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83-532: The 16 May 1877 crisis (French: Crise du seize mai ) was a constitutional crisis in the French Third Republic concerning the distribution of power between the president and the legislature . When the royalist president Patrice MacMahon dismissed the Moderate Republican prime minister Jules Simon , the parliament on 16 May 1877 refused to support the new government and was dissolved by

166-489: A political dispute willfully chooses to violate a law of the constitution ; or to flout an unwritten constitutional convention ; or to dispute the correct, legal interpretation of the violated constitutional law or of the flouted political custom. This was demonstrated by the XYZ Affair , which involved the bribery of French officials by a contingent of American commissioners who were sent to preserve peace between France and

249-519: A clear rejection of the President's move. MacMahon had either to submit himself or to resign, as had Léon Gambetta famously called for: "When France will have let its sovereign voice heard, then one will have to submit himself or resign" ( se soumettre ou se démettre ). MacMahon thus appointed a moderate republican, Jules Armand Dufaure as president of the Council , and accepted Dufaure's interpretation of

332-443: A decade after his 1893 defeat, Clemenceau confined his political activities to journalism. His career was further clouded by the long-drawn-out Dreyfus case , in which he took an active part as a supporter of Émile Zola and an opponent of the anti-Semitic and nationalist campaigns. In all, during the affair Clemenceau published 665 articles defending Dreyfus. On 13 January 1898, Clemenceau published Émile Zola's J'Accuse...! on

415-580: A duel with him on 23 December 1892. Six shots were discharged, but neither participant was injured. Clemenceau remained the leading spokesman for French radicalism, but his hostility to the Franco-Russian Alliance so increased his unpopularity that in the French legislative elections of 1893 , he was defeated for his seat in the Chamber of Deputies after having held it continuously since 1876. For nearly

498-722: A gap was created in the British and French lines that risked handing over access to Paris to the Germans. This defeat cemented Clemenceau's belief, and that of the other allies, that a coordinated, unified command was the best option. It was decided that Ferdinand Foch would be appointed as " generalissimo ". The German line continued to advance and Clemenceau believed that the fall of Paris could not be ruled out. Public opinions arose that if "the Tiger", as well as Foch and Philippe Pétain stayed in power for even another week, France would be lost and that

581-411: A government headed by Aristide Briand would be beneficial to France, because he would make peace with Germany on advantageous terms. Clemenceau adamantly opposed these opinions and he gave an inspirational speech in the Chamber of Deputies; the chamber subsequently voted their confidence in him by 377 votes to 110. As the allied counter-offensives began to push the Germans back, it became clear that

664-605: A hallmark of his political career. On 23 June 1869, he married Mary Eliza Plummer (1849–1922), in New York City. She had attended the school where he taught horseback riding and was one of his students. She was the daughter of Harriet A. Taylor and William Kelly Plummer. Following their marriage, the Clemenceaus moved to France. They had three children together, Madeleine (born in 1870), Thérèse (1872) and Michel (1873). Although Clemenceau had many mistresses, when his wife took

747-407: A long line of physicians, but lived off his lands and investments and did not practice medicine. Benjamin was a political activist; he was arrested and briefly held in 1851 and again in 1858. He instilled in his son a love of learning, devotion to radical politics , and a hatred of Catholicism . The lawyer Albert Clemenceau (1861–1955) was his brother. His mother was a devout Protestant; his father

830-465: A peace, thus Clemenceau viewed Caillaux as a threat to national security. Unlike previous ministers, Clemenceau moved against Caillaux publicly. As a result, a parliamentary committee decided that Caillaux would be arrested and imprisoned for three years. Clemenceau believed, in the words of Jean Ybarnégaray , that Caillaux's crime "was not to have believed in victory [and] to have gambled on his nation's defeat". The arrest of Caillaux and others raised

913-399: A result of civil disturbances provoked by the implementation of the law on the separation of church and state and the victory of radicals in the French legislative elections of 1906 . The new government of Ferdinand Sarrien appointed Clemenceau as minister of the interior in the cabinet. On a domestic level, Clemenceau reformed the French police forces and ordered repressive policies toward

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996-432: A short time in office. It was said, "Like everyone else ... Clemenceau will not last long – only long enough to clean up [the war]." As the military situation worsened in early 1918, Clemenceau continued to support the policy of total war – "We present ourselves before you with the single thought of total war" – and the policy of "la guerre jusqu'au bout" (war until the end). His speech of 8 March advocating this policy

1079-580: A sound strategic plan. He nominated General Henri Mordacq to be his military chief of staff. Mordacq helped to inspire trust and mutual respect from the army to the government which proved essential to the final victory. Clemenceau also was well received by the media, because they felt that France was in need of strong leadership. It was widely recognized that throughout the war he was never discouraged and never stopped believing that France could achieve total victory. There were skeptics, however, who believed that Clemenceau, like other war-time leaders, would have

1162-555: A tutor of their children as her lover, Clemenceau had her put in jail for two weeks and then sent her back to the United States on a steamer in third class. The marriage ended in a contentious divorce in 1891. He obtained custody of their children. He then had his wife stripped of French nationality. Clemenceau had returned to Paris after the French defeat at the Battle of Sedan in 1870 during

1245-565: A weekly newsletter, Le Travail . On 23 February 1862, he was arrested by the imperial police for having placed posters summoning a demonstration. He spent 77 days in the Mazas Prison . Around the same time, Clemenceau also visited the old French revolutionary Auguste Blanqui and another Republican activist, Auguste Scheurer-Kestner , in jail, further deepening his hatred of the Napoleon III regime and advancing his fervent republicanism . He

1328-737: The Franco-Prussian War and the fall of the Second French Empire . After returning to medical practice as a physician in Vendée, he was appointed mayor of the 18th arrondissement of Paris , including Montmartre , and he also was elected to the National Assembly for the 18th arrondissement. When the Paris Commune seized power in March 1871, he tried unsuccessfully to find a compromise between

1411-746: The German invasion and Armistice , he demanded a total victory over the German Empire . Clemenceau stood for reparations, a transfer of colonies, strict rules to prevent a rearming process, as well as the restitution of Alsace–Lorraine , which had been annexed to Germany in 1871. He achieved these goals through the Treaty of Versailles signed at the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920). Nicknamed Père la Victoire ("Father Victory") or Le Tigre ("The Tiger"), he continued his harsh position against Germany in

1494-662: The Middle Ages . As the revolt of the Languedoc winegrowers developed Clemenceau at first dismissed the complaints, then sent in troops to keep the peace in June 1907. During 1907 and 1908, he led the development of a new Entente cordiale with Britain, which gave France a successful role in European politics. Difficulties with Germany and criticism by the Socialist party in connection with

1577-680: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland does not have a written constitution, it is deemed to have an unwritten one , and issues and crises in the UK and its constituent countries are described as constitutional crises. Georges Clemenceau Georges Benjamin Clemenceau ( / ˈ k l ɛ m ə n s oʊ / , also US : / ˌ k l ɛ m ə n ˈ s oʊ , ˌ k l eɪ m ɒ̃ ˈ s oʊ / , French: [ʒɔʁʒ(ə) bɛ̃ʒamɛ̃ klemɑ̃so] ; 28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929)

1660-662: The anti-clericalist republican struggle. In June 1903, he undertook the direction of L'Aurore , the journal that he had founded. In it, he led the campaign to revisit the Dreyfus affair and to create a separation of church and state in France . The latter was implemented by the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State . In March 1906, the ministry of Maurice Rouvier fell as

1743-408: The executive and legislative branches. This change was accepted by referendum in 2000 . Constitutional crisis Constitutional crises may arise from conflicts between different branches of government, conflicts between central and local governments, or simply conflicts among various factions within society. In the course of government, the crisis results when one or more of the parties to

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1826-489: The 1920s, although not quite so much as President Raymond Poincaré or former Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch , who thought the treaty was too lenient on Germany, prophetically stating: "This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years." Clemenceau obtained mutual defence treaties with the United Kingdom and the United States, to unite against possible future German aggression, but these never took effect due to

1909-561: The Catholic Church. After his studies in the Lycée in Nantes , Clemenceau received his French baccalaureate of letters in 1858. He went to Paris to study medicine and eventually graduated with the completion of his thesis " De la génération des éléments anatomiques " in 1865. In Paris, the young Clemenceau became a political activist and writer. In December 1861, he and some friends co-founded

1992-667: The French left-wing and its right-wing). In the constitutional field, the presidential system was definitely rejected in favor of a parliamentary system , and the right of dissolution of parliament severely restricted, so much that it was never used again under the Third Republic. After the Vichy regime , the Fourth Republic (1946–1958) was again founded on this parliamentary system, something which Charles de Gaulle despised and rejected ( le régime des partis ). Thus, when de Gaulle had

2075-437: The Germans could no longer win the war. Although they still occupied vast amounts of French territory, they did not have sufficient resources and manpower to continue their attack. As countries allied to Germany began to ask for an armistice, it was obvious that Germany would soon follow. On 11 November 1918, an armistice with Germany was signed. Clemenceau was embraced in the streets and attracted many admiring crowds. To settle

2158-531: The Radical Party over Boulangism weakened his hand and its collapse meant that moderate republicans did not need his help. A further misfortune occurred in the Panama affair , as Clemenceau's relations with the businessman and politician Cornelius Herz led to his being included in the general suspicion. In response to accusations of corruption levelled by the nationalist politician Paul Déroulède , Clemenceau fought

2241-598: The Republic and the republican Chamber of Deputies. The crisis was triggered by President MacMahon, who dismissed the moderate republican Jules Simon , head of the government, and replaced him with a new "Ordre moral" government led by the Orleanist Albert, duc de Broglie . MacMahon favoured a presidential government, while the Republicans in the chamber considered the parliament as the supreme political body, which decided

2324-547: The SFIO, in June 1906. Clemenceau's speech positioned him as the strong man of the day in French politics; when the Sarrien ministry resigned in October, Clemenceau became premier. After a proposal by the deputy Paul Dussaussoy for limited women's suffrage in local elections, Clemenceau published a pamphlet in 1907 in which he declared that if women were given the vote France would return to

2407-557: The Socialists. At the outbreak of World War I in France in August 1914, Clemenceau's newspaper was one of the first to be censored by the government. It was suspended from 29 September 1914 to 7 October. In response, Clemenceau changed the newspaper's name to L'Homme enchaîné ("The Chained Man") and criticized the government for its lack of transparency and its ineffectiveness, while defending

2490-486: The Third Republic. Following the Franco-Prussian War , the elections for the National Assembly had brought about a monarchist majority, divided into Legitimists and Orleanists , which conceived the republican institutions created by the fall of Napoleon III in 1870 as a transitory state while they negotiated who would be king. Until the 1876 elections, the royalist movement dominated the legislature, thus creating

2573-571: The U.S. Senate's failure to ratify the treaty, which thus also nullified British obligation. Clemenceau was a native of Vendée , born in Mouilleron-en-Pareds . During the period of the French Revolution , Vendée had been a hotbed of monarchist sympathies . The department was remote from Paris, rural, and poor. His mother, Sophie Eucharie Gautreau (1817–1903), was of Huguenot descent. His father, Benjamin Clemenceau (1810–1897), came from

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2656-616: The United States. The incident was published in the American press and created a foreign policy crisis, which precipitated the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts . Opposition to these acts in the form of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions cited that they violated freedom of speech and exhorted states to refuse their enforcement since they violated the Constitution. When the crisis arises because

2739-409: The collapse of popular support for a war effort. The Prefect of Police gave the same advice, but the government did not follow it. In the end, 80% of the 2,501 people listed on Carnet B as subversives volunteered for service. In autumn 1914, Clemenceau declined to join the government of national unity as justice minister. He was a vehement critic of the wartime French government, asserting that it

2822-436: The constitution is legally ambiguous, the ultimate resolution usually establishes the legal precedent to resolve future crises of constitutional administration. Such was the case in the United States presidential succession of John Tyler , which established that a successor to the presidency assumes the office without any limitation. Politically, a constitutional crisis can lead to administrative paralysis and eventual collapse of

2905-539: The constitution: The crisis sealed the defeat of the royalists. President MacMahon accepted his defeat and resigned in January 1879. The Comte de Chambord , whose intransigence had resulted in the breakdown of the alliance between Legitimists and Orleanists , died in 1883, after which several Orleanists rallied to the Republic, quoting Adolphe Thiers ' words that "the Republic is the form of government which divides [the French]

2988-422: The course of the war) and so, had to rely on himself and his own circle of friends. Clemenceau's assumption of power meant little to the men in the trenches at first. They thought of him as "just another politician", and the monthly assessment of troop morale found that only a minority found comfort in his appointment. Slowly, however, as time passed, the confidence he inspired in a few, began to grow throughout all

3071-578: The darkest hours for the French war effort in World War I, Clemenceau was appointed to the prime ministership. Unlike his predecessors, he discouraged internal disagreement and called for peace among the senior politicians. Clemenceau governed from the Ministry of War on Rue Saint-Dominique . Almost his first act as prime minister was to relieve General Maurice Sarrail from his command of the Salonika front . This

3154-586: The death of more than one thousand persons, threatened widespread disorder on 1 May 1906. Clemenceau ordered the military against the strikers and repressed the wine growers strike in the Languedoc-Roussillon . His actions alienated the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) socialist party, from which he definitively broke in his notable reply in the Chamber of Deputies to Jean Jaurès , leader of

3237-588: The fall of the Ferry cabinet that year. During the French legislative elections of 1885 , he advocated a strong radical programme and was returned both for his old seat in Paris and for the Var , district of Draguignan . He chose to represent the latter in the Chamber of Deputies. Refusing to form a ministry to replace the one he had overthrown, he supported the right in keeping Prime Minister Charles de Freycinet in power in 1886 and

3320-507: The fall of the commune, he was elected to the Paris municipal council on 23 July 1871 for the Clignancourt quarter and retained his seat until 1876. He first held the offices of secretary and vice-president, then he became president in 1875. In 1876, Clemenceau stood for the Chamber of Deputies (which replaced the National Assembly in 1875) and was elected for the 18th arrondissement. He joined

3403-609: The far left and his energy and mordant eloquence speedily made him the leader of the radical section. In 1877, after the Crisis of 16 May 1877 , he was one of the republican majority who denounced the ministry of the Duc de Broglie . Clemenceau led resistance to the anti-republican policy of which the incident of 16 May was a manifestation. In 1879, his demand for the indictment of the Broglie ministry brought him prominence. From 1876 to 1880, Clemenceau

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3486-473: The far left in the Chamber of Deputies, he was an active opponent of the colonial policy of Prime Minister Jules Ferry , which he opposed on moral grounds and also as a form of diversion from the more important goal of " Revenge against Germany " for the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War . In 1885, his criticism of the conduct of the Sino-French War contributed strongly to

3569-462: The fighting men. They were encouraged by his many visits to the trenches. This confidence began to spread from the trenches to the home front and it was said, "We believed in Clemenceau rather in the way that our ancestors believed in Joan of Arc." After years of criticism against the French army for its conservatism and Catholicism, Clemenceau would need help to get along with the military leaders to achieve

3652-527: The front page of the Paris daily newspaper, L'Aurore , of which he was owner and editor. He decided to run the controversial article that would become a famous part of the Dreyfus Affair in the form of an open letter to Félix Faure , the president of France. In 1900, he withdrew from La Justice to found a weekly review, Le Bloc , to which he practically was the sole contributor. The publication of Le Bloc lasted until 15 March 1902. On 6 April 1902, he

3735-533: The government, the loss of political legitimacy , or to civil war . A constitutional crisis is distinct from a rebellion , which occurs when political factions outside a government challenge the government's sovereignty, as in a coup d'état or a revolution led by the military or by civilians. This covers the Kingdom of Scotland , which became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain after 1707. For constitutional crises since then, see United Kingdom below. While

3818-567: The handling of the First Moroccan Crisis in 1905–06 were settled at the Algeciras Conference . Clemenceau was defeated on 20 July 1909 in a discussion in the Chamber of Deputies on the state of the navy, in which bitter words he exchanged with Théophile Delcassé , the former president of the Council whose downfall Clemenceau had aided. Refusing to respond to Delcassé's technical questions, Clemenceau resigned after his proposal for

3901-497: The hopes of a quick restoration of the monarchy . Monarchists therefore resigned themselves to wait for the death of the ageing, childless Chambord, when the throne could be offered to his more liberal heir, the Comte de Paris . A "temporary" republican government was therefore established. Chambord lived on until 1883, but by that time, enthusiasm for a monarchy had faded, and the Comte de Paris

3984-514: The imperial regime. As part of his journalistic activity, Clemenceau covered the country's recovery following the Civil War , the workings of American democracy, and the racial questions related to the end of slavery . From his time in America, he retained a strong faith in American democratic ideals as opposed to France's imperial regime, as well as a sense of political compromise that later would become

4067-505: The international political issues left over from the conclusion of World War I, it was decided that a peace conference would be held in Paris, France. Famously, the Treaty of Versailles between Germany and the Allied Powers to conclude the conflict was signed in the Palace of Versailles , but the deliberations on which it was based were conducted in Paris, hence the name given to the meeting of

4150-435: The issue of Clemenceau's harshness, who in turn argued that the only powers he assumed were those necessary for winning the war. The many trials and arrests aroused great public excitement. These trials, far from making the public fear the government, inspired confidence, as the public felt that for the first time in the war, action was being taken and they were being firmly governed. The claims that Clemenceau's "firm government"

4233-412: The least". These newly rallied became the first right-wing republicans of France. After World War I (1914–18), some of the independent radicals and members of the right-wing of the late Radical-Socialist Party allied themselves with these pragmatic republicans, although anticlericalism remained a gap between these long-time rivals (and indeed continues, to be a main criterion of distinction between

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4316-682: The more radical leaders of the Commune and the more conservative French government. The Commune declared that he had no legal authority to be mayor and seized the city hall of the 18th arrondissement. He ran for election to the Paris Commune council, but received fewer than eight hundred votes and took no part in its governance. He was in Bordeaux when the commune was suppressed by the French Army in May 1871. After

4399-484: The opportunity to come back to power in the crisis of May 1958 , he designed a constitution that strengthened the President. His 1962 reform to have the president elected by direct universal suffrage (instead of being elected by deputies and senators) further increased his authority . The constitution designed by de Gaulle for the Fifth Republic (since 1958) was specifically tailored to his needs, but this specificity

4482-399: The order of the day vote was rejected. He was succeeded as premier by Aristide Briand , with a reconstructed cabinet. Between 1909 and 1912, Clemenceau dedicated his time to travel, conferences, and the treatment of his illness. He went to South America in 1910, traveling to Brazil , Uruguay , and Argentina (where he went as far as Santa Ana (Tucuman) in northwest Argentina). There, he

4565-404: The paradox of a Republic led by anti-republicans. The royalist deputies supported Marshal MacMahon , a declared monarchist of the legitimist party, as president of the Republic. His term was set to seven years – the time to find a compromise between the two rival royalist factions. In 1873, a plan to place Henri, comte de Chambord , the head of the Bourbon branch supported by Legitimists, back on

4648-441: The patriotic union sacrée against the German Empire . In spite of the censorship imposed by the French government on Clemenceau's journalism at the beginning of World War I, he still wielded considerable political influence. As soon as the war started, Clemenceau advised Interior Minister Malvy to invoke Carnet B , a list of known and suspected subversives who were supposed to be arrested upon mobilisation, in order to prevent

4731-403: The policies of the nation. The Chamber refused to place its trust in the new government. On 16 May 1877, 363 French deputies – among them Georges Clemenceau , Jean Casimir-Perier and Émile Loubet – passed a vote of no confidence ( Manifeste des 363 ). MacMahon dissolved the parliament and called for new elections , which brought 323 Republicans and 209 royalists to the Chamber, marking

4814-399: The president. New elections resulted in the royalists increasing their seat totals, but nonetheless resulted in a majority for the Republicans. Thus, the interpretation of the 1875 Constitution as a parliamentary system prevailed over a presidential system . The crisis ultimately sealed the defeat of the royalist movement, and was instrumental in creating the conditions for the longevity of

4897-427: The remaining deported Communards returned to France, including his friend Louise Michel . In 1880, Clemenceau started his newspaper, La Justice , which became the principal organ of Parisian Radicalism . From this time, throughout the presidency of Jules Grévy (1879–1887), he became widely known as a political critic and destroyer of ministries ( le Tombeur de ministères ) who avoided taking office himself. Leading

4980-433: The republican tricolor . Chambord believed the restored monarchy had to eliminate all traces of the Revolution, especially the Tricolor flag, in order to restore the unity between the monarchy and the nation, which the revolution had sundered. Compromise on this was impossible if the nation were to be made whole again. The general population, however, was unwilling to abandon the Tricolor flag. Chambord's decision thus ruined

5063-407: The resignation of Jules Grévy from the presidency of France in 1887. He had declined Grévy's request to form a cabinet upon the downfall of the cabinet of Maurice Rouvier by advising his followers not to vote for Charles Floquet , Jules Ferry, nor Charles de Freycinet, Clemenceau was primarily responsible for the election of an "outsider", Marie François Sadi Carnot , as president. The split in

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5146-422: The return of Alsace-Lorraine to France. This meant that victory would fulfil the war aim that was crucial for the French public. Clemenceau was sceptical about some other points, however, including those concerning the League of Nations , as he believed that the latter could succeed only in a utopian society. On 21 March 1918, the Germans began their great spring offensive . The allies were caught off guard and

5229-440: The throne had failed on account of the comte's intransigence. President MacMahon was supposed to lead him to the National Assembly and have him acclaimed as king. However, the Comte de Chambord rejected this plan in the white flag manifesto of 5 July 1871, reiterated by a 23 October 1873 letter, in which he explained that in no case would he abandon the white flag , symbol of the monarchy (with its fleur-de-lis ), in exchange for

5312-399: The victorious heads of state that produced the treaties signed with the defeated powers: the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. On 13 December 1918, United States president Woodrow Wilson received an enthusiastic welcome in France. His Fourteen Points and the concept of a League of Nations had made a big impact on the war-weary French. At their first meeting, Clemenceau realized that Wilson

5395-532: The war, a scarcity of resources, and air raids that were causing huge physical damage to Paris as well as undermining the morale of its citizens. It also was believed that many politicians secretly wanted peace. It was a challenging situation for Clemenceau; after years of criticizing other men during the war, he suddenly found himself in a position of supreme power. He was isolated politically, however. He did not have close links with any parliamentary leaders (especially after he had antagonized them so relentlessly during

5478-406: The workers movement. He supported the formation of scientific police by Alphonse Bertillon and founded the Brigades mobiles (French for "mobile squads") led by Célestin Hennion . These squads were nicknamed Brigades du Tigre ("The Tiger's Brigades") after Clemenceau, who was nicknamed "The Tiger". The miners strike in the Pas de Calais after the Courrières mine disaster , which resulted in

5561-439: The years 1865–1869, following the American Civil War . He maintained a medical practice, but spent much of his time on political journalism for a Parisian newspaper, Le Temps . He taught French in Great Barrington, Massachusetts , and also taught and rode horseback at a private girls' school in Stamford, Connecticut , where he would meet his future wife. During this time, he joined French exile clubs in New York that were opposing

5644-496: Was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A physician turned journalist, he played a central role in the politics of the Third Republic , particularly amid the end of the First World War . He was a key figure of the Independent Radicals , advocating for the separation of church and state , as well as the amnesty of the Communards exiled to New Caledonia . After about 1,400,000 French soldiers were killed between

5727-422: Was a dictatorship found little support. Clemenceau was still held accountable to the people and media. He relaxed censorship on political views as he believed that newspapers had the right to criticize political figures: "The right to insult members of the government is inviolable." In 1918, Clemenceau thought that France should adopt Woodrow Wilson 's Fourteen Points , mainly because of its point that called for

5810-602: Was also rested on the President's personal charisma . Even with de Gaulle's disappearance from the political scene a year after the May 1968 crisis, little changed until the 1980s, when the various cohabitations under President François Mitterrand renewed the conflict between the presidency and the prime minister. Subsequently President Jacques Chirac proposed to reduce the term of the presidency from seven to five years (the quinquennat ), so that both presidential and parlementary elections may be synchronous, in order to avoid any further "cohabitation" and thus conflict between

5893-408: Was amazed by the influence of French culture and of the French Revolution on local elites. He published the first issue of the Journal du Var on 10 April 1910. Three years later, on 6 May 1913, he founded L'Homme libre ("The Free Man") newspaper in Paris, for which he wrote a daily editorial. In these media, Clemenceau focused increasingly on foreign policy and condemned the anti-militarism of

5976-620: Was an atheist and insisted that his children should have no religious education. Clemenceau was interested in religious issues. He was a lifelong atheist with a sound knowledge of the Bible . He became a leader of anti-clerical or "Radical" forces that battled against the Catholic Church in France and the Catholics in politics. He stopped short of the more extreme attacks. His position was that if church and state were kept rigidly separated, he would not support oppressive measures designed to further weaken

6059-470: Was blamed for having blocked a possible compromise peace, but it is now clear from examination of German documents that Germany had no serious intention of handing over Alsace-Lorraine. The prominence of his opposition made him the best known critic and the last man standing when the others had failed. "Messieurs, les Allemands sont toujours à Noyon " (Gentlemen, the Germans are still at Noyon) wrote Clemenceau's paper endlessly. In November 1917, at one of

6142-726: Was elected senator for the Var district of Draguignan , although he had previously called for the suppression of the French Senate , as he considered it a strong-house of conservatism. He served as the senator for Draguignan until 1920. Clemenceau sat with the Independent Radicals in the Senate and moderated his positions, although he still vigorously supported the Radical-Socialist ministry of Prime Minister Émile Combes , who spearheaded

6225-623: Was graduated as a doctor of medicine on 13 May 1865, founded several literary magazines, and wrote many articles, most of which attacked the imperial regime of Napoleon III . After a failed love affair, Clemenceau left France for the United States as the imperial agents began cracking down on dissidents and sending most of them to the bagne de Cayennes ( Devil's Island Penal System) in French Guiana . Clemenceau worked in New York City during

6308-484: Was inclined to open negotiations with Germany. Clemenceau argued that even German restitution of Alsace-Lorraine and the liberation of Belgium would not be enough to justify France abandoning her allies. This forced Alexandre Ribot and Aristide Briand (both the previous two prime ministers, of whom the latter was by far the more powerful politician who had been approached by a German diplomat) to agree in public that there would be no separate peace. For many years, Clemenceau

6391-414: Was little activity on the western front because it was believed that there should be limited attacks until the American support arrived. At this time, Italy was on the defensive, Russia virtually had stopped fighting – and it was believed that they would be making a separate peace with Germany (See also Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ) . At home, the government had to deal with increasing demonstrations against

6474-418: Was never offered the French throne. In 1875, Adolphe Thiers joined with the initiative of moderate Republicans Jules Ferry and Léon Gambetta to vote for the constitutional laws of the Republic . The next year, the elections were won by the Republicans, although the end result was contradictory: Political crisis was thus inevitable. It involved a struggle for supremacy between the monarchist President of

6557-525: Was not doing enough to win the war. His stance was driven by a will to regain the province of Alsace-Lorraine, a view shared by public opinion. The autumn of 1917 saw the disastrous Italian defeat at the Battle of Caporetto , the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia , and rumours that former Prime Minister Joseph Caillaux and Interior Minister Louis Malvy might have engaged in treason. Prime Minister Paul Painlevé

6640-478: Was one of the main defenders of the general amnesty of thousands of Communards, members of the revolutionary government of the 1871 Paris Commune who had been deported to New Caledonia . Along with other radicals and figures such as poet and then-Senator Victor Hugo , as well as a growing number of republicans, he supported several unsuccessful proposals. Finally a general amnesty was adopted on 11 July 1880. The "reconciliation" envisaged by Clemenceau could begin, as

6723-554: Was responsible for the inclusion of Georges Ernest Boulanger in the Freycinet cabinet as war minister. When General Boulanger revealed himself as an ambitious pretender, Clemenceau withdrew his support and became a vigorous opponent of the heterogeneous Boulangist movement, although the radical press continued to patronize the general. By his exposure of the Wilson scandal , and by his personal plain speaking, Clemenceau contributed largely to

6806-455: Was so effective that it left a vivid impression on Winston Churchill , who would make similar speeches upon becoming British prime minister in 1940. Clemenceau's war policy encompassed the promise of victory with justice, loyalty to the fighting men, and immediate and severe punishment of crimes against France. Joseph Caillaux , a former French prime minister, disagreed with Clemenceau's policies. He wanted to surrender to Germany and negotiate

6889-705: Was the main topic of discussion at the first meeting of the war committee on 6 December, at which Clemenceau stated, "Sarrail cannot remain there". The reason for Sarrail's dismissal was his links with the socialist politicians Joseph Caillaux and Louis Malvy (at that time suspected of treasonable contacts with the Germans) Churchill later wrote that Clemenceau "looked like a wild animal pacing to and fro behind bars" in front of "an assembly which would have done anything to avoid putting him there, but, having put him there, felt they must obey". When Clemenceau became prime minister in 1917 victory seemed to be elusive. There

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