CLEMENCEAU, GEORGES (1841-1929), French states man, was born at Mouilleron-en-Pareds, Vendee, on Sept. 28, 1841. He adopted medicine as his profession. Interested in the progressive ideas of John Stuart Mill, he decided to investigate for himself the results of the application to affairs of demo cratic theory. He therefore embarked for the United States, taking with him Mill's Auguste Comte and Positivism to translate into French. He arrived in New York early in 1866 and remained there or in New England for three years, writing descriptions of American post-war conditions to the Paris Temps and teaching French in a girls' school at Stamford, Conn. In this way he passed what he characterized as the three happiest years of his life. In 1869 he returned to Paris and after the revolution of 1870 he was nominated mayor of the i8th arrondissement of Paris (Mont martre). On Feb. 8, 1871, he was elected as a Radical to the Na tional Assembly for the department of the Seine, and voted against the peace preliminaries. The execution of Generals Lecomte and Clement Thomas by their mutinous soldiers on March 18, which he vainly tried to prevent, brought him into collision with the central committee of the National Guard, and they ordered his arrest, but he escaped; he was accused, however, by various witnesses, at the subsequent trial (Nov. 29), of not having in tervened when he might have done, and though he was cleared of this charge it led to a duel, for his share in which he was prosecuted and sentenced to a fine and a fortnight's imprison ment.
Meanwhile, on March 20, 1871, he had introduced in the Na tional Assembly at Versailles, on behalf of his Radical colleagues, the bill establishing a Paris municipal council of 8o members; but he was not returned himself at the elections. He tried with the other Paris mayors to mediate between Versailles and the hotel de ville, but failed, and accordingly resigned his mayoralty and his seat in the assembly, and temporarily gave up politics; but he was elected to the Paris municipal council on July 23, 1871, for the Clignancourt quartier, and retained his seat till 1876, pass ing through the offices of secretary and vice-president, and be coming president in 1875. In 1876 he stood again for the Cham ber of Deputies, and was elected for the i8th arrondissement. He joined the extreme Left, and his energy and mordant eloquence speedily made him the leader of the Radical section. In after the Seize mai (see FRANCE: History), he took a leading part in resisting the anti-republican policy of which the Seize mai incident was a symptom, and in 1879 demanded the indictment of the Broglie ministry. In 188o he started his newspaper, La Jus tice, which became the principal organ of Parisian Radicalism ; and from this time onwards throughout Grevy's presidency his reputation as a political critic, and as a destroyer of ministries who yet would not take office himself, rapidly grew. He led the extreme Left in the Chamber. He was an active opponent of Jules Ferry's colonial policy and of the Opportunist party, and in 1885 his use of the Tongking disaster principally determined the fall of the Ferry cabinet. At the elections of 1885 he was returned both for his old seat in Paris and for the Var, selecting the latter. Refusing to form a ministry to replace the one he had over thrown, he supported the Right in keeping Freycinet in power in 1886, and was responsible for the inclusion of Gen. Boulanger in the Freycinet cabinet as war minister. When Boulanger (q.v.) showed his real colours, Clemenceau became a vigorous opponent of the Boulangist movement, though the Radical press and a section of the party continued to patronize the general.
By his exposure of the Wilson scandal (see GREVY) Clemenceau contributed to Grevy's resignation of the presidency in 1887, hav ing declined Grevy's request that he should himself form a cabi net on the downfall of that of Rouvier; and he was primarily responsible, by advising his followers to vote neither for Floquet, Ferry nor Freycinet, for the election of an "outsider" as presi dent in Carnot. But the split in the Radical party over Boulan gism weakened his hands, and his relations with Cornelius Herz in the Panama affair involved him in the general suspicion. However, though he remained the leading spokesman of French Radicalism, his hostility to the Russian alliance so increased his unpopularity that in the election for 1893 he was defeated for the Chamber. Clemenceau now confined his political activities to journalism, his career being further overclouded by the Dreyfus case, in which he was an active supporter of Zola and an opponent of the anti-Semitic and Nationalist campaign. In 1900 he with drew from La Justice to found a weekly review, Le Bloc, which lasted until March 1902. On April 6, 1902, he was elected senator for the Var, although he had previously continually demanded the suppression of the Senate. He sat with the Socialist Radicals, and vigorously supported the Combes ministry. In June 1903 he undertook the direction of the journal L'Aurore, which he had founded. In it he led the campaign for the revision of the Drey fus affair, and for the separation of Church and State.
In March 1906 the fall of the Rouvier ministry, owing to the riots provoked by the inventories of church property, at last brought Clemenceau to power as minister of the interior in the Sarrien cabinet. The strike of miners in the Pas de Calais of ter the disaster at Courrieres, leading to the threat of disorder on May 1, 1906, induced him to employ the military; and his attitude in the matter alienated the Socialist party, from which he definitely broke in his notable reply in the chamber to Jean Jaures in June 1906. This speech marked him out as the "strong man" of the day in French politics; and when the Sarrien ministry resigned in October, he became premier. During 1907 and 1908 the new entente with England was cemented, and France played a great part in European politics, in spite of difficulties with Germany and attacks by the Socialist party in connection with Morocco (see FRANCE: History). But on July 20, 1909, Clemenceau was de feated in a discussion in the chamber on the state of the navy, and was succeeded as premier by Briand, with a reconstructed cabinet.
Two years later Clemenceau entered the Senate and became a member of its commissions for foreign affairs and the army. He could have had no better position for surveying European fluctu ations and German activities ; or for inquiry into the real condi tion of French armaments—this last his dominant concern. Con vinced that Germany meant war, he was haunted by the fear that again France might be caught unprepared. The Senate, however, gave little opportunity for sounding the alarm. Ac cordingly, on May 5, 1913, appeared a new daily paper, L'Homme Libre, its editor—Georges Clemenceau. In its pages he waged daily battle for security and liberty. Though L'Homme Libre dealt every day with home politics and social problems, it returned always to the terrible theme of the German menace.
In the spring of 1913 the question of restoring the three years' term of conscript service suddenly arose. Clemenceau took an impassioned part in the debates on armaments. Then came Aug. 1914 and the World War. L'Homrne Libre soon suffered at the hands of the Censor for Clemenceau's plain speaking. The whole youth of France must be mobilized. He denounced the shirkers, demanded technical efficiency, and attacked all incompetency, red tape, inadequate munition factories, with their shortage of guns and rifles, and badly-run hospitals. He made war in short, upon all who failed to realize that this was a conflict of supplies and organization, and upon every kind of apathy and feebleness. The result was that in Sept. 1914 L'Homme Libre was suppressed. Two days later, however, it reappeared as L'Hornme Enchaine, but wore its fetters lightly. For three months there was a daily struggle with the Censor. For some time not a week passed with out articles being mutilated, but Clemenceau won and excisions became rare. Meanwhile in the Senate, Clemenceau agitated for more and still more guns, munitions, soldiers, for a judicious use of the available man-power and for a better equipped and better organized medical service.
But above all he strove to create the indomitable and des perate "will to victory." He was supported by other members of the army and foreign affairs commission, like Cheron, Doumer, Humbert, Berenger. The war dragged on; weariness, slackness and pacifism began to appear. Clemenceau was the first to draw public attention to that growing peril and it was at a public debate in the Senate on July 22, 1917, that he made his famous attack on Malvy, who had been Minister of the Interior since 1914. Clemenceau declared that Malvy had not treated revolutionaries with a firm enough hand. Malvy's justification was that he desired to "gain the confidence of the working—man"; but Clemenceau retorted that there was no comparison between those working-men who were loyally doing their duty to their country and a number of abject "defeatists." Four months later Clemenceau came into power. He had never sought office and he knew that his task meant victory or death. When Clemenceau became premier the situation was miserable. The moral at the front was bad, and at home even worse. Re sources were nearly at an end, and no solution whatever could be discerned. Poincare realized that of all men Clemenceau was the impersonation of the idea of war to the death. In his new Government Clemenceau himself took the portfolio of minister of war. He was 76 years of age when he formed his "victory cab inet" on Nov. 16, 1917, and thenceforward till Nov. I1, 1918, Clemenceau did in fact concentrate on war only. He made it clear that France was beat on absolute victory and would brook no half-measures. Those who spoke of wavering or yielding were immediately silenced ; any one who obstructed the path to victory was ruthlessly removed. By these means Clemenceau restored the nation's self-confidence, and with it the conviction that its martyr dom would not be in vain. In March 1918 the Anglo-French line was broken through; Clemenceau joined in organizing the unity of command with Foch at the head. In May came the disaster of the Chemin des Dames ; the French troops were driven back on the Marne, while the commander-in-chief was criticised. Three months later Clemenceau made Foch Marshal of France. During that long year of ceaseless effort Clemenceau's resolution remained unshaken. On Nov. 8, 1918, Erzberger was in the train of the Commander-in-chief of the allied armies. On the 11th the guns roared for the last time ; the nightmare was over.
From Nov. 11, 1918, to June 28, 1919, Clemenceau devoted himself to the international settlement. The Peace of Versailles was in preparation, and this necessitated strenuous days of work and delicate negotiations. Up till now Clemenceau had merely had to contend with his enemies ; now his task was to reconcile the interests of France with those of her friends. He defended her cause with enthusiasm and conviction, forcing his view alternatively on Lloyd George and President Wilson. Mean while Germany was disarming, and Clemenceau took care to su pervise that disarmament. But the French parliament began to grow restless, for it saw itself put to one side in the peace nego tiations. It therefore no longer regarded Clemenceau as indis pensable. The great patriot, who was anxious to finish the work he had begun, did his best to smooth matters over. Momentous problems had to be solved ; demobilization had to be faced, a general election was looming ahead, and the questions of Alsace Lorraine and the liquidation of war stocks had to be settled. Clemenceau decided to deal simultaneously with these questions as of equal importance.
Peace was signed on June 28, and on Nov. II the new chamber was elected. Clemenceau counted on its support ; for he believed that its members, many of them ex-soldiers, would have profited by the lesson of the war. Although he never stood as a candidate it is certain that he would have been ready to give the last years of his life by taking Poincare's place at the Elysee, so that out side and above the changing Governments, he could have secured continuity in political action by a strict application of the 1919 treaties.
Poincare left the Elysee but Deschanel was elected Pres ident of the French republic. And without doubt the Chambers had voted according to their hearts. Clemenceau had saved his country, but members could not forgive the fact that he had ex cluded them from the final work for victory. During the war he had undoubtedly worked alone ; he felt that large assemblies were not made for action. Probably he would have admitted the com missions to the deliberations on the Treaty of Versailles if diplo matic obstacles had not intervened to prevent it. Clemenceau had also to face the hostility, not only of the clerical party of the Right who suspected him of indifference to the Vatican, but also that of the extreme Left, who were alienated by what they consid ered to be his militarism. Clemenceau thus met the fate which overtook other war ministers, and on Jan. 20, 1920, his cabinet fell, Millerand being summoned to office. He had earned the gratitude of his country and, returning to his beloved books, might well have sought repose ; instead he sailed for India. After his journey he returned to Paris and to his books.
But it now appeared that the United States was endeavouring to dissociate herself from European affairs. Clemenceau was now 81 years old, but he sailed at once for America at the end of 1922. From town to town he carried the message of France to the citizens of the Union. He had no official mission, for he had neither asked anything nor received anything from the French Government. His progress was none the less triumphant. Once more he returned to Paris but not to rest. By the end of 1925 he was already writing two books; one on philosophy, Au Soir de la Pensee (1927), English translation, In the Evening of my Thought (1929), and the other on Demosthenes, Demosthene (1926, Eng. trans. by C. M. Thompson, 1926). He was at work upon his memoirs, Grandeurs et Miseres d'un Victoire (1930), when he died in Paris on Nov. 24, 1929. (J. MT.)