A Thirst for Wine and War by Adam D Zientek

A Thirst for Wine and War by Adam D Zientek

Beginning in the fall of 1914, every French soldier on the Western Front received a daily ration of wine from the army. At first it was a modest quarter litre, but by 1917 it had increased to the equivalent of a full bottle each day. The wine ration was intended to sustain morale in the trenches, making the men more willing to endure suffering and boredom. The army also supplied soldiers with doses of distilled alcohol just before attacks to increase their ferocity and fearlessness. This strategic distribution of alcohol was a defining feature of French soldiers’ experiences of the war and amounted to an experimental policy of intoxicating soldiers for military ends. A Thirst for Wine and War explores the French army’s emotional and behavioural conditioning of soldiers through the distribution of a mind-altering drug that was later hailed as one of the army’s “fathers of victory.” The daily wine ration arose from an unexpected set of factors including the demoralization of trench warfare, the wine industry’s fear of losing its main consumers, and medical consensus about the benefits of wine drinking. The army’s related practice of distributing distilled alcohol to embolden soldiers was a double-edged sword, as the men might become unruly. The army implemented regulations and surveillance networks to curb men’s drinking behind the lines, in an attempt to ensure they only drank when it was useful to the war effort. When morale collapsed in spring 1917, the army lost control of this precarious system as drunken soldiers mutinied in the thousands. Discipline was restored only when the army regained command of soldiers’ alcohol consumption. Drawing on a range of archives, personal narratives, and trench journals, A Thirst for Wine and War shows how the French army’s intoxication of its soldiers constituted a unique exercise of biopower deployed on a mass scale.

“This book not only contributes substantially to the history of intoxicants and their consumption, but it also extends well beyond these topics to expand our understanding of the histories of France, of the Great War, and of war more generallyIt is hard to see the events of the First World War in France in quite the same way after reading this work.” Richard S. Fogarty, University at Albany, SUNY and author of Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914–1918

“Zientek provides insight into how psychotropic drugs have been used and implemented during and after wars, not only in the French armies but also other fighting forces over the ages. Wars continue to rage, and although weaponry and logistics may have changed, the use of different forms of drugs is still prevalent in battles. I found this book captivating: a perfect marriage between history and the place of drugs in war.” The Culinary Historians of Canada newsletter

Adam D. Zientek is assistant professor of history at the University of California, Davis.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780228019930
ISBN 10	0228019931
Title	A Thirst for Wine and War
Author	Adam D Zientek
Series	Intoxicating Histories
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	McGill-Queen's University Press
Year published	2024-02-13
Number of pages	288
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable