A History of the Third French Republic Part 7

In foreign affairs, Morocco having dropped into the background, the Eastern question became acute. Fear lest the conflict in the Orient should involve the rest of Europe led France to draw again closer to Russia and England.

CHAPTER X

THE ADMINISTRATION OF RAYMOND POINCARe

February, 1913

M. Fallieres' term expired on February 18, 1913. The two leading candidates were Raymond Poincare, head of the Ministry, and Jules Pams, who was supported by the advanced Radicals. M. Poincare's election was looked upon, because of his personal vigor, as a triumph of sound conservative republicanism, and it was predicted that he would prove a strong leader, able to give prestige to the Presidency and to bring order out of chaos. The early months of his Administration were less productive of results than had been hoped, but the European War came too soon to make definitive judgment safe.

After M. Poincare's election, M. Fallieres made M. Briand President of the Council during the last weeks of his term, and M. Poincare kept the same Cabinet. M. Briand, like M. Poincare, advocated proportional representation. As the Chamber failed to take a vigorous position in support of the measure, and defeated the Ministry on a vote of confidence, the latter withdrew (March, 1913).

Louis Barthou next became Prime Minister, and the important legislative measure of the year was the new military law. The Germans having largely increased their army, it was deemed necessary, in spite of the violent opposition of the Socialistic Radicals and the Socialists and the attempts of the syndicalists of the _Confederation generale du travail_ to work up a general strike, to abrogate the Law of 1905 and to return to three years of military service without exemption. M. Barthou pushed the three-years bill already supported by the Briand Cabinet. France took upon herself an enormous financial burden, coupled with a corresponding loss of productive labor, yet events soon proved the wisdom of the step.

The opposition to the Cabinet was virulent. There were now two great groupings of the chief political parties.[18] The Radicals and Socialistic Radicals, under the name of "Unified Radicals" waged war against the President and the Ministry. They were under the inspiration of men like Clemenceau and the active leaders.h.i.+p of Joseph Caillaux and tried to revive the methods of the old _Bloc_ of Combes. They declared their intention of repealing the three-years law and proclaimed the tenets of their faith at the Congress of Pau. The Briand-Barthou-Millerand group, supporters of Poincare, soon formed a Moderate Party with a programme of conciliation and reform known as the "Federation of the Lefts."

The Barthou Cabinet had been overthrown early in December, 1913, after a vote on a government loan. President Poincare had to call in a Radical Cabinet led by Gaston Doumergue, the programme of which Ministry was, after all, less "advanced" than the Pau programme, especially as to the three-years bill. M. Caillaux, the master-spirit of the Radicals, was the Minister of Finance and the object of the hostility of the Moderates. They claimed that he used his position to cause speculation at the Stock Exchange, and accused him of "selling out" to Germany in the settlement after Agadir. The _Figaro_, edited by Gaston Calmette, began a violent campaign. Among the charges was that during the prosecution in 1911 of Rochette, a swindling promoter, the then Prime Minister Monis, now Minister of Marine, had, at Caillaux's instigation, held up the prosecution for fraud, during which delay Rochette had been able to put through other swindles.

In the midst of the public turmoil over these charges Caillaux's wife went to Calmette's editorial offices and killed him with a revolver.

Caillaux resigned and, the Rochette case having come up for discussion in the Chamber, when Monis denied that he had ever influenced the law, Barthou produced a most damaging letter. A parliamentary commission later decided that the Monis Cabinet _had_ interfered to save Rochette from prosecution.

It was under such circ.u.mstances that the Deputies separated for the general elections. Three chief questions came before the voters, the three-years law, the income tax, and proportional representation. The results of the elections were inconclusive and the new Chamber promised to be as ineffective as its predecessor. On the second ballots the Socialists made a good many gains.

The Doumergue Ministry resigned soon after the elections which it had carried through. President Poincare offered the leaders.h.i.+p to the veteran statesman Ribot, who with the co-operation of Leon Bourgeois, formed a Moderate Cabinet with an inclination toward the Left. This Ministry was above the average, but its leaders were insulted and brow-beaten and overthrown on the very first day they met the Chamber of Deputies. So then a Cabinet was formed, led by the Socialist Rene Viviani, who was willing, however, to accept the three-years law, though he had previously opposed it. But this victory for national defence was weakened by parliamentary revelations of military unpreparedness.

In mid-July President Poincare and M. Viviani left France for a round of state visits to Russia and Scandinavia. Paris was engrossed by the sensational trial of Madame Caillaux, which resulted in her acquittal, but this excitement was suddenly replaced by the European crisis, and President Poincare cut short his foreign trip and hastened home. France loyally supported her ally Russia, and, on August 3, Baron von Schoen, the German Amba.s.sador, notified M. Viviani of a state of war between Germany and France.

Indeed, no sooner had the Moroccan question been settled than danger had loomed in the Orient, in which France was likely to be involved through her alliance with Russia. Moreover, Germany had not got over the Agadir fiasco and was furious with England as well as France. Thus the European balance of power had long been in danger through the hostility of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. It is beyond the scope of the present volume to a.n.a.lyze in detail the Balkan question. The role of France was consistent in the interest of peace by helping to maintain the balance of power, but obviously she was loyal toward her partners of the Triple Entente and acted in solidarity with them.

So far as the outbreak of the war in 1914 is concerned, France stands with a clear conscience. She had nothing to do with the disputes between Austria and Serbia, or between Austria, Germany, and Russia. Once war proved inevitable France faithfully accepted the responsibilities of the Russian alliance. Against France, Germany was an open aggressor.

Germany's strategic plans for the quick annihilation of France, before attacking Russia, are well known to the world. Everybody is aware how scrupulously France avoided every hostile measure, and, during the critical days preceding the war, withdrew all troops ten kilometres from the frontier to prevent a clash. The Germans were obliged, in order to justify their advance, to invent preposterous tales of bombs dropped by aeroplanes near Nuremberg or of the violation of Belgium neutrality by French officers in automobiles. France had no idea of invading Belgium.

All the French strategic plans aimed at the protection of the direct frontier, and they were dislocated by the dishonest move of Germany through Belgium.

In 1914 France was not even prepared for war. The pacification of Morocco immobilized thousands of her troops. Revelations in Parliament as late as July 13 showed, as mentioned above, great deficiencies in equipment. Public attention was taken up by the Caillaux trial and by political strife apparently reaching the proportions of national weakness.

Since Agadir it is true that France, conscious of the constantly provocative att.i.tude of Germany, had seen the folly of plans for disarmament. Love for the army had grown again, through realization of its necessity. But no nation ever looked forward with more horror and dread to military conflict than the French. They had been the last victims of a great European war, of which the memories were still alive.

However much the loss of Alsace-Lorraine rankled in their hearts, they knew too well the madness of war to seek it again. A new generation had grown up reconciled to fate and willing to let bygones be bygones.

But Germany would not. The new Empire, a _Bourgeois gentilhomme_ among nations, but without even the breeding of the _parvenu_, dreamed of world-supremacy. As the boor in society makes himself conspicuous, so it was one of the tenets of Pan-Germanism to let no international agreement take place without German interference.

Some people, reading the annals of forty-four years since the Franco-Prussian War, have been disposed to sneer at France. Some have called the country degenerate because of its small birth-rate, its fiction sometimes brutal, sometimes neurotic, its inefficient Parliament, its vindictive political and religious contests. Such critics should remember that the French Government is the result of tactical compromise in presence of the Monarchical Party. n.o.body denies that it might be improved. As to religious persecution, Americans might remember their own righteous feelings toward fellow citizens with "hyphenated" allegiance, when they rebuke the French for fighting vast organizations working against their Government under foreign orders.

In 1914 France, bearing on her shoulders proportionably the greatest burden of all the Allies, presented to the world a spirit of firmness, unity, and national resolve that won the admiration of neutral nations.

Religious persecution and clerical manoeuvre were alike put aside.

France forgot all la.s.situde and discouragement. Atheist, Protestant, and Catholic felt a great wave of spiritual as well as of patriotic fervor, and took as symbol of love of country the heroic peasant girl of Lorraine, Jeanne d'Arc, who, coming from the people and leading the nation's army, sought to drive from the soil its foes and invaders.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] It must be obvious to the reader, after following all the changes in nomenclature recorded in this volume, that in France party-names give little hint of party-views: "In French political parlance 'Progressivs'

ar retrograde, 'Liberals' ar conservativ, 'Conservativs' ar revolutionary in aim and methods, 'Radicals' ar trimmers and time-servers, whilst one of the most reactionary administrations of recent years was heded by three 'Socialists.'" A.-L. Guerard in _Pub.

Mod. Lang. a.s.soc. of America_, vol. x.x.x, p. 624. Compare also the following: "Suivant les regions de la France, c'est-a-dire selon la moyenne de l'opinion locale et les termes de comparaison ou les traditions propres a chaque province, les mots changent de signification. Dans le Var un radical pa.s.se pour un modere, dans l'ouest un republicain est considere par certains comme un revolutionnaire, ailleurs les candidats qui ne sont pas au moins radicaux-socialistes ne sont pas tenus pour de bons republicains." L. Jacques, _Les partis politiques sous la troisieme republique_, p. 429.

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