Despite the common belief that the “ Poilu ” signified the French soldier in his trench with no means to shave, it is better understood that a Poilu was a man recognized for his courage. Explained in a 1918 account by Albert Dauzet titled “ L’Argot de la Guerre ” [Slang of War], Dauzet writes,

“ Before being the soldier of the Marne, the " Poilu " is the grognard of Austerlitz, it is not the man with the unkempt beard, who does not have time to shave, it would be too picturesque, it's much better: it's the man who has hair in the right place, not in the hand! ”

By the end of 1914, the immense scale of the First World War allowed for a French army composed of close to 4,000,000 men to carry a shared name representative of their noble but devastating defense of their country. The early months of the Great War had effectively popularized the term “ Poilu ”, but by 1915 the introduction of gas meant that soldiers were obligated to routinely shave their beards to more effectively wear their gas masks.

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More than a century later, we remember the Poilu as being one of the more than 8,000,000 soldiers, old and young, who courageously defended France…

Visibly, this hand drawing from 1915 shows that the Poilu already had his image in French culture