Andr! Jeunet Images of World War I by a Paci"st Soldier
About this book The photographs in this book were taken by Andr! Jeunet during World War I. C!cile Jeunet Spalding, his daughter, donated 206 negatives to the University of Louisville Photographic Archives in January 2004. An exhibition of selected images was shown from May 18 to September 4, 2006, at the Frazier International History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Above: Andr! Jeunet, Verdun, August 1917 Front cover: Soldier unknown, Hill #304, Verdun, August 1917 Back #ap: Andr! Jeunet$s membership card in the Ordre des Architectes
Andr! Jeunet Images of World War I by a Paci"st Soldier Twentieth September 1916. I am twenty years old! We are at war! The!%Great War$ as future historians will say and before its crown will be!toppled by the next!%last war$. We are approaching the end of the famous battle of the Somme, where I risked my life, while I was playing my sad role of infantry man at Chaulnes, a pitiful town, reduced to a few piles of rubble, surrounded by dead trees, branchless as frightful skeleton&like masts of ships, sunken and stuck in this sea of mud, which, in the nearby craters, opened by thousands of shell bursts, forms an unmoving swell. I am twenty years old! And one cannot perceive the end of the massacre which has!already lasted two years. I am twenty years old and I have lost my taste for living, without ever having savored the taste of life. I am twenty years old and have only before!my eyes the horrible spectacle of death. No more leaves, no more #owers, no more animals, even no more grass on the soil…this hilly and muddy ocean engulfs!everything ' even our souls, without light, and without joy. Twentieth September 1916! I!am twenty!years old,!but my body is covered with vermin and my spirit is eaten by doubts. Sixteenth of September 1944! C!cile is twenty years old! No more mud, nor lice, but the joyful spring&like parade of bright young friends, gifts, "nery, talent, dresses… all illusion! …For, once again we are at war ' entire cities crumble and rain!"re on the throngs of innocent mothers and children. My heart is weary to have to write here this bitter preface to a text, older than my daughter by a quarter of a!century!( Paris, September 16, 1944
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Andr! Jeunet was born in Bourg&la&Reine, France, a suburb south of Paris, on September 20, 1896. He was an idealist, a philosopher, a dreamer with a passionate love for the lively arts ) his admiration for Beethoven and Goethe was unlimited. As a paci"st soldier during la Grande Guerre, he, with but a few exceptions, turned the lens of his Vest Pocket Kodak away from the violence and horrors of battle. With the sure instincts of the artist, he focused instead on the events of the every&day military life, scenes of troop movements and leisure activities, the countryside, the villages and the people he encountered. There is no record of any censorship by his commanders. Jeunet$s unique images of the Great War present a carefully composed look at scenes seldom portrayed in World War I retrospectives. Those selected here represent but a fraction of his 206 negatives now held in the Special Collections of the University of Louisville Photographic Archives. 4
In March 1915, at age 18, Jeunet was inducted into the French army. He served on the French Western Front and on the Eastern Front in the Balkans. Jeunet knew the agony of warfare in the front! line trenches but, other than contracting malaria during his eastern stint, he su*ered no injuries and maintained good health throughout the four years. He steadfastly refused promotions, retaining the rank of private. Whenever possible, he sought to isolate himself from the stress of army life, "nding solace in observing the rural sites and "lling his diary with re#ections on life.
On April 4, 1919, in Rasczabanya, he was +showered and deloused for the last time,( declared +r!patriable( and +carried no more trace of vermin.( He was discharged April 26, 1919. Following his discharge, Jeunet returned to Paris and became a student of art and architecture. In 1921, he married Aim!e R!vil&Signorat. Their daughter, C!cile, was!born in 1924. In October 1939, a practicing architect, a!veteran of +1914( with a wife and daughter, he was again drafted into the French army. After France$s defeat he returned to his family in Paris, undergoing the hardships of four years of German occupation. In April 1945, C!cile Jeunet met Louisville native Richard Spalding during his service in France with the U.S. Air Force. In June 1948, Spalding returned to France to study music, and he and C!cile were married in Paris in November. One year later the Spaldings settled in Louisville, Kentucky. Following a summer visit to the USA in 1952, Andr! Jeunet discovered that l$Am!rique was the +country of my dreams.( He and Mme. Jeunet immigrated to the United States in 1958. He worked for several architectural "rms in Louisville from 1960 to!1970. Far removed from the war&torn turmoil of his youth, he enjoyed his later years in gentle comfort, surrounded by his family until his death on September 3, 1979.
Photo: Andr! Jeunet, August 1917, Haute Marne
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Above left and right: France Center and facing page: Balkans
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Facing page: French shepherdess Above and following two pages: Balkans
Balkans: Muslim women at work.
Balkans: Fishermen, port of Salonica, Adriatic Sea; peasants at work Facing page: North African soldier washing feet
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Above: Turkish peasant Facing page: Greek shepherd
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French soldiers preparing meals in France
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France
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Above left: French soldier preparing meal in France Above right: Andr! Jeunet reading Facing page: Balkans
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France: Godet ,center-, comrade of Andr! Jeunet Facing page: France Following pages: Soldier wearing mourning brassard. Soldiers writing letters in classroom; #130 Godet
Above left and facing page: France Above right: Balkans
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Above: France, work detail ) on the road Facing page: Andre Jeunet, seated at left
France, soldiers washing
France, soldiers at leisure Following page: Troop transport ship, Ch.teau&Renault, on the Adriatic Sea. Pages 43&45: France, on the road to Verdun, Hill #304, August 1917
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Preceding page: French box cars ) 40 hommes, 8 chevaux ,40 men, 8 horses-
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Comrade Godet
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Above and following page: Comrade Godet
French colonial troops in France
Left: French colonial soldiers. Center and right: French soldiers.
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Pages 56'59: Balkans
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France
France
France
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Facing page: Soldier killed by shrapnel, Hill #304, Verdun, August 1917
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Page 70: Andr! Jeunet, on leave, in Jougne, Doubs, France, ,village in the Jura where his father Emile Jeunet was born-, self portrait with Vest Pocket Kodak, September 1917 Page 71: Andr! Jeunet, Jougne, 1917. Above left: Jeunet, Jougne, 1919. Above right: Jeunet on road to Verdun, August 1917
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Andr! Jeunet, France
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Andr! Jeunet, Lyon, France, 1919
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Left: Jeunet at Verdun. Right: Jeunet in Jougne
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Above: Andr! Jeunet, with "shermen at the port of Salonica, Adriatic Sea. Facing page: Andr! Jeunet, January 1918, La Cerna, Balkans
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Above: Andr! Jeunet, July 1918, Monastir, Balkans Page 80: Andr! Jeunet, Jougne, frontier marker between France and Switzerland
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Andr! Jeunet, age 48, and his daughter C!cile, age 20. Paris, 1944