The Flinders University History Seminar Series started with a bang on Friday 12 March with a presentation by Dr Romain Fathi from the Resilient Humanitarianism team.
Romain’s paper was titled: ‘The French Red Cross and French Foreign Policy, 1919-1928.’
The decade that followed the First World War witnessed an unprecedented expansion of the works of humanitarian and international organisations. Rich scholarship documents the role of these organisations, including but not limited to, Save the Children, the International Labour Organization, the League of Nations, the European Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
However, the perspective of how national societies interacted with international organisations has been less prevalent in the literature, given the legitimate focus on internationalism and transnationalism.
This seminar presentation considered how the Central Committee of the French Red Cross navigated a post-war environment increasingly dominated by transnational humanitarian organisations. It looked at how the French Red Cross strove for its independence while learning how to engage with international and humanitarian organisations and, in particular, the newly-born League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS).
In doing so, this presentation demonstrated that in the 1920s, under the presidency of General Paul Pau, the French Red Cross, a traditional auxiliary of the French Army, became an arm of the French Foreign Office, a semi-official and semi non-official channel through which to advance French diplomacy.
