Community, suffering and entitlement: food and morality in the French front-line towns, 1914–1918

Abstract

Abstract Between 1914 and 1918, deteriorating living standards and inequalities in food supply generated powerful subjective meanings in France. A moral vocabulary arose that castigated hoarders and profiteers and exalted front-line soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in the trenches. This moral language helped to regulate social tensions by defining acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. As this article demonstrates, however, this moral economy did not function in a uniform manner across the country but developed highly localized inflections. This is evident from the case of civilians living in towns under fire and under military occupation at the Western Front, who suffered greater hardships than civilians in the interior. At the front, local wartime experiences shaped attitudes towards other social groups, the state and the national community. Social class was not the only category that defined the moral economy of wartime; so too did a sense of community generated by local war experiences.