Reasons for the participation of France in the First World War. French soldier of World War I

French historian Nicolas Offenstadt and his German colleague Gerd Krümeich discuss the need for France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the great war».

La Croix: Is the memory of the First World War still strong in France?

Nicolas Offenstadt: World War I is one of those historical periods who left the biggest mark on people's memory. This period concerns everyone, and not just some scholars. This is a massive and amazing phenomenon. It manifests itself in several moments.

In some families, this can be seen, for example, in a respectful attitude to the memories of the ancestors who fought: they carefully store documents (letters, diaries) and personal belongings, take care of the graves and monuments to the dead.

In addition, the presence of the First World War is still felt in all forms of art, whether it be cinema (think of the success of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's The Long Engagement and Christian Carion's Merry several novels about World War I did not appear), comics, songs, or even rock music.

Gerd Krümeich: The French are really attached to the memory of the First World War. This period still causes them lively emotions. Even the smallest Frenchman knows that it is a fundamental element national consciousness. Do not forget that a significant part of this conflict unfolded in France. In Germany, there is no such passionate desire to honor the memory of the First World War.

Why do the French have such strong memories of the First World War even 100 years later?

Gerd Krümeich: It seems to me that this is due to the collective need to muffle the memories of the Second World War. The French, of course, suffered during the second conflict, but not in the same way as during the first. During the Second World War, France had a Vichy government, and the Germans awakened not the best instincts in the French, although, of course, this did not affect everyone. It took France a while to realize that not all of this was brought in from outside. Therefore, in France there is an underlying desire to move away from this more new history and dive into a slightly more distant past. The First World War is called the “Great War” here, although in terms of the number of participants and the scale of the consequences, it was far from the second.

- That is, the French so glorify the victory of 1918 in order to find solace in it after the defeat in 1940?

Gerd Krümeich: Partly. For France, World War II was, in many ways, a rout. Nobody likes to be reminded of this. In addition, fewer French people died in the second conflict than in the first: military and civilian cemeteries of the victims of the 1939-1945 war are much rarer here than, for example, in Germany and Russia.

Nicolas Offenstadt: I don't quite agree with this kind of psychoanalytic analysis. It seems to me that there are two other explanations for this. The first is rather general: today we live in a country that, like Germany, needs a past (remote or not) and consumes it in the most different forms, from literary works before historical reconstructions. We live in a time when the past becomes a resource, a kind of sedative, because the future is vague, and various cultural landmarks (both spiritual and political) have weakened.

- Why did the First World War become for the French one of the main historical periods to which they love to return so much?

Nicolas Offenstadt: She is a general collective experience. Almost all families in France or the former colonies keep the memory of an ancestor who happened to live through this experience.

Gerd Krümeich: It should also be added that the First World War was mainly fought in France.

Nicolas Offenstadt: The First World War almost automatically entails a single associative series for all the French. Anyone can touch this experience through material reflections of family memories that exist in the form of documents (letters, diaries, photographs) and objects brought from the trenches (cartridge cases, pipes, sculptures, etc.). Finally formed today positive image front-line soldier, displaces everything.

- That is, the front-line soldier has an extremely positive image?

Nicolas Offenstadt: A World War I front-line soldier is one of the key characters in the history of France, no matter how you look at it. In addition, he is a victim of the arbitrariness of commanders and the horrors of war, a stubborn or rebellious fighter driven by faith in victory or despair. Any person can imagine himself in his place, whether he is a militarist or an anti-militarist, a Christian, a communist or someone else. Everyone has their own leader. No other French historical figure offers so many positive models to the people. Including during the Second World War.

Gerd Krümeich: Now the memory of the French front-line soldiers in equally shared by the whole nation, although during the war the attitude towards them was uneven: for example, in the south of France it was more indifferent. This moment lifts next question How then was this unity formed? All Frenchmen fit for service have been in the army and endured military experience for themselves. The Battle of Verdun under the command of Pétain served as the basis for the subsequent process of idealization of the front-line soldier.

Nicolas Offenstadt: We certainly exaggerate the unity of the soldiers in the trenches. Representative relations different classes could be very strained: it was very difficult for intellectuals to find mutual language with ordinary soldiers. Disagreements between immigrants from different regions were also not always overcome. Be that as it may, this does not negate the fact that all the soldiers sitting in the trenches shared a common fate, went on the attack together and sat out the shelling.

Gerd Krümeich: This unity of the experiences of the front-line soldiers became all the stronger because, from a dialectical point of view, it arose after tension.

Nicolas Offenstadt: After the war, this experience formed the basis for the formation of various veterans' associations, which successfully fought for the provision of pensions and benefits. It became one of the largest association movements" civil society in France of the 20th century.

Gerd Krümeich: In addition, all parties, both left and right, declared with one voice: "This must not happen again!"

- Is it possible to say that the image of a front-line soldier has acquired a sacred connotation?

Nicolas Offenstadt: Yes. The front-line soldier has become a sacred historical figure. His legend was formed gradually. In the 2000s, she rallied around the few surviving veterans, and in particular the last of them, Lazare Ponticelli, who died in 2008.

Gerd Krümeich: This legend was formed all the more simply because in almost every French commune there are monuments to those who died during the First World War, a symbol of their sacrifice.

— Were there any changes in the process of formation of this legend? In the 1960s and 1970s, the front-line soldier did not enjoy the best reputation among the younger generations ...

Nicolas Offenstadt: Yes, there has indeed been a shift in collective memory. Today, the front-line soldier comes to the fore again, because we need the past. In the 1960s and 1970s, people looked more to the future, those were the days of the Glorious 30th Anniversary, part of the youth aspired to a world revolution and a new society, third world countries declared themselves publicly: at that moment, the image of a front-line soldier became part of outdated patriotism.

What time did this turn take?

Gerd Krümeich: I would place it in 1978 and the publication of Carnets de guerre de Louis Barthas, tonnelier (1914-1918), which made a lot of noise at that time. During this period, the younger generations in France, as in Germany, began to be more interested in the life and suffering of soldiers than in the causes and consequences of the conflict. People wanted to know why so many soldiers died in 1914.

Nicolas Offenstadt: This process reached its climax in 1998, on the 80th anniversary of the armistice, when the writer Jean-Pierre Guéno and the journalist Yves Laplume published a collection of letters and notes, "Words of the front-line soldiers" (Paroles de poilus). In addition, this year the representative of the highest state power, namely, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin for the first time openly raised the issue of those shot in war time rebels.

But where did such a need come from in the past? Is France so afraid of the future, of globalization? Does she have problems with self-awareness?

Nicolas Offenstadt: This return to the past certainly means that French society has doubts about its future. There are thousands of memorial projects in departments and regions. The First World War has become a resource because the memory of it is accompanied by a hoax social connection, which at that moment allowed society to maintain unity, despite the difficulties and disagreements.

Gerd Krümeich: Exactly. For the French, the First World War is the Great War, because it has a special meaning in their eyes. This does not apply to World War II.

- Is there the same attitude towards the First World War in Germany as in France?

Gerd Krümeich: In Germany, everything is exactly the opposite. In all my almost half a century of work on this topic, I have not yet seen such a serious divergence between our countries. We do not remember the First World War at all. This does not concern us, this is not our history.

Nicolas Offenstadt: A German friend once told me that in Germany the interest in the "Great War" is equal to the interest in France in Franco-Prussian War 1870. In other words, it is almost non-existent!

Gerd Krümeich: It is very important to understand that for us Germans, our history begins, so to speak, in 1945. When I was young, we were only interested in World War I in terms of comparing the Weimar Republic, Nazism, Hitler, and World War II. By itself, we practically did not analyze the First World War. Although everyone agrees that it was the first great disaster of the 20th century, the Germans do not consider it as such for their history. And this applies to Germans from both the FRG and the GDR.

- In Germany, they do not read “In Steel Thunderstorms” by Ernst Jünger (Ernst Jünger) or “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque ( Erich Maria Remarque)?

Gerd Krümeich: Unlike France, these books are rarely read in our country. In 2007, a reissue of All Quiet on the Western Front was released, but it did not attract special attention. When I suggested to a publishing house that they publish a collection of novels about the First World War published in the 1920s and 1930s, they told me that such a project would not have an audience. Another sign of our indifference is the attitude towards the monuments to the dead. In France, they are given a central place. In Germany, they often do not remember where they are at all.

Nicolas Offenstadt: There is still interest in this period in Germany, as evidenced by the success of the Europeana program, which includes digitization family archives on the First World War and should start in France in November.

Gerd Krümeich: Yes, but this interest is still shown only by individuals. It should not be viewed as a collective desire to re-do the First World War. important part our history.

- In France and Germany, the First World War causes completely different emotions. Does each country treat this war differently?

Nicolas Offenstadt: Memories of the First World War and its role in the formation of self-consciousness vary greatly depending on the country. For some, she became part of long history like, for example, in France. For others, it served as the basis for the formation of the nation and occupies most important place in history. This applies, for example, to Australia, Canada and the European countries that emerged after the war.

Gerd Krümeich: One cannot fail to note the growing interest in the First World War in the countries of Eastern Europe, such as Poland, Bulgaria and Serbia. In the days of communism in Poland, it was generally forbidden to talk about it. Do you know that the Poles lost 70,000 soldiers at Verdun? Half of them died fighting for the French, and the other half for the Germans.

Nicolas Offenstadt: In the countries of the former communist bloc, there is now a process of renationalization of the past. Interest in the First World War becomes part of the rise of national movements. Putin's Russia is also characterized by this trend. One of the main points in commemorative events about the centenary of the First World War is the role of war in the formation of national and regional identity.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.

Before the First World War, the activities of reactionary nationalist forces intensified in France. Their new organization "Action Francaise" created its own combat armed units "Royal thugs". Since 1908, there has been a particular revitalization of the activity of this reactionary group.

thriving in the past Third Republic admiration for the army since the beginning of the 20th century has turned into a genuine praise of militarism. More and more attention was paid to arming the army and building navy and aviation. In July 1913, the law "On the three-year military service". All this indicated that the French government was actively preparing for war. German imperialism, in turn, was not inferior in aggressiveness to its opponents, overtaking them in armament. Military conflict became inevitable.

On June 28, 1914, in connection with the assassination in Sarajevo of the Austrian heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, a new international crisis. Since they have been preparing for war for a long time, Sarajevo murder was used as a pretext for starting a world war. On July 28, 1914, at the insistence of Germany, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, on August 1, Germany declared war on Russia, and on August 3, on France. In the week since the start of the war, almost all European great powers were drawn into the conflict.

Each of the imperialist powers, entering the war, pursued its own predatory goals. France, in particular, wanted not only to return Lorraine, taken from her by Germany in 1871, but also to capture Saar basin.

French General base, like the German one, for 40 years developed a plan of operations in the upcoming war. Border battle unfolding on a 250-kilometer front between rivers Moselle and the Scheldt, ended in the defeat of the French.

The 1st Army of General Kluk crossed the Franco-Belgian border on August 24 and quickly advanced towards the capital of France. German cavalry approached the outskirts of Paris, and aircraft systematically bombed the city. In this difficult situation, the French government and command placed big hopes to the aid of the Russian army. Russian command launched an offensive in East Prussia, pulling back a number of German divisions from the Western Front. This facilitated the most important strategic result of the Franco-German military campaign of 1914. years - defeat German armies in the battle on the banks of the Marne, in which from September 3 to September 10, both sides lost about 600 thousand people killed and wounded.

The German blitzkrieg plan failed. Inevitably, the prospect of long-term military operations on two fronts arose, in which Germany had much less chances than the Entente.

Military campaign of 1915 on Western front did not bring any major operational results. Positional battles only dragged out the war.

In February 1916, the German command, having decided to take the initiative into their own hands, launched an attack on. However, this attempt was unsuccessful, especially since in March, due to the advance of Russian troops in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe city of Dvinsk and Lake Naroch, the German command was forced to weaken its onslaught on French positions. Nevertheless, the Verdun operation, which lasted almost 10 months, in literally words turned into a "meat grinder". Both sides suffered colossal losses: the French - 350 thousand people, the Germans - 600 thousand people.

July 1, 1916 command Entente launched the main offensive on the Somme, which, however, did not allow the Anglo-French troops to break through the front. Nevertheless, as a result of the Somme operation, the Entente captured an area of ​​200 square kilometers, 105,000 German prisoners, 1,500 machine guns and 350 guns. In the battles on the Somme, both sides lost over 1,300 thousand killed, wounded and captured.

By the end of 1916 total losses coalitions were about 6 million people killed and about 10 million wounded and maimed. Under the influence of enormous human losses and hardships at the front and in the rear, the anti-war movement grew in all the warring countries. The governments of the countries of both coalitions could not but reckon with the mood of the masses, thirsting for peace. Therefore, maneuvers were undertaken with "peace" proposals in the expectation that they would be rejected by the enemy, and he could be blamed for the continuation of the conflict.

Naturally, such a policy of the countries of both coalitions could not bring them to the negotiating table for peace. War activities continued, increasing growth revolutionary movement among the soldiers. Simultaneously with the revolutionary uprisings in the army, a broad strike movement unfolded in the rear. For example, in France only in June 1917 there were 285 strikes, in which more than 108 thousand people took part. Along with the demand for an end to the war, the French workers advocated higher wages, better working conditions, and a shorter working day.

At the same time, the strike movement in France was also acquiring political overtones. On May 1, 1917, the CGT issued an appeal welcoming the Russian revolution. The Metalworkers' Federation called on the workers to form a united front against the war, uniting with the Russian and German working people. The Committee for the Defense of Trade Unions urged the workers to liberate themselves from their class enemies.

The French government, fearing an imminent revolutionary crisis, resorted to open repression in the rear and at the front. In November 1917, it was headed by the leader of the right-wing radicals Georges Clemenceau who established a true dictatorship in the country.
In order to protect her country from revolutionary influence and to return the capital invested in Russia, France was one of the first initiators of armed intervention in Soviet Russia. In May 1918 by direct assignment French General Staff began a rebellion of 40,000 captured Czechoslovaks in Siberia.

By 1918, the predominance of the military and economic power of the Entente was clearly indicated. On September 26, her armies launched a general offensive. And on September 28, the German General Staff demanded an armistice from their government.
World War I imperialist war 1914-1918 ended with the victory of the Entente countries. It was the bloodiest brutal war of all the wars the world knew before 1914. The total number of armies of the opposing sides reached 70 million people. All the achievements of science and technology were used in this war to exterminate people. Killed everywhere: on land and in the air, on water and under water. As a result, the total losses of both coalitions amounted to 10 million killed and over 20 million wounded.

November 11, 1918 in Retonde forest near the city compiegne, in the staff car of the French Marshal Foch, commander-in-chief of the Entente on the Western Front, an armistice was signed with Germany. Under the terms of the Compiegne Armistice, Germany was to clear the occupied territories of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Alsace-Lorraine.

She undertook to withdraw her troops from the colonies, return prisoners of war, and compensate for the losses caused by the war.
The news of the victorious end of the war caused great rejoicing in France. When on the afternoon of November 11, volleys of artillery salute were heard in Paris, announcing the end of the war, the streets filled with jubilant crowds of Parisians. Strangers hugged, sang, danced, expressing their joy on the occasion of the end of a difficult, four-year bloody and - as they hoped then - the last war.

1) "The French army went to war in red pants for the profits of domestic paint manufacturers."
- The last French manufacturer of red paint "garance" went bankrupt at the end of the 19th century and the army was forced to buy chemical dye in ... Germany.
In 1909-1911, the French army carried out extensive work on the development of khaki uniforms ("Boer" uniform, "Reseda" uniform, "Detail" uniform).
Its first and most violent opponents were ... journalists and experts of the then media, who quickly turned the public against the "degrading to human dignity and the French spirit" protective uniform.

Then populist parliamentarians, eternally economical financiers and army conservatives joined in - and the initiative was buried until 1914, when Detai's gray-blue overcoats had to be urgently removed from warehouses, which, fortunately, had not yet been decommissioned, unlike their khaki predecessors and resedas.

2) "The theory of "offensive to the limit" developed by the General Staff intellectuals has put France on the brink of disaster."
- Absolutely all sides initial period WWI adhered to an exclusively offensive image of war. Theoretical calculations of the French General Staff - by the way, less mechanistic than the Germans and paid great attention psychological aspect conduct of hostilities, did not stand out with anything special against this background.
The real reason for the August hecatombs was a failure in officers corps and division level, which was distinguished by a high average age and low quality.
In the regular military, in view of low level life, there were people who were not capable of anything else, and the reservists en masses had no idea about modern methods of warfare.

3) "Merciless hand-to-hand fights in trenches".
- The statistics of physicians in this regard is merciless. The share of cold accounts for 1% mortal wounds in 1915 and 0.2% in 1918. The main weapons of the trenches were a grenade (69%) and a firearm (15%).
This also correlates with the distribution of injuries throughout the body: 28.3% - head, 27.6% - upper limbs, 33.5% - legs, 6.6% - chest, 2.6% - abdomen, 0.5% - neck.

4) "Deadly Gas"
- 17,000 killed and 480,000 wounded on the Western Front. That is, 3% of the total losses and 0.5% of the dead. This gives us a ratio of killed to wounded of 1:28 against an average of 1:1.7-2.5 along the front.
That is, no matter how cynical it sounds, much more soldiers survived after the gas, who could tell everyone about their suffering - despite the fact that only 2% of the wounded became disabled for life, and 70% of the poisoned returned to service in less than 6 weeks.

5) "France bled to death in the trenches of Verdun."
- Near Verdun, France lost about the same number of soldiers as in the mobile war of 1918 and almost half as many as in the more than mobile border battles and on the Marne.

6) "The officers hid behind the backs of the soldiers."
- The proportion of dead and missing from those drafted into the army, officers / soldiers: infantry - 29% / 22.9%, cavalry - 10.3% / 7.6%, artillery - 9.2% / 6%, sappers - 9, 3%/6.4%, aviation - 21.6%/3.5%. At the same time, so as not to talk again - this is the question of the cavalry destroyed by machine guns.

7) "The generals shot the rebellious soldiers."
- The number of soldiers sentenced to death by courts-martial (including those who committed criminal offenses) is 740. This is 0.05% of all French infantrymen who died.

As you know, by the beginning of the First World War, the armies of Russia, Germany and Great Britain were equipped with machine guns of the same design (Khairem Maxima), which differed only in ammunition and machines - the Sokolov wheeled machine in Russia, the tripod in Britain (these are the machines used all over the world in our time ) and an unusual sled machine in Germany. It was the latter that became the reason for the legend.
The fact is that a machine gun with such a machine was supposed to be carried either as a stretcher, or dragged like a sled, and to facilitate this work, belts with carbines were attached to the machine gun.
At the front, while carrying, machine gunners sometimes died, and their corpses, fastened with belts to a machine gun, just gave rise to a legend, and then rumor and the media replaced the belts with chains, for greater effect.

The French went even further, and talked about suicide bombers locked outside inside "Schumann's armored carriages." The legend got very widespread, and as Hemingway later wrote in one of the post-war stories, "... his acquaintances, who heard detailed stories about German women, chained to machine guns in the Ardennes forest, as patriots were not interested in unchained German machine gunners and were indifferent to his stories.
A little later, these rumors were also mentioned by Richard Aldington in the novel Death of a Hero (1929), where a purely civilian man teaches a soldier who came from the front on vacation:
"- Oh, but our soldiers are so good, so good, you know, not like the Germans. You must have already convinced yourself that the Germans are a cowardly people? You know, they have to be chained to machine guns.
- I didn't notice anything. I must say, they fight with amazing courage and perseverance. Don't you think that to suggest otherwise is not very flattering for our soldiers? After all, we have not yet been able to really push the Germans."

By the beginning of the Great War, the German command and officers did not hide their disdain for French army, associating her with the "Gallic rooster" - it was assumed that she was also quick-tempered and noisy, but in reality she was weak and shy.
But already in the first battles, the French soldiers confirmed their long-standing reputation as staunch and brave fighters, sincerely ready for self-sacrifice in the name of their homeland.
Their high fighting qualities turned out to be all the more valuable because this time they had to fight with practically the worst weapons from everything available in the arsenals of both allies and opponents.

The main weapon of the French soldier - the 8-mm rifle "Lebel-Berthier" - could not be compared with the German "Mauser M.98", in many respects inferior to the Russian "three-line", and the Japanese "Arisaka Type 38" and the American " Springfield M.1903", and the Shosha light machine gun was generally classified by many as weapon curiosities.
Nevertheless, since the French infantrymen were doomed to use it (although they tried to replace it with a captured or allied one at the first opportunity), it was it that eventually became the “weapon of victory” of the Great War, in which the French army, of course, played a decisive role.

The Shosha machine gun also began to be developed spontaneously, as a reaction to the global trend to create automatic weapons systems.
The basis of the future automatic rifle (and the French created it) was taken nowhere else unclaimed and potentially unsuccessful machine gun system of the Austro-Hungarian designer Rudolf Frommer, based on the recoil energy of the barrel with a long stroke.
For rapid-fire weapons, this scheme is the most undesirable, since it leads to increased vibration. However, the French chose her.
Tactical and technical characteristics new weapons were at the level of "below the lowest". Perhaps the only positive quality of "Shosh" was light weight- no more than 9.5 kg with an equipped box magazine for 20 rounds and a bipod.
Although even here he did not become a champion: the Danish Madsen light machine gun, which had excellent combat and reliable automation, weighed no more than 8.95 kg.

Despite all its shortcomings, the Shosha machine gun had commercial success, albeit scandalous. It remained in service with the French army until 1924, and by that time the total production of the machine gun had amounted to a considerable 225 thousand pieces.
The French managed to get the main income from the sales of their outsider machine gun from the US military department, which had a very saturated market for automatic weapons.
In the spring of 1917, shortly after America's entry into the war, General William Crozey, Director of the US Army Ordnance Department, signed a contract for nearly 16,000 Shosha machine guns.
It is noteworthy that a few years earlier, the same official categorically rejected the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bproducing an excellent Lewis machine gun in the United States, but argued the need to purchase an obviously unsuccessful French model "by the obvious lack of firepower of American formations."

The result of its use in the US Army is not difficult to predict: the French machine gun received the same unflattering ratings. Nevertheless, General Crozi continued to buy these weapons in bulk.
On August 17, 1917, the French Arms Commission received an order for another 25 thousand C. S. R. G. machine guns, only under the main American cartridge 30-06 Springfield (7.62 × 63 mm).
The fate of this contract was very remarkable. Machine guns fired under the heading Automatic Rifle Model 1918 (Chauchat) began to shoot even worse than those made under the "native" 8 mm cartridge.
The more powerful 30-06 ammunition not only often jammed, but it also broke the reloading mechanism very quickly. It is not surprising that, having received a little more than 19 thousand machine guns under the new contract, the Americans categorically refused further deliveries.
Several deputies of the French Parliament then tried to initiate an investigation into where the profits from the sale of obviously unusable machine guns to the Americans went, but it was quickly closed - too many high-ranking military and diplomats were involved in the deal on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

President Macron made the decision to invite the heads of state and government who participated in that war to Paris for a memorial ceremony on the occasion of the centenary of the end of World War I last year during the opening of the Franco-German war memorial Hartmannswillerkopf, where battles took place between 1915 and 1918 between French and German troops with huge human losses.

Photo by Boris Gessel

Only the dead were about 30,000 soldiers here, and how many were crippled is unknown. Macron officially announced the invitation to the ceremony of 80 heads of state and government at the beginning of the year, speaking to diplomats at the Elysee Palace, stressing that remembering the First world war- "moral obligation" of everyone.

Why France?

It was here, not far from the city of Compiègne, on November 11, 1918, an agreement was signed on the cessation of hostilities - the Compiègne truce. Since then, every year this day has been celebrated in the republic as “Armistice Day”, when celebrations are held in all cities of the republic with the laying of flowers at the monuments of the dead.

The Treaty of Versailles, signed at the Palace of Versailles on June 28, 1919, officially ended World War I, the first major international conflict of the twentieth century that led to the collapse of mighty empires and popular revolutions.

In the war they tookparticipation 34 countries

C total strength population of over a billion people. The population of the planet at the beginning of the twentieth century was 1.6 billion people.

For four years, military operations were conducted on the territory of 14 states.

In total, the participating countries mobilized more than 70 million people, of which 10 million died, another 20 million were maimed. Nearly 12 million are gone civilians. Famine and epidemics caused by the war claimed the lives of at least 20 million people.

The war first killed more people than illness.

Every minute the war claimed the lives of four soldiers, nine people were injured every minute. Two-thirds of the deaths occurred in combat, a third of all war casualties died from the Spanish flu.

But war is not only death, it is material losses that amounted to $ 208 billion during the First World War and exceeded the gold reserve by 12 times European countries. A third of the national wealth of Europe was destroyed.

France before the First World War had the largest army, more than 884 thousand fighters

After mobilization - almost 4 million. During the entire war, 6,800,000 were mobilized, despite the fact that the population of the republic in 1914 was less than 40 million. Died - 1,293,464 people out of 19 million male population. Nearly three million were injured. All of them are the heroes of the terrible war, since at the cost of life they thwarted the Schlieffen plan, designed for the principle of simultaneous war with only one enemy, having two fronts.

Having declared war with a two-day difference, first on Russia, then on France, Germany relied on Russia's slowness in mobilizing and redeploying armies. Germany planned that France would capitulate in the first month of the war, and it would be possible to use the French army against the Russian Empire. Kaiser Wilhelm II famously said: “We will have lunch in Paris, and dinner in St. Petersburg” (“Paris for lunch, dinner at St. Petersburg”).

At a rapid pace, German troops advanced across the territory of the republic towards Paris. However, the French army, retreating, offered stubborn resistance, which prevented Germany from concentrating troops on the shock front. And most importantly, at the height of the offensive, part of the troops had to be transferred to Eastern front, since the Russian army began offensive operations in East Prussia.

History has no subjunctive mood, but the results of the war could have been different, especially for France, without the opening of the Eastern Front by Russia.

During World War I, Russia mobilized over 15 million soldiers, making it the largest army in the war. More than ¾ were killed, wounded, captured, missing.

The countermeasures of the Entente countries - operations “battle of the Marne”, “run to the sea” and the offensive of the Russian army in East Prussia weakened the onslaught of German forces on Paris. The German plan for the lightning defeat of France failed, the war became positional and dragged on for several years.

Since 1916, the French Republic was defended by Russian soldiers and officers as part of the Russian Expeditionary Force.

All of them showed courage and selflessness, many died, the bodies of most were never found.

Peace came at the cost of many sacrifices and great blood

France plans to celebrate significant date end of the First World War.

I would like to believe that the memorial ceremony will serve to strengthen friendly relations between countries, between Europe and Russia, between France and Russia, despite the sanctions period.

Those who fell in World War I gave their lives so that we could live in peace, invest not in the military industry, but in research, innovation, new technologies, science, which should become the basis of future relationships.

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During the First World War, the Russian army fought not only on Russian fronts. Special brigades of Russian troops were sent to the Allied fronts - to France and the Balkans.

Special brigades

In December 1915, French Senator Paul Doumer arrived in Russia on a special mission. His task was to convince the Russian government and military command to send about 400,000 Russian soldiers to help France. According to the French government, they could be more useful there than on the Russian fronts. And in general, Russia's human resources seemed inexhaustible to the allies.
According to the chief of the tsarist headquarters, General M.V. Alekseev, Dumer's demand was unfounded, impudent and shameless. In this vein, Alekseev wrote a note to Nicholas II. But the tsar judged differently, however, reduced the number of Russian troops required by France to 100 thousand people. Soon the organization of Special Russian Brigades began, intended to be sent to the allied fronts. These brigades are now often incorrectly referred to as Russian Expeditionary Force what name they did not have.
The 1st brigade was specially selected from the tallest soldiers various parts. In the ranks, she made an impressive impression, but her soldiers and officers did not have combat soldering. The following brigades began to include entire units that had combat experience. In 1916, four infantry brigades were created, and in 1917, another artillery brigade. In total, about 60 thousand people served in them in two years.
Already in January 1916, the 1st Russian Special Infantry Brigade moved in a long roundabout way - along the Trans-Siberian Railway and by steamboats around all of Asia and through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea - and in April 1916 arrived in Marseille. The French gave her a solemn welcome. The brigade marched through the streets of Marseille. The demonstration of the military brotherhood of Russia and France was of great propaganda importance. After that, the 1st brigade was immediately sent to the front, where at that time a fierce battle was going on near Verdun.
In the summer of 1916, the 2nd brigade was sent from Russia. She moved on a shorter, but also dangerous route - from Arkhangelsk across the North Atlantic, where German submarines prowled. Fortunately, the voyage was without loss. The French command decided that the 2nd brigade would be more useful in the Balkans, where at the end of 1915 the allies opened a new front. The brigade was transferred by ship to Thessaloniki. During the year, the 3rd and 4th Russian special brigades arrived in France by the same route. The 3rd was left in France, and the 4th was transferred to the Balkan front.

Battle path

Various minor misunderstandings arose during the preparation of the Russian units for going to the front. So, the French Minister of War Petain believed that Russian soldiers would have to be trained in the use of French weapons for a long time, and was very surprised to learn that the Russians did not have to explain how to use the French Lebel magazine rifle (ours, however, believed that Mosin’s native rifle more reliable and hits more accurately). It turned out that the Russian soldiers are familiar with the gas mask. There was no language barrier, since all Russian officers who received orders from the French knew French.
During 1916 and early 1917, both Russian brigades took part in many battles on the Western Front. Having suffered heavy losses during the April offensive, they were withdrawn to the rear to rest and re-form.
Even more noticeable was the role of two Russian brigades on the Balkan front. This is understandable, since 160 allied divisions fought in France, and only 20 in Macedonia. In November 1916, Russian troops recaptured the city of Bitol in Macedonia from the enemy (Bulgarians) and were noted in the order of the front commander French general Sarrail.

Impact of the Revolution

In 1917, under the influence of failures at the front and news of the revolution in Russia, unrest began in the French army. It did not pass the Russian brigades either. In the summer of 1917, disobedience began in the rear camp of La Courtine, where both Russian brigades were located. The soldiers demanded to return to Russia. The French managed to skillfully separate the loyal soldiers from the rebellious ones, and then, with the help of the Russian artillery brigade that arrived in France, suppress the rebellion. Some of the participants in the rebellion were sent to hard labor in Algeria. Subsequently and Soviet historians, and the white emigrants tried to attribute this uprising to the influence of the Bolsheviks. In fact, there were no party Bolsheviks there.
Fermentation in the Russian brigades in the Balkans developed more slowly. Nevertheless, there began demands for the return to their homeland. Having received news of the October Revolution in Russia, the French command decided to disband the Russian brigades. Their soldiers and officers were offered a choice: to sign up as volunteers in the French army or to be hired for rear work in the French army (a kind of construction battalions), where they were given a content three times higher than that of French soldiers at the front. Those who did not agree to either one or the other were to be sent to hard labor.
Most of the military personnel of the four brigades - 17 thousand people - voluntarily chose the latter option, not wanting to fight or contribute to the continuation of the war. They were sent to work in North Africa, where there were already 8,000 exiled participants in the La Courtin rebellion. 13,000 signed up for the work teams. Only 750 chose to fight under the French banner.
These latter were initially distributed among different French units, and only towards the end of the war some of them were united in the "Russian Legion of Honor". Among them was the famous in the future Soviet commander Rodion Malinovsky. At the end of the war, the "Russian Legion", increased by Russian soldiers from other French units, carried the occupation service in Germany. In 1919, most of them were sent to Russia to help the White Army of Denikin, where most of the legionnaires rebelled and went over to the side of the Red Army.
The Russians who served in the workers' detachments were repatriated after civil war in Russia, with the exception of those who somehow managed to settle in a foreign land. There is no exhaustive information about the fate of our compatriots sent to French penal servitude. Some of them were, apparently, eventually repatriated to Soviet Russia, but the majority remained forever in the sands of the Sahara.