French government moves to Bordeaux

On 2 September 1914, the anniversary of the defeat at Sedan in 1870, the French authorities decided to leave Paris. Late in the evening President Raymond Poincaré and the ministers of René Viviani’s government left by train for Bordeaux, which they reached at noon the next day. For more than three months the city on the Garonne was the de facto capital of France.

The Germans near Paris

At the turn of August and September the war drew close to the capital. The French armies and the British Expeditionary Force were retreating after losing the Battle of the Frontiers, and the German right wing, the First Army of General Alexander von Kluck, was already a few dozen kilometres from Paris. From 30 August German aircraft appeared over the city and dropped small bombs. The commander-in-chief, Joseph Joffre, insisted that the government should leave before the capital became a battlefield and should retain its freedom of action whatever the fate of the city.

Poincaré hesitated for a long time. He feared that the departure of the authorities would be seen as flight and would cause panic or anger among Parisians. In the end the conviction prevailed that the government could not allow itself to be cut off or trapped in a besieged city. In a proclamation to the nation the authorities announced that “to ensure the salvation of the nation” they had to move away from Paris for a time.

Night departure

The departure was carried out discreetly. Members of parliament left earlier from the Gare d’Orsay, and the president and ministers set off shortly before 11 p.m. from the little-used Auteuil station. On the morning of 3 September the train pulled into the Saint-Jean station in Bordeaux. The government was followed by ministries, the diplomatic corps and some state institutions. Among others, the Bank of France and the Louvre were also preparing to leave or to evacuate their collections.

The defence and administration of the capital were entrusted to General Joseph Gallieni, who had been military governor of Paris since 26 August. On 3 September he announced in a proclamation to the inhabitants that he had received the order to defend the city against the invader and would carry it out to the end.

Return

The departure did not make the authorities popular and was sometimes ridiculed, especially when a few days later the victory on the Marne removed the threat to Paris. The government nevertheless remained in Bordeaux until December. At the beginning of December 1914 the authorities returned to the capital, and on 22 December parliament met in Paris in an extraordinary session.