Chapter Eighty-Four: Foch, France, and Fraternity?
A depiction of the Palais Bourbon, where the fateful vote was held
As the members of the French National Assembly gathered at the Palais Bourbon, the tensions were high. Many people had surrounded the building, and were vigorously chanting for the preferred candidate. The chant heard loudest of all was coming from the midst of the former veterans, many of whom had come in the uniforms with their flags and weapons, a foreboding sign to some members of the legislature. They were heard to repeatedly yell out, "Foch, France, Fraternité!" As more and more members walked in and took their seat, the crowd, which was rapidly transforming into an unruly mob, started pressing in on the building demanding to be let in to view the voting. The legislators, fearful of a potential fallout should their votes become public knowledge, declined. Nevertheless, the mass of Parisians continue to slowly press forward against the guards, forcing the legislator to facilitate a compromise. As the last of the members arrived, they promised to send out members of the building’s guard to announce the vote tallies every few minutes. Satisfied for the moment, the advance of the people abated, although they tensely held their ground. After a few moments, however, the political divides between them became clear and chanting once more began in favor of their candidate, dividing the crowd.
A photograph of the sprawl of French citizens gathered in the blocks around the Palais Bourbon waiting for the vote.
Eventually, the legislature was convened and the voting began. As promised, the guards periodically brought out the latest counts. From the beginning it was clear the contest was between Clemenceau and Foch. For the crowd, however, this is what they desired, as very few supporters of either Jonnart or Messimy had so passionately supported their candidate as to join into the already highly strained atmosphere. As the voting continued, the lead between the two leading candidates kept switching hands. No one truly knew who was going to win as the reports kept being brought out, which only served to further increase the strife between the two camps. After one report where it was announced Clemenceau was leading was delivered, an enraged Foch supporters stormed over to a particularly vocal Clemenceau supporter and tore his sign out of hands before tossing it to the ground. The Clemenceau supporter promptly tackled the man, with the brawl ensuing and even growing until members of the guard intervened and separated the two men. For all subsequent reports, guards stood between the two sides to prevent a rehashing of the violence, but even that was proving barely enough to keep it down.
A group of Foch supporting veterans taken during the legislative voting process, with the man at center believed to have been the man who started the brawl
As inevitably would happen, a candidate eventually won the election. Ultimately, in a narrow vote, George Clemenceau triumphed over Foch, Jonnart, and Messimy to be elected France's next president. Unfortunately for any celebrations planned to commemorate his victory by his supporters, the pre-existing chaos soon devolved into outrage and violence from Foch's supporters, and present to harness and exploit this was Marshal Philippe Pétain. Having been closely monitoring the proceedings with Foch, d'Espèrey, and several other close advisers, when news of Clemenceau's triumph was brought to him, he knew the time had come to activate their back up plan. Mounting a white horse reminiscent of the one rode by Napoleon in the famous David painting, Pétain, who had already had several dozens armed veterans waiting in the entrance of the hotel they were staying in, rode through the streets of Paris rallying former soldiers, or just anyone with a weapon who supported Foch to follow his lead. Soon, he had amassed hundreds of followers, which only grew much larger when he reached the mobs outside the Palais Bourbon. Chanting out "Foch, France, Fraternité!", he and his impromptu army closed in on the building. When at the block where it stood, Pétain would dismount and address his followers. In his speech, he called for them to storm the Palais Bourbon, which the crowd was already ready to do and started doing even before he started his next sentence. Easily overwhelming the dozen guards standing at the door, the rioters turned revolutionaries were soon in the room where the legislators themselves were meeting. Reasserting control over the situation, Pétain ordered the obvious and what had already been done, namely to hold the legislators hostage at gunpoint.
Pétain on his ride that would forever change France
With the blood of the republic on their hands, Pétain and his followers decided to deliver the coup de grâce. Striding over the minister's stand, Pétain would draw out his pistol and level it towards the head of Aristide Briand, who had taken over as prime minister following the elevation of George Clemenceau to the acting presidency. As Briand started murmuring something out, Pétain fired point blank into his face, with immediately fatal results. Claiming the murder was a righteous and necessary action to destroy those who tried to destroy the republic, Pétain ordered his men to bring forward elder statesman Alexandre Ribot, who had served as prime minister four times in the course of his career and was well-liked by most. Again leveling his pistol, this time at the head of Ribot, Pétain ordered him to declare the election results null and void and to have a new count. In response to this, Ribot would quietly whisper, "I'd rather die alongside the republic than join the conspirators in its murder." With that, Pétain dispatched Ribot with another point blank shot to the head. Finally, Georges Leygues would be brought to the front and be inaugurated as France's fourth prime minister in two weeks. Having supported and voted for Foch, and also wanting to avoid the fate of Briand and Ribot, Leygues agreed to Pétain's demands, and declared the previous voting null and void. With that, another round ensued. Pétain warned that any man who voted against Foch was to be promptly executed by one of the mob. Despite that, a few brave souls still cast their votes for Clemenceau, including Paul Painlevé, Gustave Delory, and Édouard Herriot. All three men, along with all the others who voted against Foch, were shot down or even bayoneted in the case of Delory by the crowd on Pétain's orders. When the balloting was finished, Pétain ordered Leygues declare all the votes against Foch to have been invalid, which a trembling Leygues would do. With that, the dismantlement, collapse, and ultimate destruction of the French republic at the hands of some who had been among its most ardent defenders was complete.
The Final Prime Ministers: Briand, Ribot, and Leygues
With his "unanimous" election to the presidency, Foch, at the urging of Pétain and d'Espèrey, set about consolidating power. First, he had Clemenceau arrested and put on trial for treason against the republic and attempting to thwart the will of the people. Despite his impassioned defense, or his attempts at it over the boos and hisses of Foch's supporters, Clemenceau would ultimately and unsurprisingly fall short. On January 31, 1920, he would be executed by a military firing squad. With his main rival for power eliminated, Foch went about eliminating the vestiges of opposition within the National Assembly. Surprisingly, Leygues would be allowed to keep both his post and his life, although he was effectively downgraded to a rubber stamp for Foch’s policies. Many of his colleagues, however, weren't as lucky. Foch loyalists within the National Assembly would reveal the members who had cast their votes against Foch in this initial round. With that knowledge in hand, Foch would go about rounding them up and systemically executing them. In their place, he would install men, many of whom were veterans, who were loyal to him. He also forced every man in the National Assembly to swear a new oath. Instead of pledging to protect the republic, in the new oath they pledged to uphold the supremacy and stability of the French head-of-state. By July, France had essentially devolved into a triumvirate of power divided between Foch, Pétain, and d'Espèrey.
The French Triumvirate: Foch, Pétain, and d'Espèrey
Despite the repression of the supporters of Clemenceau, or even any dissent against the new system in general, one man still held out hopes that he could achieve his dream within France. That man was Leon Trotsky. Having fled Russia in the wake of Lenin's failed revolution and subsequent execution, Trotsky had moved to France in the hopes that it would prove to be a more fertile breeding ground for the socialist revolution he hoped to ferment. When he had first arrived, he had established a Russian language newspaper to update those in France on the goings on within Russia, especially in relation to their revolution. Eventually, however, he had shifted the paper's focus when the most he could generally print for the weekly publication was that the guerillas under Josef Stalin and Nikolai Podvoisky continued to harass the czarist's forces from their camps in the Urals. Instead, he would transform it into a vocal mouthpiece in support of socialism within France. Although Clemenceau was certainly not as radical as he desired, Trotsky nevertheless supported him in the presidential election in the belief that he was a step in the right direction, and perhaps a necessary stepping stone for the French people if they were to eventually accept true socialism as viewed in the eyes of Trotsky. Although he was not in attendance of the crowd of Clemenceau supporters who had swarmed the Palais Bourbon, he had nevertheless been attentively following the latest reports, and broke out in celebration when news of Clemenceau’s victory was brought to him. His triumph, however, was soon transformed into agony when word of the subsequent proceedings and the coup were brought to his attention. When he returned to his newspaper publishing building the next day, he found it sacked, with the printing press mangled and the type scattered, as well as the ink spilled over and used to write pro-Foch slogans on the walls. Already outspoken in his opposition to Foch during the election cycle, Trotsky now came to be an enemy of the regime he had established, and vowed that he would lead the socialist revolution that would overthrow it.
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