The French government begins returning to Paris

The British chronology of the war records under 18 November 1914 the beginning of the French government’s return from Bordeaux to Paris. The return, however, was not a single act but a process spread over several weeks, and French sources show no decision taken on that particular day. The date of 18 November should therefore be treated as nominal. The authorities had left the capital on the night of 2–3 September, as the German armies were approaching Paris.

A dispute over timing

After the victory on the Marne the immediate danger had passed, but the front had come to a halt less than a hundred kilometres from the capital, and in the autumn the heaviest fighting was taking place in Flanders. President Raymond Poincaré had long been pressing for a return. He believed that the government should be closer to the army and to the occupied departments, and that a longer stay in Bordeaux looked bad in the eyes of Parisians. The ministers were divided, and the commander-in-chief, Joseph Joffre, preferred that the authorities should not yet return.

On 8 November the Council of Ministers adopted a compromise. As Poincaré noted in his memoirs, the Prime Minister, René Viviani, and the Minister of Justice, Aristide Briand, were to take turns staying in Paris, and the government was to wait in Bordeaux until the commander-in-chief saw no obstacles to its return. In mid-November the deputies from Paris demanded that the next session of parliament be held in the capital rather than in Bordeaux.

The return

On 23 November Joffre ceased to object. The following evening Poincaré left Bordeaux for Paris, although he still had to go back to the Garonne for cabinet meetings. At the beginning of December Joffre declared that Paris was now completely safe. The government agreed that the ministers could return from 6 December. On 8 December the last meeting of the Council of Ministers was held in Bordeaux, and the next day the President was already at the Élysée Palace. In the following days the ministries and the diplomatic corps returned to the capital, although some offices, among them part of the War Ministry, remained in Bordeaux for some time.

On 22 December 1914 parliament met in Paris in extraordinary session. Bordeaux ceased to serve as the capital after more than three months. The French authorities did not leave Paris again until June 1940, when during the German offensive they once more moved to Bordeaux.