Les Désorientés
Expériences des soldats français aux Dardanelles et en Macédoine, 1915-1918
More than 80,000 French soldiers were sent to the Dardanelles in 1915 by a reluctant government, in a poorly prepared and poorly organized expedition, condemned to failure. When this failure became evident, the survivors were sent to Salonika for another, even more important, expedition to Macedonia; more than 400,000 French soldiers have taken part in the French Oriental Expeditionary Force. The soldiers were leaving with apprehension towards the unknown, but the words Constantinople, Eas...
Read more
- Publisher : Presses de l’Inalco
- Series : MéditerranéeS
- Place of publication : Paris
- Year of publication : 2019
- Published on OpenEdition Books : 17 avril 2019
- EAN (Print version) : 9782858313006
- Electronic EAN : 9782858312993
- DOI : 10.4000/books.pressesinalco.20209
- Number of pages : 296 p.
Going to the East
Η αναχώρηση προς την Ανατολή
The Dardanelles through the perception of actors
Οι Δαρδανέλες μέσα από την αντίληψη των εκεί παρόντων
War in Macedonia
Πόλεμος στη Μακεδονία
Surviving in Macedonia
Επιβίωση στη Μακεδονία
Thessaloniki, the breathing place of the army of Macedonia
Θεσσαλονίκη, ο «πνεύμονας» του στρατού της Μακεδονίας
«Why are we here? What are we doing here?»
«Γιατί είμαστε εδώ; Τι κάνουμε εδώ;»
A deep moral crisis
Μια βαθιά ηθική κρίση
More than 80,000 French soldiers were sent to the Dardanelles in 1915 by a reluctant government, in a poorly prepared and poorly organized expedition, condemned to failure. When this failure became evident, the survivors were sent to Salonika for another, even more important, expedition to Macedonia; more than 400,000 French soldiers have taken part in the French Oriental Expeditionary Force. The soldiers were leaving with apprehension towards the unknown, but the words Constantinople, East and Greece, reminded them of pleasant literary visions, they liked; as their family and the general staff headquarters, they knew nothing about the country.
Their memoirs show that the realities were anything but pleasant: natural conditions, climate, supplies, equipment, ammunition, diseases; but their correspondence, censored and self‑censored, says nothing of that in France and the press is silent. On the contrary, it spreads the image of the pleasures of Salonica that can be known by the officers and the correspondents of press, image which will remain after the war and makes that their contribution to the victory of the allies will be underestimated. Their sufferings and their sacrifices are ignored, they are thought to be “hidden” from the real war, bathing in the sun. There is great bitterness among them: they understand that to win Constantinople is impossible, they find that Macedonia does not look like the Greece of their dreams, that not all populations are Greek and that even the Greeks are not happy to see them. So why go and die so far from home when your own government abandons you, how does it help to defend France?
This book, fed by memoirs and moving memories of the soldiers, testifies at the same time of their conditions of life and extremely difficult fight, of the moral crisis that they lived and gives us data about the life in Macedonia as they have discovered with all its diversity.
© Presses de l’Inalco, 2019
Terms of use: http://www.openedition.org/6540