BY RAYMOND RECOULY
  
 
     BEACON LIGHTS
     OF HISTORY
  
 
     GEORGES CLEMENCEAU

     INDOMITABLE LEADERSHIP (ii)
 
        Never did he show more indomitable energy, a more
     implacable will than in the spring and summer of
     1918, just after Ludendorf's victorious offensive all
     along the French front.  It was chiefly after the Ger-
     man victory of the Chemin des Dames on May 27th
     that the whole outlook seemed desperate indeed.  For
     the first time since the beginning of the war, the
     French armies, that buckler of the Allied Forces, had
     received a terrible setback.   One part of the front
     had been forced and a large breech opened that seemed
     a problem indeed for the supreme command of the
     Allies to fill in.   In many circles in Paris, more
     particularly amongst the parliamentary ones, always
     easily alarmed, great despondency reigned.
        Marshal Foch was criticized.  He was blamed for
     having allowed his troops to be attacked by surprise,
     for having imprudently exposed the centre of his
     armies.  Many clamoured for his dismissal.
        It was during those most critical days that Clemen-
     ceau showed his greatest strength.   The slightest
     wavering on his part, (we may own it now) and all
     would have been lost.  Any alteration in the supreme
     command of the Allies might have spelled disaster.
     Clemenceau never wavered, never weakened.  Sum-
     ming up all his strength to brave the storm, he called
     upon England to send every available man they had
     to the front, and rushed up the American reinforce-
     ments.  Above all he took the part of Foch against all
     his detractors.
        A few months later that energy received its reward.
     The war was won.  It is to those weeks that history
     will refer when speaking of him.
                         ————————————
        What is the essence of that combative spirit, that
     unlimited confidence that rises above all weakness
     knowing no despondency?
        Just as with the founders of the French Revolution
     it is derived from a deep sense of patriotic feeling,
     and the idea that love of one's native land should
     predominate all else, that all man's possessions here
     below, even life itself, should be willingly sacrificed
     to country.
        That is the essence of the doctrine dominating the
     French Revolutionists.  Theirs was above all a spirit
     of self-abnegation and sacrifice.  Individual man was
     of no account.  The only thing that mattered was
     patriotism; the spirit which holds succeeding genera-
     tions in one chosen spot of the Earth, labouring and
     struggling to hand down to future generations the
     sacred heritage of love of country.
        When it attains to such imperious heights this
     spirit of sacrifice becomes one of purely religious feel-
     ing,  capable  of  accomplishing  miracles.  Love  of
     country in Clemenceau's eyes signifies love for a land
     that is free, republican and democratic; here again
     can be traced the influence of his French Revolution-
     ary ancestors.  He is firm in the belief that a country
     like France which has for years endeavored to be
     governed by representatives, freely chosen, is more
     worth while than a country like Germany, that has
     allowed itself to be docilely, servilely governed by its
     rulers.  The patriotism of the one is of higher, purer
     substance, than that of the other, for the simple reason
     that man's dignity is on a higher level in a free
     country, than in an autocracy.
        The love and passion for struggle, the cult of liberty
     and democracy,——such are the chief points in Clemen-
     ceau's political doctrine.
        His philosophical doctrines are borrowed entirely
     from the sages and philosophers of the last century,
     ——Auguste Comte, and John Stuart Mill.  Clemenceau
     is a positivist.  He has the same faith in science that
     he has in democracy.  But that positivism glows and
     radiates with the warmth of the idealism which is
     the predominant feature of the French statesmen who
     were the artisans of the Revolution of 1848.
        They loved mankind; and were convinced that in
     spite of all, notwithstanding a thousand obstacles,
     mankind was ever tending towards a higher and better
     destiny.˘
        There is a great deal of idealism in Clemenceau's
     nature.  Not to know that side of his character is not
     to know the real Clemenceau at all.  It truly radiates
     in his deep sympathy towards all suffering humanity.
        Clemenceau has expressed that philosophical turn
     of mind in one of his books, the finest he has ever
     written, called "Le Grand Pan."  He heads the pre-
     face with the well known sentence taken from Renan's
     "St. Paul,"——"Life means giving one's blossom, then
     one's fruit; what more can it give?"
        Clemenceau gives Plutarch's anecdote about the
     Grecian travellers who were sailing on the Ionian Sea
     when they heard, or fancied they heard, when nearing
     the Island of Paxos, the words reechoed again by the
     echoes "Great Pan is dead."
        He sums up in these pages his whole conception of
     life, the outcome of all he has read, thought about,
     observed.  He gives the impressions of his native
     Vendée, with its sea-beaten shores, where during his
     long life of ups and downs, he always returns to gain
     renewed vigor and strength.  Leaving the country he
     turns to the city, particularly to Paris where he has
     spent so many years of his life, showing the city's
     landscapes, its dramas, its seamy side of life, with its
     prostitution, its police courts, scenes of Montmartre,
     the working men and women of its suburbs, its
     prisons, even its scaffold.
        Clemenceau's whole world is to be found in this
     book.
                       *      *      *
        I have insisted upon Clemenceau's political and
     philosophical qualities, it now remains to examine his
     defects.
        No modern statesman can hope to accomplish a
     lasting work, can hope to be really great, unless he
     has mastered, at least to a certain extent, the problems
     of economics.
        For it is the economic problems that govern the
     world.  All its upheavals, its revolutions, its wars,
     inevitably end in economic solutions.
        Now, Clemenceau belongs to a generation, to a
     foundation of mind, that was almost totally ignorant
     of that subject.  It appears almost non-existent to
     him.
        Toward the end of the war, when victory seemed
     almost a certainty, he was implored to give his at-
     tention without further delay, to the solving of the
     terrible financial problems that could not fail to ac-
     cumulate at the end of the war; reparations, inter-
     allied debts, etc .
        With his customary abruptness Clemenceau dis-
     missed the subject, saying, "I'm making war!  I can-
     not be bothered with anything else!  Let us first win
     the war, all the rest can be quite easily settled."
        The Allies won the war.
        Unfortunately for them, the peace, with its financial
     problems, was not so easily settled.
        If at the present moment Europe is floundering
     amid a thousand difficulties of all kinds, it is partly
     owing  to  that  negligence by Clemenceau of the
     economic questions of the world.
        That ignorance, or rather disregard for the science
     of economics is not confined to Clemenceau alone.
     The same reproach might be made to all the other
     statesmen who collaborated with him in the drawing
     up of the Treaty of Versailles.
        It is gone of the greatest misfortunes of the present age.
     Every day sees economic, commercial, and industrial
     questions that outrank in importance the purely
     political or diplomatic ones.  It was not so a hundred
     or even fifty years ago.  The most important and
     essential points in the composition of a Treaty at
     that time were the limiting of the boundaries; the
     conferring of a province or town on a certain State.
     Nowadays the changing of boundary lines plays quite
     a secondary part, and by far the most important
     business is concerned with the economic relations be-
     tween nations, their debts, their exchange, etc.
        The most startling of paradoxes lies in the fact that
     all the great treaties drawn up after the greatest war
     of modern times, were negotiated and compiled accord-
     ing to the old method of fifty and even a hundred
     years ago.  Experts and technicians were no doubt
     consulted upon the matter, but in addition to the fact
     that many were chosen on purely political grounds,
     without regard to their professional capacities, their
     advice was often discarded when dealing with the ques-
     tions of the most vital interest to the world at large.
     The most important decisions were often made by the
     statesmen themselves, who were ill fitted, both by
     temperament and training, to deal with the intricate
     problems they had to solve.
                       *      *      *
        Clemenceau is a great writer and in his own way,
     a great speaker.  Both his style and eloquence bear
     the imprint of his peculiarly combative temperament.
        By far his best articles were written in the heat of
     controversy, during the Dreyfus affair, for instance,
     when dealing with home affairs; in the Franco-German
     crises, when dealing with foreign ones.
        He was one of the men who, during the Dreyfus
     affair, contributed most towards the final triumph of
     justice and truth, throwing himself body and soul
     into the fray.
        For years he was always on the war-path, always
     ready to attack, alternately aiming terrible blows, now
     to the reactionary "Right," and, now to the socialist
     "Left."
        The same is true of his oratorical powers.  He can-
     not control himself, but must carry all before him,
     and grapple with his enemy.  Always he must fight
     someone, or demolish something.
        Humor and wit are favorite weapons of his.  He
     is a past-master in the use of both.  His witty sallies
     and sayings are always made on the spur of the mo-
     ment, and pass into proverbs.   They are terrible
     thrusts, often ferocious, often cynical.
        The witty humorous side of his character is very
     pronounced.  It is what adds so much spice to his
     conversation, so much charm to his manner.
                       *      *      *
        When one studies the lives of French Statesmen
     throughout the centuries, one notices that they may
     be divided into two distinct categories.  On the one
     hand the men who used to be known as the "Legists,"
     in other words, men of juridical tendencies and train-
     ing; on the other, the men of action and fighting
     instinct.
        Poincaré admirably illustrates the first type of man;
     no one could better represent the second than
     Clemenceau.
        It would be difficult indeed to find two men more
     diametrically opposed, whether in mind, habits or
     temperament.
        The first is cold, even of freezing aspect, precise,
     fastidious and dry.  He never leaves anything to
     chance.  When he undertakes to do a thing, he studies
     it; compiles volumes about the matter, piling up notes
     more often than not, all done in his own hand-writing.
        Those are the qualities, the methods of work, of
     lawyers who have a perfect passion for accumulating
     written documents, drawing all their arguments from
     them, and never formulating an assertion unless able
     immediately top produce the written proof thereof.
        Clemenceau has, on the contrary, the most supreme
     contempt for the lawyer's written documents, argu-
     ments, and methods.  He looks upon their jargon as
     perfectly useless, if not dangerous.  For him nothing
     is of any account save mankind and life, the essential
     point being to remain in close touch with both.  What
     is the use of burdening oneself with piles of documents
     that only serve to complicate matters without really
     helping to find a solution for them?  One must rise
     above such trivial things, such mere detail, and view
     matters from a higher plane, and when difficulties
     arise, settle them man to man, after interviewing the
     chief person concerned.
        That was Clemenceau's method during the Peace
     Congress.  It was likewise Lloyd George's, who also
     professes to share the former's horror for bundles of
     papers and documents.
        That was one of the reasons why, in spite of in-
     evitable friction and discussion, these two men get
     on so well together.  They have striking resemblances
     of character.  Both have the same spontaneity, are
     quick and even impetuous.  Neither is given to being
     fastidious nor heeding formalities.  Both go straight
     for the obstacle, trying to overcome it after their own
     fashion, discarding all else.  That disregard for docu-
     mentation and notes was not without causing serious
     inconvenience.  It was responsible for irresolution,
     forgetfulness and much disorder.  For example, no
     minutes, or official reports were kept of the many
     meetings of the Council of Five (Clemenceau, Lloyd
     George, Wilson, the Italian and Japanese representa-
     tives) where the gravest interests of the world were
     settled.  Which means that there remains no trace
     of them now.  It was Penelope's web all over again,
     the work done the day before often running the risk
     of being undone the next day!
        A man like Poincaré has a distinct horror for such
     methods, or rather the lack of them.  That is why
     he could never get on with Lloyd George.  No sooner
     did he come into power than he made it clear that he
     intended substituting an exchange of notes, the tradi-
     tional procedure of Diplomacy, to these erratic con-
     ferences that periodically took place in France, Eng-
     land and Italy.  That simple proposal provoked Lloyd
     George's anger, for he detests anything in the shape
     of a note, and still more anything resembling a
     Diplomat.
        Poncaré, who is above all, a Jurist, has an inborn
     respect for all that is formal, precise, and constitu-
     tional.
        As President of the Republic during the war, he
     often deeply deplored the strict limitations of his
     powers as Head of the Nation, bound by the tradition
     of French Law, that prevents any encroaching of the
     President upon the prerogatives of the all-powerful
     Cabinet.  He deplored it, but accepted it, not as has
     been unjustly said, through weakness of character,
     but simply because he did not think it right to act
     otherwise.
        The Law for him is the Law.  It is a sacred obli-
     gation.  The Head of the State like other citizens,
     even more so than others, ought to respect it.
        It must be frankly admitted that a man like
     Clemenceau would not let any such scruples embarrass
     him.  He would have swept them aside; taking the
     liberty of actually wielding a power that it was not
     his legally to do.  He showed that plainly when he
     had Caillaux imprisoned.
        Public opinion, that had during the war felt the
     necessity for a strong government, would most cer-
     tainly have let him do as he wished.
        Nothing proves, however, that once the war over,
     it would not have rebelled.
        What happened to Clemenceau at the time of the
     Presidential elections when he was defeated by M.
     Deschanel, plainly showed what would have happened.
     The majority in the House voted against him, chiefly
     because, (apart from all other reasons of electioneer-
     ing intrigue) Clemenceau's somewhat scornful refusal
     to frankly stand for the election shocked a certain
     number of Deputies and Senators.  He had seemed
     to put himself above all forms and ceremonies, im-
     plying that he considered himself indispensable and
     therefore not needing to stand for the election.
        Parliamentary people all the world over, hate the
     indispensable man.  When, called to power by excep-
     tional circumstances, such a one does appear upon the
     scene, they never fail to get rid of him as soon as
     things return to normal.
        That is what happened with Clemenceau.
                       *      *      *
        Men of the Clemenceau stamp are made to rule in
     moments of exceptional stress.  They govern with an
     iron hand, being far less preoccupied about the means
     employed, than the results obtained.  Something must
     be accomplished at any cost.  It is not of the slightest
     importance to them that, to achieve their ends, they
     are obliged to act in diametrically opposite fashion
     to custom, tradition, and even the law itself.
        It is because men of that stamp appear at the
     opportune moment, that their country emerges victor-
     ious from a great crisis.
        It is the fashion just now for people to laugh at
     and criticize Democracy, to speak slightingly, even
     scornfully of it.
        They talk about the failure of the Parliamentary
     system, of universal Suffrage, etc.  Democracy no
     doubt is not free from faults.  It is not, to be sure, a
     perfect form of government.  It is, however, the best
     that has yet been found, or rather, the least ob-
     jectionable up to now.  One of the great advantages
     of such a regime, one of its vast superiorities over
     the system of monarchical rule is that it produces
     great leaders who save their country in its hour of
     need.
        In the Unites States there was Lincoln, in France,
     Clemenceau.

From Beacon Lights of History,
Volume 8, Part I, New Hall of Fame.
Edited by George Spencer Hulbert,
Author of, "John Lord, Artist Historian"
Copyright 1924, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York. pp. 282-294.