Maurice Barres, advocate of the National Federation of the Disabled and President of the League of Patriots, is credited with the idea for the Badge of Wounded Civilians.

Early in the Great War, he wrote two articles in the newspaper L'Echo de Paris, first on 28 March 1915 and another on June 10 1915, calling for the creation of this distinctive insignia.

The purpose was to publicly designate "un homme dont les blessures, l'infirmité, la maladie proviennent d'un fait de guerre" ("a man whose injury, disability, illness comes from an act of war").

On July 18, 1918, a decree made at the initiative of Minister of the Interior, which instituted a lapel pin for civilian victims of war.

It consists of a white enamel star encircled by a wreath of oak and laurel leaves.