services of the Allied countries.101 In Paris, the Pavillon de Marsan exhibited French, British, Italian, Serbian and Belgian photographs, receiving 50,000 visitors in a month.102 The press often commended these exhibitions because they highlighted international cooperation. Several newspapers associated particular features with each army. For instance, L’Illustration pointed out that ‘as expected, the British section pays a great deal of attention to the naval’ war, while ‘the Belgians exhibited the memories of the first days of the war … The Italian documents will show the extreme difficulties of the Allies’ campaign’.103 For its part, the Journal des débats politiques et littéraires also remarked that Italian documents showed the extreme difficulties of the Allies’ campaign, adding that ‘the Serbian section is particularly pathetic. All the photographs were taken during the retreat and visitors are painfully moved looking at distressing images of the Serbian army going back to Albany’.104 By bringing all these images together, these exhibitions presented Allied countries as a unified group that was enduring suffering for the sake of civilians in those countries. The exhibitions also aimed to demonstrate the value of having a photographic service like the SPA. As was the case in nineteenth-​and early twentieth-​century exhibitions, the photographs were hung on walls and portable displayers, which fitted several images framed in wood (Figure 2.7).105 Positioned next to each other, the different sizes of prints left almost no space between them. Besides the

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Figure 2.6  Page from Le Miroir, 20 August 1916, with two images at the top on the French photographic exhibition in London.

photographs displayed, the exhibition in Biarritz also had stereoscopic visors, such as the one being used by the woman sitting at the table in the foreground, which offered three-​dimensional views.106 Visitors, both civilian and men in uniform, had chairs available to

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Figure 2.7  SPA exhibition in Biarritz.

contemplate the photographs. The portable furniture and displayers, as well as the French flag, suggest that the exhibition did not take place in a museum or a gallery, but in another building set up especially for the occasion. The images visible in Figure 2.7 seem to focus on two prominent SPA topics: the trenches and battlefields (photographs on the displayer) and ruins (the large photograph on the right side of the image). In these exhibitions, the SPA created a whole environment that targeted the visitors’ senses. The stereograph immersed the viewer, who could only see what was in front of her or him, and the enlargement of prints on the walls presented photographs in a new way which made details more vivid. Under these conditions, photographs of destroyed landscapes or soldiers preparing for the battle became more real, enhancing the emotional identification of the French population with the combatants. These exhibitions, therefore, are the perfect example of the combination of information and propaganda that characterised the SPA. On the one hand, the short, direct captions that simply pointed out the place or main event depicted in the image positioned photographs as information devices that presented the facts of the war.

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On the other hand, the overwhelming presence of photographs on the walls together with the rhetoric of the union sacrée in the press turned these exhibitions into propaganda intended to move visitors. The public circulation of photographs through the national press also became a key factor in the emotional mobilisation of the French. Alongside consolidated magazines such as L’Illustration, founded in 1843, others such as Le Miroir, J’ai Vu, and Sur le Vif emerged in the years prior to and during the war. These new magazines were completely image-​driven. Photographs did not illustrate news, but became news in and by themselves. The focus on photographs resulted in an emphasis on the spectacular, with journals such as Le Miroir actively seeking the most ‘shocking’ images.107 The emotional impact of visual news became a cornerstone of the new magazines, not only because it was ‘a guarantee of sale’, as Joëlle Beurier has argued, but also because it helped readers to identify themselves with the subjects.108 Illustrated magazines such as Le Miroir or J’ai Vu followed some of the same strategies as the SPA. Although the Bureau des informations à la presse’s instructions for visual propaganda did not apply to the press, magazines shared some common visual tropes with SPA publications. Images of domesticity became ubiquitous because they connected the front lines with the home front and reassured civilians that the trenches kept some degree of normality. Photographs of ruined landscapes also had emotional resonances for French readers, who could identify the place and feel both nostalgia for the past and resentment against the Germans who were destroying their heritage, as Chapter 4 will show. Despite these coincidences, the press, and particularly the magazines of recent creation, often pushed the boundaries, publishing shocking images that were off limits for the SPA. For instance, the front cover of J’ai Vu on 25 February 1916 showed several German bodies piling up on a ‘sinister cart’.109 While the photograph reminds of some of the more graphic pictures in La Bataille de Champagne, the rest of the SPA publications spared these kinds of images altogether. The fact that a very explicit image of German bodies made it to the front cover and passed censorship indicates that the government allowed magazines to implement a more aggressive visual approach insofar as this aligned with the Bureau des informations à la presse’s propaganda strategy: hatred

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against the Germans and pride in the French army that was defeating them. The vision of dead German bodies also incited morbid curiosity among the French. These photographs were not seen as atrocity images that should inspire compassion. J’ai Vu explained that a French attack had caught the Germans by surprise and, as a result, they had abandoned the cart in which they were transporting their dead.110 This is an interesting example because the Germans were on their way to bury the dead, an action that was intrinsically laudable. Attacking them at that time, preventing a proper burial, could have been seen as something condemnable. However, J’ai Vu’s cover blames the Germans who ‘had only had time to cut the harnesses of the horses, leaving in distress’ the cart with the bodies.111 In this way, the photograph attracted the attention of readers by showing the sensational aspects of the war that SPA publications and exhibitions could not, blamed the Germans for abandoning the dead, and congratulated the French for a swift and productive attack. The spectacular character of the magazines’ images did not jeopardise their truthful nature. On 18 August 1915, J’ai Vu printed an ‘instantaneous photograph of a shell exploding’, taken by ‘infantryman G…, of the … Corps’, taken on 17 March 1915 in Soissons.112 In the image, three wounded men lie on the ground next to a white cloud of smoke. The text highlighted the authenticity of the photograph: The meticulous examination that we have carried out, the position of the men, both the wounded on the foreground and the other two soldiers, one of whom has been thrown flat on his stomach and the other has fallen into a pit. Everything [in the image] leads us to believe that this is a genuine photograph of a shell explosion.113

Captioned as ‘one of the most sensational war photographs’, this example illustrates the two meanings associated with ‘sensational’ at the time. On the one hand, ‘sensational’ referred to the extraordinary or rare nature of the photographed event. In this case, the photographer had captured the shell explosion as it happened, something that was extremely rare at the time. On the other hand, ‘sensational’ referred to images of blood and death, here represented in a wounded soldier. Precisely because of the sensational nature of the photograph, J’ai Vu also reproduced, in the bottom

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right corner of the image, a smaller image: the positive print as sent in by the photographer. The comparison between the two images (the original and the journal’s reproduction) was intended to demonstrate the authenticity of the reproduction, as they had enlarged the photograph ‘thirty-​six times’ but had not added or removed anything.114 By making transparent the operations through which a photographic print became a press illustration, J’ai Vu was telling its readers that it did not doctor its images and, therefore, that it could be trusted. The emotional investment of readers peaked when journals started to publish their pictures. Following announcements in Le Miroir and J’ai Vu about the magazines’ interest in amateur photographs and their willingness to pay monetary prizes for the most spectacular ones, many photographers contravened military regulations and sent them their pictures. One –​a photograph showing ‘the unusual aspect of an officer, covered with a gas mask and listening to instructions through a microphone’ –​appeared in J’ai Vu on 16 October 1915.115 The magazine did not credit the image, but it is identical to one of the photographs in the first Album Commandeur (Image 9, Figure 4.10). The image reproduced in J’ai Vu had erased the background, enhancing the silhouette of the officer and the unusual elements such as the glasses and the telephone cable attached to the wall. As a result, J’ai Vu showed ‘the strange aspect of an officer, with a gas mask and listening to instructions through the microphone’.116 The photograph was so out of context that it was published in one of the final pages that collected images without following a particular order or reason. In contrast, the amateur album included this photograph as one of the stages in the preparation of the mine war, specifically the excavation of tunnels. It is easy to guess why the photographer sent this image to the press. Although it was not sensational in the sense that it trafficked in morbid curiosity, it was sensational from a technical point of view. Around 1915/​1916, when this photograph was taken, the use of flash photography was not widespread. The fact that this photographer had used artificial lighting to illuminate the tunnel and had produced a very good image attest to his photographic skills. Yet both the military and the photographic contexts were completely erased in J’ai Vu, in spite of the magazine’s claims of authenticity.

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This chapter has examined how doing photography enacted and communicated emotions such as joy, gratitude, grief, pride and hatred. Applying the concept of ‘emotional practices’ to amateur photography, SPA propaganda and the press has demonstrated that photography not only represented emotions. Taking photographs of friends, visiting exhibitions and submitting images to the press were ways to materialise one’s feelings about others and the war. Focusing on practices instead of representations has shown that combatants and civilians used photographs in myriad ways to navigate their own feelings, and that emotions were not confined to private photography. The public circulation of photographs also sought to provoke emotional responses among readers, and these emotions were key elements of the government’s visual propaganda. In this way, taking, collecting and consuming images of war became practices that shaped war experiences, making sense of them.

Notes 1 M. H. Darrow, French Women and the First World War. War Stories of the Home Front (Oxford/​New York: Berg, 2000); S Grayzel, Women’s Identities at War. Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France During the First World War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); S. Grayzel, Women and the First World War (London: Pearson Education, 2002); N. Gullace, ‘The Blood of Our Sons’. Men, Women and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). 2 ‘The Claim of the Poilu. An Interview with the Lady St Helier on the Work of Her Daughter in France’, Lady Pictorial, 27 January 1917, p. 11. Newspaper clipping in Album Le Martouret, 1916, Albums Allhusen. 3 Mrs Allhusen’s albums are preserved at La Contemporaine (former Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine, Musée d’Histoire Contemporaine, BDIC-​MHC). Unfortunately, the reproduction of images from Mrs Allhusen’s these albums has been impossible. Album Le Martouret, 1916, Albums Allhusen. 4 J. Crouthamel, ‘Cross-​Dressing for the Fatherland. Sexual Humour, Masculinity and German Soldiers in the First World War’, First World War Studies, 2:2 (2011), 195–​215.

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5 Beurier has examined similar private photographs of soldiers in feminine costumes as joyful occasions to ‘experience what is forbidden’ in civilian life. 14–​18 Insolite. Albums-​photos de soldats au repose (Paris: Coédition du Nouveu Monde, 2014), pp. 113–​116. 6 Ibid.; S. Audoin-​ Rouzeau, Un regard sur la Grande Guerre. Photographies inédites du soldat Marcel Felser (Paris: Larousse, 2002); P. Minvielle, La guerre de mon père. Un photographe dans les tranchées, 1914–​1918 (Anglet: Atlantica, 2004); and J. Moreau 1914–​1918, nous étions des homes (Paris: Martinière, 2004). 7 Photo-​Plait, 1916, p. 17. 8 On sharing stories through photography, see M. Langford, Suspended Conversations. The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums (Montréal: McGill-​Queen’s University Press, 2001). 9 N. West, “ ‘Let Kodak Keep the Story”. Narrative, Memory and the Selling of the Autographic Camera in World War I’, in Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia (Charlottesville/​London: University of Virginia, 2000), pp. 166–​199. 10 S. Audoin-​Rouzeau, 1914–​ 1918 La violence de guerre (Paris: Gallimard, Ministère de la Défense, 2014), p. 14. 11 A. Kuhn, ‘Photography and Cultural Memory. A Methodological Exploration’, Visual Studies, 22:3 (2007), 283–​292. 12 On photography and remembrance in the context of the First World War, see S. Callister, ‘Picturing Loss. Family, Photographs and the Great War’, The Round Table. The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 96:393 (2007), 663–​678 and J. Carville, ‘ “This Postcard will Tell my Name when I Am Quite Forgotten”. Cultural Memory and First World War Soldier’, Modernist Cultures, 13:3 (2018), 417–​444. 13 J. M. Linsolas, ‘Photographie, un miroir du vrai?’, in A. Rassmussen and C. Prochasson, Vrai et Faux dans la Grande Guerre (Paris: La Découverte, 2004), pp. 96–​111. 14 J. Beurier, ‘L’apprentisage de l’evenement’, Études Photographiques, 20 (2007), 68–​83. 15 Le Miroir, 16 August 1914. 16 J’ai Vu, March 1915. 17 T. Blondet-​Bisch, ‘Vues de France’, in T. Blondet-​Bisch, R. Frank, L. Gervereau and A. Gunthert (eds), Voir, ne pas voir la guerre. Histoire des représentations photographiques de la guerre (Paris: Somogy, 2001). 18 Audoin-​Rouzeau, Un regard sur la Grande Guerre, p. 15. 19 Kuhn, Family Secrets. Acts of Memory and Imagination (London: Verso, 1995), p. 23. See also P. Holland (ed.), Family

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Snaps. The Meanings of Domestic Photography (London: Virago, 2000), p. 2. 20 See J. Lydon, Photography, Humanitarianism, Empire (London: Bloomsbury, 2016). For a different approach to photography and emotions shaped by affect theory, see E. H. Brown and T. Phu (eds), Feeling Photography (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014) and P. Brown and A. Noble, ‘Feeling in Photography, the Affective Turn and the History of Emotions’, in M. Durden and J. Tomey (eds), The Routledge Companion to Photography Theory (New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 21–​36. 21 M. Scheer, ‘Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (and is That What Makes Them Have a History)? A Bourdieuian Approach to Understanding 220; J. Labanyi, Emotion’, History & Theory, 51:1 (2012), 193–​ ‘Doing Things: Emotion, Affect, Materiality’, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 11:3–​4 (2010), 223–​233; S. Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (New York: Routledge, 2004); W. Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling. A Framework for the History of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); D. Martín-​Moruno and B. Pichel (eds), Emotional Bodies. The Performativity of Emotions (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019). 22 Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, p. 4; Labanyi, ‘Doing Things’, p. 223. 23 Scheer, ‘Are Emotions a Kind of Practice?’, p. 217. Italics in the original. 24 J. L. Hevia, ‘The Photography Complex. Exposing Boxer-​ Era China (1900–​ 1901), Making Civilisation’, in R. C. Morris (ed.), Photographies East. The Camera and its Histories in East and Southeast Asia (Durham, NC/​London: Duke University Press, 2009), pp. 79–​119 25 ‘Un fort de la Halle’, Album 005634, Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. 26 Allhusen, ‘An Appeal for Aid’, New Yok Herald, 13 November 1915, newspaper clipping in Album 4, Albums Allhusen. Album Ceret, 1915–​1916. 27 Allhusen, ‘Établissement de convalescence aux militaires français’, foundation Allhusen n. 2. Registered under the War Charities Act, 1916. Newspaper clipping in Album Le Martouret, 1916. 28 ‘Helping the French. An English Ladies’ Canteen’, Bolton Evening News, 26 July 1918. Newspaper clipping in Album Cantine des Dames, 1917–​1918. 29 Album Cantine des Dames, 1917–​1918.

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30 Some photographs are simply captioned ‘un poilu’ or ‘Mrs Pratt’. Album Ceret, 1915–​1916. 31 Album Martouret, 1916. 32 Album Cantine des Dames, 1917–​1918. 33 Ibid. 34 ‘À Madame Allhusen, un convalescent reconnaissance, Martouret’, ‘À Madame Allhusen, homage respecteux’, ‘À Madame Allhusen, notre sympathique directrice’, ‘À Madame Allhusen en souvenir de la matinée du 22/​10/​16’. Album Martouret, 1916. 35 Album Martouret, 1916. 36 Ibid. 37 Quoted in ‘The Claim of the Poilu’, Lady’s Pictorial, p. 102. Album Cantine des Dames, 1917–​1918. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 ‘The cure d’air on the Hill. May 1918’. Ibid. 41 Album 005634, Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne. 42 Album Commandeur, La Contemporaine. 43 ‘Mémoires et collections personnelles d’un ancien de génie durant la guerre 14–​18’, Album 1, La guerre de mines. 44 ‘Clichés pris par moi même, authentiques et inédites à ce jour’. Ibid. 45 J’ai Vu, 16 October, 1915. The final section of this chapter will delve into this image. 46 On cooking during the war in France, see S. Serventi, La cuisine des tranchées. L’alimentation en France pendant la Grande Guerre (Bordeaux: Éditions su Ouest, 2014). 47 ‘On fait cuire les champignons (les cuisiniers sont en permission)’, Album 005634. 48 ‘la douche’, ‘le lavabo’, Album 005634. 49 See Serventi, La cuisine des tranchées. 50 Album 1, Album commandeur. 51 E. Desbois, ‘La vie sur le front de la mort’, La recherche photographique (1989), 41–​45. 52 Album 5bis, Album Commandeur. 53 G. Rose, Doing Family Photography. The Domestic, the Public and the Politics of Sentiment (New York: Routledge, 2016 reedition), p. 46. 54 More examples of playful photographs of soldiers at rest are in Beurier, 14–​18 Insolite, pp. 142–​146. 55 ‘On fête les nouveaux galons’, Album, 005634. 56 ‘un fort de la Halle’, Album, 005634.

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57 Album 016280, Historial de la Grande Guerre. 58 Album 005634. 59 Album 1, Album Commandeur. Chapter 3 examines these photographs. 60 Album 4 ‘À la memoire du lieutenant Georges’, Album Commandeur. 61 ‘Le Lieutenant Georges, dans tous les secteurs, sous ses orders, a été un chief aimé de ses hommes, par sa presence parmi eux et toujours en tête, dans tous les missions dangereuses’, Album 4, Album Commandeur. 62 ‘Dans les moments de loisir, où il m’arrivait souvent de l’accompagner, était un fervent de la pêche clandestine dans le canal de la Somme’, Album 4, Album Commandeur. 63 Beurier, ‘L’apprentisage de l’évenement’. 64 See Chapter 1, Jaillet, ‘Rapport sur la création, le fonctionnement, les résultats de la Section Photographique et Cinématographique de l’Armée’, 10 October 1917. 65 Dupuis, ‘Instruction relative au choix des Films ou clichés’, 1 November 1915. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. 69 On the representation of colonial soldiers as a threat from a British perspective, see R. Smith, ‘The Black Male Body in the White Imagination During the First World War’, in P. Cornish and N. J. Saunders (eds), Bodies in Conflict. Corporeality, Materiality and Transformation (London/​New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 39–​52. See also M. Perceval, ‘Pour une iconographie des soldats maghrébins pendant la Première Guerre Mondiale’, Migrance Special Issue ‘Les soldats maghrébins dans l’armée française (XIXe-​XXe siècle)’, 38 (2011), 53–​58. 70 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 62. 71 SPA, En territoire reconquis. Ce qu’ils ont fait (Paris: SPA, 1917); SPA, La bataille de Champagne (Paris: Flambeau, 1915); SPA, La défense de Verdun (Paris: Le Pays de France, 1916); SPA, La France et ses alliés (Paris: Émile Paul, 1918). Other thematic albums are Album 1916, Patrie and Hélio. Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, pp. 63–​64. 72 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 62. 73 SPA, 1917: Le monde avec la France pour la liberté (Paris: E. Paul, 1917); SPA, 1917: L’homage de l’Italie (Paris: E. Paul, 1917); SPA, 1917: La victoire prochaine du droit (Paris: E. Paul, 1917); SPA, La Guerre (Paris: Armand Colin, 1915-1916). 74 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, pp. 65–​66. 75 Ibid.

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76 SPA, 1917: La France d’aujourd hui (Paris: E. Paul, 1917), p. 2; SPA, 1917: L’homage de l’Italie, p. 2. 77 SPA, Ce qu’ils ont fait. More on this album in Chapter 4. 78 SPA, La Bataille de Champagne, p. 10. 79 Ibid., p. 12. 80 On texts as extended captions, see C. Morton, The Anthropological Lens. Re-​thinking E.E. Evans-​Pritchard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 129–​130. 81 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 59. 82 Ibid. 83 The first visit of Baudrillart to Spain was between 16 April and 24 May 1916, the second was in 1917. The first visit of the Spanish group to France was from 20 September 1916 to the beginning of October 1916. S. Casas Rabasa, ‘El comité católico de propaganda francesa en España durante la Gran Guerra. Una puesta al día’, Hispania Sacra LXV, 1 (2013), 335–​367. 84 SPA 50 L ‘La visite du sud de la región fortifiée de Verdun par la misión d’évêques français et espagnols en mars 1917’, ECPAD. 85 SPA 50 L 2445; SPA 50 L 2440; SPA 50 L 2436; SPA 50 L 2435, ECPAD. 86 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 2; Levitch, ‘The Visual Culture of Modern Art’, p. 35. 87 See P. Albert, ‘La propagande étrangère en Espagne pendant la Première Guerre Mondiale’, in Españoles y franceses en la primera mitad del siglo XX (Madrid: Centro superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1986), pp. 357–​411. 88 Ibid., pp. 360–​361. See also Paloma Ortiz-​de Urbina, ‘La Primera Guerra Mundial y sus consecuencias: la imagen de Alemania en España a partir de 1914’, Revista de Filología Alemana, 5 (2007), 193–​206. 89 One of the main meetings in the creation of the CCPF was between Baudrillart and Delcassé, as minister of the Ministère des affaires étrangères, on 4 February 1915. It is possible that Delcassé was referring to this and other meetings in his letter to Dalimier on 10 March regarding the propagandistic images of the CMH. See Casas Rabasa, ‘El comité católico de propaganda francesa’. 90 L. V. Smith, S. Audoin-​Rouzeau and A. Becker, France and the Great War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 27–​30. 91 ‘Le fait saillante qui a motivé cette évolution est, incontestablement, notre résistance à Verdun’, quoted in Guillot, Les soldats de la mémoire, p. 208.

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92 On exhibitions and the visual arts, including photography, during the war see J. Wellington, Exhibiting War. The Great War, Museums and Memory in Britain, Canada and Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 93 L. R. M., ‘2eme exposition interalliée de photographies de guerre’, Le Figaro, 15 November 1917. 94 ‘L’union intime de l’armée et de la nation dans un effort commun’, in ‘Photographies de guerre’, Le Radical, 30 September 1916, pp. 1–​2. 95 ‘À la majorité des français l’exposition de photographies de guerre révèle ce qu’est celle dernière. Elle leur fait comprendre et sentir, en leur montrant le tragique des paysages décharnés par les obus, les villes devastées et incendiées, l’effort surhumain des hommes’, in ‘L’exposition de photographies de guerre’, Journal de débat politique et littéraire, 1 October 1916. 96 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 60. 97 Catalogue Exhibition of Official Records of the Photographic Section of the French Army, issued by La Section Photographique de l’armée française under the patronage of his Excellency the French Ambassador and Vicomtesse de la Panouse (London: Newsham, Cowel & Gripper, 1917). 98 Ibid. 99 ‘L’exposition photographique française à Londres. L’inauguration de l’exposition photographique’, Le Miroir, 20 August 1916. 100 Bayonne, Pau, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nice, Cannes, Toulon and Marseille. Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 79. 101 Ibid., pp. 61–​62. 102 Ibid. 103 ‘Photographies de guerre. L’exposition des sections photographiques des armées alliées’, L’Illustration, 30 September 1916, n. 3839; ‘Photographies de guerre’, L’Illustration, 7 October 1916, n. 3840, p. 343. 104 ‘La section serbe est particulièrement pathétique. La majeure partie des photographies la composant ont été prises pendant la retraite et les visiteurs sont douloureusement émus au spectacle des scènes de détresse de l’armée serbe refluant vers l’Albanie’, ‘L’exposition de photographies de guerre’, Journal de débat politique et littéraire, 1 October 1916. 105 For a comparison between nineteenth-​and twentieth-​century modes of display in galleries and museums, see T. Barringer, ‘Victorian Culture and the Museum: Before and After the White Cube’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 11:1 (2006), 133–​145.

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106 Stereoscopic photographs were very popular during the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Precisely because of their popular appeal, they had already been used during the American Civil War. See E. Godbey, ‘ “Terrible Fascination”. Civil War Stereographs of the Dead’, History of Photography, 36:3 (2012), 265–​274. 107 Beurier, ‘L’apprentisage de l’evenement’. 108 Beurier, Photographier la Grande Guerre, p. 423. 109 J’ai Vu, 25 February 1916, front cover. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to publish this image. 110 Ibid. 111 Ibid. 112 J’ai Vu, 18 August 1915, p. 533. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to publish this image. 113 Ibid. 114 Ibid. 115 J’ai Vu, 16 October 1915. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to publish this image. Album 1, Album Commandeur. 116 ‘L’étrange aspect d’un officier revêtu d’un masque protecteur contre les gaz et écoutant des instructions au microphone’, ibid.

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Figure 3.1  SPA photographers with women and children in Port de l’Ouedj, 1917.

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3 Embodying: the multiple meanings of the body of the combatant, the mutilated and the dead During the filming of the French troops in Port d’Ouedj, Hedjaz (current Saudi Arabia) in 1917, the SPA photographer Maurice Bauche captured the moment when several women gathered behind the camera to see through the lens. Meanwhile, an SPA filmmaker was talking to a child, probably to instruct him on how to pose. More people, both French and Arabs, watched the scene (Figure 3.1).1 The image was part of the SPA documentation of the Eastern Front, which had started in 1915 with the creation of a special photographic unit for that area.2 In line with colonial imagery, the photograph accentuated the women’s exoticness through the contrast of their black skin against the white dresses, the scarves on their heads and their eagerness to use the camera. In contrast, French soldiers, dressed in uniform, calmly talked to others or gave instructions. This photograph is a perfect example of the representation of colonial stereotypes through the uses of the body, as well as an instance of bodies doing photography. A woman adjusted her body to the height of the viewfinder while others touched her arm while trying to grasp how to work the camera. The child in front of the lens stood still, waiting for instructions on how to perform. They were talking, with Bauche probably intervening in the conversation too. Photography is a technology of embodiment. As Figure 3.1 shows, during the war, photographs represented bodies in order to communicate ideas about French identities. This chapter will focus on how SPA and press photographs of the mutilated body articulated ideas of physical, emotional and collective recovery, while photographs of the dead gave a visual and material body to the idealised notion of ‘Mort pour la France’. Beyond representations, doing photography was a bodily activity. The use of the camera made

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photographers and photographed people engage with each other and move through the space in characteristic ways. Chapter 2 has shown how taking and collecting photographs mediated affective relationships between combatants and civilians. This chapter shifts the focus to the bodily aspects of these bonds, arguing that taking photographs of dead bodies shaped bodily interactions between the living and the dead. Framing German dead bodies with a camera or portraying French casualties on the ground were actions through which combatants negotiated their roles as killers and mourners. Focusing on both representations of the body and bodily practices of photography will show that the body became a heuristic device, the lens through which questions such as rehabilitation and death were explored. In his 1920 novel La percée, ex-​combatant Jean Bernier wrote that ‘those who haven’t grasped [the war] with their flesh, cannot speak about it’.3 Ever since Jean Norton Cru included this quote in the epigraph of Du témoignage, the body has gained a privileged place in First World War historiography.4 As Audoin-​Rouzeau and Annette Becker have acknowledged, ‘the violence of war inevitably takes us back to a history of the body. In war, bodies strike each other, suffer and inflict suffering’.5 The body is at the heart of war, and particularly, of military combat: ‘the extreme violence that accompanies the fight is primarily corporeal. It’s onto bodies, into bodies, that it’s inscribed.’6 But beyond the battlefield, combatants’ experiences of the war were also of a bodily nature. Their sensual engagement with the space changed as they started to live between the mud and the bugs of the trenches and got used to the smell of abandoned bodies on no-​man’s land.7 Through homosocial relations on the front lines, men’s bodies also became closer.8 The making of the body of the soldier also challenged and renewed traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, with bodies that often crossed boundaries.9 Mutilations became one of the most extreme bodily experiences combatants and civilians could endure. Medical innovations and the new ways of waging war, in which the heavy artillery replaced one-​to-​one combat, resulted in an increasing number of injured soldiers who, in spite of the severity of their wounds, survived.10 The response from the French state was the multiplication of its provision of care and after-​care. In addition to aid stations near

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the front lines and the hospitals in the cities, the sub-​secretary of the French health services in the army, Justin Godart, promoted the opening of rehabilitation centres, which would complete the recovery of severely wounded and mutilated men.11 For Godart, the most important role of these centres would be the reincorporation of the disabled men into the workforce. Retraining these men to perform industrial or agricultural jobs was not only good for the French economy, but first and foremost, for the disabled. For Godart, working would ‘protect [the amputee] from the sadness of an incurable injury, from the moral depression that would multiply laziness. It is to decrease the importance of his wound in front of his own eyes, it is to give him back confidence and courage’.12 SPA and press photographs mirrored the government effort to reintegrate mutilated men into society by portraying the amputees in a work environment. The rhetoric of these publications emphasised the recovery of these men and their usefulness to society, deflecting the viewer’s attention from the missing limbs and the mechanical prostheses. The portrayal of violence also included the photography of dead bodies on the battlefield. At least since the American Civil War (1861–​1865), photographers had captured the victims of warfare. Timothy O’Sullivan’s graphic photographs of bloated corpses fascinated and repulsed his contemporaries, who consumed them in exhibitions and at home.13 As Chapter 2 has discussed, French illustrated magazines also incited fascination and repulsion by publishing graphic images of the dead. While these photographs usually represented the enemy’s dead, it was not uncommon to publish images of French victims. In contrast, the SPA only dedicated a very small proportion of its images to dead bodies, and most of these photographs were later censored. Yet the SPA archives preserved and classified photographs of dead bodies, even creating the category ‘mort à l’ennemi’ (‘killed by the enemy’) for the French victims. The very existence of the category ‘mort à l’ennemi’ in the military photographic archives demonstrates that, contrary to much debate in the field, there was no visual taboo regarding death. Death was a war event and, as such, it belonged in the archive. The choice of the category ‘mort à l’ennemi’ echoed the phrase ‘Mort pour la France’, which the French government created in 1915 in order to honour the war dead. The translation of a legal category

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into a photographic category in the military archive indicates the significance of these photographs. As Leonard V. Smith has pointed out in relation to the war dead, ‘the death of any individual could be construed as contributing to an archetype, an idealised universal, yet very male identity that would live forever to inspire posterity’.14 Photography gave this archetype a concrete body that was also universal yet very male, and that would live forever in the archive. The representation of the French dead through photographs of bodies on the battleground defined, in a performative way, who the dead were and how they died. The photography of the dead was not only a propagandistic or archival issue. Many amateur photographers also captured images of the dead and some even included them in their personal albums. The most explicit photographs are usually of German bodies. Joëlle Beurier has interpreted these images as the combatants’ attempt to ‘appropriate’ death, rather than to manifest ‘hate or voyeurism’.15 Similarly, the scarce photographs of French victims were not voyeuristic.16 These photographs were not necessarily taken with the aim of being the object of visual consumption. Rather, it was the very act of taking them that animated photographers to portray the dead bodies of both French and German victims. Approaching the dead with a camera meant being in close proximity to the body of someone the photographer had contributed to killing or with whom he had been in the same military unit. Collecting, pasting and captioning the photographs in an album integrated these events into a personal narrative, articulating their relationship to the death. Through the lens of bodily practices, the photographs of the dead become traces of loss as well as the duty to kill. Examining photography as a technology of embodiment brings the multiple meanings of the body of the combatant, the mutilated and the dead together. Photographic representations shaped public and private concerns about the mutilated and the dead body, as well as their place in French society. As a bodily practice, photography also mediated relationships, including between the living and the dead. These embodiments were central in the formation of war experiences. The representation of some bodies in the public and the private sphere made them meaningful, while the proximity between the bodies of the photographer and the photographed allowed them to acknowledge each other.

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(Re)making bodies, rethinking recovery In the now classic Dismembering the Male, Joanna Bourke affirms that ‘the male body was intended to be mutilated’.17 Bourke refers to the increasing chances of suffering major injuries due to multiplication of ways of inflicting violence over male bodies during the war. But this affirmation also opens up the question of the meaning of mutilations. The physical changes experienced by men due to war violence forced combatants and civilians to rethink the male body, its function and its appearance.18 In the Anglophone world, Ana Carden-​Coyne has shown how modernism and classicism provided the lens to re-​imagine the disabled male body. Caught between the classicist’s ‘aesthetics of healing’ and the ‘erotic promise of future’ of modernism, commemoration monuments and other visual and cultural products became ‘sites of healing’ in which bodies incorporated contradictory discourses and experiences (‘violence and healing’, ‘resistance and retreat’, ‘rupture and continuity’).19 In the French context, the incorporation of amputees into the workforce turned into the sign of a physical and moral recovery, symbolising the recovery of France after the war.20 The representation of facial injuries in the public sphere was, however, more problematic. As Suzannah Biernoff has argued, the stigma of disfigurement prevented the dissemination of these images in Britain during and after the war.21 In France, veterans suffering from facial injuries created their own association and coined a name for themselves, ‘gueules cassées’ (broken faces). Marjorie Gherhardt has explained how this organisation attracted attention to these men, who, in contrast, wanted to go unnoticed.22 Photography contributed to the process of remaking the disabled body and the disfigured face in transformative ways. SPA and medical photographs of men equipped with prosthetic arms shaped ideas of bodily recovery and rehabilitation as medical journals, SPA albums and the press widely published them. The image of the amputee became part of the visual culture of the war, reflecting the reality on the streets. Similarly, doctors around France extensively documented facial injuries and the subsequent reconstructive surgeries. Yet their circulation was limited to the medical realm. Occasionally, SPA albums and the press included images of men with their faces covered with bandages, but these were never as

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pervasive as the photographs of bodily mutilations. At the heart of these photographs and their circulation lay the question of what defined the male body. The widespread visibility of men with prosthetic limbs indicates that, during the war, public discourse favoured an understanding of the male body in relation to its function. It was the ability to act like a man, rather than looking like one, that identified the male body.23 However, the same principle did not apply to the face. Most of the photographs of reconstructive facial surgery showed the restoration of the function, but the scars often prevented a full restoration of the appearance. The comparison of the photographic approach to bodily and facial mutilations shows that ‘recovery’ was a complex social, medical and cultural process in which competing notions of the male body coexisted. The circulation (or lack of it) of photographs of mutilated bodies and faces among medical, public and private spheres contributed to articulating, communicating and challenging ideas about recovery. The re-​education of mutilated men and their reintegration into the job market became the main priority of both doctors and the French government. However, what this re-​education meant and how to achieve it was up for debate. Some doctors defended the physical restoration of motor abilities through massages and other medical techniques. This method was known as functional re-​education, as its main purpose was the recovery of the function of the limbs and stumps. In contrast, physicians such as Jules Amar argued that manual labour was a ‘therapeutic agent’, and therefore advocated for the professional re-​education of mutilated men.24 The sub-​secretary of the health services, Justin Godart, agreed with Amar, declaring that ‘the mutilated man has to be systematically trained for work’.25 The aim of re-​education was not only to restore the function of the lost limb but also to return the ability to work and, through this, the amputee’s good morale. Recovery, therefore, was supposed to be physical, professional and psychological. In this context, physicians, therapists and technicians debated the types of prosthetic devices that could be used as well as the kind of manual labour that mutilated men were able to perform.26 In relation to the prostheses, the consensus was that ‘the prosthesis does not aim to replace the missing limb or limb’s part, but to compensate for an abolished or seriously damaged function’.27 In the case of the feet and legs, the function was relatively clear: to

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provide support so the amputees could stand up by themselves and move around without pain.28 The case of the upper limbs, including arms, elbow and hands, was more complicated. Hands are used to eat, to work, to write and even to play musical instruments. Designing prosthetic hands that could replace all those functions led to the distinction between ‘artificial hands’ or ‘articulated hands’ and ‘working tools’ or ‘working arms’. Surgeon Broca wrote that ‘many people –​and even some doctors –​truly believe that this “artificial hand” is actually helpful. It indeed enables the amputee to eat, to write and even to take off his hat, but it cannot help him perform a real work task. For this purpose, he needs, strictly speaking, a tool that is adapted to function rather than to aesthetics’.29 The focus on replacing the function of the limb therefore led doctors to favour prosthetic hands and legs that did not look like human hands and legs over devices that imitated the aesthetic of a hand or a leg but that did not allow men to perform activities, particularly work-​related activities. As a result, the design of prosthesis was far from standard. Because prosthetic devices had to adapt to different activities, hands could not ‘be identical for all the professions, and even several kinds of hands are necessary for the same profession’.30 In order to explain how the prosthetic devices worked and the differences among them, Amar and others illustrated their texts with photographs. In Amar’s La prosthèse et le travail des mutilés (Prosthesis and the Work of the Amputees), four photographs showed men sanding down, sawing, typing and playing the violin.31 Only the first two images showed men doing manual labour. By equipping them with articulated hands instead of artificial hands, the photographs reinforced the argument of the book. They offered visual evidence that human-​ shaped artificial hands were only suitable for non-​physical activities, while tool-​shaped prostheses helped the mutilated to perform other job tasks. Photographs only confirmed that aesthetic appearance was a secondary issue, as it was the efficient use of a hand, an arm or a leg in a working environment that determined the recovery of these men. The SPA followed the same approach to portraying mutilated men. For instance, in April 1916, SPA photographer and filmmaker Albert Samama-​Chikli documented the École municipale de mutilés in Paris.32 In one of his photographs, two men who had lost an

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Figure 3.2  SPA photograph of two amputees, at work at the Municipal school for amputees, 5 rue de Durance (Paris) in April 1916.

arm posed next to their carpentry tools, showcasing the sophisticated prosthetic tools they used instead of hands (Figure 3.2). The photograph was clearly staged, but it helped to demonstrate the versatility of working arms. In another photograph from the same series, each man was performing a different task, but their prosthetic arms ended in the same pair of pliers. This and the rest of the photographs belonging to the same category in the military archives followed the same conventions of the photographs used by doctors, surgeons and therapists. They did not focus on the amputation but on the prosthesis and, in particular, the activity that the prosthesis enabled men to carry out. The similarity between propagandistic and medical imagery allowed photographs to circulate more freely between different spheres, reinforcing the same message. Photographs of working amputees reached the French public through illustrated magazines and publications such as the SPA album La Guerre, published between 1915 and 1916.33 Around the same time that Justin Godart circulated a series of instructions ‘with the aim of encouraging and

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Figure 3.3  Page depicting the health stages of injured men in the SPA album La guerre, p. 104.

developing the professional re-​ education’ of mutilated men, La Guerre dedicated a whole issue to the war health services.34 On one page, five photographs showed men suffering from visual impairment and leg and hand amputations (Figure 3.3).35 Similarly to Figure 3.2, the image at the centre showed an amputee who had lost his hand, but was able to write using a prosthetic device, a plier-​like appliance. On the left side of the page, a colonial soldier with a prosthetic leg worked as a shoemaker, while a blind man knitted. These photographs replicated the idea that the men’s complete recovery was associated with their professional development. They highlighted the agency of these men, who could fend for themselves. Disability was thus framed in a positive light. Amputees were not fit for military service anymore, but these photographs demonstrated that they would be still contributing to the war effort by means of their work.

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The photographs on the right side of Figure 3.3, however, complicate the narrative. The amputees had lost both their legs, but were able to stand thanks to prosthetic legs or to move with a wheelchair. In contrast with the other three pictures, these images do not depict men at work but at leisure. Accordingly, the prostheses were merely functional: they replaced the function of the legs (standing up and moving around). Yet the prostheses did not look like human legs at all. Wooden sticks and a cane did not replace or reconstruct the feet. The appearance of these men was strange. However, the juxtaposition of the five photographs together framed these images into a positive discourse of recovery. They were at leisure, but they were still able to work, as the amputee equipped with the same prosthetic leg at the top left of Figure 3.3 showed. The presence of a colonial soldier reinforced this positive and propagandistic narrative, showing not only the cooperation and even the solidarity between French and colonial amputees exchanging a cigarette, but also that the French health services also took care of them. The positive readings of these images were so extended that in April 1915, the illustrated journal Sur le Vif published the image of the ‘first disabled man of 1914–​1915’, who was the same amputee that appears in top right of the photograph in Figure 3.3.36 Portraying a man with military decorations staring straight at the camera, standing on two wooden legs and two canes, the photograph did not show any signs of struggle or pain, physical or psychological. Photography was able to remake the body of the amputees, turning it into a rehabilitated body, because medical, official and press photographs focused on the recovery of the function rather than the recovery of the appearance. The similar approach of all these photographs facilitated their circulation and therefore the construction of a consistent discourse that could reach several sectors of the population, including doctors and civilians. In contrast, photographs of facial injuries were mostly taken in medical contexts and barely penetrated the public sphere. Due to the seriousness of facial injuries and mutilations, patients often needed several interventions over a period of time, sometimes lasting for years. Military hospitals systematically documented the process of facial reconstruction of their patients, in written as well as visual form. While doctors used illustrations, watercolours, sketches and X-​rays to represent their patients, most of them privileged the use

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of photography. In particular, they appropriated the photographic tradition developed by Alphonse Bertillon and others in the nineteenth century. Working for the police, Bertillon aimed to elaborate a photographic procedure that worked as an identification system. In order to focus on the facial features that identified an individual, Bertillon and others photographed the subject against a neutral background, full-​face and in profile.37 Doctors in hospitals and maxillofacial centres in France and abroad appropriated this type of photography, taking full-​front and profile pictures of their patients during their stay in the hospital. Figure 3.4 shows the nasal reconstruction of a French soldier, Cecillon. The eight pictures show four different phases of his surgical process: the injury in the nasal septum, the growing flesh at the end of the nose, the graft, in which tissue from his forehead was used to cover the lack of septum, and the final result. This documentation process served doctors in different ways. Firstly, it helped them monitor the progress of the patient, showing how he was after each intervention. The portraits therefore acted as evidence of the evolution of the patient and the success of the facial reconstruction. Secondly, photographing the process and result of surgical techniques such as the nasal graft helped doctors to improve. As historians such as Sophie Delaporte have demonstrated, the extent and magnitude of facial injuries during the war, together with medical advances such as blood transfusions and anti-​infection measures, meant that doctors experimented with new techniques to grow tissue and treat facial mutilations.38 Photographs became a visual archive of new and old surgical techniques that showed how they worked in different patients as well as their results. Photographs of successful facial reconstructions or innovative techniques had the potential to expand medical knowledge, and therefore they circulated widely in medical circles. For instance, Val-​de-​Grâce displayed some of these images and other medical materials to visitors and students in the medical museum attached to it, and included them in the journal Iconographie du Musée du Val-​de-​Grâce.39 Similarly, the medical journal specialising in the treatment of facial injuries, La Restauration Maxillo-​Faciale, also reproduced and discussed photographs of facial injuries and reconstructive surgeries.40 The journal included articles written by surgeons discussing innovative techniques, procedures and prostheses

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that advanced reconstructive and plastic surgery, often illustrated with photographs. A close reading of the content of these articles and the images that illustrated them reveals that the very reason why photographs became such useful media in the medical sphere also prevented them from public circulation. For instance, in an article published in 1918, surgeon Dufourmentel explained the different phases of the recovery of a patient who had lost his right eye and the upper part of the nose.41 The photographs showed the graft that Dufourmentel had performed on the patient. However, unlike the patient in Figure 3.4, the successful graft had not succeeded in restoring the patient’s face because the damage had also reached his eyes. Unfortunately, no graft or surgical innovation could reconstruct an eye. Like many other men, this patient had

Figure 3.4  (continued on next page)

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Figure 3.4  Photographs showing the evolution of the injuries and the facial reconstruction of Cecillon.

to rely on a prosthetic eye. Artists such as Anna Coleman Ladd designed and manufactured delicate facial prostheses and masks, but their medical and social value was very different from that of bodily prostheses. Dufourmentel’s article acknowledged that ‘the aesthetic possibilities are, unfortunately, limited. Even though small and medium wounds can often be repaired almost perfectly, we have to recognize that surgical restoration is but a second-​best solution in the case of large mutilations like that we have previously described, and that we must be prepared to resort to external prostheses to complete the correction’.42 In this case, surgeons had not only attempted to restore the function but also the appearance of the face, but to no avail.

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Photographs of facial reconstruction and bodily mutilations were therefore very different both in terms of their visual style, their origins and their aims. Photographs of bodily mutilations could focus on the mutilated limb, usually portraying a stump equipped with a prosthetic arm, hand or leg. However, photographs of facial injuries could not focus on the damaged part. Photographs often showed the whole face, both the injuries and the non-​damaged tissues, thereby integrating the wounded mouth or broken nose into the whole of the face. This completeness marked the discourse of recovery as not only functional but also aesthetic. While an arm was defined by its function, the face had to look like a face. The photographs of facial reconstructive surgery reinforced this discourse. The before-​and-​after style of surgical photographs in particular displayed a narrative where the face was progressively recovered but never fully restored. It was precisely the inability of photographs to show a fully restored face that prevented the circulation of these images beyond the medical realm. Both the SPA and the press portrayed men with facial injuries among other mutilated men and often with bandages covering the injuries. For instance, Figure 3.3 followed a page where a man with his face covered with bandages was lying on a bed.43 The rhetoric of recovery that allowed the circulation of photographs of mutilated men did not work in the case of facial mutilations. Yet in both cases, photographs of bodily and facial mutilation shaped public discourses and ideas on recovery and restoration.

The body of the dead and the ‘Mort pour la France’ The body of the dead also became a prolific symbol in SPA publications, the press and the military archive. The French did not take many images of their own dead but this does not mean that they were insignificant. On the contrary, comparison of the photography of French and German bodies reveals that the photography of the dead became a key issue. The SPA and the press conveyed the defeat of the Germans and the superiority of the French through images of German bodies and body parts passively piling up. In contrast, the French dead were always represented as single bodies

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calmly and respectfully lying on the battleground. The correspondence between the category used in the military archive to classify photographs of the French dead, ‘mort à l’ennemi’, and the French distinction ‘Mort pour la France’, indicates that the SPA photographers not only aimed to keep historical evidence of the loss of life on the battlefield, but also to give a material and visual body to the ideal notion of ‘Mort pour la France’. Following military orders, the SPA photographer and filmmaker Albert Samama-​Chikli travelled twice to Verdun between December 1916 and February 1917. The purpose of his mission was to record the state of the land after the offensive that had ended the longest battle of the war to date.44 The Battle of Verdun had neither improved the military position of France, nor did it bring any significant political change. However, it was later remembered as ‘the battle-​symbol of the entire 1914–​1918 war’.45 The foundations of the myth of Verdun were built during the war, with writers such as John Grand-​Carteret and Edmond Pionnier dedicating illustrated books to the French defence of Verdun.46 In the same vein, the SPA also published La défense de Verdun while the battle was still being fought, with the aim of popularising the heroic resistance of the army.47 Samama-​Chikli’s photographs of the final months of Verdun aimed to complete the documentation of the battle, focusing on the material remains. During the first trip in December 1916, Samama-​Chikli went from Vacherauville to the city of Verdun, and from there to the Fort of Douaumont.48 As expected of an SPA photographer, he focused on the destruction of the city, what was left of the infrastructure on the battlefield, and the material damage to the land. What makes Samama-​ Chikli’s documentation important is that, contrary to most SPA photographers, he also pictured the many French bodies that the fight had left behind. The first appears in his report on the road from Verdun to Douaumont. It is a clear view of a cadaver lying on its back next to a large shell hole and train tracks.49 A few photographs later, Samama-​Chikli widened the scope of the image to include two soldiers walking past the body without acknowledging it (Figure 3.5).50 This series also included other photographs of French victims which showed them in the mud or inside a shell hole.51 When Samama-​Chikli returned to Verdun in February 1917, the sector had remained in relative calm since the previous visit.52 In

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Figure 3.5  SPA photograph captioned ‘On the road from Verdun to Douaumont’, showing two men walking past the body of a French soldier.

spite of the time that had passed, Samama-​Chikli still encountered some bodies on the ground and photographed at least four French victims.53 As in the previous images, the bodies blended with the material remains, sometimes to the point of being indistinguishable from the terrain (Figure 3.6). These photographs were not exceptional by themselves: the press and even some amateur photographers took and published similar images. Still, they raise questions regarding why Samama-​Chikli photographed French bodies in this way in two consecutive trips and how the French military archives reacted to these photographs. The SPA did not explicitly ban the photography of French fatalities, although it censored most of these images. Unlike the illustrated

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Figure 3.6  SPA photograph classified in the French archives with the caption ‘On the road to Verdun, the bombed ground and corpses’ in February 1917.

press, which often published graphic images of both French and German bodies, the SPA albums always avoided the direct representation of French corpses.54 Yet the military archives had the category ‘mort à l’ennemi’, which identified the photographs of French bodies killed by the enemy. The fact that the archive acknowledged the existence of these photographs, and that it created that specific category for them, indicates that the photography of French cadavers served a purpose, even though public circulation was limited owing to censorship. Photographs gave a material and visual body to the notion of ‘mort à l’ennemi’, which corresponded to the legal distinction ‘Mort pour la France’.55 By entering into the documentation of the war through the category ‘mort à l’ennemi’, these photographs shaped the body of the dead. The Bureau des Informations à la Presse censored Samama-​ Chikli’s photographs of bodies, which meant that neither the press nor the propagandistic publications had permission to reproduce them, although the archives preserved and classified copies of them.56 As explained in Chapter 1, the guidelines the military

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provided to SPA photographers were quite vague and only forbade the images that could pass military or strategic information onto the enemy. Beyond this situation, which was assessed by the officers in charge of each section, photographers enjoyed relative freedom in relation to what to photograph and how. In the only instruction that the SPA photographers received in November 1915, the Bureau des Informations à la Presse had invited SPA photographers to record ‘the panoramas, the view from the trenches, the shelters, the positions of the enemy, the state of the battlefield before and after the military operations, the provisioning and the sanitary services, the military material’, that is, everything that related to the war effort.57 Therefore, the taking of photographs of dead bodies was not explicitly prohibited. Yet SPA photographers only dedicated between 0.3 and 0.5 per cent of their production to photographs of the dead, according to Véronique Goloubinoff’s recent study, with 60 per cent of these images depicting German bodies.58 The reasons why few photographers captured dead bodies on the battlefield are unclear. In the classic First World War Photographers, Jane Carmichael has alluded to moral reasons, arguing that ‘photographs of the dead … were relatively few, as the military, the propagandists, the press and the photographers were in tacit agreement with contemporary standards of decency that they were not fit for publication’.59 Similarly, John Taylor has mentioned the photographers’ desire to accommodate their views to the publications’ expectations and the censorship’s standards, and Goloubinoff explains the small number of images of the dead as a result of ‘strong self-​censorship’.60 According to this interpretation, the scarcity of graphic photographs of the dead was due to a mix of external demands from censorship committees and publications, and personal choices.61 The question, however, is how to define what the censorship committee understood by ‘decency’ standards; whether these referred to the graphic nature of the images (the presence of blood, injuries, even mutilations), or to other, more subtle meanings. An analysis of Figures 3.5 and 3.6 throws light on the meanings of French photographic censorship. Samama-​Chikli’s photographs were not graphic. There are no close-​ups and most of the bodies are hardly distinguishable from the land. Even in Figure 3.5, where

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the face is somewhat visible, the body is anonymous. His photographs were problematic for reasons that had nothing to do with their visual style and the way in which they presented their content. Samama-​Chikli had visited Verdun one week after the end of the main battle, meaning that the bodies had probably been on the ground without receiving a proper burial for days. The abandonment of cadavers was relatively common in periods of closely successive confrontations, when soldiers had no time to bury the dead or even to find them among the destruction in no-​man’s land. However, both combatants and civilians found this practice disturbing, as it contravened cultural, religious and hygienic ­principles.62 In Figure 3.5, the uncertainty of the actions of two soldiers near the victim, who could be collecting or abandoning the body, offered the French viewer a profoundly unsettling glimpse into the realities of war. The reason why these images did not pass censorship was not because of what could be directly seen in the image (the body and the state of the flesh), but because of the potential readings of the situation (the abandonment of cadavers). As Joëlle Beurier has explained, the work of the censorship committee in France was not straightforward.63 Magazines such as Le Miroir got away with publishing graphic photographs of French bodies because assessing images was a very subjective process. Censors should evaluate not only the content of the photographs and the magazine’s captions, but also how readers would interpret the images in the context of the publication. As the number of photographs in magazines increased over the war years, the workload of the censors and the decisions they had to make multiplied. Aware of this situation, Le Miroir and others sent their pages at the last minute, sometimes hours before publication. In this way, the chances of a real assessment of the interpretations of all the images diminished.64 Beurier concludes that French censorship decided then to focus their attention on images that could provide political and strategic information, allowing the publication of spectacular or shocking images.65 For instance, Sur le Vif published several images of French victims throughout the war years, but censored the central photograph in a reportage on the German Zeppelin that the French had shot down (Figure 3.7).66 The other photographs show the remains of the Zeppelin and the text left

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Figure 3.7  Photographs showing ‘A destroyed Zeppelin in Compiegne’, with a censored in the middle, published in Sur le Vif, 17 April 1917, p. 4.

blank the military information about the French attack, suggesting that the photograph had been censored owing to military rather than decency reasons. Other examples in the same magazine indicate that, once in print, censors were more concerned about the distribution of confidential military information than public morale.

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The focus on the scarcity of SPA images of cadavers has, therefore, misled the debate, making the question of the photography of the dead almost a quantitative issue intimately related to censorship.67 However, censorship, external or self-​imposed, cannot explain why Samama-​Chikli and other SPA photographers spent some of their few expensive plates on photographing dead French bodies. In fact, some officers congratulated Samama-​ Chikli for his great work in Verdun, implicitly endorsing his images.68 More importantly, focusing on censorship alone does not address the reasons why the military archives preserved and classified these photographs. Shifting the focus away from the quantity of photographs to analysing the photographs that were taken, archived and published opens up new questions about the role of photographic archives in shaping collective meanings, particularly civilians’ and combatants’ understanding of the war dead. The SPA publications only included one photograph of a French dead body (Figure 3.8). It appeared in 1916 in La Guerre, at the end of the issue dedicated to the health services.69 The caption describes the scene as the funeral of a French soldier who had been killed during the night as he returned to the trenches. The photograph shows the body of the deceased lying on a stretcher, completely covered by a French flag except for his feet, and surrounded by his comrades. One of them is reading, probably a prayer, while the others are standing, some holding their weapons. The inscription ‘poste de secours’ on the wall indicates that the place had been temporarily converted into a field hospital during the war. As usual, the caption neither specifies the exact place of this death, nor does it reveal the identity of the soldier. Unlike Samama-​Chikli’s photographs, the scene was reassuring. The funeral met the cultural expectations of French readers as to the proper treatment and burial of the dead. The fact that this image reappeared in Recueil. Documents de la Section photographique de l’armée, a selection of 24 photographs taken by the SPA between 1914 and 1916, speaks to its representativeness of the SPA publications’ approach to the French war dead.70 They acknowledged the French victims, but always focused on the commemorations rather than the bodies. This strategy allowed the SPA albums to situate the death of combatants in a narrative that emphasised how they honoured the dead instead of the loss of life.

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Figure 3.8  ‘Burial of a soldier’ published in the SPA album Recueil. Documents de la Section photographique de l’armee francaise, 1916.

While the SPA limited the dissemination of images of French dead bodies, both SPA albums and the press published numerous photographs of German victims. For instance, the 1915 SPA album La Bataille de Champagne depicted German bodies with a direct rawness.71 Like other publications, La Bataille de Champagne presented a chronological narrative of the different stages of the Battle of Champagne from a French perspective. In particular, it focused on the offensive over Champagne in September 1915.72 Following a cause–​effect narrative, the images of cannons and military preparations in the trenches preceded the photographs of German cadavers and body parts. The text that accompanied the images reinforced this narrative by indicating the kind of cannons they were using (‘Rimailhos’) and making them responsible for the killing of the Germans. The scene is described as follows: ‘The German trenches are wrecked as if some earthquake had visited them. Scattered about

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are remains of German corpses emerging from the soil that buries them. Above, the so-​called Palatinate trench may be seen. Below, that of Bricot Wood. Names differ, the devastation is the same.’73 The following pages reiterated the same message, which presented German bodies piled up in a trench or dismembered and dispersed around the recovered terrain as a direct result of the French action. The texts also made remarks regarding the state of the bodies, such as ‘On the right we have a corner of the Palatinate trench, where a German corpse, in lamentable irony, lies on guard’ and ‘On the left, a young Oberleutenant seems to be sleeping with his head bent over his shoulder. It is his last sleep’.74 As Chapter 2 has argued, these images aimed at feeding hatred for the Germans as part of the SPA visual strategy. Photographs of bodies scattered or half-​buried in the trenches presented German victims as the consequence of the fight and the direct result of the French action. They carried positive, optimistic messages. However, this bluntness in the representation of German bodies did not fit with the rest of the messages that the French propaganda sent to Allied and neutral countries. The graphic representation of German bodies decreased in subsequent SPA publications to almost zero, although the press kept publishing these types of images until the end of the war. The widespread circulation of photographs of German bodies was possible because of the way in which the press and French propaganda had depicted the Germans and their actions since the beginning of the war, in particular since the Belgian atrocities. As historians such as Ruth Harris, Alan Kramer and John Horne have shown, Allied countries soon reacted to Belgian accounts of atrocities committed by the Germans in the first months of the war.75 These stories, together with reports about the mistreatment of prisoners in Germany, contributed to the characterisation of the Germans as barbaric or animalistic.76 For instance, La Bataille de Champagne claimed that the animality of the German ‘is so developed that the feeling of material satisfaction predominates in him’.77 To support this claim, the photographs showed prisoners smiling and having lunch, ‘happy’ because ‘the war is over for them’.78 But more than the actions, it was the bodies of the Germans that expressed their true nature. Their bodies were weak and their uniforms too large.79 Their animalistic instinct was represented in

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Figure 3.9  Photograph depicting German prisoners drinking from a barrel in the SPA album 1917: Du langage de la renommé et de la photographie, p. 8.

another picture in the SPA publication 1917: Du langage renommé et de la photographie, in which a group of German prisoners try to drink from a barrel of wine which has fallen at the other side of the barbed wire (Figure 3.9).80 These photographs not only demystified the Germans and their supposed technological superiority, but also showed the greatness of the French, who treated German prisoners well.81 The dehumanisation of the Germans deployed in prisoners’ photographs and the Belgian atrocity accounts allowed the widespread circulation of German bodies in the press. The dehumanisation of the Germans contrasted with the mystification of the French soldier who had died for France. The traditional representation of the heroic death had vanished by 1915/​16, when the mass death of soldiers could not be justified by clear gains of territory or the prospect of the end of the war.82 But even if not heroic, both civilians and the military celebrated, commemorated

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and mourned the death of French soldiers. On 2 July 1915, the French government created the distinction ‘Mort pour la France’ in order to differentiate the legal status of ordinary death and death in war. Extended in July 1922, the distinction applied to: the military in the Army or the Navy killed by the enemy or dead following wounds or an illness contracted on the field of honour, doctors, religious ministers, male and female nurses in military hospitals and sanitary ambulances, as well as anyone victim of illnesses contracted while taking care of sick or injured combatants, civilians killed by the enemy, whether as hostage, during the exercise of its public, elective, administrative or judiciary functions.83

The legal designation ‘Mort pour la France’ therefore applied to combatants and civilians who had been killed by the enemy or under any war-​related circumstances.84 It acquired retrospective character, as city councils had the power to grant this designation to those who had died before July 1915 when the death certificates stated that the person had been ‘killed by the enemy’, or was ‘dead on the field of honour’ or ‘dead as a result of war wounds’.85 As Annie Deperchin has argued, the designation ‘Mort pour la France’ became both ‘solace’ for families and ‘posthumous reward’.86 The importance of the distinction ‘Mort pour la France’ cannot be understated. First of all, it granted certain benefits to the families, including trips to the deceased’s grave paid for by the state, widow’s pension, allowance for the children, and adoption of some children by the state.87 Secondly, the only dead that were the object of public commemorations were the ‘Mort pour la France’. It was not until 2011 that the public explicitly included the ‘Non-​ Morts pour la France’, such as the so-​called ‘fusillés pour l’exemple’ and combatants who had died by suicide, in the 11 November commemorations.88 It is not surprising, therefore, that the category the military archives created to classify photographs of the war dead was ‘mort à l’ennemi’ (killed by the enemy), a key element of the definition of ‘Mort pour la France’. This category appears in all the documents preserved at La Contemporaine, which detail the thematic organisation of the photographic prints in the military archives.89 Yet none of the thematic albums were dedicated to this category. For instance, the photographs taken by Samama-​Chikli in Verdun

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appear in the albums dedicated to La Meuse and, specifically, Verdun. While the captions did not hide the fact that these were French bodies, most of them mentioned the ‘bombarded terrain’, which suggested the cause of death of the soldiers.90 Just like the photograph of the burial of a soldier (Figure 3.8), these photographs integrated the dead into a broader narrative: the Battle of Verdun and the fight at the Fort de Douaumont. The soldiers in Samama-​ Chikli’s photographs had died in the last offensive in Verdun and had therefore given their lives for the defence and the victory of the French army. They had sacrificed their lives for France. As Annette Becker and Leonard V. Smith have pointed out, this notion of sacrifice had religious, and particularly Catholic, connotations.91 As Smith has put it, ‘the believer serving in the trenches would imitate Jesus by suffering torture and death to save humanity’.92 The cadavers in Samama-​Chikli’s photographs literally embodied the notion of dying at the hands of the enemy. The photographs might not have been suitable for propagandistic purposes, but they fitted perfectly into the archives. As visual records of the war, they acknowledged the existence of the war dead. More importantly, they defined who the war dead were (those who had been killed by the enemy) and what they looked like. A key factor in this process was the similarities in composition patterns in most of the SPA photographs of French bodies. The victims had fallen on the battlefield, a space identifiable by the shell holes and material destruction. They were all men still dressed in military uniform. With very few exceptions, the photographs focused on a single body but never identified individuals. These characteristics might seem obvious, but a comparison with other bodies makes clear the significance of the visual style of these images. First of all, they stand in stark contrast to the photography of German bodies. As mentioned previously, German corpses usually appear in groups, piling up on each other. Their bodies were often dismembered, half-​buried and even burnt. They bore the visible signs of war violence, because these were the marks of French action. In the case of French bodies, the signs of violence had disappeared not because of the impossibility of looking at dismembered bodies, but owing to the meaning of the injuries. As seen in the previous section, the SPA did not spare images of mutilated men, but these injuries acquired different meanings in the living and the

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dead. While the amputees were still able to work and could expect a moral and physical recovery, the loss of limbs on the dead were meaningless, or even worse, signs of defeat. This is why photographs of French bodies were very similar to the image of the burial of a French soldier published in La Guerre (Figure 3.8). Although the body was not visible, the shape of the flag suggested a complete body. The repetition of the same kinds of images, which always showed the French dead following the same conventions, served to define, in a performative way, the features that corresponded to the military category ‘mort à l’ennemi’.93 They were necessarily anonymous because they addressed the universal type of the ‘Mort pour la France’. In the SPA archive, French corpses embodied this notion through the representation of bodies lying on the battlefield, which had sacrificed their lives for France, but did not bear the signs of war violence. Samama-​Chikli’s photographs of French cadavers acquire a particular meaning in this light. He may have been following his own interests when he took the first series of images of corpses. Yet by sending him again without an explicit prohibition about making these photographs, the SPA was effectively sanctioning them and, potentially, requesting more. The SPA interest in keeping photographs of the war dead, and the fact that most of them follow similar visual patterns, demonstrates the importance of this material regardless of its scarcity. The representation of dead bodies in the archive materialised the idea that the ‘Morts pour la France’ had sacrificed their lives on the battleground, being deserving of the highest honours.

Bodily encounters between amateur photographers and the dead Amateur photographers also photographed the war dead. Some of these images reached illustrated magazines, while others ended up in personal albums.94 The latter are rare, but they are key to understanding how photography articulated war experiences. In spite of the general tendency to ‘remain silent’, some combatants used their cameras to frame their roles as mourners, potential victims and ­killers.95 In the context of personal albums, photographs of

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the dead worked as mediations between the living and the dead. They were visual and material acts where combatants negotiated their relationship with the dead. While the images were very similar to those produced by SPA photographers, personal photographs of French and German corpses articulated different meanings: the duty to kill and the possibility of dying. The Album Commandeur examined in the previous chapter provides an excellent case study. As explained before, the Album Commandeur is an anonymous collection of five albums made by a veteran of the engineering corps. Each album covers a particular theme, from the mine war to destroyed villages, including a whole album in memory of a deceased friend, Lieutenant Georges.96 This is a personal album, as the compiler remarks that all the photographs were ‘authentic’ and taken by himself.97 It is not a private album, though. At least one of the images appeared in the press and the preface to the first album indicates the albums’ intention of becoming public.98 Maybe the fact that this was not a private object intended to be shared among his family liberated the photographer from conventions, allowing him to explore painful topics more freely. Even if that is the case, the analysis of the visual style and the role of the photographs of the dead in the albums’ narrative, as well as the comparison with the SPA photographs of French and German bodies, shed light on bodily practices of photography. The first Album Commandeur, called ‘La guerre de mines’, follows a sequential structure, opening with the arrival of the engineers and the construction of subterranean galleries.99 In the images, the combatants excavated tunnels, removed debris and posed with the military structures they had created. The next page is dedicated to the progress of the mine attack, with engineers consulting their plans, hiding in the terrain and watching the explosions. Afterwards, the photographs show the results of the attack: German and French bodies lying on the ground (Figures 3.10 and 3.11). These photographs follow the visual style of the SPA, picturing the Germans piling up in the trenches, half-​buried and from a close distance, while representing the French victims ready for burial. The album contains three photographs of German casualties. In the first, two bodies are entangled, half-​buried in the trenches. The second shows at least four bodies crowded together in the trenches,

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but the messy state of the ground prevents the differentiation of any body parts. The final picture is a close-​up of a half-​buried body (Figure 3.10, images 12–14). The three photographs are positioned at the bottom of the page, reinforcing the idea that the bodies were the result of the mine attack. The captions are even more explicit, as the photographer described them as ‘their dead thrown by the explosion, buried on the spot’.100 The shadow at the bottom left of the photograph suggests that these photographs were not about death but about killing (Figure 3.10, image 14). As Joanna Bourke has observed, it is killing, not dying, that is the characteristic act in war.101 Yet first-​hand testimonies and accounts of killing are very rare.102 For Antoine Prost and Leonard V. Smith, the lack of testimonies is a consequence of the fact that artillery, and not one-​to-​one combat, killed most of the men. As such, Prost calculates that only a small proportion of combatants were actually involved in killing.103 For his part, Smith has pointed out that some combatants redefined the meaning of killing in a way that absolved them. For instance, Smith notes that Norton Cru ‘was sure that he had never killed’, writing that ‘I have never seen a soldier commit the act that killed a man who I saw die’.104 The scarcity of testimonies and the character of those that have survived have led Prost to challenge George Mosse’s thesis of the brutalisation of society during the First World War. For Prost, most of the combatants engaged in killing felt guilt and remorse, and overall the war did not change them.105 Smith interprets the few existing testimonies in a different, more complex, light, acknowledging an inherent tension in the writing about killing. While authors sought the ‘mastery of the experience through narrative’, Smith argues, ‘ “real” experiences of death, mutilation and killing resisted mastery –​hence the tensions, contradictions and irresolution within the stories’.106 The Album Commandeur photographs do not hide the act of killing. Given his role as an engineer, the photographer’s experience was surely that of indirect killing. Maybe it was the impersonal character of the action that allowed him to portray it. Nevertheless, the photographer acknowledged his role in the attack and acknowledged the victims, ‘their dead’.107 The coldness of the caption and the way of representing German bodies make these images very

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Figure 3.10  Page from the first Album Commandeur depicting a mine attack on German trenches. The images 12, 13 and 14 show German bodies, captioned ‘Their dead’ in the album.

similar to the propagandistic photographs of the SPA. In this regard, these images could be interpreted as another attempt to dehumanise the Germans, who were reduced to material remains. But the fact that they were taken by someone involved in killing them separates them from SPA photography. As argued in Chapter 2, photography

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Figure 3.11  Following page, showing in images 1, 2 and 3 French bodies, captioned ‘Our dead’.

became a socialising practice on the front lines. In this sense, image 14 in Figure 3.10 offers insights into both the representations of the body and the bodily practices of photography. The shadow at the bottom left of the image thus becomes an essential element. It indicates that the photographer was in close proximity to the German dead body. After the battle, he had wandered around and

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come very close to one of the victims. He had then operated the camera, framing the subject and selecting the best recording modes. These were simple actions, but actions through which he positioned himself in relation to the dead. This was even more explicit in the making of the album, where he arranged, in a particular order, the photographs he had taken of the attack he had helped to prepare. The act of killing is not visible, but the images, the objects and the bodily practices that produced them refer to it. Through the taking of photographs and the making of the albums, the photographer addressed and accommodated his duty to kill. Similarly, the camera also framed the photographer’s relation to the French casualties. The mine battle had resulted in the recovery of the land, but it had also claimed many victims on the French side. In stark contrast with Figure 3.10, the French bodies were not presented as the material traces of a victory. The photographer approached the bodies with care, photographing them once they had been removed from the battlefield. Lying on the ground next to one another, these bodies were waiting for burial (Figure 3.11). Photographs showed men digging the graves and carefully handling the bodies. The caption explains that these were ‘our dead and wounded, brought to the back lines, their funeral services in the village’.108 The photographs therefore emphasised not the cause of their death or the state of their flesh, but the fact that they would receive a proper burial. Photographs such as Figure 3.11 show how amateur photographers appropriated the notion of ‘Mort pour la France’. Similar to Samama-​Chikli’s photographs, the dead in these images were the embodiment of the ‘Mort pour la France’: French combatants who had sacrificed their lives on the battlefield. The Album Commandeur photographs offered a personal perspective on the war dead. These images gave a visual and material body to the dead; however, this body was not the ideal one represented in SPA photography, but the bodies of individual soldiers falling. While the victims were not named, they were not anonymous to the photographer. The link between the photographer and the victim again becomes relevant. The different moments selected to photograph German and French bodies, as well as the different photographic perspectives (lack of close-​ups of individual French bodies, for instance), reflect a different affective relationship with the victims. By photographing the

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moment of burial when several soldiers were handling the bodies, the photographer was positioning himself in the narrative again. If the photographs of German bodies highlighted his role as killer, these images constructed his role as someone taking care of others. Finally, personal photographs of French dead bodies were reminders of the possibility of dying. The third Album Commandeur, ‘Villages détruits’, includes eight photographs of French bodies taken during an infantry attack.109 The images are blurred because, quite unusually, they had been taken in action. They show French combatants running with their bayonets in the forest surrounded by the smoke of explosions. Some of them were falling, others receiving medical attention. The caption describes the scenes as ‘chasing the enemy in the forest, in this operation we have lost men’.110 As images, these were very similar to those published in illustrated magazines such as Le Miroir and Sur le Vif. The fact that the photographer sent at least one of his images to the press suggests that maybe these images were also intended to be sold. The photographer was in the midst of the attack when he took these pictures, and therefore also in danger. He could have died in the attack. However, the attack itself only occupies half a page in an album that is not even dedicated to it, but to the general subject of destroyed cities. The Albums Commandeur demonstrate that photography helped the author to articulate what many combatants expressed through the written word. The album in memory of Lieutenant Georges explicitly deals with feelings of loss through the commemoration of their friendship. The photographs of German and French victims hint at fear of being killed, rushing during an attack, pride in killing the enemy and concern about the French victims, but none of these feelings are articulated as grief. Similarly, Smith sees ‘tensions, contradictions and irresolution’ in French testimonies in relation to death and dying. These albums might not provide definite answers, but they enabled the photographer to explore his relationship to others. These photographs were places of negotiation, where several positions could be taken. The body became, therefore, a privileged site where ideas and relationships were negotiated. SPA and private photographs represented French and German bodies in similar ways. However, the meanings of the photographs varied. In the SPA they served to give

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a material and visual body to the abstract notion of ‘Mort pour la France’, while in private photography they helped to articulate the relationship between the photographer and the victim. In both cases, bodies channelled and shaped those meanings. In SPA photography, they were vehicles to communicate meanings. The body of the mutilated, the body of the German prisoner, the body of the German corpse and the body of the French victim were all different because they meant different things. However, in personal photography, the body was not only a canvas on which meanings were projected. The body helped the photographer to approach dead bodies, to bury them and to capture them in action. In this context, the body was an instrument in the shaping of relationships and therefore experiences.

Notes 1 SPA 17 CB 261d, Port de l’Ouedj, 1917. ECPAD. 2 Jaillet, ‘Rapport sur la création, le fonctionnement, les résultats de la Section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée’, 10 October 1917, p. 49. 3 ‘Celui qui n’a pas compris avec sa chair ne peut vous en parler’, J. Bernier, La percée (Paris: Albin Michel, 1920), p. 68. 4 J. Norton Cru, Du Témoignage (Paris: Gallimard, 1930). On the historiography of the body in the First World War, see, among others, J. Bourke, Dismembering the Male. Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (London: Reaktion Books, 1996) and A. Carden-​Coyne, Reconstructing the Body. Classicism, Modernism and the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 5 S. Audoin-​Rouzeau and A. Becker, 14–​18. Understanding the Great War. Trans. C. Temerson (New York: Hill & Wang, 2002), p. 15. See also J. Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing. Face-​to-​Face Killing in Twentieth Century Warfare (London: Granta, 1999). 6 S. Audoin-​Rouzeau, Combattre. Une anthropologie historique de la guerre moderne (XIXe-​XXIe siècle) (Paris: Seuil, 2008), p. 239. 7 S. Das, Touch and Intimacy in First World War Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 8 S. Cole, Modernism, Male Friendship and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 9 M. L. Roberts, Civilization Without Sexes. Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France 1914–​1927 (Chicago/​London: Chicago University

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Press, 1994); M. R. Higonnet, Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); J. K. Watson, Fighting Different Wars. Experience, Memory and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); G. Mosse, Fallen Soliders. Reshaping the Memory of the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); J. Meyer, Men of War. Masculinity and the First World War in Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); G. Koureas, Memory, Masculinity and National Identity in British Visual Culture, 1914–​1930 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); A. Lyford, Surrealist Masculinities. Gender Anxiety and the Aesthetics of the Post-​War Reconstruction in France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); A. Carden-​Coyne, ‘Painful Bodies and Brutal Women. Remedial Massage, Gender Relations and Cultural Agency in Military Hospitals, 1914–​1918’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 1:1 (2008), 139–​ 158; A. Lyford, ‘The Aesthetics of Dismemberment. Surrealism and the Musée du Val de Grâce in 1917’, Cultural Critique, 46 (2000), 45–​79; J. Crouthamel, An Intimate History of the Front. Masculinity, Sexuality, and German Soldiers in the First World War (Basingtoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); M. Roper, ‘Between Manliness and Masculinity. The “War Generation” and the Psychology of Fear in Britain, 1914–​1950’, The Journal of British Studies, 44:2 (2005), 343–​362. 10 See S. Geroulanos and T. Meyers, The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe. Brittleness, Integration, Science and the Great War (Chicago/​London: University of Chicago Press, 2018). 11 J. Godart, ‘Préface’, in Camus et al., Reeducation functionnelle et réeducation professionnelle des blessés (Paris: Bailliere et fils, 1917), p. 1. 12 Ibid., p. 6. 13 See E. Godbey, ‘ “Terrible Fascination”. Civil War Stereographs of the Dead’, History of Photography, 36:3 (2012), pp. 265–​274. See also J. Rosenheim, Photography and the American Civil War (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013) and E. Athens, ‘Relic, Photograph, Text. Picturing History in Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War’, History of Photography, 41:1 (2017), 76–​89. 14 L. V. Smith, The Embattled Self. French Soldiers’ Testimony of the Great War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), p. 67. 15 J. Beurier, 14–​ 18 Insolite. Albums-​ photos de soldats au repose (Paris: Coédition du Nouveu Monde, 2014), p. 61. 16 For a criticism of photographs of pain as voyeuristic, see S. Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Picador, 2003). 17 Bourke, Dismembering the Male, p. 31. Italics in the original. 18 See Koureas, Memory, Masculinity and National Identity; Carden-​ Coyne, Reconstructing the Body; S. Biernoff, Portraits of Violence.

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War and the Aesthetics of Disfigurement (Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2017); J. Anderson, War Disability and Rehabilitation in Britain. ‘Soul of a Nation’ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011); B. Linker, War’s Waste. Rehabilitation in World War I America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). 19 Carden-​Coyne, Reconstructing the Body, pp. 4 and 14. 20 R. Panchasi, ‘Reconstructions. Prosthetics and the Rehabilitation of the Male Body in World War I France’, Differences, 7:3 (1995), 109–​132. 21 S. Biernoff, ‘The Rhetoric of Disfigurment in First World War Britain’, Social History of Medicine, 24:3 (2011), 666–​685. 22 M. Gherhardt, The Men with Broken Faces. Gueules Cassées of the First World War (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018), p. 17. 23 Bourke, Dismembering the Male, p. 65. 24 J. Amar, La Prothèse et le travail des mutilés (Paris: H. Dunod et E. Pinat, 1916). 25 Godart, ‘Préface’, p. 1. Also see Panchasi, ‘Reconstructions’. 26 Camus et al., Rééducation fonctionnelle et rééducation professionnelle des blessés (Paris: JB Baillière, 1917). 27 Amar, La Prothèse, p. 9. 28 A. Broca and C. Ducroquet, La Prothèse des amputés en chirurgie de guerre (Paris: Masson & Cie, eds, 1917), p. 7. 29 Ibid., pp. 85–​86. 30 Camus et al., Rééducation fonctionnelle, p. 22. 31 Amar, La Prothèse, pp. 8, 11, 12, 13. 32 Paris (Seine), rééducation, mutilés. Centre de rééducation, Quai de la Rapée. https://​argonnaute.parisnanterre.fr/​ark:/​14707/​ a011515418830DjYt9Y/​from/​a011515418830LDtdJR (accessed on 30 January 2021). 33 SPA, La Guerre (Paris: Armand Colin, 1915–​1916). 34 Godart, ‘Préface’, p. 2. 35 Planche XVIII, ‘Les étapes du blessé’; SPA, La Guerre, p. 104. 36 ‘Premier invalide de 1914–​1915’, Sur le Vif, 17 April 1915, no. 23. 37 On the mugshot tradition, see A. Sekula, ‘The Body and the Archive’, October, 39 (1986), 3–​64 and J. Tagg, The Burden of Representation. Essays on Photographies and Histories (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988). 38 S. Delaporte, Les gueules cassées. Les blessés de la face de la Grande Guerre (Paris: le Grand livre du mois, 2001). 39 J. J. Ferrandis, ‘Le Musée du Service de Santé des armées au Val-​ de-​Grâce’, Histoire des sciences médicales, 23:3 (1999), 183–​190;

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O. Jacob (dir) Iconographie du Musée du Val de Grâce (Paris: Musée du Val-​de-​Grâce, 1918). 40 Jason Bate has analysed the British context in ‘At the Cusp of Medical Research. Facial Reconstructive Surgery and the Role of Photography in Exchanging Methods and Ideas (1914–​1920)’, Visual Culture in Britain, 17:1 (2016), 75–​98. 41 L. Dufourmentel, ‘Les déplacements tégumentaires par lambeaux à deux pédicules’, La Restauration Maxillo-​Faciale, 2:2 (1918), 44–​54. 42 Ibid. 43 ‘Les étapes du blessé’, SPA, La Guerre. 44 In the last decades the Battle of Verdun has in fact attracted the attention of historians, who have devoted monographs to understanding the military, political and cultural meaning of this battle. See P. Jankowski, Verdun. The Longest Battle of the Great War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre, 1916. Année de Verdun (Paris: Charles Lavazuelle, 1986); C. Carlier and G. Pedrochini, La Bataille de Verdun (Paris: Economica, 1997); and W. Martin, Verdun 1916. ‘They shall not pass’ (London: Praeger, 2004). Samama-​Chikli was a Tunisian reporter and filmmaker who first enrolled the Section Cinématographique de l’Armée. He always travelled with a 6 × 13 stereoscopic camera, which explains his photographic production. See ‘Albert Samama-​Chikli’, in H. Guillot, Images interdites de la Grande Guerre (Rennes, Ivry: Presses Universitaires de Rennes/​ÉCPAD, 2014), pp. 174–​175. 45 Quoted in Jankowski, Verdun, p. 3. 46 J. Grand-​Carteret, Verdun, images de guerre (Paris: Librairie Chapelot, 1916); E. Pionnier, Verdun à la vielle de la guerre (Paris: Berger-​ Levrault éditeurs, 1917). 47 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, p. 63. 48 See 42 L ‘Le fort de Douaumont et ses environs après l’offensive du 15 Décembre’, ECPAD. 49 SPA 42 L 2071 ‘Un cadavre français’, ECPAD. 50 SPA 42 L 2075 ‘Sur la route de Verdun à Douaumont, deux français passent à côté d’un cadavre français’, ECPAD. 51 SPA 42 L 2096 ‘Deux cadavres dans la boue de Douaumont’, SPA 42 L 2085 ‘Des cadavres français et allemands dans un trou d’obus’, ECPAD. 52 SPA 49 L ‘La region fortifiée de Verdun en février 1917’, ECPAD. 53 SPA 49 L 2337 ‘Un cadavre français’, SPA 49 L 2366 ‘Dans la route de Verdun à Douaumont, le corps d’un soldat demeure dans un trou d’obus’, SPA 49 L 2353 ‘Cadavre français recouvert de terre, une

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croix marque son emplacement’, SPA 49 L 2389 ‘Un cadavre français dans une tranchée’, ECPAD. 54 Beurier, Photographier la Grande Guerre, pp. 125–​150. 55 A. Deperchin, ‘La guerre, la mort et le droit’, in I. Homer and E. Pénicaut, Le soldat et la mort dans la Grande Guerre (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016), pp. 99–​112. 56 For other examples on censored photographs, see H. Guillot (ed.), Images interdites de la Grande Guerre (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes/​ ÉCPAD, 2014). On the organisation of censorship, see O. Forcade, La censure en France pendant la Grande Guerre (Paris: Fayard, 2016). 57 Dupuis, ‘Instruction relative aux choix des films et clichés’. 58 V. Goloubinoff, ‘Mort et censure dans la photographie militaire’, in I. Homer and E. Pénicaut, Le soldat et la mort dans la Grande Guerre (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016), pp. 224–​225. 59 J. Carmichael, First World War Photographers (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 53. 60 J. Taylor, War Photography: Realism in the British Press (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 44–​45; Goloubinoff, ‘Mort et censure’, p. 224. 61 On the reinterpretation of this thesis, see T. Blondet-​Bisch, ‘Vues de France’, in T. Blondet-​Bisch, R. Frank, L. Gervereau and A. Gunthert (eds), Voir, ne pas voir la guerre. Histoire des représentations photographiques de la guerre (Paris: Somogy, 2001), pp. 54–​60; L. Brandon, ‘Words and Pictures. Writing Atrocity into Canada’s First World War Official Photographs’, Journal of Canadian Art History, 31:2 (2010), 110–​126; C. Patrick, ‘Photographer on the Western Front’, in J. E. Hill and V. A. Schwartz (eds), Getting the Picture. The Visual Culture of the News (London/​New York: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 41–​43. 62 See T. Hardier and J. F. Jagielski, Combattre et mourir pendant la Grande Guerre (1914–​1925) (Paris: Imago, 2001), pp. 177–​250. 63 J. Beurier, Images et violence. Quand le Miroir racontait la Grande Guerre ... (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2007), pp. 89–​96. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 ‘Un zeppelin abattu à Compiegne’, Sur le Vif, 7 April 1917, n. 126, p. 4. 67 See Goloubinoff, ‘Mort et censure’. 68 Letters quoted in Guillot, Les soldats de la mémoire, p. 121. 69 ‘Enterrement d’un soldat tué la nuit en allant aux tranchées’, ‘Les étapes du blessé’, SPA La Guerre, planche XXIV, p. 110.

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70 ‘Enterrement d’un soldat’, SPA, Recueil. Documents de la Section photographique de l’armee francaise 1914–​16, Album 1 (Paris: A. Serment, 1916). 71 SPA, La bataille de Champagne (Paris: Flambeau, 1915). 72 The first battle of Champagne (10 December 1914 –​17 March 1915) had been the first significant French attack against the Germans since the stabilisation of the trenches system. 73 SPA, La bataille de Champagne, p. 10. The English translation of this and later quotes of this album follow the original ones that were included in the album, which also translated them to Spanish. 74 Ibid., pp. 12–​13. 75 R. Harris, ‘The Child of the Barbarian. Rape, Race and Nationalism in France during the First World War’, Past & Present, 141:1 (1993), 170–​206; A. Kramer and J. Horne, ‘German “Atrocities” and Franco-​ German Opinion, 1914. The Evidence of German Soldiers’ Diaries’, The Journal of Modern History, 66:1 (1994), 1–​33. 76 See H. Jones, Violence Against Prisoners of War in the First World War. Britain, France and Germany, 1914–​1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), especially Part I, ‘Propaganda representations of violence against prisoners’, pp. 29–​120. 77 SPA, La bataille de Champagne, p. 23. 78 Ibid. 79 ‘Types of prisoners’, SPA, 1917: Le sang n’est pas de l’eau (Paris: Émile Paul, 1917), p. 19. 80 ‘In a prisoners’ camp’, SPA, 1917: Du langage renommé et de la photographie (Paris: Émile Paul, 1917), p. 8. 81 See B. Pichel, ‘French Resentment and the Animalization of the German’, in B. Fantini, D. Martín-​Moruno and J. Moscoso (eds), On Resentment. Past and Present (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2013), pp. 241–​257. 82 J. Beurier, ‘Voir o une pas voir la mort? Premières reflexions sur une approche de la mort dans la Grande Guerre’, in T. Blondet-​Bisch, R. Frank, L. Gervereau and A. Gunthert (eds), Voir, ne pas voir la guerre. Histoire des représentations photographiques de la guerre (Paris: Somogy, 2001), pp. 62–​69. 83 Art 1 loi 28 February 1922, cited in Deperchin, ‘La guerre’, p. 100. 84 See more details in C. Lemarchand, ‘Le fichier général des militaires de l’armée française décédés au cours de la Première Guerre Mondiale’, Revue Historique des Armées, 252 (2008), 132–​133. 85 Deperchin, ‘La guerre’, pp. 101–​102.

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86 ‘Conçu à la fois comme un baume sur la souffrance des proches et comme une récompense posthume décernée à l’intéressé’, ibid. 87 Ibid. 88 French media commented on the publication of the names of the so-​ called ‘Non-​Morts pour la France’ in the site genealogie.com on 11 November 2011. See Le Figaro: www.lefigaro.fr/​flash-​actu/​2011/​11/​ 11/​97001–​20111111FILWWW00333-​une-​liste-​des-​non-​morts-​pour-​ la-​france.php and 20 Minutes: www.20minutes.fr/​societe/​821618–​ 20111111-​grande-​guerre-​liste-​non-​morts-​france (both accessed on 30 January 2021). 89 Classement des photos, La Contemporaine. 90 ‘Sur la route de Verdun, le terrain bombardé et cadavres’, ‘Sur la route de Verdun, cadavres français’, ‘Le terrain bombardé et cadavres français’ and ‘Les abords nord du fort. Cadavres sur le terrain bombardé’, Album Valois 196, La Contemporaine. 91 A. Becker, La guerre et la foi: de la mort à la mémoire, 1914–​1930 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1994); Smith, The Embattled Self. 92 Smith, The Embattled Self, p. 63. 93 On performativity as the repetition of an action that results in the emergence of new material realities, see J. Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990) and D. Martín-​Moruno and B. Pichel, ‘Introduction’, in D. Martín-​Moruno and B. Pichel (eds), Emotional Bodies. The Historical Performativity of Emotions (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019), pp. 1–​14. 94 Beurier has identified and examined amateur photographs of dead bodies in 14–​18 Insolite, pp. 58–​62. 95 Audoin-​Rouzeau, Un regard sur la Grande Guerre; Blondet-​Bisch, ‘Vues de France’. 96 Album 1, ‘La guerre de mines 1914–​1918’, Album 2, ‘La Bataille de Champagne’, Album 3, Villages détruits’, Album 4, ‘À la mémoire du lieutenant Georges’, Album 5, ‘En Macédonie’, Album 5bis, ‘Photographies supplémentaires’. Album commandeur, La Contemporaine. 97 Album 1, ‘La guerre de mines 1914–​1918’. 98 One of the images in Album 1 appeared in J’ai Vu on 16 October 1915 (see Chapter 2). 99 Album 1, ‘La guerre de mines 1914–​1918’ (see Figure 4.10) 100 ‘Leur morts rejetés par l’explosion enterrés sur place’, Album 1. 101 Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing. 102 See Audoin-​Rouzeau, Combattre and M. Geyer, ‘How the Germans Learned to Wage War. On the Question of Killing in the First and

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Second World Wars’, in P. Betts, A. Confino and D. Schuman (eds), Between Mass Death and Individual Loss. The Place of Death in Twentieth-​Century Germany (New York/​Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008), pp. 25–​50. 103 A. Prost, ‘Les limites de la brutalisation. Tuer sur le front occidental, 1914–​1918’, Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, 81:1 (2004), 5–​20, p. 18. 104 Smith, The Embattled Self, p. 91. 105 Prost, ‘Les limites de la brutalisation’, p. 20. See G. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers. Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). 106 Smith, The Embattled Self, p. 105. 107 ‘Leur morts rejetés par l’explosion enterrés sur place’, Album 1. 108 ‘nos morts et blessés, ramenés à l’arrière, leur obsèques au village même’, Album Commandeur 1. 109 Album 3, ‘Villages détruits’. 110 ‘Chasse à l’enemi dans les bois, dans cette operation nous avons perdu des hommes’, Album 3.

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Figure 4.1  Image of cut-​down trees, captioned ‘Injuries to the land of France –​an apple orchard at Champien, Somme’ in the SPA album 1917: La France d’aujourd-​hui, p. 12.

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Placing: broken trees, ruins, graves and the geographical imagination of France In 1917, the SPA edited the photograph album En territoire reconquis. Ce qu’ils ont fait (In Regained Territory. What They Have Done; ‘they’ obviously referring to the Germans).1 Structured in four sections, the album included 38 photographs of the material damage to fruit trees, monuments, cemeteries and cities such as Laucourt, Tegnier, Flavy-​le-​Martel, Chauny and Solente. Page after page, the French viewer could see the devastation the war had wrought in both cities and the countryside. Some captions explicitly blamed the Germans (‘Solente. House blown up by the Germans’), but most were short and descriptive, such as ‘Road from Noyon to Roye: cut trees’ and ‘Chauny: interior of a church’.2 The text did not need to explain the significance of the destruction as the images supposedly spoke for themselves. The album’s visual narrative presented a country that had been injured to its core, as its four pillars (the cities where the population lived, the fruit trees that fed them in a time of scarcity, the monuments that represented its heritage, and the graves that commemorated their dead) had been damaged. In this way, the destruction of trees, buildings and graves became a symbol of a hurt collective identity. As the only SPA publication that exclusively reached a national audience, Ce qu’ils ont fait is the best example of a propagandistic rhetoric that used the destruction of the French landscape to promote a nationalistic, pro-​war discourse. Devastated lands populated French visual culture during the war. The inter-​Allied exhibitions organised by the SPA in 1916 and 1917 included several images of this kind, and some of the photographs in Ce qu’ils ont fait also appeared in other publications.3 For instance, the SPA album 1917. La France d’aujourd-​hui (1917. France Today) reprinted an image of a field with trees whose trunks had been cut

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or were bending forward (Figure 4.1).4 The propagandistic use of the image was even clearer in this publication, which replaced the descriptive caption of Ce qu’ils ont fait (‘Champien. Destroyed trees near a crossroads’) with a more symbolic one, ‘Injuries to the land of France –​an apple orchard at Champien, Somme’.5 Translated into five languages, the new caption drew a parallel between human casualties and casualties of nature.6 In the photograph, the material loss stood for personal loss, making explicit what remained implicit in Ce qu’ils ont fait. Besides the SPA, press and amateur photographers pictured extensively the devastation of the land, now calculated to be about 344,055 hectares.7 Illustrated magazines such as J’ai Vu reproduced images of broken trees and devastated lands. J’ai Vu’s cover in February 1915, for instance, was a broken trunk captioned ‘The evidence of a German lie’, which resonated with the discourse established in Ce qu’ils ont fait.8 Nature became an ambivalent element in these photographs, both a victim and an agent of war.9 Photographs such as Figure 4.1 presented the French landscape as a war victim. As Jeanne Haffner points out, during the First World War ‘the main target “was no longer the body, but the enemy’s environment”. For much of the war, of course, that “environment” was none other than the French landscape’.10 Yet nature was an active agent that shaped combatants’ ‘embodied and visceral experience of dwelling in the militarized environment’, as Chris Pearson has argued.11 Photographs of French landscapes articulated this dual meaning. On the one hand, publications such Ce qu’ils ont fait focused on the effects of the war on the landscape, offering visual evidence of the damage that men had wrought. On the other hand, photographs of muddy trenches and snow-​covered forests brought to light the harsh conditions that nature imposed on French soldiers. In both cases, photographers and viewers ascribed meanings to the natural landscape that went beyond the immediate material damage. In line with French writer Maurice Barrès’ rhetoric of the ‘culte de la terre et des morts’ (‘cult of the land and the dead’), the SPA often ascribed nationalist meanings to the destruction of natural landscapes, buildings and graves. Widely read before and during the war, Barrès represented a conservative view of France that defended a return to the land, to Catholicism, and to tradition

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as the way to recover the greatness of France after the defeat of 1870.12 As Maud Hilaire Schenker has noted, in Barrès, ‘the land was inseparable from the dead, the ancestral culture of which it is its vestiges. Through the theory of the land and the dead, nationalist authors, especially Barrès, created a myth about the origin and common kinship highlighting the unity of the nation, the continuity between generations, between the past and the present’.13 Key to this unity was the protection of both the natural landscape and the cultural patrimony of France. Ruins always materialise the passage of time, representing the presence of the past. During the war, ruins acquired supplementary meanings as Barrès presented them as ‘civilised Latinity versus savage Germania’, as Joëlle Prungnaud has argued.14 In this sense, ruins represented the French as the defenders of civilisation and the Germans as barbaric destructors of culture. Without explicitly acknowledging it, the SPA appropriated many of Barrès’ ideas, infusing images of destroyed cities and ruined fields with nationalist, anti-​German meanings. This chapter examines photography as a tool that articulated the relationship between the war landscape, French collective identity, and the dead through images, objects and practices. In a similar way to literature, photography mediated combatants’ experiences of the landscape, providing representations and narratives that allowed them to make sense of the war environment. In particular, this chapter focuses on three areas in which photography played a prominent role: the creation of a new geographical imagination of France, the development of a sense of place, and the shaping of the relationship between the land and the dead. The ubiquity of photographs of ravaged landscapes and the rhetoric used to present them in publications and private albums contributed to shaping a new geographical imagination of France. While definitions of the term ‘geographical imagination’ abound, here it is used as a ‘tool to describe and analyse the power within the literal and metaphorical ways in which people imagine and render space’.15 At its core, geographical imagination refers to the relationship between people and space: how we construct, visualise and understand it. Historically, photography has played a fundamental role in shaping collective geographical imaginations.

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As geographer Gillian Rose has argued, ‘the production, circulation and consumption of photographs, produce and reproduce the imagined geographies of a social group or institution for which they were made’.16 In this case, the way photographers pictured fields and cities influenced how the French imagined a landscape that was constantly changing. The creation of the trench system, the occupation of territories by the German army and their eventual liberation had a profound impact on the French landscape and its uses.17 Photographs of villages in ruins, sterile lands and fields covered with graves replaced the once idyllic images of French nature represented in the famous ‘Images d’épinal’.18 As Pierre Schoentjes has pointed out in relation to literary representations, these photographs articulated ‘the opposition between the joys of rustic nature and the horror of war’.19 The geographical imagination of France, its collective identity and the places with which it identified itself, shifted as new images came to light. Beyond representations, photographing the front lines also provided combatants with tools to develop a sense of place. As the French had to refamiliarise themselves with an unrecognisable militarised environment, photography helped to repair their sense of belonging to a place. As Chapter 2 has argued, practising photography on the front lines domesticated the trenches, offering the possibility to situate oneself in a new, dangerous environment. Combatants engaged with their surroundings through photography, using their cameras to transform ruins and trenches into spaces where war and non-​war activities could take place. Equally, photographs of craters, broken trees and muddy trenches circulated in magazines, introducing readers to the new aspect of the French landscape and the sensorial conditions in which combatants had to fight. Visual technologies such as aerial photography and stereoscopic photography also offered civilians vicarious experiences of new ways of seeing which combined vision and touch. Doing photography contributed, in this way, to the reconstruction of individual and collective relations to the environment by facilitating visual engagements with it. Amid the destruction of trees and buildings, many photographs showed graves and cemeteries. While images such as Figure 4.1 symbolically hinted at the death of French soldiers, photographs of graves and cemeteries made an explicit connection between

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the destruction of the landscape and the loss of lives on the front lines. These photographs, especially those which publications circulated and the military archives classified, reassured civilians that the French army was burying the dead. However, the identification and proper burial of bodies was not always straightforward. A close reading of SPA and amateur photographs shows that photographers were aware of these problems, even picturing the multiplicity of burial procedures on the front lines. These photographs of improvised graves and cemeteries in French fields, in which the dead merged with the soil as crosses blended with ruins and shell holes, became the best expression of SPA nationalistic propaganda. They materialised Barrès’ ‘cult of the land and the dead’ by presenting the continuity between the dead and the land, the French heritage and the war destruction, the past, the present and the future. Placing the dead into the war landscape became a key element in the new geographical imagination of France, helping combatants to make sense of their experiences of loss by providing a sense of belonging to a place.

Rebuilding the geographical imagination of France A new geographical imagination of France emerged when photographs of ruined cities and broken trees started to circulate in the press, entered into personal albums and were classified in the military archives. Photographic visualisations of the war landscape formed new ideas about France and its collective identity thanks to the ambivalent nature of photographs, which became both documentary evidence in the military archive and propagandistic material in France and abroad. On the one hand, the SPA, the press, and amateur photographers considered photographs to be records that mapped the extent of the war destruction. In this sense, photographs documented particular events such as the destruction of a city hall. On the other hand, the circulation of these images in propagandistic contexts turned them into visual symbols of the damage to the nation. As propagandistic devices, photographs such as Figure 4.1 created a narrative based on the loss of life and the responsibility of the Germans in destroying everything that was dearest to the French.

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At the roots of the conflation of historical, nationalistic and propagandistic meanings in SPA landscape and monumental photography were nineteenth-​ century photographic surveys. As explained in Chapter 1, one of the aims of the SPA was to record the destruction of the artistic and historical patrimony of France.20 This aim was a legacy of the Service des monuments historiques (SMH), which documented the damage suffered by monuments that had previously been identified for their historical or artistic value, with a view to reconstructing them.21 The SMH organised photographic surveys such as the so-​called ‘mission héliographique’ (1855) to capture the historical and artistic patrimony of France.22 The immediate purpose of these surveys was to document and classify monuments, but these images soon acquired political and ideological connotations. As Arlene Auduc has argued, the French state purposely utilised monuments and their images to shape a collective identity, turning them into educational objects that could teach the history of France.23 After the Revolution and during the July monarchy (1830–​1848), France had had to reconstruct a national identity and a new role for the state in relation to its citizens, history, religion and religious buildings. Among the initiatives to build a new history of France were the creation of learned societies, a new classification of the departmental archives in 1837, and a renewed attention to historical monuments.24 The identification, preservation and documentation of historical monuments in France became essential elements in this process. Monuments could represent all the periods in the history of France, and became metaphorical repositories of knowledge.25 During the Third Republic (1870–​1940), and especially after the separation between the state and the Church in 1905, the SMH gained more institutional presence. The SMH photographs established the basis for an identification of the French with their landscape and its monuments.26 The ‘classification, storage and preservation’ of these images not only produced a systematic record of French historical buildings, but also constructed an ‘imaginative geography, a mental map of time, places and events’, as Anne Boyer has pointed out.27 The SPA inherited the SMH’s mission of building a national identity through the documentation of historical monuments, at the same time integrating images of natural landscapes with a view to elaborating a new chapter in the history of France.

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Figure 4.2  Page dedicated to the destruction of the French city Péronne in the SPA album 1917: Le monde avec la France pour la liberté, p. 7.

Partly owing to the SMH tradition the SPA had inherited, and partly owing to the Barresian nationalist character of SPA propaganda, destroyed monuments and churches became one of the central themes in SPA production. Although the Bureau des informations à la presse had warned in 1915 of the potentially harmful effects of disseminating images of the destruction of monuments abroad, most SPA publications included these kinds of images.28 For instance, the SPA album 1917. Le monde avec la France pour la liberté, which was internationally distributed, published several photographs of Péronne (La Somme) before and after the war.29 One of the pages showed several examples of the destruction of the city, including the city hall, the church and the school (Figure 4.2).30 The captions provided little information, limited to identifying each image in six languages (French, English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and German). In this way, the album presented the photographs as

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Figure 4.3  Front cover of the SPA En territoire reconquis. Ce qu’ils ont fait, displaying the top of the City Council in Péronne with the German sign ‘nicht ärgern, nur wundern!’ (‘don’t be angry, just be amazed!’).

evidence which simply laid out the facts. However, the juxtaposition of the six images had a powerful effect on the viewer, especially as the photograph on the top showed a building in ruins with a German sign on it. The German words helped the reader to identify those responsible for the destruction of a sacred place (the church) and even a school. Precisely because of the ambivalence of photographs, which worked as both documents and propaganda at the same time, images like those in Figure 4.2 were effective in creating a geographical imaginary of France defined by German destruction of its landscape and monuments. The political intent of SPA photographs of ruins is evident in Figure 4.3, the cover of Ce qu’ils ont fait. It was simple brown cardboard with a single pocket-​ size photograph pasted on it. Interestingly, the photograph showed the top of a destroyed monument with a German sign that read ‘nicht ärgern, nur wundern!’

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(‘don’t be angry, just be amazed!’) –​the same sign that appears in Figure 4.2. The French reader did not need to know German to understand the connotations of such a sign. The destroyed monument was the City Hall in Péronne, a key city during the battle of the Somme, and the sign had become infamous since the liberation of the city by the British army on 18 March 1917.31 The banner was deeply offensive to the French, as it tapped into the idea that the Germans were militarily and technologically superior.32 Whoever wrote it was aware of the furious reaction that such a banner would provoke among the French. However, by the time Ce qu’ils ont fait published this photograph, the Germans had retreated from Péronne. By publishing the image in 1917, the SPA had appropriated and re-​purposed the sign, which did not symbolise German military power anymore, but the victory of Allied collaboration. As the front cover of an album focused on the destruction provoked by the German army, this photograph worked both as evidentiary document and propagandistic device that imposed new meanings over a French city which had been lost and recovered. While the SMH only focused on heritage that had been previously classified for its historical or artistic value, the SPA aimed to document everything related to the war devastation. In this process, places that the SMH had not previously classified became worthy of being photographed if they had suffered war damage. For instance, the cities represented in Ce qu’ils ont fait had not been photographed and included in a nationally distributed album because they were artistically or historically important, but because they had been destroyed by the Germans. Ruins became valuable in themselves, and as for the classified buildings, photographs aimed to both document their state with a view to reconstruction and to symbolise the damage to the French collective identity. An example of this is Figure 4.4, which shows ‘the ruins of the town’ in Coucy le Chateau, in Northern France.33 The amount of rubble in the foreground and the few walls left standing in the background prevented the reader from identifying what exactly had been destroyed. It could have been a classified monument or just a villager’s house, and the fact that the caption did not identify the rubble as either made a connection between the two. During the war, villagers’ houses were as important as classified monuments and photographers wanted to capture both. By doing this, SPA photography included these

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Figure 4.4  Photograph of Coucy le Chateau in ruins in the SPA album En territoire reconquis. Ce qu’ils ont fait.

towns among the national patrimony, making these images about the French collective identity. Photography also documented extensively the French natural landscape; in particular, fruit trees. These images kept readers informed of the state of the land in regained cities and provided records of the destruction of particular places, essential to the military archives. The precise captions in Ce qu’ils ont fait, for example, documented the extent of the destruction in cities such as Lacourt and Soyon in the southwest and north of France respectively. In this sense, photographs of destroyed trees, particularly fruit trees, became evidence of the food crisis and the threat to the wellbeing of the French population.34 The focus on agricultural fields also helped SPA photographs to represent the damage to the land as the destruction of the work of Frenchmen, situating the agricultural past of France as the centre of propaganda.35

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Figure 4.5  Image of a cut-​down tree captioned ‘Spring-​tide and war’ in the SPA album 1917: La victoire prochaine du droit, p. 9.

Photographs of broken trees also tapped into the French imaginary. Just like monuments and buildings, trees became metaphors of the suffering of the French land and a shortcut to represent the death of French combatants. The SPA album 1917. La victoire prochaine du droit dedicated several pages to the destruction of trees. On page 9, for instance, a blossom tree had had its trunk cut down, the top bending to the left (Figure 4.5).36 In the background, the viewer could see barbed wire and two farm animals. The lack of information regarding the whereabouts of this tree, together with the caption, which dramatically described the scene as ‘spring-​tide and war’, made this photograph a symbolic rather than a documentary object. As an image, this photograph aligned itself with traditional representations of landscape only to subvert their codes. Blossom trees and farm animals symbolise richness and new beginnings, particularly in springtime. In this photograph, however, the cycle of life had been interrupted. Sterile lands represented

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Figure 4.6  Several broken trees surrounded the upper body of a crucified Christ mounted on a cut-​down tree in the SPA album 1917: La victoire prochaine du droit, p. 21.

dead lands, unable to bear fruit anymore. The visual relationship between broken trees and death was even clearer in another image in the same SPA album (Figure 4.6), where several broken trees surrounded the upper body of a crucified Christ mounted on a cut-​ down tree.37 Once again, the caption (‘on the roadside’) provided very little information: it did not describe the scene, nor did it reveal where the photograph was from. The photograph had been clearly staged and linked the profanation of churches with the destruction of the land. Taken all together, these two photographs in 1917. La victoire prochaine du droit and those reproduced in Ce qu’ils ont fait and other SPA albums generated new meanings for a new geography of France dominated by the destruction of nature and patrimony. More importantly, in line with Barrès’ ideas, they mobilised nationalistic meanings, linking the attack on the land to the threat against the French Catholic identity. What was at stake was not

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only the material land, but also the past and the future generations of France. The representation of the French war landscape as ravaged, dead land was, therefore, a strategy to generate a new geographical imagination of France based on the principles of the national propaganda. Images of ruins and broken trees provided present and future viewers with concrete landmarks that represented France as the victim of the war and the Germans as the culprits of the devastation. SPA photographs and, to a certain extent, press photographs, therefore shaped a new relationship between the French and the landscape based on the role of the French during the war. Unlike post-​war novels in which ruined landscapes became the symbol of war destruction and the reason why all wars must be stopped, the photographs examined in this chapter did not carry any negative connotations. Contrary to Virginia Woolf, who, in Three Guineas, mobilised images of a building destroyed during the Spanish Civil War to interrogate how men and women were to prevent war, French photographers never questioned the role of France in the conflict.38 As this chapter shows, SPA photographs of ruined landscapes successfully integrated the war into the history of France. At a documentary level, photographs recorded the extent of the war destruction for the future historian. At a propagandistic level, the SPA nationalist project worked because Barrès’ rhetoric of the cult of the land and the dead had provided the perfect framework to reconstruct the geographical imagination of France without compromising the French participation in war. Most importantly, at a practical level, engaging with the war landscape through photography helped photographers and viewers to integrate and make sense of their experiences of the war, as the next section will show.

Developing a sense of place The construction of the trenches, the bombing of battlefields, the occupation of cities and the displacement of civilians radically changed the experience of the land and the place of the French in it. These changes had an impact on combatants and civilians, who needed to reconstruct their bonds to an unstable and often dangerous environment, at the same time as they learned how to

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navigate the complicated trench system and the villages in ruins. As Ross Wilson has shown, British soldiers orientated themselves in France by calling the trenches after local names such as ‘Old Kent Road’ or ‘Clapham Junction’.39 ‘Tommifying’ the Western Front, as Wilson has put it, helped these soldiers to develop a sense of place and a ‘comprehensible world in the uncertainty of the industrial ­conflict’.40 Photography worked in a similar way. Although French soldiers were more acquainted with these landscapes than their British counterparts, they also had to refamiliarise themselves with them. Not only had the landscape changed, but their perception of it had shifted accordingly. Living in the mud or in subterranean galleries made them experience the environment in a different way, altering their visual perception and enhancing other senses such as touch and smell.41 The creation of a sense of place involved, therefore, the acclimation to new sensorial conditions. Photographs of broken trees and villages in ruins created a new sense of place, reconstructing a sense of belonging to a particular territory –​the Western Front.42 Photography mattered, therefore, not only because of its power to represent collective identities, as the previous section has explored, but also because doing photography served a purpose. As Joan Schwartz and James Ryan have argued, photographs make ‘imaginative geographies’ that ‘shape our perceptions of place’.43 Taking and looking at photographs became strategies to develop a material sense of place that helped to navigate and appropriate the new landscape and combatants’ new sensorial experiences. Photographs blurred the boundaries between people and nature, conveying the experience of living in the ground. Taking photographs in dark places such as tunnels, for instance, altered the space, turning it into a hospitable environment. Finally, photographic technologies and innovations such as aerial photography and stereoscopic photography provided different ways to look at familiar places, offering new perspectives (the view from above) and enhanced views (the three-​dimensional effect of stereoscopic photography). Regardless of whether these were SPA, amateur or press photographs, propagandistic or personal, photography enabled a practical engagement with the surroundings. Living in the trenches merged these men, literally and figuratively, with the land. Santanu Das has argued that crawling in the mud provoked a ‘shift from the visual to the tactile’, as the gaze

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Figure 4.7  SPA photograph of several men in the trenches with destroyed trees in the background taken in Verdun.

stopped being the main sense.44 Inside the trenches, combatants had to re-​engage with their surroundings in new ways, including adapting their sight to a new perspective at the level of the ground and a heightened sense of touch. SPA photographers such as Samama-​ Chikli articulated these ideas in visual form for both the military archive and the general public.45 Figure 4.7 shows one of the images that Samama-​Chikli took of the aftermath of the battle of Verdun in February 1917. The perspective of the photograph, taken from above, highlights the fact that combatants were sunken into the land. Unsurprisingly, the ground is covered by rubble and cut-​down tree trunks. The soft focus of the background and the blurriness of the man on the right direct viewers’ attention to the group of men inside a trench. Photographs like this one not only situated combatants in a new landscape, but also represented how combatants experienced that landscape. The visual field of the men in the trench was very different from the photographer’s or the man on the right side of the image walking on the surface. The rubble also indicates that they were exposed to a series of smells, noises and

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Figure 4.8  Self-​portrait of SPA photographer Albert Samama-​Chikli in Verdun.

tactile experiences different from their previous civilian lives. In this and other similar photographs, the combatants’ sensorial engagement with the land became a focal point in the representation of the war landscape. Photographers also used their cameras to navigate the disorienting perceptual effects of ruined landscapes and devastated lands. During the same trip to Verdun in February 1917, Samama-​ Chikli posed for a self-​portrait standing on rubble, holding his folder camera at the height of his eyes (Figure 4.8).46 The resulting image positions him exactly at the centre. His head aligns with the horizon line, which perfectly divides the photograph between the clear sky and the grey ground. The most remarkable feature in this

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photograph is that Samama-​Chikli is almost imperceptible. While he is the subject of the photograph, the black and white of the image, the rubble of the terrain and the alignment of his head and the horizon line camouflage him. Read alongside Samama-​Chikli’s self-​portrait, Figure 4.7 gains new meanings. Both photographs played with blurring boundaries between man and landscape. As the self-​ portrait suggests, SPA photographers experienced these confusing perceptual effects of the trenches and no-​man’s land just as combatants did. Figures 4.7 and 4.8 were both representations and practical attempts to express, through photography, Samama-​ Chikli’s and the combatants’ lived experience of the front lines. Like Samama-​Chikli, combatants equipped with cameras developed visual strategies to articulate their relationship with the war landscape. The new ways of seeing on the front lines translated into new photographic visions. One of the most common strategies photographers employed was the re-​utilisation of holes in ruined buildings or the trenches to frame views. In April 1915, J’ai Vu published an image of ‘what we see from a machine gun hole on the wall’: two black masses that framed a horizontal landscape in which the horizon line was interspersed with barbed wire.47 According to the caption, what the reader could see was the line of the enemy’s trenches, but the image itself did not convey much information. In fact, had this photograph provided any useful details, it would have been censored. The interest of this image lay not in its documentary value, but in its ability to make the reader a participant in the front-​line action. It situated the reader in a particular position: the interior of the trenches where combatants hid. The photograph literally allowed the reader to see what the combatants were seeing. It represented both the change in the visual perception of the landscape and the change in the material conditions in which combatants were fighting. Framing photographs through the war destruction also sought to aestheticise ruins, turning them into beautiful images that hinted at war losses and the passing of time. For instance, the amateur photographer of the Album Commandeur examined in Chapter 2 used the ruins of a wall to frame a man sitting looking at the horizon with a building in the background (Figure 4.9).48 On other occasions, SPA photographers took advantage of the destruction of the wall of

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Figure 4.9  Image from the Album Commandeur showing a soldier sitting in a hole in a wall.

a house to picture a man as if he were in the living room.49 Unlike the photographs examined in previous sections, these images did not represent ruins to condemn the war destruction or blame the Germans for it. Rather, photographs such as Figure 4.9 normalised destruction, suggesting that, nonetheless, life went on. More importantly, they situated this destruction in the long history of the aesthetic experience of ruins. As Carolyn Korsmeyer has argued, ‘a ruin

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represents a fragment of what once was whole, and it is the image or the idea of that former whole that fills the mind with wonder and imagination’.50 In Figure 4.9, the hole in the wall suggested a time before the war when the wall and other buildings were undamaged. The pensive attitude of the combatant looking at the horizon mirrors the pensive attitude of the photographer (and maybe the viewer too), imagining what was before the war and what the war has destroyed. The hole, therefore, simultaneously helped to frame a scene and inscribed the image into a particular aesthetic tradition. Photography also enabled the capturing of the unusual conditions in which combatants were living. As Chapter 2 has argued, soldiers used their cameras to domesticate the front lines, turning them into a home. The author of Album Commandeur photographed at length the mine tunnels on which his unit was working, focusing on the conditions in which he was living, such as the artificial light, the low ceilings, the tight corridors and the special glasses. The direct participation in the events he photographed makes these photographs not mere representations of what he saw, but practical attempts to make sense of the new environment. For instance, capturing scenes in the darkness of a tunnel at a time when flash was not widely available required a good amount of technical knowledge, determination and the ability to adapt the spatial conditions to the photographic act.51 Even if the photographer took advantage of the existing lighting, the different illumination in photographs in Figure 4.10 suggests that he modified it. Taking a photograph of the interior of a tunnel was, therefore, an active intervention which altered the spatial conditions and the behaviour of other men, who should pose very still for the camera, something they did not need to do in outdoor photography.52 Something similar happened when he took the photographs at the top in Figure 2.3. Under the candlelight, two men posed with photographs, apparently of their loved ones. The darkness, the background and the album in which these photographs appear suggest that they were taken in the pit, but there is nothing intrinsically military in them. Out of context, these would be domestic scenes that simply demonstrated the skill of the photographer taking pictures in relative darkness. But in the context of a tunnel built as part of the mine war, taking photographs had become a way to

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Figure 4.10  Photography in the mine tunnels in Album Commandeur.

deal with an inhospitable environment (the pit) by transforming it into something else (a domestic space). Finally, photographers made use of innovations such as aerial and stereoscopic photography to convey the new ways of waging war. First developed by commercial photographers such as Nadar, who took images from an air balloon, it was not until the First World War that aerial photography became an integral part of military strategy and surveillance.53 Photographs such as the one shown in the upper left corner of Figure 4.11 were taken from military airplanes during surveillance missions with a view to providing data on the evolution of the trench lines and, hopefully, revealing information about the enemy lines.54 The mapping of the war territory through aerial photographs had an impact on the perception of the landscape. The view from above presented, in Jeanne Haffner’s words, a ‘vue d’ensemble’ of the war that was completely new at the time. Aerial photographs, which turned landscapes into geometrical shapes and lines, had a great influence on the development of avant-​ garde pictorial movements after the war, particularly Cubism and Marinetti’s Italian Futurism.55 But the impact affected not only artistic languages. The view from above created new images and, most importantly, new observers.56 As the interpretation of the abstract images provided by aerial cameras required specific interpretative skills, the military hired photographers, architects and artists to understand the evolution of the trenches and the enemy’s positions on the Western Front.57 Aerial photography offered, therefore,

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Figure 4.11  Aerial photograph in the SPA album 1917: Le sang n’est pas de l’eau, p. 28.

new ways of seeing that disrupted traditional representations of the landscape based on human sight, favouring artificial, machine-​ produced visions.58 While the photographs of natural landscapes examined in the previous section pointed to an idyllic rural nature that had been lost, aerial photographs created a modern, rationalised landscape as well as a new ‘logistics of military perception’, in Paul Virilio’s words.59 Beyond the military, the public also consumed aerial photographs in the press. The SPA album 1917. Le sang n’est pas de l’eau included a photograph of a village in the Meuse taken ‘from an airplane’ (Figure 4.11).60 Interestingly, part of the photograph had been enlarged to show ‘the arrival of reinforcements through the communication trench’.61 The enlargement showed several groups of silhouettes distributed along a line crossed perpendicularly by another line. Both lines were depicted differently. While the first one was primarily white, the latter was thicker and included some

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black spots, indicating that the terrain was different in each of them. Similarly, the darker areas used different shades of black, grey and white to represent the irregularity of the ground. The information provided in the enlargement was barely perceptible in the original picture. It seems, therefore, that the silhouettes, the lane and the ground had been added in the process of enlargement to communicate the meaning of the image to the reader in a simpler way. What should have been obvious to the military eye, trained in spotting communication trenches and armies’ movements, was not evident to the general public. In fact, the SPA publication had drawn a square in the original photograph to indicate the section that had been enlarged, to make sure that the reader identified the photograph correctly. Figure 4.11, and other similar images published in magazines, confronted the public not only with militarised landscapes, but also with militarised modes of visual perception where nature, trenches and men had become lines, spots and silhouettes. The different ways of perceiving the war landscape were not always new. As discussed in previous chapters, stereoscopic photography came back as a popular entertainment during the war and SPA photographers took many images in this format. Stereoscopic photographs consisted of two images taken on the same plate from slightly different angles which, viewed through a stereoscope, superimposed and gave the illusion of a three-​dimensional image.62 This feature turned stereoscopic photographs into the perfect medium to convey not only the visual but also the sensorial aspects of living on the front lines. Looking at images of broken trees and craters on a magazine page was a very different experience from seeing it through the stereoscope. Through this device, which only allowed one viewer at a time, the viewer could see the tree trunks and the shell holes in three dimensions. The composition of these images usually helped to intensify the sense of depth by placing vertical trees at different levels in the foreground and the background or by following railway lines that disappeared in the horizon. The relief of the objects and the depth of field provoked in the viewer a sense of immersion, as if she or he were there. This heightened sense of realism together with the new spatial perception conflated visual and tactile experiences.63 For those who were far from the front lines, stereoscopic views formed a geographical imagination of the place where the combat occurred.64 Yet they also developed a sense

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of place, as the immersive experience allowed them, for a moment, to put themselves out there. The new war landscape, dominated by broken trees and villages in ruins, was therefore intimately related to a new sensorial and perceptual experience of the war. Aerial photographs as well as the pictures taken from behind the lines and within the mines attested to the new visual experiences of combatants. From above and from below, the French landscape had changed, and the visual perception of it had shifted accordingly. Photographs of combatants deep in the mud also revealed that the Western Front had transformed other senses too. French nature was not just a visual landscape to admire anymore, but something that was intimately felt in the body. These photographs represented these changes, and the practice of photography helped to articulate how changes were experienced by combatants and photographers alike. Photographers who framed their subjects with ruins aestheticised the landscape and normalised the destruction, while stereoscopic images shared with civilians the experience of the new landscape. Photography helped photographers on the field to situate themselves in the new environment and create a new sense of place; an appropriation of the landscape to which combatants and civilians felt they belonged.

Burying the dead The meanings associated with photographs of ravaged landscapes, ruined villages and men deep in the ground converged in images of tombs, cemeteries and graves on French fields. The loss of lives and the intimate encounters with the land that Figures 4.1 to 4.11 implicitly suggested were explicit in the images of crosses and cemeteries that SPA, press and amateur photographers took during the war. Beneath the land, tombs across French fields indicated that someone had died in that place. Photographs such as Figure 4.12 materialised Maurice Barrès’ ‘cult of the land and the dead’ through the juxtaposition of a rural landscape, a dead tree, a ruined farm, a cross and a burial mound. Within the framework of Barrès’ nationalism and the Catholic tradition, Figure 4.12 articulated the intimate relationship between the dead and the soil, situating this relationship at the heart of French history and identity. As prevalent as these

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Figure 4.12  Photograph of a tomb near the ruins in April 1917.

interpretations were, the importance of the photography of burials on French battlefields went beyond the symbolic. Burying the dead became a problem on the front lines, and photographs helped combatants and civilians to navigate the multiple symbolic, religious, scientific and practical issues. Precisely because of their ambivalent character as documents and propaganda, photographs were able to record different burial methods and procedures while simultaneously inscribing them into broader national, collective and individual narratives about the war. In particular, the photography of war burials and tombs engaged with three main themes: the anonymity of the dead, cultural conventions in relation to the proper burial of the dead, and public hygiene concerns of burying bodies on the front lines. Most of the photographs of cemeteries and tombs in illustrated magazines and the SPA archives were anonymous. Captions did not name individual bodies and the images rarely showed names inscribed on crosses. For instance, in the case of Figure 4.12, an SPA photograph of a tomb in Léomont in April 1917, the military archive had classified it geographically.65 Simply described

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as a ‘tomb next to ruins’ at the Léomont farm, the caption did not provide any information in relation to the identity of the soldier who was buried there or the circumstances in which he had died. Generic captions that applied to multiple images helped the SPA and the military archives to create a narrative about the war dead focused on their collective sacrifice and their commemoration. The anonymity of the body buried in the ground allowed it to represent any body, and therefore anybody could grieve it. The presence of a dead tree or a ruined building reinforced the idea that the dead belonged to France. Photographing the graves and cemeteries of the front lines articulated collective loss through the intimate relationship between the body, the land and the war destruction. Photographs such as Figure 4.12 also reminded the military and civilian populations of the issues involved in burying the dead where they had fallen. The combatants’ experience of the battlefield, particularly in the days following combat, was that of a terrain covered in human and animal bodies. The accumulation of corpses radically changed visual perceptions of the French landscape and made combatants familiar with the sticky smell of decomposed flesh.66 The presence of human and animal remains on the battlefield had become a major infrastructural problem at least since the Battle of La Marne in September 1914. The succession of combats and the fight over territory made the continuation of civilian ways of burial impossible. Combatants wanted to offer appropriate burials to the fallen, but they often had little time to gather all the bodies after the battle or had to leave them behind as they retreated.67 While Figure 4.12 shows a successful intervention where the dead had been buried individually and the soil marked the place where the body lay, other images show mass burials or, worse, abandoned bodies that were left on the ground. Beyond cultural conventions, the accumulation of bodies on battlefields was a sanitary issue. As several places experienced multiple fights, the bodies piled up on the ground, resurfacing if not properly inhumated. Decay became a public health concern and doctors and scientists debated the best ways to manage human and animal remains on the front lines. The journal La technique sanitaire et municipale (The sanitary and municipal method), aimed at public health specialists, published several pieces on this theme. In 1915,

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Dr Henry Thierry presented a sanitary report that explained the three main strategies for managing waste: incineration, exhumation of ancient bodies in order to bury them again, and the addition of more soil to existing graves to make sure that the body was correctly buried deep in the ground.68 Interestingly, Thierry’s report was fully illustrated with photographs that showed his team performing inhumation, exhumation, incineration and identification tasks. This collection of photographs helps to contextualise SPA and amateur photography, showing directly and with explicit captions what the other images only hinted at. Thierry’s report discussed the advantages and disadvantages of incineration. Since the late nineteenth century, doctors had argued in favour of incineration as the most effective method to protect the living against the effects of flesh corruption.69 For these doctors, burning bodies, instead of burying them in the ground, was the most scientific way to deal with organic waste. However, as Thierry and others, such as Bordas and Bruère, argued, incineration was a very impractical business during the war.70 The large quantity of bodies to cremate, which included both humans and animals such as horses and dogs, together with the fact that most incinerations would happen outdoors rather than in places equipped with ovens, meant that incineration became unworkable and very expensive. Moreover, incineration could only occur in cases where the identity of the body had been confirmed. With an increasing number of combatants going missing, Thierry, Bordas and Bruère advised against the acceptance of incineration as a general method on the front lines.71 The other two methods Thierry proposed were less controversial. He recommended that civilian sanitary agents first exhume the half-​ buried bodies, to then bury them properly in cemeteries. Geologists needed to assess the soil where the new burials would take place first, so the inhumation was effective and did not contaminate subterranean waters.72 Alternatively, Thierry proposed covering with additional soil the place where a body had been buried. Bordas and Bruère also defended the use of microorganisms to accelerate the process of decomposition, preventing the spread of infections in the battlefield, especially where several fights had taken place.73 As they remarked, both procedures simply replicated or accelerated

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natural processes, and therefore families could not raise any moral objections against them.74 Thierry’s report documented with photographs the several steps of the sanitation of a battlefield, from the exhumation of badly inhumated bodies to their identification and burial. These photographs, aimed at the specialist readers of La technique sanitaire et municipale, tried to convey as much practical information as possible. For instance, the caption to the photograph of the exhumation of a German soldier directed the reader’s attention to the sanitary costume that technicians had to wear, including a respiratory mask and special gloves and boots.75 Other photographs documented the process of identification in detail, showing a sanitary worker inspecting the body of a French cavalryman in Aisne, while others watched him.76 In the foreground, an open casket, a hammer and two bags of soil suggest that the body had been exhumated to be identified and properly inhumated. Another photograph takes a broader perspective of the exhumation process, showing five men and eight caskets, one of them open, next to a big hole.77 While the captions explained what was happening in each scene, the article never addressed the images directly. There was a connection between the themes discussed in the main text and the photographs, but they did not refer to each other. Therefore the photographs did not illustrate the article, but rather constructed a parallel narrative which showed sanitation, exhumation, identification and inhumation tasks on the front lines. The independence of the photographs from the text makes them more easily comparable to other photographs representing similar processes. Thierry’s photographs were very technical, focused on the uniforms and actions that the men were carrying out. Yet these images were oddly similar to other photographs taken by SPA and even amateur photographers. For instance, the last photograph in Thierry’s report is an image of the cemetery of Corrobert in Marne.78 It is a fairly typical image of identical crosses and tombs aligned with other in the middle of a field. Nothing differentiates it from SPA photographs of improvised cemeteries on battlefields (Figure 4.13).79 In the context of Thierry’s report, the photograph of the cemetery of Corrobert was the conclusion of the sanitation process. After the exhumation and identification of bodies, this

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Figure 4.13  Soldiers’ graves at the Ferme de Léomont in April 1917.

photograph showed that French victims would rest in a cemetery that followed sanitary standards and complied with society’s moral demands for individual burial. Figure 4.13, in turn, perfectly represents the SPA approach to cemeteries: the similarity of the crosses and the absence of individual names meant that all the dead were equally important, without class or rank distinctions.80 Yet, alongside Thierry’s image, the SPA cemetery (Figure 4.13) also represents the moral and sanitary principles that guided the making of cemeteries and the exhumation of bodies. The narrative behind Thierry’s photograph, therefore, sheds new light on the SPA photographs of improvised cemeteries, and, for that matter, all tombs along the Western Front. Other SPA and amateur photographs dealt in more explicit ways with the same themes explored in the technical reports. Figure 4.14, taken by Captain Moreau in December 1915 and kept in the SPA archives, shows the excavation of a ditch to bury the war dead.81 The ditch was deep enough to keep the bodies under the ground, which La technique sanitaire et municipale would have approved as a correct process of inhumation. What the photograph does not

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Figure 4.14  Several men digging the tombs of a military cemetery in December 1915.

reveal is whether the bodies that were going to be buried there had just died, or whether this was the inhumation of corpses that had been previously exhumated and identified, as Thierry suggested in his report. Equally, Figure 4.12 can be read along the lines of Thierry’s report. As an SPA photograph, it followed the ways of representing the war devastation and death, juxtaposing the dead nature with the human remains in an aesthetically pleasant way. But the burial mound in the foreground takes on different connotations after reading Thierry’s report. The added soil works not only as a visual marker of the place where a body rests, but also as a sign of sanitary concerns and the efficient ways of sanitising battlefields. Finally, photography also documented incinerations. Bordas and Bruère’s photograph of an incineration on a battlefield is very similar to the image of an incineration oven in the amateur Ambulance Album examined in Chapter 2 (Figure 4.15).82 Bordas and Bruère’s photograph is not surprising, as it illustrates a public health article on the benefits and disadvantages of incineration. In this regard, the photograph was intended to show readers of La

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Figure 4.15  Photograph of the crematory oven in the Ambulance Album.

technique sanitaire et municipale how to install incineration pits outdoors. In contrast, Figure 4.15 is an unusual picture; in fact, it is the only photograph of a crematory oven that I have found in the archives. Owing to the moral and religious controversies surrounding incineration at the time, the existence of this photograph might seem strange, even disturbing. However, in the context of the Ambulance Album and the rest of the photographs discussed in this section, Figure 4.15 appears as just another representation of managing death on the front lines. The short, descriptive caption (‘the crematory oven’) and the other photographs on the same page indicate a documentary purpose similar to that of the photographs in La technique sanitaire et municipale. Read next to each other, both images show that combatants were well aware of the sanitary, practical and moral issues regarding burials, even if they did not always depict these issues explicitly.

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Scientific images of inhumation, exhumation and incineration methods are important because they put SPA and amateur photographs in a new light. Read side by side, they suggest that SPA, press and amateur photographs of tombs, cemeteries and graves were representations intended to comfort civilians, reassuring them that bodies were not abandoned and that burial rituals were in place. But soldiers, officers, doctors and photographers were all familiar with the practical problems of burying bodies in a timely fashion and appropriate conditions. SPA and amateur photographers were aware of both the difficulty of burying the dead on the front lines and the codes of representation of the war landscape. Therefore, what were simply aesthetic representations for civilians had additional meanings for combatants, who could interpret the signs that hinted at different inhumation procedures. Photographs of crosses and graves in rural landscapes and battlefields mobilised, therefore, the same ideas as the photographs of ruined buildings and broken trees. SPA, press and amateur images became representations of the loss of life and the hurt of a French collective identity. As mentioned before, these ideas can be traced back to Barrès’ nationalist and traditionalist discourse of the ‘cult of the dead and the land’. However, the photographs examined in this chapter demonstrate that photographic practices went beyond Barrès’ ideals to articulate combatants’ and photographers’ experience of the changing war landscape. In the context of SPA albums and exhibitions, ruins, broken trees and graves symbolised a hurt collective identity which blamed the Germans for the destruction of France’s past and present. Yet similar images taken by amateur photographers and even SPA photographers mobilised a different set of questions. Taking advantage of ruined walls or holes in the trenches’ walls to frame images, using artificial lighting to photograph the interior of a pit, camouflaging men among the rubble, or photographing the burial of the dead were all practices that aimed at reconstructing the personal attachment to the environment. Photographs of natural and man-​made landscapes not only generated a new geographical imagination of France, but also helped photographers, combatants and civilians to develop a new sense of place.

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Notes 1 SPA, En territoire reconquis. Ce qu’ils ont fait (Paris: Section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée, 1917). 2 ‘Solente: maison dinamitée par les allemandes’; ‘Route de Noyon à Roye: les arbres coupés’ and ‘Chauny: intrérieur de l’église’, Ce qu’ils ont fait. 3 See E. Dachin, Le Temps des ruines 1914–​ 1921 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015), particularly Chapter IV ‘Des ruines programées?’, pp. 125–​155. 4 SPA, 1917: La France d’aujourd-​hui (Paris: E. Paul, 1917), p. 12. 5 In his 1917 report on the functioning of the SPA, Jaillet remarks that 1917 dispatched 9,758 copies abroad. Jaillet, ‘Rapport’, pp. 65–​66. 6 SPA, 1917: La France d’aujourd-​hui, p. 12. 7 J. P. Amat gives this data in Les forêts de la Grande Guerre. Histoire, Mémoire, Patrimoine (Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-​Sorbonne, 2015), p. 10. 8 J’ai Vu, 8 May 1915. 9 Similarly, Pierre Schoentjes has examined the role of the soldier as a master or a victim of nature in war literature in ‘War. “A Railway Running Across a Picturesque Mountain Scene”. Images of Nature in the Literature of the Great War’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 6:2 (2013), 141–​153. 10 J. Haffner, The View from Above. The Science of Social Space (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013), p. 10. 11 C. Pearson, Mobilizing Nature. The Environmental History of War and Militarization in Modern France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), p. 92. See also Pearson, Scarred Landscapes: War and Nature in Vichy France (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); N. J. Saunders, ‘Bodies in Trees. A Matter of Being in Great War Landscapes’, in P. Cornish and N. J. Saunders (eds), Bodies in Conflict. Corporeality, Materiality and Transformation (London/​ New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 22–​38. Similar to these analyses, but from an anthropological point of view, is R. J. Wilson, Landscapes of the Western Front. Materiality During the Great War (New York/​ London: Routledge, 2012). A broader perspective is developed in S. Daly, M. Salvante and V. Wilcox (eds), Landscapes of the First World War (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018). 12 For an analysis of the political and public role of Barrès during and after the war, see F. Field, ‘Maurice Barrès, Charles Marraud, Charles Péguy. The Defence of France’, in British and French Writers

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of the First World War. Comparative Studies in Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 33–​85. 13 ‘La terre est indissociable des morts, de la culture ancestrale dont elle est le vestige. À travers la théorie de la terre et des morts, les auteurs nationalistes et notamment Barrès, composent un mythe des origines et de la parenté commun soulignant l’unité de la nation, la continuité entre les générations, entre le présent et le passé’, M. H. Schenker, ‘Le nationalisme de Barrès. Moi, la terre et les morts’, Paroles Gelées, 23:1 (2007), 5–​26, p. 9. 14 J. Prungnaud, ‘Writers’ Response to the Architectural Destructions of the Great War’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 9:3 (2016), 237–​251, at p. 242. 15 J. J. Gieseking, ‘Geographical Imagination’, in D. Richardson, N. Castree, M. F. Goodchild, A. Kobayasi, W. Liu and R. A. Marston (eds), International Encyclopedia of Geography (New York: Wiley Blackwell and the Association of American Geographers, 2017), pp. 1–​7, at p. 7. 16 G. Rose, ‘Practising Photography. An Archive, a Study, Some Photographs and a Researcher’, Journal of Historical Geography, 26:4 (2000), 555–​571, at p. 555. 17 See Amat, Les forêts de la Grande Guerre. 18 J. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning. The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 122–​123. 19 Schoentjes, ‘War’, p. 142. 20 Jaillet, ‘Rapport’. See also H. Guillot, Les soldats de la mémoire. La section photographique de l’armée, 1915–​1919 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2017). 21 A. Auduc, Quand les monuments construisaient la nation. Le service des monuments historiques de 1830 à 1940 (Paris: Comité d’histoire du Ministère de la Culture, 2008). See also J. R. Pitte, Histoire du paysage française. De la préhistoire à nos jours (Paris: Tallandier, 2003), pp. 297–​299. 22 On the heliographic mission, see A. de Mondenard, La mission héliographique. Cinq photographes parcourent la France in Monum, Ed. Du 1851 (Paris: Centre des Monuments Nationaux/​ Patrimoine, 2002); Sabine Forero Mendoza, ‘Fotografía y patrimonio. La Misión Heliográfica de 1851 y la consagración del monumento histórico en Francia’, Ería, 73–​74 (2007), pp. 273–​280 and de Mondenard, ‘La Mission héliographique: mythe et histoire’, Études Photographiques, 2 (1997), pp. 61–​79. 23 Auduc, Quand les monuments.

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24 Ibid., pp. 27–​ 40; J. Schwartz, ‘  “Records of Simple Truth and Precision”. Photography, Archives and the Illusion of Control’, Archivaria, 50 (2000), 1–​40, at p. 4. 25 Auduc, Quand les monuments. 26 A. Auduc, ‘Paysage, architecture rurale, territoire: de la prise de conscience patrimoniale à la protection’, In situ. Revue des patrimoines, 7 (2006), 1–​16. 27 C. Boyer, ‘La Mission Héliographique. Architectural Photography, Collective Memory and the Patrimony of France, 1851’, in J. M. Schwartz and J. Ryan (eds), Picturing Place. Photography and the Geographical Imagination (London/​New York: I. B. Tauris, 2003), pp. 21–​54, at p. 53. 28 Dupuis, ‘Instruction relative au choix des Films et clichés’, 1 November 1915. See also Emmanuelle Danchin, Le Temps des Ruines: 1914–​ 1921 (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2015). 29 Jaillet, ‘Report’; SPA, 1917: Le monde avec la France pour la liberté, pp. 4–​9. 30 ‘At Péronne’, SPA, 1917: Le monde avec la France pour la liberté, p. 7. 31 See D. Sbrava, ‘Entre inventaire et propagande: les destructions du patrimoine en Picardie vues par la Section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée’, In Situ. Revue des Patrimoines, 23 (2014). 32 See B. Pichel, ‘French Resentment and the Animalization of the German’, in B. Fantini, D. Martín-​ Moruno and J. Moscoso, On Resentment. Past and Present (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2013), pp. 241–​257. 33 ‘Soucy le Chateau. Les ruins de la ville’, 21–​2–​17. Ce qu’ils on fait. 34 On food shortages and their effects, see R. Duffett, The Stomach for Fighting. Food and the Soldiers of the Great War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), esp. pp. 96–​97. 35 See P. Schoentjes, ‘War. “A Railway Running Across a Picturesque Mountain Scene”. Images of Nature in the Literature of the Great War’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 6:2 (2013), 141–​153, at p. 148 and E. Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen. The Modernization of Rural France 1870–​ 1914 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976). 36 SPA, 1917: La victoire prochaine du droit, p. 9. 37 ‘Au bord de la route’, 1917: La victoire prochaine du droit, p. 21. 38 V. Woolf, Three Guineas (London: Hogarth Press, 1938). For an analysis of the pacifist, anti-​fascist and anti-​patriarchal aspects of this book in relation to photography, see M. Humm, ‘Memory, Photography and Modernism. The “dead bodies and ruined houses” in Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas’, Signs, 28:2 (2003), 645–​663.

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39 R. Wilson, ‘Tommifying the Western Front, 1914–​1918’, Journal of Historical Geography, 37:3 (2011), 338–​374, at p. 345. 40 Ibid., p. 338. 41 ‘The visual topography of the everyday world, I shall argue, was replaced by the haptic geography of the trenches, and mud was a prime agent in this change’, in S. Das, Touch and Intimacy in First World War Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 23. 42 See R. Wilkie and R. F. Roberson, ‘Sense of Place’, in B. Warf (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Geography. A Reference Handbook (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2010), pp. 2532–​2533. 43 J. Schwartz and J. Ryan, ‘Introduction: Photography and the Goegraphical Imagination’, in J. Schwartz and J. Ryan (eds), Picturing Place: Photography and the Geographical Imagination (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003), p. 6. 44 ‘Amidst the dark, muddy, subterranean world of the trenches, the soldiers navigated space not through the safe distance of gaze, but rather through the clumsy immediacy of their bodies: “crawl” is a recurring verb in trench narratives, showing the shift from the visual to the tactile’, in Das, Touch and Intimacy, p. 7. 45 SPA 49 L 2398. 46 SPA 49-​L-​2249, ‘La región fortifiée de Verdun’, February–​March 1917. 47 ‘Ce qu’on voit par un créneau de mitrailleuse’, J’ai Vu, 5 April 1915. 48 Album 3 ‘Villages ruinés’, Album commandeur, La Contemporaine. 49 ‘Promenade de la Digne. Salle à manger d’une maison bombardée’, 10 June 1917, Verdun. Album Valois 172, La Contemporaine. 50 C. Korsmeyer, ‘The Triumph of Time. Romanticism Redux’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Special Issue ‘Symposium: The Aesthetics of Ruin and Absence’, 72:4 (2014), p. 431. 51 On the cultural history of flash, see K. Flint, Flash! Photography, Writing and Surprising Illumination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 52 While all the photographs examined in this book were instantaneous, i.e. their exposure time was less than a second, the use of artificial lighting required a longer than normal exposure time and more sensitive glass plates. 53 On the history of aerial photography in the First World War, see T. Finnegan, Shooting The Front. Allied Aerial Reconnaissance in the First World War (Stroud: Spellmount, 2014). 54 Haffner, The View from Above, p. 9. 55 P. K. Saint-​ Amour, ‘Modernist Reconnaissance’, Modernism/​ Modernity, 10:2 (2003), 349–​380.

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56 Ibid., p. 354. 57 Haffner, The View from Above. 58 On different historical and theoretical criticisms to aerial photography, see P. Amad, ‘From God’s-​Eye to Camera-​Eye: Aerial Photography Post-​Humanist and Neo-​Humanist Visions of the World’, History of Photography, 36:1 (2012), 66–​86. 59 P. Virilio, War and Cinema. The Logistics of Perception. Trans. Patrick Camiller (London: Verso, 1989), p. 1. Italics in the original. 60 SPA, 1917: Le sang n’est pas de l’eau, p. 28. 61 Ibid. 62 On stereoscopic photography as a technological innovation, see K. Timby, ‘Colour Photography and Stereoscopy. Parallel Histories’, History of Photography, 29:2 (2005), 183–​196. 63 See J. Plunkett, ‘ “Feeling Seeing”. Touch, Vision and the Stereoscope’, History of Photography, 37:4 (2013), 389–​ 396 and D. Trotter, ‘Stereoscopic. Modernism and the “Haptic” ’, Critical Quarterly, 46:4 (2004), 38–​58. 64 On the use of stereoscopic photography as a vicarious form of travelling, see P. Stakelon, ‘Travel Through the Steresocope’, Media History, 16:4 (2010), 407–​422. 65 SPA, ‘Ferme de Léomont, 26 April 1917. Tombes près des ruines’, Album Valois, La Contemporaine. 66 Das, Touch and Intimacy. 67 Inhumations became a standard procedure for sanitary and moral reasons. See V. Viet, ‘Une approche sanitaire. La protection des vivants contre les morts’, in I. Homer and E. Pénicaut (eds), Le soldat et la mort dans la Grande Guerre (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016), pp. 129–​142; T. Hardier and J. F. Jagielski, Combattre et mourir pendant la Grande Guerre, 1914–​ 1925 (Paris: Imago, 2001), pp. 177–​181; and F. Rousseau, La guerre censurée. Une histoire des combattants 14–​18 (Paris: Seuil, 2003). 68 H. Thierry, ‘L’assainissement des champs de bataille’, La technique sanitaire et municipale 7, November–​December 1915, pp. 155–​162. 69 T. Laqueur, ‘Burning the Dead and the Ways of Nature’, in C. Archer, L. Ephraim, and L. Maxwell (eds), Second Nature. Rethinking the Nature Through Politics (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), pp. 46–​60, p. 51. 70 Thierry, ‘L’assainissement’; F. Bordas and S. Bruère, ‘Assainissement des champs de bataille. Destruction des cadavres par protéolyse microbienne’, La technique sanitaire et municipale, January 1916, pp. 18–​24.

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71 Thierry, ‘L’assainissement’, p. 160. On the theme of missing and unidentified soldiers, see Hardier and Jagielski, Combattre et mourir, pp. 329–​333. 72 Thierry, ‘L’assainissement’, p. 155. 73 Bordas and Bruère, ‘Assainissement’, pp. 20–23. 74 Ibid. 75 ‘Exhumation d’un soldat allemand, par l’équipe de la ville de Paris munie du masque respiratoire, de gants de caoutchouc, bottes et costume spécial’, Thierry, ‘L’assainissement’, p. 156. 76 ‘Identification d’un soldat français, cavalier au 10e Hussards (Aisne)’, Thierry, ‘L’assainissement’, p. 157. 77 ‘Identification d’un soldat français, cavalier au 10e Hussards (Aisne)’, ‘Exhumation de 9 soldats français tués à la bataille de la Marne, insuffisamment ensevelis dans une carrière à la Roquetterie (Région de Montmiral), Marne’, Thierry, ‘L’assainissement’, pp. 157–​158. 78 ‘Tombes des soldats français et tirailleurs algériennes dans le cimetière de Corrobert (Marne)’, Thierry, ‘L’assainissement’, p. 161. 79 SPA, ‘Ferme de Léomont, 26 April 1917. Tombes de soldats’, Album Valois, La Contemporaine. 80 See A. Prost, Republican Identities in War and Peace. Representations of France in the 19th and 20th centuries (Oxford/​New York: Berg, 2002), p. 25; D. Sherman, The Construction of Memory in Interwar France (Chicago/​London: University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. 6; Hardier and Jagielski, Combattre. 81 ‘Verdun, Cimetière de soldats. 11 December 1915. 63.342, Meuse.’ Cf. Capitain Moreau. Album Valois 528. 82 ‘Le four crématoire’, Album 005634, Historial de la Grande Guerre.

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Making visible and invisible

First World War photographic archives contain thousands of images. Official, private and press photographers exhaustively documented the front lines, the war zones and the home front, picturing life at the trenches, civilians working in factories, nurses taking care of patients, weapons, monuments in ruins, fields full of craters and the impact of shell bombs on the combatants’ bodies, among many other things. Photographs in this book have shown forests and villages reduced to broken trees, debris and holes on the road, men in pain and men having fun. Images of soldiers proudly posing for the camera in impeccable uniforms and cooking mushrooms coexist with graves, funerals, burials and dead bodies. The fact that First World War photography presents such a wide variety of topics might be surprising, as modern coverage of conflicts only started later in the twentieth century. As Caroline Brothers has argued, ‘the Spanish Civil War [1936–​1939] was the first war to be extensively and freely photographed for a mass audience and marks the establishment of modern war photography as we know it’.1 Equipped with their small 35mm Leica cameras, photographers such as Robert Capa and Gerda Taro joined Republican combatants’ lines, photographing battles and daily life from their point of view. The closeness between photographers and combatants and the international circulation of images in the 1930s came to define a new profession, the war photojournalist.2 While First World War photographers did not work in the same conditions as the war photojournalists of the 1930s, this does not mean that the First World War was not extensively covered. In spite of military restrictions, economic difficulties and cumbersome photographic equipment, official, press and amateur photographers covered the war at length. In fact, as Chapter 1 has explained, the aim of SPA

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and amateur photographers was to record the war, photographing all the events that were part of its history and experience. French photographers did not avoid difficult or painful subjects. They extensively documented injuries and surgical reconstruction, bodily mutilations and prostheses, burials, incinerations and bodies abandoned on the battlefield for days. Censorship prevented the public circulation of these images, but the military archives classified them, creating categories such as ‘mort à l’ennemi’ (killed by the enemy), and private photographers collected the images in their albums. These photographs demonstrate that photography made suffering, pain and death quite visible in the archive, the illustrated press and even private collections. Photography became an important practice during the war because it had the power to make things visible. Photographs allowed civilians and combatants to see people and events that were distant in time and space in a way that seemed direct, transparent and uncompromised. Yet photographs are not unproblematic visual evidence. As academics have argued at length, more important than the content of the image are the conditions under which a photograph is seen: what is represented, how and to whom.3 Previous chapters have shown that photographs did not show everything, but made some things visible under particular conditions. For instance, bodily mutilations were visible as long as amputees were portrayed at work, carrying out manual tasks thanks to specially adapted prostheses. On other occasions, the photographic format in which the images were consumed affected the experience of the viewer. In this regard, stereoscopic photographs of broken trees provided a very different visual experience from images printed on a magazine page, as they added depth of field and a tactile element. Making things visible is a complex operation that depends on what is seen, how and by whom, as well as on what is not seen. By definition, photography is a selective practice. Photographers decide what to photograph, what to focus on and from which perspective, necessarily leaving some things out of the image. Making things visible implies making others things invisible. Sometimes what is left out is simply accidental: soldiers who were not posing for the camera at a particular moment, for instance. In this case, they might not be visible in one image, but they, or others like them,

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appear in other photographs. In contrast, other events are systematically invisible as almost no photographic records exist. I argue that, rather than an accidental oversight, this type of invisibility defines a photographic frame of experience. This chapter examines how war photography made some things visible while making others invisible, as well as the effects of this selective visibility, by comparing the photographic treatment of missing soldiers and combatants who died by suicide. While illustrated magazines such as Sur le Vif published photographs of missing soldiers to making them visible to the public, neither professional nor amateur photographers documented suicide. In spite of the differences between disappearance and suicide as historical events, the comparison of their photographic treatment is helpful, as it reveals how photographic practices reflected and shaped public concerns and, ultimately, war experiences. In the first two years of the war, thousands of French soldiers went missing, as their location was unknown. The bodies of those who had gone missing were literally invisible for their relatives and military units. Yet families of the war missing made them visible by sending their portraits to magazines in the hope that someone would recognise them and provide information about their whereabouts.4 Through these portraits, these men became ‘war missing’. The public and the military both expressed concerns about them, and the French population mobilised to find them. The public visibility of the war missing through the publication of their portraits in the press contributed to this mobilisation, as readers got involved in their search and identification. In contrast, I have only found one photograph about suicide. It was a serendipitous discovery. I was in the archives of the Musée du services de santé, Val-​de-​Grâce (Paris) researching photographs of facial injuries and reconstruction surgeries when I found a photograph in one of the drawers. I asked the curator but he had never seen the photograph or anything similar before, nor could he provide more information. The image is quite simple in its composition. It shows the side of the upper half of a skull mounted on a metal stand, suggesting that it is a medical specimen. The photograph had been pasted on cardboard, which bore the inscription ‘suicide’ on the back. No date, names or any other detail could confirm when

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it had been taken, by whom, or for what purpose. This is a very unusual photograph of a very difficult topic. Suicide was, and to certain extent still is, taboo. While a considerable number of French soldiers and civilians attempted or died by suicide (5,500 according to recent calculations), it is not easy to find official records of these deaths.5 Some are retrievable from death certificates, but not all. Doctors were resistant to confirming suicide as the cause of death, as it meant that families would not be able to claim pensions.6 The photographic invisibility of a taboo seems, therefore, to be fundamental to the photographic culture of the time rather than the product of a simple oversight. The comparison between the photographic representation of the war missing and the lack of suicide victims illustrates how making visible and invisible became two sides of the same coin. The war missing fitted with the narrative of French soldiers as sacrificing their lives for France. Whether they had been blessed, captured or killed by the Germans (or deserted, although journals never acknowledged this possibility), these men had acted as French combatants. The public representation of the war missing reinforced this message, introducing these men as war victims. In contrast, suicide was never considered a war event. Most psychiatrists and psychologists claimed that victims of suicide experienced other mental conditions such as depression, and it was their illness, and not the war, which was the ultimate cause of their suicide. War might have put these men in distressing situations, but they might have died by suicide in other situations too. Suicide victims therefore did not fit with the definition of ‘Mort pour la France’ and did not receive honours. The lack of photographs of suicide only contributed to its silencing in the public arena (obviously not in the private sphere, where families grieved them), and the decoupling of war and suicide. The careful photography of the war dead, including the war missing, and the non-​existent photography of the dead who were not considered war dead (suicide victims), shows that making visible the war events relied on making other events invisible. Moving away from historical analysis to examine the dynamics between making visible and invisible from a theoretical point of view, the final section introduces the idea of the photographic frame. Following Butler’s analysis in Frames of War, this chapter

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demonstrates that photographic visibility and invisibility determined not only what could be seen, but what could be experienced. Making visible involved a whole set of photographic practices. In contrast, making invisible meant the absence of those practices. Making visible, recording, feeling, embodying and placing were photographic practices that became frames of experience: the frame that allowed combatants and civilians to articulate and communicate their war experiences.

Making visible the war missing On 14 November 1914 Sur le Vif launched its first issue. Sold at a small price (15 centimes), Sur le Vif was fully illustrated with photo-​engravings and sketches. It aimed to ‘provide a panoramic view of the gigantic fight that is happening all over the world’, combining news with ‘anecdotes’ on ‘the curious habits of Allied nations’.7 Similar to other illustrated magazines such as J’ai Vu or Le Miroir, Sur le Vif adopted an emotional rhetoric, presenting itself as the journal that would ‘follow our French and Allied armies, step by step, in their victorious march towards their certain objective: Berlin!’8 Sur le Vif aspired to become more than a news outlet, almost a public service. It characterised itself as the magazine that ‘informs and comforts, the truthful friend, devoted and impatiently awaited’.9 The choice of the figure of an ‘impatiently awaited’ friend was not arbitrary. In the first issue, Sur le Vif offered to publish the ‘portraits of officers or soldiers, fathers, brothers, husbands, fiancés, etc.’ who had gone missing during the war, in case someone should recognise them and offer information on their location.10 All families had to do was to ‘send a photograph of the missing person together with the necessary explanations (last name, name, regiment, company, etc.)’.11 With this announcement, Sur le Vif tapped into one of the most pressing problems of French society. During the first months of war, the instability of the war fronts resulted in the disappearance of a great number of combatants and civilians, especially in the zones occupied by the Germans. As the historians Jagielski and Hardier have explained, many of the war missing eventually returned after a hospital stay or being made prisoners by the Germans.12 However,

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not all missing combatants were eventually found. Disappearance was an essentially ambiguous status that could not confirm whether the missing person was dead or alive, causing great anxiety to families. For this reason, Jagielski refers to the impossibility of grief for these families, who were forced to confront the loss of a relative without having the certitude of what had happened.13 It is not surprising, therefore, that families made the most of the effort to locate missing men.14 During the war, the front lines and military areas were strongly protected, and therefore civilians were not allowed to enter. As a result, until war zones slowly started to open in 1919, families often exchanged mail with their missing relatives’ fellow combatants. The letters, written by those who had spent the final moments with the missing men, provided key information to the families.15 Although this information did not resolve the status of the missing soldier, it had the power to calm families and gave them hope that their relatives would be found one day. The circulation of portraits in Sur le Vif and later La recherche des disparus (The Search for the Missing) continued these informal, civilian networks that worked by word of mouth and relied on volunteering and local knowledge. On 21 November 1914, Sur le Vif published the first batch of portraits of ‘the glorious war missing’ (Figure 5.1).16 It consisted of 24 portraits, organised in a grid of 8 × 3. Every portrait referred to a registry number, which was scribbled on the picture, usually on the collar of the military uniforms or suits. Below the portraits, a list matched the registry numbers with personal details such as names, regiments, and the date and place where the man had gone missing. Subsequent issues kept the same format, progressively multiplying the number of portraits. The next series included 40 images, which increased to 48 the following week.17 By the end of the year, Sur le Vif was publishing more than 60 in each issue, which went up to a hundred in January 1915 and 210 on 15 May 1915.18 The number of portraits started to decrease in June 1915, and from the end of October 1915 Sur le Vif published the series of portraits only sporadically. The reduction in the number of images and the series’ eventual removal coincided with the creation of a new association for the war missing and the publication of its own journal, La recherche des disparus.19

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Figure 5.1  ‘First series of the glorious war missing’, Sur le Vif, 14 November 1914.

The photographs published in these series followed the visual conventions of the police or medical mugshot, focusing on the face and using a full-​front or 3/​4 perspective.20 Just like mugshots, Sur le Vif portraits concentrated on the face in order to facilitate the identification of the individual. Yet a key element differentiated both kinds of photographs. Police and medical mugshots followed

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protocols which resulted in the standardisation of the images.21 In contrast, the photographs in Sur le Vif came from the relatives of the missing, who sent their pictures to be published in the magazine. The private nature of these portraits made them all slightly different. Most of the men were wearing their military uniforms, but one of the portraits in Figure 5.1 (first row, sixth from the left) presents a young man dressed in civilian clothes, and the shape of the photograph is circular. Similarly, other men pose in front of backgrounds such as a wall (third row, second from the right) and a tree (third row, first from the right). On other occasions, the background revealed the legs and arms of other men, indicating that the picture had been cropped from a larger group portrait.22 Sur le Vif therefore turned private portraits into mugshots through a series of photographic operations, mainly by cropping the photographs, organising the portraits into a grid and manipulating the background. Early on, Sur le Vif had informed their readers that the photographs should be of a small size, specifically 2.5 × 3 cm. By the look of some of the portraits, especially the ones commented on above, not all families followed these instructions and sent larger images, maybe because they did not own smaller or even individual portraits. The homogenisation of the photographs was important for several reasons. Firstly, the best strategy for including as many images as possible was to organise them in a grid. The grid required that all portraits were the same size, which at the beginning was 2.5 × 3 cm. However, the progressive increase in the number of images meant that the portraits had to be reduced in size. Secondly, the standardisation of the photographs in the grid emphasised the similarities rather than the differences of the portraits. Next to each other, these mugshots created a visual effect in which no individual portrait stood out. Finally, from the sixth series of portraits onwards, all backgrounds became neutral white. Once again, the white background emphasised the continuity between the portraits. The only occasion on which Sur le Vif broke these rules was on the eighth series of portraits, in January 1915, which included the photograph of a little girl (Figure 5.2).23 Unlike the rest of the pictures, the portrait of the missing girl showed her full body, including a toy with which she was playing, and occupied two spaces in vertical in the grid. The fact that the one portrait that

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Figure 5.2  ‘8th series, war missing portraits’, Sur le Vif, 2 January 1915.

was different belonged to a little girl, the only woman and only civilian shown in the series, highlighted the similarities among the rest of the images. If these portraits were to work, they needed to circulate massively. To urge readers to buy the magazine, Sur le Vif followed two main strategies. Firstly, it appealed to readers’ emotions, and in particular to their sympathy towards the families of the missing. By

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publishing the portraits, the magazine hoped that ‘the immense publicity of our magazine would be able to bring back those whose families are in mourning and anguish’.24 Secondly, Sur le Vif appealed to readers’ sense of patriotism and their willingness to contribute to the fight from the home front. Accompanying the first series of portraits, Sur le Vif claimed that ‘in the tragic circumstances in which we are involved, it is the duty of all the French who want to be helpful to their compatriots, to carefully examine the photographs that we publish, in the hope of providing i­nformation’.25 Looking at these portraits was, according to the magazine, ‘a fraternal and patriotic task’.26 While civilians, and particularly women, were the primary target audience of this rhetoric, Sur le Vif also appealed to other readers. Starting with the third series of portraits, the magazine announced that it would be distributed in ambulances and military hospitals, so the personnel there could potentially identify some of the anonymous wounded.27 Sur le Vif also made itself available in city councils, in case they wanted to use the portraits of missing soldiers from their cities, or to identify the men treated in their hospitals.28 In April 1915, it published a photograph of a mobilised soldier reading a copy of Sur le Vif to show that the magazine even reached the front lines.29 Sur le Vif also published successful stories of missing soldiers who had been found. The first good news story appeared alongside the seventh series of portraits, on 26 December 1914. The article explained that ‘thanks to the fraternal and patriotic goodness of our readers, combatants or wounded soldiers, we have been able to locate a certain number of our dear missing and to give good news to their family. It is even true that sometimes we were searching very far away, while they were near Paris, especially M. l’adjutant Maniez (photo N. 1176), who has been identified as being wounded and treated at a hospital in Troyes’.30 The ‘good news’ announcement was published in further issues, but it always relied on the example of Maniez, which makes uncertain how many men had been identified thanks to the circulation of these portraits. The appeals to circulate the portraits and the publicity given to the success stories were part of Sur le Vif’s business strategy. Although it presented itself as a patriotic endeavour, the magazine was still a private business that had to survive in a time of scarcity. In several issues, Sur le Vif announced that it had spent more than 50,000

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francs looking for these soldiers.31 Considering that the price of the magazine was 15 centimes, it was a huge sum of money. It seems that the publication of the portraits of the war missing played a key role in its marketing strategy. The publication of the photographs was free of charge, but families had to send, alongside the portrait, a proof of purchase of the magazine. In other words, they had to spend money buying it. More important, Sur le Vif never published the same portrait twice, but each series included new photographs and names. This means that the readers who actually wanted to help had to buy every issue of the magazine. The publication of the ‘glorious portraits of the war missing’ became less frequent by October 1915, and sporadic throughout 1916 and 1917. One of the reasons was the decline in numbers of men going missing during this period.32 Another factor was the creation of associations such as the Association Française pour la recherche des disparus (French Association for the Search of the Missing), which published its own journal, La recherche des disparus, from 28 February 1915. The overlap between both publications, together with the restructuring of Sur le Vif, probably meant that the directors of Sur le Vif saw the series of portraits of the missing as redundant. La recherche des disparus, and the association which published it, worked in collaboration with the Agence de Prisonniers de Guerre de la Croix Rouge Française, which connected families with war prisoners, and the Bureau des Renseignements du Ministère de la guerre, which compiled a list of all the combatants who had been wounded, were sick, had become prisoners, had died or had gone missing, and reported the status to the families.33 Unlike Sur le Vif, La recherche des disparus and the association that published it were not only concerned about missing soldiers. Civilian refugees in Belgium and France from whom families had stopped receiving news, or who had been displaced and wanted to contact their relatives, were also included. To appear in the magazine’s pages, readers had to complete one of the three forms provided by the publication.34 To request information about a missing soldier, his relatives had to provide details regarding his identity and military status, as well as whether they had already asked other institutions about his whereabouts and the eventual answers they had obtained. Readers

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could also request information about civilian refugees if they provided personal details such as name, profession and neighbourhood where the missing person had lived, as well as previous inquiries made by the family. Finally, refugees themselves who wanted to communicate their new address after being displaced in France or Belgium could also send their own details to the magazine. For the first months, La recherche des disparus only published lists of missing people together with the details provided in the information forms, as well as lists of wounded soldiers. However, from January 1916 until its last issue in December 1917, La recherche des disparus also included photographic portraits of the war missing. The first seven portraits, all belonging to combatants, were organised in a single row and occupied the centre of the front cover of the magazine.35 Their details (name, military rank, place and date of disappearance) appeared below the portraits. The incorporation of these photographs did not replace the long lists of names but complemented them, providing visual information about some of the missing men. Interestingly, the photographs only belonged to men who had disappeared during the first months of the war. The magazine never addressed the question of why some names were attached to photographs while others were not, but it seems that the length of the disappearance justified the extra help offered by the magazine to find them. In contrast with Sur le Vif, La recherche des disparus published the same portraits over different issues. It also spread the images throughout the pages, which allowed it to increase the number of photographs without reducing their size. The photographs in La recherche des disparus still followed a mugshot style, focusing on the faces of the men. Unlike Sur le Vif’s grid, photographs on La recherche des disparus often surrounded some important text in the cover. When the photograph was of a circular shape, it was strategically positioned so the arrangement was symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing.36 In another instance, on 1 September 1917, the front cover included a photograph with a long text situated at the centre of the page.37 The portrait showed a young boy in a school uniform, Edouard Demartin, born on 22 January 1901, who lived in Steinbach, in the Ardennes (Belgium). He was a civilian who, apparently, had run away to the Netherlands on his way to

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France or Germany. He was the only civilian whose photograph was published, which explains the privileged place of the information request. As La recherche des disparus was thematically focused on locating missing combatants and civilians, photographs were not confined to a particular page. From 13 February 1916 onwards, some of the portraits previously published appeared interspersed in the long list of missing soldiers, leaving the front cover for new portraits. The distribution of photographs on several pages meant that the portraits never lost quality or became too small. The number of images on the front cover always remained between 15 and 21, while the portraits spread in the interior pages went up to 44 in May 1916 (coincidentally, the month that Sur le Vif published more portraits), and to 56 on 1 September 1917.38 After that, the number of photographs remained stable until the last issue on 1 December 1917.39 One of the most pressing questions when examining this material is to assess how effective the publication of these portraits was. La recherche des disparus published its own piece of good news on the front cover of its issue in April 1916. Under the heading ‘Il ne faut pas despérer’ (‘do not despair’), it announced that the family of Charles Derache had contacted them to stop the inclusion of his name in the list. According to the letter, the family had received ‘a photograph and a long letter’ indicating that he was ‘in good health’.40 Like many missing soldiers, he had been interned in a German prisoner camp, where he had probably been since his disappearance in September 1914. Derache’s successful story came with a photograph of himself placed alongside the portraits of missing men. This disposition suggested that it had been one of the portraits of the war missing that La recherche des disparus routinely published. However, Derache’s photograph had never appeared before. His family had only sent his portrait the week before learning about his whereabouts and his portrait had never made it into the magazine. The publication of portraits by La recherche des disparus had had nothing to do, therefore, with the location of Derache, even if the cover of this issue visually suggested otherwise. While no direct evidence confirms or denies the utility of publishing the portraits of the war missing, some clues point to a

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few problems. The first relates to the quality of the reproduction of the images. Sur le Vif prided itself in using the technique of photo-​engraving to reproduce photographs and illustrations. This technique worked well for large images, but details were lost in smaller prints. As the number of portraits increased, they became smaller and so the quality of the reproduction deteriorated, hindering the likelihood of recognising the men through their portraits. Moreover, the arrangement of photographs in grids that could fit up to 200 portraits on a single page made paying proper attention to single portraits more difficult. The standardisation of the images did not help either. Even a careful reader focusing on individual images would have had problems identifying these men. Although the reproduction of the images was bigger in La recherche des disparus, the portraits were not alphabetically organised but the lists of names on the same pages were, which complicated the matching of images and information. The numerical system used in Sur le Vif was also problematic, as it relied on visually identifying the men and then corresponding the image with a name in the list to confirm the suspicion, or in contrast, going through the list and then checking out the portraits. In any case, someone had to spend a great amount of time going through all the portraits and names published weekly in Sur le Vif or fortnightly (and later, monthly) in La recherche des disparus. The fact that Sur le Vif recommenced the photographs and lists every week meant that readers had to keep up to date or collect the information pages, hoping that they could remember and identify the men. The publication of these portraits was flawed, but it offers a good example of how photography’s ability to make things visible articulated war experiences. Disappearance was an uncertain state which could neither confirm nor deny the death of the missing. Families did not know whether their relatives were dead or alive, and if alive, in what condition. Missing soldiers were literally out of sight, and the photographic portraits published in Sur le Vif and La recherche des disparus made them visible in the public sphere. Their status was still uncertain, but their circulation acknowledged their existence. Through the circulation of photographs in magazines, the meaning of the portraits changed, as did the identity of these men, who went from being husbands, fathers and sons to being missing soldiers.

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Between 1914 and 1917, photographs of the war missing in Sur le Vif and La recherche des disparus did similar cultural work to the burial of a Soldat Inconnu (Unknown soldier) under the Arc de Triomphe on 11 November 1920.41 Veterans, the military and the state discussed at length the selection of the body of the Soldat Inconnu, who was intended to represent all war victims. As Jagielski and Javeau have noted, the buried body had to be anonymous: his identity was not known and could not be known.42 In other words, it had to be an unidentified body, belonging, therefore, to a missing soldier. The need for anonymity came from the double meaning of the Soldat Inconnu as ‘the representation of the body of the nation and of the human body’.43 The Tombe du Soldat Inconnu was both physical and symbolic. It contained a body but, because it was anonymous, it could be any body. The Soldat Inconnu was meant to represent the ‘son of all mothers who have not found their sons’.44 Therefore, those still looking for their relatives (now assumed dead) could hope that it was his body lying under the tomb. By introducing missing soldiers into the public arena, the Tombe du Soldat Inconnu, just like the photographs published in Sur le Vif and La recherche des disparus, gave them the material body that they lacked and a place in public commemorations. The Tombe du Soldat Inconnu was a ‘metonym of all the war dead who died during and because of the war (except for, of course, those who were executed for desertion or insubordination)’.45 Similarly, the publication of the portraits of the war missing gave hope to families that their relatives would be found or, at least, would be properly buried and commemorated. Through these commemorations, relatives of the war missing could join ‘communities in mourning’.46 An essential aspect of this process was its collective character. The Tombe du Soldat Inconnu, under the Arc de Triomphe, was meant to symbolise France and was commemorated publicly by the state, the military and civil society. Similarly, the photographs of Sur le Vif and La recherche des disparus worked by making private issues public. Through the magazine’s appeal to its readers, the war missing became the problem of all the French, not just the families or the military. In this way, making the war missing visible helped facilitate the collective experience of the phenomenon of the missing soldiers.

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Making suicide invisible The most commonly used word in relation to suicide during the First World War is ‘silence’. Patricia E. Prestwich speaks about the ‘comrades and many families’ who ‘preferred to remain silent’, while Denis Rolland points out that ‘military archives are mute’.47 Suicide was a taboo then, and it is still a difficult topic to study now. Probably owing to that silence, not much historical evidence is left. Jagielski and Hardier have identified references to voluntary death in combatants’ personal accounts, while Prestwich and others have examined psychiatric texts and veterans’ journals in their attempt to understand the lived experiences of suicide and suicide attempts.48 Silence around voluntary death is even more striking in relation to photographic sources. The only photograph categorised as suicide that I have seen in the archives is an unusual image.49 Following a forensic style, it shows the upper half of a skull mounted on a stand. On the left side of the cranium, a round hole is visible. The photograph itself is also strange, misplaced among other medical photographs at the Val-​de-​Grâce archives. Undated, I cannot confirm that it belongs to the period of the First World War, although the medical records at this hospital confirm that some of the hospitalised soldiers died by suicide, which makes it highly likely. The forensic photograph of a skull labelled as ‘suicide’ raises more questions than answers. Denis Rolland has carried out exceptional work in relation to suicide among French combatants during the war. He has examined a group of sources that have not been explored before: the death certificates of the war dead, recently digitised on the site Mémoire des Hommes.50 This database contains more than 1.4 million records, which can be searched by name, date of birth and geographical location, as well as the type of distinction received: ‘mort pour la France’, ‘non-​ mort pour la France’ or ‘undecided’. As Chapter 3 has explained, ‘Mort pour la France’ was a distinction provided by the French state to recognise that someone (combatant or civilian) had been killed by the enemy or under circumstances directly related to the war. It was established by a law passed on 2 July 1915 to distinguish death at war from civilian death.51 Death certificates added this detail for those who had fallen in the ‘field of

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honour’.52 In 1922, the law expanded to include civilians, medical staff and prisoners killed by the enemy.53 As Annie Deperchin has explained, the distinction ‘Mort pour la France’ was a legal status that guaranteed rights to relatives such as pensions for widows and orphans.54 In contrast, the deaths that could not be confirmed as caused by the enemy were not designated as ‘Mort pour la France’, so their families did not receive any compensation from the state and were left out of public commemorations. Now called ‘non-​ mort pour la France’, this category encompasses men who had succumbed to illness, had been executed for desertion or other crimes, or had taken their own life.55 Finally, death certificates sometimes state ‘undecided’ if the death could not be confirmed as caused by the enemy or not. Rolland’s work focuses on the results that Mémoire des Hommes returns for the categories ‘non-​mort pour la France’ (91,498) and ‘undecided’ (around 4,000).56 The database constitutes a rich archive but, as Rolland points out, none of the categories offer direct or easy access to certificates of suicide. Many of the records categorised as ‘non-​mort pour la France’ belong to men who died from illnesses or whose cause of death was unknown. Similarly, some of the records in the ‘undecided’ category are cases of suicide. For instance, N. E. H. A., born in Dijon (France) and died on 26 December 1915 at the medical centre Val de Grâce, died owing to ‘suicide, after an illness contracted at war’, but his record appears in the ‘undecided’ section.57 Moreover, not all suicides were recorded as such. These kinds of inaccuracies and the huge number of files available make the study of these records challenging.58 To overcome these difficulties, Rolland developed a method of selecting a random sample of 2.5 per cent of the total records, which according to his study would reveal a representative number close to the real one.59 The conclusions of the study map the incidence of suicide in the French army in relation to several factors. The data reveal that an approximate number of 5,500 men took their lives during the period of the war in France, with peaks corresponding to the major battles or shortly after (Artois in May 1915, Verdun in April 1916, La Somme in June 1916, Chemin de Dames in May and July 1916, and the second battle of the Marne in July 1918).60 Rolland’s research also concludes

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that most of the suicides happened in the interior zones, when soldiers were on leave or in the hospital, and that it was the older men (aged between 35 and 44) who were more likely to die by suicide.61 In relation to military rank, Rolland has discovered that suicide was more prevalent among officers and the infantry.62 While Rolland’s study offers good insights into the prevalence of suicide during the war, it does not explain the cultural and social reasons why suicide was excluded from the category ‘Mort pour la France’ and the photographic documentation of the war. In particular, it does not sufficiently clarify why military and government authorities did not consider suicide a war-​related event. While suicide was not always the consequence of mental disorders, psychological and psychiatric theories of the early twentieth century offer insights into the main ideas associated with suicide. Psychiatrists, psychologists and neurologists in France such as Joseph Babinski, Antoine Porot, Clovis Vincent, Georges Dumas, Jean Lepine or Paul Creuzé understood war-​related nervous and mental conditions as neurasthenia, neurosis or pithiatism, Babinski’s renewed approach to hysteria.63 While the term ‘shell shock’ has become a popular shortcut to refer to war neuroses, French doctors never used it and therefore their understanding of mental and nervous disorders differed from that of their British counterparts.64 Generally, most psychiatrists defended two main ideas in relation to suicide.65 First of all, in line with pre-​war hereditary theories, they affirmed that predisposition was at the origin of functional disorders, that is, disorders whose manifestation imitated nervous disorders such as ticks, paralysis or mutism, but could not be linked to any physical injury of the nerves or the brain. If men succumbed to these disorders, it was because they had inherited a ‘weakness’ of the mind which made them prone to mental breakdown; unless, of course, they were simply faking their symptoms.66 Secondly, if nervous and mental conditions were born out of a predisposition, then the war was not their cause, but only the context in which disorders developed. This is the main reason why suicide could not be categorised as ‘Mort pour la France’, as death by suicide was not a direct consequence of the war but of the hereditary disposition of these men to experience mental disorders.

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However, not all psychiatrists categorically denied the role of war in causing mental disorders. Georges Dumas, who spent most of his career before and after the war studying normal and pathological emotions, published in 1919 Troubles mentaux et nerveux de guerre (Mental and Nervous War Disorders). Dumas claimed that War might have exerted diverse kinds of influence on the different varieties of mental troubles. Sometimes war just embellishes them by providing content to a patient who, most likely, would have had delirium and had suffered from it before the war. Sometimes war can affect in a deeper, although indirect, way by provoking temporary attacks of excitement, depression, melancholy or neurasthenia due to fatigue, moral and physical strain, changes in hygiene, habits, environment and all sorts of concerns. But other times war affects in a direct way on the nervous system by the horror that some battles arouse or due to the emotions and drama that follows bombing, and this direct action is often the most interesting [to study].67

Dumas acknowledged the specific role of the war in provoking mental breakdowns, but his views on suicide were not very different from those of his colleagues. In Dumas, as in many others, suicide was only a passing reference among long lists of symptoms and medical case histories. For instance, in his study on Troubles mentaux de guerre (Mental War Disorders), Lepine identified suicidal impulses in men suffering from depressive states or hypochondria, and among the anxious men.68 For their part, Creuzé, Dumas and Léri all linked suicidal tendencies with emotional disorders, and particularly an exaggerated capacity for feeling emotions.69 In all these cases, psychiatrists and psychologists mostly studied suicidal tendencies and ideation rather than cases of suicide that had happened, which led to examination of the causes that triggered suicide. In the medical literature during the war, suicide was never a topic on its own. This contrasted with previous efforts that had tried to explain the sociological reasons for suicide, such as Jacques and Mesnier’s study on suicide in the army (1881) and, most famously, Durkheim’s sociological study Le suicide (1897).70 The fact that psychiatrists and psychologists considered suicide a manifestation of a mental or nervous condition does not necessarily explain its lack of representation. Quite the contrary: it makes the

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photographic invisibility of suicide even more intriguing, as medical staff extensively filmed and photographed nervous and mental disorders throughout the war.71 For instance, Antoine Porot, a psychiatric specialist in mental disorders among colonial troops in Algeria, wrote in 1916 a report on functional disorders illustrated with photographs.72 Among the 21 case studies, patients displayed three main types of symptoms: muscular atrophies and injuries, mental confusion or mania, and emotional disorders. Each case study consisted of two photographs and a short description of the disorder. For instance, case number 17 was a ‘reflexive vertebral plication’. The photographs showed a naked man standing in profile and sitting turning his back to the camera. In the first one, the patient’s back bent forwards, while the second image focused on the wound and the spots on the skin. Porot acknowledged that the muscular mass on the left side of the man’s lower back had been wounded, but he annotated that he was a hysterical patient, and his disorder a ‘hysterical-​reflexive association’.73 This meant that the patient had had an injury, but Porot did not believe that the current symptoms were a result of the muscular damage. In line with late nineteenth-​and early twentieth-​century understandings of hysteria, it was a nervous disorder, not a muscular one, that provoked the physical symptom. In another case, Porot examined the ‘pithiatic emotional discordance’ of a patient who expressed ‘emotional mimicry of sorrow’, ‘joy’ and ‘anxious disgust provoked by the words: “Isn’t the war good?” ’ (Figure 5.3).74 The fourth image showed ‘the physiognomy of the patient captured as doctors speak about him in front of him’.75 The pithiatic (hysterical) nature of the emotional discordance meant that the patient was not really feeling those emotions, or at least not as reactions towards real events. Photographs helped doctors to determine the hysterical nature of disorders manifested in physical symptoms and emotional ­reactions.76 In Porot’s report, they communicated to other doctors the kind of disorders he treated and the symptoms that his patients manifested. On occasion, photographs were also necessary to certify, sometimes in front of a jury, the nature of an injury or disorder. Because neither physical nor emotional functional and hysterical disorders had organic origins, suspicion of malingering existed. Feigning an illness to avoid combat was a punishable offence, and

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Figure 5.3  Photographs of a colonial soldier suffering from ‘pithiatic emotional discordance’ taken by Porot.

therefore doctors had to confirm whether a patient suffering from conditions such as commotion, hyperemotivity, mutism or muscular contraction was faking or not.77 In this context, photographs became forensic tools that attested to the diagnosis provided by the doctor. This was the case for the photographs of a damaged hand which, according to the caption, were classified as a potential self-​ mutilation.78 The photographs show the extended palms and backs of both the patient’s hands. Picturing both hands, and not only the damaged one, helped the viewer to compare the healthy fingers with the damaged ones. Photographed against a black background and focused only on the hands (the rest of the body is not visible), these images followed the conventions of criminal photography.

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The medical understanding of war neuroses and suicide sheds light on the photography of suicide. On the one hand, doctors defined suicide as an event not caused by war but by mental disorders, and therefore voluntary death escaped the definition of ‘Mort pour la France’. In this sense, SPA photographers did not have to photograph the scene of suicide, as this kind of death would not belong to the history of the war. The fact that only the category ‘mort à l’ennemi’ (killed by the enemy) existed in the military archive illustrates the equivalence in the military between dying in war and dying because of the enemy. On the other hand, just as nervous disorders and injuries had to be medically examined to confirm that they had not been self-​inflicted, deaths that happened outside the battlefield had to be investigated. The photograph of the skull of a soldier who died by suicide belonged to this medico-​legal context. It was a forensic photograph whose function was to certify the cause of death. This is why it only portrays the skull and not the full body, as the cause of death had been a bullet in the head, visible in the bottom corner on the left side. Presumably, the examination carried out during the autopsy had determined that the victim had shot himself.79 The photograph certifying the visual signs of a self-​ inflicted fatal injury fulfilled the same role as the medical explanations in death certificates, as it provided the evidence of suicide. The reasons why amateur and press photographers did not photograph any scenes of suicide, or the body of a suicided soldier, are obscure. Studies on current experiences of suicide have argued that voluntary death often provokes what researchers have called the ‘stigma of the bereaved’.80 Friends and relatives of a victim of suicide tend to feel that they cannot speak out about their loss owing to the stigma still attached to suicide. The taboo surrounding suicide in First World War sources suggests that the silence regarding suicide had its roots in the stigma of the bereaved. It was, simply, too hard to talk. More important than the reasons for the lack of photographs of suicide are the effects of making suicide invisible in the public sphere. The photographic absence of suicide speaks about the place of suicide in French society, as well as the role of photography in articulating collective experiences. In the previous section, the analysis of the circulation of photographs of the war missing

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in magazines demonstrated that this visibility helped to make the public aware of the problem of disappearance. By making the war missing visible, magazines were generating a collective experience of disappearance based on the solidarity and patriotism of civilians who wanted to find them. Thanks to this collective experience, later commemorations included the war missing among the victims celebrated by the French state. The public invisibility of suicide had the opposite effect. Commemorations did not include tributes to men who had taken their lives because they had not been considered ‘Mort pour la France’, and the press did not comment on them. Systematically leaving something out of the photographic encounter was, therefore, a way not to acknowledge it. In the case of suicide, the reality existed. Doctors communicated it to families and those touched by the loss necessarily had to acknowledge it. But avoiding the photography of suicide avoided incorporating suicide into collective experiences of the war.

The photographic frame Beyond the historiographical problem, the photography of suicide also raises ethical questions. Photography critics working on conflict and colonial photography have warned about the dangers of oversharing these kinds of images.81 Most famously, Susan Sontag has criticised the photography of pain as ‘voyeuristic’ because the consumption of images does nothing to alleviate said pain.82 Any study of the (lack of) photographs of suicide, and pain more generally, necessarily needs to engage with this debate. The problem of suicide during the First World War is not just that only a few sources are left; it is also what to do with those sources. The ethical implications of looking at images of pain, death and horror are multiple. In Regarding the Pain of Others, Sontag wrote that ‘no “we” should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people’s pain’.83 Against the popular conception that the language of photography is universal, Sontag defends the argument that there is never just one interpretation of photographs. As images, photographs are open to multiple interpretations, depending on the viewer and the context of reception. Photographs do not (cannot) provoke the same reaction in everyone. The lack

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of homogeneous reaction is particularly important in relation to photographs of pain, as one cannot assume that outrage and sympathy for the victims will be a universal response. Photographs do not necessarily entail action, and neither do they help the viewer to understand what they depict. In another famous passage, Sontag writes that ‘harrowing photographs do not inevitably lose their power to shock. But they are not much help if the task is to understand. Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us’.84 In this view, images might stay with the viewer, but the viewer does not necessarily obtain any historical knowledge or understanding from them. In fact, the massive circulation of photographic images can hinder historical knowledge, as Susan Crane has argued. Writing about photographs of the Holocaust, Crane has defended ‘choosing not to look’ as an ethical stance.85 ‘Choosing not to look’ does not mean destroying the photographic documentation that archives, museums, and individuals preserve, but rather to stop oversharing these images. Echoing Sontag, Crane argues that simple exposure to photographs of the Holocaust does nothing to enhance understanding of what happened. Rather, photographs can create a false sense of familiarity with these events which could prevent further examination. Even worse, looking at these images without critically interrogating them risks replicating the perpetrators’ gaze. After all, for most of the photographs, the victims did not consent to be portrayed. Yet they are condemned to be represented as victims over and over again. Sontag’s, and especially Crane’s, criticisms raise important ethical questions in relation to conflict photography. Crane’s work focuses on photographs of the Holocaust that have been massively circulated through textbooks, museums and, now, the internet. Most of the time, these photographs are presented as mere illustrations, without proper captions and lacking historical context. Some of these images have even become iconic. For instance, the photograph of an Auschwitz gate has become the symbol of a ‘threshold that separates the oikomene (the human community) from the planet Auschwitz’, while, in fact, that particular gate ‘did not have a central position in the history of Auschwitz’.86 Yet authors such as Marianne Hirsch have highlighted the power of iconic images for the generations that did not live through the Holocaust, particularly

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the children and grandchildren of survivors. For Hirsch, the repetition of these images mirrors the repetition experienced by trauma victims, making later generations participants of the ‘postmemory’ of the Holocaust: These photos—​ even the images of survivors, even the prewar images—​are not about death but about genocidal murder. They resist the work of mourning. They make it difficult to go back to a moment before death, or to recognize survival. They cannot be redeemed by irony, insight, or understanding. They can only be confronted again and again, with the same pain, the same incomprehension, the same distortion of the look, the same mortification. And thus, in their repetition, they no longer represent Nazi genocide, but they provoke the traumatic effect that this history has had on all those who grew up under its shadow.87

Hirsch’s work points to a fundamental aspect of photography. Images never exist in a vacuum. Iconic images that have lost their original meaning have gained new meanings precisely because of their massive circulation. These new meanings, therefore, form part of the history of the image. This is problematic for Sontag because she writes about images, not about photographs. While images are open to multiple, ever-​changing interpretations, photographs as objects always have a material context of production and consumption that delimit the reach of these interpretations. Integrating the social biography of a photograph into the analysis shifts the focus away from images to explore what photographs do, and more importantly, what doing (or not doing) photography does beyond the immediate visual impact of the images. Judith Butler’s theory of ‘frames of war’ helps to overcome photography criticism based on images alone.88 As part of her inquiry into what makes life grievable, Butler has considered the ethical and political aspects of photography as a ‘frame’. By frame, Butler means the historical general rules that establish the domain of what a particular society recognises as ‘life’. At an ontological level, the frame ‘does not simply exhibit reality, but actively participates in a strategy of containment, selectively producing and enforcing what will count as reality’.89 It refers to conditions of possibility: what can be thought and, ultimately, recognised. The delimitation of what can be always occurs at the expense of what cannot be. Writing

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about photography, Butler argues that ‘there is no seeing without selection … this “not seeing” in the midst of seeing, this not seeing that is the condition of seeing, [becomes] the visual norm’.90 Things are made visible because other things are made invisible. While the photographic frame delimits what is visible, its importance extends beyond the visual. The frame is not something abstract. Rather, photographers and viewers constitute it and consolidate it through their practices all the time. The frame materialises through actions and habits that connect subjects with others and the world. In this sense, images are the result of the operations of the photographic frame. Not looking at them because their content is upsetting or their interpretations are unstable means ignoring the broader question of the photographic frame, and therefore the operations of making visible and invisible. The military photographic archive explored in this book is a perfect example of a photographic frame. The categories of the archive organised and classified the war events, certifying that these events existed as part of the war. As Chapter 3 has shown, the category to refer to the war dead was ‘mort à l’ennemi’ or ‘Mort pour la France’, which encompassed all deaths that had been the result of the enemy’s action or the war itself. These categories and the photographs that constituted them defined what dying in war was at the expense of excluding other types of death, such as suicide. The invisibility of suicide was the result of a photographic frame that only recognised the war dead that corresponded to the legal category ‘Mort pour la France’. Conversely, the distinction ‘Mort pour la France’ required the invisibility of suicide to be accepted as a collective commemoration of the war dead. Yet the military did not need to issue any directives forbidding the photography of suicide. As this chapter has shown, suicide was already a marginalised topic during the war. Photographic practices reflected society’s values while at the same time reinforcing them. This is why photography matters. During the war, photography became a tool to make missing soldiers visible while making suicide invisible. The dynamics between this selective making visible and invisible demonstrates why photography became a privileged practice to articulate collective experiences. The representation of missing soldiers in the press enabled the collective commemoration

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of these men, making combatants and civilians participants in the effort to find them. In contrast, the invisibility of suicide prevented the collective acknowledgement of the problem. The photographic frame worked as a practice of acknowledgement.

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Notes 1 C. Brothers, War & Photography. A Cultural History (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 2. 2 See ibid. and M. Griffin, ‘The Great War Photographs. Constructing Myths of History and Photojournalism’, in B. Brennen and H. Hardt (eds), Picturing the Past. Media, History and Photography (Urbana and Chicago: Illinois University Press, 1999), pp. 122–​157. 3 The literature on this point is so vast that a footnote cannot make it justice. Some of the best works on how to use images in their visual and material contexts are L. Jordanova, The Look of the Past. Visual and Material Evidence in Historical Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); P. Tinkler, Using Photographs in Social and Historical Research (London: SAGE, 2013); E. Edwards and J. Hart (eds), Photographs, Objects, Histories. On the Materiality of Photography (London: Routledge, 2004); and G. Pasternak (ed.), The Handbook of Photography Studies (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). 4 In France, the main journals that circulated photographs of the war missing were Sur le Vif (1914–​1917) and La recherche des disparus (1916–​1917). 5 D. Rolland, ‘Le suicide aux armées en 1914–​1918. Une première approximation quantitative globale’, in R. Cazals, E. Picard and D. Rolland (eds), La Grande Guerre. Pratiques et expériences (Toulouse: Privat, 2005), p. 274. 6 See P. Prestwich, ‘Suicide and French Soldiers of the First World War. Differing Perspectives, 1914–​1939’, in J. Weaver and D. Wright (eds), Histories of Suicide. International Perspectives on Self-​Destruction in the Modern World (Toronto/​Buffalo/​London: University of Toronto Press, 2009), pp. 140–​149. 7 ‘Il donnera chaque semaine une vue d’ensemble, minutieusement mise au point, de la lutte gigantesque qui se poursuit, sur terre et sur mer, dans toutes les parties du monde. Puis il donnera une partie anecdotique, très vivante et très variée, qui narrera les faits et gestes, les mœurs si curieuses de nos alliés.’ Sur le Vif, n. 1, 14 November 1914. 8 ‘Il suivra ainsi, pas à pas, nos armées françaises et alliées, dans leur marche victorieuse vers leur but certain: Berlin!’ Ibid.

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9 ‘ “Sur le vif” sera le journal qui rend service, qui renseigne et qui réconforte, l’ami dévoue et impatiemment attendu …’ Ibid. 10 ‘Sur le vif se fait un honneur de publier gratuitement a partir du prochain numéro les portraits des officiers ou soldats pères, frères, maris, fiancés, etc. etc. dont on est sans nouvelles.’ Ibid. 11 ‘Il suffira d’envoyer une photo de la personne recherchée, avec les explications nécessaires (nom, prénoms, régiment, compagnie, etc.) accompagnée d’un titre découpé du journal.’ Ibid. 12 T. Hardier and J. J. Jagielski, ‘Le corps des disparus pendant la Grande Guerre. L’impossible deuil’, Quasimodo, 9 (2006), 75–​96. 13 Ibid. 14 D. Sherman, ‘Bodies and Names. The Emergence of Commemoration in Interwar France’, The American Historical Review, 103:2 (1998), 443–​466. 15 Hardier and Jagielski, ‘Le corps des disparus’, p. 85; J.-​Y. le Naour, The Living Unkown Soldier. A Story of Grief at the Great War. Trans. Penny Allen (London: Willian Heinemann, 2002), p. 55. 16 Sur le Vif, 21 November 1914. 17 Sur le Vif, 3, 28 November 1914; Sur le Vif, 4, 5 December 1915. 18 Sur le Vif, 10, 16 January 1915; Sur le Vif, 27, 15 May 1915, p. 2. 19 La recherche des disparus 1915–1917. 20 See A. Sekula, ‘The Body and the Archive’, October, 39 (1986), 3–​64 and J. Tagg, The Burden of Representation. Essays on Photographies and Histories (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988). 21 See J. Ellenbogen, Reasoned and Unreasoned Images. The Photography of Berthillon, Galton and Marey (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), pp. 25–​104. 22 Sur le Vif, 5, 12 December 1914. 23 Sur le Vif, 8, 2 January 1915. 24 ‘Puisse l’immense publicité de notre journal ramener aux familles désolées ceux des leurs au sujet desquelles elles sont dans le deuil et l’angoisse’, Sur le Vif, 2, November 1914. 25 ‘En présence du nombre énorme de familles sans nouvelles de militaires au combat, il est du devoir de tout Français désireux, dans les circonstances tragiques que nous traversons, d’être utile à ses compatriotes, d’examiner avec soin les pages des photographies que nous publions dans l’espoir de pouvoir donner une indication qui mette sur la trace d’un disparu’. Sur le Vif, 2, p. 4. 26 ‘Nous invitons nos lecteurs, collaborateurs de notre tâche fraternelle et patriotique, a communique lesdites pages a un aussi grande nombre que possible de personnes, de façon à arriver au résultat voulu par notre effort commun’. Sur le Vif, 2, p. 4.

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27 ‘Nous avons l’avantage d’informer les familles que nous prenons actuellement toutes nos dispositions pour faire le service de “Sur le vif” aux ambulances ou hôpitaux militaires pour le cas où un ou plusieurs disparus, dont nous publions les portraits, y seraient soignes, ou auraient été vus par des malades en traitement. Nous prenons également des mesures pour faire parvenir “sur le vif” aux troupes combattant sur le front. Nous espérons arriver ainsi, rapidement, grâce à cette intense diffusion, à procurer aux familles les renseignements qu’elles attendent avec tant d’anxiété’. Sur le Vif, 3, 28 November 1914. 28 ‘Nous allons donc aviser MM les maires de la France entière que Sur le Vif est à leur disposition et à celle de leurs administres pour publier la photographie, soit des soldats disparus appartenant aux familles habitant leur commune, soit des blesses soignes dans les hôpitaux de leur commune et dans l’impossibilité de donner de leurs nouvelles.’ Ibid. 29 ‘Sur le vif lu sur le front. Nos soldats s’intéressent à voir si leurs exploits sont fidèlement rapportées.’ Sur le Vif, 4, 24 April 1915. 30 ‘Nous sommes heureux d’annoncer que, grâce à la fraternelle et patriotique obligeance de nos lecteurs, combattants ou soldats blessés, nous avons pu trouver trace d’un certain nombre de nos chers disparus, et donner de leurs nouvelles à leur famille. Il en est même certains que l’on cherchait bien loin et qui se trouvaient tout près de Paris, notamment M. l’adjudant Maniez (photo N. 1176), qu’on nous a signalé blesse et soigne dans un hôpital de Troyes.’ Sur le Vif, 7, 26 December 1914. 31 Sur le Vif, 29, 29 May 1915; Sur le Vif, 36, 17 July 1915. 32 T. Hardier and J. F. Jagielski, Combattre et mourir pendant la Grande Guerre (1914–​1925) (Paris: Imago, 2001). 33 La Recherche des disparus, 1, 28 February 1915. 34 La Recherche des disparus, 1, 28 February 1915, p. 5. 35 ‘Portraits de nos Disparus’, La Recherche des disparus, 35, 16–​23 January 1916. 36 La Recherche des disparus, 38, 12 March 1916, front cover. The image is available online: https://​gallica.bnf.fr/​ark:/​12148/​bpt6k6347573t. r=la%20recherche%20des%20disparus?rk=858373;2 (accessed on 30 January 2021). 37 La Recherche des disparus, 1 September 1917, front cover. The image is available online: https://​gallica.bnf.fr/​ark:/​12148/​bpt6k6347606r. r=la%20recherche%20des%20disparus?rk=1523612;4 (accessed on 30 January 2021). 38 La Recherche des disparus, 7 May 1916; La Recherche des disparus, 1 September 1917. 39 The magazine mentioned the crisis of paper and the increase of ‘all sorts of expenses’, suggesting that the financial position of La

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Recherche des disparus had been weaker than that of Sur le Vif. La Recherche des disparus, however, never mentioned how much money was spent in the publication of the lists and the distribution of the magazine. There is no information about the association’s or the magazine’s source of income either. 40 ‘Vous pouvez arrêter toutes les recherches concernant mon fils. Hier, j’ai reçu sa photographie et une longue lettre, il est en bonne santé.’ La Recherche des disparus, 23 April 1916. 41 The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier did not become permanent until January 1921. L. Wittman, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Modern Mourning and the Reinvention of the Mystical Body (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011). 42 C. Javeau, ‘Le cadavre sacré: le cas du Soldat Inconnu’, Frontiers, 19:1 (2006), 21–​24; J. F. Jagielski, Le soldat inconnu. Invention et postérité d’un symbole (Paris: Imago, 2005). 43 Wittman, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, p. 1. 44 L. Capdevilla and D. Voldman, Nos morts. Les sociétés occidentales face aux tués de la guerre (Paris: Payot, 2003), p. 231. 45 Javeau, ‘Le cadavre sacré’, p. 23. 46 J. Winter, Sites of Memory. The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 39–​44. 47 Prestwich, ‘Suicide and French Soldiers’, p. 140; Rolland, ‘Le suicide aux armées’, p. 269. S. Audoin-​Rouzeau and A. Becker also write about silence in relation to suicide in 14–​18. Retrouver la guerre (Paris: Gallimard, 2000), p. 57. 48 Hardier and Jagielski, Combattre et mourir, pp. 63–​64; Prestwich, ‘Suicide and French Soldiers’. 49 ‘Suicide’, Musée du Service de Santé des armées, Val-de-Grâce. Unfortunately, the reproduction of this photograph has not been possible. 50 Memoire des hommes: www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv. fr/​fr/​arkotheque/​client/​mdh/​base_​morts_​pour_​la_​france_​premiere_​ guerre/​index.php (accessed on 30 January 2021). 51 A. Deperchin, ‘La guerre, la mort et le droit’, in I. Homer and E. Pénicaut, Le soldat et la mort dans la Grande Guerre (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016), pp. 99–​112. 52 Law quoted in ibid., p. 100. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid., p. 102. 55 ‘non-​mort pour la France’: www.rfgenealogie.com/​s-​informer/​infos/​ 1914–​18/​les-​non-​morts-​pour-​la-​france-​sur-​memoire-​des-​hommes (accessed on 30 January 2021).

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56 Figures as of October 2018. 57 Name anonymised for privacy reasons. https://​bit.ly/​3agaxkJ. Memoire des Hommes (accessed on 30 January 2021). 58 Moreover, as Rolland points out, the records have been digitised as images and therefore it is not possible to do word searches. Rolland, ‘Le suicide aux armées’, p. 270. 59 Ibid., pp. 270–​271. 60 Ibid., p. 274. 61 Ibid., pp. 275–​276. 62 Ibid., p. 275. 63 See Chapter 1 in G. Thomas, Treating the Trauma of the Great War. Soldiers, Civilians and Psychiatry in France, 1914–​ 1940 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), pp. 20–​47. 64 Works on shell shock and war neuroses published in recent years are numerous. See, among others, P. Leese, Shell Shock. Traumatic Neuroses and British Soldiers of the First World War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); T. Loughran, Shell Shock and Medical Culture in First World War Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); and F. Reid, Broken Men. Shell Shock, Treatment and Recovery in Britain, 1914–​1930 (London: Continuum, 2010). 65 Prestwich, ‘Suicide and French Soldiers’; Thomas, Treating the Trauma. 66 On malingering, see J. Bourke, ‘Malingering’, in Dismembering the Male. Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (London: Reaktion Books, 1996), pp. 73–​126, and M. Roudebush, ‘A Patient Fights Back. Neurology in the Court of Public Opinion in France During the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 35:1 (2000), 29–​38. 67 G. Dumas, Troubles mentaux et nerveux de guerre (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1919), p. 3. 68 J. Lepine, Troubles mentaux de guerre (Paris: Masson et Cie, 1917), pp. 37–​46. 69 P. Creuze, Les misères des neurasthéniques (Paris: Vigot Frères, 1917); A. Léri, Commotions et émotions de guerre (Paris: Masson et Cie, 1918), p. 96. 70 E. Durkheim, Le suicide. Étude de sociologie (Paris: Quadrige/​Presses Universitaires de France, 1897/​1999); L. Jacques and E. Mesnier, Du suicide dans l’armée. Etude statistique, étiologique et profilactique (Paris: Octave Doin, 1881). 71 J. Powell, ‘Shock Troupe. Medical Film and the Performance of “Shell Shock” for the British Nation at War’, Social History of Medicine, 30:2 (2017), 323–​345; J. Köhne, ‘Screening Silent Resistance. Male Hysteria in First World War Cinematography’, in J. Crouthamel and

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P. Leese (eds), Psychological Trauma and the Legacies of First World War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 49–​80. 72 A. Porot, ‘Le problème des “fonctionnelles” et les solutions militaires qu’il comporte’, Rapport présenté par le Médecine Major de 2ème classe Porot, chef du centre de neuro-​psychiatrique d’Alger à la réunion du 3 Août 1916. Musée du Service de Santé des armées, Val-de-Grâce. 73 Porot, ‘Plicature vertébrale dite reflexe. Blessure de la masse musculaire de la gouttière lombaire gauche. Ce malade était un hystérique (association hystero-​reflexe)’. Ibid. 74 Porot, ‘Observation (discordance émotionnelle pithiatique) Mimique émotionnelle du chagrin, mimique émotionnelle de la joie, mimique émotionnelle du dégoût anxieux, provoquée par les mots: “Pas bon la guerre?” ’. Ibid. 75 Porot, ‘physionomie du malade saisie alors qu’on parle devant lui entre médecins de son cas’. Ibid. 76 There is a long tradition of using photographs to represent, understand and certify hysteria. See, for instance, S. Gilman, ‘The Image of the Hysteric’, in S. L. Gilman, H. King, R. Porter, G. S. Rousseau and E. Showalter (eds), Hysteria Beyond Freud (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 345–​ 436; G. Didi-​ Huberman, Invention de l’hystérie. Charcot et l’iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière (Paris: Macula, 1982); and M. Hunter, ‘Hysterical Realism at the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière’, in The Face of Medicine. Visualising Medical Masculinities in Late Nineteenth Century Paris (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016). 77 Roudebush, ‘A Patient Fights Back’. 78 ‘Main droite figée […] chez un auto-​mutilateur probable’, Centre neurologique de la VIII région, 1917. Musée du Service de Santé des armées, Val-de-Grâce. 79 This is examined in S. Audoin-​ Rouzeau and A. Becker, 14–​18. Understanding the Great War. Trans. C. Temerson (New York: Hill & Wang, 2002), p. 42. 80 A. L. Pitman, F. Stevenson, D. O. J. Osborn and M. B. King, ‘The Stigma Associated with Bereavement by Suicide and Other Sudden Deaths. A Qualitative Interview Study’, Social Science & Medicine, 198 (2018), 121–​129. 81 See G. Batchen, M. Gidley, N. K. Miller and J. Prosser (eds), Picturing Atrocity. Photography in Crisis (London: Reaktion Books, 2011); F. Möller, ‘The Looking/​Not Looking Dilemma’, Review of International Studies, 36 (2009), 781–​794.

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82 S. Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003). 83 Ibid., p. 8. 84 Ibid., p. 89. 85 S. A. Crane, ‘Choosing Not to Look. Representation, Repatriation and Holocaust Atrocity Photography’, History & Theory, 47:3 (2008), 309–​330. 86 D. Dwork and R. J. van Pelt, quoted in M. Hirsch, ‘Surviving Images. Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory’, The Yale Journal of Criticism, 14:1 (2001), 5–​37. 87 Ibid., p. 28. Emphasis mine. 88 J. Butler, Frames of War. When is Life Grievable? (London/​ New York: Verso, 2010). 89 Ibid., p. xiii. 90 Ibid., p. 100. ‘Became’ in the original.

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Conclusions

Photographic practices as frames of experience This book has aimed to pin down the historicity of war experiences at a time when photography had just started to be massively used. The First World War inaugurated new ways of waging war, but it was also the first time that photography was widely present in the press, private albums and official military archives. The introduction of photography in daily life had an impact on how civilians and combatants experienced the war. The chapters in this book have explored the practical aspects of experience, focusing on how doing photography structured war experiences through actions as well as visual and bodily engagements. The analysis of official, private and press photographic practices has resulted in the identification of five key areas in which photography created a particular frame for war experiences: recording, feeling, embodying, placing, and making visible and invisible. The object of study of this book, therefore, has been the identification of this frame, not the characterisation of the particular experience of certain individuals or groups. Chapter 1 has examined the aims of official and private photographers, showing that photographers primarily wanted to register war events. The SPA photographic documentation resulted in the storage and classification of the images in the military archives. The categories used in the archive created a framework for the understanding of war events. Yet photography not only recorded the outer world. As Chapter 2 has shown, by practising photography, photographers and viewers engaged in emotional relationships with others and their surroundings. Photographing was a way to bond and composing albums became a manifestation of feelings such as

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grief. Recording and feeling through photography also resulted in the embodiment of certain values. Chapter 3 has demonstrated that the representation of the mutilated body shaped ideas of bodily and national recovery, while the photography of the war dead gave a material and visual body to the abstract notion of ‘Mort pour la France’. Finally, photography became a means to place oneself within the landscape. Chapter 4 has argued that the war changed the French landscape profoundly, and taking and looking at photographs allowed both soldiers and civilians to familiarise themselves with a changing and challenging place. Photography was a practice that allowed combatants and civilians to make sense of their war experiences, to engage with others and the world. It is in this context that photography’s power to make visible and invisible matters. Visibility and invisibility were not intrinsic characteristics of the photographed subjects, but the results of certain photographic operations. The comparison between the photographs of the war missing and the non-​existent photographs of suicide in Chapter 5 has demonstrated that making visible involved photographers and viewers in relations of recording, feeling, embodying and placing, while making invisible prevented these relations. By publishing the portraits of the war missing in journals, photography made these men visible and through this visibility they entered into the documentation of the war. They now belonged to the ‘war missing’, a different category from combatants, engaged in different emotional relations with others, for instance readers who were compelled by Sur le Vif to feel sympathy for them and their families. The bodily identity of these men consequently changed, most visibly in the photographic operations carried out by the magazines to crop backgrounds out and transform private pictures into mugshots. Finally, their sense of place completely changed, as although their location was unknown, their images were distributed all over France. Making visible the war missing was not only about people seeing them, but also about acknowledging them and their existence in the public sphere. In contrast, the lack of photographic documentation of suicide implied that this type of death was not classified as a war event, but also that no one was there to take the pictures, circulate them, paste them onto albums or scribble dates on them. The affective

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relationships into which photographers, photographed subjects and viewers entered were non-​existent in this case. Suicide victims were not given a new body (as other casualties were) and were not placed anywhere. Obviously, making these men invisible in photography did not mean that their relatives would not grieve or acknowledge them; of course they did. Yet this grief and the stigma attached to it might be at the origin of why very few talked about it and no one photographed the victims of suicide. The lack of photography prevented a public acknowledgement of suicide, and therefore a collective experience that could make sense of it. Making visible and invisible was important not just because of what could be seen, but also because they were performative practices that involved recording, feeling, embodying and placing. Visibility, therefore, does not refer to what is seen, but to what is experienced. Photography helped men and women to bond, to situate themselves in a new environment and to articulate their relationship with the dead. Some of these actions were performed privately, while others happened in community. This is important to note because subjective experiences might vary. For instance, the grief that the author of the Album Commandeur felt when his friend, Lieutenant Georges, died might be different from the grief that the family of a soldier who died by suicide felt. People grieved in many different ways and historians might never get full access to individual experiences of grief.1 Yet, as Jay Winter has demonstrated, a fundamental aspect of grief is that it created communities.2 Grief was both subjective and collective. This book has not tried to characterise the experience of a particular individual grieving, concluding that this experience represents war grief. Rather, this book has examined under which conditions photography enabled making sense of grief as part of a war experience shared with others. Similarly, other topics in this book, such as friendship and comradeship, hatred for the German, the duty to kill, admiration for the French cause, or the refamiliarisation with the French landscape had different undertones for different individuals, but became meaningful aspects of the war experience when shared through photography. The visibility that photography granted made it possible to integrate grief, bonding, hate or a sense of place into war experiences. Photographic practices created frames of experience. What photographs showed, as well as the relations into which photographers,

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photographed and viewers entered through photography, delimited what could and could not be collectively acknowledged as war experiences. Recording, feeling, embodying, placing, and making visible and invisible, therefore, are not only the effects of photography, but also the ways in which combatants and civilians transformed the raw flow of what they lived into war experiences. This analysis has consequences beyond the case study of the First World War. The frames of experience identified here are not particular to 1914–​1918. Ever since 1839, people have used photographs to record the world around them, to classify monuments, societies and events, and to represent others’ bodies. Especially since the invention of portable cameras, photographs have mediated people’s feelings. Photography’s entanglement of technology, images and actions has created a new kind of visibility characteristic of modernity. If photography is an essential aspect of modern life, then photographs are not special sources that should only concern historians of photography. The publication of this book in a cultural history series aims to show why cultural and social histories need to integrate photographs alongside written sources. By using photographs, historians literally make some things visible. Yet this is sometimes done in an acritical way. Even after the visual culture and the material culture turns, photographs too often serve as illustrations without really intervening in the making of the argument. This book provides historical arguments against using photographs as illustrations. When photographs are an afterthought and images simply help to represent general points, readers will only see the content of the images. However, this book has demonstrated that photographic visibility is not just about what is seen; it refers to the dynamics of making visible and invisible and the making of collective experiences. Photographs as illustrations, therefore, are underused sources that deny their full historical value. Hopefully the photographs in this book will serve to tell more stories in the future. For instance, Gérald and Berthe’s honeymoon album points to a sixth category not explored in this book: remembering. Images and photographic objects such as albums are always open to revisions through which the memory of an event, a person or a place is reconstructed anew. The centenary celebrations have

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shown that First World War photographs still incite memories and new ways of remembering the war. This book offers a practical approach to photography that could be used in further studies of the uses of photography in remembrance processes since 1918.

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Notes 1 S. Audoin-​Rouzeau, Cinq dueils de guerre 1914–​ 1918 (Paris: Noesis, 2001). 2 J. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning. The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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Primary sources

Archives Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF). Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne: Collection of private photography albums. La Contemporaine: FondsValois; Collection of private albums; Jaillet, ‘Rapport sur la création, le fonctionnement, les résultats de la Section Photographique et Cinématographique de l’Armée’, 10 Octobre 1917. Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine (MAP): Boxes 80/​074/​02, 80/​074/​03 and 80/​01/​73–​75. Médiathèque de l’Établissement de communication et de production audiovisuelle de la Défense (ECPAD): First World War collections. Musée du Service de Santé des armées, Val-de-Grâce. Service Historique de la Défense (SHD): Boxes SHD/​GR 16N and 11 SHD/​ GR 5N 360

Illustrated magazines L’Illustration, 1914–​1918 Iconographie du Musée du Val de Grâce, 1918 J’ai Vu, 1914–​1917 Le Miroir, 1914–​1918. Photo-​Plait, 1914–​1916 La recherche des disparus, 1915–​1917 La Restauration Maxillo-​Faciale, 1918 Sur le Vif, 1914–​1917 La technique sanitaire et municipal, 1916

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Index

1917 La France d’aujourd-​hui  149 Le monde avec la France pour la liberté  155 Le sang n’est pas de l’eau  169 La victoire prochaine du droit  159, 160 1918 influenza  76, 77 abandoned bodies  125, 173 Abel, Richard  42 aerial photography  15, 152, 168–70 Ahmed, Sara  71 Aigé, Jacques  40 Algeria  205 Allhusen, Dorothy  67, 68, 71, 75–79 Allied countries  29, 88, 92, 129 Amad, Paula  52 Amar, Jules  112, 113 amateur photography  6, 27, 133 authorisations  45, 46 photographic contests  69–70 in war context  68 American Civil War  4, 109 anonymity  54, 78, 133, 172, 173, 200 anti-​German rhetoric  88, 151 Arc de Triomphe  3, 200

archive  12 Album Valois  25 captions  27, 54–5 categories  13, 27 classification system  10, 34 fonds  50 geographical classification  55 military archive  6, 13, 14, 15, 25, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34, 40, 109, 121, 122, 123, 127, 131, 153, 173, 201, 207, 219 organisation  53 origins of  50 thematic classification  55, 56, 57 Argonne  78 Arras  39 Artois  202 Association Française pour la recherche des disparus  196 audiences  6, 14, 86 international  85, 89 national  85 Audoin-​Rouzeau, Stéphane  3, 7, 10, 17, 69, 71, 108 Auduc, Arlene  154 Australia  26 autopsy  207 auxiliary service  32, 35

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Index Babinski, Joseph  203 Barrès, Maurice cult of the land and the dead  15, 150–1, 153, 161, 171–9 Battle of Aisne  78 Battle of Champagne  88, 128 Battle of the Somme  25, 157 Bauche, Maurice  107 Baudrillart, Alfred  89, 90 Becker, Annette  10, 108, 132 Belgian atrocities  129 Bernier, Jean  108 Bertillon, Alphonse  117 Beurier, Joëlle  7, 34, 44, 69, 95, 110, 125 Biarritz  93 Biernoff, Suzannah  111 Bloch, Camille  50 Blondet-​Bisch, Thérèse  37 Boddice, Rob  12 body technology of embodiment  14, 107 visual and material body  15, 107, 121, 140 Bordas, F.  174, 177 Bourke, Joanna  111, 135 Boyer, Anne  154 British army  25, 157, 162 Broca, Paul  113 Brooks, Ernest  26 Brothers, Caroline  186 Bruère, S.  174, 177 brutalisation  135 burial  15, 83, 96, 125, 127, 138, 139, 153, 172, 173, 175, 178, 179 sanitary issues  173–5 business of war photography  13, 26, 41–3, 195–6

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profits  31 Butler, Judith  189, 210 calotype  4, 51 cameras  5, 46–8 Canada  6, 26 Canteen  77 Capa, Robert  6, 186 Carden-​Coyne, Ana  111 Carmichael, Jane  6, 124 casket  175 Catholicism  150, 171 Ce qu’ils ont fait  86, 87, 88, 149, 150, 156, 157 cemeteries  15, 76, 89, 149, 152, 153, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 179 censorship  6, 56, 95, 109, 122, 123, 124, 125–6, 127 and propaganda  33–4 Chambre Syndicale de la photographie (CSP)  30, 31, 32, 35, 40 Champagne  78 Chantilly  44, 45 Chemin de Dames  202 Citoscope  5 Coleman Ladd, Anna  119 colonial imagery  107 colonial soldiers  85, 115, 116, 205 Comité Catholique de Propagande Française  89 commemorations  11, 16, 127, 173, 200, 208 communities in mourning  200 cooking  14, 79, 80 costume party  67, 76 cross-​dressing  67–8 Crane, Susan  209 crematory oven  83, 178 Creuzé, Paul  203, 204

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Crimean War  4 crosses  171, 175 cultural history  10, 11, 222 daguerreotype  4 Dalbiez law  32, 35 Dalimier, Albert  28, 29, 32 Das, Santanu  162 Daston, Lorraine  50 death certificate  131, 189, 201, 202, 207 decency  124, 126 dehumanisation  130, 136 Delaporte, Sophie  117 Delcassé, Théophile  28, 29 demobilisation  1, 3 Deperchin, Annie  131, 202 Desbois, Evelyn  44 Desticker, Chef d’État Major  44 disability  115 disfigurement  111 dismemberment  129, 132 documentary impulse  27, 52, 57, 58 domestication  14, 77, 79, 85, 167, 168 domesticity  79, 80, 95 Duchâtel  50 Dufourmentel, L.  118 Dumas, Georges  203, 204 Dupuis, lieutenant colonel  37, 38, 39, 40, 56, 85, 86, 88, 89 Durkheim, Émile  204 duty to kill  15, 83, 110, 134 amateur photography  135–8 dying  134, 139 E Crumière  42 E Lorillon  43 Eastern Front  107

Éclair  5, 33, 42 Eclipse  33, 42 École des Beaux Arts  29, 35 École municipale de mutilés, Paris  113 Edwards, Elizabeth  8, 52, 53 embargo  46, 47 emotional disorders  204, 205 emotions emotional effects  14 emotional mobilisation  14 emotional practices  12, 14, 70, 73, 77, 78, 84, 98, 219 entertainment  75, 82 environment  150, 161 militarised  150, 152 ethics of photography  208, 209 evidence  51 historical  49, 50, 51, 56, 57, 121 photographic  29, 153, 156 scientific  51 exhibitions Exhibition Galleries in London  91 inter-​Allied exhibitions  92 propaganda  91–5 exhumation  174, 175, 176, 179 experience  11, 12, 16, 27, 171, 207 emotions  11, 69 frames of experience  16, 188, 190, 221 memory  10–11, 12 photographic visbility  221 and photography  10 war experience  3, 4, 7–8, 10–11, 16, 47, 58, 77, 83, 98, 188, 199, 208, 219, 222

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Index facial injuries  1, 14, 83, 111, 116, 117, 120 facial reconstruction  116, 117, 120 family  16, 188, 189, 190, 191, 194, 196, 199, 200, 208 Felser, Marcel  7 Fenton, Roger  4 Ministère de l’instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts  28, 29, 31, 32, 33 flash  97, 167 food crisis  158 Forcade, Oliver  33, 144 Ministère des affaires étrangères  28, 29 forensic photograph  207 Foucault, Michel  56 frame  210 frames of war  210 French flag  94, 127 functional disorders  203, 205 functional re-​education  112 funeral  76, 83, 127 fusillés pour l’exemple  131 Galison, Peter  50 gas mask  97 Gaumont  5, 33, 36, 42 Spido  5, 36 General Commandant in Chief (GCC)  29, 30 geographical imaginary  15, 156 geographical imagination  15, 151– 2, 153, 161, 170, 179 Gherhardt, Marjorie  111 glass plate  5 Godart, Justin  109, 112 Goertz  5 Goestchel  36 Goloubinoff, Véronique  124 Gorce  30, 32

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graft  117, 118 Grand Quartier Général (GQC)  30, 44 gratitude  75, 76, 77, 84 graves  15, 83, 138, 149, 152, 153, 171, 179 Great Britain  6 grief  3, 15, 83, 84, 139, 191, 221 grievable life  210 gueules cassées  111 Guilleminot  5, 42 Guillon & Gratioulet  43 Guillot, Helène  7, 31, 34, 35, 53, 181 guilt  135 Haffner, Jeanne  150, 168 Hardier, Thierry  190, 201 Harris, Ruth  129 Hart, Janice  8 hatred  3, 87, 88, 96, 129 Heag II  47 Hevia, James  9 Hirsch, Marianne  209, 210 Historial de la Grande Guerre  78, 82 Holocaust  209 Horne, John  10, 129 hospital  73, 74, 84 canteen  74 hysteria  205 Iconographie du Musée du Val-​de-​Grâce  117 identity  3, 171 collective  15, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 158, 179 national  51 Images d’épinal  152 imaginative geography  154, 162 incineration  174, 177, 179 inhumation  174, 175, 176, 179

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intellectual property rights  31 intimacy  68 J’ai Vu  5, 6, 70, 95, 96, 97, 150, 165 Jagielski, Jean-​François  190, 191, 200, 201 Jaillet, deputy controller  32, 35 Janin, Major General  44 Javeau, Claude  200 Jougla, Joseph  35 joy  72, 81, 84 Kahn, Albert  35, 49, 52, 55, 225 killing see duty to kill kitchen  79 Klapp  47 Kodak  5, 42, 47, 68, 69 album  5 Brownie Box  5 Brownie n. 2  47 marketing  47 n. 4 Cartridge  47 Vest Pocket  5, 45, 47, 48, 68 Korsmeyer, Carolyn  166 Kramer, Alan  129 Kuhn, Annette  71 L’Illustration  5, 46, 92, 95 La Bataille de Champagne  86, 87, 88, 128, 129 La Contemporaine  55, 78, 131 La Défense de Verdun  86, 88, 121 La France et ses Allies  87 La Guerre  87, 114, 115, 127 La recherche des disparus  191, 196–8, 199, 200 La Restauration Maxillo-​Faciale  117 La Somme  25, 78, 84, 202 La technique sanitaire et municipale  173, 175, 178

Labanyi, Jo  71 Latour, Bruno  9 Le Flambeau  86 Le Miroir  5, 6, 69, 92, 95, 97, 125, 139 Le Pays de France  86 Le Radical  91 leisure  116 Lepine, Jean  203, 204 Léri, André  204 Leroy  45, 46 Levitch, Mark  38 Linsolas, Jean-​Marie  44 Lorraine  78 Lumière & Jougla  5, 35, 42 Maison Manuel  30 malingering  205 Marcel Lévi, Pierre  29, 32, 35, 41 Marcel Matel  42 masculinity  108 mass death  7, 130 materiality, photographic history  8, 9, 10 Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine (MAP) 42, 55 memento mori  84 Mémoire des Hommes  201, 202 memory  6, 7, 222 collective memory  11 cultural memory  69 Meurier Law  35 Meuse  53, 132, 169 military court  44 military history  40 mine war  79, 97, 134, 135, 167 Ministère de la guerre  28, 29, 31, 32, 41 missing soldiers  16, 174, 188, 189, 190, 191, 195, 196, 198, 199, 200

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Index Mission héliographique  51, 154 modernity  222 monuments  28, 39, 40, 51, 149, 156 and the history of France  154 morbid curiosity  96, 97 Morlot  42 Mosse, George  135 mourning  195 mud  162 mugshot  192, 193 Musée du services de santé, Val-​de-​Grâce  188, 201 mutilated men  14, 111, 112, 113, 116, 120, 140 at work  114–15 mutilations  108, 111, 112, 120, 220 body  14, 112, 120 narrative  12, 135 nationalism  150 nationalist rhetoric  15 network  10, 34, 52 neurasthenia  203 neurology  203 neurosis see war neuroses neutral countries  29, 38, 88, 89, 129 no-​man’s land  108, 125 Norton Cru, Jean  11, 108, 135 O’Sullivan, Timothy  109 ownership of photographs  31 Painlevé, Paul  92 Paris  3 3 Rue de Valois  29 Pathé Frères  5, 33, 42 patrimony  15, 154 patriotism  195 Pearson, Chris  150

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Pellé, Maurice  44 Péronne  155, 157 perpetrators’ gaze  209 personal albums  3, 14, 133 Album Commandeur  78 anonymity  78 honeymoon  1–3, 8 mourning  83–4 Mrs Allhusen  74–7 Peterson, Nicolas  9 photographic frame  12, 210, 211, 212, 219 military archive  211 photographic industry  41 photographic invisibility  15–16, 189, 211 photographic market  26 photographic practices  3–4, 8–10, 12, 15, 16, 68, 110, 152, 187, 219 photographic survey  28, 29, 154 photographic visibility  15 photographic visibility and invisibility  187–8 experience  189–90, 211–12 practices  220–1 photography complex  9 Photo-​Plait  46, 47 Pinney, Christopher  9 pithiatism  203 plastic surgery  118 poilu  91 Poincaré, Raymond  33, 90, 91 Porot, Antoine  203, 205 postmemory  210 predisposition (to mental disorders)  203 Bureau des informations à la presse  33, 37, 43, 85, 88, 89, 95, 123, 124, 155 Prestwich, Patricia E.  201 pride  3, 87, 96

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Index

printing technologies  5 photo-​engraving  199 prisoners  83, 88, 129, 130, 140, 196 Prochasson, Christophe  11 professional re-​education  112 prohibition of private photography  26–7, 43–4 propaganda  6, 14, 29, 129, 149, 153 Prost, Antoine  10, 135 prostheses  109, 112, 113, 114, 116, 118, 120 articulated hands  113 artificial hands  113 prosthetic eye  119 working arms  113 working tools  113, 114 psychiatry  189, 201, 203 psychology  189, 203 Réchésy  36 reconstructive surgery  120 recovery  14, 107, 109, 111, 112, 113, 115, 120 recovery of the appearance  116, 119 recovery of the function  116, 119 rehabilitation  14, 108, 109, 111 Reims  39 relatives see family religious mission  89 remembrance  11 remorse  135 resentment  95 Ricoeur, Paul  12 Rolland, Denis  201, 202 Roper, Michael  3 Rose, Gillian  80, 152 ruins  40, 85, 86, 151, 152, 153, 156, 157–8, 171, 179

aesthetics  167 cities  15, 153 Ryan, James  162 sacrifice  132, 133, 173, 189 Samama-​Chikli, Albert  36, 89, 113, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 131, 132, 133, 138, 163, 164, 165 Scheer, Monique  12, 71, 72 Schenker, Maud Hilaire  151 Schoentjes, Pierre  152 Schwartz, Joan M.  50, 162, 182 Scott, Joan W.  12 Second World War  6 Section cinématographique de l’armée (SCA)  28, 33 Section photographique de l’armée (SPA)  3 administrators  26, 34 archivists  26, 27, 34, 35, 53, 54, 55 cameras  36 captions  31, 41, 88 Chambre syndicale de la photographie  30–3 filmmakers  26, 33 laboratory  33, 34, 35 laboratory technicians  26, 28, 34 photographers  7, 26, 28, 33, 34, 36–7 photography guidelines  30, 34, 37–40, 56, 85–6 propaganda  14, 15, 29, 70, 87, 89, 155, 158 publications  88 pursuit of control  14, 43, 49, 57 recruitment of photographers  35

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Index Section photographique et cinématographique de l’armée (SPCA)  26, 33 self-​censorship  71, 76 self-​mutilation  206 sensational images  97 sense of place  15, 151, 152, 162, 171, 179 Service des monuments historiques (SMH)  27, 28, 39, 49, 51, 52, 154, 155, 157 Service Historique de la Défense (SHD)  45, 49 shell holes  121, 132 shell shock  203 silence  71, 83, 133, 189, 201 Smith, Leonard V.  3, 11, 12, 110, 132, 135, 139 snapshots  48 social biography  8, 210 Soissons  39 Soldat Inconnu​  3, 200 Sontag, Susan  208, 209, 210 Spain  88, 89, 92 visit of Spanish delegation to Verdun  89–91 Spanish Civil War  6, 161, 186 stereoscopic photography  5, 15, 46, 93, 152, 170–1 stigma  111, 207 suicide  16, 57, 131, 188, 189, 201, 203, 204, 207, 208, 211, 216, 220 invisibility  207–8 prevalence in the French army  202–3 psychiatry  203–4 Sur le Vif  5, 16, 95, 116, 125, 139, 188, 199, 200 missing soldiers  190–6

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surgery  112 surveillance  168 Switzerland  89, 92 taboo  16, 109, 189, 201, 207 Talbot, Henry Fox  4 Taro, Gerda  186 Taylor, John  124 Témoins  11 testimony  7, 11 therapists  112 Thierry, Henry  174, 175, 177 Tombe du Soldat Inconnu  200 tombs  171, 172–3, 175, 179 Tommy  91 trees  15, 149, 152, 153, 158, 159–61, 171, 179 trenches  14, 152, 162, 165 Tucker, Jennifer  50, 51 UK  88, 89, 92 Union Photographique Industrielle  42 Union Sacrée  33, 90, 91, 95 USA  88, 89, 92 Vaillant  30, 32 Val-​de-​Grâce hospital  117 Valois  30, 32 Vérascope Richard  5, 46 Verdun  78, 83, 89, 121, 125, 127, 132, 164, 202 Battle of Verdun  121, 132, 163 Fort de Douaumont  121, 132 veterans  11 Vincent, Clovis  203 violence  7, 109, 111 Virilio, Paul  169 Vitry  30, 32 voyeurism  110, 208

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250

Index

war dead  14, 34, 57, 79, 83, 110, 120, 127, 133, 138, 139, 151, 152, 173, 176, 220 amateur photography  134–5, 139 German  15, 83, 88, 95, 108, 110, 120, 124, 128, 129, 137 mort à l’ennemi  57, 109, 121, 123, 131–2, 133, 207, 211 Mort pour la France  10, 15, 16, 57, 107, 109, 121, 123, 130–1, 133, 138, 140, 189, 201, 202, 203, 207, 208, 211 Non-​mort pour la France  131, 201, 202

SPA photography of French bodies  121–5 undecided  202 war destruction  28 war landscape  15, 151, 153, 164, 170, 171, 179 war missing see missing soldiers war narratives  16, 27, 57, 71, 172 war neuroses  203, 207 war profiteering  31 war violence  108, 132, 133 Warwick Brooke, John  25, 26 Wellington House  26 Wilson, Ross  162 Winter, Jay  7, 10, 11 Woolf, Virginia  161 work  112, 113 agriculture  109