ABSTRACT
The First World War was not only a seminal event for France, but the universal nation also played a central role in the war. In particular, the competing universal visions of republicanism and Catholicism both ardently embraced the defense of the nation, working together to bring about the ultimate victory. A few years later another rising non-European nation, Japan, would inflict a humiliating defeat upon Russia in the Russo–Japanese War of 1904–1905. The rise of more militant nationalism in Europe also called into question feelings of political complacency. Life in the countryside changed markedly, shaped by both the increased presence of national and global economic forces and by the rural exodus which removed the most marginal producers. Ultimately both overseas empire and the rise of the nation-state in Europe combined to bring about a military cataclysm. The First World War tested the resolve of the Third Republic both as a nation and as an empire.
