Once when Clemenceau was prime minister before, the German government took offense at something that was said or done to one of its consuls in Morocco. The chancellor sent for the French ambassador in Berlin and demanded an apology. If it were not quickly forthcoming the German ambassador at Paris would be recalled. When this was transmitted to Clemenceau he sent for the German ambassador. He told him without any preamble that there would be no apology. “If you want your passports they are ready for you,” he added. Germany backed down.
Clemenceau’s diplomacy is like that. When the Austrian premier dared to put forth the slander that Clemenceau had sent a peace emissary to him the public clamored for a statement. The prime minister, on his way to the front, paused long enough to say over his shoulder to the interviewers: “Count Czernin lies.” And so it proved.
The greatest thing that Clemenceau has done was to unite the allied armies under a generalissimo. President Wilson wanted it done long ago. The wisest among the English wanted it done. But there were difficulties that seemed insuperable. Then came the almost fatal break in the British line last March. Clemenceau rushed up to the front, and what he said there has never been revealed. But it was to the point, and it smashed all the insuperable obstacles at one blow. Foch took command. The disaster was averted.
“I am not old,” said Clemenceau humorously to a friend. “I am just aged.” That is true. At a time when most men are ready to retire he is crowning his life’s work. He is the most thoroughly alive man in France and one of the greatest men in the world.
His newspaper, again L’Homme Libre, is still published, but Clemenceau’s name appears merely as founder. It is still a good newspaper, better in some respects than before, because one of the first things that Clemenceau did after taking office was to trim the censorship down to zero. They have a fairly free press in France now.
CHAPTER XXX
FROM ALL FOES, FOREIGN OR DOMESTIC
No statesman is so great that he is admired and supported by his entire community. Monsieur Clemenceau, the splendid prime minister of France, who has done so much in a few short months to unify his nation and to bring the allied armies together under one commander-in-chief, is no exception to the rule. He has with him in the Chamber of Deputies the solid vote of the right and center, the conservative and moderate vote, and he has also some of the left or radical vote. He is opposed by the radical socialists only.
Some of the radicals with whom I talked in France urged me, if I were to understand the French mind, to see and talk with the leader of the opposition, Albert Thomas. So one morning I went, by appointment, to the modest apartment in the neighborhood of the Chamber of Deputies which is the home of Monsieur Thomas, and the center of activities of the radical socialists of France.
Accompanying me was Mademoiselle St. René Taillandier of the French foreign office, a young woman of exceptional intellect and an accomplished linguist. Speaking English as well as her native French, Mademoiselle St. René Taillandier agreed to go with me to interview Monsieur Thomas, lest any shade of meaning in what he said to me might be lost.
Monsieur Thomas speaks no English, and I, of course, have an imperfect knowledge of French. Whenever I failed to understand some idiom or figure of speech I halted the conversation until it could be interpreted into English.