The Destiny and Representations of Facially Disfigured Soldiers during the First World War and the Interwar Period in France, Germany and Great Britain Submitted by Marjorie Irène Suzanne Gehrhardt to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in French in September 2013 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. 1 2 Abstract The frequency and seriousness of facial injuries during the First World War account for the presence of disfigured men in significant numbers in European interwar society. Physical reconstruction, psychological and social consequences had long-term consequences for experts and lay people alike. Despite the number of wounded men and the impact of disfigurement, the facially injured soldiers of the First World War have rarely been the focus of academic research. This thesis aims to bridge this gap through a careful investigation of the lives and representations of gueules cassées, as they came to be known in France. It examines the experience and perceptions of facial disfigurement from the moment of the injury and throughout the years following, thereby setting the parameters for a study of the real and the mediated presence of disfigured veterans in interwar society. The chronological frame of this study begins in 1914 and ends in 1939, since the perception and representations of facial disfigurement were of particular significance during the First World War and its aftermath. Using a comparative approach to explore the experience and representations of disfigurement, this study investigates the presence of facially injured combatants and veterans in 1920s and 1930s society. With an interdisciplinary perspective, literary and artistic depictions as well as historical documents are examined in order to complement contemporary descriptions with the voices of the men themselves. This study sheds new light on the history of wounded soldiers of the First World War through in-depth analysis of original documents from France, Germany and Great Britain. This thesis provides the first detailed comparative study of British, French and German disfigured men. It emphasises the at times paradoxical situation of veterans who sought to lead ordinary lives but also became symbols of the war. All five chapters highlight the visibility of facially injured men and explore different responses to their presence whilst also interrogating their role and image in wartime and interwar societies. As such it aims to make a contribution to the cultural history of the First World War and its aftermath. 3 4 Acknowledgements I am very grateful to all those who have supported me in the writing of this thesis. Particular thanks go to my supervisor Dr Ulrike Zitzlsperger, who has guided and encouraged me in my academic work since I started my Master’s degree, and who has always found the time and the words to help me in my PhD. Thank you also to Dr David Houston Jones for his feedback and support. I am grateful to the College of Humanities for providing me with funding and giving me the opportunity to teach within the Department of Modern Languages. EdmissionUK and the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France have also generously supported my participation in a conference and one of my research trips. Many people have facilitated my research work, especially with archives that were sometimes difficult to locate and access. I am particularly grateful to Madame Garric and Capitaine Tabbagh at the Val-de-Grâce, Andrew Bamji and Brian Morgan at the Gillies archives, Sarah Pearson and Sam Alberti at the Royal College of Surgeons, Olivier Roussel from the Association des Gueules Cassées, and staff members at the British Red Cross Archives, the Centre de Recherches de l’Historial de la Grande Guerre, the Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf Stadtarchiv and the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart. The fruitful exchanges I have had with several researchers have helped me in my research and I would like to thank in particular Prof Christian Auer, Dr Nicolas Beaupré, Dr Suzannah Biernoff, Dr Sophie Delaporte, Prof Allison Fell, Dr Stéphane Garcia, Dr Martin Hurcombe, Dr Frances Mossops, Dr Anne Rasmussen and Dr Fiona Reid. Many thanks go also to Biddy Stevens and her daughter, for sharing with me memories of their father and grandfather, wounded during the First World War. I am grateful to my colleagues for being a stimulating and encouraging team. Thank you especially to Zoë, Lucie, Laurie, Damien and Isaure. Thanks must also go to all my friends and family for being understanding of the demands of writing a thesis, and for showing an interest in my work. Thank you to Carole, Fanny and Marie-Emilie for keeping in contact despite the distance. Dani, Shona, Liane, Ameera, David and Mike kindly made time to proof-read for me, and their comments were very helpful. Thanks also go to Postgraduate Fellowship members, including Rachel, David and Joe, to Friends International 5 team members and students, and to people at Pinhoe Road Baptist Church for their warm welcome and their supportive attitude. I would like to express my gratitude to Louise, Simon and Rosemary for their help with academic matters, but also their encouragement on a daily basis during the time when I had the privilege to live with them. I am especially grateful to David for his thoughtfulness, his understanding and his encouragement. Finally, I would like to thank my family, in particular Sabine, Jean-Marc and Anne-Catherine, for their unconditional emotional and financial support. 6 Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 5 List of illustrations 11 Introduction 21 Facial injuries in the First World War: traditional attitudes and new developments 22 Facial injuries: quantitative and qualitative aspects 23 The development of plastic surgery of the face 26 State of research 29 Medical History 30 Social and Art History 33 Body culture and disability studies 36 Gender studies 43 Research questions and methodology 46 Cultural history and remembrance of the First World War 47 Human embodiments of memory 52 Memory and wounds 56 Chapter 1: Facially Injured Soldiers in Hospital 63 Treating facially injured soldiers 64 The re-appropriation of the self 64 A holistic endeavour 67 The art of maxillofacial surgery 70 Healing and hiding 74 A re-creation of the family sphere 83 Nurses and female staff: lovers and mothers 84 Male staff: a fraternal relationship 94 The surgeon: a multi-faceted figure 97 A paternal figure 98 A heroic figure 101 Conclusion 107 7 Chapter 2: Economic and social reintegration 109 Professional reintegration 110 Training in hospitals 110 The challenges of returning into civilian employment 116 The family sphere 121 Parents and children 122 Romantic relationships 126 Social reintegration 131 Spaces of contact, wartime and civilian identities 131 Marginal figures 136 Normalising depictions 148 Conclusion 153 Chapter 3: The Association des Gueules Cassées: Shaping a New Identity 155 Individual and collective dimensions 156 ‘Esprit de corps’ amongst gueules cassées 156 The creation of the Union des Blessés de la Face 161 The role of individual leaders 164 The work of the Union des Blessés de la Face 172 Meeting the veterans’ practical needs 172 A family structure 178 The Maison des Gueules Cassées: a home for facially disfigured veterans 180 Shaping the collective image of gueules cassées 188 The image promoted by the UBF 188 Publicising gueules cassées 199 A political body 203 Conclusion 215 Chapter 4: Visual Representations of Facially Injured Soldiers 219 Photography 221 Official photographs 223 Medical photographs 233 Use of photographs representing facially injured soldiers 237 8 Medical drawings 245 A double purpose 245 Case studies 247 Dissemination and responses 252 Gueules cassées in ‘conventional’ visual arts 254 The integration of gueules cassées into visual narratives of physical and social reconstruction 254 Images of difficult interaction 259 Conclusion 269 Chapter 5: Facially Injured Soldiers in Interwar Literature 271 The facially injured soldier: a marginal figure in interwar literature? 272 Chronological and international differences: marketing gueules cassées 272 Putting loss and pain into print 273 Prefaces 275 The literary treatment of the figure of the facially injured soldier 278 Representing the indescribable: depictions of facially injured soldiers in literature 279 A realistic setting 279 The presence of a ‘mediator’ 281 Literary descriptions of the injured face 285 The man in the mirror: the psychological consequences of facial disfigurement 289 Coping with facial injuries 292 Facing the world 295 The rejection of other people 295 Responses of strangers 297 Friendships 302 Facially injured men and their families 304 Love and romantic relationships 306 Conclusion 308 Conclusion 311 Bibliography 317 9 10 List of illustrations The illustrations listed below are mostly out of copyright; for those under copyright, written permission has been sought. Figure 1 64 Photograph of Musketier L., German soldier, in Erich Lexer, Wiederherstellungs-Chirurgie (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1920), p. 339 Figure 2 64 Photograph of Private Moss, British