Gearóid Barry

Les profiteurs de guerre

for France best describe the values that French Jesuits cherished most passionately during these war years. The proof of this assertion resides in their unshakeable convictions that France was fighting a just cause and, inversely, that Protestant and imperialist Germany was responsible for the outbreak of the war and the many exactions (pillage, rapes, use of firethrowers, etc.) that followed in its wake, and that it must be defeated and punished. Furthermore, fighting for right and justice, France and her allies could not be abandoned by God! Regrettably, however, the author does not explain how the Jesuits managed to harmonize these feelings with the precepts of Christian charity. Nor is she convincing in her attempt to demonstrate how French Jesuits reconciled their allegiance to their nation with that to an international order and, especially, to the papacy. By rejecting the idea of a white peace and, conversely, by advocating a victorious peace, French Jesuits clearly disputed the validity of Pope Benedict XV’s efforts in August 1917 to bring an end to the carnage. On that crucial issue, they were not, as the author suggests, supporting the Holy Father’s policies. This book started its life as a doctoral dissertation, one that focused almost exclusively on the French Jesuits in the Great War and one that emphatically privileged description over analysis. The problem here is that such an approach, valid in itself, is much too narrow. Flageat should have cast a broader net by providing readers with a more elaborate description of the political, economic, military, cultural and social contexts within which the French Jesuits exercised their apostolate. In other words, she should have put the Jesuits and the Great War at the centre of her enquiry. Lastly, the strong hagiographical flavour of the text, although doing justice to the lives of many remarkable men, may very well try the patience of more than one reader.

Small Nations and Colonial Peripheries in World War I

This edited volume examines World War I comparatively in both small nations and colonial peripheries. Chapters address subject nations within Europe such as Ireland and Poland; neutral states, such as Sweden and Spain; and colonies like German East Africa.This edited volume examines World War I comparatively in both small nations and colonial peripheries. Chapters address subject nations within Europe such as Ireland and Poland; neutral states, such as Sweden and Spain; and colonies like German East Africa.

Marc Sangnier and ‘the Other Germany’: The Freiburg International Democratic Peace Congress and the Ruhr invasion, 1923

Marc Sangnier (1873—1950) was the instigator of a series of International Democratic Peace Congresses in the 1920s and 1930s. A veteran of the First World War, he ardently wished to ‘disarm hatred’. Drawing on his pre-war experience as leader of the Christian Democratic youth movement, the Sillon, he launched a non-governmental movement aimed at youth for the advancement of Franco-German understanding. The Ruhr occupation, undertaken due to war reparations disputes, made the Freiburg Congress of August 1923 particularly audacious as Sangnier and a portion of the French left embraced a non-militarist Germany even if political divisions intruded. Sangnier clashed with Prime Minister Poincaré in parliament and withstood the physical violence of the nationalist right on the street for his daring. The advent of Locarno diplomacy and détente from 1925 turned Sangnier’s movement from being marginal to an important vehicle for promoting rapprochement, recognized as such by Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, himself the symbol of pacifist hopes.

Rehabilitating a Radical Catholic: Pope Benedict XV and Marc Sangnier, 1914–1922

Pope Benedict xvs gradual rehabilitation of the French Christian Democrat Marc Sangnier, whose Sillon movement stood condemned for social Modernism, demonstrated his desire to end the excesses of his predecessors anti-Modernist crusade and to return to the policies of Leo xiii. Sangnier, unofficial emissary of the French republic to the Vatican, helped to prepare for the restoration of diplomatic relations in 1921. Perplexed, like most French Catholics, by papal neutrality on the war, he later campaigned for Franco-German reconciliation, adopting the Vatican critique of the Versailles settlement. Sangniers pardon, like Benedicts cautious endorsement of the Popolari in Italy, highlights the paradoxical papalism of advanced Social Catholicism.