Gendarmeries at the ends of world wars (Western Europe, 1914-1950)

Present in many European countries since the French conquests that followed the Revolution, the “gendarmerie” institution is a powerful and regal tool both for the control of territories with their populations and the strengthening of central authority. Whether as national and military forces policing the administrative, the judicial or sovereignty, the gendarmeries were at the heart of the process of strengthening the central State in the 19th century, as witnessed by the Belgian, French and Dutch situations. The 20th century’s two world wars represent decisive moments for understanding the modes of regulation implemented by the gendarmeries. These exceptional periods call for a re-examination of the conditions of order, security and violence within the societies caught up in conflict. For this reason, they redesigned the gendarmes’ place in social space and their relationships with the military forces, the civil populations, the national justice systems, as well as the various authorities, occupied or occupying. Marked by an increase in the gendarmes’ fields of intervention, as well as by a competition in connection with them, the wars represent moments when the normality and abnormality of their practices, in addition to the legitimacy and the illegitimacy of their behaviours, may be re-discussed. But the wars also represent decisive moments of organization and structuring for the gendarmeries, finding themselves torn between growth factors, shortages and adaptation to new conditions. For those reasons, the world wars require the researcher’s attention, in discussing their (ab)normal character and clarifying the elements and rhythms of ruptures which appeared there, in the area of organization and gendarmic practices. Using the archives of the gendarmeries and their responsible authorities, in the context of this paper, our ambition is to question the impact of the two world wars on their modes of control over territories and persons, for the Belgian and French gendarmeries and the Dutch Koninklijke Marechaussee. We are most particularly interested in the end-of-war periods: in effect the gendarmes played an important role in the intervals surrounding the liberations, the signing of peace treaties (Armistice, Capitulation), and in the periods between war and peace, marked by the dynamics of reconstructing States, pacifying public life, and demobilization. The diversity of the war experiences lived in these three countries in the two world wars (occupations under various forms, mobilization, neutrality, total or partial liberation) underlines the interest of this comparative approach, on a diachronic as well as geographical level. Bringing together the institutional evolutions, the gendarmeries’ place in public and political space and the practices of their members, we shall study the changes which marked the corps during these periods of political transition, State restoration and social pacification. We thus shed light on evolutions in “gendarmic systems”, at once from a regional, national and trans-national perspective during the first half of a 20th century marked by two major crises. Touching on national and functional dynamics, we will sketch an ongoing evolution at the heart of Europe in the social control methods these police systems implemented during the crises (among others, the social categories controlled, priorities in interventions, institutional issues at stake, networking territories, the establishment of units, equipment and doctrines,…)