Clemenceau, the Man and His Time

by H. M. Hyndman

“That has created a hard situation for us. We are absorbed in this great task. We hope to bring it to a successful conclusion. The intervention of public opinion to-day in its own affairs, calmly, soberly, without a word of braggadocio, that is one of the best signs that France has yet given.

“The work we have done must be judged not by what we see but by the ideas, the spirit that we have breathed into the heart of all French citizens.”

After giving conclusive proof that in 1875, in the Schnäbele affair, as well as at Tangier, Morocco and Casablanca, Germany’s policy had been to wound, weaken and irritate France, Clemenceau wound up as follows:

“In all good faith we desire peace, we are eager for peace because we need it in order to build up our country. But if war is forced upon us we shall be there! The difficulty between Germany and ourselves is this: Germany believes the logical consequence of her victory is domination. We do not believe that the logical consequence of our defeat is vassalage. We are peaceful but we are not subjugated. We do not countersign the decree of abdication and downfall issued by our neighbours. We come of a great history and we mean to continue to be worthy of it. The dead have created the living: the living will remain faithful to the dead.”

This great speech was prophetic. Clemenceau knew what were the real intentions of Germany. It was this fact that made him so bitter against all who, honest, patriotic and self-sacrificing as they might be, were in favour of weakening France in the hour of her greatest danger. His warning against the financiers who were so solicitous that foreign policy should be guided by manipulators of loans, interest and discounts was also specially appropriate at a time when German influence was becoming dominant in many of the banks and pecuniary coteries of Paris. Such warnings were also timely in view of the strange hallucinations—or worse—which then dominated English politicians.

For it was in this same year that Lord Haldane, having reduced the English artillery, full of sublime confidence in the rulers of Germany, returned from Berlin to tell us through Mr. Asquith and Viscount Grey that never were the relations between Germany and England better! It was in this same year, too, that Mr. Lloyd George and the whole Radical Party were convinced that Great Britain might safely reduce her armaments on land and on sea, and the Unionists themselves scarcely dared to take up the challenge. It was in this same year, again, that nearly all the leaders of the Labour Party convinced themselves that the Germans had the best of good feeling towards France and England. Having been most artistically and hospitably “put through” in the Fatherland, they returned to England brimful of zeal against all who, knowing Germany and Germans well for some fifty years, could not take the asseverations of the Kaiser, or of his trusted friend Lord Haldane, at their face value: a value which this legal nobleman admitted a few years later he knew at the time to be illusory, and not in accordance with what he then declared to be the truth.

Clemenceau did not condescend to such shameless falsification. Whatever mistakes he made, from the Socialist and anti-Imperialist point of view, in matters of domestic importance, or concerning Morocco, where the danger of France from the other side of the frontier had to be considered, whether in office or out of it, he treated his countrymen with the utmost frankness.

So time passed on. The preparations of Germany were becoming more and more complete. The influence of the pan-German Junkers and their flamboyant young Crown Prince was becoming so powerful that the Kaiser felt his hand being forced before success in “the great design” appeared quite so certain as he would like it to be. The German army was largely increased, powerful war-vessels were being added to the navy. A policy was being pursued which roused fears of aggression. All through 1913 and the first months of 1914 Clemenceau in his new paper, L’Homme Libre, continued day after day his warnings and his injunctions to all Frenchmen. He had no mercy for those who unceasingly preached fraternity and disarmament for France when Germany, more powerful and increasingly more populous, was arming to the teeth.

“Such fraternity,” he said, at the unveiling of Scheurer-Kestner’s statue, “is of the Cain and Abel kind. Against the armed peace and armed fraternity with which Germany is threatening us nothing short of the most perfect military education and military organisation can be of any avail. All Europe knows, and Germany herself has no doubt whatever, that we are solely on the defensive. Her fury for the leadership of Europe decrees for her a policy of extermination against France. Therefore prepare, prepare, prepare. Here you see 870,000 men in the active army of Germany on a peace footing, better trained, better equipped, better organised than ours, as opposed to 480,000 Frenchmen on our side. Doesn’t that convince you? And Alsace-Lorraine at the mercy of such creatures as Schadt and Förstner? Observe, Germany has great projects in all parts of the world. It would be childish for us to complain. What is intolerable is her pretension to keep Europe in perpetual terror of a general war, instead of general international discussion of her claims. Every Frenchman must remember that, if Germany’s increasing armaments do impel her to war, the loss of the conflict would mean for us the subjugation of our race, nay, even the termination of our history. Meanwhile, with Alsace-Lorraine before me and the statue of Scheurer-Kestner now unveiled, I claim for us the right never to forget. To be or not to be, that is for us the question of the hour. Gambetta, after Sedan, called upon all Frenchmen in their day of deepest depression to rise to the level of their duty. He consecrated once again Republicans as the party of patriotic pride. France must live. Live we will!”