8 
■ LAND & WATER J"^y ^2. igi7 
Three Fighting Figures of France. 
By Charles Dawbarn 
WHFA' ho speaks- in the Tribune of the Chamber. 
M. Alexandre Ribot, the Krench Premier, has a 
characteristic gesture. He seems to throw his 
words to his audience. His right hand has a 
backward and then a forward swinging movement, just as 
if he were a twentieth century Discobolcs. M. Bnand, on 
the other hand, opens his arms when he speaks and expands 
his chest so that he seems to swell with his oratory. His 
voice is grave and sonorous, whereas the Prime Minister is 
less vigorous in his tones, but shows remarkable vitality. 
Though seventy-five, he has the pliysical energy of middle 
age Nothing seems to tire him. He frequently crosses the 
Channel for conferences with the British Government and 
always travels at night, arriving fresh at either destination 
for the day's business. Sometimes in Paris that business 
includes a stormy sitting of the Chamber. 
No greater contrast could be imagined than between the 
demeanour of the British House of Commons and that of its 
F.ench counterpart. Perhaps an ideal Chamber would be 
one which combined the qualities of the two : the fire and 
temper of the French Deputy with the sound sense and 
dignity — sometimes overdone — of the other. In any case, 
M. Ribot dominates the assembly by his prestige and 
authority. He has need of both— when passions are aroused, 
as over " To Stockholm, or not to Stockholm " — for the 
Socialist [Conference, provided endless possibility in a 
French Assembly, with its poignant memories of Alsace Lor- 
raine. The language was strong and variegated— in tune 
with the situation— and old habitues professed they had never 
heard anything like it. 
""french language " has passed into current speech in France. 
It is full flavoured and marvellously picturesque, and Deputies 
seem to have caught the habit though they Have not the excuse 
of the Poilu, who has acquired his argot at the expense of 
his skin. Words barbed and weighted with opprobrium flew 
about the Chamber. Nev^ertheless, the G.O.M. of French 
politics— a little older than Thiers, when he saved the country 
after the disasters of 1870— gained his point, as the sub- 
stantial vote showed. His presence as Premier at the present 
moment shows that solid qualities are still the most valued 
asset in politics. He offers no target to false rumour ; he 
has always had a reputation to lose and his career is compact 
of labour, energy, sane ambition and toleration. 
No Extremist 
Free from the extremist spirit which characterises so many 
Politicians in France, he lias steered the middle course through 
arliamentary shoals and gained the esteem of those who 
love fair play. In the Dreyfus case, he believed in the inno- 
cence of the Captain, but disbelieved in some of the methods 
for establishing it. His love of compromise caused him to be 
accused of sheltering General Mercier, tlie War Minister of 
the day, who was behind the famous trial ; in reality he sought 
only a sound and unsensational way out of the difficulty. 
His moderate spirit also was shown in the Church versus 
State controvert. Though a Protestant, M. Ribot objected 
to Separation on the ground that the State had incurred certain 
obligations towards the Church, which could not be disre- 
garded, and he resented also the harsh methods of the Combes 
I^Iinistry in driving out the Religious Orders. That he was 
right is now generally conceded by his countrymen, for the 
war has brought a truce to anti-Clericalism. 
Ribot is celebrated for various things. Shortly before the 
war he became chief of a new Government — for a single day. 
The combinaticn did not survive even the passage of the 
Ministerial Declaration, and the Cabinet, which included M. 
Delcasse and other celebrities, passed into the limbo where 
he so many Fre^nch ministries. Again he was Presidential 
candidate for about as long, the Moderates finally choosing 
M. Poincare for the supreme post. Contrary to the common 
run, M. Ribot hus grown more democratic with the years, and 
has sacrificed, l.sis friends say, his aristocrat top-hat for a 
democratic " bowler " — sign and symptom of the inward 
change. His strength lies in his experience of public office 
as Afinister of Firtance and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Tn the 
one field, he found out the resources of the country and induced 
Jacques Bonhom.iie to bring forth his gold for the War Loan, 
from his legendary bas de laine ; in the other, he found out 
the thoughts of Iturope and, incidentally, signed that great 
contract with Russia which is the basis of the Grand Alliance : 
thus it is not ina opropriate that to-day he should be the 
representaiiive of that policy. 
His right-hand nuan in the new Government is M. Painlev^, 
the Minister of War. He is a statesman of uncornmon 
erudition. Much learning, however, has not robbed him of 
his action ; he is as decisive and unequivocal as a proposition 
of Euclid. His mathematical talent contributed to the 
victory of Verdun. He was Minister of Education and In- 
ventions at the time— under the Briand Ministry— and, with 
the aid of M. Borel, revised the old artillery tables for range- 
finding with the result that the guns had a new accuracy in 
destructive force. M. Painleve with MM. Borel and Adamard, 
also eminent mathematicians, is regarded as the continua- 
tor of the work of M. Henri Poincare, the savant cousin (rf 
the President. 
; 
Once a Professor 
The War Minister, who, in conference with Mr. Lloyd 
George, soon settled the Greek business, has been emphatic 
from his youth up. He flung himself whole-heartedly into 
the Dreyfus case on the side of the prisoner, and led demon- 
strations in the Latin Quarter, where he was Professor of 
Mathematics at the Sorbonne. By the natural order of events, 
he became deputy for this Pays Latin, the nearest approach 
that France possesses to a University Constituency, and re- 
mained in that position for ten years. He interested himself 
in Army questions, but Tesisted "the Three Years Bill, holding 
with Jaures, the Socialist oraitor, that it was better to have a 
small, highly-trained army and a fully developed reserve than 
a large and loose general system — a huge " barracks " army, 
in fact. But when war came, there was none more deter- 
mined than he to secure " peace'with lionour " by force of 
arms. Like M. Ribot, he is a member of the Institute of 
France, his department being the Academy of Science. 
His strong mind rebels against half -measures, and he 
opposed M. Briand when the latter tried to effect Cabinet 
changes which he considered inadequate. His same ardent 
temper led him to defend General SarraiLand come to London 
fbr the purpose — to lay the case before Mr. Asquith and Mr. 
Lloyd George — ^when it was a question of sending the French 
officer to Salonika. Sarrail, he said, was the victim of a 
cabal, and was wrongfully reheved of his command. As a 
scientist, the War Minister is interested in all scientific develop- 
ments, and was one of the first to perceive the possibilities 
of aviation. In the early days he flew with Wilbur Wright, 
when the celebrated inventor was experimenting in France 
with his machine. 
Like his hierarchical chief. General Petain is a great 
mathematician. As a boy, living in a small village near 
Havre, where his father was a baker — thus, his origin is as 
democratic as that of Joffre, the son of a working cooper — he 
covered the walls of his bedroom with algebraical signs. He 
solved the most complicated problems without the aid of 
paper and pencil. Even when he played at tops lie could not 
leave mathematics out of it, and strove to drive his own 
" peg " into squares and triangles. His modesty has re- 
mained with him, and he likes nothing better than to revisit 
the friends of his boyhood. Some with whom he played have 
done well in the woild, but others — and the General makes no 
distinction — wear the fustian of the manual worker. 
Everyone knows that he sprang into world-wide prominence 
for his defence of Verdun, where, without sufficient means, 
he resisted the Germans during weeks of ferocious attack. 
His bravery is proverbial, and it is a wonder that he has 
survived so many hair-breadth escapes. But a special Provi- 
dence seems to watch over him, delivering him, at the critical 
moment, from mortal harm. Legends have grown up about 
his invulnerability as well as about his methods for retaining 
youthfulness. He is sixty, but he has the face and figure of 
fifty. Someone started the story that he skips every morning ; 
he believes, certainly, in the sovereign virtues of diet and 
exercise and measures his food and drink as carefully as if he 
were a jockey training to weight. If he has a fault, it is his 
la^k of self-assertion. He livts a life of retirement amongst 
his books and problems. iNoiie the less, he liad a great repu- 
tation in army circles before the war for his theories on 
attack ; . practice, particularly the fierce fights around Vaux 
and Douaumont — the forts to the north of Verdun— have, but 
confirmed that estimate. His rise to the highest post has been 
startling, even in ithis starthng war, for in August 1914, he 
was simply a Colonel with thoughts of retirem.ent. 
These, then,iare the men upon whom France, with others 
such as M. Albert Thomas, the Minister of Munitions, is relying 
in this unexampled crisis in her history. Happily, there is 
every reason to bedieve that they wih justify the faith that is 
being. placed in them by the army and the nation. 
