
Contents
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Introduction Introduction
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War, Objects, and Emotions War, Objects, and Emotions
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Chemical Weapons, Gas Masks, and the First World War Chemical Weapons, Gas Masks, and the First World War
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Gas Masks in the Aftermath of the First World War Gas Masks in the Aftermath of the First World War
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Conclusion Conclusion
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3 ‘Macabre and Hilarious’: The Emotional Life of the Civilian Gas Mask in France during and after the First World War
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Published:March 2020
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Abstract
The anticipation and fear of what chemical weapons might do to a civilian population haunted the interwar imaginary in the aftermath of the introduction and widespread use of poison gas on the battlefields of the First World War. In no place, perhaps, was this more apparent than France, one of the few nations whose civilian and combatant populations bore direct witness to this innovative weaponry. One object—the gas mask—emerged to mitigate the physical effects of gas warfare. It would come to play a crucial role in the calculated management of the destabilising emotions of anxiety and fear that accompanied the deployment of chemical arms, but its emotional life extended beyond its intended aims. This chapter combines the material and emotional history of total war by using a single object to uncover more fully the dislocation and devastation wrought by modern, industrial war. It does so by analysing key aspects of the life of the civilian gas mask from its first appearance in France during the First World War to its symbolic power in interwar civil defence and war resistance.
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