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The Aernoult-Rousset Affair: Military Justice on Trial in Belle Époque France

The Aernoult-Rousset Affair: Military Justice on Trial in Belle Époque France French military justice constituted an “exceptional jurisdiction”: a legal subsystem designed to serve not justice but discipline, and carefully insulated from external political intervention. Reformers had attempted to ameliorate its harshness. But when the Clemenceau government elected to abort further reforms in 1907–09, it strengthened the case of radicals who insisted that military justice was unreformable by the bourgeois state. Radicals sought not to improve the quality of military justice, but to expose its linkage to the class struggle (i.e., to portray the Army and its courts as devourers of proletarian youth). When Émile Rousset alleged that Albert Aernoult, his fellow prisoner in an Algerian compagnie de discipline, had been beaten to death by guards, he created an opportunity for radicals to advance that agenda. The Aernoult-Rousset Affair (1909–12) did breach the political insularity of French military justice. Yet the Affair’s political and juridical outcomes were ambiguous. Keywords • Aernoult-Rousset Affair, law vs. politics, military justice. Introduction Sometime during the evening of July 2, 1909, a ditch-digger from Romainville named Albert Aernoult died in a sweltering cell of the military prison at Djennan-ed-Dar, in Algeria. That day, Aernoult had endured several rounds of disciplinary details. Within a few http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Historical Reflections Berghahn Books

The Aernoult-Rousset Affair: Military Justice on Trial in Belle Époque France

Historical Reflections , Volume 34 (2) – Jun 1, 2008

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Publisher
Berghahn Books
Copyright
© 2022 Berghahn Books
ISSN
0315-7997
eISSN
1939-2419
DOI
10.3167/hrrh2008.340202
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

French military justice constituted an “exceptional jurisdiction”: a legal subsystem designed to serve not justice but discipline, and carefully insulated from external political intervention. Reformers had attempted to ameliorate its harshness. But when the Clemenceau government elected to abort further reforms in 1907–09, it strengthened the case of radicals who insisted that military justice was unreformable by the bourgeois state. Radicals sought not to improve the quality of military justice, but to expose its linkage to the class struggle (i.e., to portray the Army and its courts as devourers of proletarian youth). When Émile Rousset alleged that Albert Aernoult, his fellow prisoner in an Algerian compagnie de discipline, had been beaten to death by guards, he created an opportunity for radicals to advance that agenda. The Aernoult-Rousset Affair (1909–12) did breach the political insularity of French military justice. Yet the Affair’s political and juridical outcomes were ambiguous. Keywords • Aernoult-Rousset Affair, law vs. politics, military justice. Introduction Sometime during the evening of July 2, 1909, a ditch-digger from Romainville named Albert Aernoult died in a sweltering cell of the military prison at Djennan-ed-Dar, in Algeria. That day, Aernoult had endured several rounds of disciplinary details. Within a few

Journal

Historical ReflectionsBerghahn Books

Published: Jun 1, 2008

Keywords: Aernoult-Rousset Affair; law vs. politics; military justice

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