The Great War (All 8 Volumes). Various Authors

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СКАЧАТЬ Captain Dreyfus was again condemned to ten years' imprisonment, the president pardoned him and in the following year, 1900, the Senate passed a bill as a result of which further criminal prosecutions on account of the Dreyfus affair became impossible.

      Additional legislation regulating religious orders was passed in the early part of 1901. In April of the same year, 1901, Toulon enjoyed the visit of an Italian fleet which led to considerable discussion among diplomats in regard to the apparently increasing friendship between France and Italy. In August, 1901, the French Government recalled its representative at Constantinople and handed his passports to the Turkish ambassador at Paris because Turkey refused to pay damages which had been adjudged due to some French companies. Although in November, 1901, a French fleet occupied parts of the island of Mitylene and war clouds once more seemed to be gathering, the matter was finally settled amicably by the prompt payment of the damages on the part of Turkey. In September, 1901, the czar repeated his visit to France, where he witnessed both naval and military maneuvers and was again received with expressions of the most enthusiastic friendship.

      Another change of ministry took place in 1902 when M. Waldeck-Rousseau was succeeded by M. Combes. The new ministry caused great excitement by closing by force all religious schools that were not conforming by this time with the new Law of Associations. Another difficulty which the cabinet had to face was caused by a speech of the minister of marine during which he made remarks which were considered offensive by England and Germany. The Government, however, disavowed this speech and declared the expressions used to be of a private and not of an official nature. The enforcement of the Law of Associations continued to cause serious difficulties in the next year, 1903. Throughout the country the clergy, which of course resented the new regulations, took a more active interest in politics than ever before and thereby caused many serious dissensions between its members and the Government. A very strong demand for absolute separation of church and state began to crystallize which found its final result in May, 1904, in the passage by the chamber of a bill prohibiting all instructions in religious institutions by the end of a period of five years. The attitude of the French Government toward the Catholic Church, of course, was deeply disapproved by the pope, and when President Loubet paid a visit to the King of Italy at Rome in May, 1904, and thereby aroused the pope to an official protest, the French Government promptly withdrew its representative at the Vatican.

      May, 1903, brought to Paris King Edward of England on one of his many visits to the French capital. This time, however, he appeared there in his official capacity and was received with general enthusiasm and expressions of the most sincere friendship on the part of the French nation toward the English people. Throughout 1904 the difficulties between the French Government and the church continued with increasing violence and in November of that year, a bill finally was introduced separating absolutely church and state.

      Relations between France and Germany became considerably strained during 1905. France resented the advances which German diplomacy and German commercial institutions had succeeded in making at Constantinople and this resentment found its expression in a refusal to finance any more Turkish loans. As an official explanation of this attitude it was stated that the French Government objected to supplying funds to the Turkish Government as long as the Turkish Government continued to spend a large part of these funds for army and munition purchases from German firms. More serious than this, however, was Germany's official announcement that the empire would insist firmly on an open-door policy in Morocco. But fortunately for the peace of Europe this question at that time was settled by a series of conferences which were concluded in the fall of 1905.

      In July, 1905, the French Chamber of Deputies and in September of the same year the French Senate finally adopted a bill for the separation of state and church.

      In January, 1906, France again severed diplomatic relations with another power on account of commercial disputes, this time with Venezuela.

      In March, 1906, King Edward paid his first visit to the new President, M. Fallières, who had been elected to succeed M. Loubet. Other expressions of the growing intimacy between the English and French nations were the visit of the lord mayor of London at Paris, a visit of representatives of French universities at London, and a special invitation extended to General French and other English officers to view the fall maneuvers of the French army. Internally the enforcement of the new Church and State Separation Law caused many difficulties and widened the break between France and the pope. A general strike of miners followed the worst mining disaster of the age, which killed over 1,200 miners at Courrières. Captain Dreyfus was finally completely vindicated. Two changes of ministry occurred. M. Rouvier was succeeded as prime minister by M. Sarrien, whose resignation, on account of ill health, brought M. Clemenceau to the helm.

      The separation of church and state continued to hold the center of the stage in 1907. Monsignor Montagnini, auditor of the Papal Nunciature, was expelled. The Catholic bishops, though, of course, supporting the pope in his objection to the separation law, finally reached a partial understanding with the Government in regard to the continuation of public worship in Catholic churches. Labor troubles and serious riots in the principal wine districts occurred throughout May and June, but, though they were embarrassing the Government, they did not result in any changes in its composition. France exchanged notes with both Spain and England, establishing the continuation of the status quo in parts of the Mediterranean and Atlantic as far as they affected lines of communication between the contracting powers. A Franco-Japanese agreement of June, 1907, was principally commercial in nature, although it expressed the adherence of the two countries to an open-door policy in China. King Edward and Queen Alexandria again visited Paris.

      President Fallières, accompanied by M. Pichon, the Foreign Minister, reciprocated with a visit to England in May, 1908, where he was most cordially received. In July, 1908, the president also paid visits to the kings of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and to the czar. Considerable bad feeling was created between France and Germany on account of the action of the German consul at Casablanca in giving shelter to some men of German origin who had deserted from the Foreign Legion. The matter, however, was finally referred for adjustment to the Hague Tribunal.

      Both King Edward and the czar were visitors in France during 1909. The French, Italian, and Spanish fleets passed in review before President Fallières at Nice in March, 1909. A general strike, though of short duration only, was indicative of the general feeling of unrest which pervaded the country. The Clemenceau Ministry fell under an assault from the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Delcassé, and was succeeded by one headed by M. Briand. In February, 1909, a new agreement was signed between France and Germany, embodying the general principles of French political preponderance and German commercial equality in Morocco. This year 1910 again brought signs of the general social unrest in the form of various strikes, the most important of which was that of the employees of the Nord Railway. This threatened to assume dangerous proportions, but was suppressed by M. Briand's prompt action by issuing a mobilization order to the strikers, and thereby, having turned them into reservists, made them subject to military law.

      M. Briand resigned in February, 1911, and was succeeded by M. Monis and a Radical Cabinet, which, however, included M. Delcassé as Minister of Marine. New wine riots taxed the ingenuity of the new cabinet to its utmost before order was restored. In June, 1911, M. Monis, who had been seriously injured in an aeroplane accident which killed Minister of War Berteaux, resigned on account of ill health and was followed by M. Caillaux, Minister of Finance in the Monis Cabinet. In the late fall, 1911, the German-French difficulties about Morocco were finally settled by another treaty reiterating the general principles of the 1909 treaty, but arranging also for an exchange of territory between France and Germany in the Congo, by which Germany gained some 100,000 square miles to the east and south of its Cameroons colony.

      Although this adjustment was not considered as particularly advantageous to Germany in that country itself, it aroused even more criticism in France, and resulted, in January, 1912, in the downfall of the Caillaux Cabinet. The president called upon M. Poincaré to form a new cabinet. In the meantime an understanding concerning Morocco had also been reached with СКАЧАТЬ