French Third Republic
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/* The Opportunist Republicans */
{{Infobox Former Country
|native_name = <span lang="fr">''République Française''</span> <br> ''France''
|conventional_long_name = French Republic <br> France
|common_name = France
|ag
|continent = Europe
|region =
<|country = France
|era =
|status_text=
|empire =
|government_type = Republic
|
|event_start =
|year_start = 1870
|date_start = September 4|event_end =
|year_end = 1940
|date_end = June 22
|
|event1 =
|date_event1 =
|event2 =
|date_event2 =
|event3 =
|date_event3 =
|
|p1 = Second French Empire
|flag_p1 = Flag of France.svg
|s1 = Military Administration in Belgium and North France
|flag_s1 = Flag of Germany 1933.svg
|s2 = Vichy France
|flag_s2 = Flag of France.svg
|s3 = Free France
|flag_s3 = Flag of Free France 1940-1944.svg
|
|flag =
|flag_type =
|image_flag = Flag of France.svg
|symbol =
|symbol_type =
|image_coat = Francecoatofarms1898-2.png
|image_map = French third republic, second version.PNG
|image_map_caption = The French Third Republic, pre-[[World War I]]
|capital = Paris
|national_motto = <span lang="fr">[[Liberté, égalité, fraternité]]</span> (Liberty, equality, brotherhood)
|national_anthem = <span lang="fr">[[La Marseillaise]]</span>
|common_languages = [[French language|French]]
|religion = [[Roman Catholicism]], [[protestantism]] and [[judaism]] official religions (until 1905),
None (from 1905 until 1940)
([[1905 French law on the separation of Church and State|Law on the separation of Church and State]] of 1905)
|currency = [[French Franc]]
|
| <!--- Titles and names of the first and last leaders and their deputies --->
|leader1 = <span lang="fr">[[Adolphe Thiers]]</span>
|year_leader1 = 1871 - 1873
|leader2 = <span lang="fr">[[Albert Lebrun]]</span>
|year_leader2 = 1932 - 1940
|title_leader = [[President of France|President]]
|legislature = French Parliament
|house1=[[Senate of France|Senate]]
|house2=[[Chamber of Deputies of France|Chamber of Deputies]]
|
| <!--- Area and population of a given year --->
|stat_year1 =
|stat_area1 =
|stat_pop1 = 35565800
|stat_year2 =
|stat_pop2 =
|political_subdiv=
|footnotes =
}}
The '''French Third Republic''' (in [[French language|French]], <span lang="fr">''La Troisième République''</span>, sometimes written as <span lang="fr">''La III<sup>e</sup> République''</span>) ([[1870]]-[[10 July]] [[1940]]) was the political regime of [[France]] between the [[Second French Empire]] and the [[Vichy France|Vichy Regime]]. It was a republican parliamentary democracy that was created on [[4 September]] [[1870]] following the collapse of the Empire of [[Napoleon III of France|Napoleon III]] in the [[Franco-Prussian War]]. It survived until the [[Battle of France|invasion of France]] by the [[Germany|German]] [[Nazi Germany|Third Reich]] in 1940. <span lang="fr">[[Adolphe Thiers]]</span> recognized as <span lang="fr">"le Libérateur du Territoire"</span>, and who rallied himself to the [[Republicanism|Republic]] in the 1870s, called republicanism in the 1870s "the form of government that divides [[France]] least." France might have agreed about being a republic, but it never fully agreed with the Third Republic. France's longest lasting régime since before the 1789 [[French Revolution]], the Third Republic was consigned to the history books, as unloved at the end as it had been when first created seventy years earlier. But its longevity showed that it was capable of weathering many a storm.
== Background ==
In 1852, [[Napoleon III]] abolished the [[Second French Republic]] to become the second [[List of French monarchs|Emperor of the French]], following the earlier example of his uncle [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon I]]. However, the [[Second French Empire]] lasted only eighteen years because of the emergence of the [[German Empire]], which quickly grew to dominate continental affairs after defeating the French in the [[Franco-Prussian War]].
Prime Minister <span lang="de">[[Otto von Bismarck]]</span> of [[Prussia]], who sought to bring his state to ascendancy in Germany, realized that if a unified German state was to be created, some unifying force was needed to bring this about - a nationalist war with France seemed the perfect force to bring the other German states into line with Prussia. A resulting German defeat of France would firmly establish the new Germany on the world stage within secure borders. Through clever manipulation of the [[Ems Dispatch]], <span lang="de">Bismarck</span> and French public opinion goaded France into declaring war on Prussia, beginning the [[Franco-Prussian War]]. After Napoleon's capture by the Prussians at <span lang="fr">[[Battle of Sedan|Sedan]]</span>, Parisian Deputies established the [[Government of National Defence]], governed in Paris by the President, General <span lang="fr">Louis Jules Trochu</span>, and in the provinces by the Minister of the Interior, <span lang="fr">[[Léon Gambetta]]</span>. After the French surrender in January 1871, the Government of National Defence disbanded and returned power to the National Assembly based at <span lang="fr">[[Versailles]]</span>. The new government under <span lang="fr">[[Adolphe Thiers]]</span> was overshadowed by the settlement of peace terms with Prussia and the subsequent revolution in Paris known as the [[Paris Commune]], which maintained a radical regime for two months until its bloody suppression by <span lang="fr">Thiers</span>' government in May 1871. The following repression of the <span lang="fr">''[[communards]]''</span> would have disastrous consequences on the [[labor movement]].
== Prospects of a Parliamentary Monarchy ==
{{Governments_of_France}}
In the aftermath of the collapse of the regime of Napoleon III, the clear majority of French people and the overwhelming majority of the French National Assembly wished to return to a [[constitutional monarchy]]. There were two competing claimants to the throne, each supported by political groups. The [[Legitimists]] supported the heirs to <span lang="fr">[[Charles X of France|Charles X]]</span>, recognising as king his grandson, <span lang="fr">[[Henri, Comte de Chambord]]</span>, alias <span lang="fr">''Henry V''</span>. The [[Orléanist]]s supported the heirs to <span lang="fr">[[Louis-Philippe of France|Louis Philippe]]</span>, recognising as king his grandson, <span lang="fr">[[Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris]]</span>. However the two groups came to a compromise, whereby the childless <span lang="fr">Comte de Chambord</span> would be recognised as king, with the <span lang="fr">Comte de Paris</span> recognised as his heir. Consequently in 1871, the throne was offered to the <span lang="fr">Comte de Chambord</span>. In 1830 <span lang="fr">Charles X</span> had abdicated in favour of <span lang="fr">Chambord</span>, then a child (his father having died already), and <span lang="fr">Louis-Philippe</span> had been recognised as king instead.
In 1871 <span lang="fr">Chambord</span> had no wish to be a ''constitutional'' monarch, but a semi-absolutist one like his grandfather <span lang="fr">Charles X</span>, or like the contemporary rulers of Prussia/Germany. Moreover, he refused to reign over a state that used the <span lang="fr">[[Flag of France|Tricouleur]]</span> that was associated with the Revolution of 1789 and the [[July Monarchy]] of the man who seized the throne from him in 1830, the citizen-king, <span lang="fr">[[Louis-Philippe of France|Louis Philippe]]</span>, ''King of the French''. This became the ultimate reason the restoration never occurred. As much as France wanted a restored monarchy, the nation was unwilling to abandon the popular <span lang="fr">''Tricouleur''</span>. Instead a "temporary" republic was established, to await the death of the elderly, childless <span lang="fr">Chambord</span>, when the throne could be offered to his more liberal heir, the <span lang="fr">[[Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris|Comte de Paris]]</span>. However, <span lang="fr">Chambord </span> lived until 1883, by which time enthusiasm for a monarchy had faded.
[[Image:Sonnet Nouvelle carte complete illustree 06301312.jpg|thumb|right|300px|A map of France under the Third Republic, featuring colonies.]]
== The <span lang="fr">''Ordre Moral''</span> Government ==
In February 1875, a series of parliamentary Acts established the organic or constitutional laws of the new republic. At its apex was a ''President of the Republic''. A two-chamber parliament was created, along with a ministry under the "President of the Council", who was nominally answerable to both the President of the Republic and parliament. Throughout the 1870s, the issue of monarchy versus republic dominated public debate.
On [[16 May]] [[1877]], with public opinion swinging heavily in favour of a republic, the President of the Republic, <span lang="fr">[[Patrice MacMahon, duc de Magenta]]</span>, himself a monarchist, made one last desperate attempt to salvage the monarchical cause by dismissing the republic-minded prime minister <span lang="fr">[[Jules Simon]]</span> and appointing the monarchist leader the <span lang="fr">[[Albert, duc de Broglie|Duc de Broglie]]</span> to office. He then dissolved parliament and called a general election (October 1877). If his hope had been to halt the move towards republicanism, it backfired spectacularly, with the President being accused of having staged a ''constitutional <span lang="fr">coup d'état</span>'', known as <span lang="fr">''le [[seize Mai]]''</span> after the date on which it happened.
Republicans returned triumphant, finally killing off the prospect of a restored French monarchy by gaining control of the Senate on 5 January 1879. <span lang="fr">MacMahon</span> himself resigned on [[30 January]] [[1879]], leaving a seriously weakened presidency in the shape of <span lang="fr">[[Jules Grévy]]</span>. Indeed it was not until <span lang="fr">[[Charles de Gaulle]]</span>, eighty years later, that a [[President of France]] next unilaterally dissolved parliament.
== The Opportunist Republicans ==
{{see|Opportunist Republicans}}
Following the [[May 16, 1877 crisis|16 May crisis]] in 1877, [[Legitimist]]s were pushed out of power, and the Republic was finally governed by republicans, called [[Opportunist Republicans]] as they were in favor of moderate changes in order to firmly establish the new regime. The [[Jules Ferry laws]] on free, mandatory and secular <span lang="fr">''[[laїcité|(laїque)]]''</span> [[public education]], voted in 1881 and 1882, were one of the first sign of this republican control of the Republic, as public education was not anymore in the exclusive control of the Catholic congregations.
<!-- ANECDOTICAL: To mark the final end of French monarchism as a serious political force, in 1885 the [[French Crown Jewels]] were broken up and sold. Only a few crowns, their precious gems replaced by coloured glass, were kept. -->
In 1889 the Republic was rocked by the sudden but short-timed <span lang="fr">[[Georges Boulanger|Boulanger]]</span> crisis, while the [[Dreyfus Affair]] was another important event, spawning the rise of the modern [[intellectual]] (<span lang="fr">[[Emile Zola]]</span>). Later, the [[Panama scandal]]s also were quickly criticized by the press.
In 1893, following [[anarchist]] <span lang="fr">[[Auguste Vaillant]]</span>'s bombing at the [[French National Assembly|National Assembly]], killing nobody but injuring one, deputies voted the <span lang="fr">''[[lois scélérates]]''</span> which limited the 1881 [[freedom of the press]] laws. The following year, president <span lang="fr">[[Marie François Sadi Carnot|Sadi Carnot]]</span> was stabbed to death by the Italian [[anarchist]] <span lang="it">[[Sante Geronimo Caserio]]</span>. Also in 1894, 30 alleged anarchists were judged during the [[Trial of the thirty]].
== The Radicals' Republic ==
{{History of France}}
The [[Radical-Socialist Party (France)|Radical-Socialist Party]], founded in 1901 (four years before the socialist <span lang="fr">[[SFIO]]</span> which unified the various socialist currents), remained the most important party of the Third Republic starting at the end of the 19th century. The same year, followers of <span lang="fr">[[Léon Gambetta]]</span>, such as <span lang="fr">[[Raymond Poincaré]]</span>, who would become President of the Council in the 1920s, created the [[Democratic Republican Alliance]] (ARD), which became the main center-right party after World War I and the parliamentary disappearance of monarchists and [[Bonapartist]]s.
Governments during the Third Republic collapsed with regularity, rarely lasting more than a couple of months, as radicals, socialists, liberals, conservatives, republicans and monarchists all fought for control. However others argue that the collapse of governments were a minor side effect of the Republic lacking strong political parties, resulting in coalitions of many parties that routinely lost and gained a few allies. Consequently the change of governments could be seen as little more than a series of ministerial reshuffles, with many individuals carrying forward from one government to the next, often in the same posts.
In 1905 the government introduced the [[1905 French law on the separation of Church and State|law on the separation of Church and State]], heavily supported by <span lang="fr">[[Emile Combes]]</span>, who had been strictly enforcing the 1901 [[voluntary association]] law and the 1904 law on religious congregations' freedom of teaching (more than 2,500 private teaching establishments were by then closed by the state, causing bitter opposition from the Catholic and conservative population).
==Political and Military Scandals of the 1890s==
There were two major [[political scandals in France|scandals]] that rocked the Third Republic during the 1890s. One scandal entailed the [[Panama scandals]] in 1892. Due to widespread corruption, the company designated to spearhead the massive project went bankrupt. Approximately 300 million dollars were lost in the financial fiasco {{Fact|date=February 2007}}. Adjusted for inflation, that loss would have amounted to around six billion dollars by today's account {{Fact|date=February 2007}}. The role of French politicians in the scandal severely undermined the ability of the French government to regulate the enormous power of the [[bourgeoisie]].
The [[Dreyfus Affair]] was another, famous scandal, which involved the [[French military]]. In 1894, a Jewish artillery officer, [[Alfred Dreyfus]], was arrested on charges relating to conspiracy and espionage. Allegedly, Dreyfus had handed over important military documents discussing the designs of a new French artillery piece to a German military attaché named Max von Schwartzkoppen. In 1898, writer [[Emile Zola]] published an article entitled ''J'Accuse. ..!'' (I accuse. ..!). The article alleged an anti-Semitic conspiracy in the highest ranks of the military to scapegoat Dreyfus, tacitly supported by the government and the Catholic Church. By 1906 however, it became apparent that the documents handed over to Schwartzkoppen were a forgery and thus Dreyfus was pardoned after serving twelve years behind bars.
== France and the First World War ==
One of the reasons for France's entrance in World War I was, in patriotic circles and in most of the political class, to avenge its defeat during the [[Franco-Prussian War]] in 1871 (''<span lang="fr">revanchisme''</span>). <span lang="fr">[[Paul Déroulède]]</span>'s anti-semitic <span lang="fr">''[[Ligue des patriotes]]''</span> (Patriots League), created in 1882, advocated for example this revenge. This nationalism was also one of the cause of the low popularity of the "[[Second European colonization wave (19th century–20th century)|colonial lobby]]," gathering a few politicians, businessmen and geographers favorable to colonialism, until 1918. Thus, <span lang="fr">[[Georges Clemenceau]]</span> ([[Radical Party (France)|Radical]]), declared that [[French colonial empire|colonialism]] diverted France from the "blue line of the <span lang="fr">[[Vosges]]</span>", referring to the disputed <span lang="fr">[[Alsace-Lorraine]]</span> region. Others opponents of the colonialist lobby included socialist leader <span lang="fr">[[Jean Jaurès]]</span> or the nationalist writer <span lang="fr">[[Maurice Barrès]]</span>, while supporters included <span lang="fr">[[Jules Ferry]]</span> (moderate [[republicanism|republican]]), <span lang="fr">[[Léon Gambetta]]</span> (republican), and <span lang="fr">[[Eugène Etienne]]</span>, the president of the parliamentary colonial group.
Another reason pertaining to France's entrance into the [[First World War]] entails its strategic military alliance with the [[Russian Empire]] in the East. This alliance was secured in 1894 after diplomatic talks between Germany and Russia had failed to produce any working agreement. French foreign minister <span lang="fr">[[Théophile Delcassé]]</span> negotiated with [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne|Lord Lansdowne]], the [[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs|British Foreign Secretary]], the <span lang="fr">[[Entente Cordiale]]</span> in 1904. These entangling alliances not only tied France to various unwanted foreign crises but also made Germany feel increasingly encircled.
After <span lang="fr">[[SFIO]]</span> and [[pacifism|pacifist]] leader <span lang="fr">[[Jean Jaurès]]</span>'s assassination a few days before the German invasion of Belgium, beginning France's participation in [[World War I]], the French socialist movement, as the whole of the [[Second International]], abandoned its [[antimilitarist]] positions and joined the national war effort. <span lang="fr">[[Georges Clemenceau]]</span>, nicknamed "the Tiger", would lead the government during the war, obtaining the [[Socialist Party (France)|SFIO]] socialist party's support in the <span lang="fr">''[[Union sacrée]]''</span> (Sacred Union). As in other countries, [[state of emergency]] was proclaimed and [[censorship in France|censorship]] imposed, leading to the creation in 1915 of the <span lang="fr">''[[Canard enchaîné]]''</span> satirical newspaper to bypass the censorship. Furthermore,a [[war economy]] began to be implemented. This war economy would have important consequences after the war, as it would be a first breach against [[classical liberalism|liberal]] theories of non-interventionism.
After the outbreak of the war in August 1914, France enjoyed relatively little success. In order to uplift the French national spirit, many [[intellectuals]] began to fashion numerous pieces of wartime [[propaganda]]. The <span lang="fr">''[[Union sacrée]]''</span>, or "Sacred Union", sought to draw the French people closer to the actual front and thus garner social, political, and economic support for the French Armed Forces. Unfortunately, the Sacred Union had all but disappeared by 1917 as the French Army was dealt a series of catastrophic blows when its offensives were cut down by German machine gun barrages. These successive defeats gave rise after the [[Second Battle of the Aisne]] to [[French Army Mutinies (1917)|mutinies along the Front]]. According to French historian Leonard V. Smith, as many as thirty-thousand French soldiers engaged in mutinous activities during 1917 alone.<ref>Leonard V. Smith et al., ''France and the Great War 1914-1918'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 122.</ref> Still, the French government, led by <span lang="fr">Clemenceau</span>, insisted on victory at all costs and therefore the French persisted in their efforts to defeat the Germans.
== The Downfall of the Third Republic ==
Throughout its seventy-year history, the Third Republic stumbled from crisis to crisis, from dissolved parliaments to the appointment of a mentally ill [[president]]. It struggled through [[World War I]] against the [[German Empire]] and the inter-war years saw much political strife with a growing rift between the right and the left. The Third Republic officially ended on [[July 10]], [[1940]] when the parliament gave full powers to <span lang="fr">[[Philippe Pétain]]</span>, who proclaimed the following days the [[Vichy France|regime of Vichy]] ("the French state"), which replaced the Republic.
The second idea regarding the collapse of the Third Republic involves the poor [[military]] planning on behalf of the French [[High Command]]. According to French historian <span lang="fr">Julian Jackson</span>, the [[Dyle Plan]] conceived by French General <span lang="fr">[[Maurice Gamelin]]</span> was destined for [[failure]] since it drastically miscalculated the ensuing attack by [[Nazi Germany|German]] [[Army Group B]] into central [[Belgium]].<ref><span lang="fr">Julian Jackson</span>, ''The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 38.</ref> The Dyle Plan embodied the primary [[war]] [[plan]] of the [[French Army]] to stave off German Army Groups A, B, and C with their much revered <span lang="de">[[Panzer]]</span> divisions in Belgium. However, given the over-stretched positions of the French 1st, 7th, and 9th armies in Belgium at the [[time]] of the [[invasion]], the Germans simply outflanked the French by coming through the <span lang="fr">[[Ardennes]]</span>.<ref>Julian Jackson, ''The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 40.</ref> As a result of this poor military [[strategy]], France was forced to come to terms with [[Nazi Germany]] in an [[Armistice with France (Second Compiègne)|armistice]] signed on [[June 22]], [[1940]] in the same railway carriage where the Germans had signed the armistice ending the [[First World War]] back in November 1918.<ref>Julian Jackson, ''The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 181.</ref>
When France was finally liberated after the [[D-Day]] invasion of June 1944, few called for a restoration of the Third Republic, and a Constituent Assembly was established in 1946 to draft a [[Constitution of France|constitution]] for a successor, established as the [[French Fourth Republic|Fourth Republic]] that December. The Fourth Republic would last only twelve years as 1958 saw the drafting of a Fifth French Constitution and thus the beginning of the [[French Fifth Republic]], which has subsequently survived to this day.
== Synthesizing the Meaning of the Third Republic ==
<span lang="fr">[[Adolphe Thiers]]</span>, first president of the Third Republic, called [[republicanism]] in the 1870s "the form of government that divides [[France]] least."<ref>James McMillan, ''Modern France: 1880-2002'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 11.</ref> France might have agreed about being a republic, but it never fully agreed with the Third Republic. France's longest lasting régime since before the 1789 [[French Revolution|Revolution]], the Third Republic was consigned to the history books as being unloved and unwanted in the end. And yet its longevity showed that it was capable of weathering many a storm.
One of the most surprising aspects of the Third Republic was that it constituted the first stable republican government in French history, and the first to win the support of the majority of the population, yet it was intended as an interim, temporary government. Following <span lang="fr">Thiers</span>' example, most of the [[Orleanist]] monarchists progressively rallied themselves to the Republican institutions, thus giving support of a large part of the elites to the Republican form of government. On the other hand, the [[Legitimist]]s continued to be harshly anti-Republicans, while <span lang="fr">[[Charles Maurras]]</span> founded the <span lang="fr">[[Action française]]</span> in 1898, a monarchist far-right movement which would be very influential in the <span lang="fr">[[Quartier Latin]]</span> in the 1930s. It would also be one of the model of the various [[far right leagues]], which participated to the [[February 6, 1934 riots]] which succeeded in toppling the Second <span lang="fr">[[Cartel des gauches]]</span> government.
The Third Republic failed, but it did not fail as a result of its liberal democratic institutions. It failed precisely because it was not ready to fight the Nazi war machine — historian <span lang="fr">[[Marc Bloch]]</span> wrote a famous book about this, titled ''The Strange Defeat''.<ref> <span lang="fr">[[Marc Bloch]]</span>, ''Strange Defeat; a Statement of Evidence Written in 1940'' (London: Oxford University Press, 1949) </ref>
== Historiography ==
A major historiographical debate about the latter years of the Third Republic concerns the concept of <span lang="fr">''La décadence''</span> (the [[decadence]]). Proponents of the concept have argued that the French defeat of 1940 was caused by what they regard as the innate decadence and moral rot of France.<ref>Jackson, Peter "Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War" pages 870-905 from ''History Compass'', Volume 4/5, 2006 pages 871-872</ref> The notion of <span lang="fr">''la décadence''</span> as an explanation for the defeat began almost as soon as the armistice was signed in June 1940. Marshal <span lang="fr">[[Philippe Pétain]]</span> stated in a radio broadcast that "The regime led the country to ruin" and in another that "Our defeat is punishment for our moral failures", and claimed that France had "rotted" under the Third Republic.<ref>Jackson, Peter "Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War" pages 870-905 from History Compass, Volume 4/5, 2006 page 874</ref> In 1942, several of the former leaders of the Third Republic were brought to trial for declaring war on Germany in 1939 and not doing enough to prepare France for war.<ref>Jackson, Peter "Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War" pages 870-905 from History Compass, Volume 4/5, 2006 page 874</ref> <span lang="fr">[[Marc Bloch]]</span> in his book ''Strange Defeat'' that the French upper classes had ceased to believe in the greatness of France following the Popular Front victory of 1936, and so had allowed themselves to fall under the spell of fascism and defeatism.<ref>Jackson, Peter "Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War" pages 870-905 from ''History Compass'', Volume 4/5, 2006 page 873</ref> The French journalist <span lang="fr">André Geraud</span>, who wrote under the pen name <span lang="fr">Pertinax</span> in his 1943 book, ''The Gravediggeres of France'' indicted the pre-war leadership for what he regarded as total incompetence.<ref>Jackson, Peter "Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War" pages 870-905 from History Compass, Volume 4/5, 2006 page 873</ref>
After 1945, the <span lang="fr">''la décadence''</span> concept was widely embraced by different French political fractions as a way of discrediting their rivals. The [[French Communist Party]] blamed the defeat on the "corrupt" and "decadent" capitalist Third Republic, while from a different perspective, Gaullists damned the Third Republic as a "weak" regime.<ref>Jackson, Peter "Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War" pages 870-905 from ''History Compass'', Volume 4/5, 2006 page 875</ref> A group of French historians centered Pierre <span lang="fr">Renouvin</span> and his proteges <span lang="fr">Jean-Baptiste Duroselle</span> and <span lang="fr">Maurice Baumont</span> started a new type of international history that included taking into what <span lang="fr">Renouvin</span> called <span lang="fr">''forces profondes''</span> (profound forces) such as the influence of domestic politics on foreign policy.<ref>Jackson, Peter "Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War" pages 870-905 from ''History Compass'', Volume 4/5, 2006 page 877</ref> However, <span lang="fr">Renouvin</span> and his followers still followed the <span lang="fr">''la décadence''</span> concept with <span lang="fr">Renouvin</span> arguing that French society under the Third Republic was “sorely lacking in initiative and dynamism” and Baumont arguing that French politicians had allowed "personal interests" to override "any sense of the general interest".<ref>Jackson, Peter "Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War" pages 870-905 from ''History Compass'', Volume 4/5, 2006 page 878</ref> In 1979, <span lang="fr">Duroselle</span> published a well-known book entitled <span lang="fr">''La décadence''</span> that offered a total condemnation of the entire Third Republic as weak, cowardly and degenerate.<ref>Jackson, Peter “Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War’ pages 870-905 from ''History Compass'', Volume 4/5, 2006 page 884</ref> Even more so then in France, the <span lang="fr">''la décadence''</span> concept was accepted in the English-speaking world, where British historians such [[A. J. P. Taylor]] often described the Third Republic as a tottering regime on the verge of collapse.<ref>, Peter “Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War’ pages 870-905 from ''History Compass'', Volume 4/5, 2006 page 876</ref> A notable example of the <span lang="fr">''la décadence''</span> thesis was [[William L. Shirer]]'s 1969 book ''The Collapse of the Third Republic'', where the French defeat is explained as the result of the moral weakness and cowardice of the French leaders.<ref>Jackson, Peter “Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War’ pages 870-905 from History Compass, Volume 4/5, 2006 page 876</ref> Modern historians who subscribe to the <span lang="fr">''la décadence''</span> argument include Talbot Imlay, Anthony Adamthwaite, Serge Berstein, Micahel Carely, Nicole Jordan, Igor Lukes, and Richard Crane.<ref>Jackson, Peter “Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War’ pages 870-905 from ''History Compass'', Volume 4/5, 2006 pages 885-886</ref>
The first historian to explicitly denounce the ''la décadence'' concept was the Canadian historian [[Robert J. Young]], who in his 1978 book ''In Command of France'' argued that French society was not decadent, that the defeat of 1940 was due to military factors, not moral failures, and that the Third Republic’s leaders had done their best.<ref>Jackson, Peter “Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War’ pages 870-905 from ''History Compass'', Volume 4/5, 2006 pages 874-880</ref> Young has been followed by other historians such as Robert Frankenstein, Jean-Pierre Azema, Jean-Louis Cremieux-Brihac, Martin Alexander, Eugenia Kiesling, and Martin Thomas who have argued that French weakness on the international stage was due to structural factors as the impact of the Great Depression had on French rearmament and had nothing to do with French leaders being too “decadent” to stand up to Nazi Germany.<ref>Jackson, Peter “Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War’ pages 870-905 from ''History Compass'', Volume 4/5, 2006 pages 880-883</ref>
== Timeline to 1914 ==
September 1870: following the collapse of the Empire of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War the Third Republic was created.
1871: The Paris Commune. In a formal sense the Paris Commune of 1871 was simply the local authority which exercised power in Paris for two months in the spring of 1871. It was separate from that of the new government under <span lang="fr">[[Adolphe Thiers]]</span>. The radical regime came to an end after a bloody suppression by <span lang="fr">Thiers</span>' government in May 1871.
1872-1873: After the immediate political problems had been faced, a permanent form of government needed to be established. <span lang="fr">Thiers</span> wanted to base it on the constitutional monarchy of Britain however he realised France would have to remain republican. Due to expressing this belief, he violated the Pact of <span lang="fr">Bordeaux</span> and thereby angered the Monarchists in the Assembly. As a result he was forced to resign in 1873.
1873: Marshal <span lang="fr">MacMahon</span>, a conservative Roman Catholic, was made President of the Republic. The <span lang="fr">Duc de Broglie</span>, an Orleanist, as the prime minister. Unintentionally, the Monarchists had replaced an absolute monarchy by a parliamentary one.
Feb 1875: Series of parliamentary Acts established the organic or constitutional laws of the new republic. At its apex was a President of the Republic. A two-chamber parliament was created, along with a ministry under the "President of the Council", who was nominally answerable to both the President of the Republic and Parliament.
May 1877: with public opinion swinging heavily in favour of a republic, the President of the Republic, <span lang="fr">Patrice MacMahon</span>, himself a monarchist, made one last desperate attempt to salvage the monarchical cause by dismissing the republic-minded Prime Minister <span lang="fr">Jules Simon</span> and reappointing the monarchist leader the <span lang="fr">Duc de Broglie</span> to office. He then dissolved parliament and called a general election. If his hope had been to halt the move towards republicanism, it backfired spectacularly, with the President being accused of having staged a constitutional <span lang="fr">coup d'état</span>, known as <span lang="fr">''le seize Mai''</span> after the date on which it happened.
1879: Republicans returned triumphant, finally killing off the prospect of a restored French monarchy by gaining control of the Senate on 5 January 1879. <span lang="fr">MacMahon</span> himself resigned on 30th January 1879, leaving a seriously weakened presidency in the shape of <span lang="fr">Jules Grévy</span>.
1880: The Jesuits and several other religious orders were dissolved, and their members were forbidden to teach in state schools.
1881: Following the 16 May crisis in 1877, Legitimists were pushed out of power, and the Republic was finally governed by republicans, called Opportunist Republicans as they were in favor of moderate changes in order to firmly establish the new regime. The <span lang="fr">Jules Ferry</span> laws on free, mandatory and secular public education, voted in 1881 and 1882, were one of the first sign of this republican control of the Republic, as public education was not anymore in the exclusive control of the Catholic congregations.
1882: Religious instruction was removed from all state schools. The measures were accompanied by the abolition of chaplains in the armed forces and the removal if nuns from hospitals. Due to the fact that France was mainly Roman Catholic, this was greatly opposed.
1889: The Republic was rocked by the sudden but short-timed <span lang="fr">Boulanger</span> crisis spawning the rise of the modern intellectual <span lang="fr">[[Emile Zola]]</span>. Later, the Panama scandals also were quickly criticized by the press.
1893: Following anarchist <span lang="fr">[[Auguste Vaillant]]</span>'s bombing at the National Assembly, killing nobody but injuring one, deputies voted the <span lang="fr">''lois scélérates''</span> which limited the [[Law on the Freedom of the Press of 29 July 1881|1881 freedom of the press laws]]. The following year, President <span lang="fr">[[Sadi Carnot]]</span> was stabbed to death by Italian anarchist <span lang="it">Caserio</span>.
1894: The <span lang="fr">Dreyfus</span> Affair. A Jewish artillery officer, <span lang="fr">[[Alfred Dreyfus]]</span>, was arrested on charges relating to conspiracy and espionage. Allegedly, <span lang="fr">Dreyfus</span> had handed over important military documents discussing the designs of a new French artillery piece to a German military attaché named <span lang="de">Max von Schwartzkoppen</span>.
A strategic military alliance with the Russian Empire. It was secured because Russia and Germany failed to come to a working agreement.
1898: Writer <span lang="fr">Émile Zola</span> published an article entitled <span lang="fr">''J'Accuse. ..''</span> The article alleged an anti-Semitic conspiracy in the highest ranks of the military to scapegoat <span lang="fr">Dreyfus</span>, tacitly supported by the government and the Catholic Church.
1901: The Radical-Socialist Party is founded and remained the most important party of the Third Republic starting at the end of the 19th century. The same year, followers of <span lang="fr">[[Léon Gambetta]]</span>, such as <span lang="fr">[[Raymond Poincaré]]</span>, who would become President of the Council in the 1920s, created the Democratic Republican Alliance (<span lang="fr">ARD</span>), which became the main center-right party after World War I and the parliamentary disappearance of monarchists and Bonapartists.
1904: French foreign minister <span lang="fr">[[Théophile Delcassé]]</span> negotiated with Lord Lansdowne, the British Foreign Secretary, the <span lang="fr">[[Entente Cordiale]]</span> in 1904.
1905: The government introduced the law on the separation of Church and State, heavily supported by <span lang="fr">Emile Combes</span>, who had been strictly enforcing the 1901 voluntary association law and the 1904 law on religious congregations' freedom of teaching (more than 2,500 private teaching establishments were by then closed by the state, causing bitter opposition from the Catholic and conservative population).
1906: It became apparent that the documents handed over to <span lang="de">Schwartzkoppen</span> by <span lang="fr">Dreyfus</span> in 1894 were a forgery and thus <span lang="fr">Dreyfus</span> was pardoned after serving twelve years behind bars.
1914: After SFIO (French Section of the Workers' International) leader <span lang="fr">[[Jean Jaurès]]</span>'s assassination a few days before the German invasion of Belgium, the French socialist movement, as the whole of the Second International, abandoned its antimilitarist positions and joined the national war effort. First World War begins
== Notes ==
{{reflist}}
== See also ==
* [[French Presidential elections under the Third Republic]]
* [[French First Republic]] (1792 - 1804)
* [[French Second Republic]] (1848 - 1852)
* [[French Fourth Republic]] (1946 - 1958)
* [[French Fifth Republic]] (1958 - )
* [[6 February 1934 crisis]]
* [[16 May 1877 crisis]]
* [[Dreyfus Affair]]
* [[France in Modern Times I (1792-1920)]]
* [[France in Modern Times II (1920-today)]]
* [[The Collapse of the Third Republic]] by William L. Shirer
[[Category:1870 establishments]]
[[Category:1940 disestablishments]]
[[Category:Contemporary French history|Republic 3]]
[[Category:Former countries in Europe|France, Republic 3]]
[[Category:French Third Republic| ]]
[[Category:20th century in France]]
[[Category:19th century in France]]
[[br:Trede Republik Bro-C'hall]]
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[[ca:Tercera República Francesa]]
[[cs:Třetí republika]]
[[da:Tredje Republik]]
[[de:Dritte Französische Republik]]
[[es:Tercera república francesa]]
[[eo:Tria Respubliko de Francio]]
[[fa:جمهوری سوم فرانسه]]
[[fr:Troisième République]]
[[os:Æртыккаг Республикæ]]
[[it:Terza Repubblica francese]]
[[he:הרפובליקה השלישית]]
[[la:Tertia Res Publica (Francia)]]
[[nl:Derde Franse Republiek]]
[[ja:フランス第三共和政]]
[[no:Den tredje franske republikk]]
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[[pl:III Republika Francuska]]
[[pt:Terceira República Francesa]]
[[ro:A Treia Republică Franceză]]
[[ru:Третья французская республика]]
[[fi:Ranskan kolmas tasavalta]]
[[sv:Tredje franska republiken]]
[[th:สาธารณรัฐฝรั่งเศสที่ 3]]
[[tr:Üçüncü Cumhuriyet (Fransa)]]
[[vec:Terzsa Republica franzsexe]]
[[zh:法兰西第三共和国]]