For caricatures referring to Louis XVI and his family, see Annie Duprat, 'Repique est Capet'. Louis XVI dans la caricature: naissance d'un language politique (Rouen: Université de Rouen, 1991).
2.
The historian attempting research on laughter often comes up against a lack of archive material on the transmission and popular creation of humour. Hence 'funny stories' are almost completely absent except on the rare occasions when they are mentioned in the press. Note that the blank during the first weeks of war was not total, since cartoons went over to picture postcards, of which there were large numbers produced throughout the war. For an analysis of French picture postcards see Marie-Monique Huss, Histoires de famille 1914-1918, cartes postales et culture de guerre (Paris : Noêsis, 2000);
3.
and of English ones, John Laffin, World War I in Postcards (Gloucester: Sutton, 1988).
4.
Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, 'Le Canard s'envole des champs de bataille', in 14-18, la très Grande Guerre (Paris: Le Monde Éditions , 1994), 187-93.
5.
Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, A travers leurs journaux : 14-18. Les combattants des tranchées ( Paris: Armand Colin, 1986).
6.
Gabriel Perreux, La Vie quotidienne des civils pendant la Grande Guerre ( Paris: Hachette, 1966), 324-42.
7.
Quoted by Jacques Lethère , La Caricature sous la IIIe République (Paris: Armand Colin, 1986), 136.
8.
Ouriel Reshef,Guerre, mythes et caricatures (Paris: FNSP, 1984). The author discusses the Franco-German war of 1870-1871, but his analysis is equally applicable to the 1914-1918 war.
9.
In contrast to the Germans, portrayed as starvelings or as subsisting exclusively on sausages and beer, the French boasted of their culinary skills as the mark of a superior civilization. On this subject, see Jean-Yves Le Naour, 'Quelques procédés de déconstruction de l'adversaire en 1914-1918', Ridiculosa (2001).
10.
Collection of the Historial de la Grande Guerre.
11.
12.
. Gaspard was the eponymous hero of a book by René Benjamin which won the 1915 Prix Goncourt. For a long time he fixed the type of the French soldier for those behind the lines: brave and full of fun.
13.
The pig was the cartoonists' favourite animal for depicting the enemy See Jean- Yves Le Naour, 'Cochons d'Allemands! La représentation de l'ennemi dans la caricature de guerre (1914-1918)', Lyons conference 'L'animal en politique', not yet published.
14.
Edmond Sullivan ,The Kaiser's Garland, 1915, cartoon reproduced by John Grand Carteret in La Kultur et ses hauts faits ( Paris: Librairie Chapelot, 1916).
15.
Elizabeth and Michel Dixmier, L'Assiette au beurre (Paris: François Maspero, 1974).
16.
Statistics compiled by Françoise Navet from military archives 5 N 369 and 5 N 377-87. 'Des joumaux sanctionnés pour des dessins non échoppés (1914-1919)', Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains (January 1994), 35-41.
17.
Note that the censored cartoons were suppressed not so much for being pacifist but in order to avoid wounding the sensibilities of neutrals (especially Greece and the United States before 1917). Quoted by Françoise Navet, 'Censure et dessin de presse en France pendant la Grande Guerre' , Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains (March 2000 ), 7.
18.
Hervé Jovelin , 'Poilu's Park (1914-1919), un parc d'attractions pour soldats sur le front', Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains, 183 ( 1996), 111-23. The next three quotations are taken from this article.
19.
I am indebted here to George Mosse's work on picture postcards, De la Grande Guerre aux totalitarismes (Paris: Hachette Littératures, 1999);
20.
Original title Fallen Soldiers. Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
21.
Alain Corbin, Les Cloches de la terre. Paysage sonore et culture sensible dans les campagnies au XIXe siècle (Paris: Albin Michel , 1994).
22.
Louise Délétang, Journal d'une ouvrière pendant la guerre (Paris : n.p., 1919), 176.
23.
Journal de Rouen, 25 January 1915, 'La durée de la guerre. La résistance des civils'.
24.
The French contains the crudest double entendres in every phrase, which are not possible to reproduce fully in translation. Riddles about 'the height of ambition for ...' were very popular in France, and featured on a series of postcards, from which this example is taken. Collection of the Historial de la Grande Guerre.
25.
Service Histonque de l'Armée de Terre, 16 N 1398, Contrôle postal de la IIIe armée, 10-16 February 1916.
26.
Carnets de guerre de Louis Barthas, tonnelier, 1914-1918 ( Paris: La Découverte, 1998) 492-3.
27.
Archives Nationales, F12 936.
28.
La Bataille, 12 December 1916, 'Pour la santé morale de Paris'.
29.
L'Excelsior, 21 April 1916, 'Panem et circenses'.
30.
Le Soir, 20 March 1916, 'Plaisirs'.
31.
Le Mercure de France, 16 November 1916.
32.
Ibid.
33.
Ibid.
34.
Le Gaulois, 28 August 1917, 'Les limites du plaisir de guerre'.
