"He revolutionized historical science" : how the First World War shaped historian Marc Blo

A major historian of the 20th century, resistance fighter and committed witness to the two world wars, Marc Bloch entered the Pantheon on June 23, 2026. Recognition for the man who, from the classroom of Amiens to the trenches of 14-18, embodied a new way of thinking about History. It’s the story of Sunday.

On July 13, 1914, in the courtyard of the Amiens boys’ high school, Marc Bloch spoke to his students. “I am a history teacher“, he recalls. “I tell you about battles that I did not witness, I describe monuments that disappeared long before my birth, I tell you about men that I have never seen. And my case is that of all historians“. Three weeks later, war broke out. The young officer joined the 72nd Amiens infantry regiment. For the first time, he would no longer just be an observer of History: he would become an actor. 112 years later, on June 23, 2026, Marc Bloch entered the Pantheon.

His words resonate differently when Marc Bloch leaves the classroom for the front. He then experienced what the historian Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau describes as a real “observation participante“. The French retreat of 1914 is “morally and physically exhausting“, but Bloch also says he was “prodigiously interested” in what he observed.This is already the view of the historian“, he emphasizes.

At the end of brilliant studies, notably at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, he signed a ten-year commitment in which he pledged to give back to the State.the price of the scholarship and the pension” from which he will have benefited. Like the normaliens of his time, Marc Bloch undertakes to exercise a function in the service of the State for ten years, mainly in teaching or research, under penalty of repaying the sums received during his education.

He was admitted to the history and geography aggregation in 1908, and first fulfilled his commitment by joining national education. He taught at the Montpellier high school in 1912 then at the high school for boys in Amiens in 1913 without knowing that the following year he would finally have to serve under the flags with the 72nd infantry regiment whose garrison was in Amiens.

A historian before being a fighter, Marc Bloch was not spared during this war according to Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau: “he has the rank of sergeant, a modest rank for a normalien professor of history. He participated in the last phase of the Battle of the Marne. He is rather to the east of the French system in Champagne and he will then experience the transition from the war of movement to the war of position by settling in Argonne, which was at the end of 1914 beginning of 1915, one of the worst places on the western front during the Great War“.

A period about which he says little during the fighting. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Marc Bloch writes little. Only a few pages, when he was hospitalized at the end of 1914 after a serious illness. Then almost nothing. Although he makes little mention of his personal case, these honors, received after the war, speak for him. His behavior in combat earned him several citations, then the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor.

A few weeks after explaining to his students that a historian studies events that he did not experience, Marc Bloch finds himself plunged into the heart of one of the founding battles of the 20th century. An experience that will lastingly mark his way of writing history, as Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau explains: “This greatly shaped the historian he was because Marc Bloch made profound observations during the war. And in particular very profound observations on what he calls war rumors and then exactly what he calls false news.(…) It is on the basis of this idea of false news that Marc Bloch then analyzes what he calls the royal miracle of thaumaturgy, that is to say the capacity of the kings of France to cure the sick with a formula: “the king touches you God heals.” (…) This royal thaumaturgy in France was based on false news and we see this very clearly in Marc Block’s book. It appeared in 1924 but it was in 1919 that he had the idea for the book. And this idea comes from experience“.

Through his combat experience, the historian also revolutionizes the historiographical approach of researchers: “in Marc Bloch, there is a desire to distance himself from what happened, to analyze the behavior of men, to analyze his own behavior [lorsqu’on étudie le passé]. (…) He established what he called the regressive method. He uses a present, in this case, his present of war and his present of false war news to better understand a very distant past, that of the Western Middle Ages“, explains Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau.

But this experience of the front does not end with the end of the war. She continues to act on her way of thinking about history, but not only that. In the historian’s analysis, this experience of 14-18 leaves a lasting imprint on his idea of ​​national duty. A vision which is also part of a strong family heritage: that of a Jewish family originally from Alsace, marked by the annexation of 1871 and by the choice to remain loyal to France. “In his stories, he clearly says that the collective will to fight for something greater than ourselves. And in this case at Marc Bloch, it’s France“, specifies Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau. For the historian, Marc Bloch embodies a rare patriotism. “A spirit that Bloch considers lost between the wars.” Il va même jusqu’écrire, de manière très directe : “I wish we still had blood to shed“.

A state of mind which followed him into the Second World War. In 1939, while Europe was sliding towards war again, Marc Bloch was 53 years old and could no longer be mobilized as in 1914. However, he asked to be recalled and joined the army as a reserve officer. This decision, far from being purely administrative, extends a concept of service already forged during the First World War. After the defeat of 1940, he joined the Resistance, where his commitment became clandestine, until his arrest and execution by the Gestapo in 1944.

It is for his entire career that the President of the Republic announced the pantheonization of Marc Bloch during the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Strasbourg on November 24, 2024. Scheduled for June 23, it will put his work and his message at the heart of the public debate.

A pantheonization that makes her granddaughter proud, although she is wary of political recovery: “what we want, the family and I, is for the uniqueness of man to be known. That is to say at the same time the historian, the fighter (…) and the scholar who revolutionized historical science. And then the citizen, the committed Republican, committed to the city, committed to education, committed to freedom, against Nazism. He was an anti-fascist. What has a particular resonance today“, underlines Suzette Bloch.

A discourse that is all the more relevant given that racist discrimination has been on a constant rise since 2017.”The memory of my grandfather, I could not have imagined a few years ago that I would defend it with so much force in the situation we are going through“, she laments.

Last March, in Amiens, Suzette Bloch unveiled a plaque in memory of her grandfather at the Thullier high school, the establishment where he taught before the war of 1914. A way of reminding us that behind the national figure who will enter the Pantheon on June 23 There is also a teacher who has passed through Amiens classrooms.

With Dominique Patinec / FTV