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In the turbulent Europe of the World Wars, two French thinkers of Jewish Origin wrote both essays on the Iliad: Simone Weil (The Iliad, or the Poem of Force, 1940-1941) and Rachel Bespaloff (On the Iliad, 1943). Both writers have in common the return to the foundational texts of Western culture -- Homer in the Classical tradition and the Bible and the Gospels in the Christian tradition -- to rethink war and barbarism. This paper analyses the concept of 'force' in both authors, their similarities and differences, in order to conclude on the way in which this notion determines their interpretation of the Homeric poem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]