Hairy

Origin of this denomination

This nickname would have been born during the Great War because of the living conditions from the soldiers in the Tranchée S. They let push Barbe and moustache and, of return to the back, appeared all “hairy”. However, this origin is discussed, the “hairy” word designating also at the time in the familiar language somebody the courageous one (cf for example the expression a more former “brave woman with three hairs”, than one finds at Molière).

There is another interpretation of the origin of the word Poilu which, by the interest of its history, deserves that one stops there one moment:

In a work of the linguist Alfred Dauzat (1877-1955) going back to 1918 and republished in September 2007, resting on an investigation that the author, mobilized in 1914, realized in the trenches, one finds a history of the word Poilu completely interesting:

Before being the soldier of the the Marne, the hairy one is the Grognard of Austerlitz, “it is not the man with the uncultivated beard, which does not have time to shave, it would be too picturesque, it is much better: it is the man who has hair at the good place, not in the hand! symbol of virility”.

The Hairy word, military term dating of more than one century before the Great War, “indicated in the barracks where it prevailed, the Parisian and suburban element, is the man of attack which does not have cold with the eyes, that is to say the very short man. With the army officially, the soldiers are called “the men”. Mr. Cohen, linguist as mobilized to him and taking part in the investigation, specified as in military language the word Poilu meant individual.

But since 1914, known as Albert Dauzat who studied the etymology and the history of the words, the Poilu term designates for the civilian “the soldier combatant”, in opposition to “embusqué” who defends our ground. The word “made irruption of the suburb, of the barracks, in the middle-class, the campaigns later, by the word, the newspaper especially, with a striking down speed”.

Commemoration

Letters the Hairy ones

“June 24th, 1915

In the trench, worse, they are the torpedes. The tearing produced by these 50 kg of mélinite while bursting is appalling. When one of them falls in full trench, and these accidents arrive, it kills 15 to 20 types straightforwardly. One as of ours having fallen at the Boche S, of the feet of Boches were rejected until on our second lines. ”

Michel Lanson

“July 19th, 1915

I am nothing any more but one skeleton where the figure disappears under one lay down dust mixed with the already long beard. I hold upright as one says in vulgar language because it is mode. ”

Emile Sautour

“on July 26th, 1915

I saw beautiful spectacles! Initially trenches of Boches smashed by our Artillery in spite of cement and the hundreds piled up ground bags ones above the others; that it is interesting. But what is it less, they are the corpses with half buried showing, which a foot, which a head; others, buried, are discovered by digging the bowels. That it is interesting war! One can be to trust of civilization! ”

Pierre Rullier

“1916

Dear Josph

New article: sentimental… Have the invaluable memory of the hairy ones. Your friend who tightens you.

Edmond

Hairy, it is that everyone admires, but from which one deviates when one sees it getting into a train, to return in a coffee, a restaurant, in a store, for fear its laced boots amochent the boots, that its effects mackle the jackets of last cut, that its gestures effleurent the dresses bells, that its words are too raw. It is that which the officers of administration make greet. It is that on which one imposes in the hospitals a discipline of which embusqués are free. The hairy one, it is that of which nobody with the back knows the true life, not even the journalists which exaltent it, not even the deputies who travel in the general headquarters. The hairy one, it is that which goes in permission when the others went there, it is that which does not speak when it returns for eight days in its family and her country, too occupied to re-examine them, to like them; it is that which does not benefit from the war; it is that which listens to all, which judges, which will say many things after the war.

The hairy one, it is the infantryman, the infantryman who goes in the trench. How much are the hairy ones on the face? less than it is believed. What do they suffer? Much more than one believes it. What does one make for them? I know one speaks about it, one praises them, one admires them by far. The magazines or the stereotypes of their apparatuses try to make them pass to the posterity by the pencil of their artists. The sick women try flirter with them by letters.

But when they are at rest, does one let them rest? Do they have their days to popularize them as the 75 had of it, aviation, the Belgian Flag, etc? One saw explaining in the press that the hairy one, it is still the only hope of France, the only one which keeps or takes the trenches, in spite of artillery, the hunger, the concern, asphyxiation…”

Edmon Vittet

Others

In the various countries which took share with the First World War, the combatants accepted also nicknames, in the United Kingdom for example they were called Tommies.

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