Political leagues °Les Droits de THomme,D °La Patrie Francaise,)) were created as a conse quence of the internal struggle which had been raging throughout France, and which to a certain extent had drawn the attention of the whole world. The reactionary spirit of the Nationalists (a term which has been discredited by the party itself) was finally checked and overcome by such governments as those of Waldeck-Rousseau, Combes, Rouvier, Sarrien, Clemenceau and Briand. Since the Dreyfus affair the policy of France has aimed to secure a complete separation of Church and State. One of the precepts of the French Re public has been that the teaching in public schools should be neutral: the teaching must be objective, the facts must speak for them selves, especially when the Church and re ligious questions are involved. See articles on CHURCH AND STATE in this series.
From 1905 to 1914 the whole history of France was dominated by the desire to main tain peace which was first seriously threatened by the Emperor of Germany at Tangiers in 1905, provoking at the same time France and Great Britain. At the Algeciras Conference,
the Moroccan question was apparently settled, but in 1907, 1909, 1911 Germany reonened it in spite of all previous concessions made by France and of further agreements signed by both parties after the Algeciras Conference. In 1911 when the German Kaiser sent a battle ship before Agadir war with Germany was once more avoided by the conciliatory spirit of France which Germany mistook for weakness.
From that time up to 1914 Germany intensi fied her war preparations in the most ex traordinary manner. The French army had therefore to be increased in order to be ready to face the German menace and under the government of Louis Barthou the three-year military service law was passed. According to that law every French citizen was to remain in training with the colors for three years. The law had been in existence a few weeks only when war broke out in August 1914. For the history of the Great War which terminated so gloriously for France and the Allied Nations in 1918 see WAR, EUROPEAN.