Fall of the Viviani government

On 29 October 1915 René Viviani resigned as prime minister of France. He had been head of government since 13 June 1914, and since 26 August 1914 had led the cabinet of national defence, the government of the so-called sacred union (French: union sacrée), which included representatives of almost all parties, the socialists among them. It was he who had led France through the first and hardest months of the war. By the autumn of 1915, however, his government had lost the confidence of both parliament and public opinion.

Sources date the end of this cabinet differently: some give 27 or 28 October, others 29 October. This follows from the course of the crisis. Viviani spent several days trying to reconstruct the government; on the evening of 28 October he announced that he would resign in any case before the sitting of the Chamber the next day, and the president signed the decrees appointing the new government late in the evening of 29 October.

A year of bad news

Many causes contributed to the fall of the cabinet. The Second Battle of Champagne and the autumn offensive in Artois brought enormous losses but no breakthrough. Parliament and the press criticised ever more sharply the war minister, Alexandre Millerand, for shortages of armament, the poor state of the medical service and his uncritical support for the commander-in-chief, Joffre. The most painful, however, were the events in the Balkans. Despite years of Entente efforts Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Austria-Hungary and Germany attacked Serbia, and Greece refused to help its ally. On 13 October the foreign minister, Théophile Delcassé, resigned, and Viviani took over his ministry himself.

During the debate on Balkan policy in mid-October the government won a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies by 372 votes to 9. According to historians, however, the very large number of abstentions made it clear that support was melting away. A further blow was Millerand’s trip to London, where on 19 October he signed a protocol with the British on the Salonika expedition. It left London a loophole to reconsider its promise to send troops. Viviani regarded it as almost a denial of the assurances he had previously given in parliament.

A failed reconstruction

The prime minister tried to save himself by reshuffling the government. He offered Millerand a move to the Ministry of Justice, but Millerand refused to accept any other portfolio. On the evening of 23 October Viviani persuaded General Joseph Gallieni, military governor of Paris, to take the Ministry of War. Further talks, however, ended in failure. As President Raymond Poincaré noted, on the evening of 25 October Viviani came to him with Aristide Briand and Alexandre Ribot and declared that he could not form a new cabinet, because apart from Gallieni and Admiral Lucien Lacaze everyone, starting with the diplomat Jules Cambon, had refused to join it. Ribot wished to remain finance minister, and the task of forming a government was taken on by Briand, deputy prime minister and minister of justice.

For several days Briand conducted difficult negotiations, while the Chamber of Deputies showed growing impatience. On 28 October its sitting lasted only a few minutes and was broken off amid uproar. That evening Viviani, “like a hunted animal” in Poincaré’s words, burst out in the president’s study in anger at the old politicians who, in his view, thought only of themselves. The next day he resigned.

Viviani himself did not disappear from political life. He joined Briand’s new cabinet as minister of justice and deputy prime minister. Briand wanted to broaden the sacred union by drawing on political veterans from all sides of the political spectrum.