The Birth and Fading Away of France's Union Sacrée

The French people by August  1914 were facing a coming war with shock, sadness, and consternation. But—unbeknownst to most Frenchmen—the process of unifying a French society, long suffering multiple fractures, had subtly begun even before the war or even the assassination of the Archduke. 

On 4 August 1914, President Raymond Poincaré formerly asked political parties, trade unions, and religious groups agreed to set aside their sharp domestic differences, stop strikes, and unite behind the government and military to defend the country against German invasion. French socialists and trade unions, who had previously promised to oppose a capitalist war, chose patriotism over internationalism following the assassination of pacifist leader Jean Jaurès. A key symbolic moment had occurred when France's most ardent nationalists stood alongside Jaurès supporters at his funeral the day before.

The  first sign that the new policy was broadly accepted came immediately, when the French parliament unanimously voted for war credits, with socialists fully backing the national defense effort. This Union sacrée (sacred union) would temporarily bridge the deep gap between the officially secular French Republic and the Catholic Church. As a gesture, in the Chamber of Deputies, Edouard Vaillant, who took part in the Commune, the Paris popular uprising that followed the defeat  of 1870, shook hands for the first time with Albert de Mun, who had  been an officer in the French army that suppressed it.

As the authors of France and the Great War, 1914–1918 observe: "This process began even before the war, with the reconciliation between the army and the Republic.  Peace broke out in 1914 between the Republic and its other great foe in  the Dreyfus Affair, the Catholic Church. Still overwhelmingly Catholic, the French in and out of uniform flocked to churches as mobilization  began. Pope Pius X, with followers on both sides of the war, desperately sought neutrality and issued vain appeals to both sides to make peace.  But French Catholicism rallied to the national cause from the outset." 

A Catholic Priest Serving as a Soldier in the French Army

In  August 1915, the Catholic clerical journal La Revue du Clerge Français  captured the tone of the mobilization perfectly, by effortlessly uniting the  cause of God with the cause of France: "France cannot lose. The world would be denied that of which she is the exquisite  adornment, the Church that of which she is the tireless apostle, and God himself  the service of a generous knight."

Unification also took place in the political sphere. Left-wing parties, trade unions, and socialists agreed to stop striking and support the government. This unity allowed France to mobilize millions of soldiers, while stabilizing the war economy.  Even socialist leaders joined the wartime government cabinet for the first time.

President Raymond Poincaré Visiting the Front

The pure form of Union sacrée, however, did not last the entire war. High casualties and shortages on the home front took a big toll on the nation's morale. By 1917, workers began striking again for better pay and conditions. Defeatists and radicals intensified their corrosive efforts throughout the war years, contributing to the post-Nivelle Offensive mutinies in the ranks. Still, the early months of the sacred union kept France from fracturing from within during the critical opening phase of the war.

Georges Clemenceau had supported the patriotic defense of France against Germany, but he viewed the passive political truce of the Union sacrée as weak and insufficient, arguing that a mere political truce among parties lacked the hard-driving force needed to actually win the war. Upon becoming prime minister in November 1917, he discarded the concept for guerre intégrale (total war), demanding active mobilization, aggressive prosecution of radicals, and zero tolerance for defeatism.

Sources: Encyclopedia 1914-1918; France and the Great War, 1914–1918; Wikipedia; European History, 1890–1945