Contenu du sommaire : La guerre en son siècle

«A very perilous heritage is war» Philippe Contamine. The medieval millennium is perceived as a long era of violence, with punitive expeditions and private wars as the most spectacular feature of the feudal System. Despite the efforts of the Church and later of the royal power, public insecurity could long be confused with the state of war in the modem sense. The major conflicts of the Middle Ages, and particularly the Hundred Years' War, caused real traumas among the people and disturbed the balance of society and power. Nevertheless, all things considered, the effects of the wars do not appear so negative. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the comparison between devastated France and better protected England is not so unfavourable to the country of Joan of Arc.

War in the plural : a classification of twentieth century wars, Jean-Baptiste Duroselle. Without engaging in the discussion about the « innate » or the « acquired » character of the phenomenon of war, the author proposes an empirical classification for the twentieth century : he identifies six criteria : « white » / « colonial », limited / long, Worldwide / short wars, scope of weapons, law and ethics, origins of conflicts. He concludes that there is no simple explanation, but observes a hiatus between the « early » and the « late » twentieth century and describes the horrendous emergence of the nation-states through wars throughout the century.

The unbearable past: pacifisms, 1984, 1938, 1914. Maurice Waïsse An analysis of the pacifist movements in the 1980s, between the two world wars and before 1914, shows their heterogeneity, their many causes and their twin faces : Judaeo-Christian and socialist. There has not been one pacifism per war : each movement is unable to avert the storm ; the success or the failure of the causes of peace or war owe nothing to pacifism. In fact, in the twentieth century, we may have had only the pacifism of past wars and of related fears.

The exuberance of the state in France from 1914 to 1918, Fabienne Bock. During the First World War, not only were the institutions of the French republic not shaken — the power of the state grew over many areas of social and economic life. Industrial and agricultural production, foreign trade, the distribution of the labor force and industrial relations were partially managed by a host of semi-official bodies, commissions, committees or offices which proliferated in relative anarchy. Even if in the 1920s France was relieved to go back to non intervention and was proud of a degree of désétatisation, the 1914-1918 war was an ambiguous stage in the growth of the state apparatus in the twentieth century.

New regulation or return to normal? The British case after 1918, Anthony Rowley. At the end of the First World War, the return to the gold standard in Great Britain illustrated the difficulty of maintaining both a deflationary policy and measures aimed at helping employment and creating a system of unemployment benefits. During this period, the role of the state in financial matters grew while maintaining at the same time a heterogeneous character. This development, begun at the end of the 19th century, picked up speed with the war economy and the necessities of a new economic regulation in the 1920s.

On the sex front, Michelle Perrot The conclusions of a recent colloquium on « Women and War » organized by the Center for European Studies at Harvard University shake up the conventional wisdom that the 20th century wars helped in the emancipation of women. Two world conflicts certainly gave them « man's » work and greater individual freedom. But such changes hardly altered the inherited sexual roles : as nurses or Resistance flghters, factory workers or union activists, women are subjected to the power of man in war as in peace time. Wars accelerated some changes and retarded others. Contradictory in their impact, they helped the victory of feminist ideas, but announced the men's revenge.

Gone with the war: the testing of political regimes, Jean-Jacques Becker Unlike previous wars, 20th century conflicts do upset existing political regimes. The relation between war and political change is, however, not mechani-cal. In some instances, such as the growth of communism or fascism, war has played a crucial role. In others — the breakdown of the Central Empires in 1918, or the fall of France in 1940 — war accelerates change, but is not its prime cause. In the last analysis, Clausewitz's conclusions are no longer sufficient : explanation must at times take into account irrational elements.

A warlike genealogy of history. Mac-Neill's paradigm, Yves Chevrier History is produced by war, not the contrary. Such is the thesis of W.H. MacNeill, an American historian familiar with wide-ranging frescoes, in The Pursuit of Power (1982). This critical review places MacNeill's thinking in the wake of famous predecessors : Braudel, Weber, Marx, Clausewitz and Gibbon. It also defines his originality : thinking about war no longer in terms of its waging, causes and consequences, but seeing in it the mode of production of civilization and society. Like the class struggle, war is a motor of history. This is a revolutionary thesis, which raises many critical questions.