As many of you know, we’ve run a series of national specials about what was going
on around the world leading up to the First World War, and today I’m going to talk about
one of the major players of the war, and one that was there from its beginning - France.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War special episode about France before the First
World War.
France’s defeat in 1871 in the Franco-Prussian War had spelled the end for Emperor Napoleon
III.
France then had to rebuild its political organization from scratch and create a new government.
Despite many calls for a return to monarchy, the dominant mood of distrust toward personal
rulers led to the creation of the 3rd French Republic.
By 1914, it was the longest lasting regime France had had since the French Revolution
and was a source of pride for the French people, well involved in the political life of their
country.
Over the 30 years before WW1, sweeping reforms had taken place that had fostered a sense
of national unity.
School had become mandatory, free, and secular for all children.
New laws had cemented the creation of political parties, the state had separated from the
church, and there were big national symbols like Bastille Day and the Marseillaise.
The collective idea of France as a political entity really emerged.
The French economy also developed over this period.
The population was still largely rural, but industry grew, with workers making up 30%
of the labor force by 1914, and France was a world leader in certain sectors like automobile
manufacturing and aviation.
Louis Bleriot made global headlines when he made the first flight over the channel in
1909, as did Roland Garros when he crossed the Mediterranean in 1912.
France was also a financial giant, holding 25% of the world’s capital and heavily investing
in countries like Russia and Romania.
The Franc was strong, and in fact, French foreign investments made up 75% of the national
GDP.
The Credit Lyonnais was the world’s largest bank.
As PM Aristide Briand said in 1910, “France’s gold trickles on the world.”
France also had the world’s second largest colonial empire, acquired mainly during the
3rd republic.
French colonies were 20 times the size of mainland France in land, though with just
a quarter of the population, and were not only a source of revenue, but also a source
of pride.
In a society of leisure, France was also a cultural and technological beacon.
Artists like Picasso, Rodin, and Chagall lived there, the Lumiére Brothers pioneered the
cinema, Louis Pasteur advanced medicine with vaccination and pasteurization.
Between 1901 and 1913, France won 14 Nobel Prizes, second only to Germany, with two going
to Marie Curie, and 50 million visitors came to the 1900 Universal Exposition, to see the
new metro and Grand Palais, and to marvel at the Eiffel Tower, the world’s tallest
structure.
BUT... this depiction of France is incomplete and misleading.
And this “belle époque” only got its name postwar out of nostalgia for a very Parisian
way of life, ignoring many of the reality of prewar France.
Peasantry still comprised half of the population, and social mobility was extremely limited.
And because of huge social inequalities, there was no unified market, which hurt heavy industry
so that it relied on older, more secure industries like textiles, and not newer ones like chemicals.
With structural flaws and with the emergence of new economies like Russia and Japan, the
French economy lost ground and it’s share in the global economy fell from 12.7% to 7.6%
from 1875 to 1913.
So it relied on other nations’ industry, which would, as it turned out, be crucial
when the war began.
94% of the shells fired by French artillery in 1914 were made in Germany, for example,
and the choice for the horizon blue uniforms that proved so disastrous in the early weeks
of the war was not just a military choice, but also a choice of convenience, as that
color was the only one France could mass-produce on domestic soil at the time.
France was also going through a big ideological struggle.
There were many attempts during the prewar years to revive anti-German sentiment, and
Alsace-Lorraine was still considered France’s “natural territory”.
Several internal crises of the Republic had the relationship with Germany as a background,
including two in particular that shook French society.
There was the Boulangist Crisis, named after General Georges Boulanger, who was appointed
Minister of War in 1886.
He grew popular advocating a hostile policy of revenge toward Germany, but lost his post
when it turned out he had a network of spies in Alsace without government consent.
Still, a Boulanger coup seemed in the cards in 1889, though when charges of conspiracy
were brought against him, he fled the country rather than face them.
There was also the Dreyfus Affair, named after Alfred Dreyfus, a French officer of Jewish
descent.
He was tried in 1894 of spying for Germany and his trial was a national event, sparking
a huge wave of anti-Semitism.
Dreyfus was declared innocent in 1906.
Thing is, though “Germany” was involved in both cases, many historians question the
importance of anti-German sentiment in mainstream French society and point instead to an exacerbated
xenophobic and anti-Semitic attitude.
But the years leading up to the war did see signs of animosity between France and Germany
and contributed to the system of alliances that fueled the war itself.
French investment in rail construction among other things led to an alliance between France
and Russia in 1892, the first leg of the Entente.
And thanks to its colonial holdings, France’s status among the great powers grew.
Most of France’s international tensions then were with Great Britain, not Germany,
but a constant effort by French Foreign Minister Theophile DeLcassé led to an alliance between
France and Britain in 1904.
German Kaiser Wilhelm wanted to break this unity.
First came the Tangier Crisis, when he supported the Sultan of Morocco who was trying to break
out of the French protectorate.
To Wilhlem’s surprise, Britain, the US, and Italy sided with France.
Then came the Agadir Crisis in 1911, when France occupied parts of Morocco to put down
a rebellion.
Germany sent a gunboat to the port of Agadir and escalating tensions nearly led to war
between France and Germany.
Britain intervened to support the French and the crisis ended, but it was clear a European
war was a real possibility.
A problem with that was France’s population.
Over the past 50 years it had gone from the highest in Western Europe to lagging behind
Germany, Britain, and Austria-Hungary.
So to hypothetically match foreign armies in size, the biggest pre-war Parliamentary
debate in France led to the Three-Year Law, extending military service.
This increased France’s divisions to 90, below Germany’s 120, but Germany’s would
be spread on two fronts since France was tightly allied with Russia.
So France did not feel as threatened as a few years earlier.
In fact, on June 28th when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, the French were
enjoying the kick off of the Tour de France.
It would run to the finish on July 28th, the day of the Austro-Hungarian declaration of
war on Serbia.
All that month was the threat of war, and, of course, the demands for peace.
Jean Jaures, French socialist leader, spent the month trying to resolve the situation
peacefully, but to no avail.
He even addressed the Chamber of Deputies late in the month.
Furious over what he saw as great Russian influence in French foreign policy, he asked
the question, “Are we going to start a world war?”
He was assassinated July 31st.
Raoul Villain, who shot him, was tried after the war but was acquitted on the ground that
he had done a service to his country.
Jaures death was the end of any small chance of peace and on August 3rd, Germany and France
went to war.
And all that follows after that you can watch in our regular weekly episodes, to see all
the tragedy and triumph that befell France when it went to war in 1914.
A nation that for all that was great about it, went to war in some ways above its means,
sacrificing a generation of its young men - as did the other great powers of Europe
- and forever changing the political and cultural landscape of the world.