ABSTRACT

The story begins with Charles Darwin (1809-82) whose Origin of the Species led to the idea that a nation’s vitality depends on its physical characteristics and that these can be improved through training or breeding, as with horses. After the Franco-German War of 1870-1 in which France had lost its eastern provinces to Germany and which had brought German unification as an empire under a Prussian Kaiser, France fell back on its culture, its technical ingenuity, and-if men like Coubertin had their way-ultimately its physical training.