The ministerial crisis brought about by the fall of Dupuy was as important as any under the Third Republic because of its consequences in the redistribution of parties. For about ten days President Loubet was unable to find a leader who could in turn form a cabinet. At last public opinion was astounded by the masterly combination made by Waldeck-Rousseau, Gambetta's former lieutenant, who of recent years had kept somewhat aloof from active participation in politics. He brought together a ministry of "défense républicaine," which its opponents, however, called a cabinet for the "liquidation" of the Dreyfus case. The old policy of "Republican concentration" of Opportunists and Radicals was given up in favor of a mass formation of the various advanced groups of the Left, including the Socialists.

Waldeck-Rousseau was a Moderate Republican, whose legal practice of recent years had been mainly that of a corporation lawyer, but he was a cool-headed Opportunist. He realized the ill-success of the policy of the "esprit nouveau," and saw the necessity of making advances to the Socialists, who more and more held the balance of power. He succeeded in uniting in his Cabinet Moderates like himself, Radicals, and, for the first time in French parliamentary history, an out-and-out Socialist, Alexandre Millerand, author of the famous "Programme of Saint-Mandé" of 1896, or declaration of faith of Socialism. Still more astounding was the presence as Minister of War, in the same Cabinet with Millerand, of General de Galliffet, a bluff, outspoken, and dashing aristocratic officer, a favorite with the whole army, but fiercely hated by the proletariat because of his part in the repression of the Commune.

The first days of the new Cabinet were stormy and its outlook was dubious. The task of reconciling such divergent elements, even against a common foe, seemed an impossibility, until at last the Radicals under Brisson swung into line. Such was the beginning of a Republican grouping which later, during the anti-Clerical campaign, was known as le Bloc, the united band of Republicans.

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; military officers like Roget, who had had nothing to do with the original trial, were allowed to take up the time of the court. Galliffet, though convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus, was unwilling to exert as much pressure as his colleagues in the Cabinet desired. It soon became evident that, regardless of the question involved, the issue was one between an insignificant Jewish officer on the one hand and General Mercier, ex-Minister of War, on the other. The judges were army officers full of caste-feeling and timorous of offending their superiors. Thus, on September 9, Dreyfus was a second time convicted, though with extenuating circumstances, by a vote of 5 to 2, and condemned to ten years' detention. This verdict was a travesty of justice, and a punishment fitting no crime of Dreyfus, since he was either innocent or guilty of treason beyond extenuation. The Ministry, perhaps regretting too late its excessive inertia, immediately caused the President to pardon Dreyfus, partly on the ostensible grounds that Dreyfus by his previous harsher condemnation had already purged his new one. This act of clemency was, however, not a legal clearing of the victim's honor, which was achieved only some years later.

During the turmoil of the Dreyfus affair the Cabinet was, it seemed to many, unduly anxious over certain conspirators against the Republic. The symptoms of insubordination in high ranks in the army, linked with the Clerical manœuvres, had encouraged the other foes of the Republic (spurred on by the Royalists), whether sincere opponents of the parliamentary régime like Paul Déroulède, or venal agitators such as the anti-Semitic Jules Guérin. But, certainly, above all objectionable were the proceedings of the Assumptionists, a religious order which had amassed enormous wealth, and which, by the various local editions of its paper la Croix, had organized a campaign of venomous slander and abuse of the Republic and its leaders.

The Government, having got wind of a project of the conspirators to seize the reins of power during the Rennes court-martial, anticipated the act by wholesale arrests on August 12. Jules Guérin barricaded himself with some friends in a house in the rue de Chabrol in Paris, and defied the Government to arrest him without perpetrating murder. The grotesque incident of the "Fort Chabrol" came to an end after thirty-seven days when the authorities had surrounded the house with troops to starve Guérin out and stopped the drains.

In November a motley array of conspirators, ranging from André Buffet, representative of the pretender the Duke of Orléans, to butchers from the slaughter-houses of La Villette, were brought to trial before the Senate acting as a High Court of Justice, on the charge of conspiracy against the State. After a long trial lasting nearly two months, during which the prisoners outdid each other in declamatory insults to their enemies, the majority were acquitted. Paul Déroulède and André Buffet were condemned to banishment for ten years and Jules Guérin to imprisonment for the same term. Two others, Marcel Habert and the comte de Lur-Saluces, who had taken flight, gave themselves up later and were condemned in 1900 and 1901, respectively, amid a public indifference which was far from their liking.

Thus the year 1899 had proved itself one of the most dramatically eventful in the history of the Republic. It was also to be one of the most significant in its consequences. For the new grouping of mutually jealous factions against a common danger had, in spite of the fiasco of the second Dreyfus case, shown a way to victory. And exasperation against the intrigues of the Clericals and the army officers was going to turn the former toleration of the "esprit nouveau" into active persecution, especially as the Socialists and Radicals formed the majority of the new combination.

In November, 1899, Waldeck-Rousseau laid before Parliament an Associations bill to regulate the organization of societies, which was intended indirectly to control religious bodies. The leniency of the Government hitherto and the commercial energy of many religious orders, manufacturers of articles varying from chartreuse to hair-restorers and dentifrice, had enabled them to amass enormous sums held in mortmain. The power of this money was great in politics and the anti-Clericals cast envious eyes on these vague and mysterious fortunes. There were in France at the time almost seven hundred unauthorized "congregations." Against the Assumptionists in particular the Government took direct measures early in 1900, such as legal perquisitions, arrests, and prosecution as an illegal association.

The campaign went on through the year 1900, the Exposition of that year helping to act as a partial truce. The expedition of the Allies to China to put down the Boxer rebellion also diverted attention. Waldeck-Rousseau was sincerely desirous of bringing about a pacification of feeling in the country, and he felt bitter practically only against the Jesuits and the Assumptionists. He even succeeded in carrying through Parliament an amnesty bill dealing with the Dreyfus case and destined to quash all criminal actions in process, whether of Dreyfusites or anti-Dreyfusites. The former fought the project vigorously on the ground that it opposed a new obstacle to ultimate discovery of the truth, but they were unsuccessful. Waldeck-Rousseau remained at heart, none the less, a believer in Dreyfus's innocence and in spite of his amnesty project, he could not always hide his true feelings. In consequence he offended his Minister of War, General de Galliffet, Dreyfusite as well, but tired of the struggle now that the Rennes trial had made the task of rehabilitation apparently hopeless. Galliffet resigned his office and was succeeded by General André, a politician soldier, who started out at once to purge the army drastically of its Clericalism.

Waldeck-Rousseau's Associations project was fairly mild. He had no desire for a violent break with the Vatican, and the wily and diplomatic Leo XIII probably so understood well enough in spite of his protests. But, as debate and discussion went on, the measure became more severe. Waldeck-Rousseau had originally planned a bill dealing with authorization and incorporation of associations in general, in which he refrained from any specific allusion to religious bodies of monks and nuns, thereby assimilating them with other groups. As finally voted and promulgated in July, 1901, the law made provisions for the privilege of association in general, but made the important additional stipulations that no religious order or "congregation" could be formed without specific authorization by law, that a religious order could be dissolved by ministerial decree, and that no one belonging to an unauthorized order could direct personally, or by proxy, an educational establishment, or even teach in one. Thus the enemies of the lay Republic who, under cover of the "esprit nouveau," and by years of manipulation of the feeding sources of army and navy officers, had hoped to grasp power, and had made a supreme effort at the time of the Dreyfus agitation, now saw themselves thwarted, and faced the prospect of severer treatment.

Matters had progressed even further than Waldeck-Rousseau himself perhaps desired. In the spring of 1902, new legislative elections took place for the renewal of the Chamber of Deputies. The policy of the Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry was endorsed by a sound majority, and yet at this moment of triumph, after the longest rule as Prime Minister of any hitherto in the history of the Republic, Waldeck-Rousseau resigned his post without an adverse vote. Undoubtedly the state of his personal health was partly responsible for his departure from office and he was destined not to live beyond 1904. The last important events of his administration were a visit of the Czar to France and a return visit of President Loubet to Russia.

Waldeck-Rousseau's successor as Prime Minister was Emile Combes, a strong foe of the Church. Combes had himself been a former theological student and had, in his youth, written a thesis on the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. He now had all the vindictiveness of one who burns what he formerly worshipped. Encouraged by the recent elections, he turned more and more against the Vatican and impelled by the more violent members of the Bloc, he drifted toward the rupture which his predecessor had tried to avoid. A committee of the different groups supporting the Cabinet, called the "délégation des gauches," had in time been instituted to formulate policies with the Prime Minister, who often had to obey it instead of guiding. Waldeck-Rousseau had intended not to apply his law retroactively. He had planned to spare educational establishments already in existence before July, 1901, when his measure went into operation, and had winked at lack of compliance on the part of many others. Combes applied the letter of the law ruthlessly. Amid public protestations and disturbances he closed a large number of these unauthorized schools; firstly, those which had actually been opened without permission since the promulgation of the law, then the many schools which were older than the law. In so doing he was called a persecutor, because the directors of the schools declared that they had allowed the time limit of application for authorization to go by, only through the understanding with the previous Administration that they were not to be interfered with. Now they could not help themselves.

Emboldened by success Combes next took up the applications of the congregations which had duly followed the law and were seeking authorization. By decree, as was his right, he first promptly closed unlicensed schools of recognized orders. Then came the applications of orders seeking authorization. Legal procedure demanded laws to reject as well as laws to accept applications. A recommendation favored by the Government but rejected by the Chamber of Deputies would not go before the Senate. On the other hand, an unfavorable opinion of the Government ratified by the House would still have to go before the Senate. A way would thus be open for prolonged chicanery.

Combes cut matters short. He lumped fifty-four individual applications into three batches, teaching orders, preaching orders, and the commercial order of the Chartreux, manufacturers of the liqueur called "chartreuse." Then, presenting these batches of applications collectively instead of individually to the Chamber, he caused their rejection and proceeded to dissolve the orders and close their fifteen hundred establishments. Through the spring of 1903 there were turbulent scenes in consequence in various parts of France, the monks trying sometimes passive resistance, sometimes actual violence. In the reactionary districts the population attempted to stir up riots. Occasionally, even, a military officer whose duty it was to evict the monks refused to obey orders. But, nothing daunted, Combes went on, with the support of the Chambers, to reject a large mass of applications from teaching orders of women. Even Waldeck-Rousseau was led in time publicly to declare that he had never contemplated the transformation of his Associations law of 1901 from a measure of regulation to one of exclusion, nor the assumption by the State of expensive educational charges hitherto carried on by religious orders. At last the law of July, 1904, put a complete end to all kinds of instruction by religious bodies, thereby insuring, after a lapse of time for liquidation, the disappearance of all teaching orders.

These measures against the religious groups were, in spite of outcries of persecution, after all matters of internal administration. But, meanwhile, causes for direct dissension with the Vatican had arisen over questions involving the Concordat regulating the relations of Church and State.

The first dispute was about the method of appointing bishops. The Concordat gave to the Government the right of appointing bishops, subject to the papal ratification of the appointee's moral and theological qualifications. During the Third Republic the habit had grown up of mutual consultation before appointments were made, a practice which led the Vatican to assume that its initial influence was as great as that of the Government, and finally to make use of the formula nobis nominavit, or nominaverit, as though the Government merely proposed a candidate subject to the Vatican's free right to accept or to reject. The keen-scented Combes took an early opportunity to raise this issue by making certain appointments to bishoprics without previously consulting the Vatican. In the midst of the discussions Leo XIII died in July, 1903, and was succeeded by Pius X, whose character was utterly different from that of his predecessor. His primitive faith saw in France the home of heretics like the Modernist, the Abbé Loisy; and his Secretary of State, the ultramontane Cardinal Merry del Val, was as hostile to France, as his predecessor Cardinal Rampolla had, on the whole, been well disposed to the "eldest daughter of the Church." Between Merry del Val and Combes no agreement was possible. So matters went from bad to worse.

In the autumn of 1903 the King of Italy made a visit to France, and in 1904 it was deemed advisable to have President Loubet return this visit to emphasize the new cordiality between France and Italy, the settlement of long-standing difficulties, and to cultivate as much as possible one member of the Triple Alliance. The Pope protested violently against this visit to his enemy in Rome and made it clear that he would refuse to see Loubet. The diplomatic crisis became acute and the French Ambassador to the Vatican was recalled.

Soon came a complete rupture over the treatment by the pontifical authorities of two French bishops, Geay of Laval and Le Nordez of Dijon. They had shown themselves loyal Republicans and had become the object of attack in their own dioceses until personal scandals were imagined or raked up against them. Combes took the part of the bishops and, to punish the Vatican for interfering with the French prelates, definitely broke off diplomatic relations in July, 1904, withdrawing even the chargé d'affaires who had been left after the departure of the ambassador.

For some time, plans for the separation of Church and State had been under discussion in a somewhat academic way by a committee or Commission of the Chamber, under the general guidance of Ferdinand Buisson and Aristide Briand. The latter had even drawn up a preliminary project. But Combes, in spite of his vehemence in words against the Church, hesitated to involve the Ministry. He knew that the country at large was fully satisfied with the maintenance of the Concordat and that some of his own colleagues in the Cabinet, as well as Loubet, preferred not to disturb it.

Suddenly a great scandal broke out. The enemies of the Ministry got hold of the fact that General André, through some of his subordinates in the War Office, was carrying on a regular system of espionage upon army officers suspected of luke-warm republicanism or of Clerical sympathies, and was using as spies members of Masonic lodges or even subordinate Masonic army officers throughout France.[16] These spies had filed innumerable notes or memoranda known as fiches, containing information, rumor, or scandal concerning the persons involved, their families and intimacies. The discovery that leading members of the Cabinet had been countenancing methods as reprehensible as those of the worst of their opponents, caused an uproar. The Cabinet seemed on the point of being overthrown when one of its enemies did it a great service. A wild and blatant anti-Ministerialist named Syveton rushed up to the Minister of War and struck him two blows in the face during a meeting of the Chamber. The effect of this deed was to cause a temporary reaction in favor of the Ministry, but also to draw Combes more to the Radicals, and he promptly brought forward his own governmental separation plan, which was considerably at variance with the Briand project. The respite was, however, only momentary, and, after sacrificing General André, Combes gave up the struggle and resigned in January, 1905, without being actually put in the minority.

It cannot be denied that there was a considerable deterioration in government during the régime of Combes. In attempting to thwart the Clerical Party he let himself lapse into methods as objectionable as theirs. His anti-clericalism breathed the spirit of persecution, as much as did the intrigues of the clergy during the early days of the Republic. He transformed Waldeck-Rousseau's plans for the regulation of religious orders into a measure of proscription. He countenanced underhanded intrigues, and allowed his Minister of War to undermine army discipline by his methods of political espionage almost as much as it had been undermined in the days of the supremacy of the Clericals. The concessions of the Ministers of War and of Marine to the Socialists and pacifists considerably weakened the efficiency of both army and navy. Combes's administration was pre-eminently one of self-seeking politicians.

Yet, on the other hand, certain very praiseworthy achievements may be registered to its credit. One of these was the act of General André, in 1903, instituting a new private investigation of the Dreyfus case. It resulted in the discovery of material sufficient to justify a new demand for revision, which the Cour de Cassation admitted in March, 1904. Another achievement was the rapprochement with England known as the Entente cordiale or friendly understanding, which following the new amity with Italy greatly strengthened France face-to-face with Germany. The Russian alliance had given France one definite European ally, and the cordiality with Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance, cleared the situation in the Mediterranean and on the frontier of the Alps. The Entente cordiale was engineered by Edward VII as a result of his visit to Paris in 1903. The accord of April, 1904, was really due to English as well as French fear of German aggression. It liquidated all the old contentions between England and France, one of which, the French Shore Dispute over Newfoundland fishing rights, dated back to the Treaty of Utrecht in the early eighteenth century. But, above all, France definitely gave up her Egyptian claims in return for freedom of action in Morocco guaranteed by England. For France was anxious to add Morocco to her African sphere of influence. A secret arrangement with Spain gave that country reversionary claims to certain parts of Morocco. By the agreement with England the bad blood caused by the Fashoda incident was wiped away, a new intimacy sprang up between "Perfidious Albion" and "Froggy," and through the natural drawing together of England and France's ally Russia, the Triple Entente came into being some years later, which was destined to face Germany and Austria in the Great European War.

Combes's successor as Prime Minister was a member of his own Cabinet, Maurice Rouvier. More moderate in views than Combes, he would have been content to let the Separation bill rest, but the Radicals were in the saddle and he let things take their course. The discussions over the project went on through most of the year 1905, under the guidance of the Minister of Worship, Bienvenu-Martin, and particularly of Aristide Briand, the rapporteur or spokesman for the Commission in the Chamber. The bill, again and again modified in a spirit of conciliation and leniency under the guidance of Briand, finally resulted, as promulgated on December 9, in a sincere effort for a compromise between different views on religion. It showed a desire, since Church and State were to be divorced, to treat the former fairly. Provision was made, when the budget for religious purposes should be suppressed, for the legal inventory of ecclesiastical property, the pension of superannuated clergy, and the formation of legal corporations to insure public worship (associations cultuelles). It must be remembered that the new measure applied quite as much to the Protestants and to the Jews as to the Catholics. Before the separation the Protestant pastors and the Jewish rabbis were maintained by the State no less than the Catholic clergy. Their numerical insignificance made them of little importance in the general combat over the Clerical question. Nor could they fairly be accused of intrigue against the Republic.

The year 1905 is noteworthy for two other important events. One was the reduction of the term of compulsory military service from three to two years. This measure was carried through largely under the auspices of General André and proved an over-dangerous concession to the anti-militarists and pacifists, since it was destined so soon to be repealed. The other was the sensational diplomatic dispute with Germany over Morocco, which resulted at first for France in a worse humiliation than Fashoda.

Germany under Bismarck had encouraged the numerous French colonial schemes, as a way of keeping her busy abroad and of diverting her thoughts from Alsace-Lorraine. 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 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. On March 31, Emperor William landed at Tangier and proclaimed that his visit was to the Sultan as an "independent sovereign." Germany also called for the convocation of an international meeting to regulate the Moroccan question. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Delcassé, objected to the thwarting of his plans, but because of the deterioration of the army and navy and the lack of hoped-for Russian support, Rouvier was obliged under German threats to drop him from his Cabinet and to agree to the convocation of the Conference of Algeciras.[17]

CHAPTER IX

THE ADMINISTRATION OF ARMAND FALLIÈRES

February, 1906, to February, 1918

The international conference for the regulation of the Moroccan question met at Algeciras in southern Spain, in January, 1906. Twelve powers participated, including the United States. The negotiations were prolonged until the end of March owing to the unconciliatory German attitude, and resulted in an arrangement which the Germans looked upon as totally unsatisfactory to themselves. In the shaping of the general results the United States had considerable influence. The agreement put out of discussion the sovereignty of the Sultan, the integrity of the empire, and the principle of commercial freedom, and was largely devoted to the question of the establishment of a state bank and the organization of the police in international ports of entry. In the bank France was to have special privileges, and the police was to be under the supervision of France and Spain. Germany was eliminated.

In the midst of the uncertainty over the outcome of the Conference two important events took place in France, the second of which came near seriously weakening the French position. These were the election of a successor to President Loubet and the downfall of the Rouvier Ministry.

M. Loubet's term expired in February and he did not desire re-election. The two chief candidates were Armand Fallières and Paul Doumer. M. Fallières was an easy-going, good-natured, and well-meaning but second-rate statesman. Doumer was far more brilliant and vigorous, but was accused of self-seeking and was thought a less safe person to elect. Unfortunately, M. Fallières, when chosen, had his master, and was largely under the control of Clemenceau.

Meanwhile the almost unprincipled vacillation of M. Rouvier and his spineless policy caused increased dissatisfaction to the Chamber. During the discussion of a riotous episode connected with the enforcement of the Separation law, which had resulted in the death of a man, Rouvier was overthrown. He was succeeded by a colorless person, Sarrien, who included Clemenceau in his Cabinet as Minister of the Interior. The latter gradually pushed his chief aside and finally replaced him before the end of the year as Prime Minister.

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. It was a departure from the policy of the Bloc, though to conciliate the advanced parties he created the new Ministry of Labor and put M. Viviani, a Socialist, in charge of it. In practice, Clemenceau's policy was that of one determined to stay in office, showing alternately conciliation and severity, explaining his actions to the Chamber often with a flippancy which seemed out of place and did not help the prestige of parliamentary government.

Apart from the diplomatic tension with Germany, which was not settled by the Act of Algeciras, the history of the Fallières Administration is largely taken up with the final disposition of the religious controversy and with labor questions. 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.

In 1906 the Dreyfus case was at last settled. The Cour de Cassation finally annulled the verdict of the Rennes court-martial. In consequence Dreyfus was restored to the army with the rank of Major which he would normally have reached had it not been for his great ordeal. Colonel Picquart, to whom more than to any one he owed his rehabilitation, who had been driven from the army in 1898, was now made Brigadier-General. Promoted a few weeks later to Major-General, he became Minister of War in Clemenceau's Cabinet. The remains of Emile Zola were also transferred to the Pantheon. Such were the dramatic changes wrought in half a dozen years.

The troubles over the application of the law for the disestablishment of the Church lasted more than two years. The Vatican was determined to make itself a martyr. It would undoubtedly have been glad to see a forcible closing of the churches in order to cause a reaction in its favor. Moreover, it objected to the diminution of priestly power and the participation of the laity as prescribed in the formation of the new associations cultuelles. The Ministry, and particularly Briand, were just as determined not to give it an opportunity to raise the cry of persecution.

The first opportunity for a conflict came when the Government tried to make inventories of religious property, including valuables. This measure was for the protection of the Church, but the Clericals chose to call it inquisitorial and a first step to confiscation. In some parts of France armed resistance, often systematically prepared, was made to the authorities, army officers again occasionally refused to carry out orders, and on March 6, at Bœschepe, a man was killed. It was this incident which caused the downfall of the Rouvier Cabinet.

It was the policy of M. Briand, entrusted with the application of the new law, to employ the most conciliatory means face to face with the Vatican, determined to be persecuted. As a matter of fact the French bishops, after plenary consultation, had decided by a considerable majority, to accept the law in a good spirit, with reservations as to its justice, and to organize the associations cultuelles. Suddenly the Pope intervened by an encyclical directed against any such acceptance, and prescribed a continuation of the contest. These orders the bishops felt constrained to obey.

Therefore, at the advent of the Clemenceau Cabinet in October, 1906, M. Briand had achieved nothing but compulsory inventories. He got Parliament to allow the legality of the proposed religious organizations under the Associations Law of 1901 or under the general law of 1881 on public meetings, as well as under the special legislation of 1905. Again the Holy See refused to obey, and ordered the clergy to continue their occupancy of the churches, but to refrain from any legal declaration or registration whatsoever. Then M. Briand did away with the declaration. So the contest went on without agreement until it finally lapsed. The clergy continued to occupy the churches, but without legal claim to them, under the law of 1881 on public meetings, amended by the law of March 28, 1907, suppressing the formality of a declaration. The Catholic Church was stripped, by its own unwillingness to help organize holding bodies, of all its possessions. By the good-will of the Government it continued to occupy the religious edifices, but the maintenance and repair of these was dependent on the good-will of the commune or administrative division in which the churches were situated. On the other hand, nothing has materialized of the prophesied religious persecutions, civil war, and martyrdoms.

Apart from the annoyances caused by the separation of Church and State, the history of the Clemenceau Ministry deals largely with labor disturbances and social unrest. This was partly due to parliamentary demagogy. A succession of weak and ineffective ministries had been followed by Clemenceau's incoherencies and alterations of policy, though it remained consistently Radical and not socialistic. The Ministers were often at loggerheads (even Clemenceau and Briand over the Separation bill), and the Deputies were often mediocre politicians, quick to vote themselves an increase of salary, but dilatory in other achievements. The growth of socialism, with its theories of pacifism and international brotherhood, encouraged the anti-militarists. The brilliant leader Jaurès openly advocated the abolition of the army and the creation of a national militia. Some anti-militarists, like Hervé, carried their theories beyond all bounds and rhetorically talked of dragging the national flag in the mire. Meanwhile the political methods in the past of men like André in the War Department and Camille Pelletan in the Navy had weakened those services, as Delcassé had found to his cost in the controversy with Germany. The battleship Iéna blew up in March, 1907, there was a suspicious fire at the Toulon Arsenal, and many other things disquieted people.

The Government tried to cater to the labor parties, brought forward plans for an income tax and for old-age pensions, and carried through a law making compulsory one day of rest out of seven for workingmen. Especially active were the efforts of the syndicalists and the organizers of the anarchistic Confédération générale du travail, or "C.G.T.," to promote every contest between capital and labor and to bring about, if possible, a general strike of all labor. There were strikes of miners, longshoremen, sailors, electricians among others. Even more alarming was the formation of unions, affiliated with the C.G.T., among state employees such as school teachers and postmen, and efforts to disorganize the public service. These different movements Clemenceau met with his customary seesaw of friendliness and harshness, and the Government was usually victorious. Not less troublesome but somewhat more picturesque was the quasi-revolutionary movement, in 1907, of the wine-makers of the South, driven to desperation by overproduction and low prices, attributed to the competition of adulterated wines. The municipalities where these disturbances occurred were often in sympathy with the creators of disturbance, not only in small towns, but in large places like Béziers, Perpignan, Narbonne, and Carcassonne. Municipal officials resigned or refused to carry out their duties, and some regiments, made up of men recruited from one of the districts, mutinied. The troubles at last quieted down.

In the beginning of 1909 an important agreement was signed with Germany which seemed to promise an end to the long disputes over Morocco. The Moroccan question had continued to dominate French foreign policy even after Algeciras and that conference had not ended the commercial rivalries of the two countries. In March, 1907, a Frenchman, Dr. Mauchamp, was murdered by natives at Marrakesh and the French in reply occupied Ujda near the Algerian frontier. In July, after the murder of some European workmen at Casablanca, the French sent a landing corps. In 1908 the Sultan Abd-el-Aziz, a friend of the French, was overthrown by a rival, Muley-Hafid, egged on by the Germans. These also raised a dispute over some deserters from the French Foreign Legion at Casablanca, who had taken refuge at the German Consulate and whom the Germans claimed as their subjects. For a moment war clouds seemed to appear on the horizon until dissipated by mutual expressions of regret and after a reference to the Hague Tribunal, which, on the whole, justified the French. It was, therefore, good news for Europe to hear of the agreement of February, 1909, which acknowledged the predominance of French political claims, and tried to facilitate economic co-operation instead of rivalry between France and Germany. Unfortunately, this agreement was destined to prove ineffective.

The Clemenceau Cabinet lasted until July, 1909. During a discussion on the Navy, Clemenceau and Delcassé had an altercation as to their relative responsibilities for the French surrender to Germany in 1905 when Delcassé was driven from the Rouvier Ministry. The Chamber sided with Delcassé and Clemenceau discovered that his sarcasm had overreached itself. The new Premier was Briand, the Socialist and former bugbear of the moneyed classes, who had shown by his management of the Separation bill the abilities of a true statesman and who became more and more moderate in his views under the increasing responsibilities of power.

The history of the Briand Ministry was largely taken up by internal questions and the elections of May, 1910, for the renewal of the Chamber of Deputies. To propitiate the electorate the expiring Parliament passed a law providing old-age pensions for workingmen. The elections left the Radicals and the Socialistic Radicals (as opposed to the Socialists) on the whole masters of the situation, but the general parliamentary instability continued to prevail. The country felt the reaction. In the autumn of 1910 far-reaching railway strikes broke out, resulting in violence and injury to railway property or sabotage. Briand met the difficulty energetically by mobilizing the employees still subject to military duty, and making them perform their work under military orders. The act of "dictatorship" was approved by the Chamber, but Briand went through the ceremony of resigning and accepting the mission to form a new Cabinet. It proved not very homogeneous and withdrew in February, 1911. The Monis Cabinet, of more advanced Socialistic-Radical principles, lasted only a few months and faced new disturbances with wine-producers. This time the trouble was in the East, where many were dissatisfied with the artificial limitation of districts entitled to produce wines labelled "champagne." The Socialistic-Radical Ministry of Joseph Caillaux (June, 1911) encountered a new and dangerous crisis in the relations with Germany.

The mutual agreement between the two countries for the economic development of Morocco had, through financial rivalries, not worked well. There was also friction over similar attempts for the development of the French Congo. In this state of affairs, the French sent a military expedition to Fez in the early summer of 1911 for the ostensible purpose of protecting the Sultan from attack by rebels and of relieving the French military mission. The Germans, backed up, indeed, by the French anti-militarist press, declared that this was a mere pretext for encroachment. Spain also took the opportunity of asserting its rights to parts of the North in accordance with its reversionary claims by the Treaty of 1904. Thereupon Germany declared that the agreements of Algeciras and of 1909 had been nullified by France and demanded compensations. The gunboat Panther suddenly appeared in the port of Agadir (July 1) and the Germans began to call for their share in the partition of Morocco.

Difficult negotiations were carried on between France and Germany through the summer of 1911, and at moments the two countries were on the very brink of war. The English Government backed up France. Lloyd George and Premier Asquith made public declarations to that effect. French capitalists also began calling in their funds invested in Germany and a financial crisis threatened that country.

Thus brought to terms the Germans became more moderate in their demands, and it was finally possible to reach a compromise, unsatisfactory to both parties. Germany definitely gave up all political claim to Morocco and acknowledged France as paramount there. On the other hand, a territorial readjustment was made in the Congo by which Germany added to the Cameroons about two hundred and thirty thousand square kilometres of land with a million people, and the new frontiers made annoying salients into the French Congo. The treaty was signed in November, 1911, but the Pan-Germanists were angry at any concessions to France, the Colonial Minister resigned, and the Emperor, who had thrown his influence on the side of peace, lost much prestige for a while. On the other hand, the French were correspondingly dissatisfied at the losses in the Congo. The opponents of the Prime Minister, Caillaux, had often taunted him with too close a relation between his official acts and his private financial interests. They now accused him of tricky concessions to Germany in connection with the Congo adjustments. M. Caillaux denied in the Chamber that he had ever entered into any private dealings apart from the negotiations of the ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, Clemenceau asked the Foreign Minister, M. de Selves, point-blank if the French Ambassador at Berlin had not complained of interference in the diplomatic negotiations. M. de Selves refused to answer, thus implicitly giving the lie to M. Caillaux. The consequence was a cabinet crisis and the resignation of the Ministry (January, 1912).

The upshot of the Agadir crisis was increased irritation between France and Germany and the feeling in each country that the other was seeking trouble. The French were now convinced that, some day or other, war would inevitably result and the nation dropped its strong pacifist tendencies and rallied to the army. The Germans were, above all, furious against the English, whom they considered responsible for their humiliation.

So far as Morocco was immediately concerned, the French took steps to develop their new privileges. In March, 1912, they imposed a definite protectorate on the Sultan Muley-Hafid and soon replaced him by his brother Muley-Yussef. They came to an agreement with Spain as to the latter's claims in the North and entrusted to General Lyautey the administrative and military reorganization of the country. The pacification of the hostile tribes was not an easy task and went on laboriously through 1912 and 1913.

After the downfall of M. Caillaux, Raymond 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.

CHAPTER X

THE ADMINISTRATION OF RAYMOND POINCARÉ

February, 1913

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

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

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

The opposition to the Cabinet was virulent. There were now two great groupings of the chief political parties.[18] The Radicals and Socialistic Radicals, under the name of "Unified Radicals" waged war against the President and the Ministry. They were under the inspiration of men like Clemenceau and the active 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 Barthou Cabinet had been overthrown early in December, 1913, after a vote on a government loan. President Poincaré had to call in a Radical Cabinet led by Gaston Doumergue, the programme of which Ministry was, after all, less "advanced" than the Pau programme, especially as to the three-years bill. M. Caillaux, the master-spirit of the Radicals, was the Minister of Finance and the object of the hostility of the Moderates. They claimed that he used his position to cause speculation at the Stock Exchange, and accused him of "selling out" to Germany in the settlement after Agadir. The Figaro, edited by Gaston Calmette, began a violent campaign. Among the charges was that during the prosecution in 1911 of Rochette, a swindling promoter, the then Prime Minister Monis, now Minister of Marine, had, at Caillaux's instigation, held up the prosecution for fraud, during which delay Rochette had been able to put through other swindles.

In the midst of the public turmoil over these charges Caillaux's wife went to Calmette's editorial offices and killed him with a revolver. Caillaux resigned and, the Rochette case having come up for discussion in the Chamber, when Monis denied that he had ever influenced the law, Barthou produced a most damaging letter. A parliamentary commission later decided that the Monis Cabinet had interfered to save Rochette from prosecution.

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

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

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

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

So far as the outbreak of the war in 1914 is concerned, France stands with a clear conscience. She had nothing to do with the disputes between Austria and Serbia, or between Austria, Germany, and Russia. Once war proved inevitable France faithfully accepted the responsibilities of the Russian alliance. Against France, Germany was an open aggressor. Germany's strategic plans for the quick annihilation of France, before attacking Russia, are well known to the world. Everybody is aware how scrupulously France avoided every hostile measure, and, during the critical days preceding the war, withdrew all troops ten kilometres from the frontier to prevent a clash. The Germans were obliged, in order to justify their advance, to invent preposterous tales of bombs dropped by aeroplanes near Nuremberg or of the violation of Belgium neutrality by French officers in automobiles. France had no idea of invading Belgium. All the French strategic plans aimed at the protection of the direct frontier, and they were dislocated by the dishonest move of Germany through Belgium.

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

Since Agadir it is true that France, conscious of the constantly provocative attitude of Germany, had seen the folly of plans for disarmament. Love for the army had grown again, through realization of its necessity. But no nation ever looked forward with more horror and dread to military conflict than the French. They had been the last victims of a great European war, of which the memories were still alive. However much the loss of Alsace-Lorraine rankled in their hearts, they knew too well the madness of war to seek it again. A new generation had grown up reconciled to fate and willing to let bygones be bygones.

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

Some people, reading the annals of forty-four years since the Franco-Prussian War, have been disposed to sneer at France. Some have called the country degenerate because of its small birth-rate, its fiction sometimes brutal, sometimes neurotic, its inefficient Parliament, its vindictive political and religious contests. Such critics should remember that the French Government is the result of tactical compromise in presence of the Monarchical Party. Nobody denies that it might be improved. As to religious persecution, Americans might remember their own righteous feelings toward fellow citizens with "hyphenated" allegiance, when they rebuke the French for fighting vast organizations working against their Government under foreign orders.

In 1914 France, bearing on her shoulders proportionably the greatest burden of all the Allies, presented to the world a spirit of firmness, unity, and national resolve that won the admiration of neutral nations. Religious persecution and clerical manœuvre were alike put aside. France forgot all lassitude and discouragement. Atheist, Protestant, and Catholic felt a great wave of spiritual as well as of patriotic fervor, and took as symbol of love of country the heroic peasant girl of Lorraine, Jeanne d'Arc, who, coming from the people and leading the nation's army, sought to drive from the soil its foes and invaders.