Moreover, the refusal to provide an infected soldier’s family its standard separation payment reflected the gravity of the threat the British government believed VD posed to family health and economic well-being. Therefore, as the British military codified punishment for soldiers who contracted VD with Regulation 40D of the Defence of the Realm Act (1918), it also positioned VD as a public health issue. The specter of physical and moral degeneration among civilians and soldiers alike led to greater government attention to public health. In contrast, British interest in VD reflected a “crisis of masculinity” as increased scrutiny of soldiers’ health led to the development of robust physical standards that many men failed to achieve. According to Ann Taylor Allen, “military strength depended directly on the size of the army and thus on birthrates,” and there was broad popular support for “pro-natalist measures, especially campaigns to reduce infant mortality.” Pro-natalism had also been a concern in Germany before 1914. The French government focused on balancing healthy sexuality with disease control, encouraging rising birth rates while also attempting to prevent the spread of VD.
French pro-natalists framed fatherhood as a service to the nation and implored soldiers to assume the responsibility to re-populate the nation. Owing to a long-term decline in birth rates, French efforts to stem the growth of VD celebrated reproductive sexuality on the one hand, while increasing intrusive medical examinations and surveillance of soldiers and prostitutes alike, on the other. The way that both the French and the Germans treated VD in the military reflected pro-natalist concerns. The former was blamed for stillbirths and the latter for causing blindness and sterility, therefore both constituted a threat to future generations. Syphilis and gonorrhea posed challenges to public health across the belligerent states. Government and military inability to stem the spread of sexually transmitted infections reflected the limitation of state power under the exigencies of total war.ĭiscourse on Venereal Disease and the Nation ↑ VD thus played an important role in the increasing military intervention in civilian life, especially police regulation of prostitution. Or, their own wives, having engaged in extramarital relations, sometimes with other soldiers, might also infect them while they were on leave. Married soldiers who were infected in the Étappe (the Hinterland ) might carry VD back to their families. In contrast to the badly wounded soldier who faced the loss of health and possible future employment, but posed no danger to those around him, soldiers with VD were thought to endanger their families. Soldiers in the field tended to have lower rates than those in occupation zones or behind the lines. Rates of VD varied among the belligerents with Germany having the lowest. VD was a great source of military inefficiency: although it had a low mortality rate, it resulted in loss of manpower, and the cure was expensive, time-consuming, and often ineffective. In addition to issues such as combat losses, shortage of weaponry and parts, prisoner of war transfers, and food shortages, VD - increasingly widespread among the troops, and potentially weakening the fighting force - was an important military concern.
At the same time, the war disrupted traditional constraints as well as communal and familial monitoring mechanisms.
The major powers all entered the war without a coherent policy for combatting venereal disease in the military. The number of sexually transmitted infections grew exponentially during the war and spread to previously unaffected populations, including married women, as increasing numbers of married men were mobilized during the course of the war and to rural areas, where it had previously been rare. The First World War offered myriad opportunities in all belligerent countries for new sexual experiences and for the spread of sexually transmitted infections because of the anonymity and mass mobility that war facilitated.
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