Building Peace

Once home, the veterans thought that for the most part the Great War was the war to end all wars. A powerful pacifist current took over the country. Yet pacifist and anti-military political movements and associations were rare.
However, the Treaty of Versailles included the creation of the League of Nations with the aim for peace grounded in law. Men supported this project. Roubaix-born Louis Loucher, a deputy from Nord and numerous times minister, campaigned for the constitution of a European steel cartel to unite French and German steel manufacturers. He, with Walter Rathenau, was also a negotiator for the reparations to be paid by Germany.
Very active within the B.I.T. (International Work Bureau), Jean Lebas, mayor of Roubaix and a Great War resistance hero, participated in the drafting of the I.L.O. recommendations on length of work, employment of women and children, etc. Directed by Albert Thomas, the B.I.T. defended the idea that peace could only be founded on social justice.
René Cassin, a law professor at Lille University from 1919 to 1929, was the instigator of the Law of 1919 which created the right to a pension for disabled veterans. Within the I.L.O., he fought for equipment for disabled veterans and created the first international veteran’s association which brought together veterans from both camps, involving Germans and Austrians.