This thesis examines the occupation of the French department of the Nord in the First World War. The focus is on the French responses to occupation, especially the way in which certain actions were understood as patriotic or non-patriotic – acceptable or unacceptable. These behaviours are categorised and studied via three main themes, what might be termed collaboration, criminality, and resistance, although I argue for a reformulation of some of these Second-World-War conceptual categories, taking into consideration the specificities of this occupation. It is demonstrated that the occupied French created their own war culture, a culture de l’occupé, based around notions of respectability, acceptability, and social-patriotic mores. Those breaching the limits of these norms faced opprobrium and punishment, both during and after the war, although this was never as violent or extensive as elsewhere (such as occupied Belgium from 1918, or occupied Europe in 1944-5 and beyond). For some, the moral economy was redefined, creating a situation in which criminality or misconduct became effective modes of survival. This, combined with economic difficulties, led to a belief among chroniclers of occupied life that crime was increasing, and that young people were particularly involved in this. Fears of moral corruption abounded. The occupation culture demanded opposition to the Germans and expressions of patriotism, often containing a performative element. This could be achieved through the protests of French notables, symbolic gestures carried out by the wider population, and active resistance involving a minority of occupés . Whatever the success of resistance, some forms were praised after the occupation, with the French and British governments expressing their gratitude through compensation and medals. The official occupation narrative in the post-war period became one of suffering and resistance, and suffering as resistance; but the occupation memory remained local, eventually overshadowed by that of the Second World War.

The purpose of this thesis is threefold: to present the first operational study of the August 1914 Ardennes campaign; to demonstrate that in two particular encounter battles the French had the opportunity to inflict a tactical, possibly operational defeat upon their opponents but in both cases failed to do so; and to explore the reasons for that French failure, by relating events on the battlefield to each side's pre-war preparations.

This thesis analyses representations of the French comptoirs in India - Pondichery, Mahe, Karikal, Yanaon and Chandemagor - in metropolitan French cultural production under the Third Republic. Explorations of representations of empire in French cultural production under the Third Republic have previously focused on France's 'new' colonies acquired during the period to examine manifestations of national, colonial and Republican identities (Cooper (2001), Chafer and Sackur (2002), Robson and Yee (2005), Lorcin (2006), Hale (2008)). This thesis instead investigates representations of India - a colony acquired, but effectively 'lost' under the Ancien Regime. Despite being reduced to the five comptoirs by the British in 1763, which remained small geographically and politically speaking compared to British hegemony and to France's 'new' colonies, the comptoirs continued to have a cultural resonance in France under the Third Republic. Not only did the loss of India continue to be lamented, but paradoxically, it was also used as a catalyst for colonial expansion in Indochina in particular, which was viewed by colonial commentators as an ideal compensation for the failings on the subcontinent. Thus, the 'new' colonial projects under the Third Republic continued to be narrativized by the losses under the Ancien Regime. This thesis demonstrates how the narrative of the loss of India continued to be told and re-told, providing an example of national disaster to be avoided and to make a clear distinction between the failings of the Monarchy and the successes of the new Republican regime. It examines how the loss of India was viewed with regret and nostalgia, which enabled the French to perpetuate a relationship with India, based mainly on romance and sentiment. This melancholy notwithstanding, this thesis examines how the loss of India was used to advance France's colonial projects under the Third Republic, especially in Indochina. It also outlines how India was represented in the context of competing colonialisms, and how critical portrayals of the more dominant British allowed for the dissemination of the idea that France had a privileged relationship with India. The French presence in India continues to be overlooked by scholars such as Daughton (2006), Conklin, Fishman and Zarestky (2011), and this thesis strives to fill this lacuna. Moreover, this thesis demonstrates how the representational strategies outlined above were employed in different ways throughout the period and were inflected by wider Republican, national and colonial historico-political contexts. Through a critical analysis of how these versions of France's story in India were articulated, albeit in different forms, at colonial exhibitions, in school textbooks, in adventure novels and in trade cards issued by Chocolat Suchard, this work provides an example of how a story of colonial failure, instead of one of success, was used to consolidate Republican, anti-monarchical, colonial and anti-British agendas. As such, it shows how moments of colonial loss, which paradoxically were used as a reference point to imagine former national glories, sustained continuities which informed subsequent manifestations of France's national projects under Republicanism.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the ideological weapons that the Action Francaise used to challenge the Third Republic and its ideology. While the Action Francaise been seen either as another monarchist challenge to the Republic or as the precursor of fascism (Weber, Nolte, Stemhell), it has not been seen as a part of the wider phenomenon of the debate on citizenship and Republicanism that was taking place in fin de siecle France.

The thesis critically examines the life of French historian Madeleine Rebérioux (1920 – 2005), through the unstudied connections between academic, political and social engagement. Embedded in militancy through her academic interest in Jean Jaurès and French socialism, Rebérioux’s diverse engagement was remarkable. A leading figure of the anticolonial left in the 1950s and 1960s, Rebérioux was excluded from the French Communist Party in 1969 before later becoming president of the Ligue des droits de l’homme in the 1990s. I have developed the epistemological term ‘historical militancy’ – namely the transaction between being a professional historian and being a social movement activist – in order to assess Rebérioux’s copious archives, bequeathed to the French state after her death. How did Rebérioux’s activism shape her historical interpretation of the past? Likewise, to what extent did Rebérioux’s nuanced view of history frame injustice in her intellectual interventions in French society? Using three case studies, the research scrutinises how Rebérioux used collective action as a vehicle for militancy: from ephemeral anticolonial groups like the Comité Audin, academic activist networks such as the Collectif intersyndical universitaire and action during May ’68 through to well-established national organisation the Ligue des droits de l’homme. This critical analysis of Rebérioux’s archival papers indicates, for the first time, how Rebérioux sat at the heart of a complex web of overlapping campaign-networks. Her activism forms an unbroken thread woven into polemical political moments of the Fourth and Fifth Republics, offering a unique window on historians’ practical engagement outside of their professional academic discipline as well as a new understanding of the culture of left-wing political militancy.

The key objective of this study has been to contribute new evidence of the articulation of women's subjectivities during the Occupation in France 1940–1944, by using contemporaneous journals as traces of lived experience. A further objective was to address the omission of the extent and riches of such primary source material in both French and British historiography of the period. The methodological approach employed was to consider four such journals as primary sources to interrogate sites of Occupation historiographical enquiry: the exode, the Jewish survivor experience, attentisme and the role of the female agent de liaisonin resistance activity. The contribution and originality of the research lie in its systematic analysis of the four journals, the choice of genre (diary) and the qualitative value emerging from sources that have previously been used schematically or not at all. It is now almost impossible to recover day-to-day Occupation experience through oral testimony and it is not always identifiable in archival documentation and we are therefore left only with fragmentary traces. Qualitative studies such as this research offer the means to recover elements of that detail. The findings of the study are that women's subjectivities of the wider constraints of the Occupation are articulated in the physicalities of bodily sensations and that wider notions of loss, exile and waiting predominate. The thesis has also demonstrated the extent of the under-reporting of women's narratives during the Occupation and argues that the use of women's texts should be privileged in future work in order to redress the gender imbalance in both British and French Occupation historiography.

Histories of the working class in France have largely ignored the existence of working-class conservatism. This is particularly true of histories of the interwar period. Yet, there were an array of Catholic and right-wing groups during these years that endeavoured to bring workers within their orbit. Moreover, many workers judged that their interests were better served by these groups. This thesis explores the participation of workers in Catholic and right-wing groups during the 1930s. What did these groups claim to offer workers within the wider context of their ideological goals? In which ways did conservative workers understand and express their interests, and why did they identify the supposed ‘enemies of the left’ as the best means of defending them? What was the daily experience of conservative workers like, and how did this experience contribute to the formation of 'non-left' political identities? These questions are addressed in a study of the largest Catholic and right-wing groups in France during the 1930s. This thesis argues that, during a period of left-wing ascendancy, these groups made the recruitment of workers a top priority. To this end, they harnessed particular elements of mass political culture and adapted them to their own ideological ends. However, the ideology of these groups did not simply reflect the interests of the workers that supported them. This thesis argues that the interests of conservative workers were a rational and complex product of their own experience. They were formed by a large range of materials, from preconceived attitudes to issues such as gender and race, to the everyday experience of bullying and intimidation on the factory floor. This thesis shows that workers could conceive of their interests in a number of different ways, and chose from a range of different groups to try and further them.

The First World War placed enormous pressures on the home fronts of all belligerents as they sought to provide the unprecedented levels of armaments required by twentieth century warfare. France proved to be both militarily and industrially unprepared for the task and was almost defeated in the early months of the war as the army was severely constrained by shortages of shells and artillery. However, by 1918 French industry was able to produce more materiel than Britain while also supplying the arriving American Expeditionary Force. This thesis explores how this tremendous feat was achieved by examining the actions and interests of the high command, the government and the industrialists. Throughout the war, the specific needs of the French commanders would fluctuate, but the desire for quantity and speed of delivery was constant, often at the expense of quality. The Ministry of War attempted to appease both the army and the industrialists in order to mobilise industry rapidly to meet the requirements of the front line. Despite the apparent success of its efforts, the government’s response to the pressures of war was ad hoc and reactionary. It had little time to formulate a cohesive plan, nor could it ignore the short-term necessities in favour of a longer-term strategy. Thus it created and faced a number of problems that complicated the mobilisation process, which the government sought to resolve through an increasing reliance on bureaucracy and state intervention in a previously liberal economy. Ultimately, as output expanded, constraints on the army eased, and industry was able to supply armaments in both high quality and large quantities, facilitating an operational approach that became ever more reliant on materiel as manpower resources dwindled. French efforts thus demonstrated the importance of economic management in wartime and greatly influenced post-1918 planning for future wars.

Following the Fall of France in 1940, the nation’s industry was fundamentally reorganised under the Vichy regime. This thesis traces the history of the keystones of this New Industrial Order, the Organisation Committees, by focusing on the organisation of the French steel industry between the end of the Third Republic in 1940 and the establishment of the Fourth Republic in 1946. It challenges traditional views by showing that the Committees were created largely to facilitate economic collaboration with Nazi Germany. It also demonstrates that these institutions were run by a new group of technocratic managers from French industry and that they willingly oversaw production for the Third Reich insofar as it remained advantageous to French steel firms. By extending the period of study beyond the end of the Vichy regime, this thesis casts light on why the leaders of the Resistance decided to maintain these problematic institutions and provides the first detailed account of how the bodies were reformed following the Liberation of France. Finally, it reveals that although the Organisation Committees were formally abolished in 1946, Jean Monnet created parallel bodies, named Modernisation Commissions, which took over the functions and carried on the work of Vichy’s Committees under the auspices of the Monnet Plan. By demonstrating the continuities of institutions and individuals in French industrial organisation from 1940 to 1946, or l’entre-deux-républiques, this thesis contributes to the history of Vichy and post-war France and re-evaluates the origins of the Monnet Plan and of the European Coal and Steel Community, the forerunner to today’s European Union.

Notre thèse se décline en une approche chronologico-thématique autour de trois pôles majeurs. Il s'agit, tout d'abord d'une démonstration qui entend établir un tableau aussi précis que possible de la structure, des rouages et de l'implantation des organisations d'AF à Paris et en province. L'objectif est ensuite d'analyser les grandes matrices de l'engagement militant mais aussi et surtout leurs évolutions successives en lien avec un contexte politico-diplomatique extrêmement mouvant. Il s'agit pour chaque période donnée de chercher à comprendre ce qui constitue l'engagement au sein de la ligue dans une approche résolument tournée vers la base militante. Enfin, il faut réfléchir à la place et au rôle de l'AF dans la nébuleuse royaliste et nationaliste de son temps afin de comprendre les jeux d'alliance et de concurrence entre les diverses organisations mais aussi dans quelle mesure et de quelle manière la ligue d'AF s'est intégrée au répertoire d'action collective de son temps tout en participant à son renouvellement. Le choix de notre découpage chronologique répond à des nécessités à la fois contextuelles et propres à l'histoire de l'Action française. Au cours de la première période, de 1905 à 1914, on assiste à une structuration rapide et continue de l'appareil d'action intellectuelle et militante. Les rouages nationaux et locaux de la ligue se mettent en place et les matrices de l'engagement militant sont diffusées par l'intermédiaire du quotidien et contribuent à influencer l'opinion publique. A cette époque, l'AF est presque seule dans le champ nationaliste mais doit se positionner au sein du monde royaliste. Pendant la Grande Guerre, les structures de la ligue sont désorganisées. L'objectif principal est alors de continuer à diffuser le journal ce qui n'empêche pas la ligue d'utiliser le temps de guerre pour tenter de nouvelles méthodes de propagande notamment dans l'armée. La période 1914-1918 permet aussi à l'AF de se respectabiliser en choisissant la voie de l'Union sacrée. Elle reste malgré tout une organisation particulièrement surveillée d'autant plus que son influence dans l'opinion publique s'accroît. Après-guerre, l'AF se réorganise partout en province. Au cours de la période 1919-1926, elle fait l'expérience de la vie parlementaire et glisse, de fait, vers une sorte de conservatisme contre lequel elle s'est initialement constituée. Ses échecs électoraux couplés à l'influence croissante des communistes dans la vie publique contribuent à relancer son activisme militant mais pas suffisamment selon certains de ses membres qui suivent alors Georges Valois dans la dissidence du Faisceau. L'AF doit également faire face à l'apparition d'une nouvelle concurrence nationaliste avec la naissance des Jeunesses Patriotes. En 1926, elle est confrontée à la plus grave crise de son histoire : sa condamnation pontificale. Au cours de la période 1927-1929, la ligue cherche à rebondir et à maintenir son implantation et ses activités dans un contexte, par ailleurs, globalement défavorable. Les résultats sont extrêmement nuancés selon les régions mais, dans l'ensemble, il n'y a pas d'écroulement de sa structure militante même si les difficultés financières de la ligue sont de plus en plus importantes. Au tournant des années 1930, la crise économique aggrave encore ces difficultés mais contribue aussi à créer un contexte favorable à un nouvel épisode de flambée ligueuse. Au cours de la période 1933-1936, l'AF connaît un regain de vitalité dont le paroxysme se situe au moment du 6 février 1934. Cela étant, cet épisode démontre également les limites et les faiblesses du phénomène ligueur nationaliste en France / Our thesis is based on a chronologico-thematic approach based on three major poles. First, it is a demonstration that aims to establish a table as precise as possible of the structure, the workings and the implantation of the AF organizations in Paris and in the provinces. The objective is then to analyze the great matrices of the militant commitment but also and especially their successive evolutions in connection with an extremely moving politico-diplomatic context. For each given period, it is a question of trying to understand what constitutes engagement within the league in a resolutely militant-oriented approach. Finally, the place and role of the AF in the royalist and nationalist nebula of its time must be considered in order to understand the alliance and competition games between the various organizations, but also to what extent and in what way the league Of AF has integrated in the repertoire of collective action of his time while participating in its renewal. The choice of our chronological division corresponds to the needs that are both contextual and specific to the history of French Action. During the first period, from 1905 to 1914, there was a rapid and continuous structuring of the apparatus of intellectual and militant action. The national and local workings of the league are set up and the matrices of activist engagement are disseminated through the daily newspaper and contribute to influencing public opinion. At that time, AF was almost alone in the nationalist field but had to position itself within the royalist world. During the Great War, the structures of the league were disorganized. The main objective is to continue to broadcast the newspaper, which does not prevent the league from using war time to try new methods of propaganda, especially in the army. The period 1914- 1918 also allowed the AF to respect itself by choosing the way of the Sacred Union. In spite of everything, it remains a particularly supervised organization, especially since its influence in public opinion is increasing. After the war, the AF was reorganized throughout the province. During the period 1919-1926, she experienced the parliamentary life and, in fact, slipped into a kind of conservatism against which she initially constituted herself. His electoral failures coupled with the increasing influence of Communists in public life helped to revive his militant activism but not enough according to some of his members who then followed Georges Valois in the dissidence of the Faisceau. AF must also face the emergence of new nationalist competition with the birth of the Jeunesses Patriotes. In 1926, it faced the most serious crisis in its history: its pontifical condemnation. During the period 1927- 1929, the league sought to rebound and to maintain its location and activities in a generally unfavorable context. The results are extremely nuanced by region, but overall there is no breakdown of its militant structure even if the financial difficulties of the league are increasingly important. At the turn of the 1930s, the economic crisis further aggravated these difficulties but also helped create a favorable environment for a new episode of league outbreak. During the period 1933-1936, the AF was experiencing a revival of vitality whose paroxysm was at the time of February 6, 1934. However, this episode also demonstrates the limitations and weaknesses of the phenomenon nationalist leaguer in France