The great winter at the front

Since the declaration of war in September 1939, the Western front had frozen: this was the "Phoney War", months of waiting without major fighting. In the winter of 1939–1940, one of the harshest of the century, hundreds of thousands of French soldiers shivered in the casemates of the Maginot Line and the outposts, amid the cold, the mud and the boredom.

For you, the soldier, the ordeal was not enemy fire but morale. The prolonged inaction, the separation from families and the doubt about the meaning of this war that never came weighed on the troops. Each man answered it in his own way: apathy for some, effort and training for others, the search for an escape for others still.

You could hold yourself to discipline and training, to stay ready and support your comrades. You could give in to wait-and-see resignation and boredom, in a demoralising routine. Or you could seek leave and ways to escape this life. In the cold of the outposts, each day of waiting tested your resolve.