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Albert Camus's identity was colored by his father's death in the battle of Marne, during the first year of World War I. His absence served to reinforce on the young Camus his father's sacrifice to the glory of France, the abstract motherland to the north of the Mediterranean Sea. Camus may have criticized the French army's insistence on the traditional North African troops' red hats, which rendered men like his father (as much as the indigenous soldiers sent to fight on behalf of France) vulnerable prey or easy targets for German snipers along enemy trench lines. However, Camus did not go as far as to question the war itself—the savagery of World War I trench warfare that made it the most deadly at that point in history. How critically aware or concerned was Camus of the Great War's legacy? For instance, the innovative militaristic technology was one of the culprits of the Lost Generation (one in four European men between the ages of 18 and 35 perished); the millions of men brought from distant empires and not necessarily by their own volition were maimed or died in foreign hostile Northern climates, and the masterful propaganda of the Allies and Central Powers coupled with their infringement on civil liberties guaranteed a steady supply of men to the battlefields.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137309471_7

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