French soldiers and their correspondence: towards a history of writing practices in the First World War.
The years 1914-18 engendered a "sudden and irrepressible boulimia" of letter-writing, a diluvian outpouring which defied all attempts at administrative control. The massive correspondence of French soldiers, analysed and quoted in the archives of the Commission de Contrôle Postal, has already been mined by war historians. They have normally used it to carry out a kind of historical opinion poll on the mood of the trenches. This article, however, focuses less on the content of soldiers' correspondence, and more on the nature and history of letter-writing itself. It examines letters as letters, their frequency, their destinations and all the unwritten codes to which they are subject. At a time of newly acquired mass literacy, the poilus experienced the urgent need to write. Their "laconic writing" raises important questions about historical sources, their transparency and their silences. It also offers a perspective on the much debated integration of the peasantry into national life and culture.
Lyons
Martyn
M
University of New South Wales, Sydney.
D000069:Acculturation; D015709:Correspondence as Topic / Q000266:history; D003643:Death; D019260:Expressed Emotion; D005602:France / Q000208:ethnology; D049673:History, 20th Century; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000193:education / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology; D008890:Military Psychiatry / Q000191:economics / Q000193:education / Q000266:history; D012922:Social Change / Q000266:history; D012923:Social Class / Q000266:history; D047828:World War I; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000523:psychology