Everything about Raymond Poincar totally explained
Raymond Poincaré (
August 20,
1860 –
October 15,
1934) was a
French conservative statesman who served as
Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as
President of France from
1913 to
1920.
Early life
Born in
Bar-le-Duc,
Meuse,
France, the son of
Nicolas Antonin Hélène Poincaré, a distinguished civil servant and
meteorologist. Educated at the
University of Paris, Raymond was called to the Paris bar, and was for some time law editor of the
Voltaire.
As a lawyer, he successfully defended
Jules Verne in a libel suit presented against the famous author by the chemist
Eugène Turpin, inventor of the explosive
Melinite, who claimed that the "mad scientist" character in Verne's book "
Facing the Flag" was based on himself. (A letter which Verne later sent to his brother Paul seems to suggest that, though acquitted due to Poincaré's spirited defence, Verne did intend to defame Turpin.)
Early political career
Poincaré had served for over a year in the Department of Agriculture when in
1887 he was elected deputy for the
Meuse. He made a great reputation in the Chamber as an economist, and sat on the budget commissions of
1890–
1891 and
1892. He was minister of education, fine arts and religion in the first cabinet (April – November
1893) of
Charles Dupuy, and minister of finance in the second and third (May
1894 – January
1895).
In
Alexandre Ribot's cabinet Poincaré became minister of public instruction. Although he was excluded from the Radical cabinet which followed, the revised scheme of death duties proposed by the new ministry was based upon his proposals of the previous year. He became vice-president of the chamber in the autumn of
1895, and in spite of the bitter hostility of the Radicals retained his position in
1896 and
1897.
Along with other followers of "
Opportunist"
Léon Gambetta, Poincaré founded the
Democratic Republican Alliance (ARD) in 1902, which became the most important
center-right party under the
Third Republic.
In
1906 he returned to the ministry of finance in the short-lived
Sarrien ministry. Poincaré had retained his practice at the bar during his political career, and he published several volumes of essays on literary and political subjects.
First premiership
Poincaré became
Prime Minister in January of
1912, and began pursuing a hard-line anti-German policy, noted for restoring close ties with France's Russian ally.
Presidency
He was elected
President of the Republic in
1913, in succession to
Armand Fallières and attempted to make that office into a site of power for the first time since
MacMahon in the 1870s. He generally managed to continue to dominate foreign policy, in particular. He became increasingly sidelined after the accession to power of
Georges Clemenceau as Prime Minister in
1917. He believed the
Armistice happened too soon and that the French Army should have penetrated Germany far more. At the
Paris Peace Conference of 1919, negotiating the
Treaty of Versailles, he wanted France to wrest the
Rhineland from Germany to put it under Allied military control. Poincaré wrote a memorandum for the conference, saying that after the
Franco-Prussian War Germany occupied various French provinces and didn't leave until they received all of the indemnity, whereas France was asking for reparations for damaged caused. He further claimed that if the Allies didn't occupy the Rhineland and at a later date found that they'd need to do so again, Germany would label them the aggressor:
"And, further, shall we be sure of finding the left bank free from German troops? Germany is supposedly going to undertake to have neither troops nor fortresses on the left bank and within a zone extending 50 k.m. east of the Rhine. But the Treaty doesn't provide for any permanent supervision of troops and armaments on the left bank any more than elsewhere in Germany. In the absence of this permanent supervision, the clause stipulating that the League of Nations may order enquiries to be undertaken is in danger of being purely illusory. We can thus have no guarantee that after the expiry of the fifteen years and the evacuation of the left bank, the Germans won't filter troops by degrees into this district. Even supposing they've not previously done so, how can we prevent them doing it at the moment when we intend to re-occupy on account of their default? It will be simple for them to leap to the Rhine in a night and to seize this natural military frontier well ahead of us. The option to renew the occupation shouldn't therefore from any point of view be substituted for occupation".
Ferdinand Foch urged Poincaré to invoke his powers as laid down in the Constitution and take over the negotiations of the treaty due to worries that Clemenceau wasn't achieving France's aims. He didn't and when the French Cabinet approved of the terms Clemenceau got Poincaré thought about resigning, although again he refrained.
Second premiership
In
1920, Poincaré's term as President came to an end, and two years later he returned to office as Prime Minister. Once again, his tenure was noted for its strong anti-German policies, with Poincaré justifying these by saying: "Germany's population was increasing, her industries were intact, she'd no factories to reconstruct, she'd no flooded mines. Her resources were intact, above and below ground...In fifteen or twenty years Germany would be mistress of Europe. In front of her would be France with a population scarcely increased".
Frustrated at Germany's unwillingness to pay reparations, Poincaré hoped for joint Anglo-French economic sanctions against Germany in 1922 and opposed military action. However by December 1922 he was faced with British-American-German hostility and saw coal for French steel production and money for reconstructing the devastated industrial areas draining away. Poincaré was exasperated with British failure to act, and wrote to the French ambassador in London:
"Judging others by themselves, the English, who are blinded by their loyalty, have always thought that the Germans didn't abide by their pledges inscribed in the Versailles Treaty because they hadn't frankly agreed to them. ... We, on the contrary, believe that if Germany, far from making the slightest effort to carry out the treaty of peace, has always tried to escape her obligations, it's because until now she hasn't been convinced of her defeat. ... We are also certain that Germany, as a nation, resigns herself to keep her pledged word only under the impact of necessity".
Poincaré decided to
occupy the Ruhr in 11 January 1923 to extract the reparations herself. This "was profitable and caused neither the German hyperinflation, which began in 1922 and ballooned because of German responses to the Ruhr occupation, nor the franc's 1924 collapse, which arose from French financial practices and the evaporation of reparations". The profits, after Ruhr-Rhineland occupation costs, were nearly 900 million gold marks. Poincaré lost the 1924 parliamentary election "more from the franc's collapse and the ensuing taxation than from diplomatic isolation".
Third premiership
Financial crisis brought him back to power in
1926, and he once again became Prime Minister and Finance Minister until his retirement in
1929.
As early as in
1915, Raymond Poincaré introduced a controversial
denaturalization law which was applied to naturalized
French citizens with "enemy origins" who had continued to maintain their original
nationality. Through another law passed in
1927, the government could denaturalize any new citizen who committed acts contrary to French "national interest".
He died in
Paris in
1934.
Family
His brother,
Lucien Poincaré (b.
1862), famous as a physicist, became inspector-general of public instruction in
1902. He is the author of
La Physique moderne (
1906) and
L'Électricité (
1907).
Jules Henri Poincaré (b.
1854), also a distinguished physicist and mathematician, belonged to another branch of the same family.
Changes
12 January 1913 - Albert Lebrun succeeds Millerand as Minister of War. René Besnard succeeds Lebrun as Minister of Colonies.
Raymond Poincaré - President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs
André Maginot - Minister of War
Maurice Maunoury - Minister of the Interior
Charles de Lasteyrie - Minister of Finance
Albert Peyronnet - Minister of Labour
Louis Barthou - Minister of Justice
Flaminius Raiberti - Minister of Marine
Léon Bérard - Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts
Henry Chéron - Minister of Agriculture
Albert Sarraut - Minister of Colonies
Yves Le Trocquer - Minister of Public Works
Paul Strauss - Minister of Hygiene, Welfare Work, and Social Security Provisions
Lucien Dior - Minister of Commerce and Industry
Charles Reibel - Minister of Liberated Regions
Changes
5 October 1922 - Maurice Colrat succeeds Barthou as Minister of Justice.
Raymond Poincaré - President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs
André Maginot - Minister of War
Justin de Selves - Minister of the Interior
Frédéric François-Marsal - Minister of Finance
Charles Daniel-Vincent - Minister of Labour and Hygiene
Edmond Lefebvre du Prey - Minister of Justice
Maurice Bokanowski - Minister of Marine
Henry de Jouvenel - Minister of Public Instruction, Fine Arts, and Technical Education
Joseph Capus - Minister of Agriculture
Jean Fabry - Minister of Colonies
Yves Le Trocquer - Minister of Public Works, Ports, and Marine
Louis Loucheur - Minister of Commerce, Industry, Posts, and Telegraphs
Louis Marin - Minister of Liberated Regions
Raymond Poincaré - President of the Council and Minister of Finance
Aristide Briand - Minister of Foreign Affairs
Paul Painlevé - Minister of War
Albert Sarraut - Minister of the Interior
André Fallières - Minister of Labour, Hygiene, Welfare Work, and Social Security Provisions
Louis Barthou - Minister of Justice
Georges Leygues - Minister of Marine
Édouard Herriot - Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts
Louis Marin - Minister of Pensions
Henri Queuille - Minister of Agriculture
Léon Perrier - Minister of Colonies
André Tardieu - Minister of Public Works
Maurice Bokanowski - Minister of Commerce and Industry
Changes
1 June 1928 - Louis Loucheur succeeds Fallières as Minister of Labour, Hygiene, Welfare Work, and Social Security Provisions
14 September 1928 - Laurent Eynac enters the ministry as Minister of Air. Henry Chéron succeeds Bokanowski as Minister of Commerce and Industry, and also becomes Minister of Posts and Telegraphs.
Raymond Poincaré - President of the Council
Aristide Briand - Minister of Foreign Affairs
Paul Painlevé - Minister of War
André Tardieu - Minister of the Interior
Henry Chéron - Minister of Finance
Louis Loucheur - Minister of Labour, Hygiene, Welfare Work, and Social Security Provisions
Louis Barthou - Minister of Justice
Georges Leygues - Minister of Marine
Laurent Eynac - Minister of Air
Pierre Marraud - Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts
Louis Antériou - Minister of Pensions
Jean Hennessy - Minister of Agriculture
André Maginot - Minister of Colonies
Pierre Forgeot - Minister of Public Works
Georges Bonnefous - Minister of Commerce and Industry
Further Information
Get more info on 'Raymond Poincar'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://raymond_poincar_.totallyexplained.com">Raymond Poincaré Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
