Tag Archives: France

Jules Ferry: On French Colonial Expansion

Posted on by

Author – Ferry was a French statesman and republican and was also the prime minister of France from 1880-1881 and again from 1883-1885. He is remembered for his dislike of the power and influence of the Catholic church on education, and he was a strong promoter of the expansion of the French colonial empire.

Context – From the “Speech Before the French Chamber of Deputies, March 28, 1884.” Published during the second wave of the Industrial Revolution. He was witness to Liberalism and Nationalism arising in France and the nation building period in various countries. In 1884 the Sino French War occurred, in which France fought the Chinese over Vietnam.

Language – Written in a very clear and organized way. Asked many questions to his audience and wrote in convincing and influential tone.

Audience – Written for the educated and powerful French Chamber of Deputies.

Intent – His intent was to call attention to the duty of the superior races and inspire the French to overtake less powerful nations but be aware of the rising powers around them.

Message – His message contained his idea of the power of the French and his strong belief in their colonial expansion. He declared that it was the right and duty of the superior races to civilize other inferior races and this would allow economic exploitation by France. He said the expansion was necessary because it would give France important harbors and supply centers on the sea that would be necessary during a war. Great nations are only great through the actions that they employ and France needs to be active and take part in what’s going on around them in order to be a great nation.

 

French politics and culture

Posted on by

The arrival of a new political philosophy in France which resulted from the revolution and the changes in France’s popular culture in the 1790s were heavily interrelated. Nearly every aspect of France’s new influx of culture was influenced by the contempt for the old French monarchy. The people made concerted efforts to move as far away from the oppression of the previous regime as possible and into an era of reason and rationality. Deism grew vastly in popularity, at least partially to repudiate the monarchy’s claim of divine right rule, by which a king could exercise his power by claiming to have been administered it by God himself. Deism proclaimed a separation between God and humans, that God created humans and then left them to their own devices, which directly contradicted the claim of divine right rule. In addition to their religion, the French made many other attempts to erase any evidence of the past monarchy. In chess and card games the kings and queens were discarded and forgotten; street names were altered if they contained any reference to the monarchy; and old festivals and flags were replaced. The old calendar was completely revamped in favor of a more logical date-keeping system, with 10 day weeks and holidays like Reason Day and Genius Day. These drastic changes in French culture were caused primarily out of a desire to leave behind the forced acquiescence imposed by the monarchy and into a society where reason, rationality, and justice held supreme. As the political system and ideologies changed, so did the culture of the French people, proving the profound interconnectedness of the two.

The Great French Transition

Posted on by

The French Revolution was the first major upheaval of state run institutions that resulted in the under appreciated getting what they desired. As a result of the turnover from a Kingdom to a Republic, the first and second estate were brought to its knees by the populace, who in turn were able to demand a change in how they were governed. This transitionary period modified everything about French culture – everything had become more secular and new-age. The populace began to think for itself instead of being roped in with what the clergy and monarchs wanted them to believe. The tax system was thrown out the window as it unfairly put the burden on the poor and kept them under the foot of the rich in terms of finances. People began to realize that they deserved those “inalienable rights”, and if they fought for them, they would be able to live as freely as they desired. The fact that those people were beginning to think for themselves was the most important facet of the revolution – they began to realize that they didn’t need to be under they tyrannical system of government that they had suffered through so long.

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/images/athens.jpg

This Age of Enlightenment allowed many great ideas to flow through Europe. Since they were encouraged to think freely and “outside of the box”, great minds (Locke, Voltaire, Newton, etc.) were able to express their new age ideas in public forums, making the community a more conscious set of individuals. As they were now able to come up with their own ideas and spread them without the threat of persecution or death, many people invented tools that we use today (metric system, art, scientific method). Being able to think freely allowed these special people to spur on the most revolutionary time period since the Renaissance, and we thank them for it.

 

Mazower, Chapter 5

Posted on by

In Chapter 5 of Dark Continent, Mazower details the ideology of Hitler’s new order and the policies that were implemented to bring it about. At the beginning of the chapter, he explains the appeal of German Fascism (Nazism) to other European countries at the outbreak of World War II. He
illustrates this change in sentiment and perspective using statistics.

In one instance, Mazower uses France to explain this type of change in 1940. In June of 1940, France suffered a humiliating defeat in six-weeks at the hands of the German Army. This humiliation dramatically shifted how the French as a whole responded to the Nazi’s invasion. Mazower wanted to illustrate that the French began to support the Nazi political ideology, believing that supporting the new governments (the occupying government and Vichy France) was better than continuing the fight.

To emphasize this evolution, Mazower cites an increase in the number of students at the Berlitz in Paris studying German, and the decrease in students taking English classes. Mazower does not explain these numbers, however. There is no explanation listed for why this change in classes at university is important to the larger perspective of the war, or the political and social climates in France.

Mazower compares in the Berlitz example the number of students in German classes in 1939 and 1941. He does not offer any more information. There is no interpretation of these numbers. No possible reasons for the increase in students in these classes. Did the school pressure students to switch from English to German so that the occupying Nazis would not closely scrutinize the school and its practices? Did the students do this to avoid trouble from other students, faculty, administrators and Nazis?

It is interesting that Mazower uses this example, followed closely by an explanation about how positive attitudes towards the Nazi occupations throughout Europe were quick to disappear, including in France. He cites a radical change in perspective occurring within two to three months of the Occupation.

The issue with the argument Mazower makes using the numbers is that he does not provide enough context to explain why the number of students taking German increases. These numbers are used in isolation, with no information about how other occurrences in France affected this and no comparisons to other institutions in Paris or France.

Why would so many students (939 increased to 7,920) have decided to take German after the Invasion and Occupation of France?

“Boycotting French Fashion Goods”

Posted on by

The “Boycott of French Fashion Goods” excerpt from the Weimar Sourcebook focused on French Fashion’s place in German society. This piece encouraged a boycott of all French Fashion. Items could be inspired by French Fashion and made in Germany or other countries, but nothing bought could be of French origin.

It was interesting to discover that this boycott took place in 1933. This was about 15 years after the Treaty of Versailles. The fact that there was still such a level of animosity between the two countries at this point in time is very telling. Fashion was one of the areas of commerce that France was noted for. It was one of the countries that produced the styles that would be worn throughout the world. A boycott from this industry could have had a major impact on the market.

The economic crisis of the early 1930s brought about a series of tariffs in Europe and throughout the world that were meant to protect individual countries’ interests and markets. It could be argued that this boycott was another way to protect German interests. This was probably true; however, this was most certainly not the central reason. If the goal were to protect German markets through tariffs and boycotts, this piece would have encouraged a boycott of clothing from all non-German manufacturers and designers. Instead, this boycott focused on France. This piece specifically cites France’s invasion of the Ruhr Valley as a moment of hostility that made it impossible for Germany to support French businesses as Germans were dying at the hands of these businesses’ countrymen.

The situation between France and Germany was extremely tenuous throughout the Interwar Period due to the Treaty of Versailles and the attitude that the French had when facing the Germans: the idea that Germany was entirely to blame for the war; and that Germany needed to be punished for its actions so that it could never create another grand war again.

This attitude created such animosity between the two nations that Germany sought to punish France in return by attacking important aspects of their economy. Did this impact other areas of the French economy as well? Wine trade for instance? Did this boycott even have a great affect on the French market?

Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier

Posted on by

Chapter IV of George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier made many interesting points about poverty and housing conditions in Interwar England. Orwell developed a very in depth study of the living conditions and how this may have affected the psyche of the inhabitants.

The Interwar Period was very concerned with behavior and order, especially in the wake of the Great War’s chaos. Psychology was one way in which many scholars began to try to understand the actions of both society and the individual. This type of study also began to influence other academic areas, like History, Anthropology and Literature. Orwell demonstrates, in questioning the behavior of this group, how various areas of study had become more interwoven.

Orwell at one point in Chapter IV discusses how some impoverished families portrayed themselves as more economically comfortable. Many Corporation houses seem to have been filled with well-maintained furniture; these items seemed to belong in a more financially stable house—a family that is not living at or below the poverty line. Orwell argues “it is in the rooms upstairs that the gauntness of poverty really discloses itself.” (60) He believes that it is a matter of pride to protect the nicer, more valuable pieces of furniture so that the family can appear to be less impoverished. These had most likely been passed down within the family throughout generations. It is the items that need to be bought every few years or months that were more difficult for these families to afford (i.e. bedclothes), and therefore, fewer families in more desperate financial situations had access to many basic items, like bedclothes.

This excerpt shares some similarities with Leora Auslanders’s article “’National Taste?’ Citizenship Law, State Form, and Everyday Aesthetics in Modern France and Germany, 1920-1940.” Both pieces referred to the tendency to “keep up with the Joneses.” How did this idea, needing to present a better image to the public or society, reflect larger themes from this period? Was this a reaction to the chaos of the war? Or a reaction to the uncertainty of the period? Or would this type of behavior have occurred regardless of wars, death and economic troubles?

Eugenics in Interwar Europe

Posted on by

“Eugenics is the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage,” states Francis Galton in his article, Eugenics: It’s Definition, Scope, and Aims in July 1904. Eugenic ideas spread through out Europe following the First World War. While eugenics is supposed to be about race quality, it became prevalent in interwar Europe mainly due to fear, and the need to transfer blame.

In National Self-Sufficiency, John Maynard Keynes states that England’s vast trading network was “the explanation before man and the justification before Heaven of her economic supremacy.” This statement reflects the views of most European countries; their respective races were superiorto all others. After WWI, Europe began to lose control of its colonies. For example, the British were facing resistance to their rule in India. In addition to this, natives of those colonies were immigrating to the mother nations; there were Algerians in France and Chinese in England, to name a few. To nations that had been mainly of homogenous race up to this point, this immigration was a shock and an unwelcome change. Fear began to spread among whites of these people with different skin color, culture and language. Whites needed a way to establish themselves as the superior race and to keep their race pure. Thus, they turned to eugenics.

Not only was Europe physically destroyed by WWI, the global economic crisis of 1929 ruined its still weak economies. A general sense that someone needed to be blamed was felt through out the continent; who better to blame than these new races or less superior races within European nations? Especially in Germany, who shouldered the majority of the blame, according to the Treaty of Versailles, for WWI, this need was felt; the blame was placed mainly the Jews. During WWI, Jews held the majority of the seats in German parliament, and were the ones who agreed to a cease-fire. After the war, German officers came forward and said that they could have won if it weren’t for the armistice. This fueled hatred for the Jews. Eugenics became popular as a scientific way to justify this hatred. In this German eugenics propaganda poster, Germans are being told that they must take the burden for degenerates and those who are not as genetically fit. Taking these attitudes into account, it is not surprising that the Holocaust occurred.

Eugenics was a recognized science in Europe during the interwar period. Eugenists and those who supported eugenics were not extremists, but were close to mainstream thought. Eugenics was driven by fear and the search for an outlet for blame, and was itself an underlying factor in the Second World War.

source for picture: http://www.disabilityhistory.org/dd_camp2.html

naziprop

Eugenics in the Modern Socialist State

Posted on by
Nazi Eugenics Poster

Nazi Eugenics Poster

With the rise of the modern socialist state, states now found themselves responsible for the well-being of their citizens. Because of the physical and mental capabilities of some citizens, many countries in Europe during the inter-war period began to advocate and implement eugenics programs in order to decrease the strain and burden on the bureaucratic system.

States such as France and Germany began to give benefits to its working class; the right to vote, improved health care, education, etc to name a few. All of these rights have costs and benefits to the state, costs that are worth every penny IF the citizen is a healthy and productive member of society. However, in the case of unproductive members (mentally challenged, “undesirables”, crippled, etc) they can act as a burden on the state. Thus, in order to provide for productive members in times of an economic crisis, citizens began to advocate and help implement eugenics into European society.

As demonstrated above, eugenics were not promoted by showing the end result of the people in question; rather, eugenics was promoted through propaganda using imagery designed to show the dead weight that the “unproductive” citizens were sharing with those who were productive. The ubermensch German is shown to carry the sick and deformed as part of their duty to the state while the freeloaders ride on his shoulders. This sort of imagery in the times of a recession agreed with citizens view points on making sure that they survived the crisis. Because of this agreement, citizens began to implement such programs as eugenics, leading to the Holocaust.

 

Photo Credit: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/05/04/is-eugenics-reemerging-if-so-what-would-happen-to-these-heroes-with-special-needs/

Eugenics in Interwar Europe

Posted on by

film-eternal-jew

http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/archive/film-eternal-jew/

This is a German poster for a government scripted movie, entitled the “The Eternal Jew”. It is described as a documentary, but a cursory glance at the poster reveals that it is a eugenics motivated propaganda film. The features of the Jew on the cover are deliberately depicted as ugly and evil, reminiscent of a witch from the tales of the Brothers Grimm. This movie was released in 1940, and represents the exaggerated European eugenicist view of “degenerates” (Stone, 98) during the interwar period.

The Nazi racialization of the state is well known, but according to Stone, race was a primary criterion even in Britain (Stone, 95). The image of a class based British Eugenicist Society was created by the Society after the Second World War and the disastrous culmination of racial eugenics in the Third Reich (Stone, 98-9). The difference between British eugenics and continental eugenics was their motive. Britain used eugenics to maintain the social hierarchy within the nation (Stone, 94), and to maintain supremacy over the Empire (Stone, 97). On the other hand, Italian and German ‘research’ was motivated by state ideology. Additionally, the methods implemented were very different. While Britain (Stone, 98), Italy (Willson, 84-6), and Germany (Mazower, 76) all advocated pro-natalism in a racial capacity, the former two were only able to legislate moderate laws, which were largely ineffective (Willson, 92-3), whereas the latter had more control over state policy and policing. Thus Eugenics had a greater effect in a German State that believed that blood descent, rather than assimilation, was the only claim to citizenship (Auslander, 110). Finally, while France believed that one could become a citizen through assimilation (Auslander, 110), they were still a colonial power who believed in the natural savageness of their colonial subjects.

In conclusion, it can be noted that Eugenics was an important debate in interwar Europe, but to varying degrees of implementation and success. State policies on women and families might have been influenced by these debates, but it must also be remembered that Europe had just suffered a large population loss due to the Great War. Therefore, these policies were also influenced by economic motives.

Eugenics and Citizenship

Posted on by

In Leora Auslander’s ‘National Taste’? she explains how the German and French populations addressed questions about the conceptions of citizenship by examining the tastes and preferences of various citizens within specific regions and also the nation-state as a whole. Although each country had its own unique concept of citizenship; the French interpreted citizenship using a just soli policy (citizenship determined by region of birth), whereas in Germany citizenship was determined by ancestral lineage and blood lines, both cultures developed their own “language of goods.” This “language of goods” enabled citizens to look beyond the mere race or appearance of a person and instead focus on their material possessions to gain a cohesiveness between distinct social groups and form a national identity. The Jewish populations were oftentimes ostracized and blamed for many of the misfortunes that proceeded WWI without just cause. In reality they were not culturally different from the non-jewish citizens, they were incorporated into either German or French societies, forming a part of the nation-state and adopting the accepted customs.  

In chapter four of Dan Stone’s Breeding Superman he examines the relationship between race and social class that existed in British eugenic theory throughout the interwar period. The racial component of eugenics has always existed, however Britain has been traditionally viewed as a government that focused primarily on the social components of eugenics while disregarding that of race. Stone explains how this is a misconception because the reality is that the racial and social components are inseparable. Many British officials believed in a racial hierarchy that saw white Europeans at the top and black Africans at the bottom. While policy makers sought to boost their respective populations, they wished to do so in a manner that limited the reproduction of the unproductive and parasitic social classes, and the ‘inferior races’ as well. The Nazi government of the Third Reich is singled out for their racist policies, and although they implemented these policies to an extreme degree, they were by no means the only country to do so. It was a common practice throughout most of Europe.