Abstract EN:

During the First World War, the absentee soldiers and the deserters are very few in the Pyrenees, except on the borders of Catalonia and Basque country and few central cantons. Failure to join one’s unit is mostly a rural phenomenon, as immigrant conscripts refuse mobilization. As regards towns, the percentage of deserters is relatively more significant in industrial ones. Desertion, as a strategy, aims at diminishing the violence of combat, or even at fleeing it. Once the decision made, crossing the border is easy along the trails of this mountainous terrain. Solidarity between the Spaniards and the local families, together with long time opposition against the French state, benefit the objectors. The “raison d’état” becomes a priority: everywhere, arrests, repression or coercion are carried out illegally to dissuade deserters, but the result is rather limited, a mere slowing in the number of deserters. The permeability of the Pyrenees comes from a lack of preparedness in monitoring the border. At both ends of the mountain chain, the authorities admit their impotence. The deserters emigrate to America or take refuge in Spain, where they are welcomed. Few decide to return during the war, thinking of the amnesty which is triggering the movement of submission of the deserters, but not that of the absentee conscripts, who are not covered under this measure. Pacifism, the tendency to forget and the will to put everything behind, all combine to welcome back these insubordinate soldiers without repercussion