Georges Clemenceau, French Prime Minister during the final stages of the war, was already
a major political figure before the war, but he is certainly best remembered today for
his resolute wartime service as “The Tiger” and “Father Victory”.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War bio special about Georges Clemenceau.
He was born in 1841 in Vendée in the West of France.
His father, Benjamin, was a doctor and a Republican, and participated in both the 1830 and 1848
French revolutions.
This came back to haunt him during the Empire of Napoleon III, and he served time for his
beliefs and remained under police watch.
Young George also studied medicine, and helped publish a newspaper called the Labour in 1862.
It was critical of the regime and George also spent a couple months in jail for his beliefs.
Frustrated with his nationc’s political climate and having finished his thesis, he
spent the late 1860s in the US as a journalist and French teacher.
It was there he met his wife, Mary Plummer, but when the Franco-Prussian War broke out
in 1870 and the French empire was on the verge of collapse, Georges returned to France.
He was there when the empire fell September 4th.
The new government chose George as Mayor of Paris’ 18th arrondissement, but he was in
a terrible position.
The city was under siege and couldn’t be supplied or relieved, the two main French
armies having surrendered at Sedan and Metz.
The peace that was signed in January 1871 infuriated Parisians and eventually led to
the Paris Commune.
Georges tried to conciliate both Paris and the national government and was dismissed
in March.
That’s the real short version.
Thing is, Georges was trying to avoid a civil war, but if he could not do that, he could
at least defend the Republic.
He was elected Deputy of Paris in 1876, pledged amnesty for the Communards, warned against
a return of monarchy, and championed separation of church and state 25 years before it happened.
A decade later, it was Clemenceau who was instrumental in preventing a coup by Georges
Boulanger, the popular Minister of War.
He was one of the few deputies that were opposed to French colonial expansion and believed
the national forces should remain in France and prepare for a potential war against Germany,
though he never actually called for such a war.
His career was derailed for a decade in the 1890s when a large-scale press attack by his
opponents accused him of corruption.
He even fought a duel over it - one of many duels he fought, but though he was proven
innocent, his reputation suffered.
It was another scandal that brought him back to politics, the Dreyfus Affair.
You’ll have to look up the details yourself, but during the scandal, Clemenceau wrote 665
articles defending Dreyfus, who was finally declared not guilty in 1906.
That year, Clemenceau became Minister of the Interior in March and Prime Minister in October.
As Interior Minister, he reformed the French police and cracked down on striking workers,
notably the miners’ strike after the Courrieres mining disaster, but there were several other
strikes as well.
Although he was the most leftist Prime Minister the republic had had, this anti-worker action
alienated the Socialist Party, the SFIO, but Clemenceau saw his main goal as PM as restoring
order and confidence to the republic, and called himself “the First Cop of France”,
though to the socialists he remained “the Strikebreaker”.
Most of the press called him “the Tiger”.
It was he who introduced the scientific police, mobile brigades - Tiger Brigades - and water
cannons instead of guns to deal with rioters.
He also created cheap accommodation for the poor.
His end as Prime Minister, though, had nothing to do with domestic policy.
In 1909, he signed a treaty with Germany over influence in Morocco.
Dealing with the enemy was very unpopular.
In July, during a discussion on the state of the 0navy, bitter words were exchanged
between Clemenceau and Theophile Delcassé, former President of the Council, whose downfall
Clemenceau had helped.
Georges did not respond to Declassé’s questions and said he’d negotiated with the Germans
because France could not begin a fight with them.
By publicly claiming France’s weakness he compromised himself and the assembly voted
his cabinet out 226-176.
He spent the next three years travelling in South America and then returned to France.
Worried about the rise of national tensions in Europe, he founded the newspaper, “The
Free Man” to articulate his views.
When the world war broke out, he was determined to see France victorious, no matter the cost.
He believed that if France lost it would become a simple satellite of Germany with no army
and no power.
He spoke out actively against pacifists and defeatists, and accused Louis Malvy, Minister
of the Interior, of sabotaging the war effort.
Malvy did not share Clemenceau’s view that all socialist activists should be jailed.
Actually, it was Clemenceau whose relentless propaganda against Malvy led him to resign
in 1917.
He had accused Malvy of treason - providing information to the Germans - and of supporting
the army mutinies.
Malvy was cleared of treason charges but was, in fact, exiled for “disregarding, violating,
and betraying the duties of his office”.
As an editor, Clemenceau was anything but silent.
in 1914, he heavily criticized Josef Joffre’s leadership of the French army, and - as a
doctor - questioned the quality of medical treatment.
He saw wounded soldiers receiving no treatment, men getting tetanus from traveling in the
same wagon as sick horses, and his newspaper outlined these and other problems.
The government accused him of not supporting the war effort and seized “the Free Man”.
So he published another paper called, “the Chained Man”.
See, Clemenceau agreed with military censorship, but not political censorship, and he certainly
didn’t believe that pointing out medical or military insufficiencies should be punished.
After a few years of the war, Clemenceau’s legendary inflexibility and rabid nationalism
turned him into the “solution” for the war.
He was very much supported by public opinion and indeed; many thought he was the only chance
to win the war.
In November 1917, President Raymond Poincaré called for him to take up the post of Prime
Minister once more.
Clemenceau planned to run things by himself.
He chose unknowns as his ministers and only met with them once a week.
The army was his main focus and he named himself Minister of War.
His first speech in the assembly outlined his policies for the coming year, “Foreign
policy and domestic policy, it is all one.
Domestic policy, I make war.
Foreign policy, I make war.
I always make war.”
The 76-year-old Tiger was certainly active in that respect.
He spent 90 days at the front line in the last year of the war, and even taunted Germans
from a frontline trench opposite them.
German Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff not only admired him, he said he wished a
Clemenceau had emerged in Germany.
The challenges, triumphs, and defeats the French would face in the field are covered
in our regular episodes, but some of the machinations behind the lines are worth mentioning here.
Clemenceau believed that all of the armies on the Western front should fall under French
command.
Most of the enemy troops were in France; France had deployed more soldiers than the other
nations, and had been fighting the war since the very start.
In December 1917, he proposed that France take leadership of the new Supreme War Council,
but no commander was yet named.
The seemingly unstoppable German advance in March 1918 changed that.
If Amiens fell, the French and British armies would be split, so it was decided that the
British would be under French command for its defense.
For Clemenceau, this wasn’t enough; he wanted unified command for counterattacks as well.
Finally, he got his way and Ferdinand Foch was named Supreme Commander of the Allies.
The reasons for Foch over, say, Petain, the final days of the war, the decision whether
to sign an armistice or invade Germany, the Treaty of Versailles, all of this will be
covered in our weekly episodes.
Post war, Clemenceau considered retiring, but many wanted him to run for President of
France.
He had his enemies, though; certainly the socialists, but also many Catholics, who held
him responsible for poor relations with the Vatican, and many who simply associated him
with rabid militarism.
He lost the election in January 1920 and then resigned as Prime Minister.
He spent his last years traveling all over the world, and wrote his memoirs and a philosophical
work.
Father Victory died November 24th, 1929 at the age of 88.
He was unbending, unyielding, and totally determined, qualities that are often quite
negative, but in time of war can be valuable qualities indeed.
Thanks to Baptiste Jouhaud for helping with the research for this episode.
If you want to know more about Philippe Pétain in WW1, you can click right here for that.
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