The drôle de guerre on the Maginot Line: Soldiers and civilians in Alsace-Lorraine, September 1939 to June 1940

Passmore, Kevin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3522-8577 2025. The drôle de guerre on the Maginot Line: Soldiers and civilians in Alsace-Lorraine, September 1939 to June 1940. French Historical Studies 48 (1) , pp. 101-137. 10.1215/00161071-11503592

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Abstract

In September 1939 half the population of Alsace-Lorraine was evacuated or mobilized outside the province and replaced by one million troops from the “interior.” The 1939–40 campaign therefore provides an ideal way to explore Alsace-Lorraine's position in France. While some historians argue that Alsace-Lorrainers’ experience of the Phoney War caused a “crisis of national sentiment,” revisionist military historians present convincing evidence that relations between “interior French” and Alsace-Lorrainers were good. This article uses dialogical methods to reconcile these interpretations and argues that national loyalty was never unconditional or unreflecting. Interior French and Alsace-Lorrainers’ stereotypes concerning each other were contradictory and mediated by mixed views of Germany. Practical interactions between interior French and Alsace-Lorrainers were entangled with gender, class, and religious divides and depended on what was at stake in different contexts. The article shows how relations varied in the pillaged evacuated zone, between soldiers and civilians in nonevacuated villages, and in military units. Even in the extreme situation of combat, protagonists continued to calculate. If anyone experienced a crisis of national sentiment, it was the interior French.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion
Publisher:	Duke University Press
ISSN:	0016-1071
Funders:	Leverhulme Trust, British Academy
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 September 2023
Date of Acceptance:	8 September 2023
Last Modified:	27 Feb 2025 10:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/162352

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