1913 - Towards the Great War

The year 1913 is the one in which Europe's destiny tipped towards the Great War. In French society, tensions were mounting and the threat of conflict loomed: it was the "difficult hour" described by Georges Clemenceau.

While as early as January the successful play — with its notes of revanche — by Gaston Leroux, Alsace!, was running, the newspaper L'Action française, under the pen of Léon Daudet, pounced on anything resembling a spy. A veritable "spy mania" gripped the far-right paper and infected society at large. Above all, the question of extending military service dominated the media debate, through the voices of Jean Jaurès, Anatole France and Georges Clemenceau.

Yet, despite the imminence of war, life went on: Colette covered the trial of the Bonnot Gang; feminist demonstrations were denounced; the aviator Roland Garros crossed the Mediterranean, and Marcel Proust published the first volume of In Search of Lost Time.

Produced in partnership with RetroNews, the press archive website of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, this work presents and analyses, through 25 press articles, the inexorable path that led to the carnage of the First World War. It is a striking testimony to that slow process, caught between wilful blindness and preparation for war.