Leadership during World War I of Georges Clemenceau

Back in the Senate (1911), Clemenceau became a member of its commissions for foreign affairs and the army. He was convinced that Germany intended war, and, haunted by the fear that France might again be caught unprepared, he enquired diligently into the state of France’s armaments. In order to publicize his views on rearmament, he founded in May 1913 a new daily paper, L’Homme Libre, with himself as editor.

When World War I broke out in July 1914, the partisan in him gave way to the patriot, who called upon every Frenchman to join the fray. L’Homme Libre suffered at the hands of the censors for Clemenceau’s plain speaking and, in September 1914, was suppressed. Two days later, however, it reappeared entitled L’Homme Enchaîné, and, although at first it was subjected to much cutting, later excisions became rare. Meanwhile, in the Senate Clemenceau agitated for more and more guns, munitions, and soldiers, for judicious use of the available manpower, and for a better organized and equipped medical service. Deeply concerned about the attitude of the United States to the war, he sent urgent appeals to the American public and to Pres. Woodrow Wilson and was overjoyed at the United States’ entry into the war in April 1917.

Above all, Clemenceau strove to create an indomitable “will to victory.” As the war dragged on, weariness, slackness, and pacifism began to appear. He was the first to draw public attention to such insidious perils. In these difficult conditions, President Poincaré, in November 1917, called upon Clemenceau to form a government. Though he was 76 years of age, he formed his cabinet with himself as minister of war as well as premier. Clemenceau’s single purpose was to win the war, and to this aim all other interests were subordinated. For traitors and defeatists he had no clemency. The hope of victory urged him on. Yet he was obsessed with the need for a unified military command and was able ultimately to convert to his viewpoint the allied governments and military leaders. In March 1918, Ferdinand Foch was designated sole commander. Despite disasters in May 1918, Clemenceau’s resolve remained unshaken, and he declared that he would wage war “to the last quarter hour, for the last quarter hour will be ours.”

Negotiation of the Peace

The armistice signed by the defeated Germans on November 11, 1918, proved him right and brought him, the last survivor of those who had protested at Bordeaux in 1871 against the harsh terms imposed on France, the satisfaction of seeing Alsace-Lorraine returned to France. Clemenceau found that building the peace was a more arduous task than winning the war. He wanted the wartime alliance to be followed by an indefectible peacetime alliance. He presided with authority over the difficult sessions of the Paris Peace Conference (1919).

The Treaty of Versailles was in preparation, and this necessitated strenuous days of work and delicate negotiations. Clemenceau made it his task to reconcile the interests of France with those of Great Britain and the United States. He defended the French cause with enthusiasm and conviction, forcing his view alternately on the British prime minister, David Lloyd George and the United States president, Woodrow Wilson. He also took care to see that Germany was disarmed. With his desire for poetic justice, he insisted that the Treaty of Versailles be signed (June 28, 1919) in the Hall of Mirrors of the Versailles palace where, in 1871, William I had had himself proclaimed German emperor.

Meanwhile, the French Assembly began to grow restless, for it saw itself put to one side in the peace negotiations. It no longer regarded Clemenceau as indispensable. A new Chamber of Deputies was elected on November 16, 1919, and Clemenceau imagined that he would have its support, since many of its members were former servicemen. But the politicians could not forgive him for having excluded them not only from the conduct of the war but also from the negotiation of the peace. He also had to face hostility from the clerical party on the extreme right and from the pacifist element on the extreme left. Defeated in the presidential election of January 17, 1920, he then, as was customary on the election of a new president, resigned the premiership. He also gave up all other political activities.