French Commander Research Articles

‘Soldiers of Russia’: Veterans of the Russian Expeditionary Force in France and USSR, 1917–1975

ABSTRACT The Russian Expeditionary Force (REF) was a small military force of roughly 50,000 men who fought in France and Salonika under French command. After 1917 the majority of the soldiers repatriated to Soviet Russia, but some chose to stay in France. By looking closely at the fate of the former soldiers of the Russian Expeditionary Force in those countries this paper examines two contrasting methods of interaction between Russian veterans and the state. The veterans that chose to remain in France had to fight for their recognition by the French state and in 1924 they created the ‘Association of the Russian Officers, who fought on the French front’ which advocated for their rights. Those who opted to return home discovered that the new Soviet state had no means to support them, but was ready to use them as a propaganda instrument. Portraying REF veterans as victims of the ‘imperialist war’, in the 1920s the Soviet government promoted the ‘Society of Former Russian Soldiers in France and the Balkans’, helping its members with housing and pensions. Despite the apparent differences in those examples, this paper argues that there is one key and significant resemblance between them. At the heart of interaction between the veterans and the state always laid veteran societies powered by the social bonds and sense of entitlement built during the war. That makes Russian veterans in many respects similar to their European counterparts and allows for a better understanding of the nature of Russian veteran experiences after 1918.

Between Russia and Western Europe: The Diplomatic Languages of Prince Ivan Scherbatov, a Russian Representative at the Spanish Court

This article examines the process of language learning, the acquisition of the codes of polite correspondence, and language practices among Russian diplomats with reference to Prince Ivan Andreevich Shcherbatov (1696–1761), a prominent Russian diplomat at the Spanish, Ottoman, and British courts. Such developments, together with some other changes (such as the shift to appointing resident ambassadors) were significant features of Russian diplomacy during and just after the reign of Peter I and contributed to its integration into the European diplomatic space. The study refers to many previously unused archival sources, such as language-learning exercises, diplomatic and personal correspondence. During his extended stay in London, Shcherbatov learned French including a considerable variety of polite expressions. His mastery of French was to become one of the main tools that Shcherbatov used both in his diplomatic and personal correspondence. His personal network consisted of various foreigners, including many who were not French but for whom French was an important lingua franca. Even in his exchanges with Spanish officials, French was a useful medium; Shcherbatov often resorted to this language when replying to Spaniards who tended to use their own language in their letters addressed to foreign diplomats at the time. Despite his excellent command of French, Shcherbatov hardly ever used it in his correspondence with his fellow compatriots, even when dealing with addressees of non-Russian descent. This contrasts the linguistic practices of some of his colleagues of lower rank and social position who chose to use French in their diplomatic correspondence with their compatriots as a communicative strategy. Whether this early use of French should be interpreted as a sign of a new cultural or professional identity is a moot point.

The Conquest of Piemont. The War of the Spanish Succession, 1701-1714

The purpose of this article is to identify the features of military art as an integral part of Western European culture in the period of late feudalism using the example of a separate campaign of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). The focus of the study is the military operations in Piedmont in 1704 and their reflection in the military documentation, memoirs as well as in the correspondence of Louis XIV, the French minister of war Chamillard with the French command in Piedmont and Savoy. The article examines an episode of Western European military history that has not yet been reflected in Russian historiography. It presents an interest in terms of the prospects for a comparative military-historical analysis of the era of Peter the Great and Europe on the eve of the Modern Age. The article reflects the conditionality of Western European wars by intra-dynastic conflicts and contest between the ruling monarchical houses as well as the typical features of Western European military art namely the decision-making mechanism within the framework of the so-called “cabinet” command and control, the limitation of operational goals, the positional nature of the strategy, the rejection of determinateness in favor of passive methodism, commitment to siege warfare and maneuver tactics, the growing role of military engineering and logistical support.

The Military Campaign of 1703 in the Netherlands according to the Correspondence and Memoirs of Its Participants

The article studies the military campaign of 1703 in the Netherlands of the War of the Spanish Succession of 1701– 1714. The presented campaign, still undervalued by military historiography, is the most typical of the European military art of the early 18th century. The article shows the activities of the Anglo-Dutch and French command in the planning and organizing of military operations. Based on the correspondence of Louis XIV, Duke of Marlborough, French Marshals Villeroy and Bouffler, the article traces the course of the fighting in Flanders and Brabant in the summer and autumn of 1703. At the same time, the war is considered as a combination of careful maneuvering and rapid marches, false demonstrations and decisive strikes, methodical sieges of fortresses and unexpected breakthroughs of fortified lines. As a result, the little-known stage of the War of the Spanish Succession of 1701–1714 is studied in detail.On the example of the above-mentioned campaign, the article reveals such features of Western European military affairs as the limited operational goals and plans, positional nature of strategy, rejection of decisive forms of struggle, commitment to siege warfare and maneuver tactics, increasing role of engineering and fortification and rear services, communications and logistics.

Becoming a Francophile: A Half-Century Love Affair by Leonard Rosmarin

Reviewed by: Becoming a Francophile: A Half-Century Love Affair by Leonard Rosmarin Alice J. Strange Rosmarin, Leonard, Becoming a Francophile: A Half-Century Love Affair. Mosaic, 2019. ISBN 978-1-771614344. Pp. 241. In this memoir, a Canadian professor of French, retired from Brock University in Ontario, sets out to identify the forces that contribute to his identity as a Francophile. He spent extended periods in France as a student, director of a study abroad program, and visiting professor at Université de Perpignan. His descriptions of life in France are interesting but scarcely original. Conventional points are covered: first impressions, student life, French bureaucracy, housing issues, French friends, cultural sites, and, especially, his love of French history and literature. As an educator, he frequently compares French and Canadian educational institutions, illustrating his impressions with anecdotes. Unlike Canadian students, French university students like to present a challenging attitude toward a new professor. He enjoyed a sense of professional triumph when he gained their respect and became a popular professor. His command of French opened doors to friendships, often with teachers and administrators at his or his daughters' schools. He interacts with a privileged, educated segment of French society and rarely refers to larger social or political issues. French friends, whom he describes in detail, figure greatly in his positive memories. The most appealing sections of the work are his excursions into the Pyrénées-Orientales. This southeastern-most [End Page 250] department of France, nestled between the Mediterranean and the Spanish border, abounds in cultural interests. The French Catalan region is especially beautiful and rich in popular traditions. On the other hand, at several points in the text, Rosmarin abruptly switches his focus away from lived personal experience to insert basic historical facts and summaries of literary works with which he has a special connection. These digressions consist of information familiar to Francophile readers and seem at odds with his announced project. For example, he includes a digression on the life and achievements of Charles de Gaulle. At Versailles, he expounds on the life of Louis XIV. At a dramatic performance in Perpignan, he recounts in detail the plot of Corneille's Le Cid. In each case, these digressions disrupt the flow of his personal memories and seem detached from his undertaking. In addition, the Francophile reader may also feel startled when Rosmarin translates even the most basic French expressions into English. His concluding chapter is an analysis of love à la française, in the form of an academic discourse. Rather than refer to any personal experiences, he devotes the final chapter to an investigation of a French belief that passion and marriage are irreconcilable. To support this theory, Rosmarin summarizes La princesse de Clèves, Manon Lescaut, and Les liaisons dangereuses as examples of his view. Although the connection is not clear, the reader is left to assume that this belief contributes to his identity as a Francophile. Overall, this memoir seems intended for the author's family and associates, and readers unfamiliar with the basics of French language and culture. Some Francophile readers may enjoy comparing Rosmarin's experiences to their own, but they will find few original insights. Alice J. Strange Southeast Missouri State University, emerita Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French

The Bilingual Competence of Local Council Staffers in the Centre and Littoral Regions of Cameroon

This work sets out to appraise the state of individual bilingualism in francophone local councils in Cameroon. The work checks the use of English by francophone local council workers and of French by their anglophone mates with the focus on the four communicative language skills, i.e., speaking, reading, writing and listening. The ethnographic approach to data collection was adopted, and self-rating through a questionnaire was the major tool used. The eight-item questionnaire was administered to 192 local council staffers. They were 177 (91.14% of 192) francophone workers selected out of a pool of over 500 workers in six local councils situated in two big francophone towns i.e., Douala and Yaounde on the one hand, and 15 (8.85% of 192) out of a total of 16 anglophone workers in these same localities. The analysis of the data collected revealed that very low percentages of francophone workers could perform the following tasks using English: discuss office issues with their bosses (10.16% of 177 subjects), read out a speech (8.47%), write a letter to their collaborators (4.51%), and listen to someone with understanding (20.33%). Conversely, a high proportion of anglophone workers were able to perform these same tasks using French i.e., discuss office issues with their bosses (73.33% of 15 subjects), read out a speech (20%), write a letter to a collaborator (33.33%), and listen to someone with understanding (80%). In short, 63.28% of 177 francophone workers reported having a low performance in receptive skills in English as opposed to 20% of 15 anglophone workers who said the same for French; similarly, 7.34% of 177 francophones claimed to have a good command of productive skills in English as opposed to 53.33% of 15 anglophones who claimed to have a command of French. The implications for the study are that official French-English bilingualism in Cameroon is a mere political wish which is not a reality on the field.

Cephalic region war injuries in children: Experience in French NATO hospital in Kabul Afghanistan

BackgroundsThe NATO KAIA Hospital (Kabul International Airport), under French command, provided medical support for NATO forces in the Kabul region from 2009 to 2014. Medical assistance to civilians was an additional mission which included support for children who were war injured. The objective of this study was to analyze characteristics of cephalic injuries in children victims of war trauma. MethodsA retrospective study was conducted and commenced with the hospital opening (July 2009) to March 2012 on all children (<15years) with war trauma. We distinguished cephalic lesions in cranial (neuro-surgical), ophthalmological and neck regions. We analyzed mechanism, region, severity score, surgeries and resuscitation efforts. Results217 children were operated on with 81 war traumas (mean age 10.2years).36 children (44.4%) had a cephalic injury. 52.9% of the injured had an ophthalmological injury, 38.2% a cranial region injury and 29.4% a neck lesion. Mortality rate was 5.6% (1 hemorrhagic shock and 1 cerebral wound) in this cephalic lesion group.Ophthalmic injuries were the most common of cephalic injuries; 19 children of which 7 had a bilateral injury (26 eyes). In this group, fragmentary injuries were the most frequent (64% of eyes).In cerebral lesion group, the lesions were linked to a bullet or a shrapnel in 9 of 13 children. This mechanism systematically caused a crania-cerebral wound.Explosion (fragmentary and shrapnel) was the most important in the neck lesions (7 children of 10). ConclusionsThe cephalic lesions were the second most common region in children during our experience in Afghanistan. Lack of protection (helmet) in children may explain the frequency of cephalic wounds.

Дневник фрейлины княжны С. Л. Шаховской – неизвестный источник о представителях Дома Романовых. 1900–1901 гг.

The review considers the new publication of well-known Perm historian D. M. Sofjin, historian and archaeographer M. V. Sofjina, and translator A. G. Neklyudova. It places their work in the broader archaeographic framework of sources about the Romanov family. The distinguishing characteristic of the diary is its relatively small volume (about 2 author's sheets). The published document has not been introduced into scientific use until now. This is probably due to its unlikely place of storage: in the fond of M. N. Katkov in the Research Division of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library (NIOR RGB). But the main barrier was, certainly, the language: French is unfamiliar to most Russian historians, including specialists in the history of the Romanovs. The diary is dated July 5, 1900 – July 24, 1901. It allows to see the Romanovs (Empress Maria Feodorovna, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, and others) through the eyes a young girl, Princess S. L. Shakhovskaya. The diary can be conditionally divided in two parts: the first outlines events, the second is focused on the girl’s rather gloomy feelings. The publication is prepared at the highest archeographic level. The introduction details all special considerations of text transmission, its translation into fundamentally different sign system. The remarks of the translator are noteworthy; she contends that the young Duchess had poor command of French and ‘thought in Russian.’ Most praiseworthy are the notes, which contain all necessary references and biographical data. Although it does not add anything radically new to the understanding of the period, the publication puts the finishing touches to the portrayal of several key historical figures of the turn of the 20th century (primarily, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, at whose court Princess S. L. Shakhovskaya was in waiting).

A Command of French and anti-style used in Lee Sang’s poetic work

본 논고는 한국 시문학사에서 형이상학적 스캔들로 불리는 이상의 시편들에 구사 되는 프랑스어 연구이다. 이상의 시에서 프랑스어가 차지하는 비중은 식민지 시대에 일본어를 제외하면 가장 중요한 시어로 활용되고 있음을 알 수 있다. 우리의 연구는 기호적인 프랑스어, 기하학적이고 회화적인 프랑스어 활용에 대해 분석하고, 아울러 반복적이고 나열적인 단어와 문장의 구성에 응용되는 프랑스어에 대해 분석했다. 이상의 시편들에서 프랑스어의 활용은 비시어적인 기호의 혼용으로 볼 수 있으며, 전통적인 모국어와 시창작의 문법을 거부한 반문체적인 특성으로 나타남을 확인 할 수 있다. 그의 시에서 프랑스어는 아방가르드 적인 시적 재료와 실험적인 창작기법의 중요한 요소 중에 하나로 나타난다. 시인에게 프랑스어는 언어의 범주를 벗어난 건축학적이고 회화적인 재료들과 함께 한글의 틀을 거부한 전혀 낯선 표현기법의 중요한 요소로 적용되고, 시인의 예술정신을 구현하기 위한 전위적인 언어로 응용되고 있다. 이상에게 프랑스어는 분열적이고 열패적인 자신의 내면적 갈등을 표현하기 위한 도구로 활용되고 있으며, 시인은 프랑스어가 갖는 기표와 기의적인 특성을 이용하여 근대한국문학에 유래를 찾아 볼 수 없는 실험적인 문체를 보여주었다. 이상의 시에서 프랑스어는 식민지하의 억눌린 자의식을 해방시킨 자유의 언어이며, 한국문학뿐만 아니라 세계문학 속에서도 유례를 찾아볼 수 없는 반문체적이고, 형이상학적인 시편들을 구성하는 중요한 요소로 볼 수 있다.

ПЕРЕГОВОРИ МІЖ ПРЕДСТАВНИКАМИ ДИРЕКТОРІЇ УНР І ДЕРЖАВ АНТАНТИ У СІЧНІ-БЕРЕЗНІ 1919 Р.

The paper studies the content and the matter of negotiations between the Directorate of the Ukrainian People’s Republic’s (the UNR) representatives and the allied (French) military command in Odessa, as well as the Entente nations’ leaders and diplomats in Paris in January-March of 1919. The author argues that a victory of the Entente nations in the Great War did not create a favorable environment for the foundation of an independent Ukrainian national state, for the victorious nations did not tolerate Russia’s disintegration. They did not recognize independence of Ukraine and had a negative attitude towards the Directorate. However, the latter’s control over the Ukrainian territory and its large and battle worthy army shaped a background for its engagement into the united front against bolshevism. During the negotiations in Odessa, the French military command offered a military support to the Directorate in exchange for protectorate of France over Ukraine for the period of war against Bolsheviks. The UNR representatives could hardly accept the terms, and the talks lasted for about two months. Meanwhile, the strategic situation in Ukraine had fundamentally changed. As soon as the Directorate has lost the territories it controlled and its army has been mostly dismissed, the Entente nations lost their interest in dealing with it. Instead, they focused on strengthening Poland and Romania to contain the Bolshevik expansion to the West. It is concluded that in January-March of 1919, the window of opportunities for Ukrainians existed to avoid Bolsheviks’ rule and to become a partner of victorious nations in containment of bolshevism. The cooperation could create other opportunities, especially if Soviet Russia survived. All along of the ineffectiveness and weakness of the regime of the Directorate, the historic chance has been lost.

Natchez Country: Indians, Colonists, and the Landscapes of Race in French Louisiana

With Natchez Country: Indians, Colonists, and the Landscapes of Race in French Louisiana George Edward Milne contributes an ambitious and compelling monograph on French and Natchez relations in Louisiana. He examines the development of French and Natchez societies in the Natchez homelands along the Mississippi River from 1682 to 1733. Using a wide variety of archaeological and documentary sources, Milne analyzes how Natchez and French people understood their worlds and each other, and how both peoples pursued their respective political and economic agendas. After they had worked for decades to coexist in Louisiana, in 1729 the Natchez massacred their French neighbors and drove the survivors from their territory. Ultimately Milne’s insightful volume argues that by the late 1720s the Natchez people had come to understand themselves as fundamentally different from and incompatible with their French neighbors, and they relied on a racial ideology to articulate their desire to rid themselves of these “impudent immigrants” (79).As Milne chronicles the interactions of the French and the Natchez, he devotes roughly equal attention to the efforts of the Natchez elite to expand and control their chiefdom and to French colonizers’ efforts to establish lucrative settlements in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Although Milne provides a thorough analysis of the influences of Atlantic networks in Louisiana, he devotes less attention to the Natchez villages’ relationships with their Indian neighbors. Given that Choctaw involvement in the 1729 Natchez War was a decisive factor in the conflict, further analysis of Indigenous relationships would have enhanced Milne’s astute discussion of Natchez diplomacy.Milne’s volume offers an insightful reinterpretation of the sporadic violence and conflicts that shaped Natchez-French relationships in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Through his analysis of the tensions between the politically elite Grand Village and the outlying and subordinate towns, Milne highlights how divisions within the Natchez polity shaped the conflicts among Natchez peoples and their French neighbors. Rather than approach the series of violent conflicts between the French and Natchez towns in the years before the 1729 massacre as individual wars, Milne suggests that these clashes are better understood as moments of crisis and as points at which the Natchez elite sought to eliminate their political rivals. Milne also illustrates how seemingly chaotic acts, like the mutilation of French cattle and horses that wandered into Natchez farmlands, were part of a larger, complex political dialogue between the two nations and a way in which the Natchez attempted to assert control and reinforce borders in their lands.Most significant, Milne persuasively argues that the Natchez massacre represents a critical turning point in Native American and colonial relations, as the Natchez used race to explain the difference between their people and the French. Unlike previous scholars, who have argued that the Natchez massacre of 1729 resulted from land pressure or the diplomatic failings of a single French commander, Milne points to Natchez anxiety about the influx of enslaved Africans into their homelands and to their increasing perception of Europeans as threats to their society. As he explains, their interactions with Europeans and enslaved Africans led the Natchez to begin to call themselves “red men,” a term that Milne argues helped them conceive of themselves as a unified people and assert sovereignty in the face of European encroachment. Milne’s contribution to our understanding of French and Native relations and to the emergence of racial ideologies among both European and Indian peoples is sure to be of interest to all scholars of early America.

CoDiab-VD: protocol of a prospective population-based cohort study on diabetes care in Switzerland.

BackgroundDiabetes represents an increasing health burden worldwide. In 2010, the Public Health Department of the canton of Vaud (Switzerland) launched a regional diabetes programme entitled “Programme cantonal Diabète” (PcD), with the objectives to both decrease the incidence of diabetes and improve care for patients with diabetes. The cohort entitled CoDiab-VD emerged from that programme. It specifically aimed at following quality of diabetes care over time, at evaluating the coverage of the PcD within this canton and at assessing the impact of the PcD on care of patients with diabetes.Methods/DesignThe cohort CoDiab-VD is a prospective population-based cohort study. Patients with diabetes were recruited in two waves (autumn 2011 - summer 2012) through community pharmacies. Eligible participants were non-institutionalised adult patients (≥18 years) with diabetes diagnosed for at least one year, residing in the canton of Vaud and coming to a participating pharmacy with a diabetes-related prescription. Women with gestational diabetes, people with obvious cognitive impairment or insufficient command of French were not eligible. Self-reported data collected, included the following primary outcomes: processes-of-care indicators (annual checks) and outcomes of care such as HbA1C, (health-related) quality of life measures (Short Form-12 Health Survey – SF-12, Audit of Diabetes-Dependent Quality of Life 19 – ADDQoL) and Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (PACIC). Data on diabetes, health status, healthcare utilisation, health behaviour, self-management activities and support, knowledge of, or participation to, campaigns/activities proposed by the PcD, and socio-demographics were also obtained. For consenting participants, physicians provided few additional pieces of information about processes and laboratory results.Participants will be followed once a year, via a mailed self-report questionnaire. The core of the follow-up questionnaires will be similar to the baseline one, with the addition of thematic modules adapting to the development of the PcD. Physicians will be contacted every 2 years.DiscussionCoDiab-VD will allow obtaining a broad picture of the care of patients with diabetes, as well as their needs regarding their chronic condition. The data will be used to evaluate the PcD and help prioritise targeted actions.Trial registrationThis study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT01902043, July 9, 2013.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0991-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Fifty Years on: The Guns of August , Always Popular, Always Flawed

Fifty Years on: The Guns of August, Always Popular, Always Flawed Samuel R. Williamson Jr. (bio) Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August. Library of America, 2012. Illustrated. 1,268 pages. $40. Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August appeared to glowing reviews in the popular press in February 1962. Orville Prescott, writing in the New York Times on February 5, declares it “a splendid and glittering performance, one of the finest works of history written in recent years”; she writes “elegant and polished” prose that reflects “a sardonic sense of humor.” And Tuchman, Prescott continues, concentrates “on what people said, did and felt. Her pages are full of apt quotations and of hundreds of dramatic scenes and episodes.” The work, he concludes, “is a fine demonstration that with sufficient art rather specialized history can be raised to the level of literature.” The reading public agreed with Prescott. The book stayed on the bestseller list for more than forty weeks. In 1963 it won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. President John Kennedy reportedly read The Guns of August before the Cuban missile crisis later in 1962. It was said that he found in Tuchman’s admonitions to be skeptical about military plans the reasons behind his own sharp questioning of the military plans offered to him that October—plans that turned out to be exceptionally suspect. And, in the years since, the work has been assigned to generations of students on courses that deal with the First World War and with questions of grand strategy. In contrast to the popular acclaim received by the book, professional historians have from the start been equally critical of it. Some, such as the reviewer in the Journal of Modern History (March 1963), praised its prose style but found the account based “only partially” on the best available sources and castigated its flagrantly “one-sided treatment of imperial Germany.” Another reviewer, in Military Affairs (autumn 1962), pronounced that the “serious military scholar, however, will find nothing here that is new either in facts or interpretations and will be struck by the author’s significant omissions.” The writer of this review, who read The Guns of August when it first appeared and cited it three times in a major study, has always regarded the effort as seriously flawed. The republication of this influential popular study offers this reviewer [End Page 163] an opportunity to explain the widely discordant reception that the book received when it first appeared. The comments that follow first address why it was popular and then turn to the critics and the long-term place of The Guns of August in the historiography of the opening days of the First World War. First Tuchman’s study heralded a new wave of publications about the First World War on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of its outset. Although access to the relevant archives among the European powers remained closed, save the German records captured in 1945, the vast majority of memoir material had been published, as well as major collections of documents. Tuchman uses some of this material skillfully, and her narrative style gives the reader a sense of intimacy with the events. A few examples will suffice to show her ability. Of those who worked planning mobilization schedules, she observes: “The best brains produced by the [German] War College, it was said, went into the railway section and ended up in lunatic asylums.” Of events in London, “The method was plain; the muddle was in the British mind.” “The German navy was the dog in the night. It did not fight.” And of General Joseph Joffre, the French commander, whom she rightly praises for recovering after his initial mistakes: “Joffre did not panic like Sir John French, or waver like Moltke or become momentarily unnerved like Haig or Ludendorff or succumb to pessimism like Prittwitz. What went on behind that opaque exterior he never showed. If he owed his composure to a failure of imagination, that was fortunate for France. . . . When ruin was all around him, he maintained an even tenor, a stolid control.” Nor did she neglect some prescient statements by the major leaders, such as General Moltke’s observation...

L’opera di Tito Marrone all’interno del cenacolo romano di Sergio Corazzini

Tito Marrone’s Work Inside Sergio Corazzini’s Roman Club The poetic work of Tito Marrone, forgotten for years due to his prolonged creative silence, reveals itself to be key to understanding how the Crepuscolar Roman related to the Francophone Symbolist poets. Marrone, slightly more senior than his associates, was the only one to possess a solid grasp of French culture and command of its language. His association with Rosso di San Secondo and with Pirandello, additionally, shows an author needlessly excluded from the cultural context of the time: his presence as a character in Pirandello’s novel Suo marito and as a protagonist in Rosso di San Secondo’s Storie di uomini e di angeli is testimony to the bond he had with these two authors, who were, inter alia, his contemporaries. Moreover, Marrone was in contact with different proponents of Sicilian Futurism, and so Crepuscolar and Futurist influences also characterized his use of language and poetic style. Ultimately of interest are Marrone’s reviews and critical writing, that show a fine analytic eye and capacity to gather and interpret the authentic elements of his contemporary literary and theatrical milieu. And so, for these reasons, it would now be beneficial to shed light on and critically anthologize Marrone’s ample texts, which themselves would also come to be important in the Crepuscolar Roman movement.

Language shift and maintenance in multilingual Mauritius: the case of Indian ancestral languages

This paper reports on a research study conducted in Mauritius between June and July 2009. The aim of this research was to investigate the use of Indian ancestral languages in the domestic domain by the younger generations. The data were collected in the field by means of a questionnaire and interviews from a quota sample of secondary school population from an Indian background. An outline of the social and linguistic situation is given, followed by a concise account of the methodology and fieldwork. Finally, the results are analysed within the framework of language maintenance and language shift in a multilingual context and discussed with reference to an earlier study carried out by the author in the mid-1990s. The results show that although the ancestral languages are steadily declining and being replaced by Creole and French in the domestic domain, they are nevertheless still being maintained by the older generations and through favourable educational policies. Language choices and attitudes reveal that the study of ancestral languages at secondary level is perceived as ‘not useful’ and ‘cumbersome’ especially in this technological era, where a good command of English and French are associated with upward social mobility and academic success.

The Flemish Bastard and the Former Indians: M�tis and Identity in Seventeenth-Century New York

The Flemish Bastard and the Former IndiansMétis and Identity in Seventeenth-Century New York Tom Arne Midtrød (bio) In 1709 the English Board of Trade recommended the settlement of three thousand Palatine migrants on the Hudson and Mohawk rivers in New York. The officials expressed confidence that these colonists would not only produce naval stores for the fleet but also intermarry with the Indians "as the French do" and lay the foundation for an expanding fur trade. They knew well that French Canadians had long mingled with Indians and produced children of mixed ancestry, or métis. What they perhaps did not know was that New York had long had métis of its own.1 Compared to Canada, New York never had a large métis population, and some historians have commented upon the social distance between Dutch and Indians. Nevertheless, intimacy resulting in métis children does not seem to have been uncommon in this colony. Dutch observers charged Indians with lack of sexual restraint, and liaisons between Dutch men and Native women sometimes worried the authorities. In 1638 the Dutch council prohibited adultery with blacks and Indians and at least occasionally took legal action. Manor lord and patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer warned his nephew Arent van Curler and forbade his tenants from sleeping with Indian females. Sexual promiscuity with Indian women was among the charges levied against provincial secretary Cornelis van Tiehnoven by his political enemies in the 1640s. Prosecutions of colonists impregnating Indian women are known from the early English period.2 Native people probably thought these relations should involve a degree of reciprocity and mutual obligation. Historians have stressed that many Native peoples saw marriage and other intimate relations as means [End Page 83] of incorporating outsiders, and an early Dutch observer alluded to the existence of this practice among Native traders in New Netherland. Such intimacy created a bond between strangers, and in 1643 a Long Island chief deplored Dutch violence by recalling how his people had let early Dutch visitors sleep with their daughters. In 1659 Mohawk envoys complained that Dutchmen involved with Native women who had passed away did not honor obligations to the relatives of the deceased. In some cases colonists may have married Native women according to local custom, and in 1683 a Long Island Englishman married a Native woman according to English law.3 To most métis born from these relationships, European ancestry was probably just a relatively minor biological fact. They followed their mothers—normally in charge of children—and became for all practical purposes fully Indian. In 1680 a Dutch visitor to New York alluded to these people when he wrote of the fruits of Dutch immorality, and the Long Island chief mentioned above charged the Dutch with killing their own blood, since "there roved many an Indian begotten by a Swanneken [Dutchman]." While in Mohawk captivity in 1653 Frenchman Pierre Radisson found that his adoptive brother was courting a light-haired young woman "who, by report of many, was bastard to a Flemish." Radisson's observation seems to indicate some interest in this woman's Dutch father, but it also suggests that her biologically mixed background did not set her much apart from the rest of her community. This is, of course, not to suggest that most métis people were oblivious of the fact that they had European fathers, only that their mixed ancestry did not have much of an impact on their social standing. How much a distant European father shaped a person's self-perception is now impossible to determine, but perhaps many European fathers gave their Indian children no more than slightly light features and possibly made them the topic of occasional conversation in Native settlements.4 But some métis maintained ties to European relatives, and these were perhaps the only ones who were métis in any socially or culturally meaningful sense of the word. Scattered evidence indicates ongoing contact between métis persons and the society of their fathers. When a French force in January 1666 captured a métis boy in Mohawk country, local Dutch officials persuaded the French commander to hand him over...

Later Medieval English Literature by Douglas Gray

MLR, 105.2, 2010 521 Readers may thus end with mixed feelings. There is no great problem with the mystery plays or the pageants and romances. Their conspicuously public nature means they suffer less by emphasis on social context, so the discussion of them cannot be faulted. But it is a big problem for a work as complex as Sir Gawain and theGreen Knight. Here the author misses all sorts. It is curious that his topo graphical studymakes nothing of 'I>eholy hede' (Holywell, Flintshire) or Gawain's journey thence in thedirection of Storeton (a seat of the Stanleys). We hear nothing of the castles ofDisserd or Diserth andMont-hault orMold, both near Cheshire and surely suggesting the name of Hautdesert. Absent, too, is reference to the consistent verbal parallels between Sir Gawain and writing by Sir John Stanley (who ismentioned briefly on page 172). A focused studywould thus have concentrated on linkswith him, dropping the irrelevant details of the Scrope-Grosvenor trial. The dialect of Sir Gawain is that of theCheshire-Staffordshire border: Stanley was (it seems) brought up at Stanley, in north-west Staffordshire. The Gawain-poet knew court life intimately: Stanley was in 1399 Controller of theRoyal Household. The poet was an expert huntsman: Stanley was master forester of theCheshire forests ofMacclesfield (where Gawain met the Green Knight), Delamere, and Mondrum. The poet had a perfect com mand of French, and knew southern France: Stanley fought on the king's service inAquitaine. The manuscript of the poem contains theGarter motto: Stanley was the only Knight of the Garter at this date in the Cheshire region. Barrett has, in short,missed a gigantic opportunity; since themore one analyses Sir Gawain and theGreen Knight, themore it appears (in the cliche of journalists) to be from a source very close to Sir John Stanley indeed. University of Navarre, Pamplona Andrew Breeze LaterMedieval English Literature. By Douglas Gray. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2008. xiv+712 pp. ?65. ISBN 978-0-19-812218-0. In 2010 Douglas Gray will be eighty; and Later Medieval English Literature comes as the harvest of a wonderful old age. It contains the wisdom of a life spent in teaching medieval literature, and will be read and consulted for generations to come. Its authors skill appears not only in his judgement but in the organization of somewhat unruly material. The book has five sections: a 150-page introduction that sets the scene; prose; poetry; Scottish writing; and drama. These break down into twenty-three chapters. The first section ranges over the medieval cosmos, mentalities, manuscripts, print, and oral and visual culture. The second presents the Pastons, Malory, Caxton, Lord Berners, and religious writing, but also the less considered jestbooks and 'practical' handbooks. Poetry takes inHoccleve, Lydgate, Chaucerian verse, lyric, romances, Hawes, Barclay, and Skelton. Scottish writing provides us with 120 pages, notmerely on the 'big three' ofHenryson, Dunbar, and Douglas, but on anonymous poetry and prose. (The author has the refreshing gift of bringing inmuch minor writing forour assessment.) The volume ends with four 522 Reviews chapters on themystery cycles,morality plays, and interludes. Grays sympathy for medieval thought and feeling is there at its finest.He is a powerful champion of theYork and other dramas, responding eloquently to theirmythical presentation of comedies human and divine. LaterMedieval English Literature thusmarks the conclusion of a literarycounter revolution, the rehabilitation of the period's English writing. It emerges not as thin stuffor waning or not-so-good-as-Chaucer, but as a vital and major achievement in its own right. Gray performs an act of revaluation for theMiddle Ages as dramatic as that done by C. S. Lewis in 1954 with his English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Gray is quieter and less rhetorical than Lewis, but writes with equal distinction and perhaps more persuasively. The clarity of his prose is aided by the lack of footnotes, although each chapter ends with a listof books and papers cited. This magnificent volume, towering above so much that comes one's way, is a noble monument fromOxford, city ofmonuments. Of course, its imposing struc ture has the odd hairline crack. On pilgrimages to StWinifred's well...

Acculturation and its determinants among adult immigrants in France

The present study pursued three aims. First, it sought to determine the distribution of types of identification among adult immigrants in France; second, it investigated certain determinants that might contribute to the emergence of exclusively French or ethnic identifications; and third, it attempted to assess the outcomes of French or ethnic identification strategies for well-being. Participants of the study were 6211 adult immigrants in France, aged between 45 and 70 years (M = 55.8, SD = 7.21), 53.6% males. Findings revealed that participants' dominant identification style of belonging was either French (n = 2758, 44.4%) or home country/ethnic group affiliation (n = 1899, 30.6%), with a greater tendency towards the former. In relation to the study second question, it was found that lower levels of education and involvement with French society, higher degrees of religiosity, and shorter lengths of residence in France were positively connected with home country/ethnic group identification as against French and vice versa. Stronger feelings of being settled in France and a command of French, and lower degrees of involvement with the initial national/ethnic community, were associated with a significant decrease in the likelihood of home country/ethnic group identification as against French and vice versa. While respondents' personal experiences of discrimination in home country/ethnic group before migration to France predicted a lower likelihood of home country/ethnic group identification compared to French and vice versa, immigrants' reports of being discriminated against in France had no significant effect on identification choices. Findings revealed also that those identifying with their home country/ethnic group recorded relatively higher degrees of maladjustment than those asserting a French identification.

Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918 (review)

Reviewed by: Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918 Alexander Keese Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918. By Richard S. Fogarty. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8018-8824-3. Note on terminology. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Essay on sources. Index. Pp. 374. $60.00. Interest in the role of colonial troops as part of the French army has reached a new peak in recent years. Following the older studies of Marc Michel on the Tirailleurs Sénégalais, West African troops under French command, scholars have notably been engaged in analysing the connections between war experience and the social role of the respective soldiers in their societies of origin. Gregory Mann's book Native Sons went farthest in this respect. Richard Fogarty's study has, in comparison, a less ambitious goal. He enquires into the context of non-European experience in the First World War without commenting much on its repercussions on the returning individuals and their societies. The nature of the French approach towards non-Europeans recruited for the army of the Grande Nation, practical difficulties in battle, training and everyday interaction between European French and 'indigènes', questions of republican universalism and the racist limits of assimilation are at the heart of Fogarty's interpretations. This approach might be described as Eurocentric – but, in fact, the author paves the way for a more comprehensive analysis of problems that are at the core of interpreting France's colonial past. Also, while not following Mann's choice of combining research on indigenous soldiers both in France and in the colonial territories, Fogarty comments, nonetheless, on a remarkably wide range of different groups recruited for the war. Namely, besides the more classical interest in West and North Africans he includes a detailed study of the role of Malagasy and Indochinese troops. On the latter he provides an important discussion of their specialisations, namely as nurses and as members of artillery units. Also, their particular encounter with French civilians, especially with French women, is still under-researched, a gap in scholarly literature which is very well filled by Fogarty's book. Fogarty's analysis starts with the important and frequently ignored fact that French military officials, at the end of First World War and beyond, had to [End Page 668] defend the integration of African troops in the European battle theatres against racially motivated international critiques. The French practice was scorned by their white American colleagues (and idealised by Black American political activists). Obviously, Fogarty rapidly shows that the French 'liberality' was in part rhetoric. French military officers of all ranks doubtlessly had strong racist preconceptions. This already influenced strategies of recruitment: French officers believed that different colonial populations had 'racial characteristics', and that only some were real races guerrières (warrior races), while others were ineffective in battle. Moreover, race remained a central criterion for (white) leadership in the army, which made it extremely difficult for colonial soldiers to reach the rank of officer. Fogarty alludes to but does not respond to the question if French war planners deliberately sent non-white soldiers to places where losses were highest – a hypothesis so vehemently rejected in Marc Michel's Appel à l'Afrique. That race created hierarchy both on the level of the common soldier, as in the officer corps, becomes, as an unsurprising fact, very well illuminated in Fogarty's book. Fogarty's empirical findings on language problems, Islam and sexual contacts are very applicable for any reader, beyond the group of genuine military historians, and provide a strong part of the book. He refers to the problems of language use, and identifies the absence of a language base as a consequence of racism, as the French believed that a simplified (and ridiculed) form of French was an appropriate lingua franca. Regarding sexual encounters, Fogarty demonstrates that many indigenous recruits interpreted those as a symbolic revenge against the colonizer. Going here beyond the Eurocentric perspective, he holds that in the long run the visual proofs, particularly photos, of non-European soldiers having intimate contact with French women undermined the European prestige on which French colonial...

After Dunkirk: The French Army's Performance against `Case Red', 25 May to 25 June 1940

The historiography of the German defeat of France and her allies in 1940 has focused mainly on the first fortnight of what was a six-week campaign. Most writers have concentrated on either the German Wehrmacht's breakthrough of the thin French defences on the River Meuse, on the evacuation of over 330 000 Allied troops from Dunkirk and the nearby beaches, or on the political level of an unravelling Anglo-French partnership. The continuing fight of the French armies, with some assistance from the British and others in the last month of operations ( c.25 May to 25 June), has been almost invisible, reduced to the status of an epilogue. This article re-examines questions of French command and control, force strength, and combat performance, focusing particularly on a series of case studies of French divisions that resisted the second-stage German offensive, Fall Rot (Case Red) from 5 June 1940. The evidence deployed offers a considerably more complex — and for the French, more creditable — picture of how resistance was reorganized after the shocks of May 1940. The German victory was not some kind of stroll in rural France, but came about only after very hard fighting that has been lost from sight in most evocations of the `fall of France'.