C. H. C. Wright

“ Never was a greater service done to France than when the comte de Chambord refused to give up his flag. Completely out of touch with the country through a life spent in exile, inspired with the feeling of his divine rights and their superiority to the will of democracy, he would scarcely have ascended the throne before some conflict would have broken out and the history of France would have registered one revolution more.
The duc de Broglie had considered it good form to resign after the vote of November 20, but Mac-Mahon immediately entrusted to him the selection of a second Cabinet. ”

“ On May 21, the Army of Versailles crossed the fortifications and there followed the "Seven Days' Battle," a street-by-street advance marked by desperate resistance by the Communards and bloodthirsty reprisals by the Versaillais. Civil war is often the most cruel and the Versailles troops, made up in large part of men recently defeated by the Germans, were glad to conquer somebody. Over seventeen thousand were shot down by the victors in this last week. The French to-day are horrified and ashamed at the cruel massacres of both sides and try to forget the Commune. ”

“ 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. Nobody denies that it might be improved. ”

“ Two men were largely responsible, each in his own way, for the third French Republic, Napoleon III and Bismarck. The one, endeavoring partly at his wife's instigation to renew the prestige of a weakening Empire, and the other, furthering the ambitions of the Prussian Kingdom, set in motion the forces which culminated in the Fourth of September.
The causes of the downfall of the Empire can be traced back several years. Napoleon III was, at heart, a man of peace and had, in all sincerity, soon after his accession, uttered the famous saying: "L'empire, c'est la paix." ”

“ The civil administration grew into a reproduction of the worst phases of the Reign of Terror. Frenzied women egged on destruction and slaughter, and when at last the national troops fought their way into the conquered city, it was amid the flaming ruins of many of its proudest buildings and monuments. ”

“ The Clerical Party was hand-in-glove with the Royalists and the Boulangists. It took advantage of governmental instability to try to undermine the Republic, but its own harmony of purpose was in due time diminished by the new policy of Leo XIII. That astute Italian diplomat was himself temperamentally an Opportunist. He conceived the idea of controlling France by advances to the Republic and by feigning to accept it in order to get hold of its policies, especially the educational and military laws. He realized, too, the harm done to the Vatican by the stubbornness of many French Catholics. ”

“ Jules Ferry was what would to-day be called an imperialist. In this he may have been unwise, for the French, though intrepid explorers, do not care to settle permanently far from the motherland. The north coast of Africa might have been a sufficient field for enterprise. But Jules Ferry thought that the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, formed in 1882, was going to isolate France permanently in Europe. So she was to regain her prestige by territorial annexations in the Sudan, the Congo, Madagascar, Annam, and Tonkin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Court intrigues were rife and drawing-room generals were to be found in real life, as well as in Offenbach's "Grande Duchesse." But nobody, except perhaps Napoleon himself, realized how the Empire had declined. The Empress merely felt that it was time to do something stirring, and, without necessarily waging war, to assert again the pre-eminence in Europe of France, weakened in 1866 by the unexpected outcome of the rivalry between Austria and Prussia for preponderance among the German States.
Beyond the eastern frontier of France a nation was growing in ambition and power. ”

“ Clemenceau showed himself during his lengthy control of power an astute politician. In the public eye ever since the days of the Commune, he had had success during the eighties as a destroyer of cabinets. Driven into the background by the Panama scandals, he now came forward again to try his fortune in holding the power from which he had often driven others. With a Cabinet thoroughly under his dictatorial control, he announced a programme which was to depend for success on the Radicals, rather than on the Moderates or the Socialists. ”

“ But as the Empire began to develop its Pan-Germanism and its aspirations to world-power under William II, it grew jealous of England and France and of their arrangement of 1904 to settle the interests of Morocco. Forthwith Germany began to intrigue with the Sultan of Morocco against the French, and declared that, as it had not been officially informed of [Pg 158] the agreements between England, France, and Spain, it intended to disregard them. The defeat of Russia by Japan, in particular, encouraged Germany to feel that France, deprived of its ally, could be bullied with impunity. ”

“ Stated in terms of diplomatic procedure, the aim of the French Cabinet was to humiliate Prussia by forcing its Government to acknowledge a retreat. King William was not seeking war and was probably willing to make honorable concessions. Bismarck, on the contrary, desired war, if it could be under favorable diplomatic auspices, and the Hohenzollern candidacy was a direct provocation. He wanted France to seem the aggressor, in view of the effect both on neutral Europe, and particularly on the South German States, which he wished to draw into alliance under the menace of French attack. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the Senate has fallen into the background, and the habit of considering the vote of the Chamber rather than that of the Senate as important in a change of Ministry has made it the true source of government in France. The two houses met at Versailles until 1879; since then Paris has been the capital, except for the election of a President. After separate decision by each house to do so, or the request of the President, they could meet in joint assembly as a Constitutional Convention to revise the constitution. ”

“ From that time on, tension increased between France and Prussia. Bismarck was, indeed, more anxious for war than Napoleon. He suspected the weakness of the French Empire, he despised its leaders, he realized the advance in military efficiency of his own country, and his aim was unswerving to establish a Prussianized German Empire at the cost, if possible, of the downfall of France. As a matter of fact, France, as now, was far from being permeated with militarism and, a few months before the war in 1870, the military budget was actually reduced. ”

“ From the beginning all went wrong in France. The Government found itself left in the lurch by the European states whose alliance it had expected. Moreover, mobilization proceeded slowly and in utter confusion. In spite of Marshal Le Bœuf's famous exclamation ("Il ne manquera pas un bouton de guêtre") , never did a nation enter on a war less prepared than the French. On the other hand, all Germany, well trained and ready, sprang to the side of Prussia. The whole military force was grouped in three armies—under Steinmetz, Prince Frederick Charles, and the Crown Prince. ”

“ By the disaster of Sedan the Germans captured the Emperor, a marshal of France, and the whole of one of its two armies.
The news of the overwhelming defeat of [Pg 17] Sedan struck Paris like a thunderbolt. Jules Favre proposed to the Corps législatif the overthrow of Napoleon and of his dynasty; Thiers, who favored the restoration of the Orléans family, wished the convocation of a Constituent Assembly; the comte de Palikao asked for a provisional governing commission of which he should be the lieutenant-general. But, before anything was done, the Paris mob invaded the legislative chamber. ”

“ The Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry took up the Dreyfus case with a queer combination of courage and weakness. Insubordinate army officers were summarily punished for injudicious remarks, but in order to appear neutral and to avoid criticism, the Cabinet held so much aloof that the anti-Dreyfusites were able to bring their full forces to bear on the court-martial. For a month at Rennes, beginning August 7, an extraordinary trial was carried on before the eyes of an impassioned France and angry onlooking nations. Witnesses had full latitude to indulge in rhetorical addresses and air their prejudices ”

“ The procedure of Leo XIII was thus a proof that the Vatican wanted to be on good terms with the Republic. The rapprochement with Russia was another proof that France, in spite of its troubles, was to be reckoned with in Europe. France and Russia felt it necessary to draw together in answer to the noisy renewal of the Triple Alliance. There had been tension in the spring of 1891, in which the French were not wholly blameless, as a result of the private visit to Paris of the dowager empress of Germany, the Empress Frederick. ”

“ If Gambetta, as leader of the majority group [Pg 77] in the Republican party, which had evicted Mac-Mahon, had become Prime Minister, it is conceded that the precedent would have been set by the new administration for parliamentary government with a true party leadership, as in Great Britain. Instead, Grévy entrusted the task of forming a Ministry to an upright but colorless leader named Waddington, at the head of a composite Cabinet, more moderate in policy than Gambetta, who became presiding officer of the Chamber of Deputies. ”

“ The extremists had in time another grievance against Jules Ferry in his opposition to a radical revision of the constitution. The enemies of the Republic still feigned to believe, especially when the death of the comte de Chambord in 1883 had fused the Legitimists and Orléanists, that an integral revision would pave the way for a monarchical restoration. The Radicals demanded the suppression of the power of the Senate, whose consent was necessary to summon a constitutional convention. A Congress was summoned in 1884 at which the very limited programme of the Ministry was put through. ”

“ 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 leadership 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 Poincaré, soon formed a Moderate Party with a programme of conciliation and reform known as the "Federation of the Lefts." ”

“ The constant advance toward radicalism and socialism, the lack of great statesmen in Parliament and the presence of professional politicians, the progress of anti-militarism and the relegation of the question of Alsace-Lorraine to the background, left a free field for the growth of social unrest. The tendency was encouraged by the elections for the renewal of the Chamber of Deputies in May, 1906. To the religious disturbances and the efforts of the Conservatives to prove themselves persecuted, the country answered at the polls by an increased anti-Clerical majority. ”

“ Meanwhile Paris was invested by the German forces of the Crown Prince and the Prince of Saxony after a defeat of some French troops at Châtillon. William, Bismarck, and Moltke took up their station at Versailles. Europe, made suspicious by the numerous changes of government in France in the nineteenth century, and moved also by selfish reasons, refused its aid and looked on with indifference. Thiers made a fruitless quest through Europe for practical aid, bringing home only meaningless expressions of sympathy. ”

“ France had no idea of invading Belgium. All the French strategic plans aimed at the protection [Pg 183] 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. ”

“ The upper ranks of the army were honeycombed by Clerical influences. An enormous proportion of the officers belonged to reactionary families and the Chief of Staff himself, General de Boisdeffre, was under the thumb of the Père Du Lac, one of the most prominent Jesuits in France. The Clericals and anti-Semites, therefore, joined forces, and, by calling the Dreyfus agitation an attack on the honor of the army and a play into the hands of Germany, they won over all the jingoes and former Boulangists, who formed the new party of Nationalists. ”

“ Poincaré became head of a Cabinet more moderate than its predecessor, the Socialistic Radicals seeming somewhat discredited in public opinion. M. Poincaré was a strong partisan of proportional representation, and a measure for the modification of the method of voting was, under his auspices, passed by the Chamber, though it failed the following year in the Senate.
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. ”

“ Finally, on November 9, 1881, the personal intervention of Gambetta before the newly elected Chamber of Deputies saved the Cabinet on a vote of confidence. Jules Ferry none the less determined to resign, and Gambetta, in spite of Grévy's aversion, was the inevitable man for the formation of a new Cabinet.
Gambetta's great opportunity had come too late to be effective. The undoubted leader of the Republic, he had grown in statesmanship since his early days, but was still hated [Pg 83] by men like Grévy who could not get over their old prejudices. ”