CHAPTER I.

FRANCE AND ITALY.

I. FRANCE.

Gambetta was fond of expounding to his friends a theory which about the year 1875 appeared sufficiently paradoxical--_viz._ that of all the European nations, France was the one readiest to submit to discipline and authority. He used to add, however, that she would only do so on one condition--that the leader should inspire confidence among his following. This assertion was definitively and emphatically verified in France in 1914, not only from the military point of view, but from the political.

In the political life of the nation a persistent tendency, remarked in former volumes of this work, was noticeable both before and after the general election towards the organisation of parties in a definite framework and with specific aims. At the beginning of August the war instantly suspended everything not in perfect harmony with what was termed "the sacred union of all Frenchmen in the face of the enemy." The same ardour that had been displayed by all the citizens for the success of their respective sentiments and interests in the sphere of politics was directed to the performance of their duties as patriots. The state of siege, the censorship, and the military dictatorship, were accepted by the whole people without resistance.

At the opening of the year the Republicans of the Left, who did not accept the decisions of the Radical-Socialist Congress of Pau (A.R., 1913, p. 291), succeeded in establishing that Federation of the Left of which the formation had been announced after the advent of the Doumergue-Caillaux Ministry. M. Barthou, M. Briand, and M. Millerand were its principal leaders in the Chamber, M. Ribot and M. Jean Dupuy in the Senate. The most compact group, which formed as it were the centre of gravity in the new association, was the Democratic Alliance, led, for several years past, by M. Carnot, brother of the former President of the Republic. Its framework was sound; it remained to be seen whether it could raise a sufficiently solid body of adherents and candidates to deprive the Radical-Socialists of their majority. Just as the session began, M. Briand was elected President of the Federation. The election of the officers of the Chamber was awaited with some curiosity as to whether the Radical-Socialist party would claim the Presidency for one of its own members. But it did not do so. M. Paul Deschanel was elected unopposed, receiving 379 votes. For the Vice-Presidencies, M. Étienne, a former War Minister, and a member of the Democratic Left, and M. Dron, a Radical representative of the Department of the Nord, were the only members chosen at the first ballot. At the second the Abbé Lemire was returned, the majority desiring to afford him satisfaction for his persecution by the Clericals of his Department and the Bishop of Lille on the ground of his Republicanism. Finally M. Augagneur, a Republican Socialist, was elected, by a narrow majority, on the third ballot. Thus, in the secret voting, the Radical-Socialists were beaten (Jan. 13). In the Senate, the struggle was much less acute. M. Antonin Dubost was re-elected unopposed to the Presidency, and the posts of Vice-President, Secretaries, and Questors, were apportioned according to the traditions of courtesy customary in that Assembly.

The work of the Legislature was begun by the inconvenient method of breaking up the debates and alternating portions of them, on subjects of the most divergent natures, in the programme of the Chamber. The Bill providing for the defence of the secular character of the schools and the method of securing attendance was, however, passed, after the rejection of the amendments supported by the deputies of the Right; but one of its essential points, the transfer of the appointment of teachers from the Prefect to the school authorities, was separated and postponed to a future period. Another Bill, equally important for the future of the nation, that for the limitation of the number of public-houses, was repeatedly revised and mutilated; and the Friday lists of interpellations were overloaded, and the militant spirit of M. Jaurès aroused, by the ever-recurring topic of the Ouenza mines. The Senate had before it two great questions: the income-tax, and electoral reform. The ideas dominant at the Luxemburg were in explicit contradiction with the decisions taken at the Palais-Bourbon. The discussion of the income-tax ranged over a remarkably wide field. The majority of the members agreed in regretting that, at the very moment when the Government was urging the Upper House to begin discussing the question of an income-tax, it had laid before the Chamber a proposal for a levy on capital, the provisions of which must modify the measure which that House had already passed. This was playing into the hands of the opponents of the reform.

As regarded the Electoral Reform Bill, the antagonism between the two Houses was equally acute. The Senate Committee rejected the Government measure by a large majority, and the pending general election seemed likely to be still conducted under the system which so many competent observers had condemned, without, however, agreeing on a substitute. In view of this eventuality the parties were already defining their attitudes. At the end of January the Socialists met in Congress at Amiens. They declared themselves against the revival of the former Combist _bloc_ (A.R., 1902, p. 264; 1904, p. 253) and decided that the Unified Socialists should put forward candidates in every constituency, in order to ascertain the numbers of their adherents. The programme to be laid before the electors was to contain in any case three essential articles: (1) "opposition to militarist and capitalist imperialism," _i.e._ immediate repeal of the law enacting three years' military service; (2) a Franco-German understanding; (3) the maintenance of the secular character of the schools. Should a second ballot be necessary, the Executive Committee of the party left the Departmental Federations to decide whether agreements should be entered into with the middle-class Republican parties, but these latter must be required to adopt the three obligatory articles stated above. The Committees of the Right, on their part, proposed to organise, under the name of a national inquiry, what really amounted to a _plébiscite_ on the method of election to the Chamber. M. B. Pugliesi-Conti invited that House to do this (Jan. 30); M. Jaurès caused general surprise by supporting him. The motion was opposed by the Prime Minister and by M. Briand, and rejected by 389 to 164.

An incidental feature of the debates in this first period was the prominence of military and colonial questions. Thus on January 28 the Chamber had unanimously voted the loan of 230,000,000 francs for the Morocco Protectorate. Public opinion, again, was so strongly manifested against the intention ascribed to the Russian Putiloff Company of placing itself under the control of Krupps in order to increase its capital, that the French Government intervened to prevent the German firm from becoming concerned in the manufacture of artillery for Russia. Finally, throughout France the keenest attention was directed to the discussion in the Senate on the interpellation on military aeronautics supported by the Senator representing the Department of the Loire, Dr. Emile Reymond, an eminent surgeon and a noted airman (Jan. 23, 27, 30). The serious defects indicated by the various speakers were admitted by the War Minister, M. Noulens, who formally promised to remedy them. As a security that this should be done, the Senate passed a resolution regretting the faults of organisation existing in this service, and expressing confidence that the War Minister would effect the necessary reforms by giving it autonomy.

It was only on February 9 that the Chamber reached the discussion of the Budget of 1914. By 440 votes to 67 the general debate was omitted in the hope of gaining time. The Departmental Estimates and the Reports of the Committees upon them were successively brought before the House with unusual speed. But this commendable zeal did not last. On February 13, M. Lachaud addressed an interpellation to the Government on the sanitary condition of the Army, and adduced information on the housing of the troops, particularly in the Eastern departments, and on its consequences, of so grave a character that the Prime Minister was obliged to intervene in the debate. He asked the Chamber to suspend the discussion, and to vote the sums necessary to improve the clothing of the troops and their barracks. But all he could obtain was a postponement for eight days, during which most of the Votes were hastily passed. The revelations made when the debate was resumed (February 20-23) were so serious that the Government did not venture to ask for a vote of confidence. M. Augagneur then moved the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry. M. Abel Ferry proposed that this Commission should merely inquire what improvements could be effected while the Government should take measures against the persons responsible for the state of things revealed. The Chamber agreed to this solution by 389 to 29. The Government had evaded the conflict. It did not venture further to risk its fortunes in the Senate on the income-tax question. The general debate on this had taken up almost all of the Friday sittings from January 20 to February 25. All the party leaders successively had spoken: M. Caillaux and M. Ribot had faced one another in a striking passage of arms: and the competence and talent of the Upper House had been proved once more. The general debate over, the Senate decided by show of hands to pass to the examination of the clauses of the Bill. M. Perchot, one of the Radical leaders, put forward an amendment establishing impersonal taxes (_impôts réels_) on incomes of every class and a complementary tax on the aggregate income of every head of a household. It was opposed by M. Aimond, Senator for the Seine-et-Oise, and Reporter-General of the Finance Commission, and by M. Ribot, and supported by the Ministry. The Prime Minister, M. Doumergue, read a declaration asking the Senate to pass it, inasmuch as it corresponded to the wishes repeatedly expressed by the other House, and urging them, besides, to pass the pending fiscal reforms before the general election. He studiously avoided raising the question of confidence, and the amendment was rejected by 140 to 134. Next day, February 26, the Senate, to prove that it was not opposed to all reform, whether just or otherwise, adopted the first and second articles of the Budget; the land tax was profoundly modified in a manner favourable to small proprietors; it had been assessed by the Departmental and local authorities so as to produce a total amount fixed by the Legislature: it was now imposed at a uniform rate throughout France. A reduction of one-ninth was accorded to all income from agriculture.

The same evening, in a banquet organised by the Democratic Republican party, M. Barthou set forth the electoral programme of the Federation of the Left--maintenance intact of the law reimposing three years' service in the Army; defence of the secular character of the schools, but without making education a State monopoly; representation of minorities. The Ministry in its turn scored a success in the Chamber (Feb. 27). M. Caillaux, replying to an interpellation on his financial policy, vindicated himself in one of his best speeches. He made a brilliant defence of his administration, boasted that he had restored order and abolished confusion in the revenue, and successfully met the attacks of M. Briand and M. Millerand; he was sustained by a majority of 329 to 214. Clearly the Radical-Socialist party and its Socialist allies were determined to maintain at all costs the Doumergue Ministry to conduct the elections; but it was equally clear that the real leader of the Ministry and its party was M. Caillaux, and it was against him that the Opposition concentrated their efforts, in the conviction that his overthrow would deprive the Government of its head. Full of confidence in his own talents and in his star, the Finance Minister exhibited a marvellous boldness in his manoeuvres; thus, on March 4, when invited by the Senate Committee on the Income-Tax Bill to appear before it, he declared that he agreed with it in favouring the exemption of French _Rente_ from taxation; the 3 per cent. _Rente_ immediately went up. But next day in the Chamber, replying to an interpellation by M. Jaurès, M. Caillaux declared that he had merely reserved this question, and that he was firmly resolved to put a tax on _Rente_, as on every other kind of income.[5] A fall in _Rente_ followed, and rumours of a most unfavourable character were circulated, though it was impossible to prove that the successive interpellations on the financial policy of M. Caillaux had facilitated speculative manoeuvring on the Bourse. In any case it was regrettable that these charges had some verisimilitude, and the result was a marked revival of the Press campaign carried on for some months previously against him. The _Figaro_ directed the attack; almost every day its political director, M. Gaston Calmette, produced documentary evidence of various alleged malpractices which M. Caillaux declared was not authentic, but it related to so many charges and was so precise that it greatly influenced public opinion, and weakened M. Caillaux's position. Finally, the conflict was concentrated on the part played by M. Caillaux in the Rochette case of 1911. It was whispered in well-informed circles that the Public Prosecutor in the Paris Court of Appeal had been requested by M. Monis, then Prime Minister, to grant M. Rochette, a company promoter, a delay in the prosecution for fraud instituted against him, and that, thanks to this, M. Rochette had been able to start various fresh enterprises which had brought disaster on small investors. In the sitting of March 13, M. Delahaye, a member of the Right, introduced a motion inviting M. Caillaux, whose intervention had determined M. Monis to take the step referred to, to take legal proceedings against his accuser. The motion was opposed by MM. Doumergue and Jaurès, who alleged that it was merely a political manoeuvre, and the Order of the Day, pure and simple, was voted by 360 to 135. But some days later (March 16) Madame Caillaux called at the office of the _Figaro_ and shot M. Gaston Calmette dead with a revolver. This mad act necessarily entailed grave consequences. That evening M. Caillaux tendered his resignation, and M. Doumergue, after a hesitating resistance, was constrained to accept it. The Rochette affair was taken up again. In the Chamber, M. Delahaye formally demanded that the Government should either dismiss the Public Prosecutor, M. Fabre, or should compel him to take proceedings against the papers which accused him of showing undue favour to the accused. Seldom had sitting been more tumultuous or more passionate. M. Monis was questioned as to his attitude, and formally denied that he had intervened in the matter. Thereupon M. Barthou drew from his portfolio the letter drawn up by M. Fabre relating to the step in question and subsequently sent by him to the Minister of Justice. The Chamber then unanimously passed a motion reviving the powers of the Committee of Inquiry, but investing this body with judicial power, _i.e._, the right of administering an oath to the witnesses summoned before it, and, if necessary, of proceeding against them for giving false testimony. Naturally M. Monis was obliged to resign, and the Ministry was reconstructed. M. Renoult passed from the Department of the Interior to that of Finance, M. Malvy from that of Commerce to that of the Interior, M. Raoul Peret, Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior, became Minister of Commerce, and M. Gauthier, a Senator, succeeded M. Monis as Minister of Marine. Amid this whirlwind the work of the Legislature had not been suspended, and the Chamber had accomplished, after a fashion, the discussion of the Estimates of expenditure and had passed various social measures--a Bill organising a system of loans to small traders and manufacturers, the extension to women not paid by salary of the law providing a period of rest for women after their confinement, and the continuance to widows of the old-age pensions which had been allotted to their husbands. The Senate firmly maintained the positions it had taken up. On March 10 it voted the scheme of electoral reform elaborated by the Commission, which established _scrutin de liste_ pure and simple; and on the 13th it rejected the tax on _Rente_ by 146 to 126. Some days later it decided that the new tax on personal property, with the exception of _Rente_, should come into force on and after July 1, and that the reduction of taxation on properties not built upon, agreed on by the two Houses, should take effect from January 1, 1916. Similarly two reforms were at last disposed of which had been for years shuttlecocked to and fro between the Chamber and the Senate. One concerned the measures to be taken to secure the secrecy of the ballot; the other restrained the abuses of bill-posting in the elections. The rest of the debates in the Chamber were less interesting; members showed that they were preoccupied with the elections. Thus, in passing the Finance Bill the system of licences to publicans was abolished, increases in salary were accorded to teachers, and allowances to postal servants, in spite of the factious attitude adopted by the associations and unions of these servants of the State. Finally the income-tax, which the Senate had not finally voted, was incorporated in the Bill. As it was evident that the Senate would not even begin considering the Budget of 1914 till after the general election, it seemed good policy--as is usual at the expiry of a legislature--to give pledges of liberality on the part of the Chamber to the most influential elements in the electorate. While this periodical comedy was played in the Legislative Chamber, a drama of greater poignancy was bringing into conflict the most conspicuous personages in the political and judicial world. M. Jaurès presided over the Commission; before it there testified successively, and were confronted with one another, three former Prime Ministers, the Procureur-General of the Court of Appeal, the directors-in-chief of leading Paris papers; and the result of the proceedings was a general conviction that in March, 1911, the Monis Ministry really had intervened to save a company promoter of questionable character from prosecution. The scandal caused was immense. In its sitting of April 3, the Chamber, after a short discussion, passed the following Order of the Day: "The Chamber, taking note of the conclusions of the Commission of Inquiry, condemns improper financial interference in politics and political interference in the administration of justice, affirms the necessity of a law making membership of the Legislature incompatible with other employments, and is resolutely determined to secure more efficaciously the separation of the powers of the State." The unanimity with which this formula was accepted deceived no one, for it was the Chamber that was responsible in the main for the encroachments of the legislative power on that of the Executive and the Judiciary, and it was known beforehand that no effective check could be applied.

The Legislature separated on the same day, after having voted supplies on account for May and June. To all the scandals of the session it added another by terminating its existence without having performed the elementary duty of passing the Budget for the current year. That circumstance alone was sufficient to deprive its censures of all authority.

The electoral period began, in accordance with the law, on Sunday, April 5. The outward aspect of the conflict was not without interest, though less picturesque than the Italian elections of the year before (A.R., 1913, p. 305). In the first place the law regulating bill-posting effected a real revolution in the mural propaganda. No longer did posters of many hues adorn the public monuments, the pedestals of statues, and sometimes the statues themselves: no longer did bills settle in the night like butterflies on houses up to their very tops, or fasten on the trees on the boulevards, one overlying another; there were no more battles between bill-posters; the municipal authorities allotted to each candidate an equal surface, measured out very sparingly, according to the number of the population. It was an egalitarian revolution in political manners, assuring that the poorer candidates and organisations should no longer have their views smothered. On the other hand, the campaign was much more severe than at the previous election both for the candidates and for their organised supporters. The political meetings at which speeches from opponents were invited were at least three times as numerous. The Unified Socialist party exhibited an activity which the other parties were forced to imitate. Three questions were prominent: the law re-establishing three years' military service, the income-tax with the declaration of the payer subject to official revision, and proportional representation. The result was that candidates' professions of faith did not generally possess the encyclopædic character or reach the extravagant dimensions exhibited in former contests--a proof that political education had progressed far enough to compel candidates to abstain from promises covering the possible, the impossible, and the purely Utopian.

The Ministerial programme was awaited with much curiosity. M. Doumergue was called upon by M. Millerand to declare definitely for or against the three years' service law and proportional representation. At first he observed a prudent silence, being, as a Senator, exempt from submission to the popular verdict at the polls. He declared that the Government ought to observe the neutrality which he had recommended to the prefects, but which they carried into practice hardly at all. M. Clemenceau, rather maliciously, added his entreaties to those with which the Prime Minister was persecuted, and on April 29, at a banquet at Souillac, M. Doumergue spoke for the benefit of the electorate. As every one expected, he attacked the Barthou Ministry, charging it with having obtained support among the enemies of the Republic: he boasted that he had himself secured the passing of a reduction of taxation on property not built on; he praised the fiscal reform effected, was very vague on the subject of the three years' service law, and declared himself distinctly adverse to electoral reform by proportional representation, even going so far as to eulogise the system of single-member districts which had been so universally attacked. This speech added nothing to the prestige of the Government, and contributed but slightly to the guidance of its supporters in the pending conflict. At the beginning of the electoral period the Radical-Socialists seemed in an awkward position; attacked mercilessly by the Socialists and the Conservatives, they were in danger of losing a portion of their habitual allies, _i.e._ the Republicans of the Left, through the coalition formed under the auspices of the triumvirate consisting of M. Briand, M. Barthou, and M. Millerand. But an evolution took place of which the effects were destined to make themselves felt more especially at the second ballot. Brilliant in oratory, active at the very first, possessing abundant resources generously supplied by the members of the new Republican aristocracy, controlling almost all the leading Parisian and provincial papers, the Federation of the Left rallied to its support very many discontented and restless middle-class voters. But dissensions arose between its leaders; M. Briand and M. Barthou did not entirely agree. The latter endorsed candidates whose past career did not entitle them to term themselves Republicans of the Left, and who were also patronised by allies of very questionable political hue. The instance which excited most comment was that of M. Jean Richepin, who carried on a campaign of a most romantic character against M. Caillaux's friend, M. Ceccaldi, in the Aisne. Moreover, on the first ballots only 349 members were elected out of 602. Every party hastened to claim a victory, for the most conspicuous of the outgoing deputies had been re-elected almost everywhere. All the members of the Cabinet had been successful. M. Caillaux, who at the outset had withdrawn from the contest, had altered his decision and, after a hard struggle, had beaten his adversary.

After this there was the question of the second ballots. The Radical Socialists offered the Executive Committee of the Unified Socialist party to support its candidates in all constituencies in which they had even a single vote more than those of the party whose headquarters were in the Rue de Valois, and M. Ferdinand Buisson, one of the most respected of the Radical leaders, set the example by issuing a notice, the very day after the first ballots, inviting all his supporters to concentrate their votes on M. Navarre, whose defeat on the second ballot would otherwise have been certain. The Socialists refused to go back on the decisions taken at the Amiens Congress; the departmental federations retained full power to determine their own attitudes, a position which gave full play to personal enmities, and in many constituencies favoured bargains of the strangest kind between Socialists and reactionaries. The number of Revolutionary Socialists who owed their success to these combinations was estimated at at least one-third of the whole (May 10). Whether "improperly elected," as those were termed in the language of the Chamber who owed their success to these dealings, or loyal representatives of sincere convictions, the Unified Socialists had none the less achieved a great success. They numbered 102 in the new Chamber; the Unified Radicals were 136; the Independent Radicals 102; the Democratic Alliance 100. The members of the various groups of the Right amounted altogether to no more than 132.

A Ministerial majority might, therefore, have been formed by combining all those deputies whose programme might be summed up in the formula, "Neither revolution nor reaction." The President of the Republic found himself faced by this problem when the summer session of the new Chamber opened. During the electoral contest M. Poincaré's authority had lost nothing. He had scrupulously kept to the part assigned him by the Constitution above party conflict. While it went on he had, as usual, proved on occasion a brilliant representative of the nation. At the end of April he had received the King and Queen of Great Britain, at the end of May the King and Queen of Denmark. The people of Paris had welcomed the British Sovereigns with enthusiasm, the Danish Sovereigns with cordiality. On May 24 the President had personally inaugurated the admirable Civic Exhibition of Lyons, and had delivered an impressive speech on the attributes and function of the head of the French Republic.

The correctness of his attitude had, moreover, found its reward in the fact that the question of the abolition of the Presidency of the Republic, which had formerly been prominent in the Radical and Socialist programmes, had now almost entirely disappeared. How, in the face of the new Legislature, would the essential prerogative of the Head of the State be exercised--the designation of the Prime Minister? In the first place, what would be the attitude of the Chamber? and what indication would it afford by the choice of its officers? While M. Poincaré went to Rennes to the meeting of the Federations of Gymnastic Societies, and defended the law reviving the three years' term of service, the Chamber began its session on Whit Monday (June 1) and, after an address from its oldest member, the Baron Mackau, it elected M. Deschanel, by 401 votes, Provisional President, and then proceeded hastily to the work of verifying the elections of its members. In two sittings, the Committees had examined a number of elections, and declared more than half its members to be duly elected. The regular officers of the Assembly were elected on June 4. The groups had agreed on the division of the appointments; the Right and the Extreme Left, _i.e._ the Unified Socialists, had no share in them. The strictest discipline was observed, and in a few hours the work was completed. M. Paul Deschanel was elected President by 411 votes, the largest number ever given for a President of the Chamber since the establishment of the Constitution.

The Ministry had already retired. Scarcely, indeed, had M. Poincaré returned from Brittany when M. Doumergue tendered its resignation, rather against his colleagues' will. After some hours of consultation with personages representative of public opinion, M. Poincaré entrusted the formation of a Cabinet in the first instance to M. Viviani; but the latter failed owing to a persistent refusal to co-operate on the part of two young Unified Radical deputies, M. Ponsot and M. Justin Godart, who demanded a promise that the two years' term of military service should be restored after certain measures for giving military training to the youth of the nation should have taken effect; and they refused to accept M. Viviani's reservation, "should the condition of foreign relations permit." M. Deschanel, M. Delcassé, and M. Jean Dupuy successively declined the task; ultimately M. Ribot agreed to attempt it, and on June 9 the Cabinet was formed. It contained no Radical-Socialist, the group having definitely refused to co-operate. M. Ribot took the Presidency and the Ministry of Justice; M. Leon Bourgeois had accepted the post of Foreign Minister, M. Jean Dupuy Public Works, M. Peytral the Interior, M. Delcassé War, M. Chautemps Marine, M. Clementel Finance. The other posts were assigned to deputies who had never previously held office. The new Cabinet was immediately repudiated by the Radical-Socialist group, which determined to address an interpellation to it at once, and gave all its own members imperative instructions to vote against the Ministry. M. Dalimier was charged with the task of setting forth the reasons for this opposition. On Friday, June 12, the Premier read the Ministerial declaration in the Chamber, while M. Peytral communicated it to the Senate, which received it with courtesy. Far different was its reception in the Chamber, and the sitting that day, at which the German and Italian ambassadors, M. von Schoen and Signor Tittoni, were present in the seats reserved for representatives of foreign States--a circumstance which attracted much attention--was among the most astonishing in Parliamentary history. The venerable M. Ribot, whose physical strength was not equal to his courage, and the senior member of the Radical party, M. Leon Bourgeois, were insulted, scoffed at, interrupted at every sentence. To secure a hearing amid this organised tumult would have required the powers of an O'Connoll, or at least of a Gambetta. The "grand old men" who had accepted the task of governing were physically incapable of compelling the assembly to hear them. However, though individual extravagances found full expression, when the vote came to be taken party discipline made itself felt. Two Orders of the Day were proposed; one, purely political, by M. Dalimier and M. Puech, declaring the Chamber resolved to give its confidence only to a Cabinet capable of uniting the forces of the Left; the other by M. Combrouze and M. Pierre Berger, affirming the necessity of maintaining the three years' service law and pursuing a policy of fiscal and social justice and of defence of the secular character of the schools. M. Ribot demanded priority for the second; the Radicals claimed it for their own resolution, and it was on this question of procedure that the conflict took place. By 306 to 262 the Cabinet was defeated. Amid indescribable disorder the Ministers left their seats. In other days, as an example of the instability of Ministries under Louis Philippe, it had been usual to cite the Duke de Bassano's Cabinet (Nov., 1834) which had lasted three days. M. Ribot's Cabinet, in spite of the talent of its Premier and his chief colleagues, had not endured even as long as that.

Its place was soon filled. The day following, M. Poincaré summoned M. Viviani, who at once accepted the task. His first step was one of pure courtesy; he offered a place to M. Combes, who refused, stating that he remained absolutely opposed to the three years' service law. The other political personages applied to by M. Viviani were less uncompromising. M. Messimy and M. Augagneur, who had taken a leading place among the opponents of the law in 1913, now agreed to carry it out loyally. On June 14 the _Journal Officiel_ published the names of the new Cabinet. M. Viviani took the Presidency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; M. Bienvenu-Martin, Justice; M. Malvy, Interior; M. Noulens, Finance; M. Augagneur, Public Instruction; M. Renoult, Public Works; M. Thomson, Commerce; M. Fernand David, Agriculture; M. Couyba, Labour; the three departments of national defence were entrusted respectively, War to M. Messimy, Marine to M. Gauthier, the Colonies to M. Raynaud. There were five Under-Secretaries of State--M. Abel Ferry, Foreign Affairs; M. Jacquier, Interior; M. Lauraine, War; M. Ajam, Mercantile Marine; M. Dalimier, Fine Arts. Two days later (June 16) the Ministry presented itself in the Chamber with a declaration on the military law which left no room for uncertainty; it also affirmed the necessity of an immediate loan, and announced its intention of pursuing the policy of social and political reforms which had been victorious at the polls. An interpellation was at once addressed to the Prime Minister; in replying, M. Viviani, who manifestly had the wind in his favour, took the offensive, and declared emphatically that, if he should be still in office in October, 1915, he would not release the class which would then be completing its second year of military service. Heckled by M. Jaurès and M. Vaillant, both Socialists, and by M. Franklin Bouillon (Left) and M. Paul Beauregard (Right), he in no way modified his attitude. An Order of the Day presented by M. J. L. Breton, Socialist Republican, was accorded priority by 362 to 139. At the end of the sitting, M. Noulens introduced a Bill sanctioning a 3½ per cent. terminable loan of 800,000,000 francs. The Ministry was successful; the Socialists then proceeded to obstruct. At the sitting of June 18, during the discussion on the date of an interpellation dealing with the sinking of the soil in several quarters in Paris owing to the work on the Metropolitan Railway, the disorder and noise were so great that M. Deschanel was obliged to suspend the sitting. Some days later a modification was adopted in the rules of the Chamber which gave ocular demonstration of the tendency of parties to impose a stricter discipline on their members. The _Journal Officiel_, by an innovation which attracted some notice, had given the list of the eleven groups composing the Chamber. It was decided that, instead of members seating themselves wherever they individually pleased, they must sit in the sections assigned to their respective groups. This was a return to the old tradition of the Revolution, which had given the terms Right, Left, and Centre their current political significance. It might be hoped that the change would facilitate the work of the President of the Chamber.

Meanwhile the Senate had worked hard at the Budget, which had been so unfortunately delayed; and the Government speedily obtained the vote of the loan of 805,000,000 francs (including expenses of issue) designed to enable it to pay off the Treasury Bonds. The various sections of the Estimates of Expenditure were adopted almost without alteration. On the subject of the Estimates of Revenue the discussion was more active. The Finance Committee, supported on this occasion by M. Ribot, asked the Senate to follow the Chamber in including in the Budget a clause involving the application of the income-tax (Art. 7-27), the declaration made by the taxpayer to be subject to official revision. In spite of the opposition of M. Touron, M. Lhopiteau, and M. de Selves, the Senate passed this important innovation, though without fully accepting the text bequeathed to it by the defunct Chamber. On July 8 it finished the discussion of the Budget; and for a whole week the two Reporters-General of the Budget Commissions, M. Clementel in the Chamber and M. Aimond in the Senate, had to use all their diplomacy to induce the two Houses to agree. In these laborious sittings M. Noulens, who was making his first appearances as Finance Minister, strove to obtain concessions from all quarters and to discredit the unfavourable forecasts of the Opposition. He confidently affirmed that the deficit of 1914 would not exceed 207,000,000 francs, which would be covered by short-term obligations; that the reception of the loan had been wonderful, and that it had been subscribed forty times over. The credit of the French State had thus shown no decline.

While the Chamber was revising the Finance Bill, the Senate had to deal with a question of no less importance. M. Charles Humbert, a Senator from Lorraine, addressed an interpellation to the War Minister dealing with the bad state of the _matériel_ of the artillery, and the grave revelations he made caused M. Clemenceau to sum up the impression made on his mind in the severe comment, "We are neither defended nor governed." M. Messimy, the War Minister, and after him the Premier, vainly attempted to modify the impression produced by the debates on this subject, and found themselves obliged to agree to an inquiry by the Senate Commission on the Army, which was requested to report when the Chambers reassembled in October. The impression made by these debates was considerable, both in France and abroad. Finally, on July 15, after a few meagre concessions accorded by the Chamber, and a much greater number extorted through the weariness of the Senate--notably in regard to increased salaries and allowances for teachers and postal employees--the Budget of 1914 was passed. It reached the formidable amount of 5,191,861,991 francs (about 207,674,479_l._). But it is useless to give details of it, for it had almost at once to be completely set aside in consequence of the war. Its great innovation, the first application of the tax on income from movable property (_valeurs mobilières_), was also destined to be shelved, for the financial Administration eventually found itself unable to set up the system of assessing the new tax in time.

The Chambers broke up on July 15. Immediately President Poincaré, accompanied by M. Viviani, left on his important journey to Russia and the Scandinavian countries which had been postponed owing to the length of the Parliamentary Session, and which the force of circumstances was destined considerably to abridge. M. Bienvenu-Martin, who as Minister of Justice was Vice-President of the Cabinet, also took the Ministry of Foreign Affairs _ad interim_. It was a heavy task, complicated by serious incidents at home. The very day the battleship _France_ arrived at Cronstadt (July 20) the jury of the Seine assembled to try Mme. Caillaux. During eight sittings, the dramatic and romantic circumstances of the affair, the revelations as to the political and private life of M. Caillaux himself, made by the testimony given and the documents read in court or passed round in the lobbies, made the Palais de Justice, at first at any rate, the centre of keen and impassioned attention. But all these scandals were pushed into a secondary place, and the acquittal of the accused woman aroused but few protests, in view of the anxiety caused by the enigmatic attitude of Germany in the Austro-Serbian dispute. On arriving in Sweden M. Poincaré was obliged to break off his intended journey to Norway and Denmark, and he reached France on July 29. His return was impatiently awaited; but unfortunately the evil was now past remedy. All the efforts of the French Government and its diplomatic representatives, in concert with the British and Russian Foreign Offices, failed to induce Austria-Hungary, in her demand for satisfaction for the murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, to respect the sovereignty of Serbia, or to induce Germany to influence her ally towards peace. M. Dumaine, the French Ambassador at Vienna, had vainly called the attention of Baron Macchio, the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs at Vienna, to the anxieties aroused in Europe by the concentration of eight army corps along the Danube and Drina, and by the information circulated regarding the Note prepared by the Austro-Hungarian Chancellery. The answer given him was that the demands formulated, and their tone, would admit of the expectation of a pacific solution, and M. Jagow had told M. Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador at Berlin, that he did not know its wording. While the authorised representatives of the Triple _Entente_ were concerting their measures, Austria-Hungary was acting; and on Thursday, July 23, it sent a Note to Belgrade, inviting the Serbian Government to agree to its demands within forty-eight hours. France made efforts to gain more time, but M. Jules Cambon informed the French Foreign Office that Germany was mobilising secretly, and M. Paléologue, the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg, gave his opinion that the only means of preventing the Germanic Powers from emphasising their provocative attitude lay in the demonstration of the solidity of the Triple _Entente_. In the result France associated herself fully and loyally with the efforts of Russia and Great Britain to avert the conflict and obtain an extension of the period accorded to Serbia for her reply, and also to persuade Germany to exercise a conciliatory influence at Vienna. All these overtures encountered manifest ill-will and the utmost coldness. The diplomatic breach between Austria-Hungary and Serbia took place on July 29 at the appointed hour; France at once gave her adherence to the steps suggested by Sir Edward Grey to prevent hostilities and to secure by the intervention at St. Petersburg and Vienna of the four disinterested Powers, that the Russian and Austrian Armies should not advance beyond their own respective frontiers. These efforts were paralysed by the hostility of Germany; Herr von Schoen, while declaring that his Government did not know the intentions of Austria-Hungary, gave it to be understood that Germany would not try to influence her ally. This attitude, and the information received from London, Berlin, and Rome, made France understand that the situation was hourly getting worse. Thus matters stood when M. Viviani resumed the direction of foreign affairs (July 30). While expressing the hope that peace might still be preserved, he declared clearly that, if Russia were attacked by Germany, France was resolved to fulfil all her obligations as Russia's ally. In response to the military measures taken in Germany, the Government hastened its preparations; but several days had been lost, and already the covering troops of the German Army were massed all along the frontier between Luxemburg and Alsace. To avoid any frontier incident, the French troops were ordered to leave a zone of ten kilometres between their outposts and the boundary line. But all the conciliatory proposals were rejected either at Vienna or at Berlin. Telegrams exchanged between the Tsar and the German Emperor merely convinced Russia that Germany had made her decision. On the morning of July 31, a general mobilisation was decreed at Vienna; for a few hours it was nevertheless hoped that Germany and Austria-Hungary would nevertheless draw back before the consequences of a declaration of war against Russia: Vienna hesitated, Berlin decided; and on Saturday, August 1, at the moment when Austria consented to enter into a discussion with the Powers regarding the basis of the ultimatum addressed to Serbia, Germany required Russia to countermand within twelve hours all the measures of mobilisation already taken. M. von Schoen invited France to state if she would support Russia.

Germany, which had already prepared for her general mobilisation by announcing the condition of "danger of war" (_Kriegsgefahrzustand_), decided on August 1 to proceed to this mobilisation, and at the same time her troops entered Luxemburg under the pretext of protecting its railways against occupation by French troops; and the German Ambassador at St. Petersburg delivered the declaration of war with Russia, thus rendering useless the negotiations between Vienna and the Powers of the Triple _Entente_. France then ordered a general mobilisation of her own forces, and applied to Great Britain, who undertook to protect the coasts of the Channel and the Atlantic against attack by the German Fleet (p. 171), The day following, German troops entered the territory of Belfort, and Germany required the Belgian Government to declare, within seven hours, whether it was disposed to facilitate German military operations against France. Finally, on August 3, at 6 P.M., Herr von Schoen delivered a letter to M. Viviani, notifying him that a state of war existed between Germany and France. M. Cambon was then instructed by the French Government to demand his passports and leave Berlin. To the last, and even in the practical details relating to international courtesies, the methods of Germany and of France were conspicuously different; M. Schoen was taken to the frontier by a special train--of which the Germans kept possession for several weeks; M. Cambon was subjected to treatment unworthy of a country with knowledge of the practices customary between civilised States.

France was faced by the most formidable war in her history. She courageously prepared to carry it on. The Government summoned the Chambers for Tuesday, August 4. The sitting was destined to have a decisive influence on the whole subsequent course of events; it showed how profoundly the German aggression had altered the opinion of the whole of France. All the disquieting forecasts which seemed to be supported by the debates in the Chambers and the party conflicts were found to be wholly falsified. M. Raymond Poincaré, who some days earlier made a personal appeal to King George V. to use his great influence in favour of peace, the French Ministry now asked for the armed intervention of Great Britain in the interest of the future equilibrium of Europe. The German entry into Belgium compelled Great Britain to declare herself. The Triple _Entente_ was transformed into an alliance, while the Triple Alliance broke up, inasmuch as Italy refused to be drawn into a war declared without consulting her. At this momentous juncture the attitude of France upset the calculations of her enemies. They had counted on two great causes of her inferiority, want of artillery and internal disturbance. As to the first, it was true that the German heavy artillery was greatly superior in the early days of the war, but, to compensate for this, the French troops, brought into the field a light artillery weapon, the 75-millimetres cannon, of which the manufacture had been hurried on in the utmost secrecy, thanks to an understanding between the Government and the Parliamentary Committees on the Army and the Budget, and of which the mobility, precision, and rapid fire contributed in no small degree to sustain the _moral_ of the troops. Moreover, a vigorous impulse was given to the production of howitzers and long-range cannon which in a few months made up for the initial inferiority of France in these weapons. The dangers arising from internal disturbance and unrest were obviated very soon. The attitude of the trade unionists, and even of the Socialists, caused some anxiety to the Government. Towards the end of July the Executive Committee of the International had met at Brussels and had declared against the war. It had decided to hold a kind of congress at Paris on August 9; but the declaration of war caused this to be given up. An attempt at a trade-unionist demonstration in the streets of Paris had been forcibly suppressed by the police, with the entire approval of the public. Other attempts at disorder were made under the guise of patriotism, and a number of shops and stores were plundered; some arrests were made, and it was found that the nationality of some of the agitators was questionable. The murder of M. Jaurès by a wretched youth whose mental balance had been upset, had not the terrible consequences that there had been reason to apprehend. On the contrary, the horror manifested by the entire Press, the full justice done to the victim in impressive fashion by the Prime Minister, the loyal attitude taken up by the Socialist party, converted this great disaster into an opportunity for an imposing exhibition of the unity of the nation. But legislative sanction was required for the measures of public safety that the war compelled the Government to take. The Chambers met on August 4. On the previous day there had been some changes in the Ministry. M. Viviani, thinking--and quite rightly--that he would be fully occupied in the general superintendence of affairs, turned over the Foreign Ministry to M. Doumergue. M. Gauthier, for reasons of health, left the Ministry of Marine, which was taken by M. Augagneur. M. Sarraut, a deputy and Governor-General of Indo-China, became Minister of Public Instruction. This rearrangement was not altogether happy. It left the Cabinet distinctively Radical at a moment when it would have been desirable to summon the two men whose return to office was hoped for by the public--M. Delcassé and M. Millerand. For a few days longer personal and party animosities kept them out.

The sitting held on the historic date of August 4 was profoundly impressive. President Poincaré's message and M. Viviani's address were received with enthusiastic acclamations; and the Bills necessary for national defence were passed unanimously without debate. There were eighteen in all; mention may be made of the following. One authorised the Government to issue decrees in Council of State opening the supplementary and extraordinary credits required by the needs of national defence, subject, however, to approval by the Chambers within the fifteen days next after their reassembling. Another provided for the grant of allowances to necessitous families of mobilised soldiers. A third authorised the extension of the note issue of the Bank of France from its actual figure of 6,800,000,000 francs (272,000,000_l._) to 12,000,000,000 francs (480,000,000_l._); another prolonged the period at the termination of which commercial bills would fall due. Another established the state of siege in France and the colonies. Another, again, permitted the incorporation either of commissioned officers or of privates of the Territorial Army into the Field Army, or conversely. Finally, there was a Bill to put a stop to indiscreet revelations on the part of the Press. When the Government had been invested with these very extensive powers, the Chambers were prorogued _sine die_, and the whole strength of the country rallied to meet the crisis, unprecedented in history, which had imposed this sudden strain. In the very first days of the war reassuring symptoms appeared. The Press resigned itself to strict censorship; the preparations for mobilisation were soon seen to have been skilfully co-ordinated; within a few days the regiments of the second line were ready to leave to rejoin the covering troops already stationed along the frontier. The great work of concentration was carried out with a marvellous punctuality and precision which aroused general admiration. The Northern and Eastern Railway companies adapted themselves most skilfully and readily to a task which was made even more complicated in that the German violation of the neutrality of Belgium compelled the French General Staff to make its principal effort in a different direction from that contemplated beforehand. The King of the Belgians on August 4 had appealed to France, Great Britain, and Russia to co-operate for the defence of Belgium as guarantors of its neutrality, and had declared that the defence of the Belgian fortresses would be undertaken by Belgium herself. There was, therefore, reason to expect that the abrupt German attack in the north would be so retarded by the resistance of Liège and Namur as to permit the British and French forces to come to the assistance of the Belgians. Consequently it was decided that the French Armies should take the offensive in Alsace and Lorraine in such a way as to attract to this region the greatest possible number of the invaders. As it was stated that Austria-Hungary had sent Slav regiments to the Rhine, France recalled her Ambassador, M. Dumaine, from Vienna, and gave the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in Paris, Count Széczen, his passports on August 10. By prolonging the ambiguity of her attitude for nearly a week, Austria-Hungary had hoped to compel France to declare war on her, and thereby to enable her to call on Italy to fulfil her treaty obligations. This measure, however, proved futile; for, by her despatch of troops, and especially of howitzers, Austria-Hungary had manifestly taken the initiative in making war.

While Belgium was holding back the invasion by the north, the French Army on the extreme right made its way into Alsace by the Gap of Belfort and the passes of the Vosges. It was commanded by General d'Amade, who had previously been in command of the Corps of Observation in the Alps, and who was available for other service owing to the certainty that Italy would remain neutral. The first conflicts were favourable to the French. Altkirch and Munster were carried, and on August 6 the French outposts were enthusiastically welcomed at Mulhouse. But the forest of the Hardt and the heights situated beyond the town had been protected by a very strong system of defences. While General Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, issued a proclamation promising the Alsatians that they should be restored to France, the German Commander, General von Demling, was strongly reinforcing his defensive positions, and the French were overwhelmed by a heavy artillery surpassing their own field guns in number and range. They fell back; the people of Mulhouse, who had openly welcomed them, were shot by the Germans without mercy. General d'Amade was superseded by General Pau; but it was recognised that it was through inadequate information that his advance had failed; and some days later he was sent to Arras. General Pau made great efforts to resume the attack, he was supported by part of the troops from Algeria, who had crossed the Mediterranean without incident, and had been brought to the front with praiseworthy speed by the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway; and also by the Chasseurs Alpins, for whom on the South-Eastern frontier there was nothing now to do. By three weeks' desperate fighting the French recovered the plain of Alsace up to the gates of Colmar, and obtained control of the high valleys of the Vosges. But meanwhile the armies of the Ardennes and Lorraine were attacked by forces so greatly superior that the continuance of the work of liberating Alsace had to be given up. General Pau was ordered to retire. He contested every step of his retreat; created positions defending the passes through the Vosges, furnished General Thévenet, the Governor of Belfort, with the troops necessary to hold the enemy in check between the Ballons and the Swiss frontier, and emerged from the struggle with his prestige increased. On August 26 the French offensive in Alsace was suspended; and up to the close of the year this region took a secondary place. Strongly defended by the 21st Corps, whose officers had previously familiarised themselves thoroughly with the country, and by the Alpine troops, it became as it were the bastion on which the extreme right of the French Army might safely rest.

More serious consequences resulted from the miscalculation made by the French Government on the front towards Lorraine and Belgium. As it had expected a sudden attack directed on the right bank of the Meuse and along the Moselle, the bulk of the French forces had been divided between the Vosges and the Meuse. French Flanders was, at the very first, left undefended. The town of Lille was protected only by forts of which the construction dated as far back as the first conceptions formulated in 1875; not one was constructed of concrete or provided with cupolas. The heavy guns had been partly sent to the fortresses of the North-East or to the sea front. Maubeuge was better off, though its defences were not equal to those of Verdun, Toul, or Épinal, which were fairly good. Now, if the invasion came--as it actually did--by the left bank of the Meuse and the Gap of the Oise, the defensive position of the North would serve as a point of support to an army threatening the flank of the invader. Were this point of support lacking, the French would be in great danger of having their left flank turned. This danger was destined to influence the whole of the first part of the campaign, after the repulse of the French attempts to advance. In fact, contrary to the expectations entertained at the outset, the Army of Lorraine, under General de Castelnau, had not been attacked since hostilities began. Holding back the army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria, which had crossed the Schirmeck and Donon passes in the Middle Vosges, and was advancing on Lunéville, it had succeeded in forming before Nancy a very strongly entrenched front, which became famous as the Grand Couronné of Nancy, and then had moved forward in the direction of Metz. On August 12 it attacked the Germans at Pont-à-Mousson and Pagny, and drove them back on its left, while on the right it retook Blamont and Cirey, and then advanced rapidly on August 16 and the days following, retook the passes of St. Marie-aux-Mines and Bonhomme, occupied Sarrebourg, and pushed its cavalry forward as far as Château-Salins. But on August 20 it found itself confronted with the entrenched camp at Morhange, and met with a serious check. Its attack was stopped short by forces superior in number, and some of its units were seized with panic. The energy of the commanding officers coped successfully with these weaknesses, and the retreat on Nancy was carried out in good order. By successive stages, General Castelnau retired on the defensive positions of the Grand Couronné of Nancy, and held it with vigour. For three days (Aug. 22-24) his position was most critical, and his army suffered heavy losses. On the 25th reinforcements arrived under the command of General Dubail. The environs of Nancy were freed of the enemy by a decisive counter-attack; and when, a fortnight later, the German Emperor himself came to preside over a series of desperate efforts to capture the capital of Lorraine, it was too late. The Grand Couronné held out; and the Germans were compelled to evacuate Lunéville, which for several days they had occupied. Nancy, Toul, and Verdun thus formed as it were a barrier serving as a support for the victorious right wing of the French Army while holding back the tide of invaders pouring in from Luxemburg and Belgium.

On the west centre General Joffre, the Commander-in-Chief, had, as it proved, to face terribly severe ordeals. On August 10 the Crown Prince William's army had entered France by the Gap of Tiercelet; it had invested Longwy, carried Spincourt, and encroached on the fortified area of Verdun; but the unexpected resistance of Longwy and the invincible strength of the advanced works of Verdun delayed its march, and thus permitted the armies of Generals Bülow and Von Kluck to play the leading part during this period of the war. These two generals had made their way into Belgium, and found themselves faced by the two armies of General Ruffey and General de Langle de Carry, which had the British Expeditionary Force on their right, supported by General Lanrezac. On August 15 Dinant was occupied by the French wing, which General Joffre had been compelled to push forward beyond the lines of defence he had chosen. It took more than a week for the two armies of Generals Ruffey and de Langle de Carry to reach the front. The great conflict took place on August 22, on the wooded plateau extending along the right of the Meuse. The Germans had had time to entrench and to bring up heavy artillery, the effects of which for a time upset the French resistance. The French losses were immense; some army corps, the 11th among others, lost almost all their officers, and were compelled to retreat. The Germans advanced rapidly by both banks of the Meuse. The fall of Namur (Aug. 25) and the sanguinary conflict at Charleroi enabled them to enter France. Their daring tactics, their use of armoured motor-cars, their superiority in machine-guns, above all the overwhelmingly large proportion of their effectives, allowed their opponents to do no more than honourably contest the ground, retreating all the time. On August 24 General Lanrezac retired on Givet; on the 25th the British Army took up a position of resistance to the invaders on the line Cambrai-Le Câteau-Landrecies; but the day following it was attacked by five German army corps, and, in spite of the admirable behaviour of General Smith-Dorrien's division, it was compelled to continue its retreat. The situation of the Anglo-French Army then became extremely critical. It was threatened with envelopment on its left flank by a great turning movement of the enemy, who had masked Maubeuge and were pouring in by the North. Contrary to the views of General Percin and General d'Amade, and at the request of the civilian authority the fortified town of Lille had been declared an open town on August 24 and hastily evacuated. Flanders and Artois were swept by the cavalry and the advanced guard of the German Army; the bulk of the troops were advancing by stages of forty to forty-five kilometres daily (twenty-five to twenty-eight miles). All seemed lost.

This news produced an immense effect in Paris and throughout France, although the official bulletins were sparing of information, curt, and ambiguous, and no other source of intelligence was permitted by the censorship. General Joffre complained that he was thwarted in his plans by the War Minister; the Ministry seemed too exclusive in its composition at a time when mere politics were out of season. M. Viviani recognised the need and rapidly took his decision. On August 26 he announced to his colleagues that he proposed to resign, a step which entailed their doing likewise; but in his case it was a mere feint, for he was at once charged to reconstruct the Government, and on August 27 the _Journal Officiel_ published the list of the new Ministry of National Defence. M. Viviani remained Prime Minister; M. Briand became Minister of Justice and Vice-President; M. Delcassé triumphantly returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in place of M. Doumergue, who became Colonial Minister; M. Ribot became Minister of Finance, M. Millerand Minister of War, M. Sembat took the Ministry of Public Works, succeeding M. R. Renoult, M. Bienvenu-Martin was given the Ministry of Labour in exchange for that of Justice; the five remaining posts were retained by their previous holders. To emphasise the wide range of the new combination, M. Jules Guesde, a Unified Socialist, was made a Minister without portfolio. As the Chambers were not sitting, the new Government published a manifesto to the French people. "A conflict is in progress which, though of supreme importance, is not decisive. Whatever the issue, the struggle will continue. France is not the easy prey imagined by the insolence of the enemy." The Ministry was well received. M. Clemenceau himself gave M. Delcassé some degree of welcome. The "sacred union" came to find a more sure foundation in the common danger. General Joffre grew even greater amid his trials. The energy he exhibited was beyond belief; and, what was perhaps a phenomenon without precedent in France, he remained popular although he required his armies to undertake the thankless task of retiring while fighting, and of abandoning the richest and most populous regions of the country to the German invasion and German atrocities. Admirably supported by his subordinates and by General French, he superintended, without an instant of weakness, the strict execution of his programme. It consisted in holding on and lasting out; avoiding any decisive battle until the moment when the elements needed for success should all be present together, but giving ground without a real combat, so that the retreat should present the appearance of a calculated manoeuvre, and not of a compulsory flight. Thus General Lanrezac and the British troops gave battle and fought hard at Guise and St. Quentin, while, on the extreme left, the army which General d'Amade had begun to reorganise passed under the command of General Maunoury, disputed inch by inch Picardy and the Beauvais region, and retired on Paris, while the troops of the 1st and 2nd military depots were gradually removed towards Brittany. Similar measures were taken in Champagne. General Langle de Carry and General Ruffey gave battle, and suffered heavy losses, respectively near Chateau-Porcien and Bazeilles; and the splendid behaviour of their troops retarded the progress of the enemy, and enabled almost all the rolling stock of the railways to be saved, with important results for the subsequent operations of the war. Finally General Dubail, firmly based on the fortresses of Lorraine, harassed the left flank of the Crown Prince's army, and the delay he caused to it proved to be an important factor when the decisive encounter took place before Paris.

In spite of their efforts, the French Generals did not succeed in stopping the furious inrush of the invaders. Paris was threatened, and, what mattered even more, the railways were choked. The great railway stations from which the traffic was regulated, and whose working in August had exhibited a marvellous activity and power of adaptation to new conditions, began to be overwhelmed with traffic. The provisioning of Paris and its suburbs was endangered. The civil and military authorities were overwhelmed by the influx of fugitives from Belgium and the invaded French districts, who fled in terror before the German atrocities. In these critical circumstances great energy was displayed by General Gallieni, the Governor of Paris, and by M. Delanney, the Prefect of the Seine. For a moment the idea had been entertained of declaring Paris an open town and making a stand farther back. This idea the new Ministry abandoned, and formidable outworks were improvised in advance of the forts of the first line of defence. Steps were taken systematically to clear the city of non-combatants; the numerous departmental associations in Paris undertook to despatch to the remoter provinces all the families who had originally come from them, while the roads radiating from the capital swarmed with motor-cars carrying wealthy families to the seaside resorts on the Channel or the Atlantic. These families had been unobtrusively encouraged to leave by the municipal authorities, or had fled before the rumours spread by unknown means. On September 2 the Government left for Bordeaux, and the people of Paris learnt next day from a proclamation by General Gallieni, as laconic as it was emphatic, that he would do his duty to the end. But there was no need: for meanwhile the great Battle of the Marne had begun, and it was destined to relieve him from the necessity of imitating Palafox at Saragossa or Rostopchin at Moscow.

General Joffre had decided to retire, if necessary, as far as the Seine to check the invader, but a series of favourable circumstances enabled him to give battle before Paris on the North, and along the Marne and the Grand Morin on the South. At the moment when people were expecting to see the German masses press on the northern front of the entrenched camp of Paris and attack it by the space intervening between the forest of Montmorency and the Marne, they were seen to be turning abruptly to the South-East and transferring their efforts to the line of the Ourcq, Meaux, and Coulommiers. All was ready for its reception. On the left General Maunoury, reinforced by the troops of the Army of Paris and having on his right the British forces and those of General Lanrezac, now under the command of General Franchey d'Esperey, was about to hurl himself on the German right. At the centre was a new army formed since August 20 and placed under the command of General Foch, charged to hold the line between the Marne and the tertiary cliffs; it was faced by General Bülow's army. Finally on the right General Langle de Carry's and General Ruffey's armies, the latter now commanded by General Sarrail, were ready to receive the Crown Prince, who slackened his pace in his devastating march through Champagne. On the evening of September 5 General Joffre issued his famous Order of the Day: "A body of troops which cannot advance must at all costs keep the ground it has acquired, and be shot down where it stands rather than retreat. Under present circumstances there must be no giving way." On September 6 the fight began all along the line from Nanteuil-le-Haudouin at one end to Vitry-le-François on the other. The Germans advanced as far as Coulommiers and La Ferté-Gaucher, but, while the British stopped them at the crossing of the Grand-Morin, General Maunoury forced them back all along the Ourcq, and the Prussian Guard lost very heavily in the marshes of St. Gond. After five days of furious attacks the Crown Prince's army gave way, and, on the morning of September 11, General Foch re-entered Châlons-sur-Marne in triumph. Bülow and Kluck had been drawn farther back, and the French Commander-in-Chief was able to announce to the Army and to France that the battle was won. Paris was saved.

Meanwhile the Government had established itself at Bordeaux, and had invited the members of the two Chambers to go there also, to keep in touch with it. Most of the deputies for Paris had preferred to remain among their constituents, and, as the session had been closed by decree, the presence of deputies or senators on the banks of the Garonne involved more inconvenience than advantage. There was some idea of sending the best speakers among them about the country to explain the origins of the war and the vicissitudes of the campaign; but the Press, in spite of censorship, was amply sufficient for this work; and the Ministry, though it prepared the two chief theatres of Bordeaux to receive the Chambers, if needful, abstained from subjecting itself to their control. This course, however, was approved by the great majority of the nation, which evinced a praiseworthy spirit of resignation amid the varied trials imposed on it by the war. Gradually France became accustomed to the idea that the conflict would last much longer than that of 1870, and that firmness and endurance were needed in the spheres of economics and diplomacy as well as in the actual warfare. The hardest task fell to M. Ribot, the Finance Minister. Means had to be found of supporting not only the Army and Navy, but the civil population, in order to protect from need those families whose bread-winner had been mobilised, and even those impoverished through unemployment. In the first days of the war committees had been formed to provide allowances for women deprived of a husband or son, and for their young children. These committees had adopted different rules in different places, and their proceedings gave rise to acute complaints. It was determined that the State should make itself responsible for the support of the families of the men mobilised, that the municipalities, aided eventually by the State and the departmental authorities, should provide subsidies in aid of the unemployed, whether by gifts in money or aid in kind--food, fuel and clothing. Great service in these circumstances was rendered by the Bank of France, whose aid was the more appreciated inasmuch as the issue of National Defence Bonds which the Treasury had striven to arrange on the first days of the war had not found entirely adequate response. The Ministers of War and of Public Works, M. Millerand and M. Sembat, were harassed by complaints on the subject of transport; the victualling of the Army and the provisioning of the towns seemed likely to be paralysed by the overcrowded condition of the railways and the ports. In defiance of the censorship, M. Clemenceau actively attacked the abuses set up by political or social favouritism, through which a considerable number of young men evaded their duty as patriots, and remained ensconced in the public offices, or were rejected on medical examination through favouritism. Provision had also to be made to replace the immense quantity of ammunition and war material consumed on the battlefields. The indefatigable War Minister grappled with the difficulties, the manufacture of heavy guns was pushed on with amazing energy, and ample amends were made for the inferiority from which the French troops had suffered so severely in the first days of the war. General praise was expressed, too, for the skilful management of the supply services; the Army, well fed and largely strengthened by new levies, was enabled confidently to continue its work. It knew that the conflict would go on until exemplary chastisement had been administered to the aggressor. Far from keeping "the nation in arms" in ignorance of the causes and vicissitudes of the gigantic struggle in which it was engaged, the Government established and issued an "Army Bulletin," in the preparation of which the most eminent writers held it an honour to take part, and which gave the troops the most essential items of news and kept up their hope and emulation.

This, indeed, was eminently needed, for the warfare was just about to take on a new character little in accordance with the instincts of the French soldier. After the victory of the Marne, the Germans had at first been pursued vigorously, in spite of the fatigue and the losses suffered by the Allied troops. The Crown Prince's army had been thrust back into the forest of Argonne and was with difficulty holding its ground before Varennes; it held in great strength the commanding mass of hills known as Montfaucon, and was being considerably reinforced; but, in the centre, the French on September 13 hurled themselves against a formidable line of entrenchments, of which the eastern pivot was formed by the forts of Reims, while its right was supported by the quarries of the Soissons district. The forts of Reims had been precipitately dismantled by the French in the early days of August, and subsequently restored by the Germans; the quarries had been minutely explored for a long time before the war by German spies, and recently furnished with powerful guns. A new battle now began, termed the Battle of the Aisne. It was destined to last till the end of September; and it comprised two series of operations. One set was tactical; the armies whose alignment has been described above--General Dubail's in Lorraine, General Sarrail's in the Woevre region, General Langle de Carry's in the Argonne, and General Franchey d'Esperey's in the Reims district, forced back the troops opposed to them step by step, and fought battles in which the chief part was played by artillery, and which consisted in attacks and counter-attacks designed to carry fortified positions. General Maunoury and Sir John French held the Soissons district and made their way slowly along the Aisne and the Oise. But the Germans put new troops in the fighting line, and brought back from the Eastern front part of the forces taken from the Western front in August to clear East Prussia of the enemy. Further, they withdrew troops in considerable numbers from the northern Vosges, and sent the army of the Crown Prince of Bavaria to the north-west. All this caused strategic movements, responded to by similar manoeuvres on the side of the French. The Germans took the initiative as occupying a central position, while the French line overlapped theirs. They strove, therefore, to turn it, and to envelope the Allies' left. General Joffre replied by a rapid change in the position of his effectives. Reinforcing General Dubail's army by new regiments formed in the West and centre of France, and filling in full measure the gaps left in his former units by drafts from the depots, he despatched General Castelnau's army to the right of the Oise, where it took the place vacated by the British troops. These latter proceeded to cover Artois and Western Flanders, together with General Brugères' Territorials and the rest of the troops that could be spared from Lorraine, under the command of General de Maud'huy. These movements were carried out with great precision; and, by a curious coincidence, the French regiments from Lorraine found themselves faced by the same Bavarian troops that they had fought between Épinal and Nancy some weeks before. Thus was accomplished what has been termed the race to the sea, and a definitive check was given to the plan of the German General Staff for enveloping the French left.

While these immense movements of troops were being effected, the conflict raged, more especially at the centre, where General von Kluck was striving to break the junction in the square marked out by the French lines. Firmly established in the forts at the north of Reims, he had revenged himself for his inability to capture the town by bombarding the cathedral, on which, from September 13 to the end of the year, the work of destruction was to be persistently directed every time that a German attack was repulsed. In the Soissons district furious attacks were sustained by the British troops. The Battle of the Aisne, taken as a whole, ended in a success for the Allies, for the discomfiture of the Germans was such that the Emperor deprived General von Moltke of his post as Chief of the General Staff, replacing him first by General Voigts-Retz, then by the Minister of War. The Crown Prince, who had not been very successful in the conduct of the operations on the left, was replaced by General von Einem, and, after a mysterious eclipse, was sent to the Eastern front. The weakness of the German Army lay in the inadequacy of the chief command.

During October the chief interest of the struggle centred in the northern area of the war. The Belgian Army had evacuated Antwerp on October 9, and, with the aid of a landing force of British marines and bluejackets, and a British squadron lying off the coast, it had escaped the German grasp and retired, first on Ostend, then on the coast district of West Flanders. The Belgian Government established itself at Havre, while King Albert encouraged by his presence the remains of the organised forces of the Kingdom. The modest nucleus was destined to be increased rapidly by the reinforcements provided by the enrolment of all Belgians of military age who had fled before the invasion. To these General Joffre added a new army under the command of General d'Urbal; and, as this vast distribution of forces required that the command should be strongly organised, he took two coadjutors; and one of these, General Foch, was charged with the direction of the operations of the armies of the North, the other, General Pau, was concerned primarily with the armies of the East, and might, if necessary, take his own place as Commander-in-Chief. Thus the French armies were satisfactorily co-ordinated and combined; and all was ready to receive the new attack about to be made, under the personal supervision of the German Emperor, against the extreme left of the French Army. Twelve Army Corps and four Cavalry Corps were charged to break its resistance at all costs, and to reach Dunkirk and Calais, which were to serve as bases for the invasion of England. Under the pressure of this mass, sent to attack in deep columns regardless of the losses thereby imposed on the assailants, the Allies' troops were at first obliged to fall back to the Yser, and for three weeks, up to November 12, the result remained doubtful. But already the method of attrition employed by General Joffre and Sir John French was having its effect. The Prussian, Bavarian, and Würtemberg regiments had not the dash or the homogeneity of the troops that had invaded Belgium and France in August. The officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, were of very inferior quality; the greater part of the effectives consisted of soldiers who were either too young or too old, and were badly led; the superiority in artillery had passed to the defenders. The Emperor had to leave this theatre of war after the same lack of success as had marked his previous appearances on the front in Lorraine and Champagne. The German losses in the encounters collectively named the Battle of the Yser were estimated at 120,000. In accordance with the custom set up by the Germans, their long-range guns requited the humiliation inflicted on their troops by firing on the monuments of antiquity, and bombarded and completely destroyed the Cloth Hall of Ypres, a masterpiece of the Flemish architecture of the fourteenth century.

On the remainder of the front the struggle continued, and took on more and more the character of a war of siege. Instead of operations in the open field, both sides dug themselves into interminable trenches connected by tunnels through earth or rock, and strongly protected. In the aerial warfare the French and British airmen encountered the German Taubes and Aviatiks; fighting went on for weeks to capture or recover a wrecked and miserable village or a ragged clump of trees. In spite of all their efforts the Germans were unable either to recover Soissons or to capture Reims, or completely to invest Verdun. In the last-named quarter, after capturing St. Mihiel at the end of September, they had been compelled to confine themselves within the high ground along the Meuse, and to retire beyond Nancy, without, however, giving up all hope of returning to the attack. The winter campaign opened with the armies in this position of reciprocal defence. The war seemed likely to last much longer than had been expected at first, and to be a real war of exhaustion, in which the advantage would remain with whichever of the combatants displayed most obstinacy and tenacity.

However, it seemed improbable that the Germans would be in a position to resume their march on Paris; and the question arose whether the French Government should remain at Bordeaux. Indeed, in proportion as the war took on more and more the character of a chronic malady from which recovery would be lengthy, and as a renewal of the German advance against Paris became increasingly improbable, the inconveniences involved in the continued stay of the Government at Bordeaux were more keenly realised. In spite of the reticence imposed on the Press by the censorship, the bitter criticisms suggested to the people of the great south-western city by the influx of the strange crowd that swarmed round the public offices were echoed throughout France. Unpleasant comments were aroused by the contrast between the casual methods displayed in the fashionable restaurants of Bordeaux and the almost ascetic and Puritanical attitude of the people of Paris. The difficulties of communication hampered not only business, but even the action of the authorities. The deputies of Paris formed themselves into a group presided over by M. Denys Cochin, a Conservative member for the Department of the Seine; but it included also Socialists as well as Moderates. Without actually forming a State within a State, this body, unknown to the Constitution, speedily showed an activity with which the Government was compelled to reckon. It became the mouthpiece for all the complaints set up by the economic crisis with which Paris was struggling. Another group arose, that of the Senators and Deputies of the invaded districts. It made M. Leon Bourgeois its spokesman, and took up the defence of the interests, whether material or moral, of the populations of the North-East. The Ministry was quite aware of the hindrance to the war of which these particularist tendencies contained the germs; but they thought it more prudent to make terms. Various missions were entrusted to members of the Ministry; M. Briand, M. Sembat, M. Millerand, and even M. Viviani himself, repeatedly came to parley with representatives of Paris and the North-East. M. Poincaré twice left Bordeaux to visit the armies, and made one of his visits coincide with that paid by King George V. at the beginning of December to the British Expeditionary Force (p. 246). This conciliatory policy bore satisfactory fruit. The feeling of the public generally remained excellent. A generous rivalry was exhibited by the different Departments. Many Departmental Councils, whose session had been delayed in view of the war, voted aid in money or in kind to the war victims and the refugees. The towns, the Chambers of Commerce, and associations of all kinds vied with one another in generosity, and, as the winter became more rigorous, paid ample contribution to the National Relief Committee, enabling M. Appel, its President, and his fellow-workers to meet all demands. In spite of the unemployment and the rise in the cost of living, the necessitous classes passed through this difficult time without great suffering.

Little by little, business began to recover. Great improvements had been effected in the management of the railways; from October onwards, the express services had been to some extent re-established on all the lines. In November the continued depression in the foreign exchanges had been stopped, the imports and exports were increasing again; so was the revenue from taxation, direct and indirect. On December 7 the Paris Bourse, which had been closed since September 3, resumed its operation for cash transactions. True the 3 per cent. Rente opened at 72.50, while before the closing it had remained firm at 75, but this latter price was due to the fact that the syndicate of _agents de change_ had forbidden dealings at a lower figure. The market was not swamped, as had been feared, by the offer of enormous masses of securities; the provincial Exchanges, at Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles and other great towns, which had continued open while the Paris Bourse was closed, had quietly absorbed a great part of the stocks offered. The political situation cleared up likewise. On December 8 the Government returned to Paris. M. Millerand alone of all the Ministers remained behind for a few days, his department requiring rather more time for its transference. The Chambers were summoned for December 22, to give legal sanction to the measures taken since August 4 by the Government. Their Committees had never had so much work, for it was really on them that the control given by the Constitution to the two Chambers had of necessity devolved. Though certain persons were impatient and some ambitions were disappointed, the truce of parties was maintained. If the Ministers favoured the Committees on the war, on foreign affairs, and on finance, with certain confidential statements not quite in harmony with the occasionally ambiguous optimism of the daily official war bulletins in the Press, the secrecy of these statements was well kept; the measures taken by the Ministry during the Parliamentary interregnum were collectively judged worthy of approval, and the innovations proposed were accepted. Among the measures taken mention must be made of the decree signed by M. Ribot on December 11, restoring to the paying Treasurers-General the prerogatives and advantages lost some years earlier; they recovered the right of obtaining on their personal credit the capital advanced by them to the State to give steadiness during the first months of the financial year. Among the innovations we must note the abolition in the Budget of 1915 of all the special accounts which had gradually grown up beside the account of current expenditure; repair of war material, naval construction, Morocco, reduction of succession duties in the case of direct heirs or of wives of soldiers killed on active service, and, finally, the suspension for 1915 of the complementary income-tax (p. 271), in view of the impossibility of completing, while the war lasted, the formalities prescribed by the Finance Act of 1914. On December 22 and 23 the Chambers unanimously adopted the proposals of the Government. They had received with acclamation the dignified declaration of M. Viviani on behalf of the Ministry and the entire nation, that France, together with her Allies, would carry on the war to the end, and would not lay down her arms until the provinces torn from her by force were for ever welded to their French fatherland. A like greeting had been given to the fine Presidential address of M. Paul Deschanel in the Chamber, and to that of M. Antonin Dubost in the Senate. It was under this reassuring impression of unity and concord that the year came to its end. For the first six months of 1915 the Chambers voted credits of 8,525,000,000 francs (341,000,000_l._). They also postponed till the end of the war all the elections, including the partial renewal of the Senate, due at the beginning of January, 1915. Everything was made subordinate to national defence, by the entire nation as by its representatives. Meanwhile the allied armies, firmly fixed in their trenches as if in winter quarters, continued, without much progress but also without retirement, the war of attrition which was gradually thinning the forces of the invader and drawing away their strength.

II. ITALY.

At the beginning of the autumn of 1911, and at the calmly calculated instigation of Signor Giolitti, Italy undertook to conquer Tripoli; and thereby she obliged herself to choose between two courses: either that of frankly denouncing, sooner or later, the treaty forming the basis of the Triple Alliance, or that of extricating herself from it with dexterity. Never, perhaps, had Italian diplomatic talent found itself confronted with problems of such complexity; unquestionably, on many occasions during 1914, it showed itself surpassingly skilful. The situation was dominated by three great facts: (1) the eclipse of Signor Giolitti, and the resultant developments of the parties in Parliament; (2) the declaration of neutrality with the skilful manoeuvres which led up to the Italian landing at Valona; (3) the death of Pope Pius X. and the efforts of his successor, Benedict XV., to guard the prestige of the Church between Austria and Prussia on one side and France and Belgium on the other.

Signor Giolitti had repeatedly expressed a desire to quit public life; at the age of seventy he began to feel the weariness entailed on him by the difficulties of Parliamentary work. His determination was strengthened during the January recess. The Radicals were showing indications of independence. The Nationalists were agitating; their organs in the Press claimed that Turkey should indemnify Italy for the supplementary expenses entailed by the attacks of the Arabs in the Cyrenaica, who had been formed into military units by the officers and privates of the Ottoman Army who, despite the Treaty of Ouchy, had remained in Libya. They demanded railway concessions in Asia Minor, and M. Venizelos, the Greek Premier, came to Rome to confer with the Italian Foreign Minister, the Marchese di San Giuliano, on the subject of Epirus and the islands. The Socialists were making progress. On February 9 they secured the election to the Chamber by an immense majority of Amilcare Cipriani, who, by reason of the numerous convictions he had undergone, was ineligible. New votes of credit were necessary, and the day before the Chambers reassembled, the Ministry decided to ask the Chamber for new taxation, estimated to produce 47,000,000 lire (1,880,000_l._), to be levied on buildings in construction, prices of admission to cinema shows, public carriages, furniture removers, and mineral waters, and also from Customs. On February 10 the debate began on the extraordinary expenditure entailed by the expedition to Libya. It was destined to last more than three weeks, and it would have dragged on longer, had not the Socialists decided to give up obstructing in return for an engagement by the Minister of Public Worship to introduce a Bill providing that civil marriage should invariably precede the religious ceremony. The debate was marked (Feb. 27) by a spirited encounter between Signor Giolitti and Signor Luzzatti. At last (March 4) the Premier summed up his African policy, and declared that he would not ask for a vote of confidence, but would merely request the House to pass to the consideration of the clauses of the Bill. His demand was granted by 361 to 83, with three abstentions. But some days later (March 7) the Radical group in Parliament adopted a resolution expressing the opinion that the time had come to lay stress on its distinctive differences. Two Ministers belonged to it; they resigned. The Socialists organised a one-day general strike in sympathy with the hospital attendants, a number of whom had been discharged; and at Rome this manoeuvre had some success. On March 10 Signor Giolitti announced to the Chamber that he had resigned, and that the King had accepted his resignation. The Chamber adjourned.

The situation presented great difficulties, for the retiring Ministry retained its influence to the full, and its members continued personally to act on every branch of the Administration. A new Ministry had to be found pliant enough to accept its patronage, and with sufficient dignity to retain a certain degree of independence and maintain the prestige of office. Signor Salandra proved to be the right man for the occasion. His financial ability gave him almost the authority of a Luzzatti; his reputation for enlightened Conservatism enabled him to obtain sufficient help among the members of the Right to make up for the hostility of the Radical irreconcilables. He accepted the task imposed on him by the King at Signor Giolitti's suggestion; and on March 20 the new Cabinet presented itself to the Chamber. It was a Cabinet of concentration, containing no representative of the Extreme Right or Extreme Left, and consisting for the most part of the late Ministers. At the Ministry of War, General Spingardi was succeeded by General Grandi, who had declared that he would be satisfied with an extraordinary expenditure of 200,000,000 francs (8,000,000_l._) spread over five years, while General Porro, whose appointment was favoured by the Chief of the General Staff, General Tassoni, demanded 325,000,000 lire (13,000,000_l._). The Finance Bills had still to be examined again; some days were required for their further discussion, and it was only on April 5 that Signor Salandra was able to state his general policy. Before a crowded Chamber, he expressed himself with a firmness and geniality which assured him goodwill; he promised a policy which would maintain the dignity of the nation abroad and secure progress at home; wise reforms, educational, economic, and social, an honest Administration, and strict management of finance. With some modification, the Civil Marriage Bill would be carried through. The Chamber approved this programme by 303 to 122, with nine abstentions, and adjourned (May 6). The Senate adjourned the next day, after approving the Foreign Minister's declaration regarding the expenditure on Libya and the expected renewal of the Triple Alliance, and applauding his statement that the interview between the King and the German Emperor at Venice (March 29) had shown that the period of effacement was over for Italy, and that her friendship with Great Britain and France was firmly established.

The Easter recess had been marked by an agitation among the railway men, which was successfully allayed by Signor Ciufelli, the Minister of Public Works; by an interview between the Foreign Ministers of Italy and of the Dual Monarchy, the Marchese de San Giuliano and Count Berchtold, at Abbazia; and by an Irredentist demonstration of students at Rome, Genoa, Florence, Naples, and other towns. Signor Salandra closed the University of Rome (May 6). The Budget debate began on May 7, with the Estimates for the Ministry of the Interior; on the same day the Bill was introduced imposing the new taxation amounting to 90,000,000 lire (3,600,000_l._). Replying on May 12 to a violent attack on the subject of the disturbances at the University, Signor Salandra defended himself with energy, and the Chamber gave him its support. On May 19, on the other hand, he took a conciliatory tone, promising that in the impending elections of Provincial Councils the Government would allow all possible latitude; but, some days later, in reply to questions put by Signor Colajanni, Signor Barzilai, and Signor de Felice, on the removal of the Prefect of Naples, he replied that the official in question had shown a lack of energy in the disturbances. This encounter was a mere skirmish; at the beginning of June the Socialists returned to the charge. Disturbances of a wholly exceptional kind swept like a cyclone over the essentially revolutionary areas of the Marches and the Aemilia. On Constitution Day, June 7, the Socialists organised demonstrations at Florence, Turin, Imola, and elsewhere; the army was insulted, the red flag hoisted, the troops fired on the crowd. The funerals of the victims intensified the disturbances; a general strike was called at Rome, but this was only the revolutionists' usual move; but what happened in Romagna was without precedent altogether. The State seemed to be collapsing all at once. Such towns as Ancona, and all the villages, declared themselves free communes; the authorities went into hiding, and, for some days, the excited insurgents were convinced that their example had been followed all over Italy, and that the Federal Republic had been proclaimed at Rome. The rising was promptly and severely repressed; the agitators who were most deeply implicated took to flight. At Rome the middle classes organised counter-demonstrations, and the Secretary of the General Confederation of Labour hurriedly sent out (June 10) a circular ordering the strike to be stopped. When the matter came before the Chamber, the Prime Minister demanded that its decision should be explicit and positive; a Socialist resolution regretting the attitude of the Government was rejected, on a vote by roll-call, by 254 to 112.

Amid the impression left by these events, the provincial and municipal elections were held, in batches, as is the rule in Italy, on the Sundays from June 14 to July 16. At Rome the Constitutional ticket was successful, as also at Brescia, Modena, Siena, and Reggio. At Rome, Don Prospero Colonna was elected Syndic; at Milan and Naples the Socialists won. The Parliamentary sittings became stormy; for the rest of June the Socialists persistently obstructed the financial proposals of the Government. Signor Chiesa (Socialist) even overturned the voting-urn; he was severely assaulted by other members and suspended for some days (June 25). Finally on July 3, Signor Carcano, leader of the Giolittian group, interposed, and induced the Socialists to give up obstructing. The vote of 90,000,000 francs was passed by 224 to 34; the minority consisted of Socialists, and 72 Radicals abstained. Two days later the Chamber adjourned _sine die_.

The Government remained master of the situation. Domestic policy lost all interest in view of the complications set up by the Austro-Serbian conflict. Italian diplomacy strove to secure that counsels of moderation should prevail; but it was obstinately set aside by the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office, and naturally resented this treatment. Public opinion was indignant at the violence displayed by Austria towards Serbia, and clearly perceived that the interests of Italy were gravely menaced by a complete break-up of the Balkan equilibrium. The Government refused to comply with the demand of the Socialists, assembled at Milan, to call the Chamber together, but on July 30 it mobilised the Fleet and concentrated it not at Brindisi, but at Gaëta. This was at once a warning and a concession as a matter of form. On July 31 the Austrian Ambassador, Herr von Flotow, notified the Italian Foreign Minister of the delivery of the ultimatum to Russia and France, and demanded information as to the attitude which Italy proposed to adopt. The Minister replied that Austria-Hungary had not consulted her ally, and that he could not answer before consulting the Prime Minister. The decisive hour had come. Two days later, on August 2, Italy signified her neutrality, her reason being that the _casus foederis_ had not arisen, inasmuch as Austria-Hungary and Germany had brought the situation to the point where it then stood by their initiative alone. The day following Major Kleist brought King Victor Emmanuel an autograph letter from the German Emperor. The King confined himself to declaring that his Constitutional duty was to support his responsible Ministry. Thus Italy took up officially an attitude of expectant and vigilant neutrality. She was destined to observe it till the end of the year, in spite of the pressure exercised by the advocates of intervention--Radicals, Liberals and Nationalists--who demanded an invasion of the Trentino and Istria. The Socialists, on the contrary, delivered impassioned speeches in favour of systematic and absolute neutrality. The armed peace and the economic disturbance required expenditure and special precautions. On August 4 a moratorium was established by decree; repayments of deposits and on current account were limited to fifty lire, and the maximum of currency issue permitted to the banks was increased. The resentment caused by this "betrayal" on the part of Italy was very acute in Germany, and still more in Austria; it showed itself by outrages on the numerous Italians employed in the mines and quarries of the basin of the Moselle, outrages in sharp contrast with the consideration and generosity of the French authorities, for which the Italian Ambassador at Paris, Signor Tittoni, tendered the cordial thanks of his Government.

The death of Pope Pius X., on August 20, gave the Ministry the opportunity of exhibiting an entirely correct attitude towards the Holy See. The Conclave opened on August 31. There were three parties in it; The Right, Conservative, directed by Cardinals Merry del Val and Billot, and inclined to vote for Cardinal de La[~i]; the Centre, led by Cardinals Pompili, Serafini, and Gatti, and putting forward Cardinal Ferrata; the Left, headed by Cardinals Agliardi, della Chiesa, and Amette, hesitated between Cardinals Gaspari and Maffi. But the Italian proverb, "He who enters the Conclave as Pope leaves it as Cardinal," was verified once more. After sixteen ballots Cardinal Agliardi pronounced the name of Cardinal Della Chiesa, who was elected on September 3 and took the name of Benedict XV. He was a professed diplomatist, and had been a collaborator of the late Cardinal Rampolla. He had only been a Cardinal for three months, and was Archbishop of Bologna. He had to define his course of conduct in the European struggle almost at once. The Belgian Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, was destined, in returning from the Conclave, to come into conflict with the Germans, who had destroyed Louvain and Malines, and who prevented him from communicating with his suffragans and his flock. Contrary to general expectation, the new Pope did not take up with sufficient energy these encroachments on ecclesiastical prerogatives. His policy appeared to be timorous and the result was a revival of Gallicanism among the French clergy. Thus, when at the end of the year the Holy See enjoined all the Episcopal authorities to cause prayers to be offered for the restoration of peace, it met in France with an almost universal resistance. The Bishops refused to allow the Pope's words to be read without qualification; they were communicated subject to the reserve that there could be no question of any peace which did not safeguard the rights of the French nation. It was a bad beginning for the new Pope.

In contrast with this weakness on the part of the Roman Curia, the Government of the Italian kingdom adopted an attitude which was at once pliant and firm. Germany had been unable to resign herself to the neutrality of Italy; she resorted to every possible means of reviving the Gallophobia prevalent in the country under the rule of Crispi. A leading German Social Democrat, Herr Sudeküm, was sent to the Italian Socialists on a mission of instruction; they protested against the destruction of Louvain, and affirmed their sympathy for France, the "defender of civilisation"; they declared that they supported neutrality, but that, if the Italian Army attacked the Allies, they would rise in insurrection. This clumsy move on the part of Germany seemed at the moment to produce no effect on the Italian Government, but some days later (Sept. 3) the Fleet left Gaëta for Taranto, and troops were concentrated in the neighbourhood of Verona and Brescia. As it was rumoured that, in the event of a breach with Austria-Hungary, Italy would be attacked by a German Army coming from the St. Gothard, Signor Salandra notified the Swiss Government (Sept. 24) that Italy, which did not exist as a State in 1815, would formally adhere to the recognition then entered into of Swiss neutrality. Three days later the classes of 1884 to 1888 were mobilised, thereby raising the total of the effectives in the Italian peninsula to thirty army corps. At the same time an important change was made in the Ministry, General Grandi, who had not been able to come to an understanding with the Chief of the General Staff, resigned, and was succeeded by General Zupelli (Oct. 11), but, as the Marchese di San Giuliano died on October 16, a general reconstruction of the Ministry became inevitable. Signor Salandra resigned on November 2, and was again made Premier by the King. He made Signor Carcano, Signor Giolitti's second in command, Minister of Finance, and Signor Orlando Minister of Justice; and, some days later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was accepted by Signor Sonnino. This latter greatly increased the activity of his Department; he summoned to Rome successively all the diplomatic representatives of the King at foreign Courts, and thoroughly convinced himself of the necessity of remaining for some time longer in an attitude of expectancy. The Chambers were summoned to sanction the financial measures taken by Royal decree, and to approve the international policy of the Government. The session was short, but productive. On December 4 the Ministry made a statement which was well received, and the question of neutrality was closely debated. The greatest sensation of the debate was the disclosure made by Signor Giolitti (Dec. 5) who read a despatch received by him as Prime Minister in August, 1913, and proving that at that time Austria-Hungary desired to attack Serbia and appealed to the Triple Alliance, but that Italy had refused her aid. Signor Giolitti concluded his speech by assuring the Government of his support, and thenceforward all its difficulties were solved. By 413 to 49 the Chamber accorded the Salandra Ministry a vote of confidence (Dec. 8), and thus it was understood that Italy was to preserve her attributes as a Great Power and to be ready at any moment to intervene if necessary. The Triple Alliance, which had not been actively denounced, was thus virtually dissolved.

To prevent Italy from turning against the Germanic Powers, the German ex-Chancellor, Prince Bülow, whose personal connexions at Rome were very extensive, was sent there as Ambassador Extraordinary, taking the place of Herr von Flotow. This mission, which was announced very loudly, was coldly received from the first by the Liberal party and the Italian Press. He waited to present the letters accrediting him as Ambassador till the Chambers had adjourned for the recess. The Senate adjourned on December 18, the Chamber on the 19th, after having accorded the Ministry the votes of credit which it demanded, passed the military Bills, and sanctioned a loan of 1,000,000,000 lire (40,000,000_l._). Before the week was over, the Italian Fleet, under the command of Admiral Patris, effected without incident a landing at Valona. Italy did not yet side definitely with either set of combatants, but she took possession of an important pledge, thus signifying her firm intention not to allow herself to be neglected when the time came for a final settlement in the Balkans. This was a first step; Austria-Hungary, which had so categorically opposed an operation of the same sort in 1911, on this occasion made no objection. Times were changed.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] The interest would be paid without deduction, but the holders of _Rente_ would have to pay the tax subsequently.