Des tranchées au Palais-Bourbon (des pacifistes au temps de Verdun)

Abstract

FROM TRENCH TO PALAIS-BOURBON (PACIFISTS AT THE TIME OF THE BATTLE OF VERDUN) The study of 190 letters sent to Pierre Brizon (a deputy who had just voted against new war supplies, in June l916 gives an idea of what pacifist discourse consisted of the time of the battle of Verdun. The experience of the war gives birth to two sorts of interpretations. Some, a minority, see in it a process that can be analyzed. The others only keep in mind the scars left by war. It is only when the talking of what will happen when the war is over that they use the traditional image of an overwhelming flow of anger.