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The First World War is certainly one of the darkest periods in the history of the Gendarmerie. For the soldiers, the Force, absent on the battlefields, is only known for its highly unpopular missions of watching and punishing the troop. On a cushy posting because of his remit, the gendarme is considered as a coward. Sticking to rules too strict for men exposed to death, he becomes odious. The “cop” then embodies an expiatory figure of all the tensions of the front, present in literature as well as in caricatures. Taking the measure of the moral prejudice brought by this long campaign, the Gendarmerie then tries to light counter-fires, putting forward its fighting episodes or its most spectacular and rewarding missions. It is therefore a real battle of images which is carried out, even before the end of the war, by the supporters and opponents of the 1914-1918 Gendarmerie.