The French birth rate, at roughly 20 per 1,000, was below that of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Belgium when the war began, and fell to half that rate during the war. This disturbing card reflects a real social concern.
Des Canons! Des Munitions! C'est nous qui serons les Gardiens de la NationRevanche 309Cannons! Ammunition! It is we who will be the Guardians of the NationRevenge 309Reverse:Dimanche 31 Xber 1916Ma cheri petite CousineMerci de tout coeur pour tes bons souhaites, nous en aurons bien besoin pour cette nouvelle année,. J'esperons pourtant que l'Année 1917 serra la fin de nos miseres à tous. Tous ? à moi pour l'envoyer nos meilleurs souhaits de bonheur et de bonne santé et tout ce qui peut contribuer à ? heureuse. Nos meilleurs souhaits aussi à tout la famille. Bons baisers de tous. Al . . .Sunday 31 December 1916My dear little CousinThank you for your good wishes, we will need it for this new year. I hope, however, that the year 1917 will be the end of our miseries at all. All of them? To me to send it our best wishes for happiness and good health and anything that can contribute to? Happy. Our best wishes also to the whole family. Love to all. Al. . .
"This young boy, whose earliest years were marked by his father's absence, was shaped by the Great War in yet another, and very significant, way. He was a child of the "hollow years." Born in 1916, he would be one of only 313,000 French children to possess a birth certificate inscribed with the year of Verdun. As he grew up, he would discover that fewer children were in his classes than in all other classes, and later fewer conscripts in his military cohort than France had ever known. In fact, so few children were born in the middle years of the Great War that fears arose for the future: twenty years hence, when the boys born in 1916 and 1917 came of military age, would France be able, should the need arise, to field an army large enough to defend itself?"
'This young boy' was Serge Pireaud, whose father was away fighting in the war with an artillery unit that spent much of 1916 at Verdun. Serge's parents, Paul and Marie Pireaud, had actively tried to get pregnant during one of Paul's leaves. His mother nursed Serge through a difficult infancy. The French birth rate, at roughly 20 per 1,000, was below that of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Belgium when the war began, and fell to half that rate during the war. Cf. citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.707.2458&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
Your Death Would Be Mine; Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War by Martha Hanna, page 174, copyright © 2006 by Martha Hanna, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2006
1916-12-20, 1916, December, baby
