THE CONTESTED LEGITIMACY OF THE FRENCH THIRD REPUBLIC (1870-1940) 1894-99: The Dreyfus Affair...
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Transcript of THE CONTESTED LEGITIMACY OF THE FRENCH THIRD REPUBLIC (1870-1940) 1894-99: The Dreyfus Affair...
THE CONTESTED LEGITIMACY OF THE FRENCH THIRD REPUBLIC (1870-1940)
1894-99: The Dreyfus Affair reveals civil-military tension.
1905: Foundation of the unified French Socialist Party (SFIO), led by Jean Jaurès.
1905-08: Radical Republican Premier Georges Clemenceau passes 17 reform bills, vetoed by the Senate
August 1914: All French parties and trade unions agree to the “Sacred Union.”
November 1917: collapse of the Sacred Union
May 1919: General strike compels Clemenceau to grant the 8-hour day.
1920: Failed general strike; SFIO majority opts for Comintern
THE THIRD REPUBLIC WAS FOUNDED IN DEFEAT:“France Signing the Preliminary Peace Terms,” March 1871
(Marianne loses custody of her children, Alsace and Lorraine)
“The Two Republics”
(cartoon, 1872):Adolphe Thiers
proclaimed, “The Republic will be
conservative, or it will not be.”This cartoon
reflects the tension between Radical and “Opportunist” Republicans in the
1870s.
THE FRENCH CONSTITUTIONAL COMPROMISE OF 1875
Although rejected by royalists and clericalists,
the Third Republic enjoyed support from 2/3
of the voters by 1880:Monet,
“La rue Montorgueil,” June 30, 1878
“The 14th of July 1880” (Bastille Day was now a legal holiday, & La Marseillaise the national anthem)
THE THIRD REPUBLIC EMBRACED SCIENCE & PROGRESS
The Eiffel Tower, 1889
“The Republic Presents the New Century to the World”
(1894)
“THE TRAITOR:
The Degradation
of Alfred Dreyfus,”Le Petit Journal,
13 January 1895
French caricature of
Baron de Rothschild
(1898)
Emile Zola rallied support from socialists and Radicals by publishing “J’accuse!” in January 1898
A FAMILY DINNER:
“’Above all, let’s not talk about
Dreyfus!’---But someone
did!” (1898)
The Separation of Church & State, 1904/05:The victorious Dreyfusards ended public
funding for organized religion….
Voltaire inspires Emile Combes to sunder ties between the Pope & Marianne
Emile Combe
s as Satan
“Marianne,” feeding the
crackpot masons, corrupt
speculators, Jewish
immigrants, & politicized judges
(right-wing poster, 1907)
Trade unions were legalized in 1884 and grew quickly thereafter: The strike at the Schneider Works in Le Creusot, June 1899
“A Paris Strike in 1898”
(the Republican army as
strikebreaker, from a socialist
magazine):By 1910 the SFIO commanded 20%
of the national vote…
Georges Clemenceau first became
premier in 1905-08 with a bold program for
domestic reform, but all his major bills
were vetoed by the Senate
The “National Socialist” Maurice Barrès presidesover a Joan of Arc festival in Compiègne, June 13,
1913
French pacifist rally by 150,000 outside Paris, May 25, 1913
The Oratory of Jean Jaurès, 1910:he was assassinated by a French nationalist on July
31, 1914, just before his party agreed to join the “Sacred Union.”
SFIO leaders commemorate the Paris Commune, May 1914
Citizens of Paris rejoice on August 2, 1914
SOCIALIST CHAMPIONS OF THE “SACRED UNION”
Albert Thomas, Minister of Munitions, founder of ILO
Leon Blum, dep. Minister of Public Works, PM
1936-38
Marianne in danger (popular French cartoon from early 1914)
“The Kiss of the Alsatian”
(anonymous colorized postcard from 1914)
Georges Scott,
“In Alsace! The true
plebiscite,”L’Illustration,
15 August 1914
A German and a French corpse in a
trench, published in
Le Miroir,21 May 1916
TYPICAL DEMANDS BY THE FRENCH MUTINEERS, MAY 1917
(from a letter by a soldier in the 36th Infantry Regiment to his uncle)
“When the time came to advance to the front line, an incident happened in the army corps in which we demanded our rights in the following things:
1.Peace and the right to leaves, which are in arrears.2.No more butchery; we want liberty.3.On food, which is shameful.4.No more injustice.5.We don’t want the blacks in Paris and in other
regions mistreating our wives.6.We need peace to feed our wives and children and
to be able to give bread to the women and orphans.
We demand peace, peace.”
Clemenceau returned to power in November 1917 as the generals’ ally and arrested Interior Minister Malvy
for treason
The Boulevards of Paris, 11 November 1918
French troops enter Strasbourg, 29 November 1918
Parliament passed a law for the 8-
hour day in April 1919, and the CGT launched a strike wave to secure its implementation
(CGT poster, spring 1919)
“How to vote against
bolshevism?”(1919)
FRENCH PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION, NOVEMBER 1919
Party Votes Percentage
French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO)
1,728,663 21.2%
Independent Socialists 147,053 1.8%
Republican-Socialist 283,001 3.5%
Radical Republicans 1,420,381 17.4%
Veterans 128,004 1.6%
National Bloc (cartel of four conservative & moderate republican parties)
4,353,025 53.4%
VOTER TURNOUT 70.2%
The General Confederation of
Labor (CGT) demands an
“Economic Council of Labor” to organize demobilization and
reconstruction (1919).
After a failed general strike in May 1920, CGT membership plunged from 2.5
million to 600,000.
The SFIO Tours Congress of December 1920resolved to join the Comintern
Gustav Stresemann & Aristide Briand,Co-Winners of the Nobel Prize for signing the
Treaty of Locarno in 1925; Germany now entered the League
French Communists & nationalists both rejected Locarno(pro- and anti-communist posters from 1927 target
Briand)
French Military Cemetery at Verdun,with “Ossuary” built from 1920 to 1932
Human remains deposited in the Ossuary of Verdun:Leonard Smith argues that a wave of revulsion against the Great War only swept through France in the 1920s,
as the French people contemplated its costs….