Aviation and propaganda in France during the First World War

© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of French History. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]

Av i A T i O n A n d P r O PA g A n d A i n F r A n c e d U r i n g T H e F i r S T

W O r l d WA r

B e r n A r d W i l k i n *

Abstract—This article explores the impact of aviation as the subject of propaganda during the First World War. Aviation was not a tool of overall importance for the war as a whole, but it was overrepresented in the media. Three distinct types of newspaper, aiming respectively at the home front, the trenches and occupied populations, are examined here in order to set out a comparative window on French public opinion during wartime. The study breaks down the myths built up by the military and the press and underlines the way discourse varied according to the target public, as well as the difficulties of constructing a propaganda that would raise enthusiasm for war in areas directly affected by hostilities, whether the trenches or the occupied zones. The impact of this propaganda allows us further to evaluate not only the important degree of communication between different French groups, but also between propagandists and journalists.

The history of aviation in the First World War is largely made up of myths whose origin arise from press accounts during and immediately after the war. Belle epoque journalists’ enthusiasm for aviation, coupled with a strand of opinion that eulogized airmen as a new elite (a tendency examined by Michael Paris in his article ‘The rise of the airmen’), provided the basis for a phe-nomenon that would develop throughout the hostilities.1 The legend of the knights of the sky, kept up by the home front press during the war and crys-tallized in the 1920s by heroic accounts of their activities, was nonetheless but one of a number of aspects of aviation as a subject of propaganda. A pub-licity campaign was launched in the newspapers over the battle of the skies; the relatively minor strategic importance of that conflict was not reflected in the significant place given to it in the French media. This fact seems to confirm our suspicions that the subject was instrumentalized for the purpose of conducting psychological warfare. The historical literature has several times focused on the construction of the myth of the fighter pilot, notably through céline Bryn-Portet’s work on the construction and use of the image of the fighter pilot, and Jean-Pierre dournel’s study of the image of the French

* Bernard Wilkin is a Phd student at the University of Sheffield. He can be contacted at [email protected]. He wishes to thank Timothy Baycroft, Alexis and rené Wilkin and Sabine grimm.

1 M. Paris, ‘The rise of the airmen: the origins of Air Force elitism, c.1890–1918’, Jl Contemp Hist, 28 (1993), 124–5.

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F r a n c e d u r i n g t h e F i r s t W o r l d Wa r

aviator.2 But it has nonetheless ignored other aspects of the air war that were exploited in the press, aspects that were used for propaganda purposes.

The word propaganda is used widely and often pejoratively, but here it makes sense because of the use of the image of aviation as a symbol that could manipulate collective attitudes.3 research has systematically focused on home front newspapers, largely ignoring trench newspapers, written by and for com-batants, as well as the news pamphlets destined for occupied areas, produced by the allied armies and dropped from the air. This neglect of the trench news-papers and occupied areas pamphlets has had important consequences for our understanding of the French communication war during the conflict. in effect, air and military propaganda, created by the state and military, were radically different from the work of journalists, which was subject to censorship. So we know practically nothing about how the media exposure about the air bat-tle—and indeed the conduct of the war as a whole—made its impact on French combatants and French individuals in the occupied territories. This neglect is a historic consequence of the general exclusion of the occupied populations; in the collective imagination, their intense suffering was not equal to the brutal sacrifice of soldiers at the front, and the overrepresentation of the ‘battle his-tory’ occluded the individual and collective experience of civilians during the post-war period.4

examining aviation as a subject for propaganda raises interesting problems. Beyond the motivations that pushed journalists to overexploit a topic of rela-tively little importance for the conduct of the war, we have to ask ourselves about the way the discourse varied according to the level of support and the target audience. in effect, the establishment of a myth depended on the set-ting up of clear foundations that needed to adapt to the target environment. The way these foundations were adapted leads us to study the way journalists and propagandists envisaged the presentation of the subject and the different strategies that were employed to convince different elements of public opin-ion, expressed in diverse ways in the different contexts—occupied or unoccu-pied France. The image of aviation was built up during the conflict following defined themes, which were often overexploited. These themes can be defined in outline as: the myth of the fighter-pilot hero; the bombing of civilian popula-tions; and air strategy. This article is structured around these themes.

2 c. Bryon-Portet, ‘la construction et l’utilisation de l’image du pilote de chasse’, Recherches en Communication, 28 (2007); J.-P. dournel, ‘l’image de l’aviateur français en 1914–1918. Une étude du milieu des aviateurs d’après la revue: ‘La guerre aérienne illustrée, iii- Tensions et con-flits à propos de l’aviation’, Revue Historique des Armées, 3 (1976).

3 Philip Taylor underlines several times the importance of complete objectivity in analys-ing propaganda, as well as the potential benefits of the latter. He sets out a very different posi-tion from that of the interwar pacificists such as Ponsonby: P. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind (glasgow, 1990). The idea of propaganda as symbol was developed by the famous theoretician of propaganda Harold lasswell and developed later in (for example) J. Sproule, Propaganda and Democracy (cambridge, 1997), 68.

4 l. Smith, S. Audoin-rouzeau and A. Becker, France and the Great War, 1914–1918 (cambridge, 2006), 52.

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B e r n a r d W i l k i n

Beyond the analysis of aviation propaganda, the article seeks to contribute more generally to the study of propaganda during the First World War. The strate-gies used by the media in this case allow us to test, in a concrete way, the analysis of Harold lasswell in his fundamental study of great War propaganda.5 We will see notably how aviation was instrumentalized in order to mobilize civilian senti-ments of hatred and bellicosity. Air operations described in this article have also been studied in the light of Jacques ellul’s important work on the mechanisms of propaganda.6 Other studies have been brought to bear on the analysis, allowing us to study aviation propaganda in the light of theories that define media com-munications in war.7 Thus, with a geographical focus on metropolitan France and with the precise analysis of home front newspapers, trench newspapers and pamphlets aimed at occupied territories, this article seeks to offer a comparative study that will allow us to understand the mechanisms and strategies connected to the overexploitation of the theme of aviation and the consequences this had in three distinct French groups: civilians, combatants and the occupied.8

The sources used to study the home front press include an ensemble of the great national and Parisian titles, representing different political and philo-sophical positions: La Croix, Le Figaro, Le Gaulois, Le Petit Parisien, Le Temps and L’Action française. These pre-war newspapers had not originally been des-tined to publish propaganda. However, as early as 30 July 1914 measures were taken obliging the press to relate military items before political news—Aristide Briand, minister of Justice in the viviani government, had rapidly understood the importance of public morale in the conflict. This control of the media, cou-pled with the culture of the war, as explored by Annette Becker and Stéphane Audoin-rouzeau, transfigured these publications. intellectual independence now depended on the will of the state and the media was obliged to contribute to the psychological war.9

Among the newspapers targeting occupied populations were La Voix du Pays, a bimonthly set up by the army high command in 1915 and conceived by a team of officers charged with watching over the morale of French popula-tions that lived on the other side of enemy lines.10 This newspaper was part of the ‘Service Aérien de la Propagande’, as well as the Courrier de l’Air, edited by Mi7b, an arm of the British secret service, which worked to keep up a posi-tive image of great Britain in the occupied departments.11 However, the British

5 H. lasswell, Propaganda Technique in World War I (cambridge and london, 1971).6 J. ellul, Propaganda (new York, 1973); J. ellul, Histoire de la propagande (Paris, 1976).7 n. cull, d. culbert and d. Welch, Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical

Encyclopedia (california, colorado and london, 2003); g. Jowett and v. O’donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion (Thousand Oaks, cA, 2012); e. Bernays, Propaganda (new York, 2005).

8 For the historiographical context of the idea of the French nation: T. Baycroft, Inventing the Nation: France (london, 2008).

9 J.-B. duroselle, La Grande Guerre des Français (Paris, 1994) 260–3; S. Audoin-rouzeau, A. Becker and l. Smith, France and the Great War 1914–1918 (cambridge, 2006), 3; ellul, Histoire de la propagande, 107.

10 La Voix du pays, 1915–1918.11 Le Courrier de l’air, 1917–1918.

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propaganda journal was shrouded in complete secrecy. The British govern-ment remained ignorant of the initiative, which was thus run by the military alone. By contrast, La Voix du Pays was controlled by the French ministry of war and its cabinet. This was state propaganda that sought to avoid the ‘contamination’ of the French soul in order to facilitate the reconstruction of occupied zones after the war.12

For soldiers, trench newspapers were important outlets. censorship was practised in this area, but only partially and unevenly. can we thus talk of propaganda in considering this form of media? The question is ambiguous: the intellectual restrictions imposed on correspondents were numerous, but they were complemented by the fact that their contributors were deeply immersed in wartime culture.13 The sources consulted in this article are from the rich col-lections of the Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine française and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

i

The best-known and most common aspect of aviation exploited in the press was without doubt the heroic figure of the fighter pilot. Many historians have tried to explain the attraction of the press and the public for this phenom-enon—which was a cultural movement deeply connected to the specific con-ditions of the First World War. it made it possible to put a name to a face, the individual character of the airman and the novelty of his machine were equal sources of interest.14 Michael Paris has demonstrated how the airman’s supe-rior reputation went back to the turn of the century.15 The relations between aviators and the newspapers at the time were bound to be successful: the press offered an unrivalled publicity opening that pushed the flying men to the front of the scene, through an aggressive media campaign rooted in rhetoric that played on the pioneers’ courage and adventurous spirit. They were discussed on a day-to-day basis from the 1910s to the eve of the war. it is true that avia-tion, accepted as normal in our own day, had a great impact on the imagination of contemporaries in the Belle epoque. The physical and mechanical aspects of flight attracted intellectuals en masse, whence a number of scientific clubs were born, while the sporting aspect of flight resonated in popular circles. But the development of the flying man was also a product of cinema and photogra-phy. The aviator was not merely the hero of written accounts but also the visual incarnation, animated or not, of courage and modernity. Film immortalized, repeated and propagated facts about these new men. Advances in publicity campaigns were important here, notably their capacity for integrating modern visual technology, as forms of persuasion in the immediate pre-war period.16

12 S[ervice] H[istorique de la] d[éfense de vincennes] A[rchives de l’armée de l’] A[ir] 1A176.13 S. Audoin-rouzeau, Men at War (Worcester, 1992) 20–4.14 l. kennett, La Première Guerre aérienne (Paris, 2005) 165–6.15 Paris, ‘The rise of the airmen’, 124–5.16 Jowett and O’donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, 216.

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When war broke out, these pioneers of the air were caught up in a surge of patriotism, many responding to the call of the French army to join air units. These units carried out observation missions and light intensity bombing cam-paigns. Fighter aircraft and ‘la chasse’ as their activities were known, given the technological limitations of the machines in 1914, was as yet but a fantasy. Yet this lack of diversity in the role of air missions did not curb the enthusiasm of the public. On the contrary, the war provoked a flood of articles concerning aviation, from the sports pages to the news pages. Unsurprisingly, the media was interested in the names of those who were known before the war, such as roland garros, the first man to have the crossed the Mediterranean, and Adolphe Pégoud, a pioneer of parachute jumps and loop-the-loops. Pégoud’s death allows us to assess the popularity of aviation in the home front press. no fewer than five articles in the Gaulois of 2 September 1915 mentioned the dead pilot, his final moments woven into poems.17 This interest in superficial news consolidates ellul’s idea that propaganda was attached to facts that may have been futile but whose spectacular nature drew the attention of the target audience.18

For all this, the construction of the myth of the fighter pilot did not take place immediately. in effect, in spite of the pre-war hero’s successful transition from famous sportsman to military aviator, two elements were lacking before public enthusiasm could become a real passion: technology and an opportune context. it was only at the end of the year 1915 that aviation saw an important upheaval with the introduction of a device that synchronized firing with the rotation of the propeller. This invention, the key for modern fighter planes, was a revolution that allowed the aviator to become as one with his machine. A new generation of pilots supplanted the pioneers of the Belle epoque with their mastery of this new system and, thus, the new legend of the knights of the sky. The aviator was no longer merely an observer or an acrobat; he became a combatant of a distinct sort. This new weapon also acted as a remedy to the dying military romanticism of an older generation, lost in the mud and dirt of the trenches and in the growing obsolescence of cavalry.19

The battle of verdun, which began in February 1916, was an apt moment for a media offensive that aimed to create the heroes that the public had been waiting for in those times of brutal deadlock. The situation was critical; the country was suffering from a progressive deterioration of morale that affected all parts of French society. Marshall Joffre, French commander-in-chief, and his high command were convinced that the german attack was aiming to destroy the civil and military will to pursue the struggle.20 This belief explains the French authorities’ determination to radicalize the cultural climate in order

17 For example: ‘Pégoud! comme ce nom volait/de bouche en bouche! et quel prestige/de cette boucle que bouclait/Son aérienne voltige’ Le Gaulois, 2 Sept. 1915.

18 ellul, Propaganda, 47.19 S. Audoin-rouzeau et J.-J. Becker, Encyclopédie de la grande guerre: 1914–1918 (Paris,

2004), 264.20 r. doughty, Pyrrhic Victory (cambridge, MA, 2005), 264.

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to consolidate public enthusiasm for the war and underline the fundamental importance of how information about the events and experience of war was processed.21 in practice, the media focused first on Jean navarre, nicknamed ‘The sentinel of verdun’; but navarre, ill-disciplined and unpredictable, was soon wounded. A systematic examination of the press in this period clearly indicates a slide in sympathy. The newspapers soon passed over navarre in favour of the frail georges guynemer, who was determined, discrete and modest.

This analysis allows us to test the hypotheses of the famous propaganda theoretician Serge Tchakhotine, who emphasized the importance in modern propaganda of notions of enthusiasm and courage. enthusiasm reflects the ide-als of health, gaiety and youthfulness, and was inspired by the approach taken by home front newspapers that echoed the older sporting chronicles of the pre-war period. victories in the air were carefully recorded, commented on and compared with german scores. courage, an abstract notion that symbol-ized determination and was irremediably connected to discipline, was for its part highlighted, sometimes more subtly. in effect, death, which was every-where in the media, recalled the body’s mortality and symbolized a willing sacrifice, thus transforming air combat into a romantic evocation of modern gladiatorial contests.22

Thus on 2 August 1916 the catholic daily La Croix published a table that summarized the total number of aircraft that had been shot down, heading it ‘nos aviateurs et les leurs’, and introducing it in these terms: ‘voici un tableau comparative des meilleurs homes-oiseaux en France et en Allemagne, établi d’après le nombre d’appareils abattus par eux.’23 This interest in the number of air victories became something of a popular obsession in 1916, reconfirm-ing ellul’s suggestion that propaganda created a need that had to be constantly renewed.24 The government had every interest in promoting this enthusiasm that turned the attention of the public away from the stalemate at the front and the numerous setbacks experienced by the French army on the western front. Successes in the air seduced the home front and assured the fame of their authors. To guarantee press support, the army and ministry of war offered the media information that had been carefully distilled concerning fighter pilots. This exclusive access to military secrets allowed the government to build indi-rect propaganda campaigns based on the press having a monopoly of informa-tion. Le Petit Parisien, the most widely published newspaper in the world at the time, printed a heavy banner heading on 11 September 1917, the day of the death of guynemer: ‘le 50e de guynemer, le 30e de nungesser, le 20e de Heurteaux’.25 The semantics of air duels had many advantages over that

21 J.-J. Becker and S. Audoin-rouzeau, La France, la nation et la guerre: 1850–1920 (Paris, 1995), 300–1.

22 S. Tchakhotine, The Rape of the Masses (london, 1940), 86.23 La Croix, 2 Aug. 1916.24 ellul, Propaganda, 182.25 Le Petit Parisien, 11 Sept. 1917.

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used to narrate infantry battles. Here there were no tergiversations and no doubts: the pilot ‘remporte un combat’, ‘abat’, ‘tue’, ‘est victorieux’, and could enumerate his success over the enemy precisely. This simple and Manichean aspect concealed other horrors such as those described by the canadian ace William Bishop, when he outlined forcefully the macabre consequences of his machine-gunning a german pilot.26 The aseptic nature of the air war, which ignored both the profound consequences of these battles on the physical and mental health of pilots, was essential in its media promotion.

This process of veneration, for which the press was largely responsible, needed nonetheless to wait for the end of the conflict to achieve the mature stage in which it acquired the status of myth. during the interwar years, public attention crystallized around those pilots who had died in combat. A deceased man is a useful symbol—without opinion, without private life, he cannot con-test the uses to which he is put.

While it is generally difficult to evaluate the effect of a propaganda campaign in its own time, the case of fighter pilots is exceptional because of its remark-able visibility. georges guynemer is a spectacular example of this, but by no means unique. during the inter-war years, he was, as céline Bryon-Portet rightly describes, the object of quasi-hagiographies: Maurice roland’s L’Archange (Paris, 1925); Jacques Mortane’s Deux Archanges de l’air: Georges Guynemer, Jean Mermoz (Paris, 1937); and edmond delucinge’s Guynemer: l’ange de la victoire (Paris, 1942). Along with these works, many monuments, not con-fined to France, and multiple ceremonies commemorated the anniversary of guynemer’s death. The press reflected these commemorations and perpetuated the memory of the French ace.27 Such practices, far from being confined to the Hexagon, were reproduced in all countries that had participated in the great War. great Britain recalled edward Mannock, while the famous ‘red baron’, the german aviator Manfred von richthofen was the centre of a cult of veneration that continues today. A new film about the pilot came out as recently as 2008.28

The question that presents itself is whether the veneration offered to these heroes by the home front and orchestrated by the government and army was echoed in the front line. The historian lee kennett has evoked a sense of manifest hostility that existed between infantry and air force. Pilots gained the reputation of carrying on a luxurious existence, were overemphasized in communiqués and favoured with decorations.29 Airmen on leave attracted the admiration and attention of the public. But the propaganda around the heroes of the air had only a feeble echo in trench newspapers. This media, written by and for the soldier without much editorial coercion, was a true barometer of sol-diers’ opinion. does their lack of focus on the air war represent a silent form of reprisal against the over-popularity of pilots? The lack of references to aviation does not necessarily mean that aviation itself was unpopular among the troops.

26 d. Mccaffery, Billy Bishop: Canadian Hero (Toronto, 2002), 149.27 Bryon-Portet, ‘la construction et l’utilisation de l’image du pilote de chasse’, 150.28 ibid., 150; The Red Baron, dir. n. Müllerschön. Warn. Bros. Pictures, 2008.29 kennett, La Première Guerre aérienne, 168–71.

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The poilus, absorbed in their difficult daily work, moved in a closed world and an uncertain future, marked out by the boundaries of the trenches, the regi-ment or the company. infantrymen, when they did contribute copy, rarely left a pre-established semantic and thematic field, probably reflecting the fact that they were aware of their ignorance in terms of the wider conflict.30 Hostility towards this category of combatants was rare, or virtually non-existent. The pilot generally appeared as a courageous figure, but one that was foreign to the world of the front line. A number of humorous stories circulated about aviation and its pilots, always described as ‘aces’ and often famous names such as navarre.31 nor did the caricaturists spare airmen their ironic wit (Figure 1).

30 Becker et Audoin-rouzeau, La France, la nation, la guerre, 306–7.31 En 5–7, dec. 1917 et Jau-dignac-Loirac, 1918.

Figure 1 ‘Ça doit te changer du conservatoire l’aviation?—Ben non, c’est toujours la voie des airs’. Le Lapin à plumes, 1915.

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That said, some articles attest to the propagation in the trenches of the myth of the knights of the air and their popularity among the soldiers. Thus in October 1917 Le Cri du poilu published a new story called ‘l’etrange pilote’, dedicated to the airman g… The tale described a german plane landing in French lines. French soldiers, on approaching the machine, realized it was driven by a woman:

cette femme était le fameux aviateur g… prisonnier en Allemagne, qui, grâce au stratagème d’un déguisement, avait pu se glisser jus-quaux hangars du parc d’aviation du bourg de H… Avec l’appareil dérobé, il avait passé les lignes ennemies sans être inquiété mais il avait essuyé un feu d’enfer des batteries françaises dont un obus avait attaint le moteur et provoqué l’accident.instantanément toute rancœur devint symphathie et ce fut en tri-omphe qu’à demi nu g… fit son entrée dans le village, au milieu de hurrahs délirants et des cris répétés de Jacquot:

‘Je l’avais bien dit, moi, que c’était un boche!’‘Un appareil boche! soit! mais piloté par un “As” français!’32

The story was not without significance because it occurred only three weeks after the death of the idol of French fighter pilots, georges guynemer. At the time Le Cri du poilu was going to press, his fate was still uncertain, but the confirmation of his death, supported by the publication of papers found in his wallet, was given by the germans only a few days later. The article is an incon-testable sign of the popularity of fighter pilots in the trenches and reflects an emotive sensibility around the fate of the aviator. Paradoxically, the sentiment may not be incompatible with a certain bitterness or jealousy towards avia-tion. A similar ambiguity can be seen between the front-line soldier, attached to his family and his home, but critical of the ‘home front’ (‘l’arrière’), this vague notion serving as an outlet for moral and physical suffering.33 it is thus too simplistic to apply a binary vision such as that described by kennett to the infantry, when we consider the representation of the aviator in trench news-papers. The varied emotions expressed in combatants’ newspapers reflected less a sense of jealousy than of great respect for the pilot, thus reinforcing the thesis that soldiers were affected by the rhetoric of the heroic propaganda on the home front.34

newspapers destined for occupied populations made only little reference to known aviators. These were mentioned in three out of the eighty-one numbers

32 Le Cri du poilu, 1 Oct. 1917.33 Audoin-rouzeau, Men at War.34 Jealousy may not have been entirely absent, but this was largely an individual expression

that can more likely be found in private correspondence.

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of La Voix du Pays and spoke exclusively of guynemer and rené Fonck. it is true that publicity around individuals that were exposed to danger was not without risk for the allied propaganda machine. Thus the death of guynemer gave germany a unique opportunity for exploiting their air victory among the occupied populations. The French-language newspaper La Gazette des Ardennes, founded by Section iiiB of the german army and controlled by the occupying forces, published in its illustrated number of 11 October 1917 the copies of guynemer’s identity card and pilot’s record.35 La Voix du Pays was forced to announce the bad news, an ironic situation for a newspaper that was run directly by the army’s high command: ‘le capitaine aviateur guynemer, qui avait abattu plus de cinquante avions ennemis et avait ainsi gagné le titre “d’as des as”. Tout porte à croire que guynemer a été tué dans un combat inégal, mais les détails manquent sur la fin de ce héros…’36 The propaganda strategy consisted in minimizing the german victory, a method repeated on every occasion of a defeat. Thus, according to the French media, the death of guynemer was avenged as soon as 28 September 1917, with the death of kurt Wissemann, the supposed victor—and glorified as such by the german army, shot down by Fonck. recent research shows in fact that the german pilot was probably the victim of an air combat that had been engaged with 56 Squadron the royal Flying corps.37 This propaganda method marries with the sugges-tions of lasswell, who revealed that state propaganda during the First World War in general shaped the delivery of bad news by an admission of the facts followed by a justification or counterattack.38

The silence of propaganda in newspapers aimed at occupied populations about flying aces raises an important question. Why this difference in content between this form of news and that of the home front? The risks evoked above that were run by fighter pilots is one part of the answer. But Bryon-Portet gives another answer when she observes the conditions connected to the construc-tion of the myth, which relied on semantic homology, verbosity and the exist-ence of an unvarying message. These conditions cannot exactly be fulfilled in the context of a propaganda message that was systematically countered by the enemy. The homogeneity of the message was effectively attacked piece by piece by newspapers such as the Gazette des Ardennes, with considerable intellectual weight.39 Moreover, the importance of enthusiasm, a notion we have already touched on, was systematically counteracted by the demoralizing efforts of german propaganda. The conditions were simply unfavourable for a pamphlet campaign that emphasized the heroes of the air and aimed at the occupied departments.

35 La Gazette des Ardennes, 11 Oct. 1917. On Pour Section iiib and german propaganda: d. Welch, Germany, Propaganda and Total War, 1914–1918 (new Brunswick, nJ, 2000), 40.

36 La Voix du pays, 5 Oct. 1917.37 n. Franks, F. Bailey and r. guest, Above the Lines (london, 1996), 232.38 lasswell, Propaganda Technique in World War I, 204–5.39 Byron-Portet, ‘la construction et l’utilisation de l’image du pilote de chasse’, 148.

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The air raids that struck French cities from 1915, starting with Paris, were an unequivocal reminder of the coming together of civil populations and the danger brought about by a technology that was constantly being improved. risk was no longer the sole preserve of the soldier in the trenches; it made no distinction between men, women and children. Thus, during the conflict, more than 1500 people were killed in the capital alone by air bombardment from zeppelins or gothas. Historians very quickly seized on the notion of ‘total war’ to describe this fact, characteristic of twentieth-century wars.40 Unsurprisingly, this aspect of the air war attracted the attention of home front journalists (Figure 2).

The daily newspapers addressed these operations with defiance. A certain tension was felt, but the dominant tone was one of indignation, tempered a little with curiosity. The spirit that animated the media at the time was caught by Le Temps on 22 March 1915:

40 The question of total war has been examined in r. chickering and S. Förster, Great War, Total War (cambridge, 2000).

Figure 2 illustration aiming to identify the nationality of airplanes— Le Petit Parisien 27 Aug. 1914.

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les tentatives nocturnes des aéronautes allemands ne sont pas seulement des manœuvres criminelles dirigées contre des non-com-battants; elles sont encore des farces de mauvais goût, et qui ratent. Point d’épouvante parmi la population parisienne, rien que de la curiosité. enfin, les voilà donc, ces Zeppelins formidables, dont le croquemitaine germain nous menaçait depuis si longtemps! Tel a été le sentiment dominant chez les Parisiens que réveilla cette nuit le clairon des vigilants pompiers.41

The reports insisted on the failure of the raids, while underlining the death of civilians in the bombardments. The emotional character of these deaths on the home front was developed by politicians and reflected in the newspapers, such as the reports of the All Saints day festival of 1916 at the Père-lachaise cem-etery, when the President of the republic raymond Poincaré laid flowers on the tomb of victims of a raid in Belleville.42 The national press, as it denounced the victimization of the home front, played a triple role. it captured the sense of martyrdom in the face of german barbarism, gave a new reason for soldiers to fight and reminded the military that the home front, frequently described as a ‘cushy billet’ (the worst insult from a soldier), was itself suffering from the consequences of war. This final point—as we will see—did not however much impress men at the front.43

Bombing aviation saw a spectacular development during 1915. The intro-duction of fighter planes at the end of the year did nonetheless limit daytime sorties. The evolution of technology allowed the allies to maintain a systematic bombing campaign over germany from the end of 1917—as public opinion had demanded. These incursions were only of limited strategic value but they were useful for propaganda because they allowed propagandists to stress the weak-ness of the enemy air force when it came to protecting their own skies. Home front newspapers instrumentalized the raids while continuing their strategy of denouncing german bombardments.44 Such narratives increased until they were practically daily accounts by August 1918, and were generally placed after articles describing zeppelin raids on Paris. While these raids were generally ordered for specific strategic reasons, they were in fact presented as a form of revenge for german air raids. The exploitation of atrocities on civilian popula-tions was far from being a particularity of the air war. it was one of the pillars on which the psychological war depended during the First World War and aimed to mobilize hatred in the face of the enemy as well as convincing the popula-tion of the moral justice of the cause.45 But we must emphasize nonetheless

41 Le Temps, 22 Sept. 1915.42 Le Figaro, 2 nov. 1916; La Croix, 3 nov. 1916.43 S. grayzel, ‘The souls of soldiers: civilians under fire in First World War France’, Jl Mod Hist,

78 (2006), 588–622.44 kennett, La Première Guerre aérienne, 62–3.45 cull, culbert and Welch, Propaganda and Mass Persuasion, 24.

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the voluntary amnesia that struck the whole of public opinion. Both French and British armed forces had taken up the bombing of german targets from early in the war. A raid on Friedrichshafen in november 1914 killed a civilian and wounded two women and a child.46 As the historian Philip Taylor empha-sizes, the lies of war propaganda were generally those of omission, and were most often committed by a partisan press rather than by the government.47 The daily newspapers of the home front in the First World War allow us to confirm this opinion and to judge just how far the conflict became global, blending the experience of the home front and the trenches, civilians and sol-diers. it is interesting to see that having reached peaks in 1916 and 1917, the presence of fighter pilots in the press was not exclusive; these began to share the pages of the daily press with their bombing colleagues. it is true that the number of aces increased the more pilots there were, which meant that more stringent criteria for judging them were needed, so as not to exhaust public interest. On 1 September 1918, Le Figaro declared (under the heading ‘les as du bombardement’):

On célèbre, chaque jour, les exploits nombreux de nos pilotes de l’aviation de combat, on a même créé une véritable aristocratie parmi les glorieux combattants de la cinquième arme, mais il sem-ble que l’oubli ait été, jusqu’ici, la seule récompense de leurs frères non moins valeureux de l’aviation de bombardement.48

This forgetting remained constant in the home front press. Bomber pilots could not capitalize on the romantic potential of the dogfight. Flying in formation or in squadrons—contrasting with the image of the solitary pilot in his machine—did not appeal to the public, who were once more attracted by the onset of an infantry front that was finally moving once more, as had been hoped since the stalemate of late 1914. if propaganda exploiting fighter aviation had drawn the attention of the public to the individual through notions of honour, chivalry or the duel, the theme of bombardment was vindictive, collective and vengeful. The symbol of the number, of strength and of crushing contributed to reinforce the idea of modern industrial war that would prefigure, in its inhumanity and its methods, the appalling terror-bombing of the Second World War.

it is worth emphasizing the extent to which this article confirms more gen-eral reflections on the First World War. Annette Becker has long insisted on the consequences of the brutalization of moral norms during the conflict, which led to the normalization of violence towards civilians.49 The terror of ordinary populations was however, from the allied point of view, simply a secondary effect, of less importance than the destruction of military and industrial targets,

46 chickering and Förster, Great War, Total War, 208.47 P. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind (glasgow, 1990), 3.48 Le Figaro, 1 Sept. 1918.49 A. Becker, Oubliés de la Grande Guerre (Paris, 1998) 383–4.

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with objectives set out by the armies of the entente. general ludendorff and the german high command, on the other hand, hoped specifically to demoral-ize populations through attacks on urban zones in order to provoke a collapse in morale and in fighting spirit.50

Propaganda destined for the occupied zone passed on news of the bombing of the capital. The attack of 29 January 1916 was written in these terms:

dans la nuit du 29 janvier un dirigeable allemand a jeté quelques bombes sur un quartier populeux de Paris. les résultats de ce raid sont les suivants: 29 personnes tuées, une cinquantaine bless-ées—principalement des femmes et des enfants—et trois ou quatre immeubles détruits ou endommagés. des avions français prirent en chasse le dirigeable, mais il put s’échapper grâce à la brume.la nuit suivante, une tentative analogue eut lieu. Mais cette fois le dirigeable ne put parvenir jusqu’à Paris. il lança dans la banlieue une cinquantaine de bombes, qui tombèrent dans des jardins, sans faire de victimes et en ne causant que des dégâts insignifiants. les résultats de ces deux attentats ont été, du point de vue militaire aussi bien que du point de vue moral, absolument nuls, Paris a gardé son calme. […]51

The use of the term ‘attentat’ once more reveals the intentions of the article’s authors. The bombing was presented as another proof of german barbarity towards civilian populations. it is true that the reporters on La Voix du Pays, who had already related accounts of barbaric acts on the part of the germany army, were writing from within France. it is not surprising, therefore, that they should share the emotions and reactions of civilians and newspapers with whom they interacted on a daily basis. This point could be taken as a contradiction of ellul’s argument that the propagandist could not be someone who was con-verted to propaganda.52 The leaders of the psychological war were necessarily people who interacted with their society and it seems unrealistic to see them completely in the abstract, apart from the dominant cultural climate in which they lived. Should we equally see here an argument aimed at occupied popula-tions, as the home front attempted to do with soldiers, in order to show that the capital city was sharing the suffering meted out on civilians by the germans? it has been shown, through a study of the archives of the French army, that the con-tributors to propaganda newspapers had contacts with refugees from the occu-pied zones.53 These refugees were dismayed in the face of the negative reception they received from their compatriots, and were disconcerted by the comfort of Parisian life, which contrasted so forcibly with the difficulties of the regions they had just left.54 This feeling was also reinforced by german propaganda in

50 J. kuropka, ‘die britische luftkriegskonzeption gegen deutschland im ersten Weltkrieg’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 27 (1980), 7–24.

51 La Voix du pays, 8 Feb. 1916.52 ellul, Propaganda, 196.53 SHdAT 16n1569, 16n1570 and 16n1571.54 Smith, Audoin-rouzeau and Becker, France and the Great War, 1914–1918, 50.

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the occupied territories that insisted on the difference in comfort experienced by different elements of the French population. This difficult question does not have sufficient sources to be probed further, important though it is.

The illegality of the bombing, which was a theme frequently deployed in prop-aganda concerning aviation, remains debateable. The peace conferences at The Hague in 1899 and 1907 had foreseen the potential problems posed by aviation, though this had not been sufficiently developed to constitute a real danger. An article in part iv of the 1907 treaty laid down that ‘The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.’55 nonetheless, the naval convention of 1907 authorized the bomb-ing of any target on condition that the action was of strategic interest, thus making any juridical representation complicated if not impossible.56 These considerations were never discussed in the newspapers that were aimed at occupied populations.

To this legal complexity were joined moral difficulties. The superiority of the allied air forces was increasingly clear from the second half of 1917. This domination was soon to lead to the bombing of german urban centres, leading inevitably to civilian casualties. The home front newspapers and those aimed at invaded territories succeeded in making the imaginative leap needed to rejoice at the announcement of such allied bombing, while maintaining their indigna-tion against zeppelins and gothas. La Voix du Pays announced for example:

Un communiqué officieux allemand dit que l’attaque aérienne entre Francfort a été menée par douze avions qui ont jeté vingt bombes.Malgré les mesures aussitôt prises par la défense antiaérienne de la ville, le communiqué avoue douze morts, cinq blesses grièvement et plusieurs légèrement.des réfugiés de Mannheim, Fribourg, carlsruhe et Francfort encom-brent les villes de l’Allemagne du sud.57

The trench newspapers did not fail to mention the bombing campaigns over France, and soldiers expressed ambivalent thoughts about the raids. Stéphane Audoin-rouzeau has shown in his study on the publications of the front just how isolated the French soldier felt in comparison with the rest of the nation. The civilian became, in the eyes of the combatant, a stranger with ill-defined habits. The soldier’s lack of understanding of the home front was caused partly by his separation from it and the drastic difference in their ways of life.58 Thus, the intervention of zeppelin and planes could seem to the poilu to be a fair balancing of events. Le Crapouillot of March 1918 reflected a certain satisfaction with the fact that the population was sharing, albeit on a reduced scale, something of the fate of the soldiers at the front.59 Other

55 Laws and customs of War on Land (Hague IV), 18 Oct. 1907, Yale law School, lillian goldman law library, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hague04.asp#art25 (accessed 7 June 2012).

56 grayzel, ‘The souls of soldiers’, 588–622.57 La Voix du pays, 27 Aug. 1918.58 Audoin-rouzeau, Men at War.59 En 5–7, dec. 1917.

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newspapers wrote ironically along these lines (those of En 5–7): ‘nos braves camarades qui, bien souvent n’ont au-dessus de la tête qu’une toile de tente, seront certainement heureux de savoir comment l’on doit se conduire au cours d’un bombardement, lorsque l’on occupe un secteur aussi dangereux que Paris.’60 The newspaper Grenadia amused itself with red lampshades as blinds during the bombing, copying the city aesthetic, which had become as charming as ‘le Japon d’hier’.61 The Bulletin désarmé imagined a letter to a Parisian woman:

le front se serait-il transporté à Paris ? dans ce cas, qu’on nous y envoie, au moins pour relever ceux qui, ne pouvant abandonner leur poste auprès de leur ministre ou de leur général, vont bientôt nous traiter d’embusqués. et si réellement on veut nous maintenir à l’arrière demandez vite, chère marraine, un laissez-passer! loin du pays des marmites, à l’abri des gothas, vous pourrez goûter parmi nous un repos réparateur. invitez même vos amies. les chasseurs du 44eme les recevront à bras ouverts. nous partagerons tout, sauf nos couchettes un peu étroites; mais comme on peut en toucher sans carte, vous aurez chacune la vôtre.62

This derision towards civilians was not reflected in all the trench newspapers. Some, such as La Femme à Barbe, used the action of the zeppelins as proof of german barbarism—following the Parisian press (Figure 3).63 Others wrote in poems that reflected the style of the day:

Jetez, du haut des airs, vos bombes incendiaires.Bandits! assassinez les femmes, les enfants.Oui, transformez l’europe en vastes cimetières;dépêchez-vous, bientôt, il ne sera plus temps.64

Humour that aimed at denouncing the german policy of bombing cities was equally developed through caricature:

These ambiguous sentiments shown by the infantry towards civilians were quite natural. The shafts of irony that come through the trench press cannot make us forget the links that united the front and the rear. receiving letters and reading newspapers were bridges that connected the combatants to soci-ety and reminded them that, on the whole, victims of air raids were members of families who had relations on the front line. The bombing of germany was generally well received, as an article entitled ‘Un héros’, evoking the death of

60 En 5–7, dec. 1917.61 Grenadia, 29 nov. 1916.62 Le Bulletin désarmé, 1 Apr. 1918.63 La Femme à barbe, Aug. 1915.64 Hurl’Obus, Sept. 1916.

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the capitaine de Beauchamp, a pilot who had bombed Munich, would attest.65 Articles expressing a certain satisfaction towards the bombing of urban centres should thus be seen as a mark of protest against the conditions of trench life, of the lack of understanding shown by the rear, and of the duration of the war, rather than a real sentiment of hatred; few wanted their own families to become casualties.66

i i i

The myth of the fighter pilot and the bombing of civilians were only two aspects of the air war during the First World War. Having examined the rea-sons for their predominance in the press, we cannot ignore the fact that the war in the air had a strategic dimension that went beyond individual exploits. if these considerations did not strike the French imagination more clearly, they remained a subject of choice in Parisian dailies. There are further reasons for this interest in a more global vision of the air war. lasswell has shown the importance granted by the authorities in the First World War of nourishing faith

65 Le Filon, 20 Mar. 1917.66 Audoin-rouzeau, Men at War, 127.

Figure 3 ‘Tarteifle! vous n’y songez pas!... bombarder une ville fortifiée!!...’— Le Lapin à plume, 1915.

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in a victory won by arms. if the population was not convinced of the offensive strength of its army, its discouragement could degenerate into outright hostility towards the government. On that basis, the useful contribution of the air strike needed to be upheld.67 A further explanation for these more theoretical consid-erations can be found in the specifically French context where, unlike Britain or germany, the power to make military decisions was never exclusively the prerogative of the military themselves. The republic insisted that the army remain under civil authority; this fact was reflected in parliament’s desire to strictly control the war budget. in these circumstances, we can affirm that civil society was partially in charge of the conflict. it wished logically enough to emphasize its ability to conduct the war, notably through the popular success of the aeroplane, in media of different political persuasions.68 Here we must note that political and confessional differences that normally distinguished the traditional identities of newspapers had no impact on the way they treated news about the air war. The subject was not under dispute in France.

interest in the battle of the air was clear from the earliest days of the war, and the home front press gave its attention such news—especially to observa-tion—from the outset. Aviation occupied the front pages of the newspapers, and remained prominent until november 1918. in August 1914 reflections about the war that was unfolding in the sky were many and unstructured, but a perusal of the newspapers mentioned in the introduction gives an insight into the precocious fascination of the newspapers with military air operations. The rumours that were typical of the start of the war applied equally to aviation. Le Petit Parisien mentioned on 27 August 1914 that german planes were flying in Belgian or French livery in order to undertake observation missions without disturbance. The newspaper even published an illustration that attempted to identify their machines by their silhouettes. The article was republished word for word a few days later, but without the mention of the disguise.69

This strategy of calumny was repeated throughout the first part of the con-flict. Thus, to cite just one example, Le Figaro announced on 15 September 1915 the bombing of an italian hospital by Austrian aviation camouflaged as an allied plane.70 These articles contributed to the powerful communication campaign that aimed to denounce the criminal attitudes of the Axis forces. The rhetoric of the press was typical in evoking Axis disdain for the laws of war, but—unlike their comments on the massacres of August 1914 which rested on a veridical basis—these analyses were based on unfounded rumour.71 The

67 lasswell, Propaganda Technique in World War I, 107.68 J. Winter, The Legacy of the Great War (columbia, 2009), 66–7.69 Le Petit Parisien, 27 Aug. and 2 Sept. 1914. civilians as well as soldiers had little experience

in identifying planes. Manfred von richthofen admitted in his memoirs that he was completely ignorant of the system of roundels and black crosses and that he tended to shoot at any flying object: M. von richthofen, The Red Fighter Pilot (St Petersburg, Fl, 2007).

70 Le Figaro, 15 Sept. 1915.71 For german war crimes in 1914: J. Horne and A. kramer, German Atrocities, 1914 (new

Haven, 2005).

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truth had little place in the construction of primitive stereotypes that aimed to reinforce warlike patriotism, allowing the codification, through propaganda, of new moral, social and political standards.72

The overflight of the capital by enemy aircraft generated an equal amount of comment. Ssorties over Paris were a shock for its inhabitants as they con-firmed the brutal enlarging of the front that now encompassed the rear as well. Aviation transcended the barriers imposed by the trench lines and revealed to all the presence of the enemy on French soil. This situation became more acute when german pilots proclaimed—echoing their presence in the air above Paris on 30 August 1914—‘The german army is at the doors of Paris: Parisians, you have nothing left but to surrender.’73 in a number of corrosive articles the media minimized, indeed ridiculed, these air sorties as propaganda. Journalists thus participated in the creation of a positive climate, a voluntary contribu-tion to national defence largely accepted by the press, but which nonetheless reflected the necessity of countering the population’s general anxiety.

This way of presenting actuality was rethought during 1915 to the benefit of sections that were specifically dedicated to the air conflict. This rubric, depend-ing on the newspaper, generally took pride of place and suggested by their size an importance that had no real relation to the contribution of aviation to the progress of the war. The creation of an under-secretariat of aviation in the government as well as the diversification of air missions encouraged journalists to write more developed analyses. An article in Le Figaro described with lucid logic the differ-ent stages of the evolution of the military air arm, from a game, to sport, to tactical and then strategic connotations.74 The state of german aviation was also scruti-nized. The naval blockade had repercussions for the Axis in terms of their supply of raw materials. The newspapers affirmed from January 1916 (prematurely as it happened) that the german air force was reducing its activity because of a lack of oil and benzene—thus indirectly hinting at the dismemberment of the enemy’s economy.75 The year 1916 was clearly marked by the seal of journalistic support for the verdun effort. if fighter planes became the recognizable face of aviation, air operations marked in the press the French desire to retake the offensive and to strike blows behind enemy lines. The great german attack on the fortified city of lorraine gave the French air force an opportunity to test new doctrines, such as those developed by the commandant Tricornot de rose, in order to give a new dose of professionalism to the corps, which was badly needed.76

There are, however, clear indications of the difficulties the allies had with the air war. The spring of 1917 was a critical moment for the French and British air forces. The vigorous restructuring of the german air service allowed them to inflict serious losses—which were indeed catastrophic for great Britain.77

72 ellul, Propaganda, 163.73 Le Gaulois, 31 Aug. 1914.74 Le Figaro, 17 Sept. 1915.75 La Croix, 5 Jan. 1916.76 kennett, La Première Guerre aérienne, 79.77 ibid., 79.

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This major defeat known as ‘Bloody April’ in British popular accounts found discrete echoes in the French press. Journalists observed the debates in the parliament in london, and carefully avoided mentioning French air losses, though these were sometimes nuanced.78 nevertheless, the introduction of new planes as well as the improvement of tactical theory allowed the allies to take the advantage once more. Thus the monarchist newspaper Action fran-çaise underlined the improvement of the situation in the sky that unfolded during the second half of 1917.79 The entente powers took a decisive advantage that was maintained to the end of the war. The media could from now on publish accounts that were broadly positive, reinforced by the death of a great number of german flying aces.

We have seen how the myth of the heroes of the air had but a limited place in the press that was destined for occupied territories. The same cannot be said of air operations of greater depth or of strategic discussions of the air war. Thus, the Courrier de l’Air published sixty-six articles on this broader ques-tion during the sixty-eight numbers of its existence—nearly one article per number. in this form of press, the air war as a military campaign was seen as primordial because it replied to the propaganda logic of the period, in which it was seen as vital to show the isolated populations how germany was to be crushed totally, in order to inspire optimism about the progress of the war. To this end, the contributors of Le Courrier de l’Air, based in london, wrote a regular column that detailed the operations of each fortnight. Yet the chronicle was introduced to the journal at the worst possible moment: it appeared during April 1917—‘Bloody April’ as mentioned above. nonetheless, the correspond-ents dared to affirm:

[…] ce n’est pas, pourtant, seulement d’après les résultats des com-bats que l’on doit juger de notre suprématie aérienne. le fait est que nos aviateurs ont acquis le pouvoir de faire leurs reconnaissances à volonté, à travers les lignes ennemies, et qu’ils sont en liaison con-stante avec notre artillerie et notre infanterie. voilà bien, en effet, en quoi consiste la liberté de l’air.80

This was a bold declaration given that the British air force had suffered four times greater losses than its german counterpart. With greater contextualiza-tion, however, we can understand the reasons why propagandists used such forced optimism. The end of the month of April marked the end of the bloody defeat of French forces at the chemin des dames, where fighting had started a fortnight earlier. The offensive, according to general nivelle, should have led to the war being decided in forty-eight hours. The issue of the battle was not only a human tragedy but also a catastrophe for the occupied population, who

78 Le Temps, 15 Mar. 1917.79 L’Action française, 22 Sept. 1917.80 Le Courrier de l’air, 27 Apr. 1917.

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had hoped to see the imminent end of the calvary of occupation. in general, morale reached its nadir during the spring of 1917, both in unoccupied and occupied France.81 That said, the rhetoric of press reports gradually altered following the improvement of the situation on the land and in the air, largely thanks to the use of comparative figures that evaluated german and British losses. These statistics concerning german losses show how propagandists had access to official information, which shows once more the interest of military authorities in communication. They were strikingly close to the reality, with the Courrier de l’Air announcing, for example, that on 22 June 1917, sixty-six planes had been destroyed between 13 and 20 July 1917, with sixty-nine pilots or observation officers noted as dead or missing in the german archives.82 it is important to underline the disdain shown by the Courrier de l’Air, which was written by British Military intelligence, for news that concerned French air-men—they were largely ignored. The reasons for this silence were multiple: the desire to promote the British air force, frustration towards the French who had refused to give much place to their ally in La Voix du Pays, and—more prag-matically—the limitations of space.83 This neglect of the French air force was, however, to the detriment of the efficacy of their propaganda which had, as lasswell has emphasized, the fundamental aim of keeping up relations between the allies.84 The consequences were important because some sectors, covered by British aviation, only ever received leaflet drops from the royal Flying corps and (from 1918) the royal Air Force, which caused a de facto blackout of infor-mation on the actions of French aviation as far as the occupied populations were concerned.85

The infantry showed little interest in air operations, which were not well represented in the pages of trench newspapers. nonetheless it seems that this position was due to a lack of communication between aviators and infantry-men, who clearly had little notion of the strategic role of aviation, rather than of a disdainful attitude on the part of the army. it is true that, if aviators frequently started life as infantrymen, the same could not be said in reverse. Some articles nonetheless demonstrated a certain taste for air operations. Thus a speech given by an air captain to the 51st infantry regiment before its move up to the front had a significant success, leading to its being mentioned in the regiment’s main newspaper. The latter organ, in summarizing the presentation, gave a sense of general misunderstanding:

[…]M. de lubersac nous parla des avions de chasse, de bombar-dement et d’observation et nous dit, à ce sujet, maintes choses

81 Audoin-rouzeau and Becker, 1914–1918, 59.82 Le Courrier de l’air, 22 June 1917. losses were verified in n. Franks, F. Bailey and r. duiven,

Casualties of the German Air Service 1914–1920 (london, 1999).83 discussions and criticisms of Courrier de l’air are in n[ational] A[rchives] inF 4B.84 lasswell, Propaganda Technique in World War I, 114.85 For the inter-allied debates: SHd AT 16n1569—16n1571.

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instructives dont les conclusions auraient même été utiles à repro-duire dans ce journal.Beaucoup de conseils judicieux, puisés à la source de l’expérience, seraient à retenir. Poilus, quand vous êtes en lignes, évitez bien tout ce qui pourrait vous faire repérer par votre passage sur les pistes ou sentiers et dans les cantonnements de l’arrière-front, imitez les Boches: pas de lumière!l’avion est un œil surprenant qui voit tout, qui observe tout et il faut bien se convaincre que, si nous sommes ‘marmités’, nous devons parfois nous en prendre à nos propres imprudences où à notre igno-rance. […]86

The infantry in general had a limited view of aviation, which was constructed around the direct, limited and fragmentary experience offered by trench life. it was not founded on the strategic considerations that too often were beyond it. The aerial surveying of the battlefield for the improved accuracy of the artil-lery was touched on with humour but reflected a general anxiety about being confused with german positions.87 The same can be said of the use of captured observation balloons—the famous drachen—which, because of their elongated shape, were called ‘sausages’ in the ribald humour of the French soldier. Jokes on this subject were innumerable and generally turned on this sort of phrase: ‘charcutiers sont demandés de suite pour Saucisse d’observation. S’adresser au journal.’88 Humour—however unsubtle—always had a place in this literature.

i v

it is beyond question that aviation played an important role as one of the themes that helped to galvanize the morale of the French during the First World War. The constant presence of the air force in the home front press, from the very first days of the war, went far beyond its strategic importance; but this con-firms the instrumentalization of its image. nonetheless, we need to avoid the impression that this resulted from a propaganda policy that had been minutely constructed by the French government with the complicity of journalists. The fascination shown before the war with the conquest of the air, attested by thousands of articles published from 1910 to 1914, but also films, photographs and posters, was a determining factor in the promotion of a means of trans-port that would achieve success during the conflict as it was converted to military purposes. it was through the interaction of the public with journalists who wanted to reply to their demands that the subject became omnipresent in the media. it is certainly clear that the army, through communications that gave out the names of victorious pilots, cleverly played the communication

86 La Fourragère, 16–31 dec. 1917.87 These were combined operations between the air force and the artillery destined to improve

the precision of cannon fire; see for example La Fusée à retard, n. 4.88 La Mitraille, Apr. 1916.

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game and that journalists, heavily censored throughout, were imbued with a sense of their patriotic mission in relating information about the air war. We can thus affirm that, for the home front newspapers, the patriotic zeal—the famous ‘bourrage de crânes’ which was sometimes called into question when the population questioned press reports of infantry fighting—was a huge suc-cess in terms of the recounting of the air war.89

At the same time the impact of aviation in the newspapers controlled by the military needs to be weighed carefully. if the press that was destined for occu-pied territories regularly described air operations and willingly denounced the german bombing of the rest of France, they did not exploit to the same extent the myth of the knights of the sky. The risks run by fighter pilots were too impor-tant and could too easily play into the hands of german francophone propa-ganda, which was very active in the occupied zones. Under these circumstances, the air war was used as a propaganda tool mainly to cover over infantry setbacks.

Aviation played only a secondary role in trench newspapers. its occasional mentioning sometimes translated into sarcasm, sometimes curiosity. daily tes-timonies of air activity, such as bombardments or observation balloons, were the most often recorded. These elements show that soldiers were not entirely cut off from the propaganda of the home front. A certain admiration for the myth that surrounded the ‘Flying ace’ came across in the trench newspapers. in spite of what has been suggested later by some veterans and historians, the front was not hermetically sealed off from society. The poilu was above all a citizen of the French nation, and thus partook in the opinions, deceptions and admirations of his compatriots, even when these were mitigated by his excep-tionally difficult experiences at the front.

By examining this form of communication we have been able to shed fur-ther light on the way the subject has been treated in the wider historiography of First World War propaganda. A comparison with the theoretical literature shows that aviation as a subject can generally be pursued along the lines set out by lasswell, ellul or garth Jowett and victoria O’donnell. Thus, the air war did not escape from being instrumentalized as a justification of the French war effort. it allowed the construction of stereotypes that discredited the german nation, and the exacerbation of faith in victory, pursued by controlling public opinion. The fascination generated by everything to do with flying was the root of a real popular dependence on news about the air war that went beyond social or military barriers. Air propaganda certainly contained important paradoxes. Sometimes oversterilized, proclaiming the chivalrous virtues of another day, it could take refuge in an old-fashioned narrative that rested on a naïve vision of the conflict. At other times violent and vindictive, it could also be the precursor of the extreme brutalization of moral codes, announcing in a visionary way the suffering of civilians under the air strikes of the later twentieth century.

89 c. delporte, ‘Journalistes et correspondants de guerre’, in Encyclopédie de la grande guerre: 1914–1918, ed. Audoin-rouzeau and Becker, 720.

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Aviation and propaganda in France during the First World War

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