An Ordinary Sailor

Abstract

César Fauxbras’s first novel Jean Le Gouin probes the veteran experience and memory of the Great War in an insightful and distinctive manner. First, Jean Le Gouin can be located within the abundant contemporary representations of war and considered within the context of wartime and post-war military propaganda.1 Initially, the war was depicted through official and unofficial propaganda. However, combat experience and the emergence of political opposition undermined the propaganda monopoly over information and the consensus struck in high politics. This wartime misinformation left a deep scepticism on the part of veterans. This chapter considers the post-war work of the Historical Service of the French Navy, weaving together the writings of Paul Chack, its chief, and Fauxbras who sought to contest this view. Their dispute bore a particular significance given that it took place against the specific backdrop of a crisis of the navy. The legacy of wartime propaganda was such that both Fauxbras and Chack asserted the truthfulness of their own accounts. There was no more important question in this respect than death at sea, perhaps the most poignant and indignant element of Fauxbras’s Jean Le Gouin. Finally, this leads to an assessment of the relationship between the war and memory, as it was through these contested reassertions of truth that collective memory of the war in France was formed.KeywordsOfficial AccountCombat ExperienceFrench SoldierBattle StationOfficer ClassThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.