The Home Rule controversy and the tension in Ulster did not seem

appreciably to interfere with Irish industry and trade. It was stated,

indeed, in the spring that the banks were restricting their advances to

traders in view of a crisis, and that securities were at one time being

transferred to London. But pauperism in March was less than in 1913

and much less than in 1910. In Belfast the huge shipbuilding output

of 1913 was actually surpassed. Twenty-three vessels were launched

aggregating 246,370 tons, as against twenty-four vessels of 131,916

tons in 1913. Messrs. Harland & Wolff's output from their Belfast and

Clyde yards together amounted to 182,759 tons, the largest yet achieved

in one year by any firm in the world. The six ships they launched at

Belfast comprised the White Star liner _Britannic_ of 50,000 tons, and

five others, respectively for the Holland-Amerika, Red Star (Belgian),

Aberdeen, Pacific Mail, and Royal Mail lines. Messrs. Workman, Clark

& Co. built three Ellerman, two Royal Mail, two Shire and two other

liners--in all nine vessels of 75,188 tons. At Londonderry four

vessels were launched aggregating 12,225 tons. Among other trades,

linen, previously depressed by general and local causes, was gravely

interfered with by the stoppage through the war of Russian and Belgian

material, and, in the case of white linens, by the loss of the German

and Austrian markets; but in this trade, as in rope and twine,

Government war orders were some compensation for losses in other ways.

The minor industries of Belfast were vigorous. Foot-and-mouth disease

again interfered occasionally with the cattle traffic to Great Britain.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.

FINANCE AND TRADE IN 1914.

From the observer's point of view the second half of 1914 was the

most interesting period through which the City has passed. Other

times had seemed difficult when the country was in the midst of

labour crises, when foreign politics threatened, and when the prices

of securities drifted steadily downwards; but the City has never

before had to cope with so vast an upheaval as has been caused by the

present conflagration in Europe. The City, at any rate, had not been

organised to meet the consequences of the clash of arms, and when

the blow fell not a market was unmoved. The machinery and functions

of the money market and the banks, the Stock Exchange, Lloyd's and

the insurance companies, the Baltic and the shipping lines, the Corn

Exchange and the Commercial Sales Rooms had all to be adjusted to

meet the unprecedented conditions. Just as the fighting forces had to

be mobilised, so had the industrial organisations to be cleared for

action, for finance and commerce have been and are destined to play a

great part in the mighty struggle. All the British leaders of industry

were animated by two objects only: how best to assist the nation to

withstand the shock of war, and how to emerge victorious. It will be

interesting to consider briefly how the different sections rose to the

occasion.

The eventful year opened with money becoming easy and before the end of

January the Bank of England minimum rate was 3 per cent. The decline

in Bank rate was accompanied by a fall in the open discount market and

early in February rates dropped to 1-11/16. Then began a renewal of

a demand for gold from the Continent, and the discount rate rose to

2-15/16. In March the position was again easier and with the payments

of the dividends in April the rate was as low as 1-3/4. In May the

absorptions by Continental countries were on an abnormally large scale

(though their significance was not fully appreciated) and the discount

rate rose to 2-15/16 per cent. After the end of the half-year the rate

was easier again, but it soon advanced steadily on the reports of

strained relations between Austria and Serbia.

On July 28 the fear of war involving this country became definite, and

on July 30 the Bank rate was raised from 3 to 4 per cent.; on July 31

it was advanced further to 8 per cent., and on the following day again

to 10 per cent. The market discount rates were nominal at from 5-1/4 to

5-1/2 per cent.

Consultations took place between the Government and financial leaders,

and on Sunday, August 2, a proclamation was issued providing that all

bills accepted before August 4 should not be payable on their due date

but should be deferred for one month. The next day an Act was passed

prolonging the Bank Holiday for three more days, and on August 6 a

general Moratorium was declared. This extension of the Bank Holiday

was considered desirable in order to give the banks and discount

houses time to consider their position and to discuss the question

of currency. As an emergency measure an issue of Treasury notes in

denominations of 1_l._ and 10_s._ was offered to the banks up to 20 per

cent. of their deposit and current accounts. For these notes interest

at Bank rate had to be paid. The first issue was made on August 7,

when the banks reopened. On that day large deposits were made by the

public and there was little sign of any nervousness. At first the

banks took nearly 13,000,000_l._ in notes, but the bulk of these were

soon returned, and by the end of the year the amount held by them had

been reduced to only 169,000_l._ Postal orders, without poundage, were

also made legal tender, but were soon withdrawn from circulation. [The

arrangement was formally terminated on February 4, 1915.] On August 7

the Bank rate was reduced to 6 per cent. and on the next day to 5 per

cent., at which it remained.

The Government announcement respecting the discounting of bills was

made on August 13, and a very large business was transacted, but

the Chancellor of the Exchequer was able to announce later that of

120,000,000_l._ which was sent to the Bank of England less than half

was likely to remain in "cold storage" at the end of the year. The

case of merchants who had money owing to them abroad, all of which

during the war would obviously not be paid, was hard, and, in order to

avoid disaster, the Government announced a scheme early in November,

providing that in approved cases advances not exceeding 50 per cent. of

the amounts outstanding should be made to them by means of six months'

bills; 75 per cent. of any loss was to be borne by the State and 25 per

cent. by the Banks.

On December 4 the Moratorium came to an end.

At the end of the year the stock of gold shown in the Bank return

showed a large increase at nearly 70,000,000_l._ (exclusive of

18,500,000_l._ earmarked for the Currency Note Reserve), as compared

with 35,000,000_l._ at the end of 1913. A large proportion of the stock

at the end of the year represented gold held in financial centres of

Britain beyond the seas on account of the Bank, until arrangements

could be made to ship it to this country.

A notable development during the peaceful period of the year was a

further series of banking amalgamations, including a fusion between the

famous houses of Messrs. Coutts & Co. and Messrs. Robarts, Lubbock & Co.

Immediately after the outbreak of war Parliament voted a credit of

100,000,000_l._ and between August and November 90,000,000_l._ in bills

were issued. These were mostly in six months' bills, and were placed

at average rates ranging from 2_l._ 18_s._ 6_d._ to 3_l._ 15_s._ 6_d._

In November the issue of the great War Loan for 350,000,000_l._ was

successfully made, the issue taking the form of stock at 95 per cent.,

redeemable in 1925-8, and bearing interest at 3-1/2 per cent. The

net yield was 323,000,000_l._, which sum was intended to include the

repayment of the Treasury Bills issued. A notable feature of the terms

of the War Loan was that the Bank of England undertook to make advances

up to the amount of the issue price at 1 per cent. below the current

Bank rate.

Early in January, the Stock Exchange indulged in a little "boom," but

towards the end of February a reaction set in and from then until

the outbreak of war markets were extremely dull. The Ulster crisis,

severe depression in South America, and the failure of the Canadian

Agency and the firm of Chaplin, Milne, Grenfell & Co. were depressing

influences. Throughout July markets were under the cloud of foreign

political complications, and on July 24 the Austrian Note to Serbia

caused serious alarm and an immense number of selling orders. In

the end of July the settlement was completed with no more serious

consequences than the failure of nine firms, involving twenty members.

On July 31 the Committee, in response to many representations, decided

to close the House. Minimum prices for Trustee stocks were fixed by the

Committee on September 14, based on the quotations current on July 30,

the main object being to prevent undue depression. Arrangements were

made in consultation with the Treasury for carrying out the mid-August

settlement on November 18, special rules being issued. The Banks, in

return for the assistance they had received from Government, undertook

to continue loans during the war without extra margin, while other

lenders were granted advances up to 60 per cent. from the Bank of

England.

Consols, which were quoted at 71-5/8 at the end of 1913, were actually

higher on July 27 at 72-1/4 and at the end of 1914 stood at 68-1/2,

this, however, being the Stock Exchange minimum price, and nearly all

representative securities showed substantial falls.

On December 23 the announcement was made that the Stock Exchange would

reopen on January 4, with stringent provisions designed to prevent

sales by the enemy.

One notable development following the outbreak of war was the breakdown

of the foreign Exchanges. This meant that while it lasted oversea

commerce was paralysed. In New York, owing to the large sales of

American securities in Europe, sterling exchange rose at first to the

extraordinarily high level of $6, and Sir George Paish was deputed

to proceed to the United States to discuss measures to relieve the

situation. Cargoes of grain and other produce were not bought, and

consequently there was almost a complete cessation of chartering.

Gradually the position was righted, and early in September business

was being done in a quiet way. From then freights, which had been

abnormally low during the summer, began to rise and continued to do so.

The rise was, in the main, due to a lack of tonnage in certain routes.

The short supply was caused by the acquisition of many hundreds of

vessels by the Government for various purposes; the inability of the

German mercantile marine to take any share in the world's carrying

trade; and the loss of a certain number of British ships sunk by the

enemy's vessels or through striking mines. Towards the end of the year

the position was very seriously aggravated by congestion at British

and continental ports. The enlistment of large numbers of skilled

dock labourers in the Army, the reservation of certain ports and

docks for military requirements, and the accommodation necessary for

the Government's large purchases of sugar, all combined to make the

position difficult. Ships were kept for long periods waiting their turn

to discharge, and it was not uncommon for vessels to be in port three

or four times as long as usual. These delays undoubtedly detracted

somewhat from the extraordinarily high rates which were being secured.

The most striking rate was perhaps that of the carriage of grain from

Argentina. As compared with a rate of 12_s._ 6_d._ per ton quoted just

before the war, 50_s._ was paid by the end of the year, and this figure

was far short of the prices that have since been paid. The rate for

coal from Newcastle to London which had been as low as 2_s._ 6_d._ rose

to about 13_s._ 6_d._ As some relief for the situation, the Admiralty

made arrangements to put a considerable number of enemy steamers which

had been detained in this country at the outbreak of war into the coal

trade. These vessels, as soon as crews could be found for them, were

placed on the market, and did not have any effect in reducing the high

rates. A few enemy steamers which had been captured at sea by British

warships were sold by auction as prizes. Sums which were considered

abnormally high were bid for them, but it is reasoned that while

freights continue on the level current at the beginning of this year

they should prove satisfactory acquisitions to their owners.

The question of maintaining oversea commerce received the prompt

attention of the Government. Many people connected with the shipping

industry had fully expected that the outbreak of war would find a large

number of fast German cruisers at large and ready to prey upon British

commerce. Shipowners had themselves made certain provisions, but only

of very limited scope. They had formed certain mutual clubs in which

ships were to be insured against war risks only until their arrival in

safety in British or neutral ports. This arrangement would obviously

not have had the effect of keeping ships at sea and maintaining oversea

commerce as in peace times, which, in the Chancellor's opinion, was

a vital necessity. The recommendations of the sub-Committee of the

Committee of Imperial Defence were therefore put into operation at

once. The proposals dealt separately with hulls and with cargoes. The

State undertook to accept re-insurances from the clubs on ships up

to 80 per cent. of the values, receiving in exchange 80 per cent. of

the premiums. At first rates of 1-1/4 and 2-1/2 per cent. were quoted

for the single and double voyages respectively, but these after a few

weeks were reduced to 1 and 2 per cent. Similarly a premium for a three

months' time policy was reduced from 40_s._ to 30_s._ per cent.

The recommendation of the sub-committee respecting cargoes was,

briefly, that the State should undertake to insure merchandise in

British vessels at premiums which should not be below 1 guinea per

cent. and should not rise above 5 guineas per cent. A special office

was established at the Cannon Street Hotel and began to transact

business on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 5. At first the maximum

rate of 5 guineas per cent. was quoted; three days later the rate was

reduced to 4 guineas per cent., and it was again reduced within short

periods, until on September 1 it stood at 2 guineas per cent. At that

level the rate remained until the last day of the year, when it was

reduced to 1 guinea per cent.

All this time underwriters and insurance companies had been transacting

a very large business at rates which were as a rule below the

Government quotation. The Government scheme only applied to cargoes in

British vessels, and then only to British vessels which were insured

against war risks with associations approved by the Government. The

State Office also would not insure vessels which had already left port.

A large field was therefore left open to private enterprise, apart from

the business which naturally flows to the cheapest market. For several

months an enormous business was written on cargo across the Atlantic at

only 5_s._ per cent., which compared with the Government quotation of 1

per cent. Coasting and other short voyages were also written at rates

substantially below the Government quotation. It is understood that for

the first six months, at any rate, underwriters had no reason to regret

their operations in war insurance. Marine casualties were comparatively

light and the year for marine underwriters may be regarded as an

exceptionally good one.

The magnitude of oversea commerce may in the circumstances be regarded

as highly satisfactory. For the twelve months imports showed a decline

of 9.2 per cent.; exports of the produce and manufactures of the

United Kingdom a fall of 18 per cent.; and re-exports of foreign and

colonial merchandise a drop of 12.8 per cent. If the figures of the

last five months alone be taken into account the imports declined by

20 per cent., the exports by 41 per cent., and the re-exports by 32.7

per cent. It should be remembered that the export trade was diminished

by the embargo placed on many products, and also that the figures do

not show the merchandise exported for the use of the Army and Navy.

Taking the import and export trade the total values amounted to

1,223,000,000_l._, a decrease for the year of 180,000,000_l._

All the railways of the country were taken over by the Government

on the outbreak of war under powers conferred by the Regulation of

Forces Act of 1871, the administration being placed in the hands of an

executive committee of railway managers with the President of the Board

of Trade as chairman. In return for the immensely important services

rendered by the companies in conveying troops and stores throughout

the country the Government agreed, if the receipts for 1914 were

less than those for 1913, to pay such sums as, together with the net

receipts, should bring them up to the level of 1913. On the other hand,

if the receipts for the first half of 1914 were below those for the

corresponding period, the amount to be paid by the Government was to be

reduced accordingly.

Prices of foodstuffs, including wheat, generally were advanced

considerably at first, but declined when trade settled down into more

normal conditions and on the regulation of retail prices by boards

representative of the different trades which were appointed by the

Government. Towards the end of the year prices again advanced, and

in many cases closed at the highest points touched. One of the most

interesting of the many measures taken by the Government in financial

and commercial spheres was the purchase of sugar to replace the million

tons of beet sugar which would normally have been imported from Germany

and Austria. Roughly, about 900,000 tons were bought for refining and

manufacturing purposes and for direct consumption, and, though the

Government plan was criticised on the ground _inter alia_ that high

prices were paid, it has been widely recognised that but for the prompt

action it would have been difficult to obtain adequate supplies, except

from tainted sources. A Royal Commission was appointed to determine

the selling prices, and a prohibition was placed on importation of all

sugars, in order to prevent supplies reaching here from enemy countries

through neutrals and indirect payments in return through similar

channels. Evidence that Germany was receiving tea through neutral

countries led in November to the prohibition of exports from this

country, the action being similar to that previously taken in the case

of rubber.

Life assurance companies were deeply affected by the war. As a result

of joint deliberations they resolved to make no additional charge for

war risks to all their policy-holders who had, as civilians, assured

and have joined the Active Forces. For new policies it was at first

decided to charge an additional rate of 7_l._ 7_s._ per cent. This

rate was based on the experience of the South African War, but it

proved inadequate for the risks of the Continental fighting. Gradually

offices began to raise the extra rate, and by the end of the year some

were quoting 12_l._ 12_s._ per cent. or even more, or were declining

to write the business at all. A suggestion that the Government should

assume the war risk did not meet with the approval of the Treasury,

since it was considered that the Government was doing all that could

be expected of it by increasing the payments to widows and other

dependants of those who fell in the war.

The most urgent problem facing life offices was that of the heavy

depreciation in their securities. This matter is being dealt with by

the offices according to their individual views, but it is interesting

to note that permission was given to them by the Board of Trade to

show in their certificates the prices current as on December 31, 1913.

Immense sums have been written off by the Banks for depreciation, and

the policy of persistently feeding the reserves in past years will now

stand all the great financial institutions in good stead.

CUTHBERT MAUGHAN.

FOREIGN AND COLONIAL HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

FRANCE AND ITALY.

I. FRANCE.

Gambetta was fond of expounding to his friends a theory which about the

year 1875 appeared sufficiently paradoxical--_viz._ that of all the

European nations, France was the one readiest to submit to discipline

and authority. He used to add, however, that she would only do so on

one condition--that the leader should inspire confidence among his

following. This assertion was definitively and emphatically verified in

France in 1914, not only from the military point of view, but from the

political.

In the political life of the nation a persistent tendency, remarked

in former volumes of this work, was noticeable both before and after

the general election towards the organisation of parties in a definite

framework and with specific aims. At the beginning of August the war

instantly suspended everything not in perfect harmony with what was

termed "the sacred union of all Frenchmen in the face of the enemy."

The same ardour that had been displayed by all the citizens for the

success of their respective sentiments and interests in the sphere of

politics was directed to the performance of their duties as patriots.

The state of siege, the censorship, and the military dictatorship, were

accepted by the whole people without resistance.

At the opening of the year the Republicans of the Left, who did not

accept the decisions of the Radical-Socialist Congress of Pau (A.R.,

1913, p. 291), succeeded in establishing that Federation of the Left

of which the formation had been announced after the advent of the

Doumergue-Caillaux Ministry. M. Barthou, M. Briand, and M. Millerand

were its principal leaders in the Chamber, M. Ribot and M. Jean Dupuy

in the Senate. The most compact group, which formed as it were the

centre of gravity in the new association, was the Democratic Alliance,

led, for several years past, by M. Carnot, brother of the former

President of the Republic. Its framework was sound; it remained to be

seen whether it could raise a sufficiently solid body of adherents

and candidates to deprive the Radical-Socialists of their majority.

Just as the session began, M. Briand was elected President of the

Federation. The election of the officers of the Chamber was awaited

with some curiosity as to whether the Radical-Socialist party would

claim the Presidency for one of its own members. But it did not do

so. M. Paul Deschanel was elected unopposed, receiving 379 votes.

For the Vice-Presidencies, M. Étienne, a former War Minister, and a

member of the Democratic Left, and M. Dron, a Radical representative

of the Department of the Nord, were the only members chosen at the

first ballot. At the second the Abbé Lemire was returned, the majority

desiring to afford him satisfaction for his persecution by the

Clericals of his Department and the Bishop of Lille on the ground of

his Republicanism. Finally M. Augagneur, a Republican Socialist, was

elected, by a narrow majority, on the third ballot. Thus, in the secret

voting, the Radical-Socialists were beaten (Jan. 13). In the Senate,

the struggle was much less acute. M. Antonin Dubost was re-elected

unopposed to the Presidency, and the posts of Vice-President,

Secretaries, and Questors, were apportioned according to the traditions

of courtesy customary in that Assembly.

The work of the Legislature was begun by the inconvenient method of

breaking up the debates and alternating portions of them, on subjects

of the most divergent natures, in the programme of the Chamber. The

Bill providing for the defence of the secular character of the schools

and the method of securing attendance was, however, passed, after the

rejection of the amendments supported by the deputies of the Right;

but one of its essential points, the transfer of the appointment of

teachers from the Prefect to the school authorities, was separated

and postponed to a future period. Another Bill, equally important for

the future of the nation, that for the limitation of the number of

public-houses, was repeatedly revised and mutilated; and the Friday

lists of interpellations were overloaded, and the militant spirit of

M. Jaurès aroused, by the ever-recurring topic of the Ouenza mines.

The Senate had before it two great questions: the income-tax, and

electoral reform. The ideas dominant at the Luxemburg were in explicit

contradiction with the decisions taken at the Palais-Bourbon. The

discussion of the income-tax ranged over a remarkably wide field. The

majority of the members agreed in regretting that, at the very moment

when the Government was urging the Upper House to begin discussing the

question of an income-tax, it had laid before the Chamber a proposal

for a levy on capital, the provisions of which must modify the measure

which that House had already passed. This was playing into the hands of

the opponents of the reform.

As regarded the Electoral Reform Bill, the antagonism between the two

Houses was equally acute. The Senate Committee rejected the Government

measure by a large majority, and the pending general election seemed

likely to be still conducted under the system which so many competent

observers had condemned, without, however, agreeing on a substitute.

In view of this eventuality the parties were already defining their

attitudes. At the end of January the Socialists met in Congress at

Amiens. They declared themselves against the revival of the former

Combist _bloc_ (A.R., 1902, p. 264; 1904, p. 253) and decided that the

Unified Socialists should put forward candidates in every constituency,

in order to ascertain the numbers of their adherents. The programme to

be laid before the electors was to contain in any case three essential

articles: (1) "opposition to militarist and capitalist imperialism,"

_i.e._ immediate repeal of the law enacting three years' military

service; (2) a Franco-German understanding; (3) the maintenance of

the secular character of the schools. Should a second ballot be

necessary, the Executive Committee of the party left the Departmental

Federations to decide whether agreements should be entered into with

the middle-class Republican parties, but these latter must be required

to adopt the three obligatory articles stated above. The Committees of

the Right, on their part, proposed to organise, under the name of a

national inquiry, what really amounted to a _plébiscite_ on the method

of election to the Chamber. M. B. Pugliesi-Conti invited that House

to do this (Jan. 30); M. Jaurès caused general surprise by supporting

him. The motion was opposed by the Prime Minister and by M. Briand, and

rejected by 389 to 164.

An incidental feature of the debates in this first period was the

prominence of military and colonial questions. Thus on January 28 the

Chamber had unanimously voted the loan of 230,000,000 francs for the

Morocco Protectorate. Public opinion, again, was so strongly manifested

against the intention ascribed to the Russian Putiloff Company of

placing itself under the control of Krupps in order to increase its

capital, that the French Government intervened to prevent the German

firm from becoming concerned in the manufacture of artillery for

Russia. Finally, throughout France the keenest attention was directed

to the discussion in the Senate on the interpellation on military

aeronautics supported by the Senator representing the Department of the

Loire, Dr. Emile Reymond, an eminent surgeon and a noted airman (Jan.

23, 27, 30). The serious defects indicated by the various speakers were

admitted by the War Minister, M. Noulens, who formally promised to

remedy them. As a security that this should be done, the Senate passed

a resolution regretting the faults of organisation existing in this

service, and expressing confidence that the War Minister would effect

the necessary reforms by giving it autonomy.

It was only on February 9 that the Chamber reached the discussion

of the Budget of 1914. By 440 votes to 67 the general debate was

omitted in the hope of gaining time. The Departmental Estimates and

the Reports of the Committees upon them were successively brought

before the House with unusual speed. But this commendable zeal did

not last. On February 13, M. Lachaud addressed an interpellation to

the Government on the sanitary condition of the Army, and adduced

information on the housing of the troops, particularly in the Eastern

departments, and on its consequences, of so grave a character that

the Prime Minister was obliged to intervene in the debate. He asked

the Chamber to suspend the discussion, and to vote the sums necessary

to improve the clothing of the troops and their barracks. But all he

could obtain was a postponement for eight days, during which most of

the Votes were hastily passed. The revelations made when the debate

was resumed (February 20-23) were so serious that the Government did

not venture to ask for a vote of confidence. M. Augagneur then moved

the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry. M. Abel Ferry proposed

that this Commission should merely inquire what improvements could be

effected while the Government should take measures against the persons

responsible for the state of things revealed. The Chamber agreed to

this solution by 389 to 29. The Government had evaded the conflict.

It did not venture further to risk its fortunes in the Senate on the

income-tax question. The general debate on this had taken up almost all

of the Friday sittings from January 20 to February 25. All the party

leaders successively had spoken: M. Caillaux and M. Ribot had faced one

another in a striking passage of arms: and the competence and talent

of the Upper House had been proved once more. The general debate over,

the Senate decided by show of hands to pass to the examination of

the clauses of the Bill. M. Perchot, one of the Radical leaders, put

forward an amendment establishing impersonal taxes (_impôts réels_)

on incomes of every class and a complementary tax on the aggregate

income of every head of a household. It was opposed by M. Aimond,

Senator for the Seine-et-Oise, and Reporter-General of the Finance

Commission, and by M. Ribot, and supported by the Ministry. The Prime

Minister, M. Doumergue, read a declaration asking the Senate to pass

it, inasmuch as it corresponded to the wishes repeatedly expressed by

the other House, and urging them, besides, to pass the pending fiscal

reforms before the general election. He studiously avoided raising

the question of confidence, and the amendment was rejected by 140

to 134. Next day, February 26, the Senate, to prove that it was not

opposed to all reform, whether just or otherwise, adopted the first and

second articles of the Budget; the land tax was profoundly modified

in a manner favourable to small proprietors; it had been assessed

by the Departmental and local authorities so as to produce a total

amount fixed by the Legislature: it was now imposed at a uniform rate

throughout France. A reduction of one-ninth was accorded to all income

from agriculture.

The same evening, in a banquet organised by the Democratic Republican

party, M. Barthou set forth the electoral programme of the Federation

of the Left--maintenance intact of the law reimposing three years'

service in the Army; defence of the secular character of the schools,

but without making education a State monopoly; representation of

minorities. The Ministry in its turn scored a success in the Chamber

(Feb. 27). M. Caillaux, replying to an interpellation on his financial

policy, vindicated himself in one of his best speeches. He made a

brilliant defence of his administration, boasted that he had restored

order and abolished confusion in the revenue, and successfully met

the attacks of M. Briand and M. Millerand; he was sustained by a

majority of 329 to 214. Clearly the Radical-Socialist party and its

Socialist allies were determined to maintain at all costs the Doumergue

Ministry to conduct the elections; but it was equally clear that the

real leader of the Ministry and its party was M. Caillaux, and it was

against him that the Opposition concentrated their efforts, in the

conviction that his overthrow would deprive the Government of its head.

Full of confidence in his own talents and in his star, the Finance

Minister exhibited a marvellous boldness in his manoeuvres; thus, on

March 4, when invited by the Senate Committee on the Income-Tax Bill

to appear before it, he declared that he agreed with it in favouring

the exemption of French _Rente_ from taxation; the 3 per cent.

_Rente_ immediately went up. But next day in the Chamber, replying

to an interpellation by M. Jaurès, M. Caillaux declared that he had

merely reserved this question, and that he was firmly resolved to

put a tax on _Rente_, as on every other kind of income.[5] A fall in

_Rente_ followed, and rumours of a most unfavourable character were

circulated, though it was impossible to prove that the successive

interpellations on the financial policy of M. Caillaux had facilitated

speculative manoeuvring on the Bourse. In any case it was regrettable

that these charges had some verisimilitude, and the result was a marked

revival of the Press campaign carried on for some months previously

against him. The _Figaro_ directed the attack; almost every day its

political director, M. Gaston Calmette, produced documentary evidence

of various alleged malpractices which M. Caillaux declared was not

authentic, but it related to so many charges and was so precise that

it greatly influenced public opinion, and weakened M. Caillaux's

position. Finally, the conflict was concentrated on the part played

by M. Caillaux in the Rochette case of 1911. It was whispered in

well-informed circles that the Public Prosecutor in the Paris Court

of Appeal had been requested by M. Monis, then Prime Minister, to

grant M. Rochette, a company promoter, a delay in the prosecution for

fraud instituted against him, and that, thanks to this, M. Rochette

had been able to start various fresh enterprises which had brought

disaster on small investors. In the sitting of March 13, M. Delahaye,

a member of the Right, introduced a motion inviting M. Caillaux, whose

intervention had determined M. Monis to take the step referred to, to

take legal proceedings against his accuser. The motion was opposed by

MM. Doumergue and Jaurès, who alleged that it was merely a political

manoeuvre, and the Order of the Day, pure and simple, was voted by

360 to 135. But some days later (March 16) Madame Caillaux called

at the office of the _Figaro_ and shot M. Gaston Calmette dead with

a revolver. This mad act necessarily entailed grave consequences.

That evening M. Caillaux tendered his resignation, and M. Doumergue,

after a hesitating resistance, was constrained to accept it. The

Rochette affair was taken up again. In the Chamber, M. Delahaye

formally demanded that the Government should either dismiss the Public

Prosecutor, M. Fabre, or should compel him to take proceedings against

the papers which accused him of showing undue favour to the accused.

Seldom had sitting been more tumultuous or more passionate. M. Monis

was questioned as to his attitude, and formally denied that he had

intervened in the matter. Thereupon M. Barthou drew from his portfolio

the letter drawn up by M. Fabre relating to the step in question and

subsequently sent by him to the Minister of Justice. The Chamber then

unanimously passed a motion reviving the powers of the Committee of

Inquiry, but investing this body with judicial power, _i.e._, the right

of administering an oath to the witnesses summoned before it, and,

if necessary, of proceeding against them for giving false testimony.

Naturally M. Monis was obliged to resign, and the Ministry was

reconstructed. M. Renoult passed from the Department of the Interior

to that of Finance, M. Malvy from that of Commerce to that of the

Interior, M. Raoul Peret, Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of

the Interior, became Minister of Commerce, and M. Gauthier, a Senator,

succeeded M. Monis as Minister of Marine. Amid this whirlwind the

work of the Legislature had not been suspended, and the Chamber had

accomplished, after a fashion, the discussion of the Estimates of

expenditure and had passed various social measures--a Bill organising

a system of loans to small traders and manufacturers, the extension

to women not paid by salary of the law providing a period of rest for

women after their confinement, and the continuance to widows of the

old-age pensions which had been allotted to their husbands. The Senate

firmly maintained the positions it had taken up. On March 10 it voted

the scheme of electoral reform elaborated by the Commission, which

established _scrutin de liste_ pure and simple; and on the 13th it

rejected the tax on _Rente_ by 146 to 126. Some days later it decided

that the new tax on personal property, with the exception of _Rente_,

should come into force on and after July 1, and that the reduction of

taxation on properties not built upon, agreed on by the two Houses,

should take effect from January 1, 1916. Similarly two reforms were

at last disposed of which had been for years shuttlecocked to and fro

between the Chamber and the Senate. One concerned the measures to

be taken to secure the secrecy of the ballot; the other restrained

the abuses of bill-posting in the elections. The rest of the debates

in the Chamber were less interesting; members showed that they were

preoccupied with the elections. Thus, in passing the Finance Bill the

system of licences to publicans was abolished, increases in salary were

accorded to teachers, and allowances to postal servants, in spite of

the factious attitude adopted by the associations and unions of these

servants of the State. Finally the income-tax, which the Senate had

not finally voted, was incorporated in the Bill. As it was evident

that the Senate would not even begin considering the Budget of 1914

till after the general election, it seemed good policy--as is usual

at the expiry of a legislature--to give pledges of liberality on the

part of the Chamber to the most influential elements in the electorate.

While this periodical comedy was played in the Legislative Chamber,

a drama of greater poignancy was bringing into conflict the most

conspicuous personages in the political and judicial world. M. Jaurès

presided over the Commission; before it there testified successively,

and were confronted with one another, three former Prime Ministers,

the Procureur-General of the Court of Appeal, the directors-in-chief

of leading Paris papers; and the result of the proceedings was a

general conviction that in March, 1911, the Monis Ministry really had

intervened to save a company promoter of questionable character from

prosecution. The scandal caused was immense. In its sitting of April 3,

the Chamber, after a short discussion, passed the following Order of

the Day: "The Chamber, taking note of the conclusions of the Commission

of Inquiry, condemns improper financial interference in politics and

political interference in the administration of justice, affirms the

necessity of a law making membership of the Legislature incompatible

with other employments, and is resolutely determined to secure more

efficaciously the separation of the powers of the State." The unanimity

with which this formula was accepted deceived no one, for it was the

Chamber that was responsible in the main for the encroachments of the

legislative power on that of the Executive and the Judiciary, and it

was known beforehand that no effective check could be applied.

The Legislature separated on the same day, after having voted supplies

on account for May and June. To all the scandals of the session it

added another by terminating its existence without having performed

the elementary duty of passing the Budget for the current year. That

circumstance alone was sufficient to deprive its censures of all

authority.

The electoral period began, in accordance with the law, on Sunday,

April 5. The outward aspect of the conflict was not without interest,

though less picturesque than the Italian elections of the year

before (A.R., 1913, p. 305). In the first place the law regulating

bill-posting effected a real revolution in the mural propaganda.

No longer did posters of many hues adorn the public monuments, the

pedestals of statues, and sometimes the statues themselves: no longer

did bills settle in the night like butterflies on houses up to their

very tops, or fasten on the trees on the boulevards, one overlying

another; there were no more battles between bill-posters; the municipal

authorities allotted to each candidate an equal surface, measured

out very sparingly, according to the number of the population. It

was an egalitarian revolution in political manners, assuring that

the poorer candidates and organisations should no longer have their

views smothered. On the other hand, the campaign was much more severe

than at the previous election both for the candidates and for their

organised supporters. The political meetings at which speeches from

opponents were invited were at least three times as numerous. The

Unified Socialist party exhibited an activity which the other parties

were forced to imitate. Three questions were prominent: the law

re-establishing three years' military service, the income-tax with the

declaration of the payer subject to official revision, and proportional

representation. The result was that candidates' professions of faith

did not generally possess the encyclopædic character or reach the

extravagant dimensions exhibited in former contests--a proof that

political education had progressed far enough to compel candidates to

abstain from promises covering the possible, the impossible, and the

purely Utopian.

The Ministerial programme was awaited with much curiosity. M. Doumergue

was called upon by M. Millerand to declare definitely for or against

the three years' service law and proportional representation. At

first he observed a prudent silence, being, as a Senator, exempt from

submission to the popular verdict at the polls. He declared that the

Government ought to observe the neutrality which he had recommended

to the prefects, but which they carried into practice hardly at all.

M. Clemenceau, rather maliciously, added his entreaties to those with

which the Prime Minister was persecuted, and on April 29, at a banquet

at Souillac, M. Doumergue spoke for the benefit of the electorate. As

every one expected, he attacked the Barthou Ministry, charging it with

having obtained support among the enemies of the Republic: he boasted

that he had himself secured the passing of a reduction of taxation

on property not built on; he praised the fiscal reform effected,

was very vague on the subject of the three years' service law, and

declared himself distinctly adverse to electoral reform by proportional

representation, even going so far as to eulogise the system of

single-member districts which had been so universally attacked. This

speech added nothing to the prestige of the Government, and contributed

but slightly to the guidance of its supporters in the pending conflict.

At the beginning of the electoral period the Radical-Socialists seemed

in an awkward position; attacked mercilessly by the Socialists and

the Conservatives, they were in danger of losing a portion of their

habitual allies, _i.e._ the Republicans of the Left, through the

coalition formed under the auspices of the triumvirate consisting of M.

Briand, M. Barthou, and M. Millerand. But an evolution took place of

which the effects were destined to make themselves felt more especially

at the second ballot. Brilliant in oratory, active at the very first,

possessing abundant resources generously supplied by the members of

the new Republican aristocracy, controlling almost all the leading

Parisian and provincial papers, the Federation of the Left rallied to

its support very many discontented and restless middle-class voters.

But dissensions arose between its leaders; M. Briand and M. Barthou did

not entirely agree. The latter endorsed candidates whose past career

did not entitle them to term themselves Republicans of the Left, and

who were also patronised by allies of very questionable political hue.

The instance which excited most comment was that of M. Jean Richepin,

who carried on a campaign of a most romantic character against M.

Caillaux's friend, M. Ceccaldi, in the Aisne. Moreover, on the first

ballots only 349 members were elected out of 602. Every party hastened

to claim a victory, for the most conspicuous of the outgoing deputies

had been re-elected almost everywhere. All the members of the Cabinet

had been successful. M. Caillaux, who at the outset had withdrawn from

the contest, had altered his decision and, after a hard struggle, had

beaten his adversary.

After this there was the question of the second ballots. The Radical

Socialists offered the Executive Committee of the Unified Socialist

party to support its candidates in all constituencies in which they

had even a single vote more than those of the party whose headquarters

were in the Rue de Valois, and M. Ferdinand Buisson, one of the

most respected of the Radical leaders, set the example by issuing

a notice, the very day after the first ballots, inviting all his

supporters to concentrate their votes on M. Navarre, whose defeat on

the second ballot would otherwise have been certain. The Socialists

refused to go back on the decisions taken at the Amiens Congress; the

departmental federations retained full power to determine their own

attitudes, a position which gave full play to personal enmities, and

in many constituencies favoured bargains of the strangest kind between

Socialists and reactionaries. The number of Revolutionary Socialists

who owed their success to these combinations was estimated at at least

one-third of the whole (May 10). Whether "improperly elected," as those

were termed in the language of the Chamber who owed their success to

these dealings, or loyal representatives of sincere convictions, the

Unified Socialists had none the less achieved a great success. They

numbered 102 in the new Chamber; the Unified Radicals were 136; the

Independent Radicals 102; the Democratic Alliance 100. The members of

the various groups of the Right amounted altogether to no more than 132.

A Ministerial majority might, therefore, have been formed by combining

all those deputies whose programme might be summed up in the formula,

"Neither revolution nor reaction." The President of the Republic found

himself faced by this problem when the summer session of the new

Chamber opened. During the electoral contest M. Poincaré's authority

had lost nothing. He had scrupulously kept to the part assigned him

by the Constitution above party conflict. While it went on he had, as

usual, proved on occasion a brilliant representative of the nation. At

the end of April he had received the King and Queen of Great Britain,

at the end of May the King and Queen of Denmark. The people of Paris

had welcomed the British Sovereigns with enthusiasm, the Danish

Sovereigns with cordiality. On May 24 the President had personally

inaugurated the admirable Civic Exhibition of Lyons, and had delivered

an impressive speech on the attributes and function of the head of the

French Republic.

The correctness of his attitude had, moreover, found its reward in

the fact that the question of the abolition of the Presidency of

the Republic, which had formerly been prominent in the Radical and

Socialist programmes, had now almost entirely disappeared. How, in the

face of the new Legislature, would the essential prerogative of the

Head of the State be exercised--the designation of the Prime Minister?

In the first place, what would be the attitude of the Chamber? and what

indication would it afford by the choice of its officers? While M.

Poincaré went to Rennes to the meeting of the Federations of Gymnastic

Societies, and defended the law reviving the three years' term of

service, the Chamber began its session on Whit Monday (June 1) and,

after an address from its oldest member, the Baron Mackau, it elected

M. Deschanel, by 401 votes, Provisional President, and then proceeded

hastily to the work of verifying the elections of its members. In

two sittings, the Committees had examined a number of elections, and

declared more than half its members to be duly elected. The regular

officers of the Assembly were elected on June 4. The groups had agreed

on the division of the appointments; the Right and the Extreme Left,

_i.e._ the Unified Socialists, had no share in them. The strictest

discipline was observed, and in a few hours the work was completed. M.

Paul Deschanel was elected President by 411 votes, the largest number

ever given for a President of the Chamber since the establishment of

the Constitution.

The Ministry had already retired. Scarcely, indeed, had M. Poincaré

returned from Brittany when M. Doumergue tendered its resignation,

rather against his colleagues' will. After some hours of consultation

with personages representative of public opinion, M. Poincaré entrusted

the formation of a Cabinet in the first instance to M. Viviani; but

the latter failed owing to a persistent refusal to co-operate on the

part of two young Unified Radical deputies, M. Ponsot and M. Justin

Godart, who demanded a promise that the two years' term of military

service should be restored after certain measures for giving military

training to the youth of the nation should have taken effect; and they

refused to accept M. Viviani's reservation, "should the condition of

foreign relations permit." M. Deschanel, M. Delcassé, and M. Jean

Dupuy successively declined the task; ultimately M. Ribot agreed to

attempt it, and on June 9 the Cabinet was formed. It contained no

Radical-Socialist, the group having definitely refused to co-operate.

M. Ribot took the Presidency and the Ministry of Justice; M. Leon

Bourgeois had accepted the post of Foreign Minister, M. Jean Dupuy

Public Works, M. Peytral the Interior, M. Delcassé War, M. Chautemps

Marine, M. Clementel Finance. The other posts were assigned to deputies

who had never previously held office. The new Cabinet was immediately

repudiated by the Radical-Socialist group, which determined to

address an interpellation to it at once, and gave all its own members

imperative instructions to vote against the Ministry. M. Dalimier was

charged with the task of setting forth the reasons for this opposition.

On Friday, June 12, the Premier read the Ministerial declaration in the

Chamber, while M. Peytral communicated it to the Senate, which received

it with courtesy. Far different was its reception in the Chamber, and

the sitting that day, at which the German and Italian ambassadors, M.

von Schoen and Signor Tittoni, were present in the seats reserved for

representatives of foreign States--a circumstance which attracted much

attention--was among the most astonishing in Parliamentary history.

The venerable M. Ribot, whose physical strength was not equal to his

courage, and the senior member of the Radical party, M. Leon Bourgeois,

were insulted, scoffed at, interrupted at every sentence. To secure a

hearing amid this organised tumult would have required the powers of

an O'Connoll, or at least of a Gambetta. The "grand old men" who had

accepted the task of governing were physically incapable of compelling

the assembly to hear them. However, though individual extravagances

found full expression, when the vote came to be taken party discipline

made itself felt. Two Orders of the Day were proposed; one, purely

political, by M. Dalimier and M. Puech, declaring the Chamber resolved

to give its confidence only to a Cabinet capable of uniting the forces

of the Left; the other by M. Combrouze and M. Pierre Berger, affirming

the necessity of maintaining the three years' service law and pursuing

a policy of fiscal and social justice and of defence of the secular

character of the schools. M. Ribot demanded priority for the second;

the Radicals claimed it for their own resolution, and it was on this

question of procedure that the conflict took place. By 306 to 262

the Cabinet was defeated. Amid indescribable disorder the Ministers

left their seats. In other days, as an example of the instability of

Ministries under Louis Philippe, it had been usual to cite the Duke

de Bassano's Cabinet (Nov., 1834) which had lasted three days. M.

Ribot's Cabinet, in spite of the talent of its Premier and his chief

colleagues, had not endured even as long as that.

Its place was soon filled. The day following, M. Poincaré summoned M.

Viviani, who at once accepted the task. His first step was one of pure

courtesy; he offered a place to M. Combes, who refused, stating that he

remained absolutely opposed to the three years' service law. The other

political personages applied to by M. Viviani were less uncompromising.

M. Messimy and M. Augagneur, who had taken a leading place among the

opponents of the law in 1913, now agreed to carry it out loyally. On

June 14 the _Journal Officiel_ published the names of the new Cabinet.

M. Viviani took the Presidency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; M.

Bienvenu-Martin, Justice; M. Malvy, Interior; M. Noulens, Finance; M.

Augagneur, Public Instruction; M. Renoult, Public Works; M. Thomson,

Commerce; M. Fernand David, Agriculture; M. Couyba, Labour; the three

departments of national defence were entrusted respectively, War to M.

Messimy, Marine to M. Gauthier, the Colonies to M. Raynaud. There were

five Under-Secretaries of State--M. Abel Ferry, Foreign Affairs; M.

Jacquier, Interior; M. Lauraine, War; M. Ajam, Mercantile Marine; M.

Dalimier, Fine Arts. Two days later (June 16) the Ministry presented

itself in the Chamber with a declaration on the military law which

left no room for uncertainty; it also affirmed the necessity of an

immediate loan, and announced its intention of pursuing the policy of

social and political reforms which had been victorious at the polls.

An interpellation was at once addressed to the Prime Minister; in

replying, M. Viviani, who manifestly had the wind in his favour, took

the offensive, and declared emphatically that, if he should be still

in office in October, 1915, he would not release the class which would

then be completing its second year of military service. Heckled by M.

Jaurès and M. Vaillant, both Socialists, and by M. Franklin Bouillon

(Left) and M. Paul Beauregard (Right), he in no way modified his

attitude. An Order of the Day presented by M. J. L. Breton, Socialist

Republican, was accorded priority by 362 to 139. At the end of the

sitting, M. Noulens introduced a Bill sanctioning a 3½ per cent.

terminable loan of 800,000,000 francs. The Ministry was successful;

the Socialists then proceeded to obstruct. At the sitting of June 18,

during the discussion on the date of an interpellation dealing with

the sinking of the soil in several quarters in Paris owing to the work

on the Metropolitan Railway, the disorder and noise were so great

that M. Deschanel was obliged to suspend the sitting. Some days later

a modification was adopted in the rules of the Chamber which gave

ocular demonstration of the tendency of parties to impose a stricter

discipline on their members. The _Journal Officiel_, by an innovation

which attracted some notice, had given the list of the eleven groups

composing the Chamber. It was decided that, instead of members seating

themselves wherever they individually pleased, they must sit in the

sections assigned to their respective groups. This was a return to the

old tradition of the Revolution, which had given the terms Right, Left,

and Centre their current political significance. It might be hoped that

the change would facilitate the work of the President of the Chamber.

Meanwhile the Senate had worked hard at the Budget, which had been so

unfortunately delayed; and the Government speedily obtained the vote of

the loan of 805,000,000 francs (including expenses of issue) designed

to enable it to pay off the Treasury Bonds. The various sections of

the Estimates of Expenditure were adopted almost without alteration.

On the subject of the Estimates of Revenue the discussion was more

active. The Finance Committee, supported on this occasion by M. Ribot,

asked the Senate to follow the Chamber in including in the Budget a

clause involving the application of the income-tax (Art. 7-27), the

declaration made by the taxpayer to be subject to official revision. In

spite of the opposition of M. Touron, M. Lhopiteau, and M. de Selves,

the Senate passed this important innovation, though without fully

accepting the text bequeathed to it by the defunct Chamber. On July

8 it finished the discussion of the Budget; and for a whole week the

two Reporters-General of the Budget Commissions, M. Clementel in the

Chamber and M. Aimond in the Senate, had to use all their diplomacy to

induce the two Houses to agree. In these laborious sittings M. Noulens,

who was making his first appearances as Finance Minister, strove to

obtain concessions from all quarters and to discredit the unfavourable

forecasts of the Opposition. He confidently affirmed that the deficit

of 1914 would not exceed 207,000,000 francs, which would be covered

by short-term obligations; that the reception of the loan had been

wonderful, and that it had been subscribed forty times over. The credit

of the French State had thus shown no decline.

While the Chamber was revising the Finance Bill, the Senate had to deal

with a question of no less importance. M. Charles Humbert, a Senator

from Lorraine, addressed an interpellation to the War Minister dealing

with the bad state of the _matériel_ of the artillery, and the grave

revelations he made caused M. Clemenceau to sum up the impression

made on his mind in the severe comment, "We are neither defended nor

governed." M. Messimy, the War Minister, and after him the Premier,

vainly attempted to modify the impression produced by the debates on

this subject, and found themselves obliged to agree to an inquiry by

the Senate Commission on the Army, which was requested to report when

the Chambers reassembled in October. The impression made by these

debates was considerable, both in France and abroad. Finally, on July

15, after a few meagre concessions accorded by the Chamber, and a much

greater number extorted through the weariness of the Senate--notably

in regard to increased salaries and allowances for teachers and postal

employees--the Budget of 1914 was passed. It reached the formidable

amount of 5,191,861,991 francs (about 207,674,479_l._). But it is

useless to give details of it, for it had almost at once to be

completely set aside in consequence of the war. Its great innovation,

the first application of the tax on income from movable property

(_valeurs mobilières_), was also destined to be shelved, for the

financial Administration eventually found itself unable to set up the

system of assessing the new tax in time.

The Chambers broke up on July 15. Immediately President Poincaré,

accompanied by M. Viviani, left on his important journey to Russia and

the Scandinavian countries which had been postponed owing to the length

of the Parliamentary Session, and which the force of circumstances was

destined considerably to abridge. M. Bienvenu-Martin, who as Minister

of Justice was Vice-President of the Cabinet, also took the Ministry

of Foreign Affairs _ad interim_. It was a heavy task, complicated

by serious incidents at home. The very day the battleship _France_

arrived at Cronstadt (July 20) the jury of the Seine assembled to

try Mme. Caillaux. During eight sittings, the dramatic and romantic

circumstances of the affair, the revelations as to the political and

private life of M. Caillaux himself, made by the testimony given and

the documents read in court or passed round in the lobbies, made

the Palais de Justice, at first at any rate, the centre of keen and

impassioned attention. But all these scandals were pushed into a

secondary place, and the acquittal of the accused woman aroused but

few protests, in view of the anxiety caused by the enigmatic attitude

of Germany in the Austro-Serbian dispute. On arriving in Sweden M.

Poincaré was obliged to break off his intended journey to Norway and

Denmark, and he reached France on July 29. His return was impatiently

awaited; but unfortunately the evil was now past remedy. All the

efforts of the French Government and its diplomatic representatives, in

concert with the British and Russian Foreign Offices, failed to induce

Austria-Hungary, in her demand for satisfaction for the murder of the

Archduke Francis Ferdinand, to respect the sovereignty of Serbia, or

to induce Germany to influence her ally towards peace. M. Dumaine,

the French Ambassador at Vienna, had vainly called the attention of

Baron Macchio, the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs at Vienna, to

the anxieties aroused in Europe by the concentration of eight army

corps along the Danube and Drina, and by the information circulated

regarding the Note prepared by the Austro-Hungarian Chancellery. The

answer given him was that the demands formulated, and their tone,

would admit of the expectation of a pacific solution, and M. Jagow had

told M. Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador at Berlin, that he did not

know its wording. While the authorised representatives of the Triple

_Entente_ were concerting their measures, Austria-Hungary was acting;

and on Thursday, July 23, it sent a Note to Belgrade, inviting the

Serbian Government to agree to its demands within forty-eight hours.

France made efforts to gain more time, but M. Jules Cambon informed

the French Foreign Office that Germany was mobilising secretly, and M.

Paléologue, the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg, gave his opinion

that the only means of preventing the Germanic Powers from emphasising

their provocative attitude lay in the demonstration of the solidity of

the Triple _Entente_. In the result France associated herself fully

and loyally with the efforts of Russia and Great Britain to avert the

conflict and obtain an extension of the period accorded to Serbia for

her reply, and also to persuade Germany to exercise a conciliatory

influence at Vienna. All these overtures encountered manifest ill-will

and the utmost coldness. The diplomatic breach between Austria-Hungary

and Serbia took place on July 29 at the appointed hour; France at once

gave her adherence to the steps suggested by Sir Edward Grey to prevent

hostilities and to secure by the intervention at St. Petersburg and

Vienna of the four disinterested Powers, that the Russian and Austrian

Armies should not advance beyond their own respective frontiers. These

efforts were paralysed by the hostility of Germany; Herr von Schoen,

while declaring that his Government did not know the intentions of

Austria-Hungary, gave it to be understood that Germany would not try to

influence her ally. This attitude, and the information received from

London, Berlin, and Rome, made France understand that the situation

was hourly getting worse. Thus matters stood when M. Viviani resumed

the direction of foreign affairs (July 30). While expressing the hope

that peace might still be preserved, he declared clearly that, if

Russia were attacked by Germany, France was resolved to fulfil all her

obligations as Russia's ally. In response to the military measures

taken in Germany, the Government hastened its preparations; but several

days had been lost, and already the covering troops of the German Army

were massed all along the frontier between Luxemburg and Alsace. To

avoid any frontier incident, the French troops were ordered to leave a

zone of ten kilometres between their outposts and the boundary line.

But all the conciliatory proposals were rejected either at Vienna or

at Berlin. Telegrams exchanged between the Tsar and the German Emperor

merely convinced Russia that Germany had made her decision. On the

morning of July 31, a general mobilisation was decreed at Vienna; for

a few hours it was nevertheless hoped that Germany and Austria-Hungary

would nevertheless draw back before the consequences of a declaration

of war against Russia: Vienna hesitated, Berlin decided; and on

Saturday, August 1, at the moment when Austria consented to enter into

a discussion with the Powers regarding the basis of the ultimatum

addressed to Serbia, Germany required Russia to countermand within

twelve hours all the measures of mobilisation already taken. M. von

Schoen invited France to state if she would support Russia.

Germany, which had already prepared for her general mobilisation by

announcing the condition of "danger of war" (_Kriegsgefahrzustand_),

decided on August 1 to proceed to this mobilisation, and at the same

time her troops entered Luxemburg under the pretext of protecting its

railways against occupation by French troops; and the German Ambassador

at St. Petersburg delivered the declaration of war with Russia, thus

rendering useless the negotiations between Vienna and the Powers of

the Triple _Entente_. France then ordered a general mobilisation of

her own forces, and applied to Great Britain, who undertook to protect

the coasts of the Channel and the Atlantic against attack by the

German Fleet (p. 171), The day following, German troops entered the

territory of Belfort, and Germany required the Belgian Government to

declare, within seven hours, whether it was disposed to facilitate

German military operations against France. Finally, on August 3, at 6

P.M., Herr von Schoen delivered a letter to M. Viviani, notifying him

that a state of war existed between Germany and France. M. Cambon was

then instructed by the French Government to demand his passports and

leave Berlin. To the last, and even in the practical details relating

to international courtesies, the methods of Germany and of France

were conspicuously different; M. Schoen was taken to the frontier by

a special train--of which the Germans kept possession for several

weeks; M. Cambon was subjected to treatment unworthy of a country with

knowledge of the practices customary between civilised States.

France was faced by the most formidable war in her history. She

courageously prepared to carry it on. The Government summoned the

Chambers for Tuesday, August 4. The sitting was destined to have a

decisive influence on the whole subsequent course of events; it showed

how profoundly the German aggression had altered the opinion of the

whole of France. All the disquieting forecasts which seemed to be

supported by the debates in the Chambers and the party conflicts were

found to be wholly falsified. M. Raymond Poincaré, who some days

earlier made a personal appeal to King George V. to use his great

influence in favour of peace, the French Ministry now asked for the

armed intervention of Great Britain in the interest of the future

equilibrium of Europe. The German entry into Belgium compelled Great

Britain to declare herself. The Triple _Entente_ was transformed into

an alliance, while the Triple Alliance broke up, inasmuch as Italy

refused to be drawn into a war declared without consulting her. At this

momentous juncture the attitude of France upset the calculations of her

enemies. They had counted on two great causes of her inferiority, want

of artillery and internal disturbance. As to the first, it was true

that the German heavy artillery was greatly superior in the early days

of the war, but, to compensate for this, the French troops, brought

into the field a light artillery weapon, the 75-millimetres cannon,

of which the manufacture had been hurried on in the utmost secrecy,

thanks to an understanding between the Government and the Parliamentary

Committees on the Army and the Budget, and of which the mobility,

precision, and rapid fire contributed in no small degree to sustain the

_moral_ of the troops. Moreover, a vigorous impulse was given to the

production of howitzers and long-range cannon which in a few months

made up for the initial inferiority of France in these weapons. The

dangers arising from internal disturbance and unrest were obviated very

soon. The attitude of the trade unionists, and even of the Socialists,

caused some anxiety to the Government. Towards the end of July the

Executive Committee of the International had met at Brussels and had

declared against the war. It had decided to hold a kind of congress

at Paris on August 9; but the declaration of war caused this to be

given up. An attempt at a trade-unionist demonstration in the streets

of Paris had been forcibly suppressed by the police, with the entire

approval of the public. Other attempts at disorder were made under the

guise of patriotism, and a number of shops and stores were plundered;

some arrests were made, and it was found that the nationality of

some of the agitators was questionable. The murder of M. Jaurès by

a wretched youth whose mental balance had been upset, had not the

terrible consequences that there had been reason to apprehend. On the

contrary, the horror manifested by the entire Press, the full justice

done to the victim in impressive fashion by the Prime Minister, the

loyal attitude taken up by the Socialist party, converted this great

disaster into an opportunity for an imposing exhibition of the unity

of the nation. But legislative sanction was required for the measures

of public safety that the war compelled the Government to take. The

Chambers met on August 4. On the previous day there had been some

changes in the Ministry. M. Viviani, thinking--and quite rightly--that

he would be fully occupied in the general superintendence of affairs,

turned over the Foreign Ministry to M. Doumergue. M. Gauthier, for

reasons of health, left the Ministry of Marine, which was taken by M.

Augagneur. M. Sarraut, a deputy and Governor-General of Indo-China,

became Minister of Public Instruction. This rearrangement was not

altogether happy. It left the Cabinet distinctively Radical at a moment

when it would have been desirable to summon the two men whose return to

office was hoped for by the public--M. Delcassé and M. Millerand. For a

few days longer personal and party animosities kept them out.

The sitting held on the historic date of August 4 was profoundly

impressive. President Poincaré's message and M. Viviani's address

were received with enthusiastic acclamations; and the Bills necessary

for national defence were passed unanimously without debate. There

were eighteen in all; mention may be made of the following. One

authorised the Government to issue decrees in Council of State opening

the supplementary and extraordinary credits required by the needs of

national defence, subject, however, to approval by the Chambers within

the fifteen days next after their reassembling. Another provided

for the grant of allowances to necessitous families of mobilised

soldiers. A third authorised the extension of the note issue of

the Bank of France from its actual figure of 6,800,000,000 francs

(272,000,000_l._) to 12,000,000,000 francs (480,000,000_l._); another

prolonged the period at the termination of which commercial bills

would fall due. Another established the state of siege in France and

the colonies. Another, again, permitted the incorporation either of

commissioned officers or of privates of the Territorial Army into the

Field Army, or conversely. Finally, there was a Bill to put a stop to

indiscreet revelations on the part of the Press. When the Government

had been invested with these very extensive powers, the Chambers were

prorogued _sine die_, and the whole strength of the country rallied

to meet the crisis, unprecedented in history, which had imposed

this sudden strain. In the very first days of the war reassuring

symptoms appeared. The Press resigned itself to strict censorship; the

preparations for mobilisation were soon seen to have been skilfully

co-ordinated; within a few days the regiments of the second line were

ready to leave to rejoin the covering troops already stationed along

the frontier. The great work of concentration was carried out with a

marvellous punctuality and precision which aroused general admiration.

The Northern and Eastern Railway companies adapted themselves most

skilfully and readily to a task which was made even more complicated

in that the German violation of the neutrality of Belgium compelled

the French General Staff to make its principal effort in a different

direction from that contemplated beforehand. The King of the Belgians

on August 4 had appealed to France, Great Britain, and Russia to

co-operate for the defence of Belgium as guarantors of its neutrality,

and had declared that the defence of the Belgian fortresses would be

undertaken by Belgium herself. There was, therefore, reason to expect

that the abrupt German attack in the north would be so retarded by

the resistance of Liège and Namur as to permit the British and French

forces to come to the assistance of the Belgians. Consequently it was

decided that the French Armies should take the offensive in Alsace

and Lorraine in such a way as to attract to this region the greatest

possible number of the invaders. As it was stated that Austria-Hungary

had sent Slav regiments to the Rhine, France recalled her Ambassador,

M. Dumaine, from Vienna, and gave the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador

in Paris, Count Széczen, his passports on August 10. By prolonging

the ambiguity of her attitude for nearly a week, Austria-Hungary had

hoped to compel France to declare war on her, and thereby to enable

her to call on Italy to fulfil her treaty obligations. This measure,

however, proved futile; for, by her despatch of troops, and especially

of howitzers, Austria-Hungary had manifestly taken the initiative in

making war.

While Belgium was holding back the invasion by the north, the French

Army on the extreme right made its way into Alsace by the Gap of

Belfort and the passes of the Vosges. It was commanded by General

d'Amade, who had previously been in command of the Corps of Observation

in the Alps, and who was available for other service owing to the

certainty that Italy would remain neutral. The first conflicts were

favourable to the French. Altkirch and Munster were carried, and

on August 6 the French outposts were enthusiastically welcomed at

Mulhouse. But the forest of the Hardt and the heights situated beyond

the town had been protected by a very strong system of defences. While

General Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, issued a proclamation

promising the Alsatians that they should be restored to France, the

German Commander, General von Demling, was strongly reinforcing his

defensive positions, and the French were overwhelmed by a heavy

artillery surpassing their own field guns in number and range. They

fell back; the people of Mulhouse, who had openly welcomed them, were

shot by the Germans without mercy. General d'Amade was superseded by

General Pau; but it was recognised that it was through inadequate

information that his advance had failed; and some days later he was

sent to Arras. General Pau made great efforts to resume the attack, he

was supported by part of the troops from Algeria, who had crossed the

Mediterranean without incident, and had been brought to the front with

praiseworthy speed by the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway; and

also by the Chasseurs Alpins, for whom on the South-Eastern frontier

there was nothing now to do. By three weeks' desperate fighting the

French recovered the plain of Alsace up to the gates of Colmar, and

obtained control of the high valleys of the Vosges. But meanwhile the

armies of the Ardennes and Lorraine were attacked by forces so greatly

superior that the continuance of the work of liberating Alsace had to

be given up. General Pau was ordered to retire. He contested every

step of his retreat; created positions defending the passes through the

Vosges, furnished General Thévenet, the Governor of Belfort, with the

troops necessary to hold the enemy in check between the Ballons and

the Swiss frontier, and emerged from the struggle with his prestige

increased. On August 26 the French offensive in Alsace was suspended;

and up to the close of the year this region took a secondary place.

Strongly defended by the 21st Corps, whose officers had previously

familiarised themselves thoroughly with the country, and by the Alpine

troops, it became as it were the bastion on which the extreme right of

the French Army might safely rest.

More serious consequences resulted from the miscalculation made by the

French Government on the front towards Lorraine and Belgium. As it

had expected a sudden attack directed on the right bank of the Meuse

and along the Moselle, the bulk of the French forces had been divided

between the Vosges and the Meuse. French Flanders was, at the very

first, left undefended. The town of Lille was protected only by forts

of which the construction dated as far back as the first conceptions

formulated in 1875; not one was constructed of concrete or provided

with cupolas. The heavy guns had been partly sent to the fortresses of

the North-East or to the sea front. Maubeuge was better off, though its

defences were not equal to those of Verdun, Toul, or Épinal, which were

fairly good. Now, if the invasion came--as it actually did--by the left

bank of the Meuse and the Gap of the Oise, the defensive position of

the North would serve as a point of support to an army threatening the

flank of the invader. Were this point of support lacking, the French

would be in great danger of having their left flank turned. This danger

was destined to influence the whole of the first part of the campaign,

after the repulse of the French attempts to advance. In fact, contrary

to the expectations entertained at the outset, the Army of Lorraine,

under General de Castelnau, had not been attacked since hostilities

began. Holding back the army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria, which had

crossed the Schirmeck and Donon passes in the Middle Vosges, and was

advancing on Lunéville, it had succeeded in forming before Nancy a very

strongly entrenched front, which became famous as the Grand Couronné of

Nancy, and then had moved forward in the direction of Metz. On August

12 it attacked the Germans at Pont-à-Mousson and Pagny, and drove them

back on its left, while on the right it retook Blamont and Cirey, and

then advanced rapidly on August 16 and the days following, retook the

passes of St. Marie-aux-Mines and Bonhomme, occupied Sarrebourg, and

pushed its cavalry forward as far as Château-Salins. But on August

20 it found itself confronted with the entrenched camp at Morhange,

and met with a serious check. Its attack was stopped short by forces

superior in number, and some of its units were seized with panic.

The energy of the commanding officers coped successfully with these

weaknesses, and the retreat on Nancy was carried out in good order. By

successive stages, General Castelnau retired on the defensive positions

of the Grand Couronné of Nancy, and held it with vigour. For three days

(Aug. 22-24) his position was most critical, and his army suffered

heavy losses. On the 25th reinforcements arrived under the command

of General Dubail. The environs of Nancy were freed of the enemy by

a decisive counter-attack; and when, a fortnight later, the German

Emperor himself came to preside over a series of desperate efforts to

capture the capital of Lorraine, it was too late. The Grand Couronné

held out; and the Germans were compelled to evacuate Lunéville, which

for several days they had occupied. Nancy, Toul, and Verdun thus formed

as it were a barrier serving as a support for the victorious right wing

of the French Army while holding back the tide of invaders pouring in

from Luxemburg and Belgium.

On the west centre General Joffre, the Commander-in-Chief, had, as it

proved, to face terribly severe ordeals. On August 10 the Crown Prince

William's army had entered France by the Gap of Tiercelet; it had

invested Longwy, carried Spincourt, and encroached on the fortified

area of Verdun; but the unexpected resistance of Longwy and the

invincible strength of the advanced works of Verdun delayed its march,

and thus permitted the armies of Generals Bülow and Von Kluck to play

the leading part during this period of the war. These two generals had

made their way into Belgium, and found themselves faced by the two

armies of General Ruffey and General de Langle de Carry, which had

the British Expeditionary Force on their right, supported by General

Lanrezac. On August 15 Dinant was occupied by the French wing, which

General Joffre had been compelled to push forward beyond the lines of

defence he had chosen. It took more than a week for the two armies of

Generals Ruffey and de Langle de Carry to reach the front. The great

conflict took place on August 22, on the wooded plateau extending along

the right of the Meuse. The Germans had had time to entrench and to

bring up heavy artillery, the effects of which for a time upset the

French resistance. The French losses were immense; some army corps, the

11th among others, lost almost all their officers, and were compelled

to retreat. The Germans advanced rapidly by both banks of the Meuse.

The fall of Namur (Aug. 25) and the sanguinary conflict at Charleroi

enabled them to enter France. Their daring tactics, their use of

armoured motor-cars, their superiority in machine-guns, above all the

overwhelmingly large proportion of their effectives, allowed their

opponents to do no more than honourably contest the ground, retreating

all the time. On August 24 General Lanrezac retired on Givet; on the

25th the British Army took up a position of resistance to the invaders

on the line Cambrai-Le Câteau-Landrecies; but the day following it

was attacked by five German army corps, and, in spite of the admirable

behaviour of General Smith-Dorrien's division, it was compelled to

continue its retreat. The situation of the Anglo-French Army then

became extremely critical. It was threatened with envelopment on its

left flank by a great turning movement of the enemy, who had masked

Maubeuge and were pouring in by the North. Contrary to the views of

General Percin and General d'Amade, and at the request of the civilian

authority the fortified town of Lille had been declared an open town

on August 24 and hastily evacuated. Flanders and Artois were swept by

the cavalry and the advanced guard of the German Army; the bulk of the

troops were advancing by stages of forty to forty-five kilometres daily

(twenty-five to twenty-eight miles). All seemed lost.

This news produced an immense effect in Paris and throughout France,

although the official bulletins were sparing of information, curt,

and ambiguous, and no other source of intelligence was permitted by

the censorship. General Joffre complained that he was thwarted in his

plans by the War Minister; the Ministry seemed too exclusive in its

composition at a time when mere politics were out of season. M. Viviani

recognised the need and rapidly took his decision. On August 26 he

announced to his colleagues that he proposed to resign, a step which

entailed their doing likewise; but in his case it was a mere feint, for

he was at once charged to reconstruct the Government, and on August

27 the _Journal Officiel_ published the list of the new Ministry of

National Defence. M. Viviani remained Prime Minister; M. Briand became

Minister of Justice and Vice-President; M. Delcassé triumphantly

returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in place of M. Doumergue,

who became Colonial Minister; M. Ribot became Minister of Finance, M.

Millerand Minister of War, M. Sembat took the Ministry of Public Works,

succeeding M. R. Renoult, M. Bienvenu-Martin was given the Ministry

of Labour in exchange for that of Justice; the five remaining posts

were retained by their previous holders. To emphasise the wide range

of the new combination, M. Jules Guesde, a Unified Socialist, was made

a Minister without portfolio. As the Chambers were not sitting, the

new Government published a manifesto to the French people. "A conflict

is in progress which, though of supreme importance, is not decisive.

Whatever the issue, the struggle will continue. France is not the

easy prey imagined by the insolence of the enemy." The Ministry was

well received. M. Clemenceau himself gave M. Delcassé some degree of

welcome. The "sacred union" came to find a more sure foundation in

the common danger. General Joffre grew even greater amid his trials.

The energy he exhibited was beyond belief; and, what was perhaps a

phenomenon without precedent in France, he remained popular although he

required his armies to undertake the thankless task of retiring while

fighting, and of abandoning the richest and most populous regions of

the country to the German invasion and German atrocities. Admirably

supported by his subordinates and by General French, he superintended,

without an instant of weakness, the strict execution of his programme.

It consisted in holding on and lasting out; avoiding any decisive

battle until the moment when the elements needed for success should all

be present together, but giving ground without a real combat, so that

the retreat should present the appearance of a calculated manoeuvre,

and not of a compulsory flight. Thus General Lanrezac and the British

troops gave battle and fought hard at Guise and St. Quentin, while,

on the extreme left, the army which General d'Amade had begun to

reorganise passed under the command of General Maunoury, disputed

inch by inch Picardy and the Beauvais region, and retired on Paris,

while the troops of the 1st and 2nd military depots were gradually

removed towards Brittany. Similar measures were taken in Champagne.

General Langle de Carry and General Ruffey gave battle, and suffered

heavy losses, respectively near Chateau-Porcien and Bazeilles; and

the splendid behaviour of their troops retarded the progress of the

enemy, and enabled almost all the rolling stock of the railways to be

saved, with important results for the subsequent operations of the war.

Finally General Dubail, firmly based on the fortresses of Lorraine,

harassed the left flank of the Crown Prince's army, and the delay

he caused to it proved to be an important factor when the decisive

encounter took place before Paris.

In spite of their efforts, the French Generals did not succeed in

stopping the furious inrush of the invaders. Paris was threatened, and,

what mattered even more, the railways were choked. The great railway

stations from which the traffic was regulated, and whose working in

August had exhibited a marvellous activity and power of adaptation to

new conditions, began to be overwhelmed with traffic. The provisioning

of Paris and its suburbs was endangered. The civil and military

authorities were overwhelmed by the influx of fugitives from Belgium

and the invaded French districts, who fled in terror before the German

atrocities. In these critical circumstances great energy was displayed

by General Gallieni, the Governor of Paris, and by M. Delanney, the

Prefect of the Seine. For a moment the idea had been entertained of

declaring Paris an open town and making a stand farther back. This idea

the new Ministry abandoned, and formidable outworks were improvised in

advance of the forts of the first line of defence. Steps were taken

systematically to clear the city of non-combatants; the numerous

departmental associations in Paris undertook to despatch to the

remoter provinces all the families who had originally come from them,

while the roads radiating from the capital swarmed with motor-cars

carrying wealthy families to the seaside resorts on the Channel or the

Atlantic. These families had been unobtrusively encouraged to leave by

the municipal authorities, or had fled before the rumours spread by

unknown means. On September 2 the Government left for Bordeaux, and

the people of Paris learnt next day from a proclamation by General

Gallieni, as laconic as it was emphatic, that he would do his duty to

the end. But there was no need: for meanwhile the great Battle of the

Marne had begun, and it was destined to relieve him from the necessity

of imitating Palafox at Saragossa or Rostopchin at Moscow.

General Joffre had decided to retire, if necessary, as far as the

Seine to check the invader, but a series of favourable circumstances

enabled him to give battle before Paris on the North, and along the

Marne and the Grand Morin on the South. At the moment when people were

expecting to see the German masses press on the northern front of the

entrenched camp of Paris and attack it by the space intervening between

the forest of Montmorency and the Marne, they were seen to be turning

abruptly to the South-East and transferring their efforts to the line

of the Ourcq, Meaux, and Coulommiers. All was ready for its reception.

On the left General Maunoury, reinforced by the troops of the Army of

Paris and having on his right the British forces and those of General

Lanrezac, now under the command of General Franchey d'Esperey, was

about to hurl himself on the German right. At the centre was a new army

formed since August 20 and placed under the command of General Foch,

charged to hold the line between the Marne and the tertiary cliffs; it

was faced by General Bülow's army. Finally on the right General Langle

de Carry's and General Ruffey's armies, the latter now commanded by

General Sarrail, were ready to receive the Crown Prince, who slackened

his pace in his devastating march through Champagne. On the evening

of September 5 General Joffre issued his famous Order of the Day: "A

body of troops which cannot advance must at all costs keep the ground

it has acquired, and be shot down where it stands rather than retreat.

Under present circumstances there must be no giving way." On September

6 the fight began all along the line from Nanteuil-le-Haudouin at one

end to Vitry-le-François on the other. The Germans advanced as far

as Coulommiers and La Ferté-Gaucher, but, while the British stopped

them at the crossing of the Grand-Morin, General Maunoury forced them

back all along the Ourcq, and the Prussian Guard lost very heavily in

the marshes of St. Gond. After five days of furious attacks the Crown

Prince's army gave way, and, on the morning of September 11, General

Foch re-entered Châlons-sur-Marne in triumph. Bülow and Kluck had been

drawn farther back, and the French Commander-in-Chief was able to

announce to the Army and to France that the battle was won. Paris was

saved.

Meanwhile the Government had established itself at Bordeaux, and had

invited the members of the two Chambers to go there also, to keep

in touch with it. Most of the deputies for Paris had preferred to

remain among their constituents, and, as the session had been closed

by decree, the presence of deputies or senators on the banks of the

Garonne involved more inconvenience than advantage. There was some

idea of sending the best speakers among them about the country to

explain the origins of the war and the vicissitudes of the campaign;

but the Press, in spite of censorship, was amply sufficient for this

work; and the Ministry, though it prepared the two chief theatres of

Bordeaux to receive the Chambers, if needful, abstained from subjecting

itself to their control. This course, however, was approved by the

great majority of the nation, which evinced a praiseworthy spirit of

resignation amid the varied trials imposed on it by the war. Gradually

France became accustomed to the idea that the conflict would last much

longer than that of 1870, and that firmness and endurance were needed

in the spheres of economics and diplomacy as well as in the actual

warfare. The hardest task fell to M. Ribot, the Finance Minister. Means

had to be found of supporting not only the Army and Navy, but the

civil population, in order to protect from need those families whose

bread-winner had been mobilised, and even those impoverished through

unemployment. In the first days of the war committees had been formed

to provide allowances for women deprived of a husband or son, and for

their young children. These committees had adopted different rules in

different places, and their proceedings gave rise to acute complaints.

It was determined that the State should make itself responsible for the

support of the families of the men mobilised, that the municipalities,

aided eventually by the State and the departmental authorities,

should provide subsidies in aid of the unemployed, whether by gifts

in money or aid in kind--food, fuel and clothing. Great service in

these circumstances was rendered by the Bank of France, whose aid was

the more appreciated inasmuch as the issue of National Defence Bonds

which the Treasury had striven to arrange on the first days of the

war had not found entirely adequate response. The Ministers of War

and of Public Works, M. Millerand and M. Sembat, were harassed by

complaints on the subject of transport; the victualling of the Army

and the provisioning of the towns seemed likely to be paralysed by the

overcrowded condition of the railways and the ports. In defiance of

the censorship, M. Clemenceau actively attacked the abuses set up by

political or social favouritism, through which a considerable number

of young men evaded their duty as patriots, and remained ensconced in

the public offices, or were rejected on medical examination through

favouritism. Provision had also to be made to replace the immense

quantity of ammunition and war material consumed on the battlefields.

The indefatigable War Minister grappled with the difficulties, the

manufacture of heavy guns was pushed on with amazing energy, and ample

amends were made for the inferiority from which the French troops had

suffered so severely in the first days of the war. General praise was

expressed, too, for the skilful management of the supply services; the

Army, well fed and largely strengthened by new levies, was enabled

confidently to continue its work. It knew that the conflict would go on

until exemplary chastisement had been administered to the aggressor.

Far from keeping "the nation in arms" in ignorance of the causes

and vicissitudes of the gigantic struggle in which it was engaged,

the Government established and issued an "Army Bulletin," in the

preparation of which the most eminent writers held it an honour to take

part, and which gave the troops the most essential items of news and

kept up their hope and emulation.

This, indeed, was eminently needed, for the warfare was just about to

take on a new character little in accordance with the instincts of the

French soldier. After the victory of the Marne, the Germans had at

first been pursued vigorously, in spite of the fatigue and the losses

suffered by the Allied troops. The Crown Prince's army had been thrust

back into the forest of Argonne and was with difficulty holding its

ground before Varennes; it held in great strength the commanding mass

of hills known as Montfaucon, and was being considerably reinforced;

but, in the centre, the French on September 13 hurled themselves

against a formidable line of entrenchments, of which the eastern pivot

was formed by the forts of Reims, while its right was supported by

the quarries of the Soissons district. The forts of Reims had been

precipitately dismantled by the French in the early days of August, and

subsequently restored by the Germans; the quarries had been minutely

explored for a long time before the war by German spies, and recently

furnished with powerful guns. A new battle now began, termed the Battle

of the Aisne. It was destined to last till the end of September; and

it comprised two series of operations. One set was tactical; the

armies whose alignment has been described above--General Dubail's

in Lorraine, General Sarrail's in the Woevre region, General Langle

de Carry's in the Argonne, and General Franchey d'Esperey's in the

Reims district, forced back the troops opposed to them step by step,

and fought battles in which the chief part was played by artillery,

and which consisted in attacks and counter-attacks designed to carry

fortified positions. General Maunoury and Sir John French held the

Soissons district and made their way slowly along the Aisne and the

Oise. But the Germans put new troops in the fighting line, and brought

back from the Eastern front part of the forces taken from the Western

front in August to clear East Prussia of the enemy. Further, they

withdrew troops in considerable numbers from the northern Vosges, and

sent the army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria to the north-west. All

this caused strategic movements, responded to by similar manoeuvres on

the side of the French. The Germans took the initiative as occupying a

central position, while the French line overlapped theirs. They strove,

therefore, to turn it, and to envelope the Allies' left. General

Joffre replied by a rapid change in the position of his effectives.

Reinforcing General Dubail's army by new regiments formed in the West

and centre of France, and filling in full measure the gaps left in

his former units by drafts from the depots, he despatched General

Castelnau's army to the right of the Oise, where it took the place

vacated by the British troops. These latter proceeded to cover Artois

and Western Flanders, together with General Brugères' Territorials and

the rest of the troops that could be spared from Lorraine, under the

command of General de Maud'huy. These movements were carried out with

great precision; and, by a curious coincidence, the French regiments

from Lorraine found themselves faced by the same Bavarian troops that

they had fought between Épinal and Nancy some weeks before. Thus was

accomplished what has been termed the race to the sea, and a definitive

check was given to the plan of the German General Staff for enveloping

the French left.

While these immense movements of troops were being effected, the

conflict raged, more especially at the centre, where General von

Kluck was striving to break the junction in the square marked out by

the French lines. Firmly established in the forts at the north of

Reims, he had revenged himself for his inability to capture the town

by bombarding the cathedral, on which, from September 13 to the end

of the year, the work of destruction was to be persistently directed

every time that a German attack was repulsed. In the Soissons district

furious attacks were sustained by the British troops. The Battle of

the Aisne, taken as a whole, ended in a success for the Allies, for

the discomfiture of the Germans was such that the Emperor deprived

General von Moltke of his post as Chief of the General Staff, replacing

him first by General Voigts-Retz, then by the Minister of War. The

Crown Prince, who had not been very successful in the conduct of the

operations on the left, was replaced by General von Einem, and, after a

mysterious eclipse, was sent to the Eastern front. The weakness of the

German Army lay in the inadequacy of the chief command.

During October the chief interest of the struggle centred in the

northern area of the war. The Belgian Army had evacuated Antwerp on

October 9, and, with the aid of a landing force of British marines

and bluejackets, and a British squadron lying off the coast, it had

escaped the German grasp and retired, first on Ostend, then on the

coast district of West Flanders. The Belgian Government established

itself at Havre, while King Albert encouraged by his presence the

remains of the organised forces of the Kingdom. The modest nucleus was

destined to be increased rapidly by the reinforcements provided by the

enrolment of all Belgians of military age who had fled before the

invasion. To these General Joffre added a new army under the command

of General d'Urbal; and, as this vast distribution of forces required

that the command should be strongly organised, he took two coadjutors;

and one of these, General Foch, was charged with the direction of

the operations of the armies of the North, the other, General Pau,

was concerned primarily with the armies of the East, and might, if

necessary, take his own place as Commander-in-Chief. Thus the French

armies were satisfactorily co-ordinated and combined; and all was

ready to receive the new attack about to be made, under the personal

supervision of the German Emperor, against the extreme left of the

French Army. Twelve Army Corps and four Cavalry Corps were charged to

break its resistance at all costs, and to reach Dunkirk and Calais,

which were to serve as bases for the invasion of England. Under the

pressure of this mass, sent to attack in deep columns regardless of

the losses thereby imposed on the assailants, the Allies' troops were

at first obliged to fall back to the Yser, and for three weeks, up to

November 12, the result remained doubtful. But already the method of

attrition employed by General Joffre and Sir John French was having

its effect. The Prussian, Bavarian, and Würtemberg regiments had not

the dash or the homogeneity of the troops that had invaded Belgium and

France in August. The officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, were

of very inferior quality; the greater part of the effectives consisted

of soldiers who were either too young or too old, and were badly led;

the superiority in artillery had passed to the defenders. The Emperor

had to leave this theatre of war after the same lack of success as had

marked his previous appearances on the front in Lorraine and Champagne.

The German losses in the encounters collectively named the Battle of

the Yser were estimated at 120,000. In accordance with the custom set

up by the Germans, their long-range guns requited the humiliation

inflicted on their troops by firing on the monuments of antiquity,

and bombarded and completely destroyed the Cloth Hall of Ypres, a

masterpiece of the Flemish architecture of the fourteenth century.

On the remainder of the front the struggle continued, and took on more

and more the character of a war of siege. Instead of operations in

the open field, both sides dug themselves into interminable trenches

connected by tunnels through earth or rock, and strongly protected. In

the aerial warfare the French and British airmen encountered the German

Taubes and Aviatiks; fighting went on for weeks to capture or recover a

wrecked and miserable village or a ragged clump of trees. In spite of

all their efforts the Germans were unable either to recover Soissons

or to capture Reims, or completely to invest Verdun. In the last-named

quarter, after capturing St. Mihiel at the end of September, they had

been compelled to confine themselves within the high ground along the

Meuse, and to retire beyond Nancy, without, however, giving up all hope

of returning to the attack. The winter campaign opened with the armies

in this position of reciprocal defence. The war seemed likely to last

much longer than had been expected at first, and to be a real war of

exhaustion, in which the advantage would remain with whichever of the

combatants displayed most obstinacy and tenacity.

However, it seemed improbable that the Germans would be in a position

to resume their march on Paris; and the question arose whether the

French Government should remain at Bordeaux. Indeed, in proportion as

the war took on more and more the character of a chronic malady from

which recovery would be lengthy, and as a renewal of the German advance

against Paris became increasingly improbable, the inconveniences

involved in the continued stay of the Government at Bordeaux were

more keenly realised. In spite of the reticence imposed on the Press

by the censorship, the bitter criticisms suggested to the people

of the great south-western city by the influx of the strange crowd

that swarmed round the public offices were echoed throughout France.

Unpleasant comments were aroused by the contrast between the casual

methods displayed in the fashionable restaurants of Bordeaux and the

almost ascetic and Puritanical attitude of the people of Paris. The

difficulties of communication hampered not only business, but even the

action of the authorities. The deputies of Paris formed themselves into

a group presided over by M. Denys Cochin, a Conservative member for

the Department of the Seine; but it included also Socialists as well

as Moderates. Without actually forming a State within a State, this

body, unknown to the Constitution, speedily showed an activity with

which the Government was compelled to reckon. It became the mouthpiece

for all the complaints set up by the economic crisis with which Paris

was struggling. Another group arose, that of the Senators and Deputies

of the invaded districts. It made M. Leon Bourgeois its spokesman,

and took up the defence of the interests, whether material or moral,

of the populations of the North-East. The Ministry was quite aware

of the hindrance to the war of which these particularist tendencies

contained the germs; but they thought it more prudent to make terms.

Various missions were entrusted to members of the Ministry; M. Briand,

M. Sembat, M. Millerand, and even M. Viviani himself, repeatedly

came to parley with representatives of Paris and the North-East. M.

Poincaré twice left Bordeaux to visit the armies, and made one of his

visits coincide with that paid by King George V. at the beginning of

December to the British Expeditionary Force (p. 246). This conciliatory

policy bore satisfactory fruit. The feeling of the public generally

remained excellent. A generous rivalry was exhibited by the different

Departments. Many Departmental Councils, whose session had been delayed

in view of the war, voted aid in money or in kind to the war victims

and the refugees. The towns, the Chambers of Commerce, and associations

of all kinds vied with one another in generosity, and, as the winter

became more rigorous, paid ample contribution to the National Relief

Committee, enabling M. Appel, its President, and his fellow-workers to

meet all demands. In spite of the unemployment and the rise in the cost

of living, the necessitous classes passed through this difficult time

without great suffering.

Little by little, business began to recover. Great improvements had

been effected in the management of the railways; from October onwards,

the express services had been to some extent re-established on all the

lines. In November the continued depression in the foreign exchanges

had been stopped, the imports and exports were increasing again; so was

the revenue from taxation, direct and indirect. On December 7 the Paris

Bourse, which had been closed since September 3, resumed its operation

for cash transactions. True the 3 per cent. Rente opened at 72.50,

while before the closing it had remained firm at 75, but this latter

price was due to the fact that the syndicate of _agents de change_

had forbidden dealings at a lower figure. The market was not swamped,

as had been feared, by the offer of enormous masses of securities;

the provincial Exchanges, at Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles and other

great towns, which had continued open while the Paris Bourse was

closed, had quietly absorbed a great part of the stocks offered. The

political situation cleared up likewise. On December 8 the Government

returned to Paris. M. Millerand alone of all the Ministers remained

behind for a few days, his department requiring rather more time for

its transference. The Chambers were summoned for December 22, to give

legal sanction to the measures taken since August 4 by the Government.

Their Committees had never had so much work, for it was really on them

that the control given by the Constitution to the two Chambers had of

necessity devolved. Though certain persons were impatient and some

ambitions were disappointed, the truce of parties was maintained. If

the Ministers favoured the Committees on the war, on foreign affairs,

and on finance, with certain confidential statements not quite in

harmony with the occasionally ambiguous optimism of the daily official

war bulletins in the Press, the secrecy of these statements was well

kept; the measures taken by the Ministry during the Parliamentary

interregnum were collectively judged worthy of approval, and the

innovations proposed were accepted. Among the measures taken mention

must be made of the decree signed by M. Ribot on December 11, restoring

to the paying Treasurers-General the prerogatives and advantages lost

some years earlier; they recovered the right of obtaining on their

personal credit the capital advanced by them to the State to give

steadiness during the first months of the financial year. Among the

innovations we must note the abolition in the Budget of 1915 of all

the special accounts which had gradually grown up beside the account

of current expenditure; repair of war material, naval construction,

Morocco, reduction of succession duties in the case of direct heirs

or of wives of soldiers killed on active service, and, finally, the

suspension for 1915 of the complementary income-tax (p. 271), in

view of the impossibility of completing, while the war lasted, the

formalities prescribed by the Finance Act of 1914. On December 22 and

23 the Chambers unanimously adopted the proposals of the Government.

They had received with acclamation the dignified declaration of M.

Viviani on behalf of the Ministry and the entire nation, that France,

together with her Allies, would carry on the war to the end, and would

not lay down her arms until the provinces torn from her by force were

for ever welded to their French fatherland. A like greeting had been

given to the fine Presidential address of M. Paul Deschanel in the

Chamber, and to that of M. Antonin Dubost in the Senate. It was under

this reassuring impression of unity and concord that the year came to

its end. For the first six months of 1915 the Chambers voted credits

of 8,525,000,000 francs (341,000,000_l._). They also postponed till

the end of the war all the elections, including the partial renewal

of the Senate, due at the beginning of January, 1915. Everything was

made subordinate to national defence, by the entire nation as by its

representatives. Meanwhile the allied armies, firmly fixed in their

trenches as if in winter quarters, continued, without much progress

but also without retirement, the war of attrition which was gradually

thinning the forces of the invader and drawing away their strength.

II. ITALY.

At the beginning of the autumn of 1911, and at the calmly calculated

instigation of Signor Giolitti, Italy undertook to conquer Tripoli;

and thereby she obliged herself to choose between two courses: either

that of frankly denouncing, sooner or later, the treaty forming the

basis of the Triple Alliance, or that of extricating herself from it

with dexterity. Never, perhaps, had Italian diplomatic talent found

itself confronted with problems of such complexity; unquestionably, on

many occasions during 1914, it showed itself surpassingly skilful. The

situation was dominated by three great facts: (1) the eclipse of Signor

Giolitti, and the resultant developments of the parties in Parliament;

(2) the declaration of neutrality with the skilful manoeuvres which

led up to the Italian landing at Valona; (3) the death of Pope Pius X.

and the efforts of his successor, Benedict XV., to guard the prestige

of the Church between Austria and Prussia on one side and France and

Belgium on the other.

Signor Giolitti had repeatedly expressed a desire to quit public

life; at the age of seventy he began to feel the weariness entailed

on him by the difficulties of Parliamentary work. His determination

was strengthened during the January recess. The Radicals were showing

indications of independence. The Nationalists were agitating; their

organs in the Press claimed that Turkey should indemnify Italy for the

supplementary expenses entailed by the attacks of the Arabs in the

Cyrenaica, who had been formed into military units by the officers

and privates of the Ottoman Army who, despite the Treaty of Ouchy,

had remained in Libya. They demanded railway concessions in Asia

Minor, and M. Venizelos, the Greek Premier, came to Rome to confer

with the Italian Foreign Minister, the Marchese di San Giuliano, on

the subject of Epirus and the islands. The Socialists were making

progress. On February 9 they secured the election to the Chamber

by an immense majority of Amilcare Cipriani, who, by reason of the

numerous convictions he had undergone, was ineligible. New votes of

credit were necessary, and the day before the Chambers reassembled,

the Ministry decided to ask the Chamber for new taxation, estimated to

produce 47,000,000 lire (1,880,000_l._), to be levied on buildings in

construction, prices of admission to cinema shows, public carriages,

furniture removers, and mineral waters, and also from Customs. On

February 10 the debate began on the extraordinary expenditure entailed

by the expedition to Libya. It was destined to last more than three

weeks, and it would have dragged on longer, had not the Socialists

decided to give up obstructing in return for an engagement by the

Minister of Public Worship to introduce a Bill providing that civil

marriage should invariably precede the religious ceremony. The

debate was marked (Feb. 27) by a spirited encounter between Signor

Giolitti and Signor Luzzatti. At last (March 4) the Premier summed

up his African policy, and declared that he would not ask for a vote

of confidence, but would merely request the House to pass to the

consideration of the clauses of the Bill. His demand was granted by

361 to 83, with three abstentions. But some days later (March 7) the

Radical group in Parliament adopted a resolution expressing the opinion

that the time had come to lay stress on its distinctive differences.

Two Ministers belonged to it; they resigned. The Socialists organised

a one-day general strike in sympathy with the hospital attendants, a

number of whom had been discharged; and at Rome this manoeuvre had some

success. On March 10 Signor Giolitti announced to the Chamber that

he had resigned, and that the King had accepted his resignation. The

Chamber adjourned.

The situation presented great difficulties, for the retiring Ministry

retained its influence to the full, and its members continued

personally to act on every branch of the Administration. A new

Ministry had to be found pliant enough to accept its patronage, and

with sufficient dignity to retain a certain degree of independence

and maintain the prestige of office. Signor Salandra proved to be the

right man for the occasion. His financial ability gave him almost the

authority of a Luzzatti; his reputation for enlightened Conservatism

enabled him to obtain sufficient help among the members of the Right to

make up for the hostility of the Radical irreconcilables. He accepted

the task imposed on him by the King at Signor Giolitti's suggestion;

and on March 20 the new Cabinet presented itself to the Chamber. It

was a Cabinet of concentration, containing no representative of the

Extreme Right or Extreme Left, and consisting for the most part of the

late Ministers. At the Ministry of War, General Spingardi was succeeded

by General Grandi, who had declared that he would be satisfied with

an extraordinary expenditure of 200,000,000 francs (8,000,000_l._)

spread over five years, while General Porro, whose appointment was

favoured by the Chief of the General Staff, General Tassoni, demanded

325,000,000 lire (13,000,000_l._). The Finance Bills had still to be

examined again; some days were required for their further discussion,

and it was only on April 5 that Signor Salandra was able to state

his general policy. Before a crowded Chamber, he expressed himself

with a firmness and geniality which assured him goodwill; he promised

a policy which would maintain the dignity of the nation abroad and

secure progress at home; wise reforms, educational, economic, and

social, an honest Administration, and strict management of finance.

With some modification, the Civil Marriage Bill would be carried

through. The Chamber approved this programme by 303 to 122, with nine

abstentions, and adjourned (May 6). The Senate adjourned the next

day, after approving the Foreign Minister's declaration regarding the

expenditure on Libya and the expected renewal of the Triple Alliance,

and applauding his statement that the interview between the King and

the German Emperor at Venice (March 29) had shown that the period of

effacement was over for Italy, and that her friendship with Great

Britain and France was firmly established.

The Easter recess had been marked by an agitation among the railway

men, which was successfully allayed by Signor Ciufelli, the Minister

of Public Works; by an interview between the Foreign Ministers of

Italy and of the Dual Monarchy, the Marchese de San Giuliano and Count

Berchtold, at Abbazia; and by an Irredentist demonstration of students

at Rome, Genoa, Florence, Naples, and other towns. Signor Salandra

closed the University of Rome (May 6). The Budget debate began on May

7, with the Estimates for the Ministry of the Interior; on the same

day the Bill was introduced imposing the new taxation amounting to

90,000,000 lire (3,600,000_l._). Replying on May 12 to a violent attack

on the subject of the disturbances at the University, Signor Salandra

defended himself with energy, and the Chamber gave him its support.

On May 19, on the other hand, he took a conciliatory tone, promising

that in the impending elections of Provincial Councils the Government

would allow all possible latitude; but, some days later, in reply to

questions put by Signor Colajanni, Signor Barzilai, and Signor de

Felice, on the removal of the Prefect of Naples, he replied that the

official in question had shown a lack of energy in the disturbances.

This encounter was a mere skirmish; at the beginning of June the

Socialists returned to the charge. Disturbances of a wholly exceptional

kind swept like a cyclone over the essentially revolutionary areas

of the Marches and the Aemilia. On Constitution Day, June 7, the

Socialists organised demonstrations at Florence, Turin, Imola, and

elsewhere; the army was insulted, the red flag hoisted, the troops

fired on the crowd. The funerals of the victims intensified the

disturbances; a general strike was called at Rome, but this was

only the revolutionists' usual move; but what happened in Romagna

was without precedent altogether. The State seemed to be collapsing

all at once. Such towns as Ancona, and all the villages, declared

themselves free communes; the authorities went into hiding, and, for

some days, the excited insurgents were convinced that their example had

been followed all over Italy, and that the Federal Republic had been

proclaimed at Rome. The rising was promptly and severely repressed;

the agitators who were most deeply implicated took to flight. At Rome

the middle classes organised counter-demonstrations, and the Secretary

of the General Confederation of Labour hurriedly sent out (June 10) a

circular ordering the strike to be stopped. When the matter came before

the Chamber, the Prime Minister demanded that its decision should be

explicit and positive; a Socialist resolution regretting the attitude

of the Government was rejected, on a vote by roll-call, by 254 to 112.

Amid the impression left by these events, the provincial and municipal

elections were held, in batches, as is the rule in Italy, on the

Sundays from June 14 to July 16. At Rome the Constitutional ticket was

successful, as also at Brescia, Modena, Siena, and Reggio. At Rome, Don

Prospero Colonna was elected Syndic; at Milan and Naples the Socialists

won. The Parliamentary sittings became stormy; for the rest of June

the Socialists persistently obstructed the financial proposals of the

Government. Signor Chiesa (Socialist) even overturned the voting-urn;

he was severely assaulted by other members and suspended for some days

(June 25). Finally on July 3, Signor Carcano, leader of the Giolittian

group, interposed, and induced the Socialists to give up obstructing.

The vote of 90,000,000 francs was passed by 224 to 34; the minority

consisted of Socialists, and 72 Radicals abstained. Two days later the

Chamber adjourned _sine die_.

The Government remained master of the situation. Domestic policy lost

all interest in view of the complications set up by the Austro-Serbian

conflict. Italian diplomacy strove to secure that counsels of

moderation should prevail; but it was obstinately set aside by the

Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office, and naturally resented this treatment.

Public opinion was indignant at the violence displayed by Austria

towards Serbia, and clearly perceived that the interests of Italy were

gravely menaced by a complete break-up of the Balkan equilibrium.

The Government refused to comply with the demand of the Socialists,

assembled at Milan, to call the Chamber together, but on July 30 it

mobilised the Fleet and concentrated it not at Brindisi, but at Gaëta.

This was at once a warning and a concession as a matter of form.

On July 31 the Austrian Ambassador, Herr von Flotow, notified the

Italian Foreign Minister of the delivery of the ultimatum to Russia

and France, and demanded information as to the attitude which Italy

proposed to adopt. The Minister replied that Austria-Hungary had not

consulted her ally, and that he could not answer before consulting the

Prime Minister. The decisive hour had come. Two days later, on August

2, Italy signified her neutrality, her reason being that the _casus

foederis_ had not arisen, inasmuch as Austria-Hungary and Germany

had brought the situation to the point where it then stood by their

initiative alone. The day following Major Kleist brought King Victor

Emmanuel an autograph letter from the German Emperor. The King confined

himself to declaring that his Constitutional duty was to support his

responsible Ministry. Thus Italy took up officially an attitude of

expectant and vigilant neutrality. She was destined to observe it

till the end of the year, in spite of the pressure exercised by the

advocates of intervention--Radicals, Liberals and Nationalists--who

demanded an invasion of the Trentino and Istria. The Socialists, on

the contrary, delivered impassioned speeches in favour of systematic

and absolute neutrality. The armed peace and the economic disturbance

required expenditure and special precautions. On August 4 a moratorium

was established by decree; repayments of deposits and on current

account were limited to fifty lire, and the maximum of currency issue

permitted to the banks was increased. The resentment caused by this

"betrayal" on the part of Italy was very acute in Germany, and still

more in Austria; it showed itself by outrages on the numerous Italians

employed in the mines and quarries of the basin of the Moselle,

outrages in sharp contrast with the consideration and generosity of the

French authorities, for which the Italian Ambassador at Paris, Signor

Tittoni, tendered the cordial thanks of his Government.

The death of Pope Pius X., on August 20, gave the Ministry the

opportunity of exhibiting an entirely correct attitude towards the

Holy See. The Conclave opened on August 31. There were three parties

in it; The Right, Conservative, directed by Cardinals Merry del Val

and Billot, and inclined to vote for Cardinal de La[~i]; the Centre,

led by Cardinals Pompili, Serafini, and Gatti, and putting forward

Cardinal Ferrata; the Left, headed by Cardinals Agliardi, della

Chiesa, and Amette, hesitated between Cardinals Gaspari and Maffi. But

the Italian proverb, "He who enters the Conclave as Pope leaves it

as Cardinal," was verified once more. After sixteen ballots Cardinal

Agliardi pronounced the name of Cardinal Della Chiesa, who was elected

on September 3 and took the name of Benedict XV. He was a professed

diplomatist, and had been a collaborator of the late Cardinal Rampolla.

He had only been a Cardinal for three months, and was Archbishop

of Bologna. He had to define his course of conduct in the European

struggle almost at once. The Belgian Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of

Malines, was destined, in returning from the Conclave, to come into

conflict with the Germans, who had destroyed Louvain and Malines, and

who prevented him from communicating with his suffragans and his flock.

Contrary to general expectation, the new Pope did not take up with

sufficient energy these encroachments on ecclesiastical prerogatives.

His policy appeared to be timorous and the result was a revival of

Gallicanism among the French clergy. Thus, when at the end of the year

the Holy See enjoined all the Episcopal authorities to cause prayers

to be offered for the restoration of peace, it met in France with an

almost universal resistance. The Bishops refused to allow the Pope's

words to be read without qualification; they were communicated subject

to the reserve that there could be no question of any peace which did

not safeguard the rights of the French nation. It was a bad beginning

for the new Pope.

In contrast with this weakness on the part of the Roman Curia, the

Government of the Italian kingdom adopted an attitude which was at

once pliant and firm. Germany had been unable to resign herself to the

neutrality of Italy; she resorted to every possible means of reviving

the Gallophobia prevalent in the country under the rule of Crispi. A

leading German Social Democrat, Herr Sudeküm, was sent to the Italian

Socialists on a mission of instruction; they protested against the

destruction of Louvain, and affirmed their sympathy for France,

the "defender of civilisation"; they declared that they supported

neutrality, but that, if the Italian Army attacked the Allies, they

would rise in insurrection. This clumsy move on the part of Germany

seemed at the moment to produce no effect on the Italian Government,

but some days later (Sept. 3) the Fleet left Gaëta for Taranto, and

troops were concentrated in the neighbourhood of Verona and Brescia. As

it was rumoured that, in the event of a breach with Austria-Hungary,

Italy would be attacked by a German Army coming from the St. Gothard,

Signor Salandra notified the Swiss Government (Sept. 24) that Italy,

which did not exist as a State in 1815, would formally adhere to the

recognition then entered into of Swiss neutrality. Three days later

the classes of 1884 to 1888 were mobilised, thereby raising the total

of the effectives in the Italian peninsula to thirty army corps. At

the same time an important change was made in the Ministry, General

Grandi, who had not been able to come to an understanding with the

Chief of the General Staff, resigned, and was succeeded by General

Zupelli (Oct. 11), but, as the Marchese di San Giuliano died on October

16, a general reconstruction of the Ministry became inevitable. Signor

Salandra resigned on November 2, and was again made Premier by the

King. He made Signor Carcano, Signor Giolitti's second in command,

Minister of Finance, and Signor Orlando Minister of Justice; and, some

days later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was accepted by Signor

Sonnino. This latter greatly increased the activity of his Department;

he summoned to Rome successively all the diplomatic representatives

of the King at foreign Courts, and thoroughly convinced himself of

the necessity of remaining for some time longer in an attitude of

expectancy. The Chambers were summoned to sanction the financial

measures taken by Royal decree, and to approve the international policy

of the Government. The session was short, but productive. On December 4

the Ministry made a statement which was well received, and the question

of neutrality was closely debated. The greatest sensation of the debate

was the disclosure made by Signor Giolitti (Dec. 5) who read a despatch

received by him as Prime Minister in August, 1913, and proving that at

that time Austria-Hungary desired to attack Serbia and appealed to the

Triple Alliance, but that Italy had refused her aid. Signor Giolitti

concluded his speech by assuring the Government of his support, and

thenceforward all its difficulties were solved. By 413 to 49 the

Chamber accorded the Salandra Ministry a vote of confidence (Dec. 8),

and thus it was understood that Italy was to preserve her attributes as

a Great Power and to be ready at any moment to intervene if necessary.

The Triple Alliance, which had not been actively denounced, was thus

virtually dissolved.

To prevent Italy from turning against the Germanic Powers, the German

ex-Chancellor, Prince Bülow, whose personal connexions at Rome were

very extensive, was sent there as Ambassador Extraordinary, taking

the place of Herr von Flotow. This mission, which was announced very

loudly, was coldly received from the first by the Liberal party and

the Italian Press. He waited to present the letters accrediting him

as Ambassador till the Chambers had adjourned for the recess. The

Senate adjourned on December 18, the Chamber on the 19th, after

having accorded the Ministry the votes of credit which it demanded,

passed the military Bills, and sanctioned a loan of 1,000,000,000

lire (40,000,000_l._). Before the week was over, the Italian Fleet,

under the command of Admiral Patris, effected without incident a

landing at Valona. Italy did not yet side definitely with either set

of combatants, but she took possession of an important pledge, thus

signifying her firm intention not to allow herself to be neglected

when the time came for a final settlement in the Balkans. This was a

first step; Austria-Hungary, which had so categorically opposed an

operation of the same sort in 1911, on this occasion made no objection.

Times were changed.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] The interest would be paid without deduction, but the holders of

_Rente_ would have to pay the tax subsequently.

CHAPTER II.

GERMANY AND AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

I. GERMANY.

Germany, the protagonist of the great European War, though she

professed to pursue the same policy this year with regard to the

quarrel between Austria-Hungary and Serbia as she did in 1908 and 1913

(A.R., 1908, p. 311; 1913, p. 321), now found herself in a position

where mere threats, even if expressed "in shining armour," would not

have sufficed, for her ally was entering upon a struggle on which she

believed her very existence depended, and Russia had nearly completed

the reorganisation of her Army, while Germany had made hers ready to

strike at any moment. The _Militarische Rundschau_ declared in July

that "if we do not decide for war, that war in which we shall have to

engage at the latest in two or three years will be begun in far less

propitious circumstances. At this moment the initiative rests with

us: Russia is not ready, moral factors and right are on our side, as

well as might. Since we shall have to accept the contest some day, let

us provoke it at once. Our prestige, our position as a great Power,

our honour, are in question; and yet more, for it would seem that our

very existence is concerned." This, however, was only the view of the

military party and the Pan-German professors. The mass of the people

did not want war, and it was only when they were deluded into the

belief that the war had been engineered by the British Government, with

France and Russia as its tools, that they were filled with a bitter

hatred of England and determined to fight to the last in defence,

as they thought, of their country. One of the most popular books in

Germany during the autumn was one entitled "Edward VII., the Greatest

Criminal of the Nineteenth Century," and all foreign newspapers and

books on the war were rigidly excluded, while the fanatical outburst

known as "the Hymn of Hate for England" was distributed among the

troops in the field. Its author received a decoration, and its

sentiments were held to be justified by the supposed criminal plot

of Great Britain and her allies against the existence of Germany.

The German Government of course knew better; Herr Maximilian Harden

described in his usual downright way its real motives as follows: "We

are fighting not to punish criminals or free oppressed nationalities,

but to get more room in the world for ourselves. Other nations,

Spain, the Netherlands, Rome, Austria, France, England, have been

at the helm, it is now our turn. It is folly to try to justify our

encroachment on Belgian neutrality by saying that France and England

would otherwise have done so."