THE THIRD REPUBLIC The Government of National Defence.—This overthrow of the empire on Sept. 4 resembled in certain respects the revolu tion of
After the disappearance of Napoleon, the republi cans proclaimed the Republic in the Hotel de Ville, and in order to deprive the revolutionaries of power set up a Government of National Defence, presided over by Trochu. But, as in 183o, this bourgeois dictatorship was divided. Moderates like Simon, Favre and Picard thought that the greatest need was to end the hopeless war. Another section, led by Gambetta, and faithful to Jacobin traditions, desired to carry on to the death. The Moder ates held the naive belief that peace could be obtained simply by the payment of a large indemnity. At his interview with Bis marck at Ferrieres (Sept. 18), Favre soon realized that, as in 1814, it was against France and not against Napoleon, and for the possession of Alsace, that Germany was waging war. The failure to obtain an honourable peace strengthened the hands of warlike party, and the war preparations were resumed. Since Bismarck refused to negotiate for peace except with a constitu 'In the 14th volume of his L'Empire liberal (agog) M. Emile 011ivier gives a detailed and illuminating account of the events that led up to the war. He indignantly denies that he ever meant that he contemplated it "with a light heart," and says that he disapproved of Gramont's demand for "guarantees" to which he was not privy. His object is to prove that France was entrapped by Bismarck into a position in which she was bound in honour to declare war. (ED.) tionally-elected Government, and Gambetta feared that elections would result in the return of anti-republicans and pacifists, an election was postponed.
On Sept. 19 the German armies invested Paris. Isolated from the rest of France, filled with illusions as to the value of the sortie en masse, agitated by social revolution aries, Paris was about to undergo a siege of f our months. The Government, shut up in the capital, maintained merely a dele gation at Tours, which demanded an immediate election. To obviate a rupture and put life into the national resistance, Gam betta escaped from Paris in a balloon. A real dictator, he organ ized, with the help of Freycinet, armies, as in 1793, to raise the siege of Paris and repel the invader. It was a forlorn hope. But, at any rate, it preserved the honour of France and taught the Germans prudence.
Little by little hope faded away. Thiers, who had been sent on a mission to seek the intervention of Europe, everywhere en countered refusals. Af ter this diplomatic defeat, forgetting his duty as a soldier in his ambition to play the politician, Bazaine surrendered the last remaining army at Metz on Oct. 27. When the news of his treason, coupled with rumours of an armistice, reached Paris, already disappointed by the failure of the Bourget sortie and suffering acutely from the scarcity of food, feeling rose high in favour of the revolutionaries who, too, were demand ing an election and the creation of a Commune. On the initiative of Blanqui, a veteran in revolution, there broke out in Paris on Oct. 31 a rebellion that was suppressed with difficulty. The bad winter of 187o-71 was as dangerous an enemy as the Germans to the armies of mobiles, hurriedly raised to relieve Paris. Not withstanding the heroism of the troops and the energy of their commanders, the new armies were successively defeated. After a temporary victory at Coulmiers Chanzy was forced to fall back from the Loire to Mans under the pressure of the army of Prince Frederick Charles, freed by the surrender of Metz; at the same time, Champigny, who was marching to his aid, was de feated; and in the same way Faidherbe was defeated in the north, despite a victory at Bapaume, even as Bourbaki was defeated in the east after his success at Villersexel. The bombardment of Paris began on Jan. 5 and food supplies failed. The German empire was proclaimed at Versailles on the 18th, and the failure of a desperate sortie under Buzenval provoked a new insurrection on Jan. 21.
The Moderates had rejected a proposed Anglo-Austro-Italian intervention at the end of October in the hope that better terms might be obtained by direct negotiation with Bismarck than by imitating Talleyrand's policy in 1814. But they were forced to capitulate by the armistice of Jan. 28, 1871, and to proceed at once to the election of a National Assembly by whom the question of peace or war should be finally decided. The strife between the parties proceeded unabated at Bordeaux. Hostile to any sugges tion of a loss of territory, Gambetta wished to take advantage of the armistice to prosecute the war to the bitter end. But Thiers, whose influence over the Moderates increased daily, replied by pointing out to him the hasty and temporary character of his work; the general desire for peace and order; the unity of the nation in the face of anarchy and the federalist leagues in the south. To avoid adding a civil war to that already in progress Gambetta resigned. The Republican party was, therefore, divided at the ballot. At the ensuing elections (Feb. 8, 1871), the war party, except in Paris, was defeated.
The National Assembly contained a Legitimist and Orleanist majority ; but the latter were no more successful than in 1851 in restoring the monarchy. Divided as hitherto by memories of 183o, they were specially concerned in leaving a temporary Government to shoulder the responsibility for concluding a peace that would mutilate, and perhaps destroy, France ; and they sought to defend the future monarchy from the reproach--which had done such harm to the Bourbons—of having returned in the baggage-wagons of a foreign power; hence they postponed the restoration of the monarchy by the peace de Bordeaux. The provisional Republic continued therefore to exist with Thiers as head of the executive. After the peace the Re public re-established that civil order disrupted by the Com mune, and having taken the responsibility, was to reap the reward. Its first task was to conclude peace. In truth Favre and Thiers submitted to the Prussian terms without seeking to take advantage of the support of the neutrals or of the Conference of London. They had to cede Alsace, with a part of Lorraine, and submit to a German military occupation pending the payment of a war indemnity of five milliards, despite the protests of rep resentatives of the people thus torn away from France and of the hostile vote of 107 advanced Republicans. But to these hard terms, Bismarck added another, equally grave, for no other purpose than the satisfying of Prussian pride ; the formal entry of the German army into Paris. Practically all the deputies from the capital had voted against peace, and Paris was hostile to an Assembly composed for the most part of conservative and pacifist representatives from the provinces. She united in a bizarre alli ance the traditions of the patriotic Revolution with the ideology of the socialist International. The wind of insurrection fanned a population which had been furnished with arms to withstand the siege and which no one had dared to disarm. When the Bordeaux Assembly went to Versailles for the same reasons as the States General in 1789, Paris saw in it a mark of defiance or a threat of a Restoration.
Paris responded (March 18) with the insurrection of the Com mune (q.v.), and the Government was obliged to retake the city by force of arms, though it was not until May 21 that the Ver sailles troops entered the city. The merciless repression that fol lowed exceeded that of the June days and destroyed the revolutionary party.
The treaty of Frankfort was signed on May i o, and both the civil war and the war with Germany terminated on that day. Henceforth one thought alone was present in every French mind—to pay the indemnity and deliver French soil from the heel of the invader. To the honour of Thiers' government, aided by the whole nation, the first loan raised for this purpose in June 1871 was oversubscribed two and a half times. Gambetta himself rallied to the conservative republic, and after the supplemental elections of July, 1871, which returned 1 oo moderate Republicans to the Assembly, founded the Opportunist Party.
For a year and a half the Right Centre accepted Thiers' government and collaborated in its work of reorganization, although not without some skirmishes such as the abrogation of the laws which exiled the princes of the blood and interpellations in favour of the temporal power of the pope. But little by little they came into disagreement with him over his home policy and the constitutional issue. Once the effacement of the grandson of Louis Philippe in favour of the grandson of Charles X. had been effected, they thought the time had come to restore the monarchy. Suddenly, however, his manifesto in favour of the White Flag brought about a disagreement between the Comte de Chambord and the Assembly which wished to offer him the crown. For five years France was afforded the spectacle of a majority that could not agree with the legitimate ruler and which, unable to restore the monarchy, sought at least to prevent the establishment of the Republic.
The Republic was indeed alive, and, by reason of the propa ganda of Gambetta, the country gradually turned towards it and each by-election strengthened its position. The second loan of three milliards, which was 14 times over-subscribed, not only in France but abroad, and the law of conscription, guaranteed to France the early evacuation of her soil by the Germans and the rehabilitation of her army. Nevertheless when Thiers, who was a monarchist by conviction, raised the constitutional issue in Nov. 1872 and pronounced in favour of the Republic, the Commission of Thirty, which was charged with the duty of drafting the law for the regulation of public powers, retorted by seeking to exclude his personal intervention in the debates. As he had introduced three Republicans into his cabinet, the coalition of the parties of the Right, by demanding that he should pursue a conservative policy, brought about his resignation (May 24, 1873).
The coalition replaced Thiers with MacMahon.
and an Orleanist, the duc de Broglie, formed a fighting ministry for the purpose of restoring that "moral order" that had been upset by the Radicals. All preparations had been made for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy when, on Oct. 27, the comte de Chambord for a second time refused to become the "legitimist king of the revolution." While awaiting his abdication or death the astonished Royalists concentrated upon prolonging the temporary character of the Republic, and elected MacMahon to the presidency for seven years that he might act, as they thought, as the lieutenant governor for the future king. But his government was agreed only on negations. It would not suffer the Republicans to come into power; it would not re-establish the Republic; and it would not control the activity of the clergy even when such activity created difficulties with Italy or with Bismarck. But no government can subsist upon negations, and the Bonapartist party took the oppor tunity to reorganize itself ; while at the close of 1874, the elections to the municipal councils amounted to a plebiscite in favour of the Republic, a success due to the appeals made by Gambetta to the nouvelles couches sociales.
In spite of itself the Assembly was forced to make a constitution. Despite the Septennat, and a senate that was not even elected by universal suffrage, Gambetta, who had broken with the Radicals, the partisans of a policy of all or nothing, succeeded in persuading the Left to accept a constitu tion that was drafted by the Monarchists and the Moderates. On Jan. 30, 1875, Wallon's amendment, in which the name of the Republic was mentioned, was passed by a majority of one. Thus came into existence the constitution that has lasted longer than any of those that France has tried since 1792. It preserved to France as indisputable principles of public right the sovereignty of the nation as exercised by the Chamber, the liberty of the press, universal suffrage, trial by jury and the right of public meeting. This constitution maintained the social order of the Revolution and the administrative order of Napoleon.
The legislative power was conferred on a senate and a chamber of deputies, which might unite in congress to revise the constitu tion, if they both agreed that revision was necessary, and which were bound so to meet for the election of the president of the Republic when a vacancy occurred. It was enacted that the president so elected should retain office for seven years, and be eligible for re-election at the end of his term. He was also held to be irresponsible, except in the case of high treason. The other principal prerogatives bestowed on the presidential office by the constitution of 1875 were the right of initiating laws concurrently with the members of the two chambers; the promulgation of the laws ; the right of dissolving the chamber of deputies before its legal term on the advice of the senate, and that of adjourning the sittings of both houses for a month ; the right of pardon ; the disposal of the armed forces of the country; the reception of diplomatic envoys, and, under certain limitations, the power to ratify treaties. The constitution relieved the president of the responsibility of private patronage, by providing that every act of his should be countersigned by a minister. The constitutional law provided that the senate should consist of 30o members, 75 being nominated for life by the National Assembly, and the remaining 225 elected for nine years by the departments and the colonies. Vacancies among the life members, after the dissolution of the National Assembly, were filled by the senate until 1884, when the nominative system was abolished, though the survivors of it were not disturbed. The law of 1875 enacted that the elected senators, who were distributed among the departments on a rough basis of population, should be elected for nine years, a third of them retiring triennially. It was provided that the senatorial electors in each department should be the deputies, the members of the conseil general and of the conseils d'arrondissement, and delegates nominated by the municipal councils of each commune. As the municipal delegates composed the majority in each elec toral college, Gambetta called the senate the grand council of the communes; but in practice the senators elected have always been the nominees of the local deputies and of the departmental councillors (conseillers generaux).
The constitutional law further provided that the deputies should be elected to the chamber for four years by the direct manhood suffrage that had been enjoyed in France ever since 1848. The laws relating to registration, which is of admirable simplicity in France, were left practically the same as under the Second Empire. From 1875 to 1885 the elections were held on the basis of scrutin d'arrondissement, each department being divided into single-member districts. In 1885 scrutin de liste was tried, the department being the electoral unit, and each elector having as many votes as there were seats ascribed to the department without the power to cumulate—like the voting in the city of London when it returned four members. In 1889 scrutin d'arrondissement was resumed. The payment of members continued as under the Second Empire, the salary now being fixed at 9,00o francs a year in both houses. The senate and the chamber were endowed with almost identical powers; the only important advantage given to the popular house in the paper constitution was its initiative in matters of finance, but the right of rejecting or of modifying the financial proposals of the chamber was successfully upheld by the senate. In reality the chamber of deputies has overshadowed the upper house. The constitution did not prescribe that ministers should be selected from either house of parliament, but in practice the deputies have been in cabinets in the proportion of five to one in excess of the senators. Similarly the very numerous ministerial crises which have taken place under the Third Republic have, with the rarest exceptions, been caused by votes in the lower chamber. Among minor differences between the two houses ordained, by the constitution was the legal minimum age of their members, that of senators being 40, and of deputies 25. It was enacted, moreover, that the senate, by presidential decree, could be constituted a high court for the trial of certain offences against the security of the state.
Nevertheless the Republic remained the republic without the republicans. President MacMahon who had been chosen by the monarchical Right, thought himself bound in honour to govern in accordance with their views. After the elec tions of Feb. 1876, however, although there was a slight conserva tive majority in the senate there was a republican majority of more than 200 in the chamber, but the monarchists were not cast down by this defeat. No longer able to discuss the constitution, they struggled to secure control of it in order to prevent it from functioning, and they pursued their policy on behalf of the clergy. The Republicans, on their part, dividing up into the Left Centre, Republican Left and Radical Left, took the offensive in order to compel the president to follow a republican policy, and he was forced to form a ministry from the Left Centre. The chamber restored the liberty of the press and the right of the municipalities to elect their mayors, and finally pronounced itself strongly against the demonstrations of the Ultramontanes in favour of the temporal power. This brought about a rupture. The president replaced the Simon ministry by the conservative ministry of the duc de Broglie and Fourtou, and caused the senate to dissolve the chamber (May 16, 1877). The Union of the Left immediately formed itself anew and addressed to the country a common mani festo, signed by 363 deputies. In this it appeared as the con servator of peace and order against the revolutionary coalition of the monarchical and clerical parties and of the sovereignty of the people against the personal government of the president. In the elections of Oct. 1877 the Union des Gauches won the battle; MacMahon was forced to give way and then to resign ; Grevy was elected to succeed him (Jan. 1879), and the control of the republic passed into the hands of the republicans who were masters both of the senate and the chamber.
The republicans, although they had united to defend them selves, split up again when called to office. The Left Centre lacked popular support and was of no importance except in the senate where it combined with the Right to oppose the measures against the clergy. The majority in the Chamber was shared between two groups: the Republican Left and Gambetta's old Extreme Left, now become the Union Republicaine. The expe rience of victory had rendered them more moderate, and they had to fear the possible formation of a party of order directed against them. President Grevy, in his first public announcement, reas sured the propertied classes with a slogan of "liberalism truly conservative," while Gambetta instilled into the Radicals the necessity for discipline and patience. But almost at once there arose from among the Radicals a new Extreme Left, the heir to the Jacobins, which was led by Clemenceau, who reproached Gambetta and his party with opportunism while awaiting the resurrection of Socialism. Henceforth the two parties f ought bitterly among themselves, and from this arose the instability of ministries. Anti-clericalism was the sole bond of union between the parties of the Left.
Anti-clericalism came into evidence after 188o as a means of revenge for the 16th of May and for the sup port given by the clergy to the enemies of the Republic during the whole life of the National Assembly. It was also inspired by the necessity to protect the rights of the State against a Catholi cism that was not only religious, but also political. Under the leadership of Jules Ferry, this anti-clericalism was expressed in the decrees by which unauthorized religious houses were ordered to disperse. On their refusal they were expelled ; and the Jesuits first of all. Henceforth a state of war existed between the Republic and the Catholic Clergy, and the next field of battle was the education question. Free, lay and compulsory primary edu cation was organized ; later certain of the privileges which had been enjoyed by uncontrolled education under the Falloux law of 185o and that of 1875, were withdrawn—granting of university degrees, and liberty of teaching for unauthorized congregations. This was the object of the famous article 7 that aroused the fury both of the republicans of the Extreme Left for whom anti clericalism meant anti-catholicism, and of the monarchists who saw in this clause the prelude to the complete prohibition of education by the clergy. Finally the law of 1881 set up entire freedom of the press, and that of 1884 on the trade unions enabled the working classes to create organizations similar to the English trade unions.
When anti-clericalism had triumphed the republicans were divided over foreign and home policy. One party which accepted, even though temporarily, the defeat of 1870-71, was disposed more or less publicly to come to an under standing with the German empire, and to seek in colonial expan sion both fresh economic resources and a relief from a policy of reconstruction that threatened to become one of effacement. Others, refusing to accept the fait accompli, believed that French policy should remain European, that the danger of invasion— revealed in the war-scare of 1875—still existed, and that a strong army and as many allies as possible were needed to oppose Ger many strengthened by the Triple Alliance. The same disagree ment showed itself in home policy. The Union Republicaine, being now in power, avoided offending conservative instincts, and toned down the traditional radical demands ; but their proffered compromise was rejected by the advanced republicans, who put forward a fighting programme. During 188o-84 the internal his tory of France was dominated by these two warring policies.
The conflict with the Extreme Left was brought to a head after 188o by the voting of the amnesty to the members of the Corn mune (188o) which it enforced. With their return to France began the reconstitution of the Revolutionary Socialist Party. In the elections of 1881, in which the republicans once again obtained a majority and eliminated the Conservative Party from the political arena, the Extreme Left were the greatest gainers. Formerly the idol of Paris, Gambetta was, with difficulty, returned for Belleville. As leader of the majority he agreed to form what came to be known as the "great cabinet" which lasted for three months ; but the Extreme Left immediately displayed its hostility towards his opportunist policy and launched out on a campaign of calumny in which he was accused of desiring war and aspiring to a dictatorship. With his downfall, and a little later his death (1882), there disappeared his dream of a national and free republic.
The successive ministries of Freycinet, Duclerc and Ferry ex perienced the same pressure from the Extreme Left. To avoid an elective magistracy, they were forced to purge it ; to avoid a complete revision of the constitution and the suppression of the senate, they were forced to agree to the suppression of its life members and the increase of those elected (1884) . They were successful in substituting the agreements of 1883 for the national ization of the railways and they abandoned the income tax. But it was in the sphere of colonial policy that the fiercest fights were waged, and it was over this question that the unity of the republican party was permanently dissolved.
The expedition to Tongking, of ter that to Tunis, provoked the long crisis that lasted from 1885-89. The disciples of a patriotic Jacobinism and the minority of the Right formed the enemies of the Ferry government which, as a result of the panic provoked by false news of the check by the Chinese at Langson, they succeeded in overthrowing in May 1885.
Until 1889 one coa lition ministry succeeded another. Since it had come into power the Left had abandoned the wise and conservative financial policy of balanced budgets, redemption of debt and economy. Frey cinet's grandiose railway scheme and plans for public works, the colonial expeditions and the education laws had disorganized the finances. The crash of the Union Generale in 1882 had spread anxiety and discontent in the provinces which showed itself in the elections of Oct. 1885, held under the scrutin de liste by the repub licans, who presented two rival lists, and resulting in the victory of 200 deputies of the Right united on a negative policy of liberal opposition. Split up into two almost equal factions, the Repub lican Party had lost its majority, and in order to carry on the Government, was forced to resort to two policies—the one of concentration against the Right, which was adopted by the min istries of Brisson (who succeeded J. Ferry), Freycinet (Jan. 1886) and Goblet (Dec. 1886), and the other a lenitive policy by which the conservatives were induced to support the govern mental republicans against the Radicals, which was pursued by Rouvier (May 188 7) and abandoned by Goblet (Dec. 1887). The early ministries (Ferry, Freycinet, Goblet), expelled the pretenders in order to strike at the comte de Paris; the later ministries, too preoccupied in retaining their authority to trouble themselves with reform, endeavoured to terminate the policy of colonial expansion and to balance the budget.
A new opposition of a hitherto un known nature arose to threaten the republic. Its hero was Gen eral Boulanger. To oppose Ferry's colonial policy the Radicals had allied themselves with the Patriots, who were advocates of a war of revenge with Germany, and had pushed into the ministry of war the "only Republican general," Boulanger (Jan. 1886). This plausible and handsome adventurer had won renown by his demo cratic professions and made himself popular in a radical and patriotic Paris by expunging from the list of officers the names of the Orleanist princes. Bismarck took advantage of the popularity of Boulanger to extort from the Reichstag fresh military credits, and France was brought within an ace of war by Boulanger's de mand of a bold reply to the arrest of the French official, Schnae bele, near the German frontier (April 1887). The Opportunist Party, which took over the Government in May, removed Bou langer to Clermont-Ferrand and broke with the Radicals who were his supporters. Unhappily, a scandal over decorations gave fresh impetus to the Boulangist movement and led to the resignation of President Grevy and his replacement in December by the moder ate Republican Carnot.
Carnot's ministries, that of Tirard (Dec. 1887) and Floquet (April 1888) followed a policy of concentration of the republicans against the Boulangist movement. Placed on retired pay and, therefore, rendered eligible to the chamber, Boulanger revealed himself little by little as the enemy of the corrupt and incompetent republican Government, and as an aspirant to dictatorship. That old enemy of the empire, Rochefort, who had been involved in the commune, brought to Boulanger's aid all the extreme elements in the population. The Conservative Catholic Party joined itself to the Revisionist Party to support Boulanger in "making a hole in the republic," and on Jan. 27, 1889, along with many departments, Paris elected the general by an enormous majority and amidst scenes of delirious enthusiasm.
His success killed Boulanger: he feared to march on the Elysee in the confidence that the result of the general election would be virtually a plebiscite in his favour. At once the Union des Gauches reappeared as on May 16 ; against him, the Tirard-Constant min istry (Feb. 1889) re-established the scrutin d'arrondissement, for bade multiple candidatures, and impeached him before the high court of the senate. Boulanger fled to Brussels. The hostility towards him of the peasants who feared a war, the calming effect induced by the exhibition of 1889, the union of the Republican parties with the result that not 4o Revisionists were elected in Oct. 1889, and, finally, the suicide of Boulanger in April 1891, com pleted the destruction of the movement.
The elections had been fought by the parliamentary republicans in order to protect the constitution of 1875 from the attacks of the Revision ists and Monarchists, and the education and military laws from that of the Catholics. Once in power they pursued a policy of conservation and republican concentration. One great political event alone marks the ensuing four years—the establishment of a customs tariff in 1892 in contrast to the commercial treaties of Napoleon III. In vanquishing Boulanger they had learnt a lesson that they were prompt to apply in negotiating the Franco-Russian alliance, and so satisfying the national fears that had caused the unpopularity of Ferry and the popularity of Boulanger. Adum brated by Decazes, planned by Gambetta in 1875, demanded by Boulanger and his party, the alliance was born after the fall of Bismarck in 189o, confirmed at Cronstadt in 1891 and formally recognized in 1893. The Franco-Russian alliance, the purely de fensive counterpart of the Triple Alliance, affirmed anew that the safety of France did not depend solely on the goodwill of others, but on herself, her army and her alliances; and at all events not on an entente with a Germany which was continuing to arm. The alliance strengthened the republic by guaranteeing peace through a balance of power. It disarmed the patriotic or nationalist opposi tion ; the Radicals were reduced to an insignificant and unimpor tant minority; the socialist Labour party became impotent through its own internal divisions into Marxists, Possibilists, Broussists, etc. ; the Conservative party was also rendered powerless. A num ber of conservatives, on the suggestion of the Comte de Paris, after his identification with the Boulangists, had recognized, as had the Bonapartists, the revolutionary principle of the sovereignty of the people. Abandoning the idea of restoring the monarchy, they no longer attacked the republic but solely its administrators and policy. Some went still further and, in response to an appeal from Leo XIII., adhered to the republic without strengthening it, accepting the constitution merely to modify the legislation (1892).
Thanks to this development and to the pursuit of a policy of moderation, a reconciliation was effected between the Conservative Right and the Republican Centre. The reconciliation was rendered still more easy of attainment by the willingness of the Right to accept the education and military laws; but it was less easy to effect in the constituencies, where the repub lican electors were still hostile to the conservatives who had fought the Republic in 1889. The majority of the conservatives remained faithful to the royalist tradition, and protested against the policy of Leo XIII. In the autumn of 1892 they drew attention to the serious Panama scandal ; in November the Panama Company was accused of having, in 1888, bribed a minister and certain deputies in order to obtain permission to issue shares. The scandal, which was grossly exaggerated in the press, opened up an era of denun ciations, enquiries and judicial prosecutions. In the result, certain leaders of the Left, including both Clemenceau and Floquet, were forced to retire and a new generation appeared which, never having fought for the Republic, was more disposed to entertain friendly relations with its old enemies.
For five years almost without a break one moderate ministry succeeded another Dupuy, Meline, etc.—ministries so moderate in policy that, after the assassination of President Carnot by an Italian anarchist in 1894, Casimir-Perier, grandson of Louis Philippe's reactionary minister, was chosen president by a huge majority over the radical candidate, Brisson.
This new development was made manifest in the elections of 1893, when the Right won only 93 seats of which 33 were occupied by deputies who supported the Republic ; the ministerial Repub licans held Soo; the Radicals 13o; while the socialist opposition, united for once, gained 48 seats and composed the first socialist parliamentary group. Moreover the majority of the deputies were new to political life. The political balance of power was upset by the Anarchist party who had dissociated themselves from the Socialists after the congress of 1879. Hostile to all parliamentary or electoral government, they carried on propaganda by ex plosives, after the manner of the Russian terrorists. The excep tional measures passed in 1893 and 1894 made short work of this propaganda. Then the Socialists attacked the upper middle classes in the person of Casimir-Perier, who resigned after a few months from a presidency in which he had been rendered powerless, and was succeeded by another moderate bourgeois in Felix Faure. The Radical ministry of Leon Bourgeois was overthrown by the enmity of the senate towards the imposition of an income tax, and was succeeded for two years by the moderate coalition min istry of Meline, supported by the neutrality of the Right. Despite the attacks of the Radicals on his financial policy, and the coalition between the Socialist factions that was definitely concluded by Millerand at Saint-Mande (May 1896) on a programme of social reform unaccompanied by revolution, Meline carried out his policy, which was neither revolutionary nor reactionary. It required two violent crises to remove the conservative Republi cans from power; the one in home affairs, the other in foreign policy.
Meline was still in office when the Drey fus case came to upset the balance of power between the parties. A Jewish captain on the headquarters staff was accused of having sold military secrets to Germany and was condemned for treason in 1894. France was divided into two camps : the supporters and the accusers of Dreyfus. A state of civil war was almost reached that resembled in a less violent form the great crises in French history and that brought even the intellectual elements in the nation into the arena. For three years the revision of the sentence on Dreyfus, which was demanded by Scheurer-Kestner and by Zola in his letter J'accuse, completely dominated French politics. Those who believed him guilty nearly all allied themselves with the Right, while his defenders were mainly to be found in the ranks of the left. The former took as their motto: "Vive l'armee ! "; the latter exclaimed with Jaures and Clemenceau: "Vive la Republique ! " The conflict became acute in 1899, after the sudden death of President Faure, who had secretly opposed a re-trial. Loubet was elected president in face of the opposition of the nationalist Ligue de la patrie francaise and of the con servatives, and was ill-received by a nationalist Paris. Deroulede, the president of the League, attempted on the day of Faure's funeral to achieve a coup d'etat, but failed. After the sentence on Dreyfus had been quashed, Loubet was assaulted on the race course at Auteuil.
As in the days of Boulanger and on May 16, the Left groups coalesced to defend the Republic. The moderate, though re visionist, ministry of Waldeck-Rousseau, in which Millerand held the portfolio of commerce, and General de Gallifet that of war, appealed to all the republicans for support. It was nicknamed the Bloc by Clemenceau, and was thin time to wander far to the Left (June 1899) . Two reasons underlay their policy. The first was that the Socialist party in France had become, by the entrance of Millerand into the ministry, the extreme wing of the Repub lican party. The second is to be found in the fact that the Dreyfus case showed that anti-militarism was powerful and greatly aggravated by the boredom of a military life in which no differentiation was made between the peasant and the scholar. Thus it came about that the Republican party, intensely patriotic, in 187o, gradually tended under the pressure both of inter nationalism and selfishness to allot the second place to national defence.
The Bloc was still held together by anti-clericalism. The nationalist agita tion against the Jews and the Freemasons had been strongly sup ported by the Assumptionists and by the Jesuits. The education of the upper classes was passing steadily into the hands of these religious orders. Too rich, too powerful and too numerous, these intriguing clerics met with the fate of the Templars in the reign of Philip the Fair. The Law of i 90 i for the first time granted in France the full right to found free associations ; but the formation of religious congregations was permitted only by the passage of a special law, and their dissolution could be effected by decree. When Waldeck-Rousseau was succeeded by E. Combes in 1902, the latter, supported by a Radical-Socialist and Socialist majority that had been returned in the elections held on the question of the congregations, abandoned the defensive methods of the re publicans and adopted an aggressive policy of anti-clericalism. Not content with subjecting them to surveillance, he suppressed nearly all the congregations, took away their right of education, and disposed of their property. Following upon a papal protest against President Loubet's visit to the king of Italy and a dispute over the nomination of bishops, Combes broke off diplomatic eiations with the Holy See and brought forward in Nov. 1904 a plan for the separation of the Churches from the State. But the Left coalition, which had been his support, eventually broke up. On the right wing of the party many progressive republicans were disturbed by a religious war which divided the country and brought a priori suspicion upon Frenchmen who did not share the views of the government. Others were offended by the socialist alliance, and a number of Radicals were irritated by the discipline imposed upon them by Combes. On the left wing, influenced by the International Socialist Congress of Amsterdam (Aug. 1904), the French Socialist party, led by Jaures and Briand, had been forced to give in to Marxist theories and to transform itself into a united socialist party devoted to class warfare and revolution. It at once seceded from the Left. Combes' already diminishing majority vanished with the introduction by General Andre of politics into the army by the system of espionage; and the prime minister himself was forced to admit that his representatives had acted as a political police in the army. In Jan. 19o5 Doumer, the candidate put forward by the opposition, was elected presi dent of the chamber, and the ministry fell beneath the blows of the socialist, Millerand.
An opportunist, Rouvier, succeeded Combes and continued his anti-clerical policy with less asperity, but with an equal indifference to foreign affairs. The separation of the Churches from the State was passed with the support of the socialist, Briand, but its application raised great difficulties. Dur ing this period of agitation and instability, Delcasse, who was faithful to the Radical tradition of opposition to distant ad ventures and to rapprochement with Germany, worked freely at the ministry of foreign affairs to neutralize this policy. In
he brought about a reconciliation between England and France by the settlement of the Fashoda incident; in 1902 he obtained the neutrality of Italy; in 1904, aided by King Edward VII., he settled all colonial disputes with England, and in exchange for the abandonment of Egypt, obtained the right to complete the French empire in northern Africa by the protectorate of Morocco. But, encouraged by the defeat of Russia by the Japanese in Manchuria, the Emperor William II. endeavoured by his visit to Tangiers to inflict a defeat upon the other member of the alliance. He was successful in that Delcasse, advocating re sistance, was disavowed by his colleagues in the ministry and resigned (June 1905). The Algeciras Conference (q.v.), by recognizing French claims in Morocco, averted a war that France would have found difficult to wage. Henceforth until 1914 France lived in the expectation of an attack on the part of a warlike and imperialist Germany which saw in every diplomatic or military defensive action, justification for believing that she was being encircled and theref ore must arm herself still more.
Meanwhile, French democracy shelved the Alsace-Lorraine question and reduced the period of military service to two years. Full of international ideals, it believed that it would assure peace merely by being pacific. Only against itself was it aggressive. By establishing the General Confederation of Labour in 1895 the workers had introduced a new method of op position into political life. Up till that time the Socialists had sought to win political power by gaining a majority in the assembly and the government ; the Syndicalists sought to achieve revolution at a blow by a general strike that should shatter both capitalism and the State. They preached social war instead of national wars, and organized strikes in the army, direct action and sabotage.
The elections of May 1906 fought on the Separation policy, resulted in a brilliant, but ephemeral success for the Bloc. The Radical ministry of Clemenceau and Caillaux sought to rec oncile two contradictory policies. Clemenceau favoured the entente with England and Caillaux the rapprochement with Ger many. The former desired to complete the work of separation; the latter to impose an income tax. The ministry met the cham ber with a vast programme of reforms not one of which it was able to realize. It at once came into conflict with the Confedera tion of Labour, which stirred up a continual agitation among the workmen and officials : first there were strikes of labourers at Draveil and of vine-dressers in the south, which had to be sup pressed by force; then the school-teachers and postal workers endeavoured to form a union and claimed the right to strike. These events caused Clemenceau to adopt an attitude of grow ing hostility towards the Socialists. It was only by a series of makeshifts that he was enabled to set up an ecclesiastical system on the basis of toleration, but lacking legal title. When Caillaux, faced with a financial situation which had again become acute since the return of the Radicals to power, sought to cover the deficit by the imposition of a progressive income tax, he came up against the Moderates. The ministry fell in July 1909. The min isterial instability of 1885-89 reappeared in an aggravated form. In the period 1910-14 eight ministries succeeded one another, paralyzed rather than supported by majorities obtained by fragile and heterogeneous coalitions. The Bloc dissolved in face of the attacks, both of the Socialists led by Jaures and of the supporters of proportional representation, that is to say, of the right of minorities, against the Radicals who were devoted to the scrutin d'arrondissement. The two ministries of Briand (July 1909– Feb. 1911) were marked by the energetic repression of the gen eral strike of railway workers, and the regulation of the separa tion of the Churches from the State. Then came the ministry of Monis—which was overthrown through an aeroplane accident in which the war minister was killed outright and Monis seri ously injured (May 1911)—and of Caillaux, who fell through the Agadir incident. As the Left majority gradually diminished Poincare came into power in Jan. 1912, pledged to follow a na tional policy. When on the expiration of Fallieres' term of office, Poincare was chosen over Pams, the candidate of the Left, to succeed him as president of the republic, a third ministry of Briand lasted two months before giving way to the progressivist Barthou. Barthou, alarmed by the extraordinary military credits demanded from the Reichstag for the increase of the army, sought to re-establish the three years' service in face of a coalition of the Radicals and Internationalists. This conflict brought about the revival of the Bloc des Gauches led by Caillaux, president of the committee of the rue de Valois, who had for their pro gramme two years' military service, the secularization of the Church properties and an income tax. Defeated in the chamber Barthou yielded place to Doumergue, whose plan for proportional representation and fiscal reform was rejected by the senate. In the elections in May 1914 the Left group gained a majority, and the ministry of Ribot, after a life of 24 hours, gave way to that of Viviani. The thunderbolt of Serajevo shattered this political kaleidoscope (June 1914).
Whilst these conflicts were taking place, an atmosphere of foreboding was rising in Europe (q.v.). Germany, threatened by apoplexy in population and industry, was seeking outlets and colonies in all directions. Having failed to break either the Franco-Russian Alliance or the Triple Entente, she grew more and more aggressive. She had shown her temper at the two Hague Peace Conferences in 1899 and in 1907, and had piled up incidents in Morocco, at Tangiers, at Casablanca, at Agadir. Each concession only made her more exacting. Then from Morocco, where he had not had even the support of Austria, his "brilliant second," William II. turned his attention to the East. The Turkish Revolution of 1908, and the advent of the national (Young Turk) liberals in the place of the Old Turks, had aroused in the Balkans fresh national aspirations dangerous to Austria-Hungary.
In this new sphere German influence received a double set back, military and political, which added to her irritation. The one was the defeat of the Turks, the pupils of German generals, by the coalition of Bulgars, Greeks and Serbs
; the other was the downfall of the Bulgars, the allies of Austria (1913). The German government could re-establish its prestige only by military action ; hence she increased her army partly to support Austria, but partly also through apprehension of France, whose union with Russia was drawn ever closer. These circumstances had deter mined the Barthou ministry to increase the term of service to three years in spite of the democratic parties in France, who were loud in protestations of sympathy with the German socialists at their joint meetings in Switzerland, where the Germans, in return, promised not to follow William II.
Austria held that the independence of Serbia was incompatible with the maintenance of her own monarchy. The German Em peror, impulsive, discredited in the eyes of public opinion, hard pressed by the military Junta, desired war in order to recover his prestige. On June 28, 1914, the assassination at Sarajevo pro vided a sudden opportunity to resuscitate the entire Balkan prob lem. The Triple Entente was paralyzed : France by the struggles of parties which did not stop short of crime and by "international" propaganda which declared war to be impossible; Russia by wide spread strikes; England by the Irish crisis. So little did France realize what was on foot that Poincare and Viviani were actually visiting the tsar, when the Austrian ultimatum, drawn up after carte blanche had been given by Germany in terms that precluded acceptance, was presented to Serbia on July 25. Nevertheless, on the advice of France and the friendly powers, Serbia accepted almost the whole. Austria however decided not only to break off diplomatic relations, but also to declare war on Serbia (July 28). See WAR GUILT for special examination of the facts, also EUROPE.
