Foreign News: Painleve vs. Clemenceau

M. Paul Painlevé, Premier of France for a brief period in 1917, has sought to put an end to the ex post facto argument between him and ex-Premier Clémenceau, as to which of them appointed Marshals Foch and Pétain to commands during the War. He published a new book entitled How I Appointed Foch and Pétain.

The argument centers around the discovery of General Foch, who was at that time in temporary retirement. Clémenceau claimed the honor of appointing him as Chief of the French General Staff in 1917, but M. Painlevé asserts in his book that he alone did the good deed.

The ambit of the book, like space, seems unconfined. The main part, however, is devoted to a vigorous defence of the author’s character, which has been much maligned by the French for weakness in dealing with treachery behind the lines. He terms all such niaiserie “legends” and proves that sedition in the Army had been cured by his pill before Clémenceau came on the scene. Following up the attack, he says that it was he and not Clémenceau who ordered the arrest of the most notorious traitors, notably Bolo Pasha.

M. Paul Painlevé was born in Paris in 1863, and in his early childhood was forced to go through the siege of that city in 1870. After having finished his studies, he became a professor at the Lille University and later returned to Paris as a professor in the Ecole Polytechnique. It was when he was there that he was rather unnecessarily drawn into the Dreyfus case. In politics he is violently anticlerical, but is said to have too much ingenuousness in his character to make a good politician. Early in the War he was Minister of War under Premier Ribot. It is from about this time that his enmity for Clémenceau dates. Previously they were good if not cordial friends.