Maurice Barrès' "L'Ame française et la Guerre"

 Throughout World War I, Maurice Barrès (1862-1923) wrote daily articles for the newspaper L'Echo de Paris (The Echo of Paris).  These articles are often classed as propaganda, as Barrès was a zealous supporter of a military defeat of Germany; he is considered a proponent of jusqu'auboutisme, "until-the-end-ism."  This is fitting, since he was president of the League of Patriots, specifically formed to encourage the French people to exact revenge (Revanche) on Germany for the horrors of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, and to train citizens for military service.  

Throughout the course of the war, large anthologies of Barrès' Echo articles were published in the 11-volume collection L'Ame française et la Guerre (The French Soul and the War) (Paris: Émile-Paul Frères, Éditeurs, 1915-1920).  Confusingly, the eleventh volume was labelled as "Volume 12."  Once the war was over, the complete collection of all of Barrès' Echo articles was published in a 14-volume collection, Chronique de la Grande Guerre (Chronicle of the Great War) (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1920-1924).  

Barrès' articles can make for interesting reading, with their hodgepodge of travelogues, history lessons, first-hand account of battles (often by simply reprinting letters he received from soldiers at the front), political happenings, and other odds and ends.  

Various selections of these articles have been published over the years; most recently, a 1000+ page selection was published last fall: Maurice Barrès, Chronique de la Grande Guerre, ed. Denis Pernot and Vital Rambaud (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2023).  Large selections of Barrès' other writings, particularly his novels and travelogues, can be found in the two-volume Romans et Voyages published by Laffont in their Bouquins collection.  An English translation of one of his essays is available for Kindle: The Land and the Dead: On Some Realities Foundational to the French Conscience.

Though I have been unable to find scans of all of the Chronique (volumes X-XII can be found at Gallica, which is a pain to use; Volume II can be found on Internet Archive, while Volume III can be found at Google Books), I have found scans of the full L'Ame française.  Links are below:


I: L’Union Sacré  (The Sacred Union) (1915): https://books.google.com/books?id=p9s1AAAAMAAJ

II: Les Saints de la France (The Saints of France) (1915): https://books.google.com/books?id=9VZdAsoZO28C

III: La Croix de Guerre (The Cross of War) (1916): https://books.google.com/books?id=NxzFAAAAMAAJ

IV: L’Amitié des Tranchées (The Friendship of the Trenches) (1916): https://books.google.com/books?id=MN01AAAAMAAJ

V: Les Voyages de Lorraine et d’Artois (Voyages to Lorraine and Artois) (1916):  https://books.google.com/books?id=RRdtAAAAIAAJ

VI: Pour les Mutilés (For the Mutilated) (1917): https://books.google.com/books?id=ZJFPAAAAYAAJ

VII: Sur le Chemin de l’Asie (On the Way to Asia) (1918): https://books.google.com/books?id=rTnFAAAAMAAJ

VIII: Le Suffrage des Morts (The Suffrage of the Dead) (1919): https://books.google.com/books?id=gJNPAAAAYAAJ

IX: Pendant la Bataille de Verdun (During the Battle of Verdun) (1919): https://books.google.com/books?id=nJRPAAAAYAAJ

X: Voyage en Angleterre (Voyage to England) (1919): https://books.google.com/books?id=T5NPAAAAYAAJ

XII: Les Tentacules de la Pieuvre (The Tentacles of the Octopus) (1920): https://books.google.com/books?id=lfvD96ht0EoC

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