The Arithmetic of Loss

Every French family was touched by death. The statistics, though staggering, only hint at the catastrophe: 1.4 million military dead from a population of 39 million meant one in 28 French citizens died in uniform. Among men aged 19-22 in 1914, one in three died. Entire graduating classes from the grandes écoles vanished. The École Normale Supérieure lost 50% of its mobilized students. Saint-Cyr military academy's class of 1914 suffered 80% casualties.

But numbers dissolve into abstraction. The human reality emerges in individual stories. Madame Périn of Nantes lost all four sons—Jean at the Marne, Pierre at Verdun, Louis in Champagne, and youngest Paul just weeks before the armistice. She continued setting five places at dinner, unable to accept their absence. When neighbors suggested she remove the empty chairs, she replied: "They might come home hungry."

Rural communities bore disproportionate losses. The village of Trévières in Normandy sent 47 men to war; 19 died, 12 returned wounded. The village teacher, recording losses, noted patterns of devastation: "The three Dubois brothers, the Leclerc twins, both Martel sons. Entire family lines ended. Who will work these farms? Who will marry our daughters? We saved France but lost our future."

Class differences appeared in death rates. Junior officers, leading attacks, suffered 19% casualties—higher than enlisted men. Working-class soldiers, often assigned to assault units, died at higher rates than bourgeois soldiers who secured safer positions through connections. Colonial troops, repeatedly used as shock forces, suffered casualties sometimes exceeding 80% in single battles.

The geographic distribution of losses created lasting disparities. Departments near the front—Pas-de-Calais, Somme, Marne—lost proportionally more men. Brittany, providing numerous infantry regiments, was devastated. The Midi, further from fighting and with more men in support roles, suffered less. These disparities fueled postwar resentments and political divisions.