‘The Universal Exposition was…, the French declared, a ‘symbol of harmony and peace’ for all of humanity.’ (1)
Is it a cliché to begin the story of early twentieth century France with a statement on the 1900 World’s Fair? Of course. A huge cliché, in fact. In a lot of ways, though, the very presence of the Exposition was itself a cliché. Had the First World War never really happened, been merely a figment of someone’s imagination, presented to the world through a blockbuster movie or television drama, the idea of a triumphant fair celebrating peace and friendship amongst the world’s nations would have been tossed away with other early screenplay drafts. That the century began at all with this exposition is far-fetched enough, but that it took place in the very country that saw the worst that humanity had to offer from 1914 onwards…well, that’s just ridiculous.
I’m getting ahead of myself, though. The 1900 World Fair, for those of you who don’t know, was an enormous event hosted by Paris in which countries of the world were invited to exhibit their greatest treasures and triumphs, and where major scientific breakthroughs of the day could be shown off in the name of Progress. It was an enormous undertaking by the French, and not a wholly successful one; while there were over 50 million visitors (2), this was considerably less than expected. Some put this down to high admission costs, but I personally choose to believe that everyone else simply noticed the huge shadow of dramatic irony lurking over the event and decided to give it a miss.
To our eyes now, the holding of this event seems sad, if not even a little disturbing. Were both the French, and the human race in general, really so oblivious to what was approaching? Fourteen years is a long time, yes, but you would almost bloody hope that a war as destructive as World War One wouldn’t just happen overnight. Of course though, as we have already explored in the past few months, this was almost the case. Life was carrying on as normal, in Britain, in Germany and yes…in France too. In the case of the French, however, there is a case to be made that the apparent naivety presented by the Universal Exposition was not as entirely unknowing as it seemed.
The Great War 