“To read it is to become aware. To circulate it is a good deed.”Footnote 1 These were the words chosen by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) president Marcel A. Naville in October 1969, as he paid homage to the oldest of the ICRC's publications. The first issue of the Bulletin International des Sociétés de Secours aux Militaires Blessés Publié par le Comité International Footnote 2 had been published 100 years previously, on 22 or 23 October 1869.Footnote 3 Born simultaneously with what we now call international humanitarian law (IHL), the Bulletin – and from 1919 onwards, the Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge (International Review of the Red Cross since 1961) – is the oldest journal specializing in the field. At its inception, however, this periodical was not meant to follow and study the development of a new branch of law that aimed to “humanize” warfare. Like several other journals of the time, the Bulletin was intended to “be like the ‘official gazette’ of the Movement as a whole”.Footnote 4 It may therefore seem surprising that this publication has made the transition from a Red Cross newsletter to an academic journal functioning as a think tank on humanitarian matters – and on IHL in particular. This transformation, which took place progressively over several decades, was possible only because the ICRC played a distinctive role, far beyond what was normally expected of a “mere” editor. For the first time, this article will attempt to explore this via the hidden underpinnings of the Review.Footnote 5
A difficult birth
“Is it desirable to found an international journal of the Relief Societies?” This question appeared on the agenda of the very first International Conference of the Red Cross (International Conference), held in Paris in August 1867Footnote 6 at the margins of the International Exposition. It is true that the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (the Movement) had expanded considerably since its birth in 1863–64. Some twenty States – including the great European powers – had already signed up to the 1864 Geneva Convention and founded national societies for the relief of wounded soldiers, the forerunners of today's National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (National Societies).Footnote 7 But this was not enough. The more the charitable movement expanded, the more it needed to become known. There was therefore a constant need for what was then called “agitation” among the general population.Footnote 8 At a time when the written word reigned supreme (and, indeed, alone), setting up a publication seemed the most logical way to achieve this.
Reading the minutes of the International Conference, it becomes apparent that the question was somewhat ambiguous. In fact, the initial idea was not to publish one single journal for all the relief societies, but rather for each of them to produce its own publication in an ad hoc manner. Some (France, Belgium, Prussia) had already done so,Footnote 9 “but this is no longer sufficient for the European, international or national movement”.Footnote 10 Happily for the very existence of the future Review, this interpretation of the question was abandoned in favour of discussion on an international journal “in several languages, [which] would inform the friends of the movement, in every country, of the progress that it achieved”.Footnote 11 All that remained was to decide who would be in charge of the new publication. But this simple point, which at first appeared to be purely practical in nature, would reveal itself to be problematic. In addition to the purely practical aspects was a geopolitical issue. Logically, a global journal should be published by a supra-national organization. The only such organization in existence at that time was the International Committee for the Relief of Wounded Soldiers, which had founded the Movement but had its seat in Geneva and was composed entirely of Genevan citizens. That point was a source of controversy during the debates of the Third Commission of the International Conference. The first shot was fired by one of the members of the central committee of the French relief society, Count Félix of Bréda, who claimed that the “international” Committee in Geneva, as it existed since 1863, was international in name only, due to the mono-nationality of its members. Furthermore, its status was not carved in stone as, for the time being, the Committee was merely a provisional body and existed only in the absence of a better option. The International Committee of Geneva, aware of its ephemeral character, had suggested that the International Conference reflect upon its “complete reorganization”Footnote 12 – all while advocating permanent status for the existing Genevan organization,Footnote 13 supplemented by foreign members. The Count of Bréda held a very different opinion on this point, maintaining that no international committee of the Movement could be located in a provincial town belonging to a State that played only a marginal role on the political chessboard. The conclusion was self-evident: Paris, international city par excellence, rich in resources of every kind and city of international diplomacy, must be the seat of a brand-new, authentically international committee. And Paris therefore was the city in which the international Red Cross journal should be published.Footnote 14 This proposal was met with scepticism from the other members of the Commission,Footnote 15 including members of the French central committee. Huber-Saladin, for instance, maintained that on the contrary, “Geneva, by all reports, … appears to be the more preferable city”Footnote 16 and that “an international journal published in Geneva [would be] one of the consequences generally recognized as inevitable of the necessary reorganization [of the International Committee]”.Footnote 17 So alongside a welcome crop of new national publications, he wished to see the “creation of an international journal, the organ of the International Committee of Geneva”, simultaneously settling the question of the Committee's location.Footnote 18 Count Bréda did attempt to turn the opinion of the Commission in his favour by presenting a new report – this time more aggressive towards Geneva and SwitzerlandFootnote 19 – but his attempt failed and the Commission decided in favour of Geneva.Footnote 20 To spare the feelings of certain French representatives, the International Conference decided in a vote held on 30 August 1867Footnote 21 to both retain an International Committee in Geneva and set up an International Sub-Committee in Paris, which was intended to become “a kind of museum, a permanent exhibition of everything related to the relief societies; a type of repository”.Footnote 22 The question of the journal remained unresolved, as there were those who continued to believe that “founding an international journal was hardly possible except in Paris”.Footnote 23
The following day, when he spoke on this question on behalf of the ICRC, its president Gustave Moynier was only partly reassured, because while an International Committee – of which the details remained to be clarified – was now certain to remain in Geneva, and a “Geneva Committee”Footnote 24 would continue to exist and to direct the Movement,Footnote 25 as he had hoped, it did not necessarily follow that the Committee would be running the future international publication. He therefore expressed himself in terms that he hoped would promote unity: “Publishing a journal on our own would be a weighty matter for us. Clearly, all the committees would need to work together. It would not be our journal – it would be the journal of all.”Footnote 26 And all would have to put their hands in their pockets, because as a good Genevan banker, Moynier immediately raised this “very prosaic” issue: “To establish an international journal, it must be collectively supported by all. … We [the International Committee] could perhaps support the journal for one year or two, but not more… our resources would of course be limited.”Footnote 27 Clearly, the ICRC wished to control the journal, but at the same time it did not wish to bear the cost on its own.
The Conference did not take a final decision on this point, nor on the reorganization of the International Committee, leaving Geneva to sound out the National Societies on the subject. Moynier quickly did so, sending a circular to interested parties on 21 September 1867.Footnote 28 The question of the international journal “published in Geneva, in French”, appeared, particularly in terms of its budget. The circular closed with a questionnaire that, among other things, asked the National Societies if the International Committee should publish a journal and, if so, to what extent they were prepared to finance it.
The response was mixed. While the majority of the central committees accepted the idea of a journal, their financial contributions would be limited, and fell far short of the 4,000 Swiss francs that Moynier had budgeted to produce a monthly journal with a circulation of 500 copies.Footnote 29 Furthermore, the place of publication was still controversial, with the French central committee – supported by that of Belgium – accepting such a publication “on the condition that it be published in Paris”.Footnote 30 The idea was to link the presence of a journal to that of the Red Cross museum planned for the French capital. In the report on his survey that he sent to the National Societies in June 1868, the ICRC president noted that “it's therefore between Paris and Geneva that the choice must be made”.Footnote 31 In an effort to tip the balance, Moynier mentioned that the Third Commission of the Paris Conference had offered the management of the journal to the International Committee, and hence to Geneva. He also suggested – inaccurately – that the Conference itself had been in favour of this.Footnote 32 His remaining arguments are a subtle mix of hypocritical false modesty (“If we are considered more qualified than others to do this work, we shall endeavour, out of devotion to the movement, to prove ourselves worthy of the confidence shown in us, but we wish to state that we would not solicit [the production of the journal] in any manner whatsoever”)Footnote 33 and a vigorous rejection of the arguments in favour of producing the journal in Paris, especially given that “those in favour of Geneva … meet with hardly any objection”.Footnote 34 To conclude, however, Moynier left it to the forthcoming International Conference in Berlin to decide the matter.
The Conference agreed with the Geneva Committee on every point. Not only was the idea of an international museum in Paris abandoned – cutting the legs out from under any argument in favour of publishing an international journal in that city – but the “International Committee of Geneva”, in its original and hence exclusively Genevan form, was tasked with editing a “literary publication that will link the central Committees of the various countries and bring to their attention official or other information of which they should be aware”. Indeed, the ICRC had achieved total victory, as this publication was to be produced “without its members incurring any costs”.Footnote 35
The Bulletin International
Riding on its success in Berlin, the ICRC immediately got to work. The minutes show that the question of the journal was raised at every meeting of the Committee from May 1869 onwards. The title of Bulletin International was first mentioned at the meeting of 29 May 1869. This title was certainly suggested by Moynier himself, following discussions with the president of the French central committee, Count Sérurier.Footnote 36 However, it does appear that the ICRC would have liked to have changed the title before the first issue was published. This point is mentioned by two indirect sources: a letter from a regular contact of the ICRC – Théodore Vernes d'Arlandes, a Genevan citizen living in Paris – and an entry in the minutes of the Committee. On 9 October 1869, Vernes wrote:
The more I reflect on the title of your Bulletin, the more I am persuaded that it will not be favorably received. In France, as you know, red is very much the colour of revolution. … I do not see why you need such a title. I should have understood it more readily if this were a daily newspaper for popular consumption, to be sold on the street.Footnote 37
The title in question was Bulletin International de la Croix-Rouge, but this was abandoned in favour of Bulletin International des Sociétés de Secours pour les Militaires Blessés (International Bulletin of Societies for the Relief of Wounded Soldiers).Footnote 38
On 15 June 1869, the ICRC officially announced the launch of the periodical to the central committees.Footnote 39 The Bulletin was to be published every three months, starting in October 1869. For the first, trial year, the annual subscription was set at 6 francs.Footnote 40 Surprisingly, the ICRC decided to cover the entire cost of the publication, merely encouraging the National Societies to take out subscriptions. It stated:
If the income from subscriptions should prove insufficient to cover the costs, then it will be time for the International Committee to inform the central committees and to request them, on the basis of the resolutions of the Berlin Conference, to furnish such pecuniary assistance as it might require.Footnote 41
The ICRC had done its sums. Assuming 500 subscribers, “which are more or less already assured”, it even hoped to make “a profit of 800 francs per year, to cover any unexpected costs”.Footnote 42 These figures proved too optimistic, however – on the eve of publication of the first issue, only half the subscriptions necessary to cover the costs had been received.Footnote 43 To publicize the new publication, the ICRC decided to print 1,000 copies of the first issue. These were distributed to various contacts and each copy was accompanied by a circular tasking the central committees, in particular, with spreading “propaganda in favour of the Bulletin, so as to generate subscribers”.Footnote 44 Perhaps following this appeal, the number of subscribers rose steadily, to 376 in November 1869, 450 in December and 491 in March 1870. To augment the number of subscribers, the first editor of the Bulletin mentioned by name, Auguste Bost, was even promised a bonus of 3 francs for each new subscription he acquired.Footnote 45 The first two years of the Bulletin yielded a profit of 1,700 francs,Footnote 46 but this positive trend was not to last. In 1874, not only was the number of copies reduced, but there was also a drop in the number of subscribers: 427 in February 1874 and only 397 in January 1878.Footnote 47 The budget remained balanced, however, as the cost of producing the Bulletin corresponded exactly to income from subscriptions.Footnote 48 The ICRC's accounts reveal that from this point onwards, the periodical's revenue came not only from subscriptions but also, and indeed primarily, from the sale of older issues and complete collections. We may therefore suppose that in a good year, new issues of the Bulletin yielded no more than a small profit,Footnote 49 and that in the bad years, such as 1879, its publication cost considerably more than it brought in.Footnote 50
From 1903 onwards, the (separate) account of the Bulletin steadily decreased. To make matters worse, in 1908 it lost the exemption from postal charges that it had enjoyed when it was launched.Footnote 51 It does not appear that there were ever enough subscribers to cover the publication cost on their own.Footnote 52 Furthermore, the ICRC had long been aware of the fact that “the Bulletin is not sufficiently widely distributed”, and it took a number of measures to remedy this situation over the years. General reminders of the Bulletin’s existence – such as that of September 1871Footnote 53 – were followed by targeted approaches to Red Cross branches,Footnote 54 authors, publishers and booksellers offering new publications about the Movement. The latter were offered the opportunity to advertise publications in the Bulletin free of charge.Footnote 55 ICRC members were themselves sometimes asked to help acquire new readers,Footnote 56 but with mixed results.Footnote 57 This difficult situation prompted the vice-presidents of the Ninth International Conference – spontaneously or otherwiseFootnote 58 – to ask that all National Societies “serve to assist in the publication and dissemination of the International Committee's Bulletin … by taking out a larger number of subscriptions, in proportion to their means”.Footnote 59 The Conference adopted this proposal unanimously, without discussion.Footnote 60 Following this move, the ICRC noted with satisfaction that “several committees have increased the number of their subscriptions”, the American central committee alone having taken out 200.Footnote 61 On the eve of the First World War, the Bulletin – which had officially borne the title of Bulletin International des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge since January 1886Footnote 62 – counted 635 paying subscribers.Footnote 63
The contents of the Bulletin
In theory, the contents of the Bulletin should not have presented any problems. The ICRC had drawn up a reasonably complete summary in its September 1867 circular. The articles published were to cover
announcements that the International Committee or National Committees wished to bring to the attention of all members of the movement, information on the work carried out by the various Committees, be they in time of peace or time of war, bibliographical information concerning; reports, notes, theses, letters, etc. on questions concerning the course and progress of the movement and communications of any sort bearing on the object of our work.Footnote 64
In summary, the Bulletin was to be “a collection that centralized all important information – historical, administrative, technical, bibliographical, etc., and that was sufficiently complete to keep its readers informed of all matters that could be of interest to the members of our associations”.Footnote 65 This programme had been approved by the Second International Conference, in Berlin, which had also specified that space could be reserved for “announcements or reviews of special publications, devices or inventions related to the relief of sick or wounded soldiers”.Footnote 66 In other words, to offset some of its costs, the Bulletin could sell advertising space.Footnote 67
The ICRC was therefore to occupy only a minimal space in the future publication. It would be the task of the national committees to supply the journal with information and articles. The Geneva Committee would merely “encourage their production, gather them together, coordinate them and publish them”.Footnote 68 At most, the ICRC could “if needed” supplement information received with “its own information”.Footnote 69 This was indeed the policy followed in the first three issues of the Bulletin. However, the fourth issue brought the first departure from this policy, which, according to the ICRC, offered a solid guarantee of impartiality. In that issue, under the seemingly innocent title of “Du double caractère, national et international, des sociétés de secours” (“On the Double Character, National and International, of Relief Societies”), the Geneva-based institution responded once and for all to criticism – from France in particular – regarding its international nature. “The existence of what is called an international committee in Geneva may indeed lead to differences of opinion on this point [the national character of all the relief societies]”, it wrote; “However, the term is appropriate, as its concerns are global.”Footnote 70 Thus did Moynier – for it was he that authored this article – attempt to neatly close the debate on the internationalization of the ICRC.
Far from being a simple informational periodical, the Bulletin also became a forum for debate where Geneva presented its ideas – or rather, those of its president. From 1872 onwards, it served as a platform for Gustave Moynier, ensuring “wide publicity”Footnote 71 for his writings.Footnote 72 Some of these, such as that concerning the creation of an international judicial body to prevent and punish breaches of the Geneva Convention,Footnote 73 had no more than an indirect connection with the work of the Red Cross – a point that earned the ICRC a sharp reproach from the French Red Cross.Footnote 74 There continued to be no love lost between Paris and Geneva, the former accusing the latter of denigrating it via articles published in the Bulletin. The ICRC replied that the French central committee “had no right to complain if we publish articles that are contrary to its view”.Footnote 75 When the Eastern Crisis erupted (1875–78), the Bulletin began to publish a new category of content: denunciations (and counter-denunciations) of breaches of the Geneva Convention and of failure to respect the protective emblem. The Bulletin published the various accusations, sometimes in gruesome detail, with “the greatest impartiality”.Footnote 76 Despite all claims of impartiality, however, the ICRC often expressed its own opinion in the comments that it printed alongside these pieces. And from an anthropological perspective, the ICRC's opinion was not especially favourable to “the Other”. During the Eastern Crisis, for instance, the Turks were accused of the worst cruelty towards unarmed enemies and persons wearing the red cross emblem. In the view of the ICRC, the “source of evil” was to be found in “the religious antagonism between Muslims and Christians, or rather the inveterate hatred of Muslims for Christians.”Footnote 77
Muslims were not the only group to find themselves the targets of harsh comments in the Bulletin. “Negroes” were judged to be “too savage” to be associated with the humanitarian ideas that underpinned the movement.Footnote 78 The Boers were accused of being “semi-barbarians” until the Bulletin revised its opinion during the First Boer War.Footnote 79 The Japanese were described as a “pagan nation”Footnote 80 and the Chinese as insufficiently civilized to sign the Geneva Convention.Footnote 81 These stereotypes remind us that the Bulletin was a contemporary of European colonialism, and its Genevan editors shared the racist ideology of that movement, sometimes to the point of making totally inappropriate statements. During the “reconquest” of Sudan, for example, the Bulletin maintained that “finishing off the wounded was almost necessary during the war against the Dervishes”.Footnote 82 The Congo of King Leopold was another such case. The Congo “Free” State had ratified the Geneva Convention and had even set up a National Red Cross Society. Despite this status – unique in Africa at that time – the Congo Free State remained a colony, and it was run with such brutality as to provoke a massive international campaign at the end of the nineteenth century. Even so, as late as 1903, after reminding the reader of “the excessive and inveterate savagery of the Negroes”, the Bulletin opined that “the example and the education that the Belgians are giving to their African wards will no doubt have a long-term effect on their ideas and will gradually turn them into civilized people”.Footnote 83 The author of these words was none other than Gustave Moynier, unconditional admirer of Belgian colonialism and even the consul of the Congo Free State in Switzerland.
The Bulletin’s statements did not stop at promoting a Eurocentric, Judaeo-Christian view of the world, or the benefits of the white man's “civilization”. On occasion, the Bulletin strayed into clearly political territory, which clashed with the “proper neutrality and absolute impartiality”Footnote 84 of which it claimed to be the messenger. This was particularly apparent during the First World War. While the ICRC showed no real preference for one side or the other during the first few months of the war, that all changed in spring 1915, when the German Occupying Power dissolved the central committee of the Belgian Red Cross. In a state of shock, the ICRC protested strongly against this act.Footnote 85 From that point onwards, the Bulletin became steadily more favourable to the Entente, for which several members of the ICRC – including its president, Gustave Ador – had never hidden their personal preference. As a result, the Bulletin was full of more-or-less veiled criticisms of Germany. That nation was “accused” of publishing dishonest propaganda via “a virulent press campaign, with denigrating headlines” on the situation of prisoners,Footnote 86 and of taking little notice of the reports of the ICRC's delegates who were visiting “with impartiality and conscientiousness” the camps where prisoners were held and treated “with humanity”. “One would begin to despair of the influence and value of the Red Cross if the reports of official delegates [of the ICRC] were to be considered worthless.”Footnote 87 When the German Reich denounced the “atrocities” committed by Allied soldiers of colour and demanded that they be withdrawn from the European theatre “in the interests of humanity and civilization”, the ICRC delivered a stinging reply:
One cannot but sincerely deplore atrocities of this nature. But neither can one avoid regret… that the German government has not, ‘in the interests of humanity and civilization’ imposed very different conduct on its own troops in Belgium, on the Austro-German armies in Serbia and on its Turkish allies in Armenia.Footnote 88
The other Central Powers also fell victim to the Bulletin’s Germanophobia. When, for instance, Bulgaria or Turkey complained about the bombing of medical facilities by Allied aircraft, the ICRC regularly advanced the argument that these were accidents.Footnote 89 When it came to the “victims” of the Central Powers, the ICRC described the ordeal suffered by the population in the occupied territories of Belgium and the North of France, praised the “heroism” of SerbiaFootnote 90 and denounced the massacre of Armenians by the Turks on the basis of information it had received from an Armenian committee.Footnote 91 The “bloody”Footnote 92 dissolution of the central committee of the Russian Red Cross in February 1918 had a lasting effect on the ICRC. The “unspeakable”Footnote 93 behaviour of the Russian revolutionaries helped solidify a strong anti-communist sentiment among the members of the Committee.
Even if the ICRC did use – and in some cases abuse – the Bulletin to propagate its own opinions, the publication also made it possible, more naturally, to highlight the Genevan organization's work during the Great War. In what was a fundamental change, the Bulletin of the war years focused on the ICRC rather than on the National Societies. The ICRC had already used the Bulletin to talk about itself in the past, especially during such major armed conflicts as the Franco-Prussian war and the Eastern Crisis, but never to the same extent as between 1914 and 1918.Footnote 94 It is true that the scale of the First World War was unprecedented, as was the expansion of the organization – from about ten persons to over a thousand in just a few months. Notwithstanding, the ICRC was in the process of taking control of a publication that was supposed to represent the entirety of the Movement. This process continued with the creation of the Revue.
The Revue
There is only rough information regarding the transformation of the Bulletin International des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge into the Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge. There are no real archival files for the period 1919–39, so what information we have comes from the minutes of ICRC bodies.
It would seem that the idea of transforming the Bulletin into a monthly journal emerged just after the Armistice. The idea was put forward by Étienne Clouzot, one of the secretaries of the International Prisoners-of-War Agency.Footnote 95 It is not currently possible to establish how the project originated, or whether it emanated solely from Clouzot. One could imagine that Clouzot, who was originally a French citizen, took his inspiration from publications in his own country such as the Revue des Deux Mondes, the Nouvelle Revue and the Nouvelle Revue Française. It would appear that the aim was to ensure the longevity of the Bulletin, but in a different form. Three arguments were put forward in support of the change. The first was related to content, and the recurrent need to make up for a lack of articles from external authors.Footnote 96 The editor, Paul Des Gouttes, explained that he “was the first to recognize the need to enlarge the publication. [He himself] had already attempted to expand it and … had experienced considerable difficulty in obtaining articles.”Footnote 97 The second point was the need to adapt the journal to a changing world. Des Gouttes was aware of “the influence that the course of events and political events will have on the Bulletin, requiring a broadening of its scope and creating a need for a living publication, open and not overly attached to the past”.Footnote 98 The new journal should prioritize “the works of peace” towards which the ICRC seemed to be turning.Footnote 99 Furthermore, there was the financial aspect – subscriptions had remained low (550 in 1918), while printing costs had doubled during the First World War, and it therefore made sense to try to broaden the journal's readership. There was also agreement on the need to maintain the international element in the future publication's title and to retain an “old style” Bulletin, either published separately or merged with the Revue. The new publication was intended not to kill off the Bulletin but, on the contrary, to make it “more than ever” aliveFootnote 100 by increasing its importance and the frequency of publication.Footnote 101 By the beginning of December 1918, it was done:
The title will be Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge, with the subtitle Bulletin international des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge. The format will be slightly larger than that of the Bulletin, published monthly, its appearance will recall that of the Bulletin, the price will be 20 francs per year, 2 francs per issue. The Revue will be managed by an Executive Committee [and] an Editorial Board … [,] will consider the content of each issue and will decide on or have the ultimate say as to which of the articles proposed should be included. … It is understood that naturally, it will accept only those articles that could be of interest to the Red Cross Societies, as the Bulletin has done hitherto.Footnote 102
The ICRC stated that it was prepared to cover the cost of the publication – estimated at several tens of thousands of francs – from the “revenue and if necessary the capital of the Nobel Prize” for peace, which it had been awarded in 1917. In order to cover the “considerable” printing costs involved, the ICRC also decided to “advertise in the most important of the appropriate newspapers, in an attractive but not flamboyant or overly American way, the publication of the Revue and encouraging subscriptions”.Footnote 103 The Revue was also itself authorized to feature advertisements.Footnote 104
The birth of the Revue was announced by circular on 4 December 1918.Footnote 105 The circular put forward an argument based on the “expansion of the field of action of both the National Red Cross Societies and of [the ICRC] itself”. The new periodical would
continue to focus above all on the direct victims of war, but could, in the part entitled Revue international, present more freely the experiences experienced in certain countries that could be instructive for others, while at the same time allowing space for original articles concerning the areas both broad and varied that already concerned the National Societies before the war or which will concern them at the start of the new era of peace.Footnote 106
As for the Bulletin (which now indicated that it was published by the ICRC, “the founder of the movement”), it would continue to play the role of “faithful narrator of the activities of the various Red Cross Societies”.Footnote 107 The monthly publication launched in January 1919 was therefore a two-headed animal.
The Revue turned out to be a financial black hole from the first year of its existence, recovering only 30% of the 54,322 francs that it cost to produce.Footnote 108 Clearly, the ICRC's advertising had not had the desired results, as the Revue had only 965 subscriptions, 515 of which belonged to National SocietiesFootnote 109 – and even these figures appear doubtful.Footnote 110 Subscriptions increased only slightly in 1920, to 1,005,Footnote 111 before falling again to 776 in 1921Footnote 112 and 610 in 1925.Footnote 113 Advertising revenue followed a similar pattern. As a result, the publication remained firmly in the red, with deficits of 22,000 francs in 1920 and 25,000 francs in 1921. It was therefore suggested that costs be reduced by printing the Revue somewhere other than Geneva (perhaps even outside Switzerland) and on presses other than those of the Journal de Genève.Footnote 114 This idea produced outcry from the members of the ICRC, led by Horace Micheli (who was also the political editor of the Journal de Genève), and was eventually abandoned.Footnote 115 Less drastic cost-cutting measures were nonetheless taken, reducing the deficit to 7,000 francs in 1922. Thereafter, expenditure always exceeded receipts by some 6,000 francs, and the Revue was only able to balance the books thanks to an annual contribution from the ICRC to make up the difference. The situation was even worse coming out of the Second World War: at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, the Revue cost 60,000 francs to produce each year, but its revenue was only just over 13,000 francs, the majority of which came from advertising. Subscription revenue was only about 4,500 francs,Footnote 116 indicating that the number of subscribers had fallen to just 225.Footnote 117
It was also during the Second World War that the question of the language used in the Revue arose once again.Footnote 118 Since its launch in 1869, the periodical had appeared in French only. However, it did not have “sufficient penetration in America”,Footnote 119 and it was therefore proposed that the Revue be translated and printed in London and New York, to ensure its wide distribution in the English-speaking countries. The proposal was not implemented for financial reasons; it would have been too expensive to publish an edition in the United States with a sufficient number of subscribers.Footnote 120 In addition, the time needed for translation would have rendered the Revue less up-to-date, depriving it of “much value in the eyes of the public”.Footnote 121 Finally – and this seems to have been the deciding factor – the Revue would not have been able to compete in the United States with the publications of the American Red Cross, which were often free. The ICRC did not totally abandon the idea, however, and from 1948 onwards the Revue translated its main articles into English, publishing them in a supplement of some twenty pages, in accordance with its undertaking to “keep up with the times”.Footnote 122 A Spanish supplement followed in 1949 and a German supplement in 1950, but this solution was hardly satisfactory. Delegates and several National Societies called for a Revue in English or, at least, “a less skeletal supplement”.Footnote 123 Their wish was fulfilled when, in April 1961, an English version of the Revue was published which was “in principle … identical with the French edition”.Footnote 124 In 1976, a full Spanish edition of the Revue was published, responding to wishes already expressed immediately following the Second World War. Special Arabic issues were occasionally published on an ad hoc basis.Footnote 125 In 1956, approximately 3,500 copies of the Revue were printed, including all the language supplements. Twenty years later, circulation had increased to over 6,000 in total (all languages included).Footnote 126
With three complete different-language versions plus an abridged German version (2,500 pages per year in total), it quickly became impossible for the ICRC to cover the costs involved. In December 1977, the ICRC therefore took a step which was “painful: that of reducing publication of the International Review of the Red Cross from twelve to six issues per year”.Footnote 127 Meanwhile, another decision had been taken very quietly: the Bulletin was to disappear. This happened gradually. The process started in July 1955, with a semantic change: the Bulletin – which had already lost a great deal of content – became “News of National Societies”. Its cover page disappeared and it was now included in the table of contents of the Revue.Footnote 128 However, the “News” did mention that it was the direct successor to the Bulletin. This link ended in 1965, when the “News” was replaced by a section titled “In the World of the Red Cross”. That title was used until 1998, though not without a mention – but only in 1988 – that the (small) part of the Review devoted to the National Societies also included the Red Crescent Societies.Footnote 129 In 1999, this section became “Red Cross and Red Crescent”; this natural link with the Movement disappeared altogether in September 2002, almost 133 years after the founding of the Bulletin. The transformation that occurred in the autumn of 2002 also affected the ICRC, as this was the point at which the Review became an academic journal. The space available to present the activities of the Genevan institution became more rare.
The contents of the Revue
In its editorial programme, the Revue extolled its “expansion” into new subjects and new authors. Reading the table of contents for its first year,Footnote 130 it is indeed apparent that the journal had opened up to include social topics, especially those related to children. That was no coincidence, as the ICRC was now devoting considerable attention to children as a category of war victims. The articles came from a range of sources, while maintaining a link with the world of the Red Cross or, more generally, with that of charitable works. Not until after the Second World War did the Revue begin to regularly feature articles from academic authors. The ICRC did, however, retain a degree of control over the contents of the journal. Of forty texts published in 1919, sixteen were by ICRC members or staff – 40% of the articles. The high proportion of internal ICRC authors – which at times reached or surpassed 50% – remained a constant, but for two exceptions, until the beginning of the 1930s.Footnote 131 The ICRC also remained very well represented in the Bulletin section devoted to the National Societies and the new League of Red Cross Societies, created at the same time as the Revue. When the Second World War broke out, this dominance increased. Like the Bulletin in the First World War, the Revue became the mouthpiece of the ICRC and was devoted almost exclusively to the ICRC's efforts on behalf of the victims of the war, for example including long extracts from reports on visits to prisoners of war and civilian internees around the world. The pages of the Bulletin followed the same tendency, highlighting the actions and statements of the ICRC. The same applied to the original articles, over 70% of which were written by ICRC members or staff.
As had been the case for the Bulletin, certain articles in the Revue gave rise to controversy. For instance, an article by Serge Bagotzky, who represented the (Soviet) Russian National Society in SwitzerlandFootnote 132 (which was recognized as a National Society by the ICRC in 1921), led to fierce protests from the former (meaning “Tsarist”) Russian Red Cross, with which the ICRC maintained close links, and which considered itself the only legitimate Russian National Society.Footnote 133 Conversely, Bagotzky complained about the fact that since 1933, the Revue had regularly published an annual report on the work of the former Russian Red Cross organization, at that organization's request.Footnote 134 The ICRC considered that it was entitled to publish “anything of a nature that could interest our readers on any Red Cross activity” in the Revue, but that at the same time it “was entirely free to cease any publication to which it had voluntarily consented”.Footnote 135 Ultimately, however, it did not have to take a decision on this dispute, which fizzled out on its own at the beginning of the Second World War.
A new controversy involving communist National Societies erupted immediately after the end of the war, when the ICRC was accused of not having done enough to defend the interests of the victims of Nazism and Fascism, especially the civilian population – including Jews and partisans. The Eastern Bloc accused the ICRC of having “lost its neutrality because of its exclusively Swiss character … [and of having] fallen into the Swiss government's service”.Footnote 136 It is therefore not surprising that in response to the first of these criticisms the ICRC published in extenso a long study it had just completed, highlighting its work in concentration camps in Germany, in the March and April 1946 issues of the Revue.Footnote 137 It also published a report on its efforts to help partisans who had fallen into enemy hands.Footnote 138 To justify its existence, the ICRC published a long article recalling its origins and at the same time explaining at length the valuable work it had undertaken during the war.Footnote 139 It hammered home that “the Committee is subordinate to no other institution, be it a Red Cross Society or a government, even the Swiss government. Its members, who receive no payment, are themselves wholly independent.”Footnote 140 Not long before, ICRC president Max Huber had emphasized the “complete political and administrative independence [of the ICRC] from the Swiss Confederation” in the pages of the Revue.Footnote 141 In this context, when the question was raised of translating the Revue, a Russian version was suggested, alongside English and Spanish. Officially, the intention was to enhance the dissemination and influence of the periodical among readers from different countries, while avoiding the impression of “alignment with any of the blocs of States that currently exist”.Footnote 142 Unofficially, one can well imagine that the aim was to convey the ICRC's ideas directly to those who were criticizing it. The idea was not implemented, for reasons unknown.Footnote 143 The Revue later acted as a channel for replying to other accusations, such as those made during the Korean War.Footnote 144
The early days of the Revue coincided with those of the League of Red Cross Societies, which was founded in May 1919. Relations between the ICRC and the League quickly soured.Footnote 145 The ICRC was far from happy at the idea of a new organization stepping on its toes by taking over the programme of peacetime humanitarian activities that it had proposed to the National Societies.Footnote 146 The League, for its part, saw the ICRC as having become obsolete in view of the challenges that followed the First World War. This animosity became apparent as soon as the creation of the League was announced. The ICRC saw the League as an “association … of a transitory nature” and demanded the right to remain “the central body for all the National Societies, as it has always been, by virtue of the successive decisions taken by the Conferences [of the Red Cross]. The organization that is being created should in no way supplant it, but should rather extend and expand its action.”Footnote 147 So while it allowed its sister organization to communicate through the Revue, the ICRC never missed an opportunity to comment on its rival's articles.Footnote 148 Elsewhere it explained that the League was neither democratic nor universal.Footnote 149 However, contrary to the ICRC's predictions, the League turned out to be a temporary phenomenon that became permanent. The ICRC had to live with the situation, while maintaining its dominant position – and that meant communicating. In March 1920, it was suggested that the Revue be made the joint publication of the ICRC and the League. While the two organizations were to share the management of the new periodical, the Bulletin would remain “the publication of the International Committee”, retaining the “universality and freedom it has always enjoyed”.Footnote 150 Negotiations followed, both internally and with the League. It is clear that the ICRC hoped such a merger would “bail out” the Revue by providing it with a wider distribution, while at the same time reducing the ICRC's financial commitment. The ICRC also hoped that in exchange for this partnership regarding the Revue, the League's journal – “21,000 copies of which [were] distributed free of charge”Footnote 151 – would report on the ICRC's peacetime work. However, the prospect of such an agreement raised a number of concerns, including the fear that the ICRC might ultimately end up being absorbed by the League, which, by virtue of the considerable funds at its disposal, could be “inclined to give the orders”. It was therefore emphasized that the Revue and the Bulletin would remain “the publication of the International Committee and the journal of the Red Cross Societies”.Footnote 152 On the other side, it seems that the League was also somewhat hesitant, with the result that the idea of an agreement was eventually abandoned.Footnote 153 In 1928, the idea of merging the ICRC and League publications was raised once again, but the fear that the Revue might lose “its character” put a temporary end to the discussion.Footnote 154 The question of combining the Revue with the publications of the League or of other organizations resurfaced in the 1930s, without leading to any action.Footnote 155
To inform or govern?
In 1869, during the 2nd International Conference, French central committee delegate Jean Huber-Saladin recalled the genesis of the Bulletin:
Charged with the report on … the creation of new periodicals at the Paris Conferences, I made the entirely natural proposal to set up an international journal in Geneva. The Genevan Committee, taking into consideration what was a simple suggestion on my part, developed my idea as necessary, and made of it the object [of one of the proposals submitted to the Conference].Footnote 156
From the beginning, therefore, the ICRC had been most interested in the publication of a periodical that would become a kind of “official gazette of the Red Cross”.Footnote 157 Moreover, it had done all it could to ensure that the ICRC would be managing and publishing it, despite the significant financial sacrifice incurred and the additional workload for its president, Gustave Moynier, who became the lynchpin of the whole operation. Geneva's enthusiasm provoked considerable friction with the French Red Cross, which was also keen to take on such a publication. Far from being a mere contest between rivals, taking possession of the Bulletin became a core issue for the ICRC. For Paris, being allowed to manage the global journal of the Movement was a question of prestige; for Geneva, it was a matter of survival. Under criticism for its mono-national makeup, uncertain as to its permanence and, above all, resistant to any change in its structure, the ICRC needed a strong argument to counter the threats it was facing. Publishing the Bulletin provided an unhoped-for opportunity to ensure the long-term survival of this small Genevan entity while allowing it to maintain a certain degree of autonomy and, above all, to avoid changing that which constituted its raison d’être – acting as a link between the National Societies. This being so, it is easy to understand why the ICRC was so determined to seize Huber-Saladin's “simple suggestion” and render it sufficiently viable to be accepted by the Berlin International Conference.
Seen against this background, the financial question was not insignificant. By refusing all funding from the National Societies to offset publication costs – despite such funding having been agreed in principle – the ICRC hoped to maintain absolute control over the Bulletin. All of this came as no surprise to the French central committee. Aware of the power that the future periodical would confer on whoever controlled it, the French committee attempted to limit that power once it realized that it had lost the battle for control. Its president, Count Sérurier, insisted at the 1869 International Conference that “communications of any sort, even scientific discussions, [could] only be published in the international journal of Geneva insofar as they had been submitted by the various [Red Cross] Committees”.Footnote 158 The aim was to stifle the voice of the ICRC and to limit its spread via the pages of the Bulletin.
The ICRC itself was fully aware of the advantages that such a periodical could bring. It therefore struck a reassuring tone, stating that it “would not be conferring upon the International Committee a worrying prerogative by investing it with the right to preside over the editing of the journal, given that the true editors should be the national Committees themselves”.Footnote 159 Furthermore, the ICRC added, it had never desired, nor sought “in any manner”,Footnote 160 the production of the Bulletin, which “was in no way born of our initiative” and for which the ICRC had “assumed the burden of responsibility only to comply with a decision taken by the Red Cross Societies of all nations at the International Conference that they held in Berlin in 1869”.Footnote 161 The ICRC's role concerning the Bulletin would be limited to that of an auxiliary, which would “hold the pen to record the facts trimesterally, in the conviction that by so doing it was fulfilling a useful role, albeit humble”,Footnote 162 and the periodical would serve to consolidate “the moral union of all the central Committees”.Footnote 163 That last point was crucial. The ICRC's interest in the Bulletin was tied to the fact that it was the rallying point for all the National Societies. Since 1867 and the initial discussions on its composition and role, the ICRC had known that its salvation would come from the Movement, or more precisely from the disagreements between its components. It had already experienced this in Paris in 1867, when, faced with the destructive desires of the French Red Cross, it had been able to count on the support of the other central committees. It had also benefited from internal dissent at the Third and Fourth International Conferences of 1884 and 1887. On those occasions it had been confronted with a Russian Red Cross plan to internationalize the ICRC's staff. That proposal had been refused by the vast majority of National Societies, who judged that “in the general interest of the Red Cross, it is useful to maintain the International Committee as it has existed since the beginning of the movement, with its headquarters in Geneva”.Footnote 164 Thanks to the Bulletin, the ICRC had “an entirely natural opportunity, and one that it would not otherwise have had, of communicating regularly with the central Committees”.
The future of the ICRC was therefore closely linked with control of the Bulletin. So it is not surprising that, at the Fourth International Conference in 1887, the ICRC wished the plenary to decide both about retaining the ICRC in its original form and also about the continuation of an international Bulletin, “published in Geneva”, under the sole responsibility of the ICRC.Footnote 165 Some thirty years later, the same situation arose once again, during the conflict between the ICRC and the League. In view of its hegemonic leanings, several National Societies were reluctant to join the new organization, or at least to comply with all of its wishes. The ICRC took advantage of this tension to position itself as the natural forum for coordination within the Movement, thereby garnering support in its battle with the League. When it became necessary to envisage some form of cohabitation between the two organizations, and the question arose of merging their respective journals, ICRC president Gustave Ador was of the opinion that in the future periodical, the Bulletin – which would remain in the hands of the ICRC – “should occupy the leading position, above that of the Revue [of the League]”.Footnote 166 This was a way of demonstrating the ICRC's dominance within the Movement and its close, traditional links with the National Societies. The same tactic was deployed immediately after the Second World War, when the ICRC was confronted by accusations from communist National Societies. Rather than replying directly, the ICRC called the Movement as its witness, by publishing long extracts from its reports and other writings. This approach was successful, because at both the 17th and 18th International Conferences in 1948 and 1952, when the communist world once again attacked the ICRC on account of its all-Swiss makeup, the ICRC obtained the support of the rest of the Conference participants and was thus saved. Indeed, this contentious question – which had been a thorn in the ICRC's side for almost 100 years – disappeared of its own accord during the same period.
It is therefore not surprising that from 1955 onwards the bonds that had united the ICRC with the world of the Red Cross thanks to the Revue/Bulletin began to weaken. From 1956, the Revue was considered the official journal of the ICRC and no longer that of the Movement as a whole.Footnote 167 The disappearance of the Bulletin was also a sign that the danger had passed, and that the ICRC had less and less need of the support of the National Societies to survive. The ICRC played the game for a few more decades, however. From May 1988, the Review even mentioned on its cover that it was “Published bimonthly by the International Committee of the Red Cross to serve the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.”Footnote 168 Not until the brink of the new millennium did the mask finally slip and the close bond disappear between the Review and the Movement, a bond that had lasted for over a century.
Not only did the Bulletin and the Revue furnish the ICRC with a solid basis and even a shield against its adversaries within the Movement, but they also had a further major advantage for the organization that managed them; it was on the pages of those publications that the ICRC was able to proclaim and create IHL. Gustave Moynier's 1872 article in the Bulletin, mentioned above, in which he presented his personal opinion in favour of the creation of an international criminal tribunal to punish breaches of the Geneva Convention, provoked negative reactions. But far from backing down, the ICRC – and its president – continued to use the periodical to communicate ideas on humanitarian law. For example, the ICRC spoke out against hasty revision of the Geneva Convention,Footnote 169 favouring prudent adjustments,Footnote 170 itself proposing a new draft.Footnote 171 For a long time, the ICRC pushed for ratification of the additional articles of 1868,Footnote 172 and was even prepared to “dictate” the procedure to the Swiss Federal Council.Footnote 173 As can be seen, the ICRC used the Bulletin to make its voice heard in a field where it had no official role. The ICRC had not been assigned a specific mission regarding IHL by the International Conferences that had decided its functions between 1867 and 1887.Footnote 174 It was therefore only as a result of personal initiative that the ICRC assigned itself the task of considering the law on behalf of the Movement. This approach was certainly based on historical precedent – the 1864 Geneva Convention, which had largely been drafted by two members of the ICRC, Gustave Moynier and Henry Dunant. This practice continued, becoming a sort of tradition thanks to the longevity of the ICRC's first leader. Better still, it was made official by the circulars sent by the ICRC to the central committees on the progress and development of IHL, followed by the ICRC's legal articles, also published in the Bulletin and later in the Revue.Footnote 175 This made the two publications the official channels through which the ICRC could highlight its commitment to and leading role in elaborating humanitarian law, strengthening the special relationship with States that it already enjoyed in this area.
Conclusion
To see the Bulletin/Revue/Review as an instrument of power in the hands of the ICRC is to understand more fully the organization's dedication to a project that others would long since have abandoned if they had only looked on the surface at its components or financial criteria, such as the profitability of the publication or the number of subscribers. Indeed, generally speaking the Bulletin and the Revue/Review have been financial liabilities for the ICRC. The organization has never been under any illusions on this point, having recognized in autumn 1919 that the Revue would “never break even”.Footnote 176 Examining the accounts of the Bulletin led to the same conclusion. The ICRC took various measures in response to this recurrent problem: it reduced the number of issues from twelve per year to six in 1978Footnote 177 and to four in 1998.Footnote 178 It closed the Arabic, Russian and Spanish editions in 1999, leaving only a bilingual French/English edition.Footnote 179 But at no time in its history did the ICRC consider abandoning publication of this periodical, which has acted as the voice of the ICRC since it was founded. While finding paying subscribers was essential in order to place the Bulletin on a solid footing – which explains the many attempts to acquire new subscribersFootnote 180 – this was not a priority for the Revue/Review, as long as it was widely disseminated. “The question of subscriptions is less important than that of distribution of the Review in places where it will be available to readers”, was the internal view.Footnote 181 This explains print runs that were sometimes enormous in comparison with the actual number of subscribers. What mattered to the ICRC was reaching as wide an audience as possible – even a non-paying audience – in order to get its messages across or to ensure that it was accepted for what it was. The purpose of publishing the Revue in Spanish, for instance, was primarily to counter prejudices in Latin American countries regarding the ICRC stemming from “denominational questions”.Footnote 182
Over the years, there were two target audiences for the journal, reflecting two different priorities. The first priority was to anchor the ICRC firmly in the Movement, whether to ensure the very existence of the organization or to counter any threat of exclusion. In parallel, especially after the Great War, the Bulletin and the Revue/Review also targeted the political and academic world, with the aim of making the ICRC a preferred intermediary and essential partner in any discussion on IHL. A glance at the distribution lists in the ICRC archives shows that the ICRC's distribution strategy – supported, incidentally, by the Swiss ConfederationFootnote 183 – was geographically broad, yet targeted in terms of the organizations and individuals that the ICRC attempted to influence. This explains why, even before its transformation into an academic journal, the Revue (as with the Bulletin before it) was never a mainstream publication. It was always “aimed at an elite”,Footnote 184 and its contents were seen, even within the ICRC, as too technical and “not very attractive” to a general readership.Footnote 185
The Bulletin and the Revue/Review have undergone many transformations over their 150 years of existence, but none was as far-reaching as that of 2005, which affected the form, content and editorial line of the Review. Firstly, the publication became monolingual and chose English as its official language. Only a selection of articles is translated now, even in the case of the French version. Secondly, each issue of the Review now addresses a specific theme. The Review became a true academic journal, a trend that was accentuated by the partnership set up with Cambridge University Press in 2006. Finally, an Editorial Board was created, consisting exclusively of persons from outside the ICRC.Footnote 186
Does this mean that the ICRC lost control of the Review fifteen years ago? Not necessarily. The editorial team still consists of ICRC staff, and it is they who have the last word on the journal's contents. Furthermore, the theme for an issue is often chosen in the light of the current concerns of the ICRC or of its strategic priorities. And while the Review has a global role, almost one third of its articles are still authored by ICRC staff.Footnote 187 While each author expresses their own views, it is clear that contributions also relay institutional messages. The percentage of content tied to the ICRC is even higher if one takes account of the institutional documents, reports and official positions that the Review continues to publish. To put it simply, the Review remains a policy platform for the ICRC.
The most significant change since the first issues of the Bulletin is, as we have seen, the disappearance of the Movement, both as the main recipient of the publication and as the supplier of raw material for its articles.Footnote 188 In that sense, the ICRC has laid down the mandate conferred upon it by the Berlin International Conference of 1869, transforming in accordance with its own wishes a publication intended to remain the “official gazette of the movement”. And it is the National Societies that have been most affected by this change. Indeed, the words of Count Sérurier appear prophetic today, stating that he was “surprised and distressed” on reading the minutes that rendered the decisions of the Berlin Conference official, to see that they spoke of creating an international “journal” rather than the “bulletin” that the Conference had decided upon.Footnote 189 Despite Gustave Moynier's assurances addressing Sérurier's concerns,Footnote 190 the latter had understood full well that a power issue lay behind the choice of title. While a “bulletin” was ultimately no more than a receptacle in which one might deposit various pieces of information, the role of a “journal” was primarily to promote the words and thoughts of whoever managed it. The ICRC had most certainly understood this distinction from the very beginning, and turned it to its own advantage.
