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A man known to his own people as "the Tiger" for his ferociously
brilliant political writing, Georges Clemenceau did as much as
anyone to weaken the Fourteen Points
that Woodrow Wilson
brought to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Clemenceau saw Wilson as too idealistic. As French
Premier, Clemenceau had acted as minister of war in his own cabinet,
pushing the war vigorously until the Allies achieved victory over
Germany. As leader of the French delegation to the Paris Peace
Conference, he insisted on Germany's disarmament.
Born into a strongly republican family in the VendČe region on
France's west coast in 1841, and educated as a physician, Clemenceau
clashed throughout his life with anyone seeking to restrain his
opinions. Jailed briefly by Napoleon III's regime, Clemenceau lived
for seven years in the United States where he worked as a journalist
and a teacher. After marrying an American, he returned to France in
1869 and began a career that would alternate between public office
and journalism.
Named mayor of Montmartre in Paris after the 1870 overthrow of
Napoleon III, Clemenceau was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in
1876. Touched by a scandal over
Panama Canal funding in 1893,
Clemenceau lost re-election after being falsely accused of taking
money to work for British interests. Divorced by now, and alone,
Clemenceau spent nine years as a journalist - writing a column for
La Justice before founding Le Bloc. Most notably he
defended Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish military officer falsely convicted
of treason in 1894 in what came to be called the Dreyfus Affair.
Redeemed politically, Clemenceau was elected to the French
senate, and in 1906 he became minister of the interior and then
premier for the first time. The French alliance with Great Britain
was strengthened on his watch. However, Clemenceau's cabinet fell in
1909, and he was swept from power.
Using his newspaper, L'Homme Libre, as a public platform
for his views, Clemenceau spent the years before World War I
advocating for a strong military, expressing his hatred of Germany,
and, once the war began, accusing the French government of
defeatism. Called back to power in November 1917, Clemenceau renewed
the dispirited morale of France while persuading the Allies to agree
to a unified command under Marshal Foch in the last year of the war.
Despite his best efforts, Clemenceau was defeated when he ran for
the French presidency in 1920 because of what many French perceived
as his government's post-war leniency toward the Germans. In
retirement Clemenceau wrote In the Evening of My Thought and
other critically admired works. He died in Paris in November
1929.
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