Comenius project presentation

1. 1900-1945: Europe in Times of
War and the Desire for Peace.

2. 1.War and Peace in the 20th century.
2.Propaganda
3. Pacifism

3. 1. War and Peace in the 20th Century
 The 20th century was the most murderous in recorded history. The total number of deaths caused
by or associated with its wars has been estimated at 187 million, more than 10% of the world’s
population in 1913. Taken as having begun in 1914 it, it was a century of almost unbroken war,
dominated by world wars.
 This century cannot be treated as a single block, chronologically it falls into 3 periods:
 The era of world war centred on Germany (1914 to 1945)
 The era of confrontation between the two superpowers aka Cold War (1945 to 1989)
 The era since the end of the classic international power system
 An important characteristics of war in the 20th century is the erosion of the distinction between
combatants and non-combatants. The two world wars of the first half of the century involved the
entire population of countries at war; both combatants and non-combatants suffered. In the course
of the century the burden of the war shifted from armed forces to civilians, who were first the
victims the the object of military or military-political operations.
 The contrast between WWI and WWII is dramatic: 5% of those who died in WWI were civilians,
in WWII the figure increased to 66%, 80% is today a realistic figure.

4. French Casualties WW1
Monuments aux Morts are French War memorials
commemorating the heavy losses of WWI. Over
36.000 monuments have been built so people would
remember the 1.327.000 soldiers killed.

5. War Memorials
Though most memorials celebrate the glorious
dead some denounce war with figures of
grieving widows, orphans or wounded soldiers.

6. World Casualties WWII

7. Strategic Bombing
Strategic bombing during World War II includes
any government undertaking independent air
campaigns of a clearly strategic intent. This
includes the sustained bombing of railways,
harbours, workers' housing, and industrial districts
in enemy territory.
Chambéry (France)
Dresden (Germany) London (United Kingdom)

8. 2. Propaganda
 Propaganda is the use of various media to
influence public opinion by presenting
selective information, or lying by omission.
Magazines, television, radio, internet and such
things have all become instruments
propaganda and political warfare. Though
very elusive propaganda can be defined as
"the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape
perceptions, manipulate cognition, and direct
behaviour to achieve a response that furthers
the desired intent of the propagandist.
 The First World War was the first war in
which the mass media played a significant
part in disseminating news from the Fighting
Front to the Home Front. It was also the first
war to target systematically produced
government propaganda at the general public.
All the belligerents were therefore compelled
to recognise that they had to justify the
righteousness of the war and, to this end,
themes such as patriotism and nationalism
played an important role.

9. 2. Propaganda
 By 1918, it had become clear that
propaganda was a fact of modern society. For
some it represented the solution to the
challenges of the twentieth century; for
others, its greatest threat. The sheer volume
and intensity of the literature on propaganda
published in the interwar period, largely in
response to its deployment in the First World
War, attests both to its contemporary
importance and to its contested status. This
literature established a series of assumptions
(now largely discredited by scholars) that
were difficult to dislodge: propaganda was an
unseen, almost mystic, force in society that
could manipulate the thoughts and behaviour
of the vulnerable masses at will. Its success
was undoubted and the repercussions for both
liberal democracy and for fledgling European
dictatorships considerable.

10. Le Canard enchaîné ( English: The Chained Duck or The Chained Paper) is a satirical newspaper
published weekly since 1915. It was founded to resist militarist propaganda during WWI and fight
censorship. It continued to publish and grow in popularity and influence until it was forced to
suspend publication during the occupation of France in 1940 and resume publication after WWII.
Many of the Canard's early contributors were members of the Communist and Socialist parties, but
it shed its alignment with those groups in the 1920s.
Its current owners are not tied to any political or economic group. It now avoids any political
alignment, and has gained a reputation for publishing incriminating stories and criticizing any
political party with no preference. The Canard does not accept any advertisements.
Newspapers were expected to print what the
government wanted the reader to read. These
were designed to develop and strengthen the
current of hatred that was already engendered in
France. The same thing was done in every
participating country– untrue headlines were
tolerated and even encouraged by the authorities.
During World War I, postal censorship was in
force, as the authorities thought it necessary to
control the public's morale and thus engaged in a
sort of psychological warfare. Censorship was
current during the war, leading to the creation of
Le Canard enchaîné.

11. 3. Pacifism
The word “pacifisme” first occurs in France at the
beginning of the 20th century. The word was coined
by French peace activist Emile Arnaud and adopted
at the 10th Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in
1901.
Quite a large number of dictionaries and
encyclopaedias and most historians define Pacifism
as “an unconditional rejection of all form of
warfare”. Pacifists reject war and believe there is no
moral grounds which can justify resorting to war.
War, for the pacifist, is always wrong.
French pacifism covers the whole political
spectrum from far right to far left.
Socialist Party poster campaingning for general
disarmament.

12. While French schoolteachers of the late nineteenth century have been celebrated for teaching
patriotism and converting 'peasants into Frenchmen', their interwar counterparts have enjoyed little
such acclaim. Once the war was over, teachers saw themselves as the caretakers of the national
memory. But in the highly nationalistic period following the war, the question became what exactly
was that memory and how should it be shaped? How should one teach about the events of 1914-
1918? Textbooks published between 1918 and 1924 tended to portray the war as a triumph of
French courage and unity. The books stressed German atrocities and French heroism and urged
French schoolchildren above all, "Do Not Forget!" Ironically, what did get forgotten in these texts
were casualties, the participation of women, and the grim realities of four years of bloodletting.
Contemporary critics have condemned French pacifist schoolteachers of the interwar decades for
cultivating anti patriotism and facilitating the defeat of 1940. Drawn to pacifist ideals in the
aftermath of World War I, schoolteachers sought to 'morally disarm' the nation by purging their
classrooms of the militaristic images, symbols, narratives, and values that had led their generation
to accept war without question in 1914. At the same time, however, their teaching remained rooted
in longstanding patriotic and republican traditions.

13. A current of discourse had emerged among soldiers and
civilians that condemned the war as a meaningless
slaughter. This language was given political shape by a
nucleus of dissident socialists and pacifists who blamed
the Allies as much as the Germans for the catastrophe and
turned war into the absolute enemy. From 1925, one of
their leading figures, Victor Marguerite, ran an influential
campaign for “moral disarmament”.
The more mainstream language of pacifism was that
based on arbitration, collective security and international
law. Such ideas were rooted in nineteenth-century
liberalism and had received their first enactment at the
Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 and the
setting up of the League of Nations.
The League of Nations was set up in the hope that
international cooperation and collective resistance to
aggression might prevent another war. Members of the
League were entitled to the assistance of other members if
they came under attack. The policy of collective security
ran in parallel with measures to achieve international
disarmament and where possible was to be based on
economic sanctions against an aggressor.

14. In 1926, the French Foreign Minister, Aristide Briand, received the German delegation at Geneva
as Germany entered the League of Nations. On this highly symbolic occasion, he declared:
« Is it not a moving spectacle [...] that barely a few years after the most frightful war that has ever
convulsed the world, when the battlefields are still almost damp with blood [...] the same peoples
which clashed so roughly meet in this peaceful assembly and affirm mutually their common desire
to collaborate in the work of universal peace? [...]
Messieurs, peace for France and Germany means that the series of painful and bloody encounters
that has stained every page of history is over; over too, are the long veils of mourning for
sufferings which will never ease. No more wars, no more brutal and bloody solutions to our
differences! [...] Away with rifles, machine-guns, cannon! Make way for conciliation, for
arbitration, for peace!

15. Chamberlain's policy of appeasement emerged from the failure of the League of Nations to
enforce collective security. It appeared to be ineffectual when confronted by the aggression of
dictators, notably Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland, and Italy's invasion of Abyssinia.
The Munich Agreement was a settlement permitting Nazi Germany’s annexion of portions of
Czechoslovakia along the country's borders mainly inhabited by German speakers: Sudetenland.
The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers
of Europe: Germany, Italy, Great Britain and France.
Today, it is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement toward Germany.
“Pourquoi mourir pour Danzig? (Why Die For Danzig) was the title of an article by Neo-
Socialist Marcel Déat, published on May 4, 1939 in the Parisian newspaper L’Œuvre. The article
concerned one of the Nazi ultimatums to the Second Polish Republic, regarding the demand to
transfer control of the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk) to Germany. In the article, Déat argued in
favour of the appeasement policy. He asserted that France had no interest in defending Poland, and
that Hitler would be satisfied after receiving the territory he (rightfully, according to Déat)
demanded.
Opposition to World War II was mostly vocal during the early part of World War II, and stronger
still before the war started while appeasement and isolationism were considered viable diplomatic
options. In France PCF (French Communist Party) and Communist-led organizations
including veterans of the Spanish Civil War, opposed the war during the period of the Hitler-Stalin
Pact but then turned into hawks after Germany invaded the Soviet Union.