53FRACIS LE LOOK-PUBLI DOMAINMartina Salvante is honorary research fellow at the
University of Warwick. She was co-editor of Landscapes
of the First World War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)allied countries, but some national associations started promoting
alternative views on that issue, proposing a broader membership.
The ILO – whose remit was, and still is, the promotion of
social justice through the improvement and regulation of work-
ing conditions and the protection of workers’ interests – also took
a great interest in the question of disabled veterans after they
made an explicit request for its intervention. In January 1921,
the ILO’s Geneva-based permanent secretariat – the Interna-
tional Labour Office – launched a Disablement Service charged
with the collection and survey of data relating to disabled vet-
erans. Led by Adrien Tixier – a French former soldier disabled
by injuries sustained during the conflict – the Disablement
Service liaised and cooperated with a variety of veterans’ asso-
ciations from countries including Great Britain, France, Italy,
Germany, Austria, and the United States. The overall purpose
of this small section was to place “at the disposal of men disabled
by industrial accidents the new ideas and experiments evolved
as a result of the peculiar position of disabled soldiers
and sailors”.
The service convened two meetings in Geneva
in 1922 and 1923 at which experts exchanged in-
formation about prosthetics and job placements
for disabled veterans, comparing social policies in
different countries to identify the most effective.
The first meeting, in March 1922, was devot-
ed to medical treatment and the supply of
artificial limbs, and led to a report “of an
entirely practical character on methods of
fitting disabled men for employment”. Us-
ing photographs, sketches and descriptions,
the report enabled a large circle of read-
ers to understand and take advantage ofadvances in technology. It was authored by Florent Martin, who
was attached to the limb-fitting branch of the Belgian Army
Medical Corps and had participated in the works of the prosthe-
sis committees of the inter-allied conferences.
The second meeting, in July 1923, studied different methods
of finding employment for disabled veterans adopted in the vari-
ous countries. The resulting report concluded that it was the duty
of the state to assume responsibility for the welfare of those who
had been disabled by the conflict, and that “in order to ensure defi-
nitely and finally the permanent employment of disabled men, it is
absolutely necessary to have recourse to the legal obligation of
employment”. These were merely recommendations, of course,
but they had an impact: the following year, the French govern-
ment passed a law introducing the mandatory employment of
disabled veterans.Workers unite
Veterans played an active role in promoting these events and in
the international circulation of information. Backed by the
ILO, veterans’ associations held the first meeting of what would
become the International Conference of the Associations of War
Disabled and Veterans (CIAMAC) in Geneva in September
1925, gathering together former servicemen from both sides of
the conflict. The event was attended by groups from Italy, Yugo-
slavia, Austria, Germany, France, Poland, Romania and Czech-
oslovakia. Their primary goal was the establishment of a lasting
peace in collaboration with the League of Nations and the ILO.
One of the main supporters of this initiative was René Cas-
sin (1887–1976), jurist and co-founder of the Union Fédéral.
Mobilised in August 1914, Cassin was wounded during a night
raid on the Chavoncourt barracks near Saint-Mihiel, south of
Verdun, on 12 October that year. He taught at universities in
Lille and Paris, and served as a member of the French delegation
to the League of Nations on behalf of French veterans. In tan-
dem with Tixier, he indefatigably promoted the international-
isation of the movement of disabled veterans to promote peace
and discuss matters of common interest. Later in life, Cassin
took up important public roles. He received the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1968 for his work in drafting the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN
General Assembly on 10 December 1948.
The various initiatives, and examples of the
work of men such as Cassin, show how the eight
million people disabled during the First World
War played a key role in fostering international
interactions and promoting the welfare of the
severely injured after the end of the conflict.Photographs, sketches
and descriptions of
prosthetics enabled
readers to understand
and take advantage of
advances in technology
Henri Le Clercq, president of the Belgian
National Federation for Disabled Veterans,
demanded that injured ex-soldiers should
be allowed to contribute to discussions
relating to their welfareИЗП
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