Painlevé government

On 12 September 1917 France had a new government. The Prime Minister was the outgoing Minister of War, Paul Painlevé, who also kept the War Ministry. His predecessor, Alexandre Ribot, joined the new cabinet as Foreign Minister. The change ended a crisis of several days that had begun with a spy scandal and the resignation of the Minister of the Interior, and ended with something France had not seen since the beginning of the war: there was not a single socialist in the government.

The British chronology of the war records Ribot’s resignation under 9 September and Painlevé’s appointment under 12 September. According to the American annual New International Year Book, the ministers had already tendered their resignations to President Raymond Poincaré after the Council of Ministers of 7 September. On 9 September the President asked Ribot to form a new cabinet, but on 10 September he finally gave up. The Painlevé government was appointed by decrees of 12 September, and some newspapers reported that it took office a day later.

The fall of Ribot

The Ribot government had been formed in March 1917 and had difficult months from the start. First came the failure of the Nivelle offensive and the mutinies in the army, then disputes over war aims and over the socialist conference in Stockholm, for which the French government, like the British, refused to issue passports. The right and part of the press increasingly loudly accused the cabinet of a lack of energy towards pacifists and “defeatists”, and Ribot, a 75-year-old veteran of politics, did not seem the man to restore confidence.

In the end he was sunk by the affair of the newspaper Le Bonnet Rouge. The paper, previously subsidised from Interior Ministry funds, was spreading pacifist sentiment ever more openly in 1917. The police stopped its manager, Émile Duval, who was returning from Switzerland with a cheque for more than a hundred thousand francs from a German source. The cheque was photographed and returned to him without informing either the War Ministry or the minister, for which the head of the Sûreté had to resign. Duval was charged with dealings with the enemy, and the editor-in-chief, Miguel Almereyda, was arrested and in mid-August found dead in his cell in unclear circumstances. The paper’s protector was held to be the Minister of the Interior, Louis Malvy, who had held that office continuously since June 1914. On 22 July in the Senate Georges Clemenceau accused him outright of betraying the interests of France, and the far right blamed him even for the May mutinies. On 31 August Malvy resigned so as not to burden the government, calling the charges slanders of the reactionary press. His place was taken by Théodore Steeg.

Malvy’s resignation did not save the cabinet. According to the New International Year Book, the main cause of its fall was the loss of socialist support. Ribot tried to rebuild the government with a programme of ruthless prosecution of crimes against national defence, but the French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO) refused to take part.

A mathematician at the head of the government

Painlevé was 53 and one of the most distinguished French mathematicians, a member of the Academy of Sciences. He had been active in politics since 1910 as a deputy for Paris, associated with the small group of Republican Socialists. In the Briand government he had been Minister of Public Instruction, and in the Ribot government Minister of War. It was he who in May 1917 replaced Nivelle with Pétain and made Ferdinand Foch chief of the general staff. Together with Ribot he also countersigned the June decree establishing the Polish Army in France. Painlevé wished to pass for a man of the left who could keep the socialists in the government camp, but he set a condition that proved unacceptable to them: Ribot was to stay in the government and direct diplomacy.

The new cabinet had nineteen members. Besides Ribot, four experienced politicians sat in it as ministers of state without portfolio: the former Prime Minister Louis Barthou, Léon Bourgeois, Paul Doumer and Jean Dupuy. Steeg kept the Interior, Louis-Lucien Klotz took Finance, Charles Chaumet the Navy, and the Ministry of Munitions, headed since 1916 by the socialist Albert Thomas, was taken over by the industrialist Louis Loucheur, until then his under-secretary of state. The government at once divided into two committees. The war committee consisted of the Prime Minister, the ministers of foreign affairs, the navy and munitions and the four ministers of state, while the economic committee was chaired by Doumer. According to the New International Year Book, during the crisis most deputies expected above all a firm struggle against the “occult forces” behind the recent scandals, and many believed that Painlevé would conduct it more vigorously than Ribot. In his programme statement the new Prime Minister gave assurances that justice would reach the guilty without fear and without hesitation.

The end of the sacred union

The most important change was the absence of the socialists. In August 1914 the SFIO had joined the government in the name of the “sacred union” (union sacrée) of all parties in the face of invasion, and its ministers had sat in the cabinets of Viviani, Briand and Ribot. Now the party refused to take part in a government that included Ribot, whom it regarded as the spokesman of imperialist war aims. Albert Thomas left the government to prevent a split in the party. The socialists explained that the war required a young and energetic government of new men, free of old connections, and demanded a small war cabinet on the British model. They announced, however, that they would judge the new government by its deeds.

The American annual took this as a sign that the socialists had finally abandoned the policy of the sacred union. In practice it was a gradual withdrawal. The party, in which a minority wanting a speedy peace and the rebuilding of the International had been growing in strength since 1915, still voted for war credits. But the dispute over Stockholm, over war aims and over whether to sit in government at all was not to be settled until the October congress in Bordeaux.

A short-lived government

On 18 September Painlevé presented his programme in the Chamber of Deputies. He declared that France was fighting neither for conquest nor for revenge, and that its aims were the “disannexation” of Alsace and Lorraine from Germany, reparation of the damage done by the invader and a just peace protected by a society of nations. According to the American monthly Current History, the Chamber gave the government a vote of confidence by 378 votes to 1, with the socialists abstaining.

Strong support did not translate into lasting power. The cabinet failed to silence the scandals and accusations of defeatism, and in October Ribot had to leave the Foreign Ministry. On 13 November 1917, after barely two months, the Chamber refused the government its support and Painlevé resigned. He was succeeded by Clemenceau.