Ribot government

On 20 March 1917 France had a new government. Its head, and at the same time minister of foreign affairs, was Alexandre Ribot, until then minister of finance. President Raymond Poincaré entrusted him with forming a cabinet after the resignation of Aristide Briand’s government, when the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Paul Deschanel, declined the task. Ribot completed his government quickly: its composition was announced on the evening of 19 March, and the decrees of appointment are dated 20 March, which is why sources give one date or the other. The most important change was at the Ministry of War. It was taken over by the mathematician Paul Painlevé.

An elder statesman

Ribot was 75 and had begun his career under the Second Empire. He was a moderate republican and one of the most experienced politicians of the Third Republic. As foreign minister in the early 1890s he helped create the Franco-Russian alliance, and in 1892–1893 and in 1895 he headed the government. In June 1914 he again became prime minister, but the Chamber refused him its confidence on the very first day, which earned his cabinet the nickname of the “one-day government”. From August 1914 he was minister of finance in the successive governments of Viviani and Briand and was regarded as an expert on public finance. He offered Briand the post of foreign minister, but Briand declined.

According to the American New International Year Book, six members of Briand’s cabinet accepted portfolios in the new government. Justice remained with the former prime minister René Viviani, the navy with Admiral Lucien Lacaze, armaments with the socialist Albert Thomas, and the interior with the Radical Louis Malvy. Finance was taken over by Joseph Thierry, and the Ministry of Labour by Léon Bourgeois. The minister for the colonies was André Maginot, who held a ministerial portfolio for the first time. According to the same yearbook the cabinet comprised three moderate republicans, three Radicals, one Radical Socialist, three independent socialists and one member of the unified socialist party (SFIO). Ribot did not want the government to hand over its power to a narrow circle. The war committee, which Briand had made the centre of decision-making in December, he enlarged and reduced to an advisory role.

Painlevé and the Nivelle plan

Painlevé, born in 1863, was an eminent mathematician and a member of the Academy of Sciences. In Briand’s government he had been minister of education, but in December 1916 he refused to join the reconstructed cabinet. According to historians he did not want to sit alongside General Lyautey, and he would moreover have preferred General Philippe Pétain rather than General Robert Nivelle as commander-in-chief. Now it was he who was to be responsible for the army on the eve of the great offensive.

The British official history (Falls) writes that in military matters Ribot was clearly swayed by Painlevé, who from the outset was hostile to Nivelle and his plan. This soon made itself felt. The new minister talked to the army group commanders, bypassing the commander-in-chief, and they made no secret of their disbelief in the breakthrough Nivelle had promised. Painlevé also argued that the offensive should be postponed, because the revolution in Russia ruled out an early Russian attack, while the United States, which had broken off relations with Germany in February, might soon send help. Falls noted that Nivelle, Briand’s choice, now had above him a government that did not trust him.

Programme

On 21 March Ribot presented the government’s programme in the Chamber of Deputies. France’s aim was to be “the recovery of the provinces torn from us in the past”, that is, Alsace and Lorraine, the obtaining of the reparations and guarantees due to France, and the preparation of a lasting peace based on respect for the rights and liberties of nations. The prime minister also spoke of the events in Russia and expressed the hope that the struggle for the development of parliamentary institutions there would end successfully and without bloodshed. According to the New International Year Book, the Chamber supported the government by 440 votes, with 59 abstentions and none against.

The dispute over the Nivelle plan was settled a few weeks later. On 6 April at Compiègne, at a conference attended by the President, the prime minister, ministers and the army group commanders, Painlevé repeated his arguments, but Nivelle insisted on his plan, and when he offered his resignation it was not accepted and the offensive went ahead. Its failure in April 1917 cost Nivelle his post. Ribot’s government lasted until September 1917, and he was succeeded as prime minister by Painlevé himself.