48O
n 28 June 1919, the eyes of the world
were fixed on France. Leaders of the
great powers had gathered in the
Galerie des Glaces – ‘Hall of Mirrors’- for the signing of the Treaty of Ver-
sailles, the culmination of six months
of negotiations following the end of
the First World War, which stripped
Germany of much of its territory, military power and
economic strength.
Yet as the treaty was signed by German representatives
Hermann Müller and Johannes Bell, five other people captured
the attention of delegates. These former soldiers, dubbed gueules
cassées (‘men with broken faces’), were First World War veterans
who had suffered severe facial injuries during the conflict. All
five – Eugène Hébert, Henri Agogué, Pierre Richard, André
Cavalier and Albert Jugon – had been treated at the Val-de-
Grâce military hospital, which specialised in such injuries. And
all had remarkable, distressing stories.
Jugon’s case was an example of the more severe injuries sus-
tained during the war, and he had spent over four years recover-
ing and receiving treatment at Val-de-Grâce. Mobilised in
August 1914, he was wounded on 16 September that year at
Ville-sur-Tourbe, where a shrapnel blast blew away half of
his face and throat. The treatment received under Hippolyte
Morestin at Val-de-Grâce reconstructed his face, enabling
him to go on to live a full civilian life. (Morestin’s skills in
reconstructive surgery inspired the New Zealand-born surgeon
Harold Gillies, who in 1917 set up a unit at the Queen’s Hospi-
tal, Sidcup, where he further pioneered techniques in plastic
surgery.) After the war Jugon co-founded the Union of the
Facially Wounded in 1921 to support ex-servicemen who had
been through the same experience.
The presence of the gueules cassées, who had been summoned
by French prime minister Georges Clemenceau, was a staged
denunciation of Germany. Their presence demanded that
the country take responsibility for the conflict, and required
the treaty’s signatories to come face to face with these severely
disfigured veterans. But such men, who had fought and sacri-
ficed their health in the conflict, did not represent a merely
political issue. Indeed, the medical, social and professional fu-
tures of disabled veterans was already being addressed by inter-
national communities.
Allies look for answers
Two years before the events at Versailles, while the fighting was
still raging, a groundbreaking meeting took place in Paris – the
first inter-allied conference examining professional re-educa-
tion and other issues affecting servicemen disabled during the
conflict. It was promoted by the Belgian government in exile
and co-organised by a Franco-Belgian committee established
in early 1916. The idea behind the first conference was toThe presence of ‘men with
broken faces’ at Versailles
was a staged denunciation
of Germany, demanding
that it took responsibility
for the conflict
exchange ideas and best practices for dealing with a growing
problem in wartime societies: the sheer number of servicemen
disabled in the fighting. Political and medical authorities in
each country aspired to make such men fit again, so that they
might return to productive work – efforts motivated by both
social and economic concerns.
That first conference drew representatives of national gov-
ernments and offices, medical and voluntary aid authorities,
and leaders of disabled veterans’ associations from the allied
and associated forces. It began on 8 May 1917 at the Grand
Palais, an exhibition hall built for the Universal Exposition in
1900, and was formally opened by Raymond Poincaré, presi-
dent of the French Republic.
During the conference, which continued until 12 May,
representatives from France, Great Britain, Belgium, Russia,
Portugal, Italy and Serbia discussed issues covering six areas:
physical re-education or treatment; professional re-education
or training; employment and job placement for disabled men;
economic and social interests of the disabled; the blind, deaf
and those seriously disabled by injuries to the nervous system;
and documentation and propaganda.
There were also opportunities for delegates to visit hospitals
and schools of re-education in Paris and the neighbourhood.
They toured the military hospital in the Grand Palais itself,
another at Saint-Maurice in the south-east of the capital, the
city’s hostel for the blind, and the Belgian school at Port-Villez,
40 miles to the west. This latter institution, which opened in
1915 “to give a thorough physical, technical, intellectual and
moral re-education to the severely wounded”, was particularly
highly praised for its treatment of high numbers of inpatients
(around 1,300) and its wide range of rehabilitative therapies
and workshops.
In addition to exchanging ideas, the delegates passed a series
of resolutions. One key outcome was the creation of a Perma-
nent Inter-Allied Committee for the Study of Issues Concerning
the War Disabled (CIP), based in Paris and composed mostly
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