This tragic
event led, within a month, because of the complex of secret diplomatic
alliances between nations that fell into play, to the German Army’s swift
invasion and occupation of Belgium and the northern part of France.
Thus began
a European (then world) war that lasted for four long and brutal years, with
many fighting fronts, much trench warfare, and – worst of all – horrific casualties. Airplanes became a weapon of war and poison
gas was introduced. France alone lost
1.3 million men, and hundreds of thousands more were maimed for life or
suffered severe psychological damage. Total war casualties are generally agreed to have topped 20
million.
Most women in the combatant nations supported their country’s war effort, postponing their
fight for the vote and other desirable reforms; victory seemed paramount. They took over men’s labor in the fields and
factories, including the munitions plants.
By 1918, some 1.5 million women worked in building arms. There were a few women, however, who took a
stand for peace. One of these was a French
teacher and union administrator named Hélène Brion (1882-1962).
In late
1917, Hélène Brion and several others were arrested and charged with treason;
they were vilified by the mainstream press. They were tried in a military court in late March 1919. Brion was convicted, but her three-year
prison sentence was suspended.
The unusual
part of this trial was Hélène Brion’s statement of defense, in which she
invoked her status as a non-citizen under French law and claimed the intrinsic
links between her work for peace and her feminist commitment. She talked back to power in a military
court! She speaks to the difficulty
women faced in ostensible democracies where women had no say in the making of
laws (French women did not obtain the vote until 1944).
Here, in Clio’s
English translation, is her statement. Her
words are still worth reading and pondering in today’s troubled times.
“I appear
before this court charged with a political crime; yet I am denied all political
rights.
“Because I
am a woman, I am classified de plano by my country’s laws, far inferior
to all the men of France and the colonies.
In spite of the intelligence that has been officially recognized only
recently, in spite of the certificates and diplomas that were granted me long
ago, before the law I am not the equal of an illiterate black man from
Guadeloupe or the Ivory Coast. For he can participate by means of the
ballot, in directing the affairs of our common country, while I
cannot. I am outside the law.
“The law
should be logical and ignore my existence when it comes to punishments, just as
it is ignored when it comes to rights. I
protest against its lack of logic.
“This law
that I challenge reproaches me for having held opinions of a nature to
undermine popular morale. I protest even
more strongly and I deny it! My discreet
and nuanced propaganda has always been a constant appeal to reason, to the
power of reflection, to the good sense that belongs to every human being,
however small the portion.
“Moreover,
I recall, for form’s sake, that my propaganda has never been directed against
the national defense and has never called for peace at any price: on the
contrary, I have always maintained that there was but one duty, one duty with
two parts: for those at the front, to hold fast; for those at the rear, to be thoughtful.
“I have
exercised this educational action especially in a feminist manner, for I am
first and foremost a feminist. All those who know me can attest to it. And it is because of my feminism that I am an enemy of war.
“The
accusation suggests that I preach pacifism under the pretext of feminism. This accusation distorts my propaganda for
its own benefit. I affirm that the
contrary is true, and it is easy for me to prove it. I affirm that I have been a militant feminist
for many years, well before the war; that since the war began I have simply
continued; and that I have never reflected on the horrors of the present
without noting that things might have been different if women had had a say in
matters concerning social issues.
[.
. . . .]
“I am an
enemy of war because I am a feminist. War represents the triumph of brute strength, while feminism can only
triumph through moral strength and intellectual values. Between the two there is total contradiction.
“Woman has been deprived of the sacred and inalienable right given to every individual to defend himself when attacked. By definition (and often by education) she has been made a weak, docile, insignificant creature who needs to be protected and directed throughout her life.
“Far from
being able to defend her young, as is the case among the rest of creation, she
is [even] denied physical education, sports, the exercise of what is called the
noble profession of arms. In political
terms she is denied the right to vote – what Gambetta called ‘the keystone of
every other right’ – by means of which she could influence her own destiny and
have at least the resource to try to do something to prevent these dreadful
conflicts in which she and her children find themselves embroiled, like a poor
unconscious and powerless machine. . . .
“You other
men, who alone govern the world! you are
trying to do too much and too well.
Leave well enough alone.
“You want
to spare our children the horrors of a future war; a praiseworthy
sentiment! I declare that as of now your
goal has been attained and that as soon as the atrocious battle that is taking
place less than a hundred miles from us has been brought to a halt, you will be
able to speak of peace. In 1870 two European
nations fought – only two, and for scarcely six months; the result was so
appalling that throughout all of Europe, terrified and exhausted, it took more
than forty years before anyone dared or was able to begin again. Figure that as of now we have fought, not six
months, but for forty-four long months of unbelievable and dreadful combat,
where not merely two nations are at odds, but more than twenty – the elite of
the so-called civilized world – that almost the entire white race is involved
in the melee, that the yellow and black races have been drawn into the
wake. And you say, pardon me, that as of
now your goal has been achieved! – for the exhaustion of the world is such that
more than a hundred years of peace would be instantaneously assured if the war
were to end this evening!
“The tranquility
of our children and grandchildren is assured. Think about assuring them happiness in the present and health in the
future! Think about some means of
providing them bread when they need it, and sugar, and chocolate to drink! Calculate the repercussions that their
present deprivation will have on this happiness that you pretend to offer them
by continuing to fight and making them live in this atmosphere, which is
unhealthy from every possible point of view.
“You want
to offer freedom to enslaved people, you want – whether they like it or not –
to call to freedom people who do not seem ready to understand it as you do, and
you do not seem to notice that in this combat you carry on for liberty, all
people lose more and more what little they possess, from the material freedom
of eating what they please and traveling wherever they wish, to the intellectual
liberties of writing, of meeting, even of thinking and especially the
possibility of thinking straight – all that is disappearing bit by bit because
it is incompatible with a state of war.
“Take
care! The world is descending a slope
that will be difficult to remount.
“I have
constantly said this, have written about it incessantly since the beginning of
the war: if you do not call women to your rescue, you will not be able to
ascend the slope, and the new world that you pretend to install will be as
unjust and as chaotic as the one that existed before the war!”
Source: “L’Affaire Hélène Brion au 1e Conseil de
Guerre,” Revue des Causes Célèbres,
no. 5 (2 May 1918), pp. 152-154.
Transl. Karen Offen, orig. publ. in Women, the Family, and Freedom, ed. Susan Groag Bell & Karen
Offen (1983), vol. 2, pp. 273-275. By
permission of the translator.
