policy. The food restrictions, however, remained (especially in the large towns) very largely a dead letter. From this point of view Great Britain was far ahead of France. Nevertheless, life was made irksome in more than one direction, and with events going far from well at the front; with great raiding activity on the part of the German air squadron; and with the opening of the bombardment of Paris on March 23 by a gun situated over 70 m. distant from the capital, the French people, and the Parisian population in particular, had many reasons for despondency.
The alert courage and tireless energy of Clemenceau through- out those dark months acted as a tonic both on the army at the front, where he was known as Pere la Victoire, and upon the civilian populations in the rear. Clemenceau was constant in his visits to the trenches, whence he always returned with a fresh store of serene confidence. The appointment of Gen. Foch to be chief of the western front was also bracing in its effects. Through- out the summer the Government was called upon to deal with some firmness with the growing section of extremists in the Socialist and Syndicalist parties, which, with every fresh reverse in the field, redoubled their opposition to Clemenceau. By the first week of June the question of the defence of Paris had again been considered, and some preliminary work had been done in preparing plans for evacuation. By June 25 the department of the Seine was declared to be within the army zone. Confidence in the army was however markedly greater than it had been when Paris was imperilled in 1914. It received a striking justification when the great French counter-offensive broke mid- July.
The Armistice. From that day to the signature of Armistice on Nov. ii 1918 the political history of France was written by the triumphant armies sweeping the Germans out of the country. The population had been prepared for victory, and in Paris had seen for some weeks tangible signs of the discomfiture of the Germans, in the masses of captured cannon which filled the Place de la Concorde and lined the Champs Elysees up to the Arc de Triomphe. When it was announced, on the morning of Nov. n, that the Armistice had been signed, the whole country gave itself up to rejoicing, while Allied leaders continued the preliminary discussions with regard to the meeting of the Peace Conference. The month of Nov. was filled with scenes of triumph in the liber- ated regions and in the recovered provinces of France, where the inhabitants gave to the returning French troops a welcome which had not grown any the less cordial for keeping. The King of the Belgians and King George both paid official visits to Paris. King George, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert, arrived in Paris on Nov. 28 for a visit of two days. Great cordiality was the tone of the official speeches, and of the public reception given to the British sovereign.
Peace Conference. Opposition to Clemenceau, which he had with ruthless methods kept under in defeat, dared not show itself while the German armies were being swept beyond the frontier. When the Armistice was signed, however, it again became apparent in Radical-Socialist and Socialist quarters, and even among Radicals of a less extreme character, who felt that, while Clemenceau might be an excellent man for the waging of war, he was not likely to prove a satisfactory negotiator of a peace by which the whole future of the world would be settled. Such was the overwhelming popularity of Clemenceau, however, that this reaction against his almost dictatorial power made but a faint ripple on the political surface. With his customary sturdy self-confidence, Clemenceau never for an instant contemplated leaving the making of peace to other hands than those which had forged the victory. He refused to accept a general debate upon foreign policy, and turned a deaf ear to all parliamentary criticism of his qualities as a peacemaker. The opposition brought matters to a division on Dec. 17, but could only muster 1 70 votes. A frontal attack upon the Ministry was again begun on Dec. 26, when some of the motives animating the opposition were clearly expressed. A great number of parliamentarians felt indeed that it would be unwise to permit a one-man Government such as that of Clemenceau to negotiate peace. By private intrigue, and in the public press, Clemenceau was urged to go back to the cabinet system which prevailed throughout the war until
his arrival in power, and, if not to form a coalition Ministry, at least to include among the French delegates to the Peace Con- ference some of the political leaders of the country, such as Briand, who were not in his Ministry. The debate ended on Dec. 20, when Clemenceau and Pichon outlined the attitude the French Government would adopt towards questions of peace. During its course the Government was invited by the Socialists Marcel Cachin and Albert Thomas, and by the Radical-Socialist Frank- lin-Bouillon, to declare its policy with regard to nearly every world problem, including the League of Nations, the frontiers of Alsace-Lorraine, the future of the Saar, the resumption of rela- tions with the Vatican, the left bank of the Rhine, the Middle and Near Eastern questions, Africa, and Russia. Clemenceau frankly stated that although the old political system of the world appeared to be discredited, he still remained faithful to it. He pointed out that, had that old system been developed, had the United States, Great Britain, France and Italy, before the war declared that whoever attacked one of them would have to expect the other three to join in the task of common defence, there would have been no war. It would be his aim, he said, to preserve during the. Peace Conference the alliance of those four Great Powers, and he would make every sacrifice to maintain that entente. He declined to be drawn into any further and more detailed explanation of the policy he would pursue at the Con- ference, pointing out that, although he desired to obtain satis- faction for every just claim of France, there might be some which would have to be sacrificed in the interests of humanity in general, and that he did not want to arouse hopes which might be doomed to disappointment. He declined on political grounds to discuss the arguments which he intended to use in negotiation with the other Allied statesmen. The division figures gave the Ministry a vote of confidence by 398 to 93, a demonstration of parliamentary support almost as striking as that of the public support given to Mr. Lloyd George by the general elections on the eve of peace.
The French opposition, during this skirmish, made much of President Wilson's presence in Europe. He arrived in Paris on Dec. 14. In France his various messages, his notes to Germany and to the Allies, had been read by large masses of the people as heralding the dawn of a new era. They appealed by their very ambiguity of phraseology to the latent idealism of the Latin mind. This somewhat ignorant and crude emotion was fostered by the authorities through the press, which for weeks before his de- parture from America was busy fanning enthusiasm for the great American who was to put into effect the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. Other sections of the community were led by motives of quite another nature to acclaim President Wilson as the great leader of civilization. While the official press was loud in praises, for reasons of courtesy no doubt, but mainly for reasons of policy, the extremists endeavoured to make the most of Wilson, to wrest him, as it were, from the arms of Clemenceau and his supporters. They did their utmost to exploit the difference of character and of outlook which without doubt existed between Clemenceau and the President. Both these forces, together with the undoubted enthusiasm aroused by America's participation in the war, led to Wilson being given a reception in France such as had never before welcomed a foreign chief of state. Clemenceau's attitude towards the League of Nations, to take but one point of difference between the two men, was that he was quite pre- pared to study the idea, and even to give it a trial, but that until that safeguard of international peace had proved its efficiency he could sacrifice nothing which helped in any way to build up the security of France against aggression.
The opposition to Clemenceau also sought to make capital for internal political purposes out of differences of opinion between the British and French Governments as to the policy to be pur- sued towards Russia. Under the influence of Marcel Cachin and Moutet, two Socialist deputies who had visited Russia after the revolution, the Socialist party was steadily tending towards support of Bolshevist principles, and bitterly resented Clemen- ceau's refusal to accept Russian revolutionaries as his political gods. In spite of the overwhelming size of the Government majority at the end of the debate on Dec. 29 1918, his opponents,
