"I am working against the grain of traditional war studies," said Annabelle Meltzer, a professor at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel and a scholar who teaches the dramatic and historical events of World War I.
Meltzer's studies do not focus on wartime tactics, but on the spontaneous theatrical performances that occurred in the French legions from 1914 to 1918.
The universe of the soldier on the western front was one of hysteria and confusion, with 745 miles of trenches and 12 million men creeping sluggishly back and forth across the Flanders plain, she said.
Meltzer recited a quote by the ancient Chinese military tactician Sun Tzu that "war is a project of deception and survival." In that spirit, she said the men of the French army deceived themselves from the horrors they faced each day with theater.
Meltzer said the slapdash performances written and performed by the soldiers attracted crowds varying in size from 10 to 30 thousand men.
She showed fascinating slides of army regulars watching staged performances while shells were raining down about 200 yards away.
The professor pointed out that the concept of wartime theater extends beyond the literal plays performed by the soldiers to other aspects of military life.
She said there are two established forms of performance. "One is theater, in which acting and reality are clearly separated. The other occurs when the line between reality and acting becomes indistinct, such as in a wedding."
She added a third form of acting is one in which "everyone knows the scenario is not a performance but treats it like one," such as war.
Meltzer established this idea by pointing out the fact that staff generals in the French army were not allowed to travel to the front lines. In this way the high ranking military staff became the spectators, with the enlisted men filling the roles of the actors.
Especially important was the concept of camouflage, the stage and set design of World War I, she said. Lifelike dummies, two-dimensional paintings of tanks and artillery fashioned from pine logs are examples of the scenery of war.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of Professor Meltzer's talk was her examination of the way in which the enlisted men came to terms, or avoided coming to terms, with their forced roles as actors in the "war to end all wars."
It is this part of Meltzer's research that has caused the most controversy amongst World War I scholars, she said.
Homoeroticism was common in the soldiers' plays, Meltzer said. She showed dozens of slides of men dressed as women. She described the wartime plays as "the most primitive of theaters," a space in which it was safe to experiment and perform.
The almost complete absence of women in the World War I soldier's life led to fascination with women and a blurring of gender identity, she said.
