French civilian morale also drooped in the first half of 1917. Strikes in January and May 1917 spread from textile workers to munitions factories. For all Halévy’s concerns about the influence of the radical socialist, Alphonse Merrheim, most of the protests were reflections of the cost of living rather than of revolutionary sentiment. By January 1917 food prices in Paris had risen 40 per cent since July 1914, and by July 92 per cent: real wages had fallen 10 per cent.
