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Georges Eugene Benjamin Clemenceau

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"GEORGES EUGENE BENJAMIN CLEMENCEAU (1841-), French statesman ( see 6.482). When Clemenceau resigned the French premiership in July 1909, he had already played as great a part in his country's history as would have satisfied the energies and ambitions of most men. He might be driven from office; nothing could force him to give up the fearless use of his critical gifts as a speaker and as a writer. Out of office he remained a formidable figure. As a senator he did his utmost to defeat Raymond Poincare in the presidential election of 1913, and rallied against him all the forces of French radicalism. Clemenceau's candidate, Jules Pams, was adopted by the party caucus, but, in spite of Clemenceau, Poincare maintained his candidature at Versailles and was elected. There were many then who felt that at last" the Tiger "had been killed. On the boulevards, young students who, years afterwards, were to seek from Clemenceau all their hope and inspiration, paraded shouting" Down with Clemenceau! "The old fighter refused to accept this defeat. He founded l'Homme Libre, in which to carry on his warfare against Poincare. Every morning he poured a column of acid upon the new President of the republic, but soon found himself forced by patriotic honesty to support with all his strength the chief measure introduced to Parliament during the first year of Poincare's term of office - the Three Years' Military Service bill. He belonged to the generation of defeat, and, while in no way a revanchard, believed, in spite of his cynicism, that injustice cannot be permanent, and therefore desired to see his country strong. He, more than any other Frenchman, had studied and appreciated the meaning of German military preparations, and to him also belongs the honour of having been calmly consistent in warning France of what was to come and exhorting her to gird up her loins. He fought for the Three Years' Service bill with every weapon in his armoury, and it was he who opened the eyes of many Radical opponents of the measure to the danger of allowing considerations arising from the approaching elections to cloud their judgment on a matter of life or death to the country.

On the very eve of the World War in July 1914, speaking in the Senate, he insisted upon steps being taken to press forward at top speed the realization of the artillery programme. His war writings began long before war was declared, and there are some worthy of a place in history. Among them were the articles published by l'Homme Libre under the splendid titles of" Vouloir ou Mourir, " Pour Etre, "Triompher ou Perir." After the outbreak of hostilities he soon made acquaintance with the stupidity of rigorous censorship, and in Sept. 1914 his paper was suppressed on account of a violent attack upon the appalling inefficiency of army medical services. With characteristic irony and decision two days later he issued l'Homme Enchaine, a title which was kept until he himself took office on Nov. 16 1917. Each day the censorship had to forge fresh fetters for chaining him. With all the skill of a surgeon Clemenceau laid bare the faults which too frequently characterized French war-leading. Poincare was the butt for many of his bitterest jibes, and by the savagery of his opinion Clemenceau perhaps shut himself out of office for so long a time. He fought government after government in his paper, but there the censorship put buttons on his foils. His voice, however, could not be stilled in the private proceedings of the Senate. At the beginning of the war he was president of the foreign affairs committee, and when de Freycinet joined the Briand Ministry he also was elected president of the army committee of the Upper Chamber. These two posts gave him an observation post commanding the whole field of war affairs, and his criticisms and suggestions on these committees were invaluable. M. Caillaux, in his defence, Mes Prisons, states that throughout the war two policies fought in France for supremacy - his own tendency towards reconciliation with Germany, and peace without victory, to be made very largely at the expense of Great Britain; and the uncompromising faith of Clemenceau that France must fight to a finish, that it would be better for the world and for France that she should go down into dust rather than she should live in dishonourable partnership with injustice. Caillaux's analysis is right in its main perspective, and he is also correct in stating that it was in the spring of 1917 that Clemenceau won his victory. Then it was, without a doubt, that the clear revelation of the results of the doctrine of defeatism startled the people from the war-weariness into which they were slipping.

It was upon the wave of feeling then created that Clemenceau came into power. He had to fight not only Caillaux and his henchmen, who knew that with Clemenceau at the head of affairs their shrift would be short; he also had arrayed against him a legion of self-made enemies and the instinctive distrust of mediocre politicians for a man they knew to be their master. By July 1917, Clemenceau had driven Malvy from office by his charges of negligence in dealing with enemy propaganda. The position of the whole Ribot Ministry was made untenable, and the Painleve Government was the last barrier erected against Clemenceau. On Nov. 16 1917, he formed his Victory Cabinet. Nearly all the men in it were unknown, and Clemenceau could well have said: "Le Gouvernement, c'est moi." The story of his ministry is told under France (History).

A few facts and dates complete the record. He presided over the Paris Peace Conference, at which he was chief French delegate. On Feb. 19 1919 he was wounded by revolver shots fired at him as he was leaving his house in the rue Franklin, by a young anarchist, Emile Cottin (sentence of death, March 14, commuted to imprisonment for life). He allowed himself to be put forward as candidate for the presidency at the preliminary party caucus meeting on Jan. 16 1920, but, in view of the support given to M. Deschanel, he did not stand for election at the National Assembly of Versailles, and then retired from all public activity. He afterwards traveled in Egypt and India. In June 1921 he was given a doctor's degree at Oxford University.