Propaganda and Morale

Maintaining home front morale became crucial state function. Propaganda, crude initially, grew sophisticated. Posters depicted Germans as barbarians—the "rape of Belgium" proved endlessly useful. French virtue confronted Teutonic brutality. Colonial soldiers appeared as loyal sons defending civilization alongside metropolitan brothers.

Newspapers, strictly censored, published optimistic accounts. Defeats became "strategic withdrawals," catastrophic losses were minimized. The mutinies of 1917 went unreported. Journalists who questioned official versions faced imprisonment. The gap between official propaganda and soldiers' letters home created credibility problems that grew as war lengthened.

Cultural mobilization supported propaganda. Sarah Bernhardt, though elderly and one-legged, performed for troops. The Comédie-Française staged patriotic classics. Music halls presented revues mocking Germans while celebrating French virtue. The cinema, still young, produced melodramas featuring heroic soldiers and faithful wives.

Yet morale erosion was evident by 1917. Police reports chronicled growing defeatism. Strikes increased despite union leaders' patriotic restraint. Women demonstrated against food shortages. The Russian Revolution inspired French leftists. Pacifist propaganda, though illegal, circulated clandestinely. The arrest of Joseph Caillaux and Louis Malvy for "defeatism" showed government panic about home front collapse.

Religion provided comfort for many. Church attendance increased dramatically. Wives prayed for husbands' safety, mothers for sons' return. The cult of the Sacred Heart experienced revival. Joan of Arc's canonization process accelerated—the warrior virgin became patron of French resistance. Yet anticlericalism persisted. Socialist women mocked "priests who bless cannons while preaching peace."