Clemenceau flung himself out of office in an unreasonable fit of temper. A man of his time of life, at sixty-eight years of age, with his record behind him, had no right to have any personal temper at all, when the destinies of his country had been placed in his hands. Probably he would admit this himself to-day. But, during his exceptionally strenuous period of office, he had, as we have seen, more than once shown an impulsiveness and even an irritability that were not consonant with his general disposition. Throughout, there appeared to be an inclination on his part to take opposition and criticism too much to heart. As if, in fact, the great Radical overthrower of opportunism was annoyed at being compelled, as all administrations must be, to adopt to some extent a policy of opportunism himself. His outburst against all compromise with the Church was one instance of this. His uncalled-for resignation on account of M. Delcassé’s attack was another. This might well have been the end of his official experiences. Certainly no one would have ventured to predict that eight years later would come the crowning achievement of his remarkable career. His own remark on leaving office was not calculated to encourage his personal adherents or to give his country confidence in his leadership. “I came in with an umbrella, I go out with a stick,” was all very well as the epigram of a journalist: it was too flippant a remark for a serious statesman such as Clemenceau had shown himself to be. But the time was not far off when all his main policy, as man of affairs, politician, and as publicist would be overwhelmingly justified. As we have seen, Clemenceau was[234] all his life strongly opposed to colonial expansion. His action with regard to Morocco, apparently so contrary to this, arose from an even stronger motive, his desire to build up French defence against Germany on every side.  
But his general distrust of colonisation by conquest in Egypt, China, Madagascar, and elsewhere had been based upon France’s need for using all her strength and all her resources to build up the power of the French Republic within the limits of France. This is true of all nations at a period when the power of man over nature is increasing so rapidly in every department: perhaps, properly understood, in agriculture most of all, when science is capably applied to production on the land. That is to say, that even in countries such as England, where the cry of over-population is so frequently raised, and where the cult of colonisation and emigration has been exalted to the position of a fetish, it would be far better to devote attention to the creation of wealth at home than to the development of waste lands, however fertile, abroad. Concentration of population, given adequate regulation of employment in the interests of the whole people, and attention to the requirements of space, air and health, is not only devoid of danger but is an element in national prosperity—“nothing being more plain than that men in proper labour and employment are capable of earning more than a living,” as John Bellers wrote more than two hundred years ago; and “a nation wherein are eight millions of people is more than twice as rich as the same scope of land wherein are but four,” as Petty wisely stated, about the same date.
 
If this was so obviously true at the end of the seventeenth century, it is tenfold, not to say a hundredfold, more certain in the twentieth, having regard to the marvellous discoveries and inventions since made and still but partially applied in every direction. But France is the land where such considerations are most decisive in dealing with the basis of national polity. France has enormous advantages in regard to soil, climate, the industrious habits and skill of her people,[235] and the consequent monopoly on the world market of whole branches of commerce, where taste and luxury have to be gratified. Moreover, she possesses a source of income unparalleled in Europe and scarcely worth noting elsewhere, except in the case of Italy. I calculate that France receives, one year with another, from visitors who come thither, merely to see and to spend, an amount, by way of profit, of not less than seventy millions sterling. This large sum alone, if used for enhancing the productiveness of the French soil and French industry generally, would immensely benefit the people in every respect. French thrift, again, had piled up out of the products of industry immense pecuniary accumulations. There could have been no better investment of these funds possible than the improvement of the defences of France against invasion, the completion of her railway and canal system, the development of her mines, so greatly coveted by her aggressive neighbour, the concentration of her military and naval forces at home, instead of scattering any portion of them abroad, the expenditure upon thorough education and scientific agricultural and industrial experiments. All this even Imperialist Frenchmen can see now.
 
So with regard to Russia. The alliance of the French Republic with the Empire of Russia gave France, apparently, a better position in Europe, the pusillanimous and short-sighted English statesmen having rejected an alliance which was afterwards forced upon Great Britain when wholly unprepared for war. Here also Clemenceau’s views were justified by the event. The close connection between a democratic Republic and an autocratic Empire put France in an unenviable moral position before the world. More materially serious than this ill-fated combination, ethically, was the necessity imposed upon the French of lending continually to Russia, until the total amount of the Russian loans held in France amounted to many hundreds of millions sterling.
 
Such huge sums, again, would have been far more advan[236]tageously spent at home than in building strategical and other railways, and financing gold and other mines, in the vast Muscovite Empire. Financiers gained largely by these loans. But the peasants and small bourgeoisie of France were unknowingly dependent for their interest upon a poverty-stricken agricultural population, which could not possibly continue to pay the large sum due yearly on this amount to their Western creditors without utter ruin. Thus unsound finance followed hard on the heels of more than doubtful policy, and France was the weaker and the poorer for both.
 
This was all the more fatal to real French interests, inasmuch that, at the same time, the home population of the Republic was slowly decreasing, while the population of her threatening rival, Germany, was steadily growing, and the wealth of the German Empire, both agricultural and mineral, was likewise rapidly expanding with every decade. Consequently, the position of France was becoming more and more precarious, and the relative strength on the two sides of the frontier less and less favourable to the Republic. It must be admitted, under such circumstances, that those who favoured a Russian alliance, in spite of all its manifest drawbacks, had a great deal to say for themselves. But that Great Britain should have failed to see that the declension of French power was a peril to herself, long before the Entente was brought about by Edward VII, and that a pacific understanding alone was not sufficient to ensure the maintenance of peace, is a truly marvellous instance of the blindness of British statesmanship! Only the phenomenal good luck that has so far attended the United Kingdom hindered our governing classes from landing this country, as well as the French, in overwhelming disaster. How narrow the escape was is not yet fully understood.
 
Clemenceau was at all times in favour of an Anglo-French offensive and defensive alliance, and he clung to this policy in the face of the most serious discouragement from abroad and, as has been seen, at the cost of vitriolic misrepresentation and hatred at home. It was in vain, however, that for many years[237] he preached this political doctrine. Even when the relations between the two countries were greatly improved, the very proper Liberal and Radical and Labour dislike in England of the entanglement with Czarist Russia rendered the close combination which seemed so essential to all who, like Clemenceau himself, knew what was really going on in Germany, exceedingly difficult to bring about.
 
The terrific war has thrown into high relief facts always discernible except by those who would not see. Here Clemenceau’s own bitter experience of the war of 1870-71, and his yearly visits to Austria, enabled him to form a clearer conception of the real policy of Germany and the ruthless brutality which underlies modern Teutonic culture than any of his contemporaries. It is no longer doubted that the Franco-German war was welcomed by Prince Bismarck, and made inevitable by him, in order to crush France and ensure German military supremacy in Europe. Bismarck himself made no secret of the manner in which he had deceived Benedetti at Ems by a forged telegram; and the refusal of the Germans to make a reasonable peace with France immediately after Sedan was conclusive evidence of what was really intended. During the campaign, also, the Germans resorted to the same hideous methods of warfare on land, on a smaller scale, which have horrified the entire civilised world, on land and on sea, during the great war which commenced forty-four years later.
 
All this Clemenceau himself saw. While, therefore, in his speeches and writings, he never shut out the possibility that the people of Germany, rising superior to their militarist rulers, might come to terms for permanent peace with the people of France, he at the same time cherished no illusions whatever as to the policy of those military rulers, and the small probability that German Social-Democracy would be able to thwart the designs of the German aggressionists. Unfortunately, in France, as in Great Britain, a considerable section of all classes, but especially of the working class, represented by Labour unions and Socialists, would not believe that at the end of the nineteenth and begin[238]ning of the twentieth century any great civilised power could be harbouring such designs as those attributed to Germany. Vaillant, for example, who, like Clemenceau, had seen the horrors inflicted upon France in the war of 1870, was vehement on that side. So enamoured was he of peace that he never lost a chance of assuring Germany that under no circumstances would the French Republic go to war. He advocated a general strike, in all countries affected, should a rupture of peace be threatened; entirely regardless of the fact that the Social-Democrats themselves had declared that such a strike was absolutely impossible in Germany itself.
 
The same with Jaurès. Not only did this great Socialist believe that peace might be maintained by concessions to Germany; but, although in favour of “the Armed Nation” for France herself, for the purpose of defending her against a German invasion, he actually came over to London and addressed a great meeting, called by anarchist-pacifists who were all strongly in favour of the reduction of the British fleet. That fleet which, as Bebel himself put it, was the only counterbalance in Europe for Germany herself against Prussian militarism and Junkerdom, Jaurès spoke of with regret as a provocation to war! Germany could, in fact, always rely in all countries upon a large number of perfectly honest pro-Germans, and a lesser proportion who had purely financial considerations in view, to oppose any policy which was directed against the spread of German domination. This was the mania of anarchist-pacifism and anti-patriotism which Clemenceau, both in and out of office, did his utmost to expose and resist. Honesty of purpose could be no excuse whatever for fatuity of action.
 
Clemenceau, therefore, from the moment when he gave up the Premiership, lost no chance of inculcating the need for vigorous preparation. France must be ready to meet a German assault by land and by sea. When the time came she was not ready on either element, and without the help in finance, in munitions, in clothing, and by arms, on land and on the ocean, at once given by England—whom Clemenceau always upheld[239] as the friend of the Republic—France would have been overrun and crushed, before she could possibly have obtained aid from elsewhere. In spite of the Franco-German agreement of 1909, the danger of such an attack in 1911 was very great: so much so that war was then commonly expected, and was only averted because Germany thought she would be in a more commanding position to carry out her predetermined policy three or four years later. The Franco-German Convention relating to Morocco, of November 4th, 1911, after the Agadir difficulty, was no better than a pretence. It was not intended, in good faith, to ensure a permanent peace, so far as Germany was concerned. This Clemenceau felt sure of, though the treaty was by no means unfavourable to France. He was ready to make all sacrifices, however mortifying, provided only a genuine treaty of peace and understanding between the two peoples could be secured. But this must not be done blindly. It must be an integral part of a serious national policy.
 
Therefore, speaking in the Senate on the 12th February, 1912, in opposition to the treaty with Germany about Morocco, he went on: “We shall make every effort to give fresh proofs of our goodwill—we have given enough and to spare already during the past forty years—in order that the consequences of this treaty may fructify under conditions worthy of the dignity of the two peoples; but we must know what the other party to the treaty is about, what are his intentions, what he thinks, says, proposes to do, and what signs of goodwill he likewise has vouchsafed. That is the question we must have the courage to ask ourselves. This question I deal with at my own risk and peril, without being concerned as to what I have to say, because I have at heart no bad feeling, no hatred, to use the right word, towards the German people. I want no provocation; firmly resolved as I am to do nothing to............