These are the News of the World, the People, the Daily Express, L'Intransigeant, Le Petit Journal (and its illustrated supplement), Le Petit Parisien, Le Matin. I also found it useful to add some evidence drawn from local newspapers, namely, the Northampton Independent, the Northampton Herald, and the Northampton Mercury.
2.
John Home, 'Mobilizing for total war', in John Home (ed.), State, Society, and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 1997), 1.
3.
The series published by the Daily Express in December 1914, and entitled 'The Kaiser's kalendar for 1915 or the dizzy dream of demented Willie' perfectly illustrated how the tragic and violent depiction of the enemy could be enhanced by humorous sketches.
4.
Antoine Prost, 'Sociale et culturelle indissociablement', in Jean-Pierre Rioux and Jean-François Sirinelli, Pour une histoire culturelle ( Paris: Seuil, 1997), 131-46, 144-5.
5.
Ibid., 144.
6.
Home, 'Mobilizing for total war', 4.
7.
Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, 14-18. Retrouver la guerre (Paris: Gallimard, 2000).
8.
See also Northampton Mercury, 23 October 1914; Le Petit Journal, illustrated supplement, 19 December 1915.
9.
L'Intransigeant, 12 August 1918. This behavioural pattern seems to be a feature common to all children caught up in a drawn-out conflict, of which the Middle East situation provides a contemporary example. See 'Cradle for martyrs'The Guardian Weekend, 16 June 2001.
10.
Among many famous instances, one may evoke the nineteenth century and Kierkegaard, in In vino veritas, or Choderlos de Laclos in Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
11.
L'Intransigeant, 7 August 1918.
12.
See on these questions the work of Jean -Yves Le Naour, Sexes en guerre. Souffrances et angoisses sexuelles dans la France de la Première Guerre Mondiale (Paris: Aubin, forthcoming 2002).
13.
Jay Winter, 'Propaganda and the mobilization of consent', in Hew Strachan (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 217-18.
14.
Jean-Jacques Becker, 1914: Comment les français sont entrés dans la guerre ( Paris: FNSP, 1977);
15.
and J.T. Verhey, 'The Spirit of 1914: the myth of enthusiasm and the rhetoric of unity in World War I Germany' (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1991), chapter II.
16.
L'Intransigeant, 24 December 1916; of course enemy propaganda did not escape harsh criticism: see the Daily Express , 5 October 1914.
17.
L'Intransigeant, 22 February 1917.
18.
Though not focused as we are on humour, Jean-Louis Robert also claims this theme was prominent in the Berlin press. See Jean-Louis Robert, 'The image of the profiteer', in Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert (ed.), Capital Cities at War. Paris, London, Berlin, 1914-1919 (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1997 ), 125.
19.
Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation (London: Hutchinson , 1969; 1st edn, 1964), 491.
20.
Ibid., 38.
21.
Ibid., 45.
22.
Initially, the concept of the 'moral economy' was coined by E.P. Thompson in 'The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century' , Past and Present, 56 (August 1972), 76-136,
23.
but may profitably be applied to the social history of the Great War. See Winter and Robert, Capital Cities at War. Henri Bergson, Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique (Paris: PUF, 1967- 233rd edn; 1st edn, 1900), 6.
24.
Prost, 'Sociale et culturelle indissociablement', 137.
25.
Pierre Bourdieu, Ce que parler veut dire. L'économie des échanges linguistiques ( Paris: Fayard, 1982 ).
26.
Robert, 'The image of the profiteer', see also the People , 5 August 1917.
27.
Quoted in Koestler, The Act of Creation , 53.
28.
Bergson, Le Rire, 13: 'Le rire "châtie les mœurs". Il fait que nous tâchons tout de suite de paraître ce que nous devrions êtrece que nous finirons sans doute un jour par être véritablement .
29.
Christian Delporte, 'Presse et culture de masse en France (1880-1914)', Revue Historique, 605 (janvier - mars 1998), 108.
30.
See also the Northampton Herald, 25 December 1914.
31.
L'Intransigeant, 1 April 1917; the People, 8 April 1917 and 3 November 1918.
32.
Gail Braybon, 'Women, war, and work', in Strachan (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War, 149-62.
33.
John Home, 'Social identity in war: France, 1914-1918', in T. G. Fraser and K Jeffery (eds), Men, Women and War. Historical Studies , 18 ( Dublin : Lilliput Press, 1993), 119-35.
34.
Le Petit Journal, illustrated supplement, 15 April 1917; L'Intransigeant, 10 January 1917.
35.
It is worth noting that in L'Intransigeant, 11 June 1916, the soldier's prestige was expressed in a slightly erotic tone.
36.
Northampton Mercury, 2 October 1914.
37.
See also L'Intransigeant, 8 July 1916.
38.
John Home, "'L'impôt du sang": Republican rhetoric and industrial warfare in France, 1914-1918', Social History, 14 (2) (May 1989), 201-23.
39.
George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers. Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars ( New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
Arthur Marwick, The Deluge (London: Macmillan , 1991; first published by The Bodley Head, 1965), 84.
43.
This 'modernist' interpretation has since been largely discussed, criticized and undermined. See Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
44.
For a recent reassessment of Fussell's book, see Leonard V. Smith, 'Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory: Twenty-five years later', History and Theory, 40 (May 2001), 241-60.
45.
Paul Fussell , The Great War and Modern Memory ( New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1975), 7.
46.
Northamptonshire Record Office, X3072.
47.
Fussell, The Great War .
48.
Le Petit Journal, illustrated supplement, 14 November 1915; 19 November 1916.
49.
Bergson,Le Rire, 4: 'Le comique exige donc enfin, pour produire tout son effet, quelque chose comme une anesthésie momentanée du cœur.
