Contenu du sommaire : Varia

Wars and Reconciliations in the Twentieth Century`/titreb
If the two world wars and the Cold War present a bleak vision of 20th century European history, a slightly more optimistic reading can be made by taking as pivotal points the periods that followed the wars and attempts at reconciliation. Each of the three post-war periods had its specificities, but each also had elements that were comparable and which sprang from an accommodation of the results of the war, a redefinition of moral norms so as to condemn the violence of war and a cultural and political demobilization that aimed to dismantle wartime mentalities. These characteristics encouraged reconciliation around three imperatives (a thirst for justice, coming to terms with the past and constructing the future) imperatives that favoured a Europe able to take responsability for the worst of the divisions born of its 20th century conflicts and to overcome them.

The Shadow Cast from 1914-1918 into the 1930s`/titreb
On the basis of a comparison between World War I and World War II, we shall endeavour to show five major differences in the area of beliefs and representations of defence policy. The belief in a short war gradually gave way to the realization that the war would be long and that industrial production decisive. The ideology and strategy of an « all-out offensive » were abandoned in favour of a new conception and a defensive strategy. Securing the protection of the national territory became essential in order to prevent a most feared surprise attack. The representation of the value of human capital also changed and indifference changed to concern to limit losses. In the moral field, the fear of war profiteers and shirkers led to measures to limit the phenomenon in 1939-1940, These five major changes resulted from the traumatic experience of 1914-1918 and cast a shadow from the first world conflict onto the second one.

The Elimination of the Dominican Weekly Sept`/titreb
August 1937. The editorial board of the weekly magazine Sept announced the end of the publication, which could seem trifling during this harsh time for the press. But beyond the seeming financial motive for the closing of the newspaper, some people saw a direct intervention of the Vatican in French politics. This article is based on material from the secret Vatican archive of Pope Pie XI, opened to public consultation in 2006. It provides an insight into the policies of Pius XI concerning the Popular Front. The end of Sept can be interpreted as a crucial moment when the boundaries of politics, moral issues and religious commitments were reshaped. It also reveals the intensification of the role of the Vatican Curia in the control of the Catholic press in France.

The “Fascist” Temptation of Dai Viet's Anticolonialism Fighting`/titreb
Why and how did new Dai Viet (Greater Viet) nationalist doctrines emerge following the Vietnam National Party's defeat in Yen Bai in 1930? This failure and the ensuing brutal colonial repression left a deep scar in the nationalists' memory. Yet, political lessons arising from the premature uprising of Nguyen Thai Hoc's revolutionary party had to be drawn. The revolutionary nationalists then thought that only a strong doctrine (that is, a scientific one) could rally and unite the people in the struggle for independence. In the mid-1930s, re-thinking anti-colonialist revolutions became imperative, following European Fascists' far-flung doctrines or, closer to home, those of “Pan-Asianism”. From such a point of view, the doctrine of “the survival of the people”, proposed by Truong Tu Anh, the leader of Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang (Greater Vietnam's National Party), was the most representative example. In spite of their efforts to seize power, the Dai Viet nationalists missed the unique opportunity that was created by the collapse of Imperial Japan in August 1945.

Writers' Travels in Fascist Italy`/titreb
Several well-known French writers who were enamored of Latin culture decided to take on French-Italian rapprochment. Most of them thought that the bad relations with Italy came from ignorance of the country and its regime and that traveling there to see the changes for themselves and build an intellectual and para-diplomatic network was essential to their plan: Franco-Italian entente and defense of Latinism. Social, political and literary relations were thus established among French and Italian writers, members of the Fascist government and diplomats who got together at Franco-Italian occasions to celebrate Latinist entente. But the Italo-German rapprochment put an end to these efforts in spite of the activities carried out until 1940.

Joseph Goebbels' Diary` The history of the Third Reich has been revitalized since the discovery, in the Muscovite archives, of an exceptional document: the diary of Joseph Goebbels, the national-socialist minister of Propaganda and close friend of Hitler. He kept this diary day after day for twenty-five years, from his first steps in politics to his death, in 1945. Although this extraordinary source provides much information about the internal national-socialist government system, it is nevertheless difficult to criticize it appropriately from the outside. The present work aims to provide a global view of this historical source and to propose some internal critical tools to interpret it. This diary evolved over years, depending on Goebbels' relationship to it. So as to avoid the pitfall encountered in Hermann Rauchning's Hitler Speaks, the historian must take into account how Goebbels distorted reality, especially the vision he gives of himself.

`titreb
Total War, Conflicts of Memory and the Cult of the Dead in West Germany during the Cold War`/titrebWhat memory conflicts arose in West Germany, in a pluralist society that legitimized itself by being distinct from the dictatorship of the Third Reich? What different meanings were given to the Second World War in the country that had triggered it? To answer these questions the article focuses on the analysis of how fallen Wehrmacht soldiers were remembered after 1945. Having recalled the historical background, notably the war crimes on the Eastern front as well as the consequences of the “total war”, the author first explains the myth of the Wehrmacht and its tardy destruction in the 1990s. He then advances his central argument: In order to honor publicly the memory of the fallen soldiers of the Nazi regime in a democratic society, a cult of the dead was developed that could be used for different political purposes. It was not until the 1990s that this historically undifferentiated remembrance gave way to a more sophisticated view of the past.

During the Algerian War of Independence, a civil war brought two rival independence movements into conflict, the FLN (National Liberation Front) and the MNA (Algerian National Movement). From 1954 to 1962, the confrontation of these two parties directly or indirectly killed four thousand people and injured twelve thousand more. The conflict took place mostly in metropolitan France: indeed, once the FLN managed to prove that they were the ones that led the underground resistance fighters, the MNA lost almost all its popular support in Algeria but nevertheless remained active in France. This article looks into the confrontation of these two parties in the region of Lyons, one of the French regions where Algerian immigration was the most substantial; it attempts to explain how the MNA managed to deal serious blows to the FLN throughout the war even though it was only a fringe party from 1958 onwards. The article first relates the main events of the FLN-MNA conflict, then goes on to analyse the MNA counter-society and the shaping of the ethnicity which supported it. It demonstrates that the MNA local leaders were from 1959 onwards in league with and supported by part of the French government, including part of the Renseignements généraux (the security branch of the police force), who had managed to make one of their informers the head of the main MNA hitmen group in Lyons.

The Convention of the Republican Institutions (1964-1971)`/titreb
The Convention of Republican Institutions, founded in 1963 around François Mitterrand, was central to the reshaping of French socialism until its dissolution in 1971. Considered as a think tank, the movement changed after the 1965 presidential election into a political party devoted to its leader within the framework of the Fédération des gauches démocrates et socialistes (FGDS) (Federation of democratic and socialist left parties). Its failure following the events of May 1968 moved the Convention of Republican Institution to the left where it argued for a united socialist left, preparatory to a wider union of the left with the Communist party in an attempt to return to power. Although the convention members were few and marginalized, they managed to gain importance in the unification process and conquer the Socialist party apparatus during the Congress of Socialist Unity in Épinay.

René Rémond in Nanterre in 1968 This article deals with and identifies the various stages in René Rémond's positioning with regard to the movement of May 1968. In 1968, this famous French professor was professor of contemporary history at Nanterre, faculty of humanities, cradle and matrice of the student revolution. He seemed to have three successive attitudes: firmness as long as protest remained at Nanterre (from March to May), withdrawal when the movement grew and spread to all of France (May 1-15), and dialogue during the second half of May. This itinerary has been variously interpreted. While some people criticize René Rémond for opportunistically changing sides, most who were involved with him in this period thought he carried out a strategic adaptation in order to protect the University from straying too far. This involvement turned out to be a lasting one as it led René Rémond to be president of the new University Paris-X–Nanterre.

World/Global history first appeared in the United States in the 1980s and has grown strongly in the Anglo-Saxon world. World history attempts to break national boundaries on historical research and it has brought about far-ranging syntheses. The expression “global history” has developed little by little and tries to take into account the phenomenon of globalization, that is the withdrawal of the role of the State and the growth of that of other players (NGOs, foundations, transnational companies, the civil society). This movement is bringing about methodological innovations like combining scales, the search for new comparisons and connections, and decentering perspectives. World/global history was originally viewed with suspicion in Europe but today interest in it is growing. The newness of this movement must not be taken too strictly as it borrows some of its principles and methods from preexisting movements such as comparative, post-colonial or transnational history.