Paris: “That Fabulous Day”

Roland Doregeles

Paris: “That Fabulous Day”

Thesis: Roland Doregeles describes a very celebratory mood of national pride as the people learn about the outbreak of war, but he seems to question their enthusiasm when he asks why did they fight after a million and a half are dead and their enemy no longer their enemy

· In “After Fifty Years,” Roland Doregeles (1886-1973), a distinguished French writer, recalled the mood in Paris at the outbreak of the war.

· The message written was written with a shaky hand that was an announcement to a million and a half Frenchman that they would have to go to war and their response was uncertain.

· The people crowd with an initial silence and numbness but this doesn’t last

· The people burst out I national enthusiasm and the “Marseillaise” poured from a thousand throats.

· Young and old, civilians and military men burned with the same excitement. It was like a Brotherhood Day.

· They cried, “ To Berlin!” and not “ Down with war!” this is pointed out because of the immediate uncertainty of the people’s reaction, but the outcome is obvious.

· No more poor or rich, proletarians or bourgeois, right-wingers or militant leftist; they were only Frenchmen.

· Finally Roland questions all their enthusiasm after a million and a half are dead and he asks why did we fight? Why did we let ourselves get killed?

· His answer is he does not know what to answer, and this view begins the disillusionment of the WWI generation.