CLEMENCEAU AND GERMANY
Clemenceau flung himself out of office in an unreasonable fit of
temper. A man of his time of life, at sixty-eight years of age, with
his record behind him, had no right to have any personal temper
at all, when the destinies of his country had been placed in his
hands. Probably he would admit this himself to-day. But, during his
exceptionally strenuous period of office, he had, as we have seen, more
than once shown an impulsiveness and even an irritability that were not
consonant with his general disposition. Throughout, there appeared to
be an inclination on his part to take opposition and criticism too much
to heart. As if, in fact, the great Radical overthrower of opportunism
was annoyed at being compelled, as all administrations must be, to
adopt to some extent a policy of opportunism himself. His outburst
against all compromise with the Church was one instance of this.
His uncalled-for resignation on account of M. Delcassé's attack was
another. This might well have been the end of his official experiences.
Certainly no one would have ventured to predict that eight years later
would come the crowning achievement of his remarkable career. His own
remark on leaving office was not calculated to encourage his personal
adherents or to give his country confidence in his leadership. "I came
in with an umbrella, I go out with a stick," was all very well as the
epigram of a journalist: it was too flippant a remark for a serious
statesman such as Clemenceau had shown himself to be. But the time was
not far off when all his main policy, as man of affairs, politician,
and as publicist would be overwhelmingly justified. As we have seen,
Clemenceau was all his life strongly opposed to colonial expansion.
His action with regard to Morocco, apparently so contrary to this,
arose from an even stronger motive, his desire to build up French
defence against Germany on every side.
But his general distrust of colonisation by conquest in Egypt, China,
Madagascar, and elsewhere had been based upon France's need for using
all her strength and all her resources to build up the power of the
French Republic within the limits of France. This is true of all
nations at a period when the power of man over nature is increasing
so rapidly in every department: perhaps, properly understood, in
agriculture most of all, when science is capably applied to production
on the land. That is to say, that even in countries such as England,
where the cry of over-population is so frequently raised, and where the
cult of colonisation and emigration has been exalted to the position of
a fetish, it would be far better to devote attention to the creation
of wealth at home than to the development of waste lands, however
fertile, abroad. Concentration of population, given adequate regulation
of employment in the interests of the whole people, and attention to
the requirements of space, air and health, is not only devoid of danger
but is an element in national prosperity--"nothing being more plain
than that men in proper labour and employment are capable of earning
more than a living," as John Bellers wrote more than two hundred years
ago; and "a nation wherein are eight millions of people is more than
twice as rich as the same scope of land wherein are but four," as Petty
wisely stated, about the same date.
If this was so obviously true at the end of the seventeenth century, it
is tenfold, not to say a hundredfold, more certain in the twentieth,
having regard to the marvellous discoveries and inventions since made
and still but partially applied in every direction. But France is the
land where such considerations are most decisive in dealing with the
basis of national polity. France has enormous advantages in regard
to soil, climate, the industrious habits and skill of her people,
and the consequent monopoly on the world market of whole branches
of commerce, where taste and luxury have to be gratified. Moreover,
she possesses a source of income unparalleled in Europe and scarcely
worth noting elsewhere, except in the case of Italy. I calculate that
France receives, one year with another, from visitors who come thither,
merely to see and to spend, an amount, by way of profit, of not less
than seventy millions sterling. This large sum alone, if used for
enhancing the productiveness of the French soil and French industry
generally, would immensely benefit the people in every respect. French
thrift, again, had piled up out of the products of industry immense
pecuniary accumulations. There could have been no better investment of
these funds possible than the improvement of the defences of France
against invasion, the completion of her railway and canal system,
the development of her mines, so greatly coveted by her aggressive
neighbour, the concentration of her military and naval forces at home,
instead of scattering any portion of them abroad, the expenditure
upon thorough education and scientific agricultural and industrial
experiments. All this even Imperialist Frenchmen can see now.
So with regard to Russia. The alliance of the French Republic with the
Empire of Russia gave France, apparently, a better position in Europe,
the pusillanimous and short-sighted English statesmen having rejected
an alliance which was afterwards forced upon Great Britain when wholly
unprepared for war. Here also Clemenceau's views were justified by
the event. The close connection between a democratic Republic and an
autocratic Empire put France in an unenviable moral position before
the world. More materially serious than this ill-fated combination,
ethically, was the necessity imposed upon the French of lending
continually to Russia, until the total amount of the Russian loans held
in France amounted to many hundreds of millions sterling.
Such huge sums, again, would have been far more advantageously spent
at home than in building strategical and other railways, and financing
gold and other mines, in the vast Muscovite Empire. Financiers gained
largely by these loans. But the peasants and small bourgeoisie
of France were unknowingly dependent for their interest upon a
poverty-stricken agricultural population, which could not possibly
continue to pay the large sum due yearly on this amount to their
Western creditors without utter ruin. Thus unsound finance followed
hard on the heels of more than doubtful policy, and France was the
weaker and the poorer for both.
This was all the more fatal to real French interests, inasmuch that,
at the same time, the home population of the Republic was slowly
decreasing, while the population of her threatening rival, Germany,
was steadily growing, and the wealth of the German Empire, both
agricultural and mineral, was likewise rapidly expanding with every
decade. Consequently, the position of France was becoming more and
more precarious, and the relative strength on the two sides of the
frontier less and less favourable to the Republic. It must be admitted,
under such circumstances, that those who favoured a Russian alliance,
in spite of all its manifest drawbacks, had a great deal to say for
themselves. But that Great Britain should have failed to see that
the declension of French power was a peril to herself, long before
the _Entente_ was brought about by Edward VII, and that a pacific
understanding alone was not sufficient to ensure the maintenance of
peace, is a truly marvellous instance of the blindness of British
statesmanship! Only the phenomenal good luck that has so far attended
the United Kingdom hindered our governing classes from landing this
country, as well as the French, in overwhelming disaster. How narrow
the escape was is not yet fully understood.
Clemenceau was at all times in favour of an Anglo-French offensive and
defensive alliance, and he clung to this policy in the face of the most
serious discouragement from abroad and, as has been seen, at the cost
of vitriolic misrepresentation and hatred at home. It was in vain,
however, that for many years he preached this political doctrine. Even
when the relations between the two countries were greatly improved, the
very proper Liberal and Radical and Labour dislike in England of the
entanglement with Czarist Russia rendered the close combination which
seemed so essential to all who, like Clemenceau himself, knew what was
really going on in Germany, exceedingly difficult to bring about.
The terrific war has thrown into high relief facts always discernible
except by those who would not see. Here Clemenceau's own bitter
experience of the war of 1870-71, and his yearly visits to Austria,
enabled him to form a clearer conception of the real policy of Germany
and the ruthless brutality which underlies modern Teutonic culture
than any of his contemporaries. It is no longer doubted that the
Franco-German war was welcomed by Prince Bismarck, and made inevitable
by him, in order to crush France and ensure German military supremacy
in Europe. Bismarck himself made no secret of the manner in which he
had deceived Benedetti at Ems by a forged telegram; and the refusal of
the Germans to make a reasonable peace with France immediately after
Sedan was conclusive evidence of what was really intended. During the
campaign, also, the Germans resorted to the same hideous methods of
warfare on land, on a smaller scale, which have horrified the entire
civilised world, on land and on sea, during the great war which
commenced forty-four years later.
All this Clemenceau himself saw. While, therefore, in his speeches
and writings, he never shut out the possibility that the people of
Germany, rising superior to their militarist rulers, might come to
terms for permanent peace with the people of France, he at the same
time cherished no illusions whatever as to the policy of those military
rulers, and the small probability that German Social-Democracy would be
able to thwart the designs of the German aggressionists. Unfortunately,
in France, as in Great Britain, a considerable section of all classes,
but especially of the working class, represented by Labour Unions and
Socialists, would not believe that at the end of the nineteenth and
beginning of the twentieth century any great civilised power could
be harbouring such designs as those attributed to Germany. Vaillant,
for example, who, like Clemenceau, had seen the horrors inflicted upon
France in the war of 1870, was vehement on that side. So enamoured was
he of peace that he never lost a chance of assuring Germany that under
no circumstances would the French Republic go to war. He advocated a
general strike, in all countries affected, should a rupture of peace be
threatened; entirely regardless of the fact that the Social-Democrats
themselves had declared that such a strike was absolutely impossible in
Germany itself.
The same with Jaurès. Not only did this great Socialist believe that
peace might be maintained by concessions to Germany; but, although
in favour of "the Armed Nation" for France herself, for the purpose
of defending her against a German invasion, he actually came over to
London and addressed a great meeting, called by anarchist-pacifists who
were all strongly in favour of the reduction of the British fleet. That
fleet which, as Bebel himself put it, was the only counterbalance in
Europe for Germany herself against Prussian militarism and Junkerdom,
Jaurès spoke of with regret as a provocation to war! Germany could, in
fact, always rely in all countries upon a large number of perfectly
honest pro-Germans, and a lesser proportion who had purely financial
considerations in view, to oppose any policy which was directed
against the spread of German domination. This was the mania of
anarchist-pacifism and anti-patriotism which Clemenceau, both in and
out of office, did his utmost to expose and resist. Honesty of purpose
could be no excuse whatever for fatuity of action.
Clemenceau, therefore, from the moment when he gave up the Premiership,
lost no chance of inculcating the need for vigorous preparation. France
must be ready to meet a German assault by land and by sea. When the
time came she was not ready on either element, and without the help in
finance, in munitions, in clothing, and by arms, on land and on the
ocean, at once given by England--whom Clemenceau always upheld as the
friend of the Republic--France would have been overrun and crushed,
before she could possibly have obtained aid from elsewhere. In spite of
the Franco-German agreement of 1909, the danger of such an attack in
1911 was very great: so much so that war was then commonly expected,
and was only averted because Germany thought she would be in a more
commanding position to carry out her predetermined policy three or
four years later. The Franco-German Convention relating to Morocco, of
November 4th, 1911, after the Agadir difficulty, was no better than a
pretence. It was not intended, in good faith, to ensure a permanent
peace, so far as Germany was concerned. This Clemenceau felt sure of,
though the treaty was by no means unfavourable to France. He was ready
to make all sacrifices, however mortifying, provided only a genuine
treaty of peace and understanding between the two peoples could be
secured. But this must not be done blindly. It must be an integral part
of a serious national policy.
Therefore, speaking in the Senate on the 12th February, 1912, in
opposition to the treaty with Germany about Morocco, he went on: "We
shall make every effort to give fresh proofs of our goodwill--we have
given enough and to spare already during the past forty years--in order
that the consequences of this treaty may fructify under conditions
worthy of the dignity of the two peoples; but we must know what the
other party to the treaty is about, what are his intentions, what he
thinks, says, proposes to do, and what signs of goodwill _he_ likewise
has vouchsafed. That is the question we must have the courage to ask
ourselves. This question I deal with at my own risk and peril, without
being concerned as to what I have to say, because I have at heart no
bad feeling, no hatred, to use the right word, towards the German
people. I want no provocation; firmly resolved as I am to do nothing
to sacrifice a vestige, however trifling, of our capacity to win if
attacked, I am equally convinced that peace is not only desirable
but necessary for the development of French ideas in the domain of
civilisation. . . . The German people won two great victories which
changed the equilibrium of Europe, in 1866 and in 1870. . . . _We
then knew, we had the actual proof in our hands, that, if the enemy
had occupied Paris, the capital of France would have been reduced
to ashes._ Prince Bismarck, in reply to the expostulations of Jules
Favre, declared that the German troops must enter at one of the gates,
'because I do not wish, when I get home, that a man who has lost a
leg or an arm should be able to say to his comrades, pointing to me:
That fellow you see there is the man who prevented me from entering
Paris.' When Jules Favre said that the German Army had glory enough
without that, M. Bismarck retorted, 'Glory! we don't use that word.'
The German, so far as I can judge of him, is above all the worshipper
of force, and rarely misses an opportunity of saying so; but where he
differs from the Latin is that his first thought is to make use of this
force. As the vast economic development of the Empire is a perpetual
temptation in this respect, he wants the French to understand that
behind every German trader there stands an army of five millions of
men. That is at the bottom of the whole thing." Moreover, he continued,
having pocketed a fine indemnity last time, Germany is greedy for a
much bigger one now. "Even quite lately the German Press has never
wearied of proclaiming that France shall pay out of her milliards
the cost of building the new German fleet. That is the frame of mind
of Germany, that is the truth which clearly appears in your treaty:
Germany thinks first and foremost of using to advantage her glory and
her force.
"But this is not all. She has conquered her unity by force, by iron,
by blood; she has so fervently yearned for this unity--nothing more
natural--that now she wants to apply it; she wishes to spread her
surplus population over the world. She finds herself compelled,
therefore, by a fatality from which she cannot escape, to exercise
pressure upon her neighbours which will compel them to give her the
economic outlets she needs. . . . There is always land for an owner who
wishes to round off his estate. There are always nations to be attacked
by a warrior-nation which would conquer other peoples. I am not here
for the purpose of criticising the German people, I am trying to
describe their state of mind towards us. . . .
"And now what of us, the French people? The people of France are
a people of idealism, of criticism, of indiscipline, of wars, of
revolutions. Our character is ill adapted for continuous action;
doubtless the French people have magnificent impulses, but, as the poet
says, their height has ever been measured by the depth of their fall."
After a survey of "the terrible year" and its results, the orator
recounts what difficult work it was that Frenchmen had to carry out
after the collapse. It was not only that they had to change their
Government, but this Government must be taught how to govern itself.
"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!"
Unfortunately, one of the chief reasons why France was unready to
meet the onrush of the modern Huns was that the Socialists were all
bemused with their own fatuous notion that the German Social-Democracy
could stop the war. Instead, therefore, of investigating the truth of
Clemenceau's statements, they merely denounced him as a chauvinist and
an enemy of the people, and twaddled on about a general strike on both
sides of the Rhine. As an old Socialist myself, who, as a member of
the International Socialist Bureau, had discussed the whole question
at length with Liebknecht, Bebel, Singer, Kautsky and others, I knew
that, as they themselves explained to me, there was little or no hope
of anything of the sort being done when war was once declared. I viewed
this whole propaganda, therefore, with grave alarm, and Bebel himself
warned the French that the Social-Democrats would march with the rest.
If an opportunity came something might be done, but----Since then
the old leaders had died and the new chiefs, as we all see now, were
Imperialists to a man. Thus Clemenceau's prognostications and warnings
were only too completely justified. Prince Lichnowsky's revelations
conclusively prove this, and the German Social-Democrats have been at
pains to confirm it. On March 11th, 1914, Clemenceau stated precisely
what they would do.
How anxious, how eager, the French were at the critical moment to avoid
even the slightest cause of offence is shown by the fact that all their
troops were withdrawn fully eight miles back along the German frontier,
a portion of French territory which the Germans made haste to seize.
Even before this, every effort was made to provoke the French troops
by petty raids across the frontier, and at last the Germans declared
that the French had sent aeroplanes to drop bombs on Nuremberg--a
statement which the Germans themselves now admit to have been a pure
fabrication. But the facts of the invasion of Belgium and France are
too well known to call for recital here.
Clemenceau did what might have been expected of him. He appealed to
all Frenchmen of every shade of opinion to sink all minor differences
in one solid combination for the defence of the country. Day after
day, this powerful journalist and orator laboured to encourage
his countrymen and to denounce unceasingly all who, honestly or
dishonestly, stood in the way of the vigorous and successful
prosecution of the war which should free France for ever from yet
other attempts by Germany to destroy her as an independent nation.
The memory of the dark days of 1870 was obliterated by the horrors of
1914 onwards. In good and bad fortune the Radical leader kept the same
resolute attitude and used the like stirring language. _L'Homme Libre_,
defaced and then suppressed by the Censor, was succeeded by _L'Homme
Enchaîné_. Ever the same policy of relentless warfare, against the
enemy at the front, and the traitors at the rear, was steadily pursued.
Ministry might come, Ministry might go, but still Clemenceau was at his
post, save when illness compelled him to quit his work for a short time.
Nor did he waver in his views as to the general strategy to be pursued.
Without making any pretence to military knowledge, but well advised by
experts on military affairs, and firmly convinced that whatever success
Germany might achieve elsewhere she would never be satisfied unless
France was crushed, he persistently opposed diversion of strength from
the Western front. _There_ this terrific struggle for world-domination
would eventually be decided. The civilisation of the West must be
subdued to German culture, France and England must be brought under
German control, before the great programme of Eastern expansion for the
Teutonic Empire could be entered upon with the certainty of success.
These were the opinions he held as to Germany's real objects.
Therefore, in opposition to the views of important personages in Great
Britain and in Allied countries, Clemenceau withstood any frittering
away of force on tempting adventures, away from the main field of
warfare. This not because he confined himself to the narrow programme
of freeing France from the invaders, but because the waste of troops
on wild-cat enterprises weakened the general strength of the Allies at
the crucial point of the whole struggle. In that decision his judgment
was at one with the ablest British strategists, and the event has
shown that he did not underrate the importance of the warfare on the
Western front. There alone, especially after the collapse of Russia,
was it possible to deliver a crushing blow at the German power. There
alone could all the forces of the Allies of the West be effectively
concentrated for the final blow.