Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre, detail of a portrait by H. Jacquier, 1915.H. Roger-Viollet
Joffre’s war plans for an immediate advance across the frontier into the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were suspended when German forces struck through Belgium and threatened late in August to envelop Paris. Joffre managed to blunt the German attack and force the Germans to more defensible positions. The rival armies dug into trench positions that remained largely static until 1918. Meanwhile, the French high command continued to believe that the fate of France would be decided on the Western Front. In 1916 a powerful German artillery attack on the French fortress positions surrounding Verdun lasted from February to June and resulted in 380,000 French casualties (162,000 dead) and 330,000 German casualties (143,000 dead). For the French, the hero of Verdun was the sector commander, Philippe Pétain" class="md-crosslink">General Philippe Pétain.
Joffre was by now under heavy criticism in Paris. Both the cabinet and the Chamber were determined to assert greater control over the war effort, so that the high command’s authority was steadily whittled away. Joffre was finally replaced in late 1916 by Robert Nivelle" class="md-crosslink">General Robert Nivelle. All through 1917, rival factions in the Chamber debated the conduct of the war, backing different generals and threatening cabinet crises. Worse still, morale among the troops reached a dangerous low point in 1917, culminating in serious mutinies that affected 54 French divisions. Pétain, who replaced Nivelle in May, managed to achieve stability by a judicious combination of severity and concessions.
Nevertheless, by autumn 1917 there was widespread defeatism in France and much talk of a “white peace.” The Radical leader Caillaux was prepared to try for negotiations with the Germans; but his chance never came. When the cabinet of Premier Paul Painlevé was overthrown in November 1917, President Poincaré recalled Clemenceau to the premiership. Clemenceau stood for a fight to the finish. At age 76 he still had enormous energy and doggedness, and he infused a new spirit into the country. In March 1918, when the Germans launched a last major offensive in the West, Clemenceau replaced the cautious and pessimistic Pétain with a more attack-minded general, Ferdinand Foch, and persuaded the British as well to accept him as supreme commander. The German drive was checked. On November 11 an armistice was signed in Foch’s railway car near Compiègne.
The victory was won at enormous cost for France. Of the 8 million Frenchmen mobilized, 1.3 million had been killed and almost 1 million crippled. Large parts of northeastern France, the nation’s most advanced industrial and agricultural area, were devastated. Industrial production had fallen to 60 percent of the prewar level; economic growth had been set back by a decade. The enormous cost of the war seriously undermined the franc and foreshadowed many years of currency fluctuation. Even deeper, though largely hidden, were the psychological lesions caused by the strain of protracted warfare and by the sentiment that France could not again endure such a test.
Great Victory ParadeParade celebrating Bastille Day and the end of World War I, Paris, July 14, 1919.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Clemenceau, as the principal French negotiator, declared that his goal was to ensure the nation’s security against renewed German aggression. He sought, therefore, to reduce Germany’s power in every possible fashion and to surround Germany with strong barrier nations. He knew, however, that France could not dictate the peace terms and that he would have to compromise with the Americans and British, to whom he looked for aid in case of German resurgence. His stubborn advocacy of French demands irritated France’s wartime allies; but his willingness to compromise in the end alienated many Frenchmen, who charged him with sacrificing the nation’s security. The critics—who included Poincaré and Foch—were particularly outraged when Clemenceau abandoned his initial demand that Germany give up all territory west of the Rhine and that the Saar basin be annexed to France. These and other concessions led many right-wing deputies to oppose the Treaty of Versailles when it was presented for ratification in the autumn of 1919. Joining the opposition were the Socialists, who argued that the treaty was too harsh and that democratic Germany should not be punished for the sins of the kaiser. A majority of the Chamber, however, reluctantly ratified Versailles and vowed to assure its enforcement to the letter. The interwar years
Frenchmen concentrated much of their energy during the early 1920s on recovering from the war. The government undertook a vast program of reconstructing the devastated areas and had largely completed that task by 1925. To compensate for manpower losses, immigration barriers were lowered, and two million foreign workers flooded into the country. Underlying all other concerns, however, was anxiety about the nation’s security and about financing the costs of war and reconstruction. The peace settlement, in the eyes of many Frenchmen, had not provided adequate guarantees; and, except among Socialists and Radicals, there was little confidence in the League of Nations. American and British promises to aid France in case of future attack had been written into the treaty, but they became meaningless when the U.S. Senate rejected Versailles. German reparations
The general elections of November 1919 resulted in a massive majority for the right-wing coalition called the Bloc National. The new Chamber set out to enforce the Treaty of Versailles to the letter; it also sought traditional security guarantees, maintaining the largest standing army in Europe and attempting to encircle Germany with a ring of military allies (Belgium and Poland in 1920–21; Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia in 1924–27). But the central issue was that of German reparations. A clause in the treaty had ascribed war guilt to the Germans and their allies and had obligated Germany to make reparations; the total sum due was calculated in 1921 at $33 billion, but the French were aware that the British hoped to see this total reduced. By the end of 1921 the British clearly favoured a reduction of the burden in order to get Germany back on its feet; this issue caused increasing strain between the British and French governments. Premier Briand, who seemed willing to compromise, was overthrown by the Chamber and replaced by the more intransigent Poincaré. Repeated German defaults on reparations deliveries led Poincaré in January 1923 to send French troops and engineers (supported by a token force of Belgians) into the Ruhr valley to force German compliance or, if necessary, to collect reparations by direct seizure. The German government attempted passive resistance but finally had to comply. Germany agreed in 1924 to a revised reparations settlement, the Dawes Plan, and the French occupation forces were withdrawn. The plan enabled the Germans to meet their obligations on schedule during the rest of the decade with the help of large American loans. In 1926 France and the United States finally reached agreement on another nagging problem—the repayment of French war debts for wartime deliveries of American munitions and other supplies. Financial crisis
The aftermath of the Ruhr occupation was to cast doubt on its apparent success. The German republic was weakened by the runaway inflation of 1923, and its future clouded. The occupation had embittered Britain and the United States. Even among Frenchmen the victory had left a sour aftertaste, because the costs of the occupation forced an increase in French taxes. In the elections of 1924, Poincaré’s Bloc National was beaten by a coalition of the left, the Cartel des Gauches, and the Radicals were returned to power. But their triumph was brief; they were confronted by the nation’s worst financial crisis since the war. The shaky franc went into rapid decline until there seemed to be danger of complete financial collapse. Seven Cartel cabinets in 1924–26 wrestled ineffectively with the problem; at last the Cartel gave up, and Poincaré returned. The latter’s reputation for decisive character and conservative views enabled him to win the bankers’ support and to embark on such measures as slashing government expenses and increasing taxes. The franc began to rise, and it finally stabilized at about one-fifth of its 1914 value. Poincaré was hailed as “saviour of the franc,” and, when he resigned in 1929 for reasons of health, he was acclaimed as one of the Third Republic’s outstanding statesmen. Collective security