First World War Studies

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Faith, Redemption and Saudade. Civil religion and

the sacred in Portuguese Theatre on the First
World War

Sérgio Neto

To cite this article: Sérgio Neto (2021) Faith, Redemption and Saudade. Civil religion and the
sacred in Portuguese Theatre on the First World War, First World War Studies, 12:2, 111-129, DOI:
10.1080/19475020.2022.2049840

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19475020.2022.2049840

Published online: 22 Mar 2022.

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FIRST WORLD WAR STUDIES
2021, VOL. 12, NO. 2, 111–129
https://doi.org/10.1080/19475020.2022.2049840

ARTICLES

Faith, Redemption and Saudade. Civil religion and the sacred

in Portuguese Theatre on the First World War
a,b,c
Sérgio Neto
a
University of Coimbra, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (CEIS20), Coimbra, Portugal; bFaculty of Arts and
Humanities, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; cCentre for 20th Century Interdisciplinary Studies
(CEIS20), University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Portuguese dramaturgy about the 1914–1918 conflict is an impor­ Received 19 November 2020
tant field for understanding the changes in attitudes towards war. Accepted 28 February 2022
But in addition, this body of drama enables us to comprehend the KEYWORDS
evolution of Portuguese civil religion and the attitudes regarding First World War; theatre;
the sacred in the transition from the demo-liberal First Republic to nationalism; mythology; civic
the Estado Novo (New State) dictatorship. In fact, after the trench religion
experience, the propagandistic enthusiasm of the first plays was
succeeded by bittersweet comedies and, during the Twenties and
the Thirties, by opposing messianic nationalistic plays glorifying the
war and disheartened anti-war dramas. This article, based on a set
of approximately forty-five plays published between 1914 and
1940, will seek to examine its plots in order to understand how its
authors interpreted phenomena like the Unknown Soldier, the so-
called visions of Fatima and nationalist mythologies.

Introduction
Studying Portuguese dramaturgy inspired by the First World War is akin to travelling
through an unknown territory: although some plays are sometimes referenced in the
bibliography of academic articles, the truth is that researchers tend to disregard their
importance as a historical source. It is therefore important to ask what causes explain this
apparent lack of interest in them. Is it due to the authors, most of whom are unknown in
the field of dramaturgy? Or is it the aesthetics of the plays themselves, which oscillated
between an outdated naturalism and an undeniable propagandistic tone? Or is it,
ultimately, the lack of ‘quality’ of the information given by this particular type of source?
It may be all of these.
On the contrary, however, this article aims to demonstrate the value of this type of
source. Bearing in mind the thematic possibilities that plays offer to historical research,
I will consider the question of (civil) religion and the sacred in the face of war. This
question is of great importance, since the political regime in power at the time, the First
Republic (1910–1926), maintained strained relations with the Catholic Church.
Furthermore, these relations evolved, especially after the government of Sidónio Pais
(1917–1918), which had the support of Catholic sectors and re-established diplomatic

CONTACT Sérgio Neto sgdneto@gmail.com

© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
112 S. NETO

contacts with the Vatican. Equally significant were the so-called visions of Fatima
(1917), which promised a coming end to the war, and which authors such as Jay
Winter have linked to a ‘return of the sacred’.1 Indeed, by 1921, the year in which the
republican government sponsored the burial of the two Unknown Soldiers (one from
Flanders, the other from Africa) in the Monastery of Santa Maria da Vitória, better
known as the Monastery of Batalha, the regime’s rapprochement with the sacred was
now in full swing. In the following years, the coup of 28 May 1926 which paved the way
for the establishment of the conservative and authoritarian Estado Novo (New State)
regime (1933–1974), as well as the official recognition of the events of Fatima by the
Catholic Church in 1930, would contribute to sealing this alliance between the State
and the Church. The corollary of this reconciliation would be the signing of the
Concordat between Portugal and the Holy See in 1940, which normalized relations
between the two states.
How did literature about the war, especially dramaturgy, deal with this process? That
is what the following text intends to answer, by addressing a few plays written between
1914 and 1940, a sampling from a larger group of approximately forty-five which I have
so far located in libraries and archives.2 The pieces are very diverse in type and form,
including some handwritten manuscripts, and most of them were written by veterans of
the Western Front. As far as we could ascertain, most of them were never performed.
However, for those that were, diversity is still the keyword: while some plays premiered in
the most important theatres of Lisbon, others debuted on the stages of small towns, such
as Portalegre and Leiria.
It should be made clear from the outset that this examination will adopt a literary
approach for two reasons: one practical, and the other theoretical. Since many of the
plays were never performed, it would be impossible to compare them with those that
went on stage based on elements such as the context of the staging and the response of
the audience and critics. Moreover, of the plays performed, some were performed by
amateur groups in provincial theatres, so that they were rendered almost ‘invisible’,
even in the regional press. The theoretical reason, in turn, is based on the fact that the
complexity of the theme requires a more detailed analysis of the text and the characters,
as well as their political, cultural and ideological context. As for the chosen chronology,
it will comprise the period between the beginning of the world conflict and the signing
of the Concordat. A first section will include propagandistic pieces from the (pre)war
period of 1914–1916, when Portugal was already fighting the Germans in the African
colonies without an official declaration of war, as well as from the first months of
mobilization. The second section will comprise plays written during the conflict and
just after 1918–1919, mainly comedies about daily life in Flanders. As for the final
section, and the most extensive from a chronological point of view, its interest lies in
the articulation between the traditional and revived symbolism of the cross and some
cultural elements of the war, such as the Unknown Soldier and the ‘return of the dead’.3
In particular, this section will analyse the way in which Portuguese theatre that recalled
the war incorporated aspects such as mystical nationalism and renewed forms of civic
religion into its plots.
Finally, it must be said that this study may be relevant to disciplines other than theatre
and literature. We should keep in mind contemporary history, but also memory studies.
In fact, the pieces belong to the zeitgeist of the First Republic, and are interesting
 FIRST WORLD WAR STUDIES 113

examples of how individual and collective memory works. In particular, the plays written
after the war enable us to catch a cultural glimpse of the transition of the demo-liberal
and secularist First Republic to the dictatorial Estado Novo.

Rehearsing the war

When war broke out in the summer of 1914, Portugal was governed by a young repub­
lican regime in need of international recognition, wary of Anglo-German negotiations
over the possible division of the Portuguese colonies in Africa.4 Despite maintaining its
neutrality, Portugal fought against the Germans in Angola in late 1914. Meanwhile,
political parties were divided over what strategy to follow, split on adopting interven­
tionist and anti-interventionist positions, although all agreed on the need to defend
Africa from the ‘German danger’.5 The declaration of war would finally arrive from
Berlin in March 1916, prompting Afonso Costa’s predominant Democratic Party and
António José de Almeida’s Evolutionist Party to form a government of ‘Sacred Union’.
Although this political coalition had an apparently religious name, inspired by the
Third French Republic, the truth is that the ‘deeply anticlerical’ Portuguese republican
regime had been waging a ‘real religious war’ since 1910 with the publication of ‘vast
legislation’ aimed at reducing the power and influence of Catholic institutions.6 Religious
oaths were abolished in the courts, for example, while religious teaching was banned in
schools. For its part, divorce was authorized and civil registration, hitherto under the
responsibility of the Church, was transferred to the orbit of the State. The following year,
Afonso Costa,7 then Minister of Justice and Worship, published the controversial Law of
Separation of the State and Churches. The law stipulated that, from then on, ‘the Roman
Catholic Apostolic religion ceased to be the State religion’, losing the subsidies it received
and having its properties nationalized. In essence, the Portuguese regime was relegating
religion to the private sphere. There followed other, no less severe measures, which
regulated the display of religious symbols in public space, such as the religious clothing of
priests or even processions and the ringing of bells.8 Afonso Costa even advocated ‘the
replacement of religious festivals by civic festivals of a high moral character’.9
This was the context in which ‘Blessed Peace’ (Paz Bendita, 1914), written by Father
António de Oliveira, was one of the first ‘war plays’ to be staged and published. Despite
the prevailing republican anticlericalism, the author managed to maintain solid ties with
the political power, as he was a respected figure when it came to the protection of minors
at risk. He directed several reformatories, he was the author of laws and books and, in
1919, he would even be appointed Inspector General of the then newly-created
Directorate General of the Protection Services for Minors.10 This biographical informa­
tion is somewhat important to understand the characteristics of ‘Blessed Peace’, since the
play seems to have been written especially for a juvenile and popular audience, in a naïve
style, almost like a medieval morality, with allegorical characters.
It should be noted that, according to the 1911 census, 68% of men and 81% of women
did not know even the basics of writing and reading, so most authors favoured simplistic
approaches to the major issues. For example, in 1916, during the Portuguese mobiliza­
tion, the Ministry of War distributed a ‘People’s Primer’ (Cartilha do Povo) to the
soldiers. In this booklet, written in the form of a dialogue, three characters, João
Portugal, José Povinho and Manuel Soldado discussed their participation in the conflict
114 S. NETO

in a simple language. Note that their first names were the most common male names of
the time, while their surnames were easily recognizable symbols: ‘Portugal’, ‘[The com­
mon] People’ (Povinho), and ‘Soldier’ (Soldado).11
The characters of ‘Blessed Peace’ were the belligerent nations, Portugal, Peace, and the
Red Cross. The play was staged in Bragança and Elvas, cities connected to the author’s
professional activity. Divided into three scenes, the play tried to reconcile several contra­
dictory elements which were then being debated in Portuguese society: pacifism and
interventionism, nationalism and internationalism and, of course, the religious question.
Ironically, though the action took place in the Palace of Peace, a kind of League of
Nations avant la lettre, the characters exchanged threats and barbs between themselves: ‘I
am great Germany [. . .] Belgium takes me two days to cross [. . .] I will make France, en
masse, to flood out, go overseas, afeared [. . .] Russia makes me laugh’.12 After the
targeted nations replied, Portugal then intervened, stating that ‘no nation has recorded
in History feats as deserving of glory as mine’ so it was willing to ‘help in the fight’ for the
achievement of ‘a century of peace, an era of equality’.13 As if paraphrasing H. G. Wells
on the ‘War that will end wars’, the author also left the door open to Portuguese
interventionism, while preaching the need for an understanding that would lead to
peace. In essence, he expressed the doubts and ambiguities of Portuguese neutrality in
1914 and 1915.
However, in the play’s concluding tableau, a new element was introduced: the Cross.
This religious symbol, ‘suspended, in a prominent place’, in the distance, ‘under a broil of
clouds’, towered over the ‘apotheosis’ of the allies. The characters of the Red Cross and
the ‘blessed’ Peace, also present, seemed to preside, like officiants, over this kind of
wordless liturgy, out of space and time. There is little doubt that, more than Peace, what
was being celebrated was the Cross and its potential role as mediator between the
belligerents. And, given his links to political power, perhaps the author was beginning
to consider the place that religion might have at the moment of mobilization. Moreover,
the need for ‘religious assistance in campaign’, that is, sending military chaplains to the
front to celebrate Mass and administer the last sacraments, would become a key issue for
Catholics from 1916 onwards.14
The same can be said of ‘war as a way to moralise and regenerate society’,15 an idea
which appealed both to the Church and to the political powers. It follows that all
propaganda in favour of entering the conflict stressed that the country, exhausted or
dormant after the ‘golden age’ of the 15th and 16th centuries, should be alert. As the
character Portugal stated in the aforementioned play ‘Blessed Peace’: ‘here I am at last,
robust and well-disposed, ready to fight the tyranny [. . .] of the well-armed band that
Germany sends our way’.16 In truth, while the Catholic institution had wanted a return to
the past, freed of anticlerical measures, the government of Afonso Costa, which came to
power in mid-1915 following a revolt, had as one of its designs the international
legitimization of the new regime through war. Some intellectuals ‘regarded Portuguese
belligerence as an opportunity to reassert Portugal’s place among the European powers
and to liberate it from its century-old situation as a British quasi-protectorate’.17
Thus, cultural mobilization closely followed the chronology set out in ‘Blessed Peace’.
Soon, magazines like Ilustração Portuguesa began publishing poems about Belgium and
short stories whose action took place on the Western Front or the Italian Front. Readers’
interest in the war also took the form of a few short stories about the Portuguese fighting
 FIRST WORLD WAR STUDIES 115

in Africa against the Germans, or the natives reacting to colonial rule. Similarly, the
theatre rose to the challenge. For example, Paulo Osório, a journalist who was based in
Paris, wrote in 1915, in Ilustração Portuguesa, a play set ‘in a manor house, in a province
invaded by the Germans’.18 The following year, Ferreira de Castro, one of the greatest
Portuguese writers of the 20th century, at the time young and settled in Brazil, wrote
a play about the African Front.19 However, everything indicates that these plays were
never performed. It was only entry into the war which triggered a series of patriotic
productions that took to the stage: let us see how.
On May 1916 a play by journalist Carlos d’Alcântara Carreira, entitled ‘Lusitanian
Race’ (Raça Lusitana), premiered at the Teatro República in Lisbon. The plot revolved
around an old major from the military campaigns in Africa. Weakened by the lack of
action, after being assigned a desk job that he considered incompatible with his military
ethos, and not so much by his injuries, the old major miraculously recovered his abilities
when he heard of the declaration of war and was ready to enlist. The play was applauded
by the audience, but was described by the critics as ‘very banal, without any ideas at all’.20
In any case, the author’s initial scenic indications were clear: ‘on the day of Germany’s
declaration of war on Portugal. In any village in one of our provinces’.21 Curiously, these
were the same words used in another play premiered in Portalegre, in the Alentejo: ‘the
action takes place today in any Portuguese city’.22
At this point we need to keep in mind the concept of ‘imagined communities’
developed by Benedict Anderson to explain the emergence of nationalism. According
to this author, the wide circulation of media in the 19th century would have favoured the
feeling of an increasingly larger community dealing with the same events at the same
time, and thus sharing the same collective burden or the same general ecstasy.23 These
ideas of ‘gathering’ and ‘simultaneity’ are expressed in the aforementioned scenic indica­
tions, in which we can also see signs of religious feeling, in the original Latin sense of
religare. The ‘Lusitanian Race’ ended with the actors enthusiastically singing the national
anthem around the ‘sacred flag’. As Cláudia Figueiredo notes: ‘although this was
a common feature of musical theatre at that time, the frequent use of a chorus in these
patriotic plays acquired its own special meaning’, that is, a ‘technique used to unleash the
highly prized national unity of the people’.24
This use of elements of civic religion is also perceptible in the deep ties that were
meant to religare the characters in the plays, i.e. Portuguese society, during a war that
threatened to be a long one. In the following months, a trilogy of plays performed in
Portalegre by the city’s Amateur Dramatic Group sought to respond to that challenge.
These productions benefited from a political environment favourable to war: not only
was the city in the hands of Afonso Costa’s democrats, who created a Patriotic
Commission with the aim of gathering the support of local institutions and
associations,25 but the newspaper Districto de Portalegre was attached to the same
party; additionally, there was the sponsorship of the newly created Crusade of
Portuguese Women (Cruzada das Mulheres Portuguesas, CMP),26 a women’s organiza­
tion to provide assistance to the victims of the war; finally, three local authors decided to
contribute ‘patriotic propaganda in favour of our participation in the war’.27 And, indeed,
their plays seem to complement each other like pieces of a mosaic, aiming at the greater
objective of religare the various social classes, the capital Lisbon and the smaller towns, as
well as the various generations with one another.
116 S. NETO

In this way, the play ‘Portuguese Peoples’ (Gente Portuguesa) targeted the working and
middle classes of ‘any Portuguese city’. And what was shared by all Portuguese cities?
Many stories, or just the common story of Marcelo, an impoverished worker, and his
wife’s serious illness. Called up by the army, Marcelo faced a dilemma: in order to fulfil
his duties to the motherland, he had to abandon his family in precarious conditions.
After refusing any help to avoid conscription, Marcelo was assisted by the local doctor,
who promised to look after his family in his absence. Which is to say that the war was
meant to religare the Homefront, forging a solid and sacred bond between the working
and middle classes. A new society founded on fraternity and patriotism would then
emerge, emulating or even surpassing the ‘sacred union’ achieved in politics. We are not
far from the government’s official optimism.
For its part, the second play, ‘The Greater Love’ (O Maior Amor), sought to religare the
bourgeoisie and the middle classes. The action took place in Lisbon, in a ‘bourgeois living
room’,28 and was clearly an old-fashioned play, based on various clichés. The main
character was Júlia, a young woman. Pressured by her father to choose Alberto, the
wealthier suitor, she had decided instead to marry Ruy, who had volunteered for the war.
Naturally, Ruy was the honest, brave young man of the propaganda posters, while
Alberto was a mercurial, pompous man, a caricature of the Portuguese only willing to
take up arms to fight a Spanish invasion. Although the play was sponsored by the local
CMP sub-committee – a movement that included prominent feminists – it presented
a very traditional view of womanhood. In the end, Júlia was going to marry Ruy, because
her father had given permission, after discovering in his future son-in-law a reflection of
his own bourgeois values of work and discipline.
Portalegre’s third play, ‘Loving the Motherland’ (Amar a Pátria), aimed at the
working classes, also sought to religare three generations of Portuguese: those who
had fought in the African campaigns of the late 19th century, those who would soon
fight in the trenches in Flanders, and those about to bid farewell to their father or
older brother on the quayside in Lisbon. In this regard, the family unit was to be
a bastion against defeatism. The main characters were Pedro and his father Manuel,
owner of a tavern in Lisbon and a former fighter in Africa. Encouraged by his friends
who were trying to avoid conscription, Pedro declared to his father: ‘it is a crime to
throw a lot of Portuguese to the slaughterhouse because half a dozen countries felt
like waging war and get into quarrels that have nothing to do with us’.29 Pedro’s
friends, meanwhile, gave unacceptable arguments for the emotional moment that was
the first days after the German declaration of war: ‘the Homeland only serves to
fatten the big wigs and starve the small fry’.30 Obviously, such strong words dictated
that only Pedro could be redeemed in the eyes of the audience. Thus, the interven­
tion of his eight-year-old nephew would be decisive, as the child acted as a kind of
Greek chorus, questioning the adults about the meaning of ‘loving the motherland’,
eventually convincing Pedro to follow ‘the path of duty and honour’.31
In short, the Portalegre trilogy forewent the historical references present in ‘Blessed
Peace’ or ‘Lusitanian Race’, and rather emphasized social and family issues as funda­
mental pillars of the war effort. While avoiding mentioning God, the social role that the
Church might play, or even the inclusion of chaplains in the expeditionary corps, all the
plays – with the exception of ‘Blessed Peace’ – identified the homeland as the
 FIRST WORLD WAR STUDIES 117

fundamental cause that brought people together. Despite their simplistic plots, the plays
were skilful in transmitting an effective propaganda message. During such an important
historical moment, it was therefore imperative to persuade and convert.32

Enduring the war: the art of escapism

The effect of the war was devastating. The First Republic, which had already sent troops
to Angola and Mozambique, took the decision to train a new expeditionary force to fight
in Flanders: the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps (PEC). The first soldiers arrived in
France in early 1917. Soon, all resources were diverted to the three fronts, and shortages
and inflation quickly began affecting the population, leading to riots and insurrections.33
Moreover, the majority of the population lived in the countryside and, having accepted
a republican regime supported by the urban middle class, could not understand the
positivist and anticlerical position of the government, which ran radically against their
deep religious feelings. Thus, a kind of collective orphanhood might help to partly
explain the events of Fatima in 1917.34
However, Fatima was not the only phenomenon of that year. Feeling increasingly
discontented, Sidónio Pais, former ambassador to Berlin, led a coup that deposed Prime
Minister Afonso Costa in December. With the support of monarchists, Catholics and
moderate Republicans, he shaped a right-wing presidential regime, the so-called New
Republic (República Nova). Sidónio exercised a charismatic and populist leadership and
became a reference for the Portuguese authoritarian right in the inter-war period.35
Fernando Pessoa even wrote a poem to the memory of ‘President-King Sidónio Pais’,
after his political hero was assassinated in late 1918. The poem deals primarily with the
cult of the fallen, linking it to the postwar zeitgeist, that is, a renewed Christian faith.36
Note that, in this poem, the word ‘God’ appears fourteen times, while ‘faith’ appears
sixteen times.
However, the theatre did not immediately mirror these views. For instance, both
Alexandre Malheiro and Augusto Casimiro, who wrote plays and memoirs around this
time, only reflected about the sacred and religion in their memoirs. In fact, most of the
plays written during the war, or soon after, feel strangely disconnected from the reality of
the trenches, being as they are mostly comedies. Was censorship a strong deterrent
device? On the other hand, as many authors have noted, veterans find it difficult to
express the difficulties they have endured. Certainly, writing a diary or a letter is a very
different experience from producing a play. The levels of self-representation between
writing for oneself, writing for a loved one (and the inevitable censor), and writing for
a specific audience all require a wide range of literary resources.37
An example where all these levels of self-representation converge is the play ‘Love at
the PEC Headquarters’ (O Amor na Base do CEP). According to the author’s memoirs,
the play, written and performed for the first time in a prison camp for officers in
Germany, shortly before the German armistice (27 October 1918),38 not only had some
intimate dialogue, but was set in a scenario capable of arousing feelings of saudade and
nostalgia, while refraining from making explicit references to the conflict. Art made by
prisoners of war, intended to combat the hardships of captivity, to alleviate homesick­
ness, to overcome monotony or to denounce abuses, is always remarkable as a historical
source. Malheiro’s play is no exception. Written by an officer and performed by officers
118 S. NETO

in the role of officers, the play has been labelled a comedy, ‘oscillating between moments
of humour in the face of the behavioural differences of the peoples and the ebbs and flows
of fleeting romances’.39 Indeed, aware of Germany’s imminent defeat – all the more so as
prisoners began to call ‘our tiny performance hall [. . .] the Theatre of Peace’40 – Malheiro
nevertheless gathered more shadows in his comedy than he counted.
The action takes place, as the title points out, at the PEC headquarters, with
a particular focus on the seaside resorts of northern France, where officers enjoyed
some privileges about which, at a certain point, they admit a mea culpa: ‘although this
situation is pleasant for us, we must not fail to recognise the injustice of remaining here,
when the French and the English only keep the wounded and mutilated in the rearguard
services’.41 Nevertheless, the references to Schopenhauer and Werther, the limbic and
misty atmosphere of the Normandy beaches, where some Belgian refugees were living
a kind of ‘golden exile’, evoked the ambience of the twilight of the Belle Époque present in
Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Hence, the supposedly comic dialogues between the
three protagonists, Feio, Almeida and Silveira, exchanging views on love and Portuguese,
French and British idiosyncrasies, fail to elicit much of a reply. In any case, and still
according to the author’s memoirs, ‘although I had never written anything for the
theatre’, the truth is that he would have been able to temper the long months spent in
the prison camp, by leaving the grind of daily reality outside the stage.42
Comedy would be taken up in other productions. Soon, the issue of language became
one of the most important aspects of the humorous literature of the period, in a parody of
the soldiers’ ignorance of the languages of the allied countries and of military jargon in
general. In 1919, Captain André Brun published the humorous memoirs ‘Folk from the
Trenches’ (A Malta das Trincheiras). This bestseller is probably the best-known
Portuguese book about the Great War. Brun was very perceptive in examining the new
lingoes that developed during the conflict. According to him, Command had created the
‘Language of Subparagraphs’ (Linguagem das Alíneas, a mainly written language), that is,
an impenetrable forest of acronyms and sub-items; while the soldiers had developed the
‘Language of not Understood’ (Linguagem do Pas Compris, mainly oral), a slang lan­
guage that mixed Portuguese, English and French words and expressions.43 For his part,
Lieutenant Afonso do Paço published ‘Portuguese Military Slang’ (Gírias Militares
Portuguesas) in 1926, the first part of which compiled the slang and ‘jargon of the fellows’
during the war.44
Two writers in particular, both war veterans, deployed these ‘languages’ in their plays.
Manuel Faria Almeida, in ‘Things and Pears’ (Coisas e Pêras), described the apparently
relaxed scenario of the imminent return of soldiers to Portugal in late 1918. The
characters do not miss an opportunity to sing ironic fado songs about food, medical
care, and other aspects of daily life ‘in this Dante’s hell’.45 For example, the song ‘Travel
Romance’ (Romance de Viagem) tells the story of a soldier from his departure for France
to his return to Portugal, using no less than twenty-one acronyms!46 As for the other play,
‘Fusion of Languages and Love in War’ (Fusão das Línguas e o Amor na Guerra), by
Deolindo Evangelista, premiered on 17 June 1920 in Leiria, the tone is even more joyful.
Conceived as a comedy, the plot takes place in a French estaminet, a convivial space
located ‘in the transition zone between the Front Line and the Village Line’.47 There, the
soldiers drank, gambled, sang fado and chatted to French women and allied soldiers in
the language of the Pas Compris, trying to forget the difficulties of the trenches for a few
 FIRST WORLD WAR STUDIES 119

hours. In other words, bringing a play about this subject to the stage was like creating an
oasis within an oasis. The audience, still feeling the effects of the war, but reconnected to
the veterans, could immerse itself in these three escapist acts, full of short, poignant
tirades in various languages, giving us a glimpse of how those moments in the rear were
only a parenthesis to the trenches.
Finally, we should consider the play ‘Trenches of Portugal’ (Trincheiras de Portugal),
by the aforementioned Captain Augusto Casimiro, whose action takes place before and
during a German attack on the Portuguese positions. More than a comedy, the text’s tone
wavers between descriptive realism and propagandistic undertones. The author, who was
a member of the Renascença Portuguesa, a cultural movement committed to the parti­
cipation in the Great War,48 was a soldier-poet, whose two books of memoirs are ‘among
the most important, for the objectivity of the narrated facts or for their style’.49 His play
was never published, but was staged on 10 April 1923 in Lisbon. However, it allows us to
problematize the question of the theatre and the sacred. In fact, we are talking about
a republican and a Catholic, whose poems and memoirs tended to rethink the scope of
civic religion. His poems ‘Christs of Portugal’ (Cristos de Portugal) or the ‘Lusiad Prayer’
(Oração Lusíada), the latter dedicated to the Unknown Soldiers buried in the Monastery
of Batalha, mirrored this re-approximation of political power to the religious institution,
through a historical-symbolic register. Thus, in their words, ‘those who fight for the
Future of the World’ would be the ‘redeemers, the Christs of the New Age’.50
In spite of this discourse about the ‘new man’, the truth is that Casimiro would become
an opponent of the dictatorship, having taken part in a military insurrection in 1931, the
so-called Madeira Uprising, for which he was exiled to Cape Verde.51 Casimiro, who
subscribed to a republican nationalism, expressed that position in the play ‘Trenches of
Portugal’. However, this text in verse, like the previous comedies, avoided historical
references, praising instead the individual courage of the Portuguese soldiers, their small
disagreements, quickly resolved, and their fraternization with German prisoners.52 The
references to the gas, to the ‘brother rats’, to the cold and to the mortars, in which ‘every
step is a grave’ in the ‘buried cradle’ of the trenches, gave the text a raw realism not always
present in the works of other playwrights.
Failing to trust too much in the powers of the theatre, Casimiro saved for poetry and
memoirs his most striking impressions of the conflict, and the symbolism that those
times had inspired in him. In this sense, the play finds itself fully inserted in this
chronology in which the authors sought to document rather than to reflect.

Remembering the war: the return of the sacred

In 1919, after the experience of Sidónio Pais’ government, which re-established
Portugal’s diplomatic relations with the Vatican, and after a final monarchist revolt,
the country entered the final phase of the First Republic, the so called New Old Republic
(Nova República Velha). The pulverization of traditional parties, political instability and
social discontent became dominant features of the time.53 Militarily, we can perhaps
speak of a ‘mutilated victory’. It is true that Portugal kept its colonies, but the price it had
to pay was high. The difficulties experienced in Mozambique as a result of the attacks by
General von Lettow-Vorbeck, and the inability of the health services to respond to
tropical diseases, shook national confidence. Nearer home, the defeat at La Lys, in
120 S. NETO

Flanders, on 9 April 1918 further exposed the fragilities of the Portuguese participation in
the conflict. However, unlike Africa, a theatre of war that was slipping into collective
oblivion,54 the Battle of La Lys was mythicized, and became a moral victory of courage
and resistance. 9th April, more than any other date – including 11th November –, would
be the day consecrated to the memory of the war, the religare of citizens around their
homeland.
How did the theatre interpret the postwar period, common to so many countries,
albeit with its specific nuances?
A first production, the dramatic monologue ‘The Hero’s Lie’ (A Mentira do Herói),
tried to mirror some of these themes, making use of a language full of religious
metaphors, while dispensing with the descriptivist and escapist realism of the plays
previously analysed. Staged for the first time in Rio de Janeiro on 22 August 1919 with
a dedication to André Brun, the monologue had nothing humorous about it. The title,
which linked two apparently opposite words, could suppose critical intent vis-à-vis the
war. On the contrary, the captain-narrator, played by the actor Henrique Alves, adopted
a sullen tone when reciting the fatal mission of a soldier who volunteered to go to the
‘atrocious ordeal’ of no-man’s-land. However, the ‘lie’ was exposed at the eleventh hour:
although the captain-narrator had asked for a man without family to carry out the
mission, the hero, now dying, had kept the existence of his old mother a secret. This
Christian theme of sacrifice was complemented by other religious vocabulary: ‘via
dolorosa;’ ‘anointing this martyrdom with beauty;’ ‘how painful is the road to Glory;’
and the ominous motto ‘to dream the cross of war and have the cross of the grave’.55
Given the fact that the ‘hero’ was nameless, it is conceivable that the emerging
symbolism of the Unknown Soldier was somehow present here, since anonymity in
death was a common element in postwar dramaturgy (and literature). No less than ten
plays, in one way or another, situated the action at, or near, the Monastery of Batalha; or
they created nameless characters or even characters who wanted to renounce their own
name, exemplifying situations of post-traumatic stress.56 There was also the polysemic
use of the cross57 as a Christian symbol (sacrifice, death, etc.), as a national symbol (Cross
of Christ, Cross of Avis), as a military decoration, and we should not lose sight of the
relationship between the cross and another cruciform object, the sword. Finally, there
was a tendency to call upon the historical past, particularly the Middle Ages,58 in
a dialectical logic of affirmation-decadence-resurgence, in which the First Republic was
increasingly identified with national decline. Thus, some pieces imagined phantasma­
gorias populated by members of the Avis dynasty, who served as spectral hosts to the
newly arrived Unknown Soldiers. In this kind of historical liturgy, past and present were
thus linked together, presenting a sacrificial vision of the war from which a regenerated,
redeemed, and reconnected Portugal should emerge.
The Monastery of Batalha was effectively one of the main stages of this reunion
between the First Republic and the sacred. The building, built in flamboyant Gothic,
was erected to celebrate the decisive military victory of Aljubarrota in 1385 against
a Castilian army. Supported by a company of English archers, King João I secured
Portuguese independence and founded the House of Avis (linked to maritime expan­
sionism) after marrying a princess from the House of Lancaster and signing the Treaty of
Windsor. The Monastery of Batalha became the pantheon of the House of Avis, as well as
the tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, and the place where the Homeland Flame would burn
 FIRST WORLD WAR STUDIES 121

in a purpose-built lampstand.59 This renovation of civic religion, introduced in almost all

belligerent countries, was discussed and approved by the Chamber of Deputies in
a session on 18 March 1921.60 The transfer of the remains of the Unknown Soldiers
took place in a ceremony on 9th April of the same year, in the presence of representatives
of the government. In the aforementioned parliamentary session, MP António Mantas
even heard the news that ‘some of the mothers of the Unknown Soldiers who are going to
Batalha to represent the country’s districts have no pension’.61 This contrast between the
official ‘culture’ and the perception of the population, that is, between the Unknown and
the other unknown, inspired a first play: ‘The Cross of War’ (A Cruz de Guerra, 1923), by
Jorge de Castro.
The action of the play took place in the environs of the Monastery, on 9 April 1921 and
told the story of an old peasant couple left impoverished by the war, Manuel and Maria
(two very common Portuguese names), still waiting for their son António (another
common name) to return from Flanders. For her part, the bride Rosalina (whose name
means ‘Little Rose’), feeling the same longing, tried to resist the advances of the landlord.
The drama was intensified by reading the last letter sent by António, wherein he
reaffirmed his love for the young woman. However, her putative in-laws advised her
not to remain single: ‘you are alone in the world . . . A rose from your garden, if you don’t
protect it, is left loose at the mercy of the wind and bad weather, the stem bends, and may
even touch the mud’.62 This vegetalist metaphor was expanded upon, all the more so
because, in this last letter, António had asked about the flowering of the almond trees he
had planted before leaving for Flanders. Undoubtedly, he had sensed his own death.
Indeed, in the last scenes, the village priest enigmatically points to ‘the blossoms of the
almond-trees, [which] prepare a triumphal entry for the coming dead [the Unknown
Soldiers’ funeral march]. Superb trees, those! They were planted by your son.’ And in this
literal and symbolic return to earth, the family (and the country) felt António’s presence,
finally accepting his death:
Rosalina: If it were him? [. . .]
Maria: I can see the coffin, and I can be sure it’s him.
Manuel: Almond trees! Their flowers fall! It’s him for sure! [. . .]
Rosalina: The cross of your death will be the cross of my life.63
‘Auto of Heroes’ (Auto dos Heróis), it too published in 1923, was written by Colonel
Alberto Cardoso dos Santos, a nationalist author and war veteran. It premiered at the
annual Pupils of the Army party in July of that year. Pupils of the institution were cast to
play the roles. The play was performed again on 9 April 1932 in Santarém, for the
inauguration of the monument to the ‘Dead of the Great War’ in that city. ‘Auto of
Heroes’ seemed a continuation, in the Beyond, of ‘The Cross of War’, with a strong
historical background. The stage was (again) the Monastery, while the main characters
were the dead of the House of Avis and the Unknown Soldiers: ‘the warrior spirit [. . .]
will therefore be consecrated in the memory of two anonymous soldiers of whom we here
are all forebears’.64 The play reflected the nationalist mysticism of the last years of the
First Republic. Dictatorship was at the time a dream for some right-wing sectors, and
some historical figures like Nun’Álvares Pereira, Constable of the Kingdom and strategist
122 S. NETO

of the Battle of Aljubarrota, became their rallying flags. In emulation of Galahad, the
Constable retired from worldly life in his final years, and joined a monastery under the
name Friar Nuno de Santa Maria.65 In 1918, he was beatified by Pope Benedict XV, a year
also marked by the birth of the conservative political movement that would support the
rise of the dictatorship: the Nun’Álvares Pereira National Crusade.66
It was no accident that the main characters in ‘Auto of Heroes’ were Fernando, the
youngest son of João I, known as the Holy Prince, and Nun’Álvares as Friar Nuno de
Santa Maria, the Holy Constable. In fact, both shared some traits with the mythology of
the Unknown Soldier. The former had died in Morocco in 1443 after being taken hostage
in the aftermath of the failed Portuguese siege of Tangiers in 1437. According to
nationalist ideology, Fernando had sacrificed himself for his homeland, since his ransom
would involve returning the strategic and symbolic city of Ceuta to its enemies. As for
Nun’Álvares, whom João I called ‘Constable’ in the play, he replied as Friar Nuno: ‘I am
nothing more, O king, than a Carmelite friar’. Certainly, his entry into monastic life,
a kind of death to the world, could be related to the sentiment that the characters in
Unknown Soldiers were to bring to public discourse: ‘in humble obscurity thus
unknown’.67 As historian Sílvia Correia noted: ‘the disruption caused by total war creates
a space for new heroes – ideological conciliators of an official interpretation of the
historical past. Exceptional beings who sacrifice themselves in the name of the
homeland’.68
Whatever the case, it would fall upon Lieutenant Alípio Vicente, at the time the Viseu
regional leader of the Portuguese Catholic scouts, to present a reconciliatory synthesis of
politics and religion, bringing together various historical times and places. To accomplish
this task, Vicente designed an aggregating ‘site of memory’, linking together Flanders,
Batalha, Fatima and Braga (the city where the 1926 military coup began, and where some
of his plays were published and premiered). Moreover, he linked together the years 1385
(Battle of Aljubarrota), 1917/1921 (visions of Our Lady of Fatima; the burial of the
Unknown Soldier) and 1926/1930 (military coup; recognition of Fatima by the Catholic
Church, and the creation of the União Nacional [National Union], the political party of
the Estado Novo) in a distant past/recent past/present triad, foreshadowing an idealized
country of nationalist policies and unquestioning Catholic beliefs. Four of his plays,
written between 1931 and 1936,69 the period of the formation and consolidation of the
Estado Novo, played precisely on these themes, in opposition to another trend in the
theatre of this period – which, under the slogan ‘damned be the war’, sought to expose the
suffering, deprivation and penury of many veterans and families.70
In any case, Vicente’s ‘tetralogy’ emphasized the redemptive potential of the conflict,
its main motivation being the need for recognition: recognition of Catholic scouting,
recognition of Fatima, in short, recognition of the new times under the Salazar regime.
While his first two plays (1931/1932) were centred around the Great War, the following
two (1936), in an increasingly nationalistic and exalted tone, essentially summarized the
History of Portugal in exemplary tableaux, eventually devoting only one or two of those
tableaux to the Great War. These last two plays, which coincided with the period of
consolidation of the Estado Novo and the challenge faced by the regime in the face of the
outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, were never staged. Therefore, they are little more than
religious and political propaganda aimed at denouncing the revolutionary potential of
the working classes, who, in previous years, had raised a series of revolts against the
 FIRST WORLD WAR STUDIES 123

dictatorship. For example, regarding ‘Crusaders of Portugal’ (Cruzados de Portugal),

dated 1936, Vicente depicted the following characters, in a sometimes-allegorical register,
but always simplistic and stereotyped: angels, crusaders, the pope, the Virgin, Portugal,
the ‘seers’ of Fatima, and . . . three proletarians.71
Therefore, Vicente’s first two plays, which were written in the early days of the Estado
Novo, are of greater interest, for they allow us to understand how the author reinvented
his memories of the Western Front in relation to the religious question. They were both
performed in Braga by scouts. In the play ‘9th of April’, whose action took place ‘near the
Monastery of Batalha in 1921’, the First Republic was portrayed as a regime ‘of savages
and revolutions’.72 Even so, and similarly to what happened in the play ‘The Cross of
War’, the characters, that is, the Portuguese population, would identify themselves with
the civil religion celebrated by the First Republic. In this particular instance, the prota­
gonist Agostinho thought that his brother who had disappeared in the trenches was one
of the Unknown Soldiers that a long funeral procession was taking to the monastery.
Additionally, a priest served as an interlocutor, just as it did in the other play, and a cross
(of war) was also focused upon in the last scene.
In any case, it was in ‘Heroes of Portugal’ (Heróis de Portugal) that Vicente managed to
build his mythology in a more substantiated fashion. The plot was divided into three
sections. The first, ‘Heroes of Yesterday’, encompassed three acts: ‘Nun’Álvares’, [the
Battle of] ‘Valverde’ and ‘The Monk’. As for the second section, ‘Heroes of Today’, it had
only one act, ‘In the Trenches’. The third section included a tableau-apotheosis com­
posed of one scene. The act ‘In the Trenches’ was dedicated to the ‘comrades of the
RI14’73 and to Colonel António Lopes Mateus, a military officer and politician who had
held the ministerial posts of War and Interior in the government that preceded Salazar’s
rise to power.
The first act of ‘Heroes of Portugal’ was set in the Aire mountain range, in Cova da Iria
(Fatima), with the apparition of the Virgin to the Constable on the eve of the Battle of
Aljubarrota. The visitation was intended to ensure the triumph of the Portuguese forces
and herald the visions of 1917: ‘these fields which today shelter your troops will be small
for those who will one day come here on pilgrimage’.74 Various developments, especially
in the second act, did not prevent a new burst of energy from Nun’Álvares, then a monk
in the Convent of Carmo. This time, having been informed of an attack on Ceuta, he once
again donned his armour.
The second section took place in an entrenched redoubt in Flanders at nightfall, with
the Christ of the Trenches in the background. There, two soldiers, João and Manuel, were
commenting on newspapers recently arrived from Portugal – which reported ‘a great
miracle in Fatima’, the so-called ‘miracle of the sun’ of October 1917 – before alluding to
Lourdes and the supernatural episode of the first act, in an attempt to connect
Aljubarrota and future pilgrimages to Fatima. The section ended with a raid on the
German trenches, Manuel being saved from a fatal shot thanks to a rosary (of Marian
devotion) that he carried in his breast pocket.
The final section, ‘a dreamlike apotheosis’, took place in a landscape divided between
‘the warm skies of Africa’ and the Christ of the Trenches of Flanders, featuring
Nun’Álvares ‘embracing the cross of his sword’. In this liturgy, the Constable led the
two Unknown Soldiers to Glory to the sound of the national anthem. The chronology of
‘Heroes of Portugal’, in the transition between the Military Dictatorship and the Estado
124 S. NETO

Novo regime, made use of the warrior dimension of the Constable, even when it was his
task to lead the Unknown Soldiers to the pantheon of the national memory in the
‘tableau-apotheosis’, like an angelic entity. The link we can establish with the first
propaganda pieces of 1916, due to the patriotic enthusiasm shown, makes it clear that
the openly Catholic contribution completed the process of reconfiguration of civil
religion and the return to the sacred that had begun at the end of the Great War.
In this sense, one of the last plays dealing with the conflict, ‘Old Guard’ (Velha
Guarda), from 1940, confirmed this process, and can work here as counterevidence.
The action takes place in an asylum for the disabled, where four former combatants tell
their combat experiences. As this was the work of a veteran supporter of Salazar, and its
premiere coincided with the year of the biggest propaganda exhibition of the Estado Novo
and the signing of the Concordat with the Holy See, it is easy to see it as a new and
elaborate ideological construction in praise of the regime. On the contrary, under the
threat of the Second World War the message was clear and simple. While harking back to
the motto employed by most of the literature of the 1920s and 1930s, i.e. ‘damned be the
war’, the play did not totally close the door to participation in the new conflict, when the
Invalid of Africa said: ‘Comrades, I tremble that God has written it, war shall be upon
us . . . If it has to be so, let us set an example to the young’.75 In effect, we had returned to
1914, but this time there would be no 1916.

Conclusion
Despite being a little-studied topic, Portuguese dramaturgy concerning the First World
War nevertheless provides important information about the prevailing feeling concern­
ing the conflict: from the enthusiastic mobilization of 1916 to the mystical hope of
a country reborn in the 1920s and 1930s (several plays used the word ‘hero’ in their
title). However, these decades also brought disenchantment, and several plays were
distinctly anti-war. Of course, all these attitudes mirrored the impact of the conflict,
but also carried significant changes in the way religion and the sacred were perceived.
Several authors, like Jay Winter, have noted this ‘return of the sacred’, which in Portugal
undertook a somewhat distinctive path.
Being ‘deeply anticlerical’, at least in its early years, the republican regime adopted
from the start some elements of civic religion, as well as expressions borrowed from the
religious spectrum, such as ‘sacred union’. The need to religare society during the ‘storm
of war’ inspired some propaganda plays that were staged in 1916. The main effort was
made on the stages of Portalegre where the different social classes and generations were
targeted by three engaged playwrights. On the other hand, most of the plays written
during the war, or soon after, specially by veterans, lost the enthusiasm of 1916 and
avoided religious themes. Certainly, the chronological proximity of the conflict had
a decisive influence on this approach, since the authors sought to document the reality
experienced rather than to philosophically reflect on the nature of war.
In this sense, the most significant change would occur with the postwar plays. Several
factors prompted this change. First, the ‘return to the sacred’, which expanded the civic
religion of the First Republic. It is important to bear in mind this factor as a major
influence on the politicians’ decision to choose a religious site for the grave of the two
Unknown Soldiers. Second, the growing disappointment with the First Republic, which
 FIRST WORLD WAR STUDIES 125

fuelled a somewhat messianic desire for a national renaissance. Third, the transition of
the demo-liberal and secularist First Republic to the dictatorial Estado Novo, which
promoted reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Therefore, the symbolism of the
Unknown Soldier was widely explored in the plays. Nationalist authors tried to link
past and present, interconnecting the dead of the House of Avis (the ‘Portuguese Golden
Age’) with the dead of Flanders and Africa. One Catholic author went even further,
recalling the visions of Our Lady in 1917. Historical figures, such as the Holy Constable
Nun’Álvares Pereira, were also displayed and embellished to enable both mourning and
feelings of hope.
One the other hand, suffering was emphasized by mostly moderate and left-wing
writers, who delivered several anti-war statements, and this duality of postwar sentiments
clearly illustrates the political crossroads of the last years of the First Republic and the
emerging Estado Novo regime. Thus, it would be interesting to pursue future research
into how dramaturgy dealt with the issue of pacifism and trauma, as opposed to the
nationalism discussed in this article: by using a similar approach, this study would focus
on anti-war plays, some of which were staged in the context of ex-combatant
organizations.

Notes
1. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, 66.
2. In addition to the pieces mentioned in the article, see: José da Câmara Manuel, Pátria.
Lisboa, 1915; Arnaldo Serrão, Viva a França. Benavente, 1916; Firmino Vilhena, Mulheres
da Cruz Vermelha. Aveiro, 1916; Octávio Rangel, A Ceia dos Generais, S. Paulo, 1917; José
da Matta, Octávia ou o Amor Pátrio, Ferin, 1918; Alfredo de Freitas Branco, Madrinha de
Guerra. Lisboa: Casa Ventura Abrantes, 1919; Jaime Cortesão, Adão e Eva. Lisboa: Seara
Nova, 1921; Manuel Sousa, Sacrifício de Enfermeira, Faro, 1922; Fontana da Silveira,
A Medalha do Herói. Lisboa, 1923; Carlos Ferreira, Irmã Cruz de Guerra. Lisboa: 1924;
Lorjó Tavares, Ingleses. Porto: Civilização, 1925; Joaquim Leitão. Os Cegos. Porto:
Companhia Portuguesa Editora, 1926; Lapas de Gusmão, O Mutilado. Lisboa: Livraria
Universal, 1928; Eduardo Faria. Auto das Três Almas. Lisboa: Liga dos Combatentes da
Grande Guerra, 1929; António Rocha, Salvé Portugal. Lisboa: Liga dos Combatentes da
Grande Guerra, 1931; Eduardo Faria. E quando a Guerra Acabou. Lisboa: Liga dos
Combatentes da Grande Guerra, 1932; Pereira Gil, A Ceia dos Aliados. Lisboa: Tipografia
da Liga dos Combatentes da Grande Guerra, 1932; Mântua, Bento. Quem me Dera Ver.
Lisboa: Liga dos Combatentes da Grande Guerra, 1932; Ornelas, Carlos de, O Último dia do
Condenado. Lisboa, 1932; Eduardo Faria. Éramos Três Irmãos. Lisboa: Liga dos
Combatentes da Grande Guerra, 1936; Luís Zamara, La Lys. Lisboa: Ferreira & Franco,
1940; António Botto, 9 de Abril. Lisboa: Livraria Popular de Francisco Franco, 1943;
Ramada Curto, Os Redentores da Ilyria. Porto: Livraria Simões Lopes, 1955.
3. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, 69–76.
4. Meneses, “The Portuguese Empire,” 179–181.
5. Meneses, “Governments, Parliaments and Parties (Portugal).”
6. Neto, “A questão religiosa,” 128.
7. Meneses, “Costa, Afonso.”
8. Duarte, “State, Church and Society,” 236–237.
9. Ramos, “A Igreja e a I República,” 273.
10. Gomes, “O Padre António de Oliveira (1867–1923),” 113–117.
11. Cortesão, Cartilha do Povo.
12. Oliveira, Paz Bendita, 2.
126 S. NETO

13. Ibid., 6.
14. Moura, “Nas Trincheiras da Flandres,” 7–28.
15. Ibid., 29.
16. Oliveira, Paz Bendita, 6.
17. Novais, “Propaganda at Home (Portugal).”
18. Osório, “1914 (Episódio da Guerra).”
19. Castro, Alma Luzitana.
20. Figueiredo, ‘The stage of Mars,’ 81.
21. Carreira, Raça Portuguesa, 8.
22. ABC, Gente Portuguesa, 5.
23. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 32–33.
24. Figueiredo, “The stage of Mars,” 82.
25. “Ao Povo de Portalegre,” 1.
26. Samara, Alice, “Women’s Mobilization for War.”
27. ABC, Gente Portuguesa, 7.
28. Malato, O Maior Amor, 11.
29. Caroço, Amar a Pátria, 17.
30. Ibid., 25.
31. Ibid., 27.
32. See note 17 above.
33. Rollo and Pires, “Food and Nutrition (Portugal).”
34. Torgal, O Sol Bailou ao Meio-Dia, 21–22.
35. Neto, “Pais, Sidónio.”
36. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning.
37. Hynes, A War Imagined, XI, 39–41.
38. Malheiro, Da Flandres ao Hanover e Mecklenburg, 365.
39. Araújo, “Reminiscências nacionais da Grande Guerra,” 94–95.
40. Malheiro, Da Flandres ao Hanover e Mecklenburg, 364.
41. Malheiro, O Amor na Base do CEP, 130.
42. Malheiro, Da Flandres ao Hanover e Mecklenburg, 364.
43. Brun, A Malta das Trincheiras, 67–70, 122–123.
44. Paço, Gírias Militares Portuguesas, 9–30.
45. Almeida, Coisas e Pêras, 38.
46. Ibid., 33–34.
47. Marques, Das Trincheiras com Saudade, 223.
48. Araújo, “Literature (Portugal)”; and Rosa, “Renascença Portuguesa.”
49. Marques, Guia de História da 1.ª República Portuguesa, 169.
50. Casimiro, Nas Trincheiras da Flandres, 208.
51. Fraga, “Augusto Casimiro: militar e escritor republicano,” 326–327.
52. Casimiro, Trincheiras de Portugal, 32–33.
53. Samara, “Post-War Political Consequences (Portugal).”
54. António de Cértima wrote in his memories entitled Epopeia Maldita ‘Cursed Epic’:
‘Nameless legionary, holy and forgotten hero, I see your anonymous bones, the remains
of your pain, scattered across shallow cemeteries. [. . .]. Soldier of Africa! How many medals
have they placed on your chest’?, 276.
55. Pinheiro, A Mentira do Heroe, 8, 13–14.
56. Faria, E quando a Guerra Acabou; and Macdonald, “Rethinking the depiction of shell-shock
in British Literature of the First World War, 1914–1918.”
57. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, 84–85.
58. Goebel, The Great War and Medieval Memory.
59. In 1958 (9 April), already during the Estado Novo, the ensemble was completed with the
Christ of the Trenches. This statue, which had stood in a church in the Portuguese sector in
Flanders and which had been mutilated by the bombing, was greatly symbolic for the
Portuguese army, and was acquired in France by the Portuguese government.
 FIRST WORLD WAR STUDIES 127

60. Diário das Sessões da Câmara dos Deputados, 11–13.

61. Ibid., 13.
62. Castro, A Cruz de Guerra, 18.
63. Ibid., 31.
64. Cardoso, Auto dos Heróis, 26.
65. Monteiro, Nuno Álvares Pereira.
66. Leal, Nação e Nacionalismo.
67. Cardoso, Auto dos Heróis, 43.
68. Correia, Entre a Morte e o Mito, 355.
69. 9 de Abril (1931); Heróis de Portugal (1932); Cruzados de Portugal (1936); and Sonho de
Glória (1936).
70. Figueiredo, “The stage of Mars,” 86–87.
71. Vicente, Cruzados de Portugal, 7.
72. Vicente, 9 de Abril, 10.
73. Regimento de Infantaria 14 (Infantry Regiment No. 14).
74. Vicente, Heróis de Portugal, 34.
75. Loureiro, Velha Guarda, 14.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This work was supported by the CEIS20 - Foundation for Science and Technology [UIDB/00460/
2020].

ORCID
Sérgio Neto http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9737-0029

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