Les Etats-Unis dans l’imaginaire français

« The “Grande République” or the “Oncle d’Amérique”: the French State School System and the United States’ War Effort 1914-1919 ».

Cet article fait suite à une communication présentée au colloque “Varieties of Experience: Views of Modern Warfare” / « Regards croisés sur les guerres modernes » organisé par le centre LSA de l’ERIBIA – EA 2610 – Caen, France en mai 2010.

Résumé  : L’impact de l’arrivée des troupes américaines en France pendant la Première Guerre mondiale fait l’objet de travaux incomplets. Les archives de l’Instruction publique en France fournissent une source inattendue. Pour maintenir le moral, l’effort américain a été instrumentalisé par les autorités françaises en s’appuyant sur deux arguments reliés, les républiques sœurs et la puissance américaine. World War 1 Propaganda PostersAvant l’entrée en guerre des États-Unis d’Amérique, des contacts diplomatiques culturels furent noués et le Ministère de l’Instruction publique se servait de l’exemple américain pour maintenir espoir à l’issue de la guerre.

Avec l’arrivée des « Sammies », les organisations volontaires à l’œuvre dans les camps auprès des soldats américains rayonnèrent. Ces programmes d’aide continuèrent après l’Armistice et servirent de modèle à des campagnes de santé publique et de culture populaire en France, coordonnés par le Ministère de l’Éducation. World War 1 Propaganda PostersAu final, les exemples américains fournis par la littérature officielle ne furent qu’une aide de plus dans la rhétorique de guerre, où l’oncle d’Amérique reste un parent providentiel mais lointain, admiré et membre de la famille, mais distant.

Pour lire l’article :

Susan Finding, « The “Grande République” or the “Oncle d’Amérique”: the French State School System and the United States’ War Effort 1914-1919 », Revue LISA/LISA e-journal [Online], Vol. X – n° 1 | 2012, Online since 12 March 2012, connection on 14 March 2012. URL : http://lisa.revues.org/4858 ; DOI : 10.4000/lisa.4858

Renouveau du parti libéral? Les leçons de l’histoire

The fortunes of the Liberal Party between 1906 and 1924 can be summarized as having gone from the foremost political force with a landslide victory and triumphant government to the third party (which, in a bipartite electoral system, means the loser losses all) with little electoral support and no real influence on either politics or policy. The debate in the historiography has hinged on the reasons for what with hindsight can be termed terminal decline, leading to the disappearance of the great 19th century political force and tradition to a rump of a few dozen MPs (or less) having little impact on the course of affairs in the 20th century.

This decline was so marked that the first books which addressed the issue used the terms ‘death’ (George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England 1910-1914, first published in 1935) or ‘downfall’. Trevor Wilson’s book, The Downfall of the Liberal Party, 1914-1935 (1966) provides an alternative timescale for the demise.2

That there was a decline there is no doubt. What caused it, and therefore when to date it back to, gives rise to much discussion. Was the Liberal Party the agent of its own predicament or was it merely a victim of circumstance? Analysts have detected reasons to believe that the internal workings of the Liberal Party either condemned it in advance or, on the contrary, show that the symptoms present in the early period were neither inevitable or irreversible. Alternative external factors are also brought in to explain the phenomenon, the principal ones among these being the rise of the Labour Party and the impact of the First World War.

George Dangerfield situates the beginning of the decline in 1910 : ‘(…) it was in 1910 that the fires long smouldering in the English spirit suddenly flared up, so that by the end of 1913 Liberal England was reduced to ashes.For Dangerfield, the problems that were responsible for the decline of the Liberal Party were the, mainly external, il-liberal attitudes and attacks from several quarters involving labour unrest, the suffragette movement and http://imagecache6.allposters.com/LRG/29/2949/XOURD00Z.jpgthe Irish nationalists. For Cook, on the other hand, the war appeared to have been if not the sole cause, then a catalyst, transforming the Liberal Party, plunging it into decline: ‘the very totality of the First World War had a profound and disastrous impact on the party. For whatever reasons, the Liberal Party was never again to be the same after 1914 as it had been before.’4 This analysis lays the blame for the decline of the Liberal Party on the impact of the war, an external cause hitting a weakened political force.

Kenneth Morgan places the date at 1916, with the internal crisis in the Liberal Party, partly provoked by war contingencies, which led Asquith to hand the premiership over to Lloyd
George .Since December 1916, the Liberals have played an increasingly peripheral role; never since then have they shown any sign of a convincing recovery as a party of power.’5 Others again date the point of reversal to the 1918 ‘coupon’ election and the pact between the Conservative Party and the Lloyd George Liberals. Herbert Gladstone, Chief Whip at the time, concluded: The result of 1918 broke the party not only in the House of Commons but in the country. Local associations perished or maintained a nominal existence. Masses of our best men passed away to Labour. Others gravitated to Conservatism or independence.6Or again, the 1922 elections can be seen to have heralded the dismal future with a Conservative government returned to office and a poor showing by the Liberals.

Half a century after the final throes of Liberal government, in the nineteen-seventies, at a time when Liberal Party fortunes had not recovered, Kenneth Morgan concluded that ‘The Liberal Party in the age of Lloyd George was both the main agent of change and the major victim of some of its consequences.7Was the Party responsible for its own demise? If so, what factors contributed to this? Or was it society that moved on? Are they to be sought in the First World War? In the social make-up and transformations of the times? Thus, on one hand, causes internal to the party – its own evolution, the changes it introduced, and, on the other, external factors over which it had little control – social evolution, other political parties, the war – must be considered. The contributions in this issue of Cahiers du MIMMOC look at reasons which can be adduced to explain this that range through the following explanations : unclear identity (Davis, MacDonald), contradictory and confusing
policies (Singeisen, Sloman), personal antagonism and ambition (Morgan, MacDonald), and failure to move with the times (Morgan, MacDonald).

This paper looks at the different explanations for the unsuccessful attempt by the Liberal Party to renew itself by looking first at the political philosophy and party organisation of the
Liberals, and secondly, the Liberal Party’s response to challenges it encountered between 1906 and 1924, under two main headings: social and political change, and competition from the Left and Right. […]

To read on :

Le parti libéral au Royaume-Uni hier et aujourd’hui : aux marges ou au centre?

Les Cahiers du MIMMOC, No. 7 Etudes réunies et présentées par Susan Finding et Trevor Harris Publiées en ligne le 01 septembre 2011

 Des membres du parti libéral appartiennent au gouvernement britannique à nouveau depuis mai 2010 après en avoir été écartés depuis quatre-vingt cinq ans. Le parti libéral, majoritaire en 1906, devient minoritaire à partir de 1910. Le gouvernement est néanmoins resté aux mains de libéraux, au moins partiellement, jusqu’en 1924. De même, membre de la coalition gouvernementale en 2010, le parti libéral n’a pas été sans influence sous les gouvernements précédents. L’histoire se répète-t-elle? 

Les articles présentés ici ont été majoritairement présentés à une journée d’études tenue le 18 mars 2011 à la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société de l’Université de Poitiers, organisée par les groupes de recherche MIMMOC (EA 3812) et GRAAT (EA 2113).  Les communications peuvent être vues en ligne sur UPtv, la chaine internet de l’Université de Poitiers.