The Decline of the Third Republic

127 Pages·1959·3.673 MB·English

by  James Joll

ST ANTONY’S PAPERS • NUMBER 5
*
THE DECLINE OF THE
THIRD REPUBLIC
ST ANTONY’S PAPERS
★
NO. I SOVIET affairs: one
NO. 2 FAR EASTERN AFFAIRS.* ONE
NO. 3 THE ITALIAN LOCAL ELECTIONS 1956
NO. 4 MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS: ONE
ST ANTONY’S PAPERS • NUMBER 5
THE DECLINE
OF THE THIRD
REPUBLIC
EDITED BY
JAMES JOLL
1959
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C O N TEN TS
1 The Sixth of February
by MAX BELOFF page 9
2 The Making of the Popular Front
by jambs jo ll 36
3 The Rhineland Crisis of March 1936
by w. f. knapp 67
4 The Tiger’s Cub: the last years of Georges Mandel
by JOHN SHERWOOD 86

The main emphasis of the work at St. Antony’s College,
Oxford, since its foundation in 1950 has been in the fields
of modem history and international affairs. The College
organizes a number of regular Seminars at which are read
papers produced by its members in the course of their
research or by visiting experts from other institutions.
The College further sponsors the delivery of lectures in
Oxford by scholars of international reputation in their
respective fields.
An appreciable volume of contribution to scholarship
is thus being produced under the auspices of St. Antony’s,
and the present series has been started in order to pre­
serve and present a selection of this work. The series is
not, however, confined to this material alone and includes
contributions from other places.
Three numbers a year are issued and each number is
devoted to a particular topic or a particular part of the
world.
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J. P. Jeunesses Vatriotes M Ministry of Marine
C.F. Cnrix de Tew Q Ministry of Torejgn 'Affairs
ttkt Union Nationale des
Anciens Combattants S Station
AF. Artam française «I Volice barricade
THE SIXTH OF FEBRUARY
By Max Beloff
In an article dealing with the question of why so little historical
work has been done on the problems of the last two decades of the
Third Republic, M. René Rémond points out that no satisfactory book
has been written so far on the “Sixth of February’* and its consequences.1
The present essay is in no sense an attempt to fill this gap. It origi­
nated indeed in quite another way, in a seminar devoted to the
study of Revolutions and coups d'état that have been successful: but
what about the ones that did not come off? There might be something
to be gleaned from them too. But of course, if a Revolution or coup
d'état fails how can one know that it was ever seriously intended? In
this respect the Paris riots of 6 February 1934 provide a good example.
Even today, over twenty years later, the only thing people seem agreed
upon is that they were important. But this importance is looked for in
two directions. In the first place, there is the light thrown by the riots
on the immediately pre-war phase in the long French tradition of
anti-Parliamentary movements of the Bight. As a French historian has
written recently: “It is in the perspective of the street riots of the
1 René Rémond, “La Fin de la Troisième République”, Revue Française de
Science Politiquet vol. VII, no. 2 (1957). The main source for the riots themselves
is to be found in the reports of the Commission of Enquiry (including the
minutes of the evidence). This Commission was set up by the Chamber of
Deputies. Its Documents were published as Chambre de Députés: Rapport de la
Commission d*Enquête sur les Evénements du 6février 1934 (15th Legislature, Session
of 1934. Documents 3383-3393). The Commission’s findings were summarised
by its President, M. Laurent Bonnevay, in his book Les Journées sanglantes de
février 1934 (1935). The most useful account is still that written immediately
afterwards by Mr. Alexander Werth in his France in Ferment (London, 1934)»
(All books mentioned are published in Paris unless otherwise stated.) See also an
unpublished Thesis “Les Groupes Anti-Parlementaires Républicains de Droite
en France de 1933 à 1939” by H. Maizy, presented at the Institut des Sciences
Politiques in 1952. For assistance with documentation, I wish to thank two
French friends, M. Jacques Kayser and M. Mattei Dogan.
9
THE SIXTH OF FEBRUARY
Boulangist movement, of ‘Panama* and of the Dreyfus case, much
more than in that of the march on Rome or the Munich putsch that
one should undoubtedly place the ‘day’ of February 6, 1934.” 2 h1 the
second place, the riots are seen as one in a series of events which led to
the formation of the Popular Front, in reaction against the danger, real
or alleged, of the setting up of a Right wing dictatorship.
But were the riots themselves part of a deep-laid plot against the
Republic? Did the rioters have any clear intentions, or did a political
demonstration of a familiar kind get out of hand because of clumsiness
or worse on the part of the authorities? It is obvious that answers to
this question were coloured at the time, and later, by other events to
which those of the Sixth of February were regarded as having some
relation. It is pointed out that riots on a lesser scale on 22 July 1926
helped to bring about the failure of M. Herriot to get a majority for a
government just formed by him.8 But more important is the fact that
in the end France did finish up at Vichy with a non-Parliamentary
régime which seemed, both ideologically and in its composition, to
fulfil some of the desires attributed to the rioters of the Sixth of
February.
The most authoritative and vigorous exposition of this view is to be
found in the discussion of the penetration of authoritarian ideas into
France in the inter-war years in Léon Blum’s evidence before the post­
war Parliamentary Commission that inquired into the events leading
up to the fall of France in 1940, and into the conduct of the Vichy
régime.
“These same elements, conservative elements for whom the evils
of dictatorship counted for little by the side of the benefits of
national discipline, and elements of the Left, tempted by the idea
of a dictatorial authority applied to the revolution—one finds them
joined together and confused on the Sixth of February as at Vichy
and under the Vichy régime . . .
“There was a tendency immediately after the ‘day* of the Sixth
of February to make it at one and the same time ridiculous and
odious. It was presented as a sort of scuffle, minor but nevertheless
bloody, started off by hot-headed youths who had shed French
blood without any danger menacing French institutions.. . .
* Raoul Girardet, “Notes sur l’Esprit d*un Fascisme Française 1934-9**, Revue
Française de Science Politique (1955)
8 E. Beau de Loménie, Le Mort de la Troisième République (1951), pp. 26-7.
On the crisis of 1926, see E. Herriot, Jadis, vol. Il (1952), pp. 248-51
10