Whatever may be the truth of that story, it is certain that the result has been as predicted. So in the course of the Agadir affair. M. Caillaux, as Prime Minister during the whole of the proceedings, was reluctant, and perhaps rightly so, to assert the claims of France with vigour. He was, in fact, quite lukewarm on behalf of his country, the representatives of other nations doing more for France, it is said, than she, or her Premier, did for herself. No sooner, however, was the business settled than M. Caillaux, the judicious but unavowed anti-expansionist, claimed that he had secured Morocco for France! However this may be, M. Caillaux has always favoured a close political and financial understanding with Germany, as by far the more advantageous policy for France, in opposition to a similar entente with England: a view which, of course, he was quite entitled to take and act upon, though its success in practice must have reduced France to the position of a mere satellite of the Fatherland. Before the war it was possibly a justifiable, though scarcely a far-seeing, policy.
The war itself rather strengthened than weakened his tendency in this direction. Having comfortably recovered from the unpleasing effect of the murder of M. Calmette of the Figaro, for which crime his wife was acquitted, he used all his influence, in and out of France, to bring about a peace with Germany, which could with difficulty be distinguished from complete surrender, as soon as possible. This while the German armies were in actual occupation of more than a fifth of his devastated country, that fifth being the richest part of France. His interviews with Signer Giolitti, a vehement partisan of Germany, and certain strange intrigues in Rome and elsewhere, could only be regarded as the more suspicious from the fact that he travelled with a passport made out in a fictitious name. Altogether M. Caillaux’s proceedings at home and abroad, in Europe and in South America, gave the impression that he was pursuing a policy of his own which was diametrically opposed to the welfare of his countrymen.
Some who have watched closely M. Caillaux’s career from his youth up are of opinion that the man is mad. But there is certainly method in his madness. Whatever the defects to which the high priests of international financial brotherhood may plead guilty, they never admit lunatics into their Teutono-Hebraic Holy of Holies. Access to the interior of that sanctuary is reserved for the very elect of the artists in pecuniary conveyance. But it is precisely within this innermost circle of glorified Mammon that M. Joseph Caillaux is most at home and most influential. And these people, so ensconced in their golden temple, were the ones most anxious to bring the war to an end no matter what became of France. This, as has been well said, was a civil war for Jews; but for the Jews of the great international of Mammon it was civil war and hari-kari at one and the same time. So there was weeping and wail in Frankfurt-am-Main, there was wringing of hands in Berlin on the Spree, and the Parisian devotees of the golden calf were not less profuse in their lamentations.
As a matter of fact, international finance was, and is, the most pacifist of all the Internationals, and M. Joseph Caillaux as director of the Société Générale, a portion of the great Banque de Paris et Pays Bas, represented its view perfectly. But that he is not devoid of political as well as financial astuteness is apparent from the extraordinary success he has achieved in securing close intimacy and friendship with the French Socialists. This has assured him the support not only of Jean Longuet and his friends, with whom he was specially bound up, but also of L’Humanité, with Renaudel, Sembat, Thomas and others connected with that useful journal. It has, indeed, been very difficult to understand the bitter hatred which the Socialists of France have manifested towards the thoroughgoing patriot Clemenceau, and their persistent championship of pro-Germans such as Caillaux and Malvy. But the dry-rot of pro-Germanic pacifism has infected a large proportion of the younger school of international Socialists in every country. With Socialism, as with commerce and finance, the German policy of unscrupulous penetration has been pursued with great success. Honest fanatics as well as self-seeking intriguers have fallen victims to their wiles. Caillaux was equally fortunate in capturing both sections. Even the rougher type of German agents, such as Bolo and Duval, were not without their friends in the Socialist camp.
The investigation of his conduct before the Army Committee of the Senate was, in effect, an informal trial of M. Caillaux, M. Malvy’s case having already been remitted by the same body for definite adjudication by the High Court. Naturally, M. Caillaux and his friends strained every nerve, first to prevent Clemenceau from being forced into office by public opinion; and then, when his assumption of the Premiership became inevitable, to upset his Ministry while its members were scarcely warm in their seats. The French Socialist Party, unfortunately, aided M. Caillaux and his friends in their attacks, after having declined the Premier’s offer of seats in his Cabinet. Shortly afterwards Clemenceau himself was summoned to appear as a witness before the Committee of the Senate on this serious indictment. It is difficult for us to imagine the sensation which this produced. Here was M. Caillaux, who had been Prime Minister of France only a few short years before, who had previously been Clemenceau’s intimate colleague, openly charged with the despicable crime of trading France away to the enemy.
No wonder a great many thoroughly patriotic Frenchmen could not believe, even in the face of the evidence, that a statesman of M. Caillaux’s ability, with a great future before him after the war, could be guilty of such actions as those which were imputed to him. But his old colleague who had just taken office was in possession of documents which threw an ugly shadow upon all M. Caillaux’s recent proceedings. As usual Clemenceau went straight to the point. The Government had not furnished the members of the Committee with mere surmises or doubts cast upon the general conduct of the incriminated person. There were printed statements already at their disposal of the gravest character. With three notorious persons M. Caillaux had intimate connections. One of them, when arrested, had died suspiciously in prison: the two others were still under arrest upon most serious charges. If this were the case of a common citizen he would have been brought at once before a magistrate. The whole country was crying out for the truth in this Caillaux case as well as in the Malvy affair.
This happened soon after Clemenceau had accepted office. A month later, M. Caillaux being in the meantime protected against arrest by his position as deputy, Clemenceau repeated that if all the probabilities accumulated against Caillaux had been formulated against any private person his fate would have been practically decided already. “The Government has undertaken responsibilities. The Chamber must likewise shoulder responsibilities. If the Chamber refuses to sanction the prosecution of M. Caillaux, the Government will not remain in office.”
M. Caillaux’s admitted conferences with well-known defeatists in Italy were of such a nature that Baron Sonnino, the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, had himself informed the French Government that he was inclined to expel Caillaux forthwith. No doubt he would have done so, but for the fact that M. Caillaux had been, and might possibly still be again, an important personage in French and European affairs. Throughout, Clemenceau promised that the public should have the full truth. He kept his word. The delays in bringing M. Caillaux to a definite judgment have not been due to him. M. Caillaux’s immunity as deputy was suspended. He was arrested and imprisoned on January 15th, 1918. Four days later came the partial disclosure of the documents found in his private safe in Florence.
That such papers should ever have been left by a man of M. Caillaux’s intelligence where they might quite conceivably be attached, and that he should have carefully put in writing the names of men whom he hoped to use for the purpose of furthering a coup d’état, do unquestionably support the theory that he is subject to intermittent fits of madness. His extraordinary proceedings at Buenos Aires, where, according to the United States representative in the Argentine capital, he entered into a series of most compromising negotiations with the German von Luxburg, were no good evidence of the permanent sanity of this successful and experienced man of affairs. But “madness in great ones must not unwatched go.” His object was avowed in that remote city: to make peace with Germany at any price, for the purpose of reviving international finance. All these statements coming in succession, and accompanied by the formulation of the cases against M. Malvy, Bolo Pasha, with Duval and others of the Bonnet Rouge clique, at length roused furious public indignation, which the actions of M. Humbert, the senator and owner of the Journal, the paper that Bolo had in effect bought, further inflamed. Who could be regarded as entirely free from treacherous designs, when such a crushing indictment as that officially formulated against Caillaux could be accepted as correct?—when a Minister of the Interior could be publicly charged with criminal weakness towards persons more than suspected of high treason of the most sordid type?—and when a man of Bolo Pasha’s career and associations evidently exercised great influence, not to say authority?
The revelations at the trials of the accused persons, and the ugly evidence submitted not only made matters look worse for M. Caillaux, but roused general amazement that such deadly intrigues should have been allowed to go so far under the very eyes of the authorities. The career of Bolo Pasha, the direct agent-in-chief of the main conspiracy, was well known. The men with whom he was on terms of close intimacy were suspected persons, long before any action was taken. The secret service department was well aware that he had huge sums of money at his disposal that were very, very far in excess of any that he could command from his private resources. The origin of his title of dishonour from the Khedive could not have escaped notice. Yet he, a born Frenchman, all whose begettings and belongings were a matter of record, pursued his shameless policy in the interest of Germany with apparent certainty of immunity from interference.
It was this very same certainty of immunity that made all but a few afraid to speak out. Bolo, in fact, was a privileged person, until there was a statesman at the head of affairs who not only did not fear to take the heavy responsibility of the arrest and imprisonment of M. Caillaux, but was also determined that the proceedings in the other cases already commenced should be pushed to their inevitable conclusion. “The unseen hand” in France, therefore, was no longer unseen. Yet so wide was the reach of the octopus tentacles, directed by underground agency, that even to this day not a few innocent, as well as guilty, people are in mortal fear lest disclosures may be made which will in some or other way implicate them. For the trial of M. Caillaux has yet to come.
The two really dramatic episodes in all this gradual exposure of infamy were the arrest and imprisonment of M. Caillaux, upon the suspension of his privileges as deputy, and the public trial of Bolo Pasha. After what had happened since August, 1914, it seemed almost impossible that any Minister, however powerful he might be, would venture to go to the full extent of what was indispensably necessary with M. Caillaux. A man who had been Prime Minister of France, who in that capacity had gathered round him groups of politicians whose members looked to him to ensure their personal success in the future, was formidably entrenched both in the Senate and in the Assembly. To incur the personal enmity of such a capable statesman and such a master of intrigue as Joseph Caillaux was more than any of the previous Ministries had dared to risk. There were too many political reasons against it. Even the most honest of the Socialist Ministers themselves seem to have felt that. All the time, likewise, an influential portion of the Press vigorously supported the ex-Premier. They carried the war into the enemy’s camp by denouncing his critics either as unscrupulous and lying reactionaries, who were endeavouring to ruin a really progressive statesman, as men imbued with such lust for slaughter and eagerness for revenge that they had lost all grip of the actual situation, or as malignant intriguers behind the scenes whose one object was to blacken the character of an opponent who stood in the way of their schemes for personal aggrandisement.
Furthermore, M. Caillaux, holding the eminent position already referred to in the world of finance, had the whole-souled and entire-pocket backing of the French and German-Jew international money-lords. These magnates of plutocracy, marvellous to relate, found themselves on this issue hand in glove with the most active international French Socialists. Nobody who was in the least afraid of political cliques, of journalistic coteries, of financial syndicates, or of Socialist rancour, could put Caillaux under lock and key. And the military outlook lent itself to the encouragement of the leading advocate of surrender and his acolytes. The word was assiduously passed round that, now Russia was out of the fray, a drawn battle was the very best that the Entente could hope for.
France was bled white, Great Britain was war-weary and her workers were discontented, Italy—think of Caporetto—while, as to the United States, America was a long way off, President Wilson was still “too proud to fight” in earnest, American troops could never be transported in sufficient numbers across the Atlantic, and, to say nothing of dangers from submarines, there was not enough shipping afloat to do it. All pointed, therefore, to prompt “peace by negotiation,” and what better man could there be to negotiate such a peace than M. Joseph Caillaux? It was because he was the one political personage in France who could secure fair terms for his distressful country, at this terrible crisis, that he was so persistently attacked by the Chauvinists as a pro-German and accused of the most sordid treachery by men who envied him his power at the international Council Table!
Such was the situation. So long as M. Caillaux was at large, and able to direct the whole of the forces of defeatism, no genuinely patriotic Ministry could be successfully formed, or, if formed by some fortuitous concurrence of circumstances, could last for three months. Treachery breeds treachery as loyalty engenders loyalty. When Clemenceau took office, therefore, everything depended upon what he did with Caillaux. Paris and all France held their breath as they awaited the event. Patriots were doubtful: defeatists were hopeful: soldiers were on the look-out for a man.
On January 15th, then, M. Caillaux was arrested and put in prison by Clemenceau and his Ministry. All the predictions of upheaval and disaster, indulged in by M. Caillaux’s friends, were falsified. The country breathed more freely. Thenceforward, France knew whom to back. But, supposing that M. Caillaux had still been within the precincts of Parliament and carrying on his political plots when the terrible news came of the disasters of Cambrai and St. Quentin, and when the German armies were within cannon-shot of Paris—how then? Those who knew best how things stood believe themselves that counsels of despair and pusillanimity might have prevailed, to the ruin of the country.
No such fateful issue as that involved in Caillaux’s arrest hung upon the result of the trial of Bolo Pasha. But Bolo’s whole career was a tragical farce, to which even Alphonse Daudet could scarcely have done full justice. Bolo was a Frenchman of the Midi: a Tartarin with the tendencies of a financial Vautrin: a fine specimen of the flamboyant and unscrupulous international adventurer. His first experience in the domain of extraction was as a dentist in the country of his birth. A handsome, blond young man of fine appearance and manners and methods of address attractive to women, he soon found that the drawing of teeth and other less skilled professions led to the receipt of no emoluments worthy of his talents. To take in a well-to-do partner and decamp with his wife and the firm’s cash-box was more in the way of business.
So satisfactory was this first adventure that he extended his field of operations, and several ladies had the advantage of paying for his attentions in the shape of all the money of which they chanced to be possessed. Somehow or other he found himself in the Champagne country during the wine-growers’ riots, and continued to have a good time in the district while they were going on. But in 1905 the claret region proved more lucrative. For in Bordeaux the charm of his disposition produced so great an effect upon the widow of a rich merchant of that city that she succumbed to his attractions and married him. This provided Bolo with the means for setting on foot all sorts of financial enterprises in Europe and America. He thus became a promoter of the open-hearted and sanguine type, found his way into “society” of the kind which opens its arms to such men, had sufficient influence to become a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and by 1914 had lost all his wife’s money and more into the bargain—was, in fact, in very serious financial straits from which he saw no way of extricating himself. Certain Egyptian friends he had made, who later obtained for him his title of Pasha from the Khedive, were not then in a position to help him.
But Bolo without money meant a German agent in search of a job. It proved easy to get it. He notified the Germans through the Egyptians that he could do good service in France if only he were provided with plenty of funds. He was so furnished with hundreds of thousands of pounds. L’Homme Libre said of him that he revelled in the prestige of having money, to such an extent that he believed that money was everything. Rather, perhaps, he had become so accustomed to indulge in pleasures and political and financial intrigues of every sort that he would run any risk rather than give up the game. So it was that he carried on the dangerous policy, if such it could be called, sketched above.
About his guilt there could be no doubt. That he had been closely connected with people in high places as well as in low, and possessed considerable personal magnetism, was clear. All this came out in court, where persons of every grade, from Ministers and Senators to Levantine rogues and Parisian courtesans, passed in and passed out like figures on a cinema film. Bolo, of course, denied every charge, and posed as a financier of high degree, but he was condemned to death, and his appeal against the sentence was fruitless, though he pretended he could make harrowing disclosures. He met his death bravely on April 10th. His fate was a heavy blow to other spies and conspirators.
There was an interpellation on the Bolo trial, a month before his execution that led to a powerful speech by Clemenceau, in which he declared that he was first for liberty, next for war, and finally for the sacrifice of everything to secure victory. He then made a vigorous appeal to the Socialists to join with the rest of the country in supporting his Government in a supreme effort to free France from the invader. “It is a great misfortune that my administration should be denounced by Renaudel”—then editor of L’Humanité—“as a danger to the workers. My hands are to the full as hardened by toil as those of Renaudel and Albert Thomas, good bourgeois citizens as they are, like myself. I have in my pocket a paper in which Renaudel is stigmatised as Clemenceau’s orderly; nay, adding insult to injury, he is held up to public obloquy as Monsieur Renaudel.” Then, addressing the Socialist group, he declared with vehemence: “We have done you no harm, but my methods are not yours. You will not defeat Prussian Junkerdom by baa-ing around about peace.” The appeal was quite bootless. On a division confidence in the Clemenceau Government was voted by 400 to 75. The Socialists were the 75. The vote was a direct outcome of the sordid and gruesome Bolo case.
Summary of Events Relating to Treachery in Paris,
July, 1917, to July, 1918.
July, 1917.—Clemenceau attacks M. Malvy, then Minister of the Interior, for ruinous weakness towards traitors.
Assails the Ribot Ministry as responsible for the propaganda of the pro-German journal Le Bonnet Rouge.
It was shown later that this newspaper had received State support to the extent of £4,000 a year.
August, 1917.—M. Almereyda (alias Vigo), connected with Bolo Pasha, M. Caillaux and the Bonnet Rouge, arrested and dies in prison.
M. Malvy “explains” the Almereyda affair.
September, 1917.—M. Malvy resigns.
October, 1917.—Debate in Chamber upon M. Léon Daudet’s charge of treason against Malvy.
Captain Bouchardon begins investigation.
Proprietors of Bonnet Rouge arrested.
November, 1917.—Revelations by Clemenceau in l’Homme Enchâiné, which had been going on for a twelvemonth, take effect on public.
Bonnet Rouge trial.
Revelations concerning M. Paix-Séailles’s document about French troops at Salonika to have been published in Bonnet Rouge. Paix-Séailles in M. Painlevé’s entourage.
Clemenceau exposes Caillaux’s intrigues with Almereyda, the Bonnet Rouge, the defeatists in Italy, and comments on the large subsidies to the Bonnet Rouge which enabled it to become a daily instead of a weekly sheet.
Clemenceau forms Ministry.
December, 1917.—Clemenceau examined before Committee of Senate on Caillaux affair.
Clemenceau declares if Parliament would not sanction prosecution of Caillaux his Ministry would resign.
Caillaux’s immunity as deputy suspended by vote.
January, 1918.—Captain Bouchardon’s report on Bolo Pasha published.
Traces Bolo’s career from 1914, his intrigues with Germany through ex-Khedive of Egypt and other Egyptians. Receipt by Bolo of £400,000 from Deutsche Bank.
Bolo buys shares in Journal, and tries to buy shares also in the Figaro and the Temps.
M. Caillaux arrested.
His private safe brought from Florence containing strange papers relating, among other things, to a suggested coup d’état.
United States agent at Buenos Aires reveals series of negotiations between M. Caillaux and the German representative, Count Luxburg, having for object the conclusion of a German peace.
M. Malvy arraigned before the High Court of the Senate.
February, 1918.—Trial of Bolo begun. Caillaux, Humbert and others incriminated.
U.S.A. secret service shows that large sums passed from Count Bernstorff, German Ambassador in Washington, to Bolo for the purposes of German propaganda.
Bolo found guilty and condemned to be shot on February 16th.
M. Malvy’s case before the High Court extended.
March, 1918.—Bolo appeals.
Bolo case discussed in Chamber. Socialists attack Clemenceau. Vote of confidence in Clemenceau’s Ministry 400 to 75.
Terrible military disasters at Cambrai and St. Quentin due to heavy German attack on positions weakened by withdrawal of British troops.
April, 1918.—Bolo shot.
Caillaux in gaol.
Malvy trial continued.
May, 1918.—Caillaux “explains” his connection with Le Bonnet Rouge.
June, 1918.—Committee report on M. Malvy’s case and fix date of trial.
July, 1918.—M. Malvy found guilty of undue laxity towards traitors and condemned to exile from France.
French Socialists infuriated at M. Malvy’s expulsion.
CHAPTER XX
“LA VICTOIRE INTÉGRALE”
In the endeavour to give a connected statement of the very dangerous German offensive, conducted by their spies and agents in Paris, at the most critical period of the whole war, I have been obliged to some extent to anticipate events in order to show Clemenceau’s share in the exposure of this organised treachery. By 1917, as already recorded, anti-patriotic and pro-German intrigues in Paris and France had become more and more harmful to that “sacred unity” which had been constituted to present an unbroken front to the enemy. After the miserable breakdown of Russia, largely due to the Bolshevik outbreak fostered by German intrigue and subsidised by German money, the position was exceedingly dangerous. German troops withdrawn from the Eastern front were poured into France and Flanders by hundreds of thousands, and the Allied armies were hard put to it to hold their own. At this time, when it was all-important to maintain the spirit of the French army, the enemy offensive in Paris and throughout France became more and more active. What made the situation exceptionally critical was the fact that the rank and file of the French soldiery began to feel that, however desperately they might fight at the front, they were being systematically betrayed in the rear. While, therefore, Clemenceau, in his capacity as Senator and President of the Inter-Allied Parliamentary Committee, voiced the great and growing discontent of the country with the lack of real statesmanship displayed in the conduct of the war, he also fulminated against the weakness of the wobbling Ministers who, knowing that defeatism and treachery were fermenting all round them, took no effective steps to counteract this pernicious propaganda.
The notorious Bonnet Rouge group, however, with M. Joseph Caillaux, Bolo Pasha, Almereyda and others in close touch with M. Jean Longuet and his pacifist friends of the Socialist Party, were allowed to carry on their virulent anti-French campaign in the Press and in other directions practically unchecked. It might even have been thought that these persons had the sympathy and support of members of the Government.
Thus, when M. Painlevé took office on M. Ribot’s resignation in August, 1917, the outlook was dark all round. The position of the Allied armies was by no means satisfactory: the state of affairs in Paris itself was not such as to engender confidence: Mr. Lloyd George’s headlong speech of depreciation on his return from Italy had undone all the good of the unanimous resolution passed by the Inter-Allied Parliamentary Committee of which Clemenceau was President, declaring that no peace could be accepted which did not secure the realisation of national claims and the complete triumph of justice all along the line. In short, a fit of despondency, almost deepening into despair, had come over Allied statesmen. Notwithstanding distrust, however, war-weariness was not spreading among the soldiers and sailors. But among the politicians it was, and German “peace offensives” were being welcomed in quarters which were supposed to be resolute for “la victoire intégrale.” M. Painlevé’s administration was scarcely hoisted into the saddle before it was ignominiously thrown out again. The instability of successive French Ministries was becoming a danger which extended far beyond the limits of France. The unification of the Allied command and the concentration of effort on the Western front had become imperative. The arrest of all those against whom there was serious suspicion of treason, no matter how highly they might be placed, was a necessity of the moment. Vigorous support for the generals and armies engaged in resisting the reinforced enemy was called for from every quarter. So the President, M. Poincaré, found himself in a dilemma. But none of the leading politicians who had been prominent since the war began was prepared to take the responsibility of forming an administration and then acting upon the lines which the situation demanded.
It was at this crisis, perhaps the most dangerous that France has had to face in all her long history, that the President asked Clemenceau to become the Prime Minister. He was then seventy-six years of age and had withdrawn from all those conferences and discussions behind the scenes which, under ordinary circumstances, invariably precede the acceptance of office. The Socialists declared that, no matter what Clemenceau’s policy might be, they could not serve under him as President of Council. Clemenceau could not rely upon support from M. Poincaré, and on every ground he was much disinclined to come to the front under existing conditions. But his duty to France and its Republic outweighed all other considerations, and this old statesman shouldered the burden which far younger men declined to take up.
The Socialists went quite wild against him—to the lasting injury, as I hold, of their party and their cause—the Radicals and Republicans themselves were more than doubtful of the possibility of his success. Many politicians and journalists of the Right doubted whether they could make common cause with the man who above all other things stood for the permanence of Republicanism and was the bitter enemy of Clericalism in every shape. Shrewd judges of public opinion stated that his Ministry could not last three months.
But courage, frankness and good faith, backed by relentless determination, and the genius that blazes up in the day of difficulty, go far. The whole French people suddenly called to mind that this old Radical of the Bocage of La Vendée, this Parisian of Parisians for nearly sixty years, whatever mistakes he may have made in opposition or in office, had invariably stood up for the greatness, the glory, the dignity of France; that he had voted at Bordeaux for the continuance of the war when France lay at the feet of the ruthless conqueror and Gambotta was striving to organise his countrymen for resistance to the death; that from those dark days of 1871 onwards he had always vehemently adjured his countrymen to make ready to resist coming invasion; that from August 1914 he had never failed to keep a stout heart himself and to do his utmost to encourage his countrymen even when the outlook was blackest for the Allies; that he had ever been the relentless denouncer of weakness and vacillation, as he had also been the unceasing opponent of pacifism, pro-Germanism and treachery of every kind; that now, therefore, when la Patrie was in desperate danger, when Paris might yet be at the mercy of the enemy, of whose hideous ruffianism they had had such bitter experience, Georges Clemenceau was the one man to take control of democratic and Republican France in the interest of every section of the population. These stirring memories of the past rose up behind Clemenceau in the present.[E]
Thus it was that the new Prime Minister, coming down from the Senate to read his Declaration to the National Assembly, as the French custom is, was certain beforehand of a cordial reception from the great majority of the Deputies. What might happen afterwards depended upon himself and his Ministry: what should occur on this his first appearance in the tribune after nearly eight years of absence depended on themselves. They took good care that, at the start at least, he should have no doubt as to their goodwill. Only the Socialist minority abstained.
The Declaration itself was worthy of the occasion, and it was a stirring scene when the veteran of the Radical Party, the Tiger of the old days, rose to deliver it to the House, which was crowded on the floor and in the galleries with deputies and strangers eager to hear what he had to say:—
“Gentlemen, we have taken up the duty of government in order to carry on the war with renewed energy and to obtain a better result from our concentrated efforts. We are here with but one idea in our minds, the war and nothing but the war. The confidence we ask you to give us should be the expression of confidence in yourselves. . . . Never has France felt more keenly the need for living and growing in the ideal of power used on behalf of human rectitude, the resolve to see justice done between citizens and peoples able to emancipate themselves. The watchword of all our Governments since the war began has been victory for the sake of justice. That frank policy we shall uphold. We have great soldiers with a great history led by men who have been tested and have been inspired to deeds of the highest devotion worthy of their ancestral renown. The immortal fatherland of our common humanity, overmastering the exultation of victory, will follow, on the lines of its destiny, the noble aspiration for peace, through them and through us all. Frenchmen impelled by us into the conflict have special claims upon us. We owe them everything without reserve. Everything for France: everything for the triumph of right. One simple duty is imposed upon us, to stand by the soldier, to live, suffer and fight with him, and to throw aside everything that is not for our country. The rights on our front, the duties in our rear must be merged in one. Every zone must be the army zone. If men there are who must cherish the hatreds of bygone days, sweep them away.
“All civilised nations are now arrayed in the like battle against modern forms of ancient barbarisms. Our Allies and ourselves together constitute a solid barrier which shall not be surmounted. Throughout the Allied front, at all times and in all places, there is nothing but solid brotherhood, the surest basis for the coming world. . . . The silent soldiers of the factory, the old peasants working, bent over their soil, the vigorous women who toil, the children who help in their weakness—these likewise are our poilus who in times to come, recalling the great things done, will be able to say with the men in the trenches, ‘I, too, was there.’ . . . Mistakes have been made. Think no more about them save only to remedy them.
“But, alas! there have also been crimes, crimes against France which demand prompt punishment. We solemnly pledge ourselves, before you and before the country, that justice shall be done with the full rigour of the law. Personal considerations or political passion shall neither divert us from fulfilling this duty nor induce us to go beyond it. Too many such crimes have cost us the blood of our soldiers. Weakness would mean complicity. There shall be no weakness as there shall be no violence. Accused persons shall all be brought before courts-martial. The soldier of justice shall make common cause with the soldier in the field. No more pacifist plots: no more German intrigues. Neither treason nor semi-treason. War, nothing but war. Our country shall not be placed between two fires. Our country shall learn that she is really defended.
“The day will come when from Paris to the smallest village of France storms of cheers will welcome our victorious colours tattered by shell-fire and drenched with blood and tears—the glorious memorials of our great dead. It is for us to hasten the coming of that day, that glorious day, which will fitly take its place beside so many others in our history. These are our unshakable resolves, gentlemen: we ask you to give them the sanction of your approval.”
Such is a free summary of a Ministerial pronouncement that will ever be memorable in the annals of France and of mankind. It swept the Chamber away as the recital marched on. But organised attacks upon the President of the Council at once followed. Now came the supreme test of the mental and physical efficiency of this wonderful old man whose youth is so amazing. He could read a telling manifesto with vigour and effect. Would he be able to reply with equal power to a series of interrogations in an atmosphere to which he had been a stranger for so many years? Questions, by no means all of them friendly, poured in upon Clemenceau from every part of the Chamber. From his attitude towards Caillaux and Malvy to his view of the League of Nations and his policy in regard to negotiations with the enemy, no point was missed that might embarrass or irritate the statesman who had undertaken to stand in the gap. He showed immediately that he was fully capable of taking his own part. The fervour of the new France was heard in every phrase of his crushing reply:
“You do not expect me to talk of personal matters. I am not here for that. Still, I have heard enough to understand that the criticisms upon me should make me modest. I feel humble for the mistakes I have already made and for those which I am likely to make. I do not think I can be accused of having sought power. But I am in power. I hope it will not be a misfortune for my country. You tell me I have made mistakes. Perhaps you do not know the worst of them. I am here because these are terrible times when those who through all the struggle have loved their country more than they knew see the hopes of the nation centred on them. I am here through the pressure of public opinion, and I am almost afraid of what it will demand of me, of what it expects of me.
“I have been asked to explain myself in regard to war aims, and as to the idea of a League of Nations. I have replied in my declaration, ‘We must conquer for the sake of justice.’ That is clear. We live in a time when words have great power, but they have not the power to set free. The word ‘justice’ is as old as mankind. Do you imagine that the formula of a League of Nations is going to solve everything?
“There is a committee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even now preparing a scheme for a League of Nations. Among its members are the most authoritative exponents of international law. I undertake that immediately their labours are finished I will table the outcome of it in this Chamber, if I am still Prime Minister—which does not seem likely.” (Laughter and cheers.)
“I am not unfavourable to arbitration. It was I who sent M. Léon Bourgeois to The Hague, where a series of conventions were agreed upon which Germany is now engaged in violating. Many believe that a miracle will bring about a League of Nations. I do not myself think that a League of Nations will be one of the results of this war. If to-morrow you proposed to me that Germany should be included in a League of Nations, I should not consent. What guarantees do you offer me? Germany’s signature? Go and ask the Belgians what they think of that.
“You never weary of saying that the first thing is for Germany herself to destroy German militarism, but she is far from destroying it; she still holds it fast.
“M. Forgeot wants to make war, but while we are making war he wants us to talk about peace. Personally, I believe that when you are doing things you should talk as little as possible. Do M. Forgeot’s ideas come within the range of practical politics? Do people believe that the men in the trenches and the women in the factories do not think of peace? Our thoughts are theirs. They are fighting to obtain some decent security of life; and when you ask me my war aims, I reply that my war aim is victory in full.” (Loud cheers and Socialist interruption.)
“I understand your aspirations, some of which I share, but do not let us make mistakes about war. All these men want peace. But if, while they are fighting, the rumour goes round that delegates of one or other belligerent country are discussing terms of peace—that yesterday we were on the eve of peace, that next day there was a break-off—then we are condemned to flounder about in mud and in blood for years still. That is the way to disarm and discourage us all. For these reasons, I am not in favour of Conferences where citizens of different belligerent countries discuss peace which the Governments alone are able to decide. I want to make war. This means that for the moment we must silence all factious discussion. Is there a man who has been more of a party man than I? I see to-day that I have been far too much of a party man. My programme is a military and economic programme. We have got Allies, to whom we owe loyalty and fidelity, which must override every other consideration.
“We have not yet achieved victory. We have come to a cruel phase of the war. A time of privation is at hand, a time when our spirit must rise to greater heights yet. Do not, then, speak of peace. We all want peace, we are making great sacrifices to obtain peace, but we must get rid of old animosities and turn solidly against the enemy. Leave all other questions alone.
“There is one on which, however, I must touch. Scandals have been spoken of. Do you think we can have three years of war without Germany trying to keep spies busy in our midst? I complained that our look-out was insufficient, and events have too clearly shown that I was right. I am told to tell you the truth. You shall have it. But we must distinguish between crimes and accusations. As the examination proceeds facts will be disclosed which will have their effect. How can you expect me to mention names or reveal fragments of truth? Certain people have been guilty of indiscretion, want of reflection, or weakness. It is not I but the judge who has to decide. You shall have the truth. In what form? If there is any revelation of a political nature to make there is a political tribunal in this country to make it. It shall judge. Just as civil justice must do its work during war time, so must political justice.” (A voice: “Caillaux!”) “I mention no name. A journalist has freedom as to what he may say, it is his own responsibility; but the head of the Government has a quite different task. I am here to put the law in motion if political acts have been committed which are subject to a jurisdiction beyond the ordinary tribunals.
“Those facts will be brought before the tribunal, but I refuse here to accuse any man.
“Justice is our weapon against treason, and where treason is concerned there can be no possibility of pardon. In any case, you have got a Government which will try to govern in the strict, but high, idealistic sense of the word. Where I differ from you, gentlemen of the Extreme Left, is when you want to bring abstract conceptions into the field of hard facts. That is impossible. We shall try to govern honestly and in a Republican spirit. You are not obliged to think we shall succeed. But we shall do our best. If we make mistakes, others have done so before us, others will do so after us. If at last we see before us the long-awaited dawn of victory, I hope—if it is only to complete the beauty of the picture—that you will pass a vote of censure upon me, and I shall go happy away! I know you will not do that; but allow me to point out, as I have a right to tell you, that you have almost passed a vote of censure on me already before listening to my Ministerial programme. I challenge you to say that we have made any attempt to deceive you. If we get painful news, our hearts will bleed, but we shall tell that news to you here. We have never given anybody the right to suppose that we constitute a peril to any class of citizen or a danger to the national defence. If you think the contrary, prove it, and I will leave the House. But if you believe that what we want above all is the welfare of France, give us your confidence, and we will endeavour to be worthy of it.”
His deeds have been on a level with his words. Bolo and Duval shot: Caillaux in gaol: Malvy exiled by decree of the Senate: the Bonnet Rouge gang tried and condemned: the wretched intrigue in Switzerland with the poor German tool, Austria exposed and crushed: a new spirit breathed into all public affairs: the army reassured by his perpetual presence under fire and his unfailing resolve at the War Office that the splendid capacity and intrepidity of all ranks at the front shall not be sacrificed by treachery or cowardice at the rear: the Higher Command brimful of enthusiasm and confidence, due to the appointment of the military genius Foch as generalissimo of the United Allied Armies and the reinstatement of General Mangin at the head of his corps d’armée: the Allies, like France herself, convinced that they have at last discovered a man. Such was the stirring work that Clemenceau had been doing since he took office.
So to-day Clemenceau is still democratic dictator of the French Republic as no man has been for more than a century. When the enemy was arrayed in overwhelming numbers close to Amiens and within a few miles of Calais, when the German War Lords were decreeing the permanent subjugation of the territories they occupied in the West and in the East, when the long-range guns were bombarding the capital and the removal of the seat of government to the provinces was again being considered, the great French nation felt more confident of its future than at any moment since the victories won around Verdun. To every question Clemenceau’s answer invariably was, “Je fais la guerre. Je fais la guerre. Je fais la guerre.”
Those who doubted were convinced: those who were doubtful saw their aspirations realised: those who had never wavered cheered for victory right ahead.
On June 6th, 1918, the French Socialist group in the Chamber of Deputies made another of those attacks upon the National Administration which, sad to say, have done so much to discredit the whole Socialist Party, and even the Socialist cause, throughout Europe and the world. Pacifism and Bolshevism together—that is to say, an unholy combination between anti-nationalism and anarchism, have indeed shaken the influence of democratic Socialism to its foundations, just at the time when a sound, sober and constructive Socialist policy, in harmony with the aspirations of the mass of the people in every Allied country, might have led mankind peacefully along the road to the new period of national and international co-operation. The Socialist Deputies in the Chamber held Clemenceau’s Ministry, which they had done their very utmost to discredit and weaken, directly responsible for the serious military reverses recently undergone by the French and Allied armies. They insisted, therefore, upon Clemenceau’s appearance in the tribune. But when they had got him in front of them their great object evidently was not to let him speak. There this old statesman stood, exposed to interruptions which were in the worst of bad taste. At last he thought the opportunity for which his enemies clamoured had come, and began to address the Assembly. But no sooner had he opened his mouth than he was forced to give way to M. Marcel Cachin. Only then was he enabled to get a hearing, and this is a summary of what he said:—
“I regret that, our country being in such great danger, a unanimous vote of confidence cannot be accorded to us. But, when all is said, the opposition of the Socialists does not in the least enfeeble the Government. For four long years our troops have held their own at the front with a line which was being steadily worn down. Now a huge body of German soldiers fresh from Russia and in good heart come forward to assail us. Some retreat was inevitable. From the moment when Russia thought that peace could be obtained by the simple expression of wishes to that end we all knew that, sooner or later, the enemy would be able to release a million of men to fall upon us. That meant that such a retirement as we have witnessed must of necessity follow. Our men have kept their line unbroken against odds of five to one. They have often gone sleepless for three days and even four days in succession. But our great soldiers have had great leaders, and our army as a whole has proved itself to be greater than even we could expect.
“The duties we have to perform here are, in contrast to their heroism, tame and even petty. All we have to do is to keep cool and hold on. The Germans are nothing like so clever as they believe themselves to be. They have but a single device. They throw their entire weight into one general assault, and push their advantage to the utmost. True they have forced back our lines of defence. But final success is that alone which matters, and that success for us is certain. The Government you see before you took office with the firm resolve never to surrender. So long as we stand here our country will be defended to the last. Give way we never shall.
“Germany has once more staked her all on one great blow, thinking to cow us into abandoning the conflict. Her armies have tried this desperate game before. They tried it on the Marne, they tried it on the Yser, they tried it at Verdun, they tried it elsewhere. But they never have succeeded, and they never shall. Our Allies to-day are the leading nations of the world. They have one and all pledged themselves to fight on till victory is within our grasp. The men who have already fallen have not fallen in vain. By their death they have once more made French history a great and noble record. It is now for the living to finish the glorious work done by the dead.”
This great speech raised the overwhelming majority of the Assembly to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Nearly all present felt that the destinies of France hung in the balance, and that any vote given which might tend to discourage the men at the front at such a time was a direct service rendered to the enemy whose bombs were even then falling in the heart of Paris. The vote of confidence in Clemenceau and his Ministry was carried by 377 votes to 110; and of these 110 more than a third were convinced shortly afterwards that the course they had then taken in order to preserve the unity of their forces as factionists was unworthy of their dignity as men.
Then, too, when the tide turned and the German hordes, after fresh glorious battles of the Marne and of the Somme, were in headlong retreat, Clemenceau, unelated by victory as he was undiscouraged by defeat, repeated again: “Je fais la guerre. Je fais la guerre. Je fais la guerre.” Not until the German armies were finally vanquished would the Republican statesman talk of making peace. On both sides of the Atlantic, therefore, as on both sides of the Channel, knowing Great Britain and the United States by personal experience and able to gauge the cold resolution of the one and the inexhaustible resources and determination of the other, speaking and writing English well, he is now, as he has been throughout this tremendous war, a tower of strength to the forces of democracy and a very present help to all who are resolved to break down German militarism for evermore.
CHAPTER XXI
CONCLUSION
“Georges Clemenceau, President of the Council and Minister of War, and Marshal Foch, General-in-Chief of the Allied armies, have well deserved the gratitude of the country.”
That is the Resolution which, by the unanimous vote of the Senate of the French Republic, will be placed in a conspicuous position in every Town Hall and in the Council Chamber of every commune throughout France. The Senators of France are not easily roused to enthusiasm. What they thus unanimously voted, in the absence of Clemenceau, amid general acclamation, is a fine recognition of his pre-eminent service as well as of his indefatigable devotion to duty at the most desperate crisis in the long and glorious history of his country. Nothing like it has ever been known. The reward is unprecedented: the work done has surpassed every record.
It is well that the great statesman should be honoured in advance of the great military commander. Marshal Foch has accomplished marvels in more than four years of continuous activity, from the first battle of the Marne to the signing of the armistice of unconditional surrender. All Europe and the civilised world are indebted to him for his masterly strategy and successful manœuvres. But France owes most to Clemenceau.
Towards the close of this historic sitting Clemenceau himself entered the Senate. He received an astounding welcome. Everyone present rose to greet him. Men who but yesterday were his enemies, and are still his opponents, rushed forward with the rest to applaud him, to shake hands with him, to thank him, to embrace him. The excitement was so overwhelming that Clemenceau, for the first time in his life, broke down. Tears coursed down his cheeks and for some moments he was unable to speak. When he did he, as always, refused to take the credit and the glory of the overthrow of the Germans and their confederates to himself. In victory in November, as when he was confronting difficulty and danger in March and July, his first and his last thoughts were of France. The spirit of France, the citizens of France, the soldiers and sailors of France: these were they who in comradeship with the Allies had achieved the great victory over the last convulsions of savagery. He had been more than fully rewarded for all he had done by witnessing the expulsion of the foreigner and the liberation of the territory. His task had merely been to give full expression to the courage and determination of his countrymen.
Clemenceau spoke not only as a French statesman, as the veteran upholder of the French Republic, but as one who remembered well the horrors and defeats of 1870-71, now followed, forty-eight years later, by the horrors and the triumphs of 1918. The Senators who heard him and acclaimed him felt that Clemenceau was addressing them as the man who had embodied in himself, for all those long years, the soul of the France of the Great Revolution, and now at last was able to show what he really was.
This moving reception in the Senate had been preceded by an almost equally glowing display of enthusiasm in the Chamber of Deputies. There too—with the exception of a mere handful of Socialists whose extraordinary devotion to Caillaux and Malvy blinds them to the genius of their countryman—the whole Assembly rose up to welcome and cheer him. Clemenceau, speaking there, also, under strong emotion, after two stirring orations from M. Deschanel and M. Pichon, assured the Deputies that the armistice which would be granted to Germany could only be on the lines of those accorded to Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Marshal Foch would decide the details, which now all the world knows.
But, after having dealt with the armistice implored by Germany, Clemenceau went back to the past and said: “When I remember that I entered the National Assembly of Bordeaux in 1871, and was—I am the last of them—one of the signers of the protests against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine . . . it is impossible for me, now peace is certain and our victory assured, to leave the tribune without paying homage to those who were the initiators and first workers in the immense task which is being completed at this moment.
“I wish to speak of Gambetta” (the whole House rises with prolonged cheering) “—of him who, defending the territory under circumstances which rendered victory impossible, never despaired. With him and with Chanzy I voted for the continuation of the war, and in truth, when I think of what has happened in these fifty years, I ask myself whether the war has not continued all the time. May our thoughts go back to them; and when these terrible iron doors that Germany has closed against us shall be opened, let us say to them: ‘Pass in first. You showed us the way.’”
The French Premier went on to speak of the problems of peace, which could only be solved, like the problems of war, by national unity for the common cause, “for the Republic which we made in peace, which we have upheld in war, the Republic which has saved us during the war.” He appealed “First for solidarity with the Allies, and then for solidarity among the French.” This was needful for the maintenance of peace and the future of their common humanity. Humanity’s great crusade was inspired not by the thought of God but of France. “Ce n’est pas Dieu, c’est la France qui le veut.”
The Deputies rose again and again. It would have been strange if they had not.
But fine though these speeches were, and impressive as was the Prime Minister’s adjuration that, since the problems of peace were harder than those of war, they must prove their worth in both fields—it was Clemenceau’s personal influence that gave them their special value. Undoubtedly the splendid fighting of the French and British and American troops and the admirable skill of their commanders had produced that dramatic change from the days of depression from March to July to the period of continuous triumph from July to November. This Clemenceau never allows us for one moment to forget. But he it was who had breathed new life into the whole combination, military and civilian, at the front and in the factories. No man of his time of life, perhaps no man of any age, ever carried on continuously such exhausting toil, physical and mental, as that which this marvellous old statesman of seventy-seven undertook and carried though from November 1917 to November 1918.
His energy and power of work were those of a vigorous young man in the height of training. Starting for the front in a motor-car at four or five o’clock in the morning at least three times a week, he kept in touch with generals, officers and soldiers all along the lines to an extent that would have seemed incredible if it had not been actually done. Once at the front he walked about under fire as if he had come out for the pleasure of risking his life with the poilus who were fighting for La Patrie. Marshal Foch and Higher Command were in constant fear for him. But he knew what he was about. Valuable as his own life might be to the country, to court death was a higher duty than to take care of himself, if by this seeming indifference he made Frenchmen all along the trenches feel that he and they were one. He succeeded. Fortune favoured him throughout. Then having discoursed with the Marshal and his generals, having saluted and talked with the officers, he chatted with the rank and file of the soldiery and rushed back to Paris, arriving at the Ministry of War at ten or eleven o’clock at night, ready to attend to such pressing business as demanded his personal care. And all the time cheerful, alert, confident, showing, when things looked dark, as when the great advance began, that the Prime Minister of the Republic never for one moment doubted the Germans would be hurled back over the frontier and France would again take her rightful place in the world.
And that is not all. Clemenceau’s influence in the Council Chamber of the Allies was and is supreme. The old gaiety of heart remains, but the soundness of judgment and determination to accept no compromise of principle are more marked than ever. Many dangerous intrigues during the past few months, of which the world has heard little, were snuffed clean out by Clemenceau’s force of character and overwhelming personality. The French Prime Minister wanted final victory for France and her Allies. Nothing short of this would satisfy him. There was no personal loyalty he wished to build up, no political object that he desired to attain, no section or party that he felt himself bound to propitiate. Therefore the other Ministers of the Allies found themselves at the table with a statesman who was something more than an individual representative of his nation. He was the human embodiment of a cause. What that meant and still means will only be known when the dust of conflict has passed from us and the whole truth of Clemenceau’s policy can be told.
For my part I have done my best as an old and convinced Social-Democrat, and on some important points his opponent, to give a frank and unbiassed study of Clemenceau’s fine career. His very mistakes serve only to throw into higher relief his sterling character and the genius which has enabled him to command success. Read aright, his actions do all hang together, and constitute one complete whole. Comprising within himself the brilliant yet thorough capacity of his French countrymen, he has risen when close upon eighty to the height of the terribly responsible position he was forced to fill.
Therefore his efforts have been crowned with complete victory. Having forgotten himself in his work, the man Clemenceau will never be forgotten. He will stand out in history as the great statesman of the Great War.
And now that he and we have won—our aid, as none knows or appreciates better, having been absolutely indispensable to the French triumph—Clemenceau feels so deeply that France as a whole has shared in the great awakening that, having himself appointed the devout Catholic Marshal Foch generalissimo of the Allied armies, he, of all men, joined in the Te Deum of Thanksgiving in the Cathedral of Lille! The work he has done, the risks he has run, the unshakable determination he has displayed, have raised him high above all petty considerations of politics, creeds, classes, or conditions. Therefore he is the hero of France after her desperate struggle for national existence.