Clemenceau, the Man and His Time

by H. M. Hyndman

“Looking only at the towns,” he said, “you may think otherwise, though even there I consider the progress of Socialism is overrated. But the towns do not govern France. The overwhelming majority of French voters are country voters. France means rural France, and the peasantry of France will never be Socialists. Nobody can know them better than my family and I know them. Landed proprietors ourselves—my father’s passion for buying land to pay him three per cent. with borrowed money for which he had to pay four per cent. would have finally ruined him, but that our wholesome French law permits gentle interference in such a case—we have ever lived with and among the peasantry. We have been doctors from generation to generation, and have doctored them gratuitously, as I did myself, both in country and in town. I have seen them very close, in birth and in death, in sickness and in health, in betrothal and in marriage, in poverty and in well-being, and all the time their one idea is property; to possess, to own, to provide a good portion for the daughter, to secure a good and well dot-ed wife for the son. Always property, ownership, possession, work, thrift, acquisition, individual gain. Socialism can never take root in such a soil as this. North or south, it is just the same. Preach nationalisation of the land in a French village, and you would barely escape with your life, if the peasants understood what you meant. Come with me for a few weeks’ trip through rural France, and you will soon understand the hopelessness of Socialism here. It will encounter a personal fanaticism stronger than its own. Your Socialists are men of the town; they do not understand the men and women of the country.”

Now the same M. Clemenceau, after a long struggle side by side with the Socialist Party, first in the Dreyfus case and then in the anti-Clericalist and Separation of Church and State movement, finds that events have moved so fast, in a comparatively short space of time, that he is practically compelled to take two active Socialists into his own Cabinet. This, too, in spite of the fact that his action in calling in the troops at Courrières and insisting upon liberty for non-strikers or black-legs had turned the Socialist Party, as a party, definitely against him. No more significant proof of the advance of Socialist influence could well have been given. That it was entirely on the side of peace and a good understanding with Germany cannot be disputed.

But this did not make the Morocco affair itself any less complicated or threatening. Notwithstanding the Conference which Germany succeeded in having convoked at Algeciras, and the settlement arrived at in April, 1906, after a sitting of more than three months, the condition of Morocco itself had not improved. The fact that the Conference gave France the preference in the scheme of reforms proposed and in the political management of Morocco, against the efforts of Germany and Austria, suited neither the Sultan nor the Kaiser. Troubles arose of a serious character. The French considered themselves forced to intervene. The old antagonism broke out afresh. So much so that the French Premier spoke with more than his usual frankness in an interview with a German newspaper in November:—

“The Germans have one great fault. They show us extreme courtesy to-day and marked rudeness the day after. Before this Morocco affair, feeling in France had much improved. Many of us thought an understanding with Germany very desirable, and I freely admit your Emperor did a good deal to engender this feeling. Then, although we had dismissed Delcassé, the German press attacked us. It went so far as to declare that you were to extort from us the milliards of francs necessary to finance an Anglo-German war. . . . I do not want to have any war, and if we desire no war we necessarily wish to be on good terms with our neighbours. If, also, our relations are unsatisfactory, we are anxious to improve them. Such is my frame of mind. Moreover, if I have a chance of doing so, I shall be glad to act on these lines. Of course it is imperatively necessary for us to be always strong and ready for all eventualities. That, however, does not mean that we want war: quite the contrary. To wish for war would mean that we were mad. We could not possibly carry on a war policy. If we did, Parliament would soon turn us out, as it did Delcassé.”

Nothing could be clearer than that. And what made the pronouncement more important even than the strong but sober language used was the fact that, after as before the Conference of Algeciras, there was really a great disposition among certain sections in France to come to terms with Germany, rather than to strengthen the understanding with England. The expression of this opinion could be frequently heard among the people. It was fostered, even in the face of the German press campaign against the Clemenceau Administration, by powerful financial interests and by Clerical reactionary elements which were at this time less hostile to Germany than to England.

Throughout, however, Clemenceau stood for the Entente with the latter power as the only sound policy for his country. In this respect he was at one with the old statement of Gambetta that a breach of the alliance with England would be fatal to France. For Clemenceau, therefore, who had more than once in his career suffered so severely for his friendship for England, to state that an understanding with Germany had been seriously contemplated was a striking testimony to the immediate tendency of the time at that juncture. Whether the whole of this fitful friendliness on the side of Germany was simulated in order to foster that remarkable policy of steady infiltration of German interests, German management, and German goods into France, with far other than peaceful aims, is a question which can be much more confidently answered now than at the period when this peaceful offensive was going on. Enough to say that the Clemenceau Ministry was not, at first, at all averse from a permanent arrangement for peace with Germany, so long as English animosity was not aroused.

It must be admitted, nevertheless, that French policy in Morocco was, in the long run, quite contrary to the views on colonial affairs which Clemenceau had so strongly expressed and acted upon hitherto. Whatever excuse may be made on account of the proximity of Morocco to Algeria, and the necessity for France to protect her own countrymen and secure peace on the border, the truth remains that the French Republic was allowed by her statesmen to drift into what was virtually a national and capitalist domination of that independent country, backed up by a powerful French army. Clemenceau in his defence of these aggressions recites those familiar apologies for that sort of patriotism which consists in love of another people’s country and the determination to seize it, which we Englishmen have become so accustomed to in our own case. If we didn’t take it, somebody else would. If we leave matters as they are, endless disturbances will occur and will spread to our own territory. A protectorate must be established.

But a protectorate must have a powerful armed force behind it, or there can be no real protection. National capital is being invested under our peaceful penetration for the benefit of the protected people. The rights of investors must be safe-guarded. Our countrymen—in this instance Frenchmen—have been molested and even murdered by the barbarous folk whom we have been called upon to civilise. Such outrages cannot be permitted to go unpunished. Towns bombarded. Villages burnt. Peace re-established. More troops. “Security of life and property” ensured by a much larger army and the foundation of civilised Courts. Protection develops insensibly into possession. The familiar progression of grab is, in short, complete.

That is pretty much what went on with Morocco, whose entire independence as a sovereign State had only just been internationally acknowledged. What is more, it went on under M. Clemenceau’s own Government, consisting of the same peaceful politicians enumerated above. No doubt the action of Germany against France and French interests, on the one side, and the support by England of France and French interests, on the other, hastened the acceptance of the “white man’s burden” which her capitalists and financiers were so eager to undertake; if only to upset the schemes of the Brothers Mannesmann in the troublous Mohammedan Sultanate. But it is strange to find Clemenceau in this galley. For, unjustifiable as were the proceedings of Germany at the beginning and all through, it is now obvious that France, by her own policy, put arguments into the mouth of the peace-at-any-price and pro-German advocates; that also she played the game of the Kaiser and his unscrupulous agent Dr. Rosen. This worthy had been in the employment of Prince Radolin, who thus described him: “He is a Levantine Jew whose sole capacity is intriguing to increase his own importance.” It was disgraceful of Germany to make use of such a man to stir up Morocco against France. But it was certainly most unwise, as well as contrary to international comity, for France to put herself in the wrong by an aggressive policy in that State. Especially was this the case when such a terrible menace still overhung her Eastern frontier, and, as events proved, not a man could be spared for adventures in Morocco or elsewhere.

The war between rival Sultans and the attack upon the French settlers at Casablanca could not justify such a complete change of front. Jaurès, in fact, was in the right when he denounced the advance of General Amadé with a strong French army as a filibustering expedition, dangerous in itself and provocative towards Germany. But Clemenceau supported his Foreign Minister, Pichon, in the occupation of Casablanca, which had been heavily bombarded beforehand, and, on February 25th, declared that France did not intend to evacuate Morocco, neither did she mean to conquer that country. He had, he averred, no secrets, and, as in the matter of the anarchist rising in the South, said he was ready to resign. This was evidence of impatience, which was harmful at such a critical period in French home and foreign affairs. It looked as if Clemenceau had been so accustomed to turn out French Governments that he could not discriminate even in favour of his own! But the Chamber gave him a strong vote of confidence, and he remained at his post.