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Georges Clemenceau

Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (/ˈklɛmənsoʊ/,[1] also US: /ˌklɛmənˈsoʊ, ˌkleɪmɒ̃ˈsoʊ/,[2][3] French: [ʒɔʁʒ bɛ̃ʒamɛ̃ klemɑ̃so];[a] 28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A key figure of the Independent Radicals, he was a strong advocate of separation of church and state, amnesty of the Communards exiled to New Caledonia, as well as opposition to colonisation. Clemenceau, a physician turned journalist, played a central role in the politics of the Third Republic, most notably successfully leading France through the end of the First World War.

After about 1,400,000 French soldiers were killed between 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 of Victory") or Le Tigre ("The Tiger"), he continued his harsh position against Germany in 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, famously 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 a possible future German aggression, but these never took effect. n Paris, the young Clemenceau became a political activist and writer. In December 1861, he and some friends co-founded 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 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 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 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 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 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.[10] He obtained custody of their children. He then had his wife stripped of French nationality.

Clemenceau resigned as prime minister as soon as the presidential election was held (17 January 1920) and took no further part in politics. In private, he condemned the unilateral occupation by French troops of the German city of Frankfurt in 1920 and said if he had been in power, he would have persuaded the British to join it.

He took a holiday in Egypt and the Sudan from February to April 1920, then embarked for the Far East in September, returning to France in March 1921. In June, he visited England and received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. He met Lloyd George and said to him that after the armistice he had become the enemy of France. Lloyd George replied, "Well, was not that always our traditional policy?" He was joking, but after reflection, Clemenceau took it seriously. After Lloyd George's fall from power in 1922 Clemenceau remarked, "As for France, it is a real enemy who disappears. Lloyd George did not hide it: at my last visit to London he cynically admitted it".

In late 1922, Clemenceau gave a lecture tour in the major cities of the American northeast. He defended the policy of France, including war debts and reparations, and condemned American isolationism. He was well received and attracted large audiences, but America's policy remained unchanged. On 9 August 1926, he wrote an open letter to the American President Calvin Coolidge that argued against France paying all its war debts: "France is not for sale, even to her friends". This appeal went unheard.

He condemned Poincaré's occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 as an undoing of the entente between France and Britain.

He wrote two short biographies, one of the Greek orator Demosthenes and one of the French painter Claude Monet. He also penned a huge two-volume tome, covering philosophy, history, and science, entitled Au Soir de la Pensée. Writing this occupied most of his time between 1923 and 1927.

During his last months, he wrote his memoirs, despite declaring previously that he would not write them. He was spurred into doing so by the appearance of Marshal Foch's memoirs, which were highly critical of Clemenceau, mainly for his policy at the Paris Peace Conference. Clemenceau only had time to finish the first draft and it was published posthumously as Grandeurs et miseres d'une victoire (Grandeur and Misery of Victory). He was critical of Foch and also of his successors who had allowed the Versailles Treaty to be undermined in the face of Germany's revival. He burned all of his private letters.

Clemenceau died on 24 November 1929 and was buried at Mouchamps.

Courtesy-wikipedia
- Georges Clemenceau

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