Aristide Briand was
born at Nantes, France, on 28th March, 1862. While a law student he
developed socialist ideas and after leaving university wrote for
Le Peuple,
La Lanterne and
Petite République.
Briand, became secretary-general of the
French Socialist
Party in 1901 and the following year was elected to Chamber of Deputies. In
1904 he joined with
Jean Jaurés to establish the left-wing newspaper, L'Humanité in 1904.
In 1906 Briand was expelled from the party
for accepting office in the coalition government headed by
Georges
Clemenceau. As minister of public instruction and worship (1906-09) Briand
helped to complete the separation of Church and State in
France.
In July 1909 Briand became prime minister and horrified his former
socialist
colleagues when he broke up a railway stoppage by calling up some of the
strikers for military service. Briand further upset the left-wing by supporting
the extension of compulsory military service. He lost power in November 1910 but
returned to office briefly in 1913.
On the outbreak of the
First World War Briand became Justice Minister in the French government
headed by Rene
Viviani. A powerful cabinet figure, Briand advocated French intervention on
the Balkan Front
and promoted the merits of the
socialist
general, Maurice
Sarrail.
In October 1915, the French president,
Raymond Poincare
appointed Briand as prime minister. His attempts to establish political control
over the military high command ended in failure and he was unable to persuade
Joseph Joffre,
chief of general staff in the
French Army,
to change his tactics on the
Western Front.
However, after French losses at
Verdun Briand
was able to remove Joffre from power.
Georges
Clemenceau, editor of
L'Homme Libre, became highly critical of
Briand's decision not to persecute
pacifists
and his refusal to sack his interior minister,
Louis Malvy, who
favoured a negotiated peace.
Briand backed the
Nivelle Offensive and when this failed, the resignation of
Hubert Lyautey
in November 1917, brought the government down. Briand was now replaced by his
long-time rival,
Georges
Clemenceau, as prime minister.
Briand returned to power in 1921 and as well as being prime minister (1921-22,
1925-26 and 1929) he was also foreign minister between 1925 and 1932. While in
this post he became the first politician in the 20th century to put forward the
idea of a
European Federal Union. He gained support from
Edouard Herriot
but the idea stimulated little interest and was not taken up by other political
leaders.
Briand became a great supporter of
international
pacifism through the
League of Nations.
He also championed Franco-German reconciliation and in 1926 shared the Nobel
Peace Prize with
Gustav
Stresemann. Two years later he and
Frank. B. Kellogg
signed the
Kellogg-Briand Pact (Pact of Paris). The treaty outlawed war between
France and the
United States. The US
Senate ratified it in 1929 and over the next few years forty-six nations signed
a similar agreement committing themselves to peace.
Aristide Briand died in Paris on 7th March,
1932.
(1)
Lord Francis Bertie, the British Ambassador in Paris,
wrote to the British government about the situation in France on 21st February
1917.
Briand, though not popular
in the Chamber, and though his conduct of affairs is much
criticized there, manages to keep himself in office, partly by his Parliamentary
skill and his persuasive eloquence, and owing to the non-existence of a suitable
successor, and no combination of parties constituting a majority in the Chamber
being able to agree on the choice of substitute. Clemenceau, who not very long
since was thought of, has from his continual but unreasoning attacks in his
newspaper on M. Briand and the authorities generally, and his recent defeat in
the Senate, rendered himself impossible. Poincare made advances to him for a
reconciliation but was unsuccessful.
(2) Aristide Briand,
speech (7th September, 1929)
Among peoples who are geographically
grouped together like the peoples of Europe there must exist a sort of federal
link. It is this link which I wish to endeavour to establish. Evidently the
association will act mainly in the economic sphere. That is the most pressing
question. But I am sure also that from a political point of view, and from a
social point of view the federal link, without infringing the sovereignty of any
of the nations which might take part in such as association, could be beneficial.
(3) Aristide Briand, Memorandum on the
Organisation of a Regime of European Federal Union (17th May, 1930)
No one doubts today that the lack of
cohesion in the grouping of the material and
moral forces of Europe constitutes, practically, the most serious obstacle to
the development and efficiency of all political and Juridical institutions on
which it is the tendency to base the first attempts for a universal organisation
of peace. The very action of the League of Nations, the responsibilities of
which are the greater because it is universal might be exposed in Europe to
serious obstacles if such breaking-up of territory were not offset, as soon as
possible, by a bond of solidarity permitting European nations to at last become
conscious of European geographical unity and to effect, within the framework of
the League one of those regional understandings which the covenant formally
recommended.
This means that the search for a formula of European cooperation
in connection with the League of Nations, far from weakening the authority of
this latter must and can only tend to strengthen it, for it is closely connected
with its aims.
The European organisation contemplated could not oppose any
ethnic group, on other continents or in Europe itself, outside of the League of
Nations, any more than it could oppose the League of Nations.
The policy of European union to which the search for a first
bond of solidarity between European Governments ought to tend, implies in fact a
conception absolutely contrary to that which may have determined formerly, in
Europe, the formation of customs unions tending to abolish internal customs
houses in order to erect on the boundaries of the community a more rigorous
barrier against States situated outside of those unions.
John
Simkin
