ABSTRACT
The First World War was the most traumatic experience suffered by the Third Republic between the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the outbreak of the Second World War. It marked the end of an era, perhaps even of a world, characterized, at least in contrast to the inter-war period, by political and social stability, low inflation, low taxes and low unemployment. The war itself subjected France to an unprecedented ordeal lasting over four years: some 1,397,800 Frenchmen were killed and another 4,266,000 wounded; an enormous financial and economic cost was incurred, perhaps amounting to half of France’s national wealth; and large parts of north-eastern France, one of the country’s most economically productive regions, were devastated by years of fighting. It was a war that led to a massive mobilization of France’s human, industrial and financial resources. Approximately 8,410,000 men from France and the French colonial empire were mobilized to serve in France’s armed forces, while millions of French men and women and a significant number of foreign and colonial workers were recruited to contribute to victory on the home front.
