Dreyfus was of Jewish Alsatian origin. Alsace, located on France’s eastern border with Germany, had long been a contested territory which was annexed by Germany in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War. It remained a German province until 1918 when France reclaimed it. In 1871 between 100,000 to 130,000 Alsatians (of a total population of about a million and a half) chose to remain French citizens and left the province, many of them resettling in French Algeria.
Dreyfus’ family moved to Paris at that time. They had long been established in the area of Alsace that traditionally was German-speaking, and his father Raphael spoke Yiddish and conducted his business affairs in German. The first language of most of Alfred’s elder brothers and sisters was German or one of the Alsatian-German dialects. Alfred and his brother were the only children to receive a fully French education.
Therefore, in French eyes, his background was suspect and the fact he also was a Jew played into the hands of racists and anti-Semites.
Not long after the condemnation of Dreyfus, the military counter-intelligence section at the French War Ministry had a change of leadership. Colonel Georges Picquart, who had been in charge of reporting on the Dreyfus case to the War Minister, received the appointment. He was a young, brilliant and extremely conscientious officer, like Dreyfus of Alsatian origin.
During a further inquiry into the evidence in 1896, he came to the conclusion that the incriminating papers were not in the handwriting of the condemned Dreyfus but rather of another officer, Major Charles Marie Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. He suspected that Esterhazy was a Prussian spy and he had forged the bordereau which convinced the court of the guilt of the accused.
Picquart was told by the authorities to keep silent about his discovery. He persisted and was removed from his post and abruptly sent to inspect the intelligence service in the east of France. From there he was sent to Marseilles and later Tunis, to keep the lid on the cover-up. (Revisionist historians put forward the hypothesis that Esterhazy may have been a double agent.)
The new facts about the Dreyfus case were leaked and Clemenceau resolved to start a campaign for the revision of the case. At that stage he was not convinced that Dreyfus was innocent of the charge but was nevertheless sure that he had been wrongly convicted.
Once he doubted that there was fair play, he immediately displayed those qualities of personal and political courage, persistence, disregard of popularity and concentration of the powers at his command that had distinguished his political career. He was, as always, indifferent to the strength and numbers of his opponents. Which in this instance were in the vast majority.
Together with the author Émile Zola, the socialist Jean Léon Jaurès (editor of La Petite République) and other radicals, Clemenceau claimed that, even if guilty, Dreyfus could not be legally condemned on what was false evidence and forged documents, none of which had been provided to the defence to challenge in court. He and his friends faced the most powerful forces in the State and the newspapers in their quest for justice. At that stage they had no inkling of just how far those forces were willing to go to maintain the status quo in the Dreyfus Affair.
The affaire dragged on with suicides, apparent suicides in custody – and duels (several fought, successfully, by Picquart).
On January 13th 1898, Clemenceau published Zola’s J’Accuse, an open letter to President Félix Faure, on the front page on L’Aurore, outlining the facts of the case and the cover-up that followed. Zola was charged with treason and libel. The case was lost and Zola fled to England to avoid imprisonment.
After the trial of Émile Zola, Picquart was himself accused of forging the note that had convinced him of Esterhazy’s guilt, and arrested.
A retrial of Dreyfus was eventually ordered in 1899 and he was brought back to France. On September 9th before a military court he was again found guilty with “extenuating circumstances” and sentenced to 10 years’ detention.
The verdict caused public outrage, however, and he was hastily pardoned by the President and released. He accepted the pardon on condition he could still continue to try to prove his innocence.
In 1900 a bill was introduced declaring that all actions for matters connected with the Dreyfus affair, except murder and treason, were null and void. It was the “policy of the sponge” and met with opposition from the supporters of Dreyfus who saw in it a stifling of justice. It was adopted on 24th December 1900. Picquart, indignant at the amnesty, resigned from the army by way of protest.
In 1906 the first report of the committee appointed to examine the whole affair was released. It exonerated Dreyfus of all blame and declared him to be a victim of conspiracy based on perjury and forgery. It secured the overturn of the second trial and restored him to his position in the army after years of martyrdom.
This of course also absolved Picquart, who was then promoted to Brigadier-General. He was Minister of War in Clemenceau’s first Cabinet (1906-1909).
IN OFFICE
In 1902 Clemenceau was elected to the Senate and, on March 12th 1906, was appointed Minister of the Interior in the Ferdinand Sarrien government with its parliamentary majority of the Bloc des gauches (Left-Wing Coalition).
As Minister, Clemenceau bent his formidable mind to the problems of establishing and maintaining law and order. He supported the scientific methods of policing developed by Alphonse Bertillon. Among other advances, Bertillon had created anthropometry, an identification system based on physical measurements and other individual physical features. Before that, criminals could only be identified by eyewitness accounts. The method was eventually supplanted by fingerprinting, but his other contributions like the mug shot and crime-scene photography remain in place to this day.
Clemenceau and his Director of General Security, Célestin Hennion, founded the brigades mobiles (“mobile squads”) which were nicknamed brigades du Tigre (“The Tiger’s Brigades”) after Clemenceau himself. He reformed the police force and implemented repressive policies towards strikes by workers in the mining, wine and electricity sectors.
Just two days before Clemenceau was appointed Minister there had been a mining disaster in the Courrières-Lens district which claimed the lives of over 1,000 workers stifled by gas or burnt alive in a series of underground explosions. The mine had made a profit of over 1000% the previous year and safety measures had not been adhered to. The surviving miners went on strike.
Clemenceau went to Lens and addressed a mass meeting of the miners. He said that the government supported the right to strike but also the right to keep the mines open. The strike went ahead and the military were ordered in to support the nonstrikers and were attacked by the strikers. Clemenceau would not support the breaking of the law – especially as he perceived it was supported by agents of anarchists and reactionary forces exploiting the situation.
Speaking at Lyons on May 3rd he said:
My position is between the political demagogues of the Church, the clericals and the reactionaries on one side, who tried to hound on the troops (that I had been forced to call in) to fire on the strikers, who greatly provoked them. This the ecclesiastics and restorationists did with the hope of fomenting a revolt against the Republic – a revolt supported by certain military chiefs inspired by the clericals and their shameless lack of discipline. The plot was frustrated, butchery was avoided.
On the other side, I am accused by the revolutionary socialists of indulging in brutal military oppression because I suppress anarchist rioting. This though no striker was wounded or killed. I acted for tranquillity while the monarchists fostered disturbances. The anarchists helped the monarchists, who had agents throughout perturbed districts, by denouncing the Republic and excusing mob violence.
Yet how stood the case? Was it I who organised a campaign of panic? Was it I who was responsible for the original explosion and strike? Was it I who brought about the state of things which resulted in general disturbance and might have tended towards another coup d’état? Nothing of the sort. I was suddenly called upon to deal
with unexpected troubles. I acted for the maintenance of the Republic and kept the peace under the law.
Another test of his resolve was the strike of the electric engineers and workers of Paris.
SCENE: CABINET OF THE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR
The Minister, M. Clemenceau, is at work at his desk, dictating to his secretary and everything is going nicely. Suddenly the lights go out and darkness falls. Candles are obtained and oil looked for. The consequences of this lightning strike is brought home to the Minister as he sits with his wax tapers and old-world lamps glimmering around him. Dangers of every kind are lurking on the streets in the black night. The electric workers are on strike and he is to surrender and admit the rights of the few to blackmail the needs of the many. That is exactly how he perceives it.
Immediate action is necessary. Light is a necessity for security and for life. He calls on the State engineers under military control to light up Paris. It is done.
But here is the socialist Jean Jaurés and leader of the French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO), his companion-in-arms in the Dreyfus Affair, asking of him: “What are you doing, M. Clemenceau? You are outraging all your principles. You are interfering with the liberty to strike, which you say is sacred. If you were true to yourself you would convert the electrical supply of Paris now in the hands of the monopolists into a public service and give strikers every satisfaction.”
Clemenceau replies: “This was a bitter fight between two irreconcilable antagonists against inoffensive people. The people of Paris for whom I am concerned had nothing to do with the matter. I knew nothing about the decision to strike until my own work was made impossible. There was a matter of public safety, the threat of the Metro by immersion by water, due to the suspension of electrical pumps and lifts. Lives could have been lost in the flooding unless the sappers and the firemen came to the rescue. I decided in favour of the people against the strike of the electrical engineers for more wages.”
Clemenceau’s image as a strong and practical Radical leader, who was nevertheless sensitive to the rights and conditions of the working class, considerably diminished the popularity of the socialists.
THE POLICE
One of Clemenceau’s main objectives for many years was to reform and improve the police force which was a complex legacy of a number of regimes from the revolution through royalist, imperial and republican regimes. The practice of hiring noncommissioned officers from the army, who qualified after five years’ service, brought a rough, drunken and lazy element into a force which was already riddled with corruption.
Dr Edmond Locard, pioneer in forensic science, gave a damning assessment of this practice:
Nothing is more harmful for the police than its obligation to hire non-commissioned officers. I accept that the army is a school of honour and courage. But it is not a school for police, and these officers bring three inutilisable virtues, of insolence, habits of revelry and laziness into their new careers. I do not conclude that the fact of having been a non-commissioned officer should prevent them from becoming policemen. I only believe that it is not sufficient reason by itself to oblige the police service to annually absorb a certain amount of men who become an encumbrance.
The Third Republic was the first political regime in France in which the organisation, errors, abuses and achievements of the police became the object of Parliamentary debate and an electoral issue. Police were forced to adapt their working methods, especially with the introduction of telegraph, telephone and eventually the car. It was an era that saw the rise in popularity of the detective story and the notion of the sleuth.
There were several police forces, all of which were complicated by a Kafkaesque administrative structure and the rivalries that existed between the different types of police organisation.
First, the uniformed police who were concerned with maintenance of order in its broadest sense. It was to these that the governments of the Third Republic paid most attention, especially in Paris. Their responsibility was to keep order on the streets.
Secondly, the judiciary or criminal police (police judiciaire) who concentrated on the repression of crime and the tracking down and arrest of criminals.
Finally, the political police concerned with the surveillance of public opinion and political movements. Their role was to make forecasts as an aid to government decision-making.
There was also a fourth part if the gendarmerie, a military corps, dependent on the Ministry of the Army, is taken into the equation. It took on a policing role in towns of less than 5,000 inhabitants.
While in theory the other three forces depended on the Ministry of the Interior, their statutes, level of autonomy, jurisdiction, organisation, size, means and real power were each very different.
The Sûreté Générale in Paris dealt with the whole of France, except Paris and the Department of the Seine. As the government’s police arm its role was extensively political until 1907 and its budget came directly from the Ministry of the Interior. In addition, it had some rights over the municipal police as it took part in appointing the commissaires de police though it did not pay them. On the other hand, all the lower-ranking municipal police personnel were totally outside its jurisdiction, which was why the Sûreté was called ‘a state without troops’.
Paris and the Department of the Seine came under the Préfecture de Police in Paris. Despite a law passed in 1884 which allocated the direction of their police to the municipal electorate and despite the claims of the Parisian municipal council, the Paris police, together with those of Lyons and later Marseilles, came under the Préfet de Police (Police Commissioner), a civil servant directly responsible to the Minister of the Interior. The Préfecture employed more police than all other forces put together and the budget greatly exceeded that of the Sûreté Générale.
No government, of which there were many under the Third Republic, would consider reducing such a resource. It was in Paris that revolutions and changes of regime took place. They all paid the greatest of attention to the Paris police and its chief was of greater importance than that of the Sûreté.
As for the municipal police, its status was complex and the administration of the Third Republic never succeeded in putting forward a clear view as to who was responsible for its powers – torn as it was between the tradition that these police powers should emanate from the local authority and Napoleonic ideas of centralisation. The fact was that the force was dependent on the Ministry of the Interior in some matters and on the local authority in others. The Ministry, and thus the Sûreté and the Préfets, were responsible for the appointment of the Commissaire de Police, an obligatory post in towns of over 5,000 inhabitants. The Ministry was also responsible for fixing the size of the force and that of the municipal budget in towns of over 40,000 inhabitants. The local authority was responsible for all the rest.
Towns of over 5,000 had their own police who theoretically came under the authority of a commissaire appointed by the Ministry but who were paid by the local authority. Apart from the commissaire, all other police appointments were made by the mayor who decided on their salary levels.
The system had several questionable consequences. Firstly conflict between the mayor and commissaires when the latter were seen to be too submissive to central government and thus too detached from local authority. The commissaires had great difficulty in getting local authority to obey them and in general they slid into the pocket of the mayor and his cronies if just to have an easy life. It required a great deal of tact and diplomacy if a commissaire was to keep both his masters happy.
The state of the municipal police was pretty awful. In most towns with a population of under 40,000, the mayor and municipal council decided how large a police force was necessary and to save money kept them as small as possible. The standards of men and resources were very poor. The criminal force was equally inefficient, because it was dependent on four different police authorities. This resulted in vast areas left at the mercy of gangs and criminals
who prospered and sowed terror throughout whole regions.
PRIME MINISTER
In October 1906, after six months as Minister of the Interior Clemenceau was called back from Carlsbad where he had gone to treat uncharacteristic gout in order to form his own Cabinet in place of that of Ferdinand Sarrien. There he assumed the post of Prime Minister while still keeping his former office. He would face even greater challenges and prove equal to them, as he had done during his career to date.
Time had affected him little. He had still the same energetic and determined frame and aspect of the fighter that he’d had decades before. His head was now bald but his eyes looked out from under heavy white brows with the old fire, and his long white moustaches heightened the ‘tiger’ impression. Nothing, it seemed, had mellowed a man who by age should have been in slippers in front of a fire, reminiscing over his past glories and defeats. He was as alert as someone twenty years his junior, power still apparent in his every movement.
Despite the seriousness of his pursuits, he had an impish sense of humour. A tale he was fond of reciting was a passage from Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead. Minos, the appeal judge of the Underworld, where people pass after death, is confronted by Sostratus a notorious pirate, who is brought before him for punishment.
Clemenceau delivered every line, word for word:
Sostratus:
A word with you, Minos. See if there is not some justice in my plea.
Minos:
What, more pleadings? Have you not been convicted of villainy and murder without end?
Sostratus:
I have. Yet consider whether my sentence is just.
Minos:
Is it just that you should have your deserts? If so, the sentence is just.
Murder in Monte Carlo Page 8
