Conclusion

Abstract

The conclusion draws the various arguments of the book together, and makes a final case for the importance of the topic. It reaffirms how the book has presented an alternative picture of the Western Front—one that is urban rather than rural, and one where the soldiers are not the sole inhabitants of the battlefield, but share it with civilians. It discusses how the historiography of the First World War has demonstrated that the conflict ‘militarized’ civilian identities. But it also points out that, up until now, there has been little acknowledgement of how this was a variable process, with some civilians militarized to a far greater extent than others. The conclusion points to the wide-ranging social impacts of the experiences studied in this book. Direct encounters with military violence, and especially the traumatic experiences of artillery bombardment, military occupation, and forced displacement threatened the integrity of France’s front-line communities. War scattered communities and destroyed the physical spaces they inhabited, strained social and family bonds, generated considerable material hardships, and killed and wounded thousands of civilians. And yet, despite these intense and prolonged physical assaults on local communities, a sense of community identity remained intact throughout the war, and was of crucial importance for how civilians navigated the pressures of life in the battle zones. War did not, in other words, destroy the front-line communities, but transformed them, and shaped the sense of belonging felt by civilians.