Men of the 1870 War


Museum at the Citadelle de Bitche, video installation + sound track. The original sound track (15 mins) retraces the great battles of the 1870 war, as experienced by the ordinary French and German soldiers. Marches, counter-marches, derisory victories and retreats, battlefields and tens of thousands of deaths over the course of days and hours; this was the personal day-to-day experience of soldiers, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, as they headed slowing along the road to despair and hell. Taken from the last written records in their diaries and letters to their families.


The sound track is a collation of extracts from the original sound track (15 mins). Design and scenario: Muriel Meyer –The letters and journals of the French soldiers have been collected together by Jean-François Lecaillon in an anthology entitled: "Eté 1870, la guerre racontée par les soldats" [Summer of 1870, the war as recounted by the soldiers] – Music and sound effects: Gilles Guigue with the voices of Richard Andrieux and Yann Pichon. Directed by Odile Schmitt.


Maîtrise d’ouvrage : Ville de Bitche • Maîtrise d’œuvre : Atelier de l’Ecluse Nord, Strasbourg • Maître d'oeuvre muséographie : Atelier de l'Ecluse Nord • Conception et réalisation de la médiation muséographique : Métapraxis Daniel Schmitt • Réalisatrice : Muriel Meyer Chemenska • Réalisation : 2005 • Photos : Daniel Schmitt.