Clemenceau, the man and his time

Front matter

THE MAN AND HIS TIME

WORKS BY GEORGES CLEMENCEAU.

De la Generation des Elements Anatomiques. 8vo. Paris: BailliJre

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction vii

I. Early Life i

Introduction

I BEGAN to write this book in June. We were then holding our breath as we looked on, after the disasters of Cambrai and St. Quentin, upon the British troops still fighting desperately against superior numbers and defending the Channel Ports "with their backs to the wall" and barely left with room to maneuver. The enemy was at the same time seriously threatening Amiens and Epernay and the possible withdrawal of the French Government from Paris was being again discussed. It was a trying four months on both sides of the Channel. But England and France never despaired of the future. Both nations were determined to fight on to the last.

In July came the second great victory of the Marne, followed by the wonderful triumphant advance of the AUIed Armies all along the line, side by side with our brethren of the United States, who were pouring into France at the rate of 300,000 men a month. And now I finish when the all-important matter of discussion Is what shall be the terms of permanent peace Imposed upon Germany, what shall be the punishment Inflicted upon her and so far as is possible the compensation exacted from her for her unforgivable crimes against our common humanity. The transformation scene of the huge world war within four months has been one of the most astounding episodes In the history of mankind and the tremendous struggle on the West Front

X INTRODUCTION

has proved, as it was bound to prove from the first, the crisis of the whole conflict.

Throughout the terrible period from November, 19 17, when for the second time in his long political career he took office as Premier of the French Republic, Georges Clemenceau has borne the full burden of political responsibility in his war-worn and devastated country. It has been no light task for any man, especially for one within easy hail of eighty years of age. When he became President of Council and Minister of War the prospect of anything approaching to complete success seemed remote indeed. It was a thankless post he assumed and neither friends nor enemies believed at first that physically, mentally or politically could he bear the strain, and overcome the intrigues which were at once set on foot against him. But those who had the advantage of knowing Clemenceau well took a much more hopeful view of his chances of remaining Prime Minister until the close of the war. His mind as well as his body has been in strict training all his life. The one is as alert and as vigorous as the other. In the course of his stirring career his lightness of heart and gayety of spirit, his power of taking the most discouraging events as part of the day's work have carried him triumphantly through many a difficulty. Personally, I felt confident that nothing short of unforeseen disease, or a bomb from the foreign or domestic enemy, would bring him down before he had done his work. For below his exterior vigor and his brilliancy of conversation he possesses the most relentless determination that ever inspired a human being. Moreover a Frenchman may be witty and light-hearted and very wise at the same time. The world of the Middle Ages found that out.

INTRODUCTION xi

I read therefore with some amusement in Mrs. Humphry Ward's recent book of Victorian Recollections that, having met Clemenceau at dinner, in the eighties, she came to the conclusion that he was "too light a weight to ride such a horse as the French democracy." A very natural mistake, no doubt, for one of us staid and solemn Victorians to make, according to the young cynics and jesters of to-day who gird at us ! It is precisely this inexhaustible fund of animal spirits and his never-failing cheerfulness and brilliancy which have given Clemenceau the power over France which he possesses to-day. Frenchmen have felt the more assured confidence in themselves and their future when they saw, day after day, their own representative and ruler full of go and of belief in himself at the time when the issue for them all was hanging in the balance. No real leader of men can ever afford to be a pessimist. He must assume a certitude if he have it not. There was no need for Clemenceau to assume anything. It was all there.

I have known this great Frenchman at many critical stages in his exciting life. What I most admire about him is that he is always the same man, no matter what his personal position at the moment may be. Never excessively elated: never by any chance cast down. Good or bad fortune, success or failure make no difference to him. The motto of the Tenth Legion might well be taken as his own. "Utrinque paratus" has been the watchword of this indefatigable and undaunted political warrior throughout. It is well to recall also that he has invariably told his country the full truth about the situation as it appeared to him at the time, alike in opposition xii INTRODUCTION

and in office, as a deputy, as a Senator and as a journalist at large.

Beginning his political career as the intimate friend and almost pupil of the out-and-out Radical Republican, Etienne Arago, a sympathizer with the nobler men of the Commune, whom he endeavored to save from the ruthless vengeance of the reactionaries headed by Thiers, he had previously voted at Bordeaux in the minority of genuine Republicans who were In favor of continuing the war against Germany when all but enthusiastic patriots held that further resistance was hopeless. Many a time of late those events of V Annie Terrible must have come back to his mind during these still more terrible four years. His attitude now is but the continuation and fulfillment of the policy he advocated then. Thereupon, five years devoted to service on the Municipal Council of Paris and to gratuitous ministrations as a doctor to the poor of one of the poorest districts of the French metropolis: a continuous endeavor to realize in some degree, by political action, the practical ends for which the Communards had so unfortunately and injudiciously striven. Then political work again on the floor of the Assembly at one of the most stirring periods of French history: supporting Gambetta vigorously in his fight as the head of the Republican Party against the dangerous reactionism of the Due de Broglie and Marshal Mac- Mahon, and opposing and denouncing the fiery orator whom he succeeded as the leader of the Left, when that statesman adopted trimming and opportunism as his political creed.

The long fight against Colonization by Conquest, the exposure of shameless traffic In decorations, the support and overthrow of Boulanger, the Panama Scandal, the

INTRODUCTION xiii

denunciation of the Alliance with despotic Russia, the advocacy of a close understanding with England: in each and all of these matters Clemenceau was well to the front. Then came the crash of exclusion from political life, due to the many enemies he had made by his inconvenient honesty and bitter tongue and pen. Once more, after the display of almost unequaled skill and courage as a journalist, exceptionally manifested in the championship of Dreyfus, a return to political life and unexpected acceptance of office.

From first to last Clemenceau has been a stalwart Republican and a thoroughgoing democratic politician of the advanced Left, with strong tendencies to Socialism. These tendencies I begged him more than once to turn into actual realities and to join, or at least to act in complete harmony with, the Socialists. This seemed possible towards the close of the Dreyfus affair. But I must admit here that, much as I regret that Socialism has never enjoyed the full advantage of his services, Clemenceau, as an avowed member of the Socialist Party, could not have played the glorious part for France as a whole which he has played since the beginning of the war. It was far more important, at such a desperate crisis, to carry with him the overwhelming majority of his countrymen, including even the reactionaries, than to act with a minority that has shown itself at variance with the real sentiments of the Republic, when France was fighting for her existence.

That Clemenceau has, at one time or another, made great mistakes is beyond dispute. It could not be otherwise with a man of his character and temperament. But this, as he himself truly writes me, is all of the past. At no moment, in any case, has he ever failed to do his best for the greatness, the glory, the dignity of France as xiv INTRODUCTION

they presented themselves to his mind. This is incontestable. In the following pages I have endeavored not to write a biography of the statesman who has been constantly in public life for more than fifty years, but to give a study of the growth of a commanding personality, who is an honor to his country, and of the surroundings in which his faculties were developed.

Chapter I

WE are all accustomed to think of La Vendee as that Province of France which is most deeply imbued with tradition, legend and religion. Even in this period of almost universal skepticism and free thought, the peasants of La Vendee keep tight hold of their ancient ideas, in which the pagan superstitions of long ago are curiously interwoven with the fading Catholicism of to-day. Nowhere in France are the ceremonies of the Church more devoutly observed; nowhere, in spite of the spread of modern education, are the people as a whole more attached to the creed of their forefathers. Here whole crowds of genuine believers can still display that fervor of religious enthusiasm which moved masses of their countrymen to such heroic self-sacrifice for a losing and hopeless cause more than four generations since. Even men who have little sympathy with either theological or social conventions of the past are stirred by the simple piety of these people, uplifted for the moment out of the sordid and monotonous surroundings of their daily toil by the collective inspiration of a common faith.

Here, too, in the Socage of La Vendee, amid the heather and the forest, interspersed with acres of carefully tilled soil, the fays and talismans and spirits of days gone by delightedly do dwell. But below all this vesture of fancy and fable we find the least pleasing features of the life of the small proprietors and laborers on the land and fishermen by the sea. Their feelings of human sympathy are stunted, and even their family relations are, in too many instances, rendered brutal by their ever-present greed for gain. The land is a harsh taskmaster when its cultivation is carried on under such conditions as prevail in that portion of France which abuts on the Bay of Biscay. The result is a harsh people, whose narrow individualism and whole-hearted worship of property in its least attractive guise seem quite at variance with any form of sentiment, and still more remote from the ideals of poesy or the dreams of supernatural agencies which affect the imagination. But there is the contrast and such are the people of the Bocage of La Vendee.

Here, on September 28th, 1841, at the village of Mouilleron-en-Pareds, near Fontenay le Comte, on the Bay of Biscay, Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was born. His family came of an old stock of La Vendee who had owned land in the province for generations. His father was a doctor as well as a landowner; but his practice, I judge, from what his son told me, was confined to gratuitous services rendered to the peasants of the neighborhood. M. le Dr. Clemenceau, however, was scarcely the sort of man whom one would expect to find in a remote village of such a conservative, not to say reactionary, district as La Vendee. A thorough-going materialist and convinced Republican, he was the leader of the local party of extreme Radicals.

But he seems to have been a great deal more than that. Science, which took with him the place of supernatural religion, neither hardened his heart nor cramped his appreciation of art and poetry. Philosopher and philanthropist, an amateur of painting and sculpture, inflexibly devoted to his political principles, yet ever ready to recognize ability and originality wherever they appeared, this very exceptional medical man and country squire had necessarily a great influence upon his eldest son, who inherited from his father many of the qualities and opinions which led him to high distinction throughout his career. Hatred of injustice, love of freedom and independence of every kind, brought the elder Clemenceau into conflict with the men of the Second Empire, who clapped him in prison after the coup d'etat of December, 1 85 1. Liberty in every shape was, in fact, an essential part of this stalwart old Jacobin's political creed, while in the domain of physiology and general science he was a convinced evolutionist long before that conception of the inevitable development of the universe became part of the common thought of the time.

With all this the young Clemenceau was brought into close contact from his earliest years. A thoroughly sound physique, strengthened by the invigorating air of the Biscayan coast, laid the foundations of that indefatigable energy and alertness of disposition which have enabled him to pass triumphantly through periods of overwork and disappointment which would have broken down the health of any man with a less sound constitution. Georges Clemenceau owed much to the begettings and surroundings, to the vigorous country life and the rarefied mental atmosphere in which his earlier years were passed. Seldom is it possible to trace the natural process of cause and effect from father to son as it is in this case. From the wilds of La Vendee and the rough sea-coast of Brittany circumstances of the home and of the family life provided France with the ablest Radical leader she has ever possessed.

At first, it appeared little likely that this would be so. Clemenceau, entering upon his father's profession, with the benefit of the paternal knowledge and full of the inculcated readiness to probe all the facts of life to the bottom, took up his medical studies as a serious business, after having gone through the ordinary curriculum of a school at Nantes. It was in the hospital of that city that he first entered as a qualified student. After a short stay there he went off to Paris, in i860, at the age of nineteen, to "walk the hospitals," as we phrase It, in the same capacity. It was a plunge into active life taken at a period in the history of France which was much more critical than it seemed.

The year which saw Clemenceau's arrival in Paris saw also the Second Empire at the height of its fame and influence. As we look back to the great stir of 1 848, which, so far as Paris and France were concerned, was brought about by the almost inconceivable fatuity of Louis Philippe, we marvel at the strange turn of events which got rid of Orleanist King Log in order to replace him by a Napoleonlst King Stork. But we may wonder still more at the lack of foresight, capacity and tact of Louis Philippe himself, who had been in his youth the democrat CItoyen Egallte, and an excellent general, with all the hard experience of his family misfortune and personal sufferings In exile as a full-grown man, possessed, too, of a thorough knowledge of the world and an adequate acquaintance with modern thought in several departments of science and literature. Yet, enjoying all these qualifications for a successful ruler, Louis Philippe failed to understand that a democratic monarchy, and a democratic monarchy alone, could preserve France from a republic or a military dictatorship. This was astounding. He refused to agree to the democratic vote claimed by the people, and then ran away. So the House of Orleans joined the House of Bourbon In the array of discrowned Heads of the Blood Royal. The short-lived Republic of 1848 existed just long enough to scare the bourgeoisie by the installation of the National Workshops, which might well have succeeded but for their unintelligent opposition, and the peasantry by the fear of general Communism, into a demand for a ruler who would preserve them from those whom they considered the maniacs or plunderers of Paris.

It is one of the Ironies of history that the French Revolution which promulgated ideas of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity that shook the whole civilized world should have been unable to furnish France herself with a democratic republic for well-nigh a hundred years after the overthrow of Louis XVI. For scarcely had the Republic of 1848, with Louis Blanc, Ledru Rollin, Albert, and others as its leaders, been founded than the Buonapartlst intrigues were successful. Louis Napoleon, who just before had been the laughing-stock of Europe, with his tame eagle at Boulogne that would persist in perching on a post Instead of on his head, with his queer theories of Imperialist democracy and his close association with the Italian Carbonari, was elected President of the French Republic.

This was the outcome of an overwhelming plebiscite in his favor. There could be no doubt about the voice of France on this occasion. Paris may possibly have been genuinely Republican at that time. The Provinces, whose antagonism to Paris and the Parisians was very marked, then and later, were undoubtedly Buonapartist. From President to Emperor was no long step. Louis Napoleon, though a man of no great capacity, did at any rate believe in himself, in his democratic Imperialism and his destiny. The set of adventurers and swindlers around him believed only in full purses and ample opportunities for gratifying their taste for luxury and debauchery. Having obtained control of the army by the bribery of some and the imprisonment of others of the Republican generals, all was ready for the infamous butchery of peaceful citizens which cowed Paris and established the Empire at the same time. Once more the plebiscite was resorted to with equal success on the part of the conspirators. The hero of the coup d'etat, with his familiar coterie of Morny, Flahault, Persigny, Canrobert and other rogues and murderers of less degree, became Napoleon III and master of Paris and of France in December, 1852.

The French threw their votes almost solid in favor of the Empire, and thus tacitly condoned the hideous crime committed when it was established. Whenever the Emperor's right to his throne was challenged he could point triumphantly to that crushing vote of the democracy constituting him the duly elected Emperor of the French and hereditary representative — however doubtful his parentage — of that extraordinary Corsican genius who, when Chateaubriand and other detractors sneered at his origin, boldly declared, "Mot ]e suis ancetre."

From that day to this, democrats and Republicans have had a profound distrust of the vote of the mass of the people as recorded under a plebiscite, or a referendum, of the entire male population. This lack of confidence in the judgment of the majority, when appealed to on political issues, though natural under the circumstances, is obviously quite illogical on the part of men who declare their belief in popular government. It amounts to a permanent claim for the highly educated and well-to-do sections of an intellectual oligarchy, on the ground that they must know better what is good for the people than the people know for themselves. This might conceivably be true, if no pecuniary interests or arrogance of social superiority were involved. But as this state of things cannot be attained until production for profit, payment of wages and private property cease to exist, democrats and Republicans place themselves in a doubtful position when they denounce a reference to the entire population as necessarily harmful. All that can be safely admitted is that so long as the mass of men and women are economically dependent, socially unfree and very imperfectly educated, the possibility of their being able to secure good government by a plebiscite is very remote. But this apphes as well to universal suffrage used to obtain parliamentary elections, and the argument against reposing any trust in the mass of the people may thus be pushed to the point of abrogating the vote altogether save for a small minority. And this would land us in the position of beginning with an autocracy or aristocracy and ending there.

At the time I am speaking of it is indisputable that the overwhelming majority of intelligent and educated Frenchmen were Republicans. What they meant by a Republic comprised many different shades of organized democracy. But Republic, as Republic, in opposition and contradistinction to Monarchy or Empire, was a name to conjure with among all the most distinguished Frenchmen of the time. How did it come about, then, that this minorlty, which should have been able to lead the people, was distrusted and voted down by the very same populace whose rights of self-government they themselves were championing on behalf of their countrymen? There was nothing in the form of a Republic, as was shown little more than twenty years afterwards, which was of necessity at variance with the interests or the sentiments of Frenchmen. Even the antagonism between Paris and the Provinces, already referred to, was not so marked as to account for the fact that twice in succession Louis Napoleon should have obtained an overwhelming personal vote in his favor as the man to be trusted, above all other Frenchmen, to control the destinies of France. It is by no means certain that Paris herself was hostile, before the coup d'etat, to the Napoleonic regime with its traditions not only of military glory but of capable civic administration. For the double plebiscite was more than a vote of acquiescence : it was a vote of enthusiasm : first for Louis Napoleon as President, and then for Louis Napoleon as Emperor.

It is not pleasing to have to admit this; but the truth seems to be that, as Aristotle pointed out more than two thousand years ago, great masses of men are much more easily led by a personality than they are roused by a principle. That the plebiscite had been carefully worked up by assiduous propaganda; that many of the ignorant peasants believed they were voting for the Napoleon of their childhood in spite of the impossible; that there was a great deal of bribery and not a little stuffing of the ballot boxes by officials with a keen sense of favors to come; that the army was imbued with Napoleonic sympathies and helped to spread the spurious ideals of Imperialism — all this may be perfectly true. Yet, when all is said and every allowance is made, the fact remains that, even so, the success of the Napoleonic plebiscites is imperfectly explained. The main features of the vote were obvious: The French people were sick of hereditary monarchy: the Republican leaders were out of touch with the people: the ideals of the past overshadowed the hopes of the future: Napoleon was a name to conjure with: the Republicans had no name on their side to put against it: the "blessed word" Republic had no hold upon the peasantry of rural France. So plebiscite meant one-man rule. That is not to say, as so many argue nowadays, that the complete vote of the democracy on such an issue must of necessity be wrong: but it does affirm that a thoroughly educated, responsible democracy, accustomed to be appealed to directly on all matters of importance, is a necessity before we can have any certainty that the people will go right. Even if they go wrong, as in this case of Napoleon III, it is better in the long run that they should learn by their own errors than that the blunders of the dominant classes should be forced upon them. Great social and political problems can rarely be solved even by the greatest genius. And the genius himself, supposing him to exist, cannot rely upon providing his country with a successor. On the whole, consequently, it is less dangerous to human progress that we should risk such a reactionary vote as that which seated Napoleon III at the Tuileries than give no peaceful outlet whatever to popular opinion.

But the democrats and republicans, radicals and socialists of Paris, who saw all their most cherished ideals crushed by the voice of the people whom they were anxious to lead to higher things, and beheld a travesty of Napoleonic Imperialism suppressing all freedom of political thought and writing, were not disposed to lo CLEMENCEAU

philosophize about the excuses for a popular decision which led to such unpleasant results for them. They had welcomed the abdication of Louis Philippe and the installation of the Republic as the beginning of a new era not only for Paris but for all France, after the reactionary clericalism of Louis XVIII and Charles X followed by the chilly middle-class rule of the Orleanist monarch. But now a pinchbeck Napoleonism, with much sterner repression, weighed upon all that was most progressive and brilliant in the capital city. It was a bitter disappointment, not to be softened by the reflection that France herself was still far from the economic and social stage where their aspirations could be realized.

Thus Napoleon III was master of France and, feeling that war was advisable In order to strengthen his position at home, gladly joined with Great Britain in a joint campaign against Russia. This was wholly unnecessary, as has since been clearly shown. But, by promoting a better feeling between France and England than had previously existed, some good came out of the evil brought about by the treacherous suppression of the Emperor Nicholas's agreement with the English Cabinet. The foolish bolstering up of Ottoman incapacity and corruption at Constantinople when the Western Powers could easily have enforced a more reasonable rule was a miserable result of the whole war. But that the Crimean adventure helped to consolidate the position of the Emperor there is no doubt.

When also the affair of the Orsini bomb, thrown by one of his old Carbonari fellow-conspirators. Impelled Louis Napoleon into the Italian campaign which won for Italy Lombardy and for France Savoy and Nice, the French people felt that their gain in glory and in territory had

EARLY LIFE ii

made them once more the first nation in Europe. Magenta and Solferino were names to conjure with. The Army had confidence in the Emperor and his generals. So the prospect for republicans and the Republic eight years after the coup d'etat was less promising than it had been since the great revolution. Napoleon III was generally regarded as the principal figure in Europe. He was delivering those New Year proclamations which men awaited with bated breath as deciding the question of peace or war for the ensuing twelvemonth. His Empress dominated the world of fashion as her consort did the world of politics. Every effort was made to render the Court as brilliant as possible, and to attract to it some of the old nobility, who were, as a whole, little inclined to recognize by their presence the power of the man whom they both despised and hated. But the Second Empire was for a time a success in spite of the reactionists and the republicans alike.

Chapter II

PARIS of the early sixties was a very different city from the Paris of to-day. It was still in great part the Paris of the old time, on both banks of the Seine. Its Haussmannization had barely begun. The Palais Royal retained much of its ancient celebrity for the cuisine of its restaurants and the brilliancy of its shops. But to get to it direct from what is now the Place de I'Opera was a voyage of discovery. You went upstairs and downstairs, through narrow, dirty streets, until, after missing your way several times, you at last found yourself in the garden dear to the orators of the French Revolution, and since devoted to nursemaids and their babes. Much of Central Paris was in the same unregenerate state. Even portions of famous streets not far from the Grands Boulevards, which were then still French, could scarcely be described as models of cleanliness. The smells that arose from below and the water of doubtful origin that might descend upon the unwary passer-by from above suggested a general lack of sanitary control which was fully confirmed in more remote districts.

Napoleon III was a man of mediocre ability. His entourage was extravagantly disreputable. But he and his did clear out and clean up Paris. The new quarters since built up owe their existence in the first instance to the initiative of the Emperor's chief edile. Baron Haussmann, and his compeers. The great broad streets which now traverse the slums of old time were due to the same energetic impulse. Whether such spacious avenues and boulevards were constructed in order to facilitate the operations of artillery and enable the new mitrailleurs more conveniently to massacre the "mob," whether the architecture is artistic or monotonous, Clemenceau the doctor must for once be at variance with Clemenceau the man of politics, and admit that the monarch who, as will be seen, imprisoned him in 1862, did some good work for Paris during his reign of repression. At any rate, Napoleonic rule at this period represented general prosperity. Business was good and the profiteers were doing well. The bourgeoisie felt secure and international financiers enjoyed a good time. Nearly all the great banking and financial institutions of Paris had their origin in the decade 1 860-1 870. Law and order, in short, was based upon comfort and accumulation for the well-to-do.