France were unaware that Poincaré's private papers existed; indeed, the more recent of the two claimed in 1984 that the French statesman had destroyed his papers. It remained for Poincaré's first English-language biographer, Keiger, whose work was published in 1997, to study and make use of these materials.
Raymond Poincaré, born in the town of Bar-le-Duc in western Lorraine on August 20, 1860, a person of formidable weight and solidity, grew to be the dominant public figure in the French politics of his time. On his father's side, he came from a family of professionals distinguished in the sciences and in education for more than a century. His mother's ancestors were judges and politicians. His cousin Henri became one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century.
Virtuous, cautious, abstemious, middle-of-the-road, and essentially nonpartisan, he nonetheless was driven by a fierce competitiveness: by an ambition to win all of life's contests. At the age of twenty he became the youngest barrister in France. At twenty-six he was elected the youngest member of parliament. At fifty-two, on January 17, 1913, he was the youngest person ever elected to be President, a seven-year position. He also was the first to be elected directly from the office of Prime Minister to that of President. As President, he was a dominating figure. By the summer of 1914, he had taken almost full control of French foreign policy. With regard to Germany, he stood in a typically middle position among the center-left forces, between his pro-German colleagueJoseph Caillaux and the lone wolf German-hatingGeorges Clemenceau. But an observer at the time might have discerned a tilt in favor of Berlin. On January 20, 1914, Poincaré dined at the German embassy—the first time a President of France had done so since 1870.
Keiger suggests that Poincaré's increased friendship with Germany was the product of confidence, stemming in part from the results of the FirstBalkan War, in which the Balkan forces, trained and armed by France, defeated the Ottoman armies, trained and armed by Germany. Moreover, Poincaré took up the cause of the French colonialist alliance, theComité de l'Orient, which sought control of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine should the Turkish empire collapse—an objective which might well pit France against its allies England and Russia.
Yet it transpired that as France set about rounding off its colonial designs, Britain, its traditional rival, offered not opposition, but support. And Germany, which once had encouraged France's imperial ambitions, now stood in the way. New alliances and alignments were in the process of formation. Change was in the air.
Germany, having once again alienated the other powers in the Panther episode, now took measures to defend against the hostility it had aroused. In the words ofDavid G. Herrmann, an authority on the pre-1914 arms race, "The most significant military consequence of the second Moroccan crisis remained the German decision to embark on an extraordinary program of land armament in the expectation of a future war. . . . The resulting German army law started an international spiral of land-armaments construction. The Germans regarded themselves as responding to a threat from all sides, but. . . they took the plunge in fall expectation that their rivals would react" in the same way, by a massive new arms buildup "and that war would only be a matter of time. In due course, the prophecy fulfilled itself."
As the Moroccan crisis drew to a close, another European power staked out a claim to parts of the Muslim world: Italy, the peninsula that stretches from central Europe to the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It had never been unified since the fall of Rome nearly 1,500 years before. Its more than 30 million people now were searching for a role in world affairs.
Italy was a geographical entity that had become a country only recently, in the war of 1859. It had acquired its capital city of Rome in
Raymond Poincaré, born in the town of Bar-le-Duc in western Lorraine on August 20, 1860, a person of formidable weight and solidity, grew to be the dominant public figure in the French politics of his time. On his father's side, he came from a family of professionals distinguished in the sciences and in education for more than a century. His mother's ancestors were judges and politicians. His cousin Henri became one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century.
Virtuous, cautious, abstemious, middle-of-the-road, and essentially nonpartisan, he nonetheless was driven by a fierce competitiveness: by an ambition to win all of life's contests. At the age of twenty he became the youngest barrister in France. At twenty-six he was elected the youngest member of parliament. At fifty-two, on January 17, 1913, he was the youngest person ever elected to be President, a seven-year position. He also was the first to be elected directly from the office of Prime Minister to that of President. As President, he was a dominating figure. By the summer of 1914, he had taken almost full control of French foreign policy. With regard to Germany, he stood in a typically middle position among the center-left forces, between his pro-German colleagueJoseph Caillaux and the lone wolf German-hatingGeorges Clemenceau. But an observer at the time might have discerned a tilt in favor of Berlin. On January 20, 1914, Poincaré dined at the German embassy—the first time a President of France had done so since 1870.
Keiger suggests that Poincaré's increased friendship with Germany was the product of confidence, stemming in part from the results of the FirstBalkan War, in which the Balkan forces, trained and armed by France, defeated the Ottoman armies, trained and armed by Germany. Moreover, Poincaré took up the cause of the French colonialist alliance, theComité de l'Orient, which sought control of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine should the Turkish empire collapse—an objective which might well pit France against its allies England and Russia.
Yet it transpired that as France set about rounding off its colonial designs, Britain, its traditional rival, offered not opposition, but support. And Germany, which once had encouraged France's imperial ambitions, now stood in the way. New alliances and alignments were in the process of formation. Change was in the air.
Germany, having once again alienated the other powers in the Panther episode, now took measures to defend against the hostility it had aroused. In the words ofDavid G. Herrmann, an authority on the pre-1914 arms race, "The most significant military consequence of the second Moroccan crisis remained the German decision to embark on an extraordinary program of land armament in the expectation of a future war. . . . The resulting German army law started an international spiral of land-armaments construction. The Germans regarded themselves as responding to a threat from all sides, but. . . they took the plunge in fall expectation that their rivals would react" in the same way, by a massive new arms buildup "and that war would only be a matter of time. In due course, the prophecy fulfilled itself."
As the Moroccan crisis drew to a close, another European power staked out a claim to parts of the Muslim world: Italy, the peninsula that stretches from central Europe to the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It had never been unified since the fall of Rome nearly 1,500 years before. Its more than 30 million people now were searching for a role in world affairs.
Italy was a geographical entity that had become a country only recently, in the war of 1859. It had acquired its capital city of Rome in
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