The terrible conditions in the trenches of the Western Front were exacerbated by the most enervating factor of all: the slow passage of time, with almost nothing to show for the immense human suffering being perpetuated. World War I was a war of attrition; once both sides settled down into defensive positions in late 1914, decisive battles became near impossible, and the only real option was to wear down the enemy until he had no choice but to surrender. Long periods of inactivity were punctuated with intense artillery bombardments and optimistic offensives against well-fortified lines, both of which generated incredible levels of casualties. By early 1917, more than 1 million French soldiers had been killed, to no obvious benefit.
Morale in the French army plummeted as spring 1917 arrived. Another failed offensive in April seemed to steal the last reserves of strength from the poilus. News that the United States would be joining the war was welcomed, but spirits sank again once it became evident that American troops would not be jumping into the trenches for many months yet. The audience for socialist and pacifist arguments against the war grew ever larger, especially after the Russian Revolution in March 1917 boosted antiwar forces in that country. French soldiers were weary, sick, and frustrated, as their continued suffering at the front seemed to have no purpose.
And so in the first week of May, the mutiny began. French infantry units simply began to refuse orders, whether to fight or to go to the front. Thousands deserted. In some locations, protests and violence occurred. It is estimated that more than 40 percent of the frontline units experienced some level of mutiny and insubordination. Shockingly, the Germans did not realize or take advantage of the fact that the French army was in such serious disarray (news of these events was not revealed even within France until the 1960s).1 By June, authorities had suppressed the mutinies with mass arrests and courts-martial. Several thousand men were sentenced to death or hard labor, but it appears only a few dozen were actually executed. Army commanders did not want to inflame the situation any more than necessary.
Indeed, the new commanding general, Philippe Pétain, instituted a range of policies designed to improve morale and save the French army from disintegration. First and foremost, he decided to forego large-scale, suicidal offensives until the Americans arrived and the revolutionary new tanks being built by Renault were ready for the battlefield. He dealt firmly with cases of insubordination and desertion, but he also began to give soldiers longer leaves away from the front. He listened to soldiers’ complaints about conditions at the front and encouraged officers to devise some new ways to keep up the spirits of the poilus. And as a result, the world would eventually experience the peaceful invasion of the laughing cow of France.
Among those mobilized for the war in August 1914 was a young cheesemaker from the Jura named Léon Bel. His father had founded a cave d’affinage, a central site for maturing cheeses, and Léon helped oversee the aging of wheels of Comté, Gruyère, and Emmental. Like most soldiers, he probably expected to return home to his business within a few months, but in 1917 he found himself still on the Western Front. He was assigned to the RVF (Ravitaillement en Viande Fraîche), the large supply unit responsible for delivering fresh meat to the front.
As part of the morale-boosting program, it was decided that each unit should have its own emblem, something that would encourage good cheer and camaraderie. After a small competition, Bel’s RVF B.70 section chose a design by Benjamin Rabier, who had been an illustrator before the war. His emblem depicted a laughing cow above the inscription LA WACHKYRIE, a characteristic example of French wordplay. Phonetically, La Wachkyrie sounds like la vache qui rit, the cow that laughs, but it also calls to mind La Walkyrie (The Valkyrie), the famous Richard Wagner opera so beloved in Germany. The Germans actually used the image of the flying Valkyrie, the fierce women warriors of Norse mythology, in their war propaganda. So La Wachkyrie was essentially a mocking rejoinder to the Germans.
La Wachkyrie, the RVF B.70 emblem created by Benjamin Rabier during World War I. Courtesy of Les Amis de Benjamin Rabier, Valençay, France. © The Heirs of Benjamin Rabier.
Thanks to these and other efforts, the morale of the French army was gradually restored by early 1918. The Americans had finally arrived, and the Russians had left the war. The collapse of the Eastern Front allowed Germany to launch a new offensive in the west in March, which initially appeared successful but could not be sustained, and Allied forces launched a counteroffensive that encroached upon German territory. By fall, the threat of invasion and the draining force of attrition made German defeat all but certain. The successful Allied blockade had led to famine inside Germany, and revolution was brewing among its sailors and workers. In the waning days of the war, the German monarchy was overthrown and a democratic republic (later known as the Weimar Republic) was established. The new government shouldered the blame from right-wing forces for the German surrender in November 1918, generating the infamous “stab in the back” myth that helped catapult the Nazis into political success in the next decade.
The November armistice allowed the gradual demobilization of the French army, and Bel returned to his family’s cheese business in 1919. He found that Swiss cheesemakers had invented a new type of processed cheese that could be kept for extended periods in tin cans, and he decided to modernize his own business with a similarly new product. Using leftover bits of cheese from the cave d’affinage, he invented in 1921 a creamy processed cheese that, for the first time, was packaged in individual foil triangles. It was easily portable and kept for long periods of time.
When it came time to market and sell his new cheese, Bel remembered the joyful Wachkyrie of the trenches and named his product La vache qui rit, which is how it is still known in France. In the 1930s, he began exporting it to other countries under the brand name Laughing Cow, which is how you will normally find it on American shelves. He tracked down Benjamin Rabier and asked him to adapt his original emblem for the new cheese.2 Rabier produced a near copy of the original laughing cow but added some attractive earrings on the advice of Bel’s wife. Rabier was later asked how he managed to draw such an unnaturally smiling cow. He replied:
My job is harder than people think it is. How to make a cow laugh! I spent many sleepless nights to achieve it. From my dairy farmer I borrowed a cow and its calf. I started with the calf, thinking he would be more receptive as he was younger. But quite the opposite happened. It was the mother who laughed first, so happy was she to see me playing with her young one.3
That joyful cow was destined to be a global success. Today it is sold in 136 countries, and 10 million portions are sold every day. It has joined that small coterie of global brands that are seemingly available anywhere in the world, offering travelers a small slice of familiarity in strange lands. The Bel Group is now the third largest cheese company in the world.
In France, it cannot be said that processed cheeses are particularly respected, but because La vache qui rit is a popular choice for goûter (children’s afternoon snacks) many French adults still associate it with happy childhood memories. Sometimes one needs a break from the rich and complex foods of adulthood, or the unfamiliar cuisines encountered when traveling, and a simple bit of Laughing Cow offers a nice respite. It is ironic that such a pleasurable food should emerge from the horrors of war, but as we saw with Camembert, this is not an altogether unusual occurrence. Unfortunately for France, the coming years would offer renewed opportunities for wartime innovation to occur.