Since Sedan's defeat by Prussia in 1870, the question of military and pre-military training has never ceased to be a relevant topic in France. Against the backdrop of the outbreak of World War I, the issue of the training of future soldiers resurfaced strongly confronted with a decline in the age of new recruits in the promotions of 1914-1919. The French state had previously experimented with two solutions to the need for premilitary training of young people: on the one hand, through the formation of school battalions during the 1880s and, on the other hand, via the establishment of military training or shooting companies that spread throughout the country to include about a million members.
However, in October 1914, in the midst of a national emergency, the Minister of Public Instruction Albert Sarraut entrusted Pierre de Coubertin with the task of arranging the "physical training" of young men between the ages of 17 and 20 whether they were in school or not.
This study was based on unpublished archive sources, including the war diaries of Pierre de Coubertin himself and contemporary press. Ultimately, it is aimed to analyze the attempt of the founder of modern Olympism to set up and enact a formative model for the physical education of future French soldiers in the context of the Great War while at the same time questioning the notions of culture of war, sacred union and sports state.