A La Recherche D’Une Guerre Gagnee: The Ligue Des Droits De L’Homme and the War Guilt Question (1918-1922)
Initially conceived as an organization dedicated to the defence of human rights on an individual scale, during the Great War the Ligue des droits de l’homme took the avowedly political position of supporting the Union sacrée. The bona fides of France’s crusade against Germany was vigorously contested by a minority within the Ligue, however, which not only rejected the imputation of unique war guilt to Germany after the war but also questioned the purity of French motives, especially in the light of France’s 1894 alliance with Russia. The immediate post-First World War period set the parameters of a debate that would destroy the Ligue in the 1930s.
