Newspaper Content in Occupied Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing Candice Addie Quinn Marquette University
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Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations (2009 -) Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Projects A Want of News in an Occupied Zone: Newspaper Content in Occupied Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing Candice Addie Quinn Marquette University Recommended Citation Quinn, Candice Addie, "A Want of News in an Occupied Zone: Newspaper Content in Occupied Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing" (2011). Dissertations (2009 -). Paper 165. http://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/165 A WANT FOR NEWS IN AN OCCUPIED ZONE: NEWSPAPER CONTENT IN OCCUPIED LILLE, ROUBAIX, AND TOURCOING by Candice Addie Quinn, B.A., M.A. A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degreee of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, Wisconsin December 2011 ABSTRACT A WANT OF NEWS IN AN OCCUPIED ZONE: NEWSPAPER CONTENT IN OCCUPIED LILLE, ROUBAIX, AND TOURCOING, 1914-1918 Candice Addie Quinn, B.A., M.A. Marquette University, 2011 The purpose of this dissertation is to ascertain exactly what news people in the occupied zone of France received during the First World War, in an attempt to assess the general assumption that the people of occupied France received little to no news. It is certain that the people in the occupied cities of Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing received less news than before the occupation, and most of the news they did receive came from an untrusted source, namely the German occupiers. However, research for this dissertation reveals that the cities at the urban heart of northern France, Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing, received more news than historians previously have believed. Research for this dissertation comprised of reviewing all the sources available in Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcong during the occupation, which included German-controlled newspapers produced in France and Belgium, a short-lived clandestine press, and newspapers published outside the occupied zone covertly imported into the cities. i Table of Contents Introduction 1 PART I BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT 1 The People of Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing 10 2 The German Occupation of Northern France 38 3 Impartial News: The First Casualty of War 67 PART II GERMAN-CONTROLLED NEWS SOURCES 4 The Bulletin de Lille 102 5 The Bulletin de Roubaix 132 6 La Gazette des Ardennes 161 7 Belgian Papers 1: La Belgique 197 8 Belgian Papers 2: Le Bien Public 220 9 Belgian Papers 3: Le Bruxellois 249 PART III OTHER SOURCES 10 The Clandestine Press 286 11 Less Influential Publications 320 Conclusion 340 Bibliography 349 1 Introduction Consistent receipt of news from a trusted media source plays a vital role in the modern consciousness of western societies. People have a need for news, that is, a composite, shared, ordered, and edited product, informing them in a timely manner about current events. 1 This was no less true for the people of occupied northern France during the First World War, who for four years suffered German occupation and isolation from their own country. Despite the numerous physical hardships they endured under occupation, including food shortages and forced labor, history remembers the lack of news as one of the greatest deprivations the people of occupied northern France underwent. Very nearly every historical work that examines the experiences of northern France agrees with Deborah Buffton’s assertion, “It was the lack of information that was perhaps the hardest thing to bear during the war and occupation.” 2 The purpose of this dissertation is to ascertain exactly what news people in the occupied zone received, in an attempt to assess the general assumption that the people of occupied France received little to no news. It is certain that the people in the occupied cities of Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing received less news than before the occupation, and most of the news they did receive came from an untrusted source, namely the German occupiers. However, research for this dissertation reveals that the cities at the urban heart of northern France, Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing, received more news than historians previously have believed. Our concentration on the flow of news in no way diminishes the dreadfulness of life under occupation. Northern France became a virtual German colony, governed by a 1 Michael Schudson, The Power of News (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 3. 2 Deborah Buffton, The Ritual of Surrender: Northern France under Two Occupations, 1914-1918, 1940- 1944 (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1987), 39. 2 regime aimed at economic extraction rather the production. 3 Leonard Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker aptly describe the horrors of life under German occupation. They note, “The paradigm of imposed brutality adhered to the true meaning of terrorism, designed to humiliate and thus dominate the civilian population by keeping it in a state of shock through the systematic use of emergency regulations and violence.” 4 The Germans, they further state, employed “…[a]ncient practices of extraction and slavery… administered through the most modern bureaucratic techniques of coercion.” 5 A central component of this system of domination was a control over the flow of information. The position of occupied France behind the German trenches gave the Germans dominion over the transmission of information. To make their monopoly greater, they quickly issued restrictive measures forbidding the publication of any material without their prior reading, as the Fourth Convention of The Hague allows in occupied zones during war. 6 The Germans immediately banned the publication of any newspapers without their approval and all French newspapers disappeared. The Oberste Heersleitung’s (OHL) order pertaining to the publishing and distributing of news appeared in the Bulletin de Lille in May 1915, as the activities of the clandestine press motivated the German occupiers to reiterate their publication rules. Article one of the order stated that all printed material must be submitted to the German censor, and article two noted that reproduction and publication of any written material could not be done until signed by the censor. Article three stated that a free copy of every issue had to be 3 Leonard Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, and Annette Becker, France and the Great War 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 42. 4 Ibid., 45. 5 Ibid., 51. 6 Larry Zuckerman, The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I (New York: New York University Press, 2004), 79. 3 submitted to the censor after it was printed. 7 Article four stated that everything submitted to the censor must be identified with the name and address of the printer or editor. Article five of the order forbid having in one’s possession imported newspapers. 8 The Germans did not limit their control to public media, but brought private communication under their eye as well. They only allowed personal letters in a limited form, sent unsealed to allow censor supervision. The German occupiers confiscated almost all private and public telephones and all radios and outlawed the keeping of pigeons, which they feared could carry messages back and forth to unoccupied France. For urban populations habituated to having multiple local, national, and international newspapers at their disposal, the limitations placed upon their consumption of information was greatly discombobulating. This dissertation is an act of historical reconstruction, aimed at revealing what information was available through newspapers in the Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing region during the occupation. Paul Connerton writes that historical reconstruction is still necessary even if the social memory preserves direct testimony. 9 The social memories of survivors of the occupation, displayed in numerous sources, long have asserted the absolute lack of news in occupied France. Yet, Connerton urges us to question such memories. He continues on to note, “Historians do no continue to question the statements of their informants because they think that the informants want to deceive them or have themselves been deceived. Historians continue to question the statements of their informants because if they were to accept them at face value that would amount to 7 Bulletin de Lille , May 30, 1915. 8 Ibid. 9 Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 14. 4 abandoning their autonomy as practicing historians.” 10 Such an historical questioning as urged by Connerton will reveal that there was not a complete lack of news. Survivors’ memories may have been shaped by their juxtaposition of the wartime news they received with the information they had access to before the war. Combined with the direness of their situation under occupation and the painfulness of the uncertainty surrounding their future, the people of occupied France may have created a collective memory that they received less news than appears to be the case after looking at their media sources. The German-controlled press was the single greatest source of news in the occupied zone, comprising newspapers published in Lille and Roubaix, and papers originating in other areas of occupied France and occupied Belgium. This was the only media allowed by the German occupiers, but the area did mange slightly more press diversity than the Germans intended. Outdated Parisian newspapers appeared irregularly in the region, either smuggled in or dropped from airplanes. Newspapers recorded reaching the occupied zone include issues of Matin, l’Echo de Paris, and Petit Journal . Dutch, English, and clandestine Belgian papers were also infrequently available on the black market, as well. A clandestine press also published within the confines of the occupied zone, with at least such eight newspapers appearing in Lille alone between January 1915 and December 1916. 11 The French government also made some rather anemic attempts at influencing people through newspapers in the occupied zone. The French army was in charge of propaganda directed at French territories occupied by the Germans. The Section de la propagande aérienne dropped forged German newspapers 10 Ibid., 14.