ABSTRACT
After 1918, commemorative activity in France took on an unprecedented scale. Right in the aftermath of the conflict, monuments for the dead were built all across the nation while at the same time the first victory celebrations and post-war tributes to the dead were conceived. As for the commemorative activity during the Great War, this chapter demonstrates that the commemorations between 1914 and 1918 oscillate between modernity and tradition. Wartime rituals of remembrance were in fact an occasion to pay tribute to local war victims, to commemorate the community's wartime efforts and also to affirm lasting patriotic devotion and its contribution to the national war effort. The Great War reactivated and transformed two earlier value systems concerning death and war, both dating back to the nineteenth century: the 'heroization of battle' and 'the heroization of loss'. The Peace Martyr is the final heroic figure that emerged from the commemorative discourse of the Great War.
