Coming to Terms with “Pacifism”: The French Case, 1901–1918

This article addresses the shifting meaning of “pacifism” in the idiom of French political culture from the time the word was first introduced until the end of the First World War. “Le pacifisme” was intended as a way to forge a common identity for the different groups that composed the growing international peace movement at the turn of the twentieth century. Particular circumstances in France during that time influenced how its meaning was appreciated by the French authorities and general public, including the French peace movement's own indeterminate organizational structure and the manipulative mode of discourse employed by French nationalists during a period of intense political polarization. The turmoil of the First World War ensured that the ambiguity that already characterized the use of the word “pacifism” emerged as a full‐blown transformation in the word's meaning within French political discourse.