Let me introduce you to « Le Paradis Tricolore ». It’s a book that’s held a particular fascination for me for some time. It’s a book intended for children. So, what’s its relevance to this blog?
Well, it’s about that disputed region, Alsace, at the time of la Grande Guerre. It’s full of colour, with illustrations on every page, and features sweet children in traditional costumes and the beautiful villages of the region. In its pages appear many French soldiers as cheerful liberators of this “Tricolour Paradise”, warmly welcomed by the people and, especially, by the children « Car le Poilu de France et les enfants d’Alsace sont de grands amis ».
A remarkable book.
It’s blatant propaganda, strongly nationalistic and his pen name might seem weirdly creepy to modern tastes (« l’oncle Hansi » ?!) and yet the book is fascinating for its narrative and, in some aspects, its accuracy. We’ll come to that later.
« Hansi » or « Oncle Hansi » was Jean-Jacques Waltz. The website of the tourist office of Colmar, where he was born in 1873 (two years after Alsace was annexed by Germany after France’s defeat in the War of 1870-71) does a good job of placing the man in context. The son of a museum curator, he studied at l’Académie des Beaux-Arts de Lyon from 1892 to 1895, before returning to Alsace to work as a textile designer. From 1909 he devoted himself exclusively to drawing. A good part of his work shows a deep anti-German sentiment and a strong attachment of Alsatians to France, with a desire on their part to become French again. His works mocked Germans visiting Alsace and he was imprisoned several times for this. Just before the war, he fled to France and, when war broke out, joined the French army and became a propagandist. After the war, his books portrayed a patriotic Alsace which was happy to be French again. But, as the tourist office says “this idyllic image of a rural, wonderful, pleasant, red, white and blue and somewhat backward-looking and folkloric Alsace did not correspond to reality”. The detail of Alsace’s history is much more complicated than perhaps many of us think.
Waltz was more popular and successful in his career than perhaps we can appreciate.
When I first saw « Le Paradis Tricolore », it immediately put me in mind of Peepo! by Janet and Allan Ahlberg – a book that was very popular with my children (and me!) when they were very small. If you don’t know it, there’s a couple of images in the slideshow below to help you. Peepo! is a story in rhyme of an infant in (Second World War) wartime Britain. The backdrop of barrage balloons, bombed buildings, people in uniform and RAF planes feels entirely incidental to the story. But the detail of the period is beautifully captured in the late Janet Ahlberg’s illustrations of tin baths, clothes horses, sleeveless sweaters, tin mugs and tea cosies.
Allan Ahlberg has made clear that the nostalgia in these images references his own wartime childhood. In many ways, it’s possible to see it as incidental to the story. However, the accuracy of portrayal of OXO tins and terraced house outhouses is vital to this nostalgia. It works brilliantly.
Hansi’s purpose is in both romanticising Alsace and its French connections and satirising the Germans. But, in order to do this, his depictions of villages and towns need to be completely faithful to reality at the time the war ended. Churches, public buildings and houses in places like Thann and Massevaux are faithfully captured. Some locations still recognisable and largely unchanged. Would a child notice these details? Perhaps not. But an adult reading to a child would – just as I did with Peepo!.
However, it’s not just the buildings. Looking at the detail of the uniforms of the French soldiers shows they too are remarkably accurate – down to the rank insignia, the « chevrons d’ancienneté de presence » and trade badges (see my previous post here for examples). Even the presence of colonial troops (by 1918 a hugely important part of the French war effort) is included (« j’ai vu des Poilus Sénégalais tout noirs, un large coutelas à la ceinture, qui ont un air terrible »). Sadly, the ‘Senegalese’ men themselves appear as dreadful racial stereotypes characteristic of the period. But their uniforms are kaki – another important historical detail.
Somewhat incongruously, a zouave, with carefully prepared cover story, appears in the 1914 uniform that was completely unsuitable for the type of warfare encountered in the Great War (« c’est un des nombreux engagés volontaires alsaciens, qui pour venir en permission tiennent à mettre la tenue légendaire de ce corps. »). This is also a subtle acknowledgement of the pieds-noirs who had fled Alsace after the War of 1870-71 and who resettled in Algeria, from where many of the zouave units recruited. Other incidental details ‘celebrate’ the other troops who fought in this sector of the Western Front including the chasseurs alpins and l’armée de l’air.
Having technically committed treason as a citizen of Imperial German Alsace in 1914 (see this remarkable Bekanntmachung, issued on 1 September 1914), Hansi was a target for the German Nazis in the Second World War and was viciously beaten by Gestapo agents in April 1941. Fortunately, he survived and lived until 1951, a Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur and a recipient of the Croix de guerre avec palmes from each of the two world wars.
Outside his native Alsace, he may not be well-known but, like Georges Spitzmuller, more important during his lifetime than is recognised.
Debout les Morts! 