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.