Abstract
This refreshing German PhD thesis starts out as a tale of two cities and ‘their regiments’ in wartime, Orleans and Frankfurt (the eastern one on the banks of the Oder, not the bankers’ lair in the west). Of course, such a comparison cannot be entirely symmetric: the Germans occupied Orleans in 1870; the French never got across the Rhine in 1918. Thus, it is German occupiers facing French civilians, both times round. That structural imbalance does not matter that much, however, because a strict comparison in itself is not the focal point of the book, but the perspective it allows on soldiers’ – and more specifically, officers’ – experiences (p. 413).
Thus, we are treated to a running commentary on all the latest theories in the light of the fairly plentiful sources the author has managed to unearth about ‘her’ regiments. The results are engagingly pragmatic: Meteling has little time for theories of ‘male bonding’ by officers or about ideological explanations of tensions between occupiers and civilians: ‘It’s logistics, stupid,’ one might say. The unrealistic expectations of correct relations between the two broke down, once requisitioning started and soldiers were lodged in civilian homes. Yet, in 1870, at least, professional outlook dominated the nationalist fervour popular on the ‘home front’. German officers pitied the half-starved French as they marched out of Metz in 1870.
During the ‘Great War’, Meteling attests a steeper learning curve for the Germans (not least because that’s what the French thought!). She also debunks some of the legends beloved by the generation of her teachers: it was not class struggle that affected the German army during the last stages of the war but front line vs the rear; if anything, soldiers preferred the well-trained pre-1914 aristocratic officers to the Ersatz cadres produced by wartime crash courses (after four years of war, the composition of regiments had changed almost completely). There was no ‘soldiers’ strike’ in late 1918 but simply a growing number of prisoners; once again, we are reminded of the importance of logistics: morale cracked when supplies failed. Partly that revisionism is a result of exposing the sometimes claustrophobic world of German ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ to the more free-wheeling spirit of debates in the west, e.g. to the findings of Alexander Watson.
Part of the book is also devoted to the wartime experience of the towns, not just their regiments. In both cases defeat was coupled with the threat of revolution. If Meteling was unable to unearth any Frankfurt parallels to the French aristocratic lady who preferred the Germans to the ‘reds’ in 1870, similar attitudes can certainly be found in, say, North Bohemian towns. In 1870, Orleans actually had to defend its reputation against charges of defeatism and collaboration with the enemy. (On the other hand, the French noted the intense rivalry between Prussians and Bavarians.) The republic was regarded as an interim solution by many conservative Germans in 1918, and certainly by many French in the 1870s. Was it war that led to a radicalization of politics in Germany (and the other losers in east central Europe) or postwar experiences, the ‘failed inner liquidations of the war’ (p. 378)? The French did fight a civil war of sorts in 1871, whereas Meteling notes that German conservatives’ reaction to revolution, such as it was, consisted of ‘wegducken’ (p. 384), hiding in the trenches once again, even if virtual ones this time.
Apart from the insights gained by squaring different approaches to wartime experiences, we also learn a lot about the two armies in general, from the chaos of French mobilization in 1870 and the NCO-background of two-thirds of their officers, to the first appearance of tinned food and rationing. Meteling is to be congratulated on her balancing act of quoting all the appropriate theories and yet producing an elegantly written, readable book.