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Gustave Moynier and the peace societies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

André Durand
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Extract

As soon as the Red Cross was founded, the question of its relationship with war was raised. Indeed, it could be argued that placing the protection of war victims on an institutional basis and creating a reserved area off-limits to violence was tantamount to an official recognition of warfare or a tacit acceptance of the use of force. Some even wondered whether the attempt to regulate warfare without trying to eliminate it was not serving the purposes of the military and political leaders responsible for waging war, who would be able to invoke the notion of “clean warfare” to justify themselves in the eyes of public opinion and before history.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross (1961 - 1997) , Volume 36 , Issue 314 , October 1996 , pp. 532 - 550
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 1996

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References

1 In the course of his long military career, General Dufour was four times appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Swiss federal army; at the time of the Neuchâtel affair (1857), Gustave Moynier, a soldier in the Geneva regiment, had completed five weeks of active service on the Rhine; Henry Dunant, who had taken up French nationality in 1859, was exempted from military service on account of his dual French-Swiss nationality; Drs Maunoir and Appia would certainly have been called up to serve in the medical corps in the event of a conflict.

2 Compte rendu de la Conférence de Genève, 26–29 10 1863, p. 8.Google Scholar

3 The Peace Society, which was founded in London on 14 June 1816, played an important part in the development of peace societies in continental Europe. The history of the Peace Society is associated with the name of Henry Richard (1811–1888), who edited the journal Herald of Peace and was the Society's secretary for almost 40 years. For the history of pacifism, see the recent work by Grossi, Verdiana, Le pacifisme européen.1889–1914, Bruylant, Brussels, 1994.Google Scholar

4 On 14 December 1886, Gustave Moynier was appointed by the Civil Court of Geneva trustee of the papers left by de Sellon when he died, jointly with Louis Dufour, State archivist, and Théophile Dufour, a judge of the Court of Justice and the Court of Cassation, director of the State Archives (1877–1885) and director of the public university library (1885–1900).

5 Victor Hugo, opening speech, Peace Congress, Paris, 21 August 1849.

6 See Le Temps, 26 04 1867. Frederic Passy (1822–1912), the author of many works on economics, an ardent supporter of pacifism and arbitration and of the idea of a European federation, and the founder in 1889, with William Randall Cremer, of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, had already protested against the war in Lombardy in 1859.Google Scholar

7 These texts appeared in various issues of the Bibliothèque de la Paix published by the Ligue internationale et permanente de la Paix.

8 Annales du Congrès de Genève, preface by Barni, Jules, Vérésoff, and Garrigues, , Geneva, 1868, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

9 Lemonnier, Charles, La vérité sur le Congrès de Genève, Vérésoff and Garrigues, Bern and Geneva, 1867, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

10 The Institut national genevois had been founded in 1852 on the initiative of James Fazy, who was then President of the Geneva State Council, and who became the Institute's first President. At the time it comprised three sections: industry, commerce and agriculture; moral and political science; fine arts, music and literature.

11 The Central Committee also included the Genevans Amedee Roger and Albert Wessel, notary, who were respectively members of the Democratic Party and the Independent Party. The German delegation included Armand Goegg, who had left Germany after the revolutionary upheavals of 1848. His son Egmond (or Edmond) Goegg, who was living in Geneva, was later to be a member of the Société genevoise d'utilité publique, and was its President on several occasions, in particular in 1906, when on behalf of the Society he received the delegates of the Diplomatic Conference for the revision of the Geneva Convention of 22 August 1864 at the Palais de l'Athénée.

12 See Lemonnier, Charles, op. cit. (note 9), pp. 12–14 Google Scholar; Aeschlimann, Willy, “Garibaldi à Genève”, in Almanack du Vieux Genève, 1963, pp. 23–25 Google Scholar, and “Garibaldi au Congrès de la Paix et la presse valaisanne”, ibid., 1964, pp. 25–28; and various articles in the Geneva press of the time.

13 On the proceedings of the Congress, see Annales du Congrès de Genève; Lemonnier, Charles, op. cit. Google Scholar (note 9); and Ruchon, François, Histoire politique de Geneve (1813–1907), Vol. II, Jullien, Geneva, 1953, pp. 231–232.Google Scholar

14 Preface by Barni, Jules to the Annales du Congrès de Genève, p. VIII.Google Scholar

15 The founder members were those who had joined in the first year and had paid a contribution of at least 100 francs.

16 Frédéric Passy gave two talks in Geneva on war and peace, the first on 1 December 1869 in the hall of the Amis de l'Instruction, in the Temple unique (now the Sacré-Coeur church) and the second on 3 December in the hall of the Reformation. Many of his listeners joined the League for Peace as members or supporters after his lectures, which were extremely well received.

17 Fénélon, (1651–1715), Dialogues des Morts Google Scholar, Dialogue XVI: “Socrate et Alcibiade”.

18 See Haggenmacher, Peter, «Just war and regular war in sixteenth century Spanish doctrine”, International Review of the Red Cross, No. 290, 09–10 1992 Google Scholar; and, by the same author, Grotius et la doctrine de la guerre juste, PUF, Paris, 1983 Google Scholar (publications of the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva).

19 Livy, Book IX, I. Quoted by Machiavelli, in The Prince Google Scholar, ch. XXVI.

20 Op. cit. (note 8), p. 139. When Garibaldi's volunteers attacked the Papal States, the International Committee approached the Federal Council and Monseigneur Mermillod, recently appointed Bishop of Hebron in partibus and auxiliary for Geneva, in the hope of encouraging the Vatican to become party to the Geneva Convention of 22 August 1864. (Letters from Gustave Moynier to the President of the Confederation and to Mgr Mermillod dated 1 November 1867.) Mgr Mermillod immediately followed up the Committee's request and the Papal States announced their accession to the Convention on 6 May 1868.

21 Victor Hugo, Congress of Lausanne, 4 September 1869.

22 The Peace Congress met in Basel in 1870, in Lausanne in 1871 and in Lugano in 1872. From 1873 onwards, it met regularly in Geneva.

23 Ligue internationale de la Paix et de la Liberté, Fifth Congress, Lausanne, 25–29 09 1871 Google Scholar, Resolution No. 4 (international law).

24 Hugo, Victor, La question de la paix remplacée par la question de la guerre - À MM. les membres du Congrès de la Paix à Genève, Paris, 4 09 1874.Google Scholar

25 Élie Ducommun, first secretary of the International Peace Bureau, and Charles-Albert Gobat, secretary of the central office of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1902.

26 Rolin-Jaequemyns, G., “De la nécessité d'organiser une institution scientifique permanente pour favoriser l'étude et les progrès du droit international”, Revue de droit international et de législation comparée, Vol. V., 1873, p. 466.Google Scholar

27 Gustave Moynier to Frédéric Passy, May 1868. This letter was published in the appendix to the report of the first general assembly of the Ligue internationale et permanente de la Paix, held on 8 06 1868 Google Scholar (Bibliothèque de la Paix). Gustave Moynier, who had considered publishing the letter at that time, finally included it in an article which appeared in the Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge, No. 126, 04 1901, p. 74.Google Scholar

28 “Die Härten des Krieges und das Völkerrecht, ein Brief des Präsidenten des internationalen Instituts für Völkerrecht, Herrn Moynier, an den Herausgeber der Deutschen Revue (Richard Fleischer)», Deutsche Revue über das gesamte nationale Leben der Gegenwart, 17th year, Vol. IV, Breslau, 10–12 1892, pp. 331–339.Google Scholar It was also in the Deutsche Revue that Henry Dunant published the German translation of his pacifist manifesto “La proposition du tsar Nicolas II” in 1899.

29 Original text in French, according to the manuscript dated October 1892. ICRC, Moynier archives.

30 Pursuant to this principle, Gustave Moynier had asked the Swiss Federal Council to propose officially to nations which had taken part in the Geneva Diplomatic Conference of 1868 to ratify separately the additional articles concerning maritime warfare, which had been unanimously adopted, by detaching them from the draft convention as a whole. The Federal Council did not act on this proposal on the grounds that such a decision should be taken by a diplomatic conference.

31 Supra, note 27.

32 See in this connection: ICRC and League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, To promote peace: resolutions on peace adopted by the International Red Cross and Red Cross Movement since 1921, Geneva, 1986.Google Scholar