Rachel Chrastil's Organizing For War

In the book, Organizing for War: France 1870-1914, Rachel Chrastil delivers a new perspective on the recovery after the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). Chrastil provides an account of French citizens in their pursuit of recovery and preparation in the nation-state. Specifically, recovery from the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and preparation for future conflicts, so the French never have to face that kind of defeat again. Chrastil also offers a unique examination of the internal problems challenging France, and the attempts to recover and restore the citizens and the state. The Franco-Prussian War served as a period for reconstruction, it allowed the French citizens to reevaluate what responsibilities they had in times of war and

Before undergoing the recovery process, French society needed to know what kind of transformation needed to occur. Chrastil emphasizes that many, after the conclusion of the war, believed that postwar recovery called for a political transformation. Therefore, “recovery from the war thus entailed a rejection of rule by one man and the embrace of the republic” (Chrastil 38). Chrastil argues that Republicans strongly believed that the establishment of a republic would recover France from its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. On the other hand, Chrastil introduces the Men of Letters, “who were more likely than politicians to promote the revanchiste cause, also were more inclined to point to the moral shortcomings of their fellow citizens for the causes of the war and its upheaval” (45). It is important to note that the “revanchiste cause” was essentially a retaliation, specifically to regain lost territory. Therefore, unlike the Republicans, the Men of Letters claimed that France, as a nation-state, had to undergo moral change rather than political, to recover. Within Chapter two, where Chrastil presents the two options, political or moral transformation for recovery, she provides many sources of journalists and authors as evidentiary support of what each side was arguing. Yet, neither option of political or moral transformation persuaded the French citizens that the state could meet the needs that France required for recovery. Thus, in Chapter Three and Four Chrastil illustrates that French citizens began to have a profound effect on what occurred in France, in both in relation to France under German occupation and commemorative acts in putting dead soldiers to