“Four-legged poilus”: French Army Dogs, Emotional Practices and the Creation of Militarized Human-Dog Bonds, 1871-1918

Pearson, CJ ORCID: 0000-0002-0556-1929 (2017) “Four-legged poilus”: French Army Dogs, Emotional Practices and the Creation of Militarized Human-Dog Bonds, 1871-1918. Journal of Social History, 52 (3). pp. 731-760. ISSN 0022-4529, 1527-1897

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Abstract

This article explores the militarization of dogs in France from the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war to the Armistice of 1918. Following the defeat of Germany in 1871, a handful of French army officers promoted dogs as essential military auxiliaries that would compensate for deficiencies in French masculinity and emotions. Militarizing the nineteenth-century narrative of dogs as emotionally sensitive creatures, trainers argued that interspecies love and attachment would provide the necessary foundation for harnessing dogs towards military ends. After a hesitant start, the army mobilized thousands of rescue, sentry, and messenger dogs during the First World War. This official enlistment of dogs existed alongside soldiers’ unofficial pet-keeping. Indifferent to soldiers’ emotional reliance on dogs, the army sought to police and prevent these informal human-dog attachments. This article contributes to the growing scholarly interest in animals and warfare through engagement with the history of emotions. It argues that training and pet-keeping were “emotional practices” (to use Monique Scheer’s term) that created bonds between dogs and humans. To understand human-canine relations we need to set them within their particular historical context and explore how face-to-face encounters between humans and dogs combine with cultural narratives to bind the species together in meaningful, varied, and sometimes conflictual ways.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	4303 Historical Studies, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology, 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	06 Jul 2017 15:42
Last Modified:	12 Apr 2025 06:12
DOI:	10.1093/jsh/shx090
Related Websites:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3008359