# Twentieth-century French military recruitment uses Joan on mobilisation paper

Date: 1914

## The fact

In 1914 and through the First World War, French mobilisation imagery used [Joan of Arc](/people/joan-of-arc) to legitimise mass military labour. This Fact stores that recruitment use, not her 1429 captaincy as a modern draft law.

## Context

Orléans was a siege relief. 1914 is industrial mass death. Do not back-date the Somme into 1429, and do not treat 1429 as innocent of later poster use.

Joan of Arc is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Library of Congress poster collections and Britannica’s modern reception independently document wartime Joan imagery.

Official or archival record: Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/; Library of Congress).

## Significance

Mobilisation-labour path. High confidence that posters and speeches used her; medium on enlistment elasticities.

A poster is not a Loire barge. Keep 1429 food access separate.

## What is established and what is not

Established: WWI-era recruitment use of Joan. Not established: that she invented conscription, or a unique casualty series caused by a poster.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Joan of Arc: https://factrail.ai/people/joan-of-arc

## Drivers

- Labour-Market Tightness: https://factrail.ai/drivers/labour-market-tightness

## Sources

- https://www.loc.gov/
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Joan-of-Arc

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/joa-recruitment-labour