Abstract: A diplomat and civil servant for the ministry for war, a Catholic poet, and a dramatist, Claudel made his writing serve the cause of France and Catholicism. His Catholic patriotism inscribed itself perfectly in the culture of war which was dominant in France from 1914 to 1918. His engagement was, however, more complex: it led the man of politics to revise his prejudices against social and economic modernity, and the man of faith to define the mystic signification which war must take.
