Wartime rugby and football: sports elites, French military teams and international meets during the First World War.

Abstract

The First World War is traditionally considered in history as a temporary halt for cultural and sporting activities. If the Olympic Games and the Tour de France were actually cancelled, football and rugby were in fact stimulated by the circumstances of war. Indeed, the gathering of allied nations behind the Western Front emerged as the main factor in the development of these two sports. Reading the sporting press and military archives shows that international sporting exchanges were stimulated during the Great War. To be specific, France benefited from the golden opportunity provided by the presence of the masters of the game to strengthen its practices and affirm its status as a sporting nation. Inter-allied sporting exchanges were primarily characterised by informal encounters between military selections. Then, following the recognition of these sports by the military authorities, the number of exchanges increased. At the end of 1917, the official status acquired by sport within the military forces created the conditions for the structuring of the French sporting elite. From that point, we can witness the birth of the first French military rugby and football teams, as they demonstrate, through their good performances during the demobilisation period, the progressive build-up of the international dimension of French sport during the war years.