(See front cover)
To the great and shrewd old Empire builder, to the man with a brain so extensive that the top of his head is somewhat flat, to Hubert Marshal Lyautey there came four years ago an appropriately flattering offer.
The French Government, no spendthrifts, were ready to spend three-quarters of a billion francs ($30,000,000). They wanted to put the French Empire where it belongs and where it is not, namely on the world’s mental map, where the British Empire is. The idea: a vast Colonial Exposition on a scale never before conceived. The offer: “Will you, Marshal Lyautey, take charge as Commissioner General?”
“This exposition—where are you going to hold it?” growled the grizzled old campaigner. “In the suburbs of Paris, of course, but exactly where?” They told him in the Bois de Vincennes.
“But there is no way to get there, no cheap convenient way!” objected the Marshal. “We must build a subway.” They told him that would take years—out of the question! He waxed warm; they too. At last the Marshal yielded, but in his own way:
“My acceptance of the post of Commissioner General, messieurs—a post of much honor but of much responsibility— I make conditional upon the completion of a satisfactory subway. It is better to open the Exposition in 1931 with sure chance of success than in 1929 with certainty of failure.”
The French International Colonial and Overseas Exposition has just been opened, on time, two months after Commissioner General Lyautey with his staff had personally journeyed by subway from the Place de I’Opera, hub of Paris, to the exposition gates. Time: 12 min. Nearly all the Marshal’s victories have been like that, decisive, constructive (see below).
$1,000,000 Angkor Vat French publicity, with a few potent exceptions, is the world’s worst. “Wembley” was on every man’s tongue before the British Empire Exposition opened (TIME, Aug. 4, 1924) and colossally failed.— By contrast the awkwardly named Exposition des Arts Decor atijs at Paris in 1925 was almost a secret at the time, yet it touched off the bombshell of Modernistic Art, gave furniture and architecture a whirl that is dizzying people yet. So atrocious is French publicity that a broadside recently fired in English by the Ministry of Colonies begins with this sentence:
“Everyone knows that a colonial manifestation, surpassing in size and importance all other manifestations held in any country, will take place this year in Paris.” This statement, ludicrous as a patent medicine label, happens to be almost true. This week the French Empire stands in Paris. As an example of what has been amazingly done, the Angkor Vat (Temple of Angkor), probably the most intricate wonder of the Far East, a vast pyramid of architecture covering three and a half acres and embellished with miles of carved figures, has been reproduced in Paris, not as a model but full size, at a cost of $1,000,000.
To render perfect this costly illusion that transports one to the East, priestess-dancers loaned by Puppet-King Sisowath Monivong of French Cambodia will perform on Angkor Vat’s grand stair the slow, posturing dances in stiff, ornate costume with which they are presumed to excite the religious ardor of His Majesty. Roman Catholic Mass will be celebrated every morning in chapels of Colonial type in several parts of the Exposition.
Sears, Roebuck & Marie Antoinette..As gates swung open and the public poured in last week all the great Colonial Powers were seen to be exhibiting: Great Britain, largest; France, next largest; the U. S., third largest, proud of Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, the Philippines, Samoa and the Virgin Islands. Next Italy, Portugal and Belgium boasting their chunks of Africa. Then the Netherlands showing off her far-flung East Indies; small Denmark pointing to her only colony, big Greenland, and to her sister kingdom, Iceland. Finally special exhibits by Brazil, Hindustan and Palestine.
For the first time the World’s colonies have met at a point, for the first time there will be held this summer Colonial Olympic Games.
By consent of Congress the chief U.S. pavilion is in U. S. Colonial Style, not the style of any U. S. colony but the style English colonists brought to America when it was a mere colony. Begun last of any exhibit, rushed to completion first by Sears, Roebuck & Co. and the Furniture Association of Grand Rapids, Mich., it cost $300,000, is an exact replica inside and out of George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon (except for the modern plumbing).
Gourmet Week. Every exposition is a feast for the eye, but French expositions are feasts. Next week is La Semainc des Gourmets at the Colonial Exposition where every exhibiting region has a restaurant. With a solemn rapture repugnant to some Anglo-Saxons, the foremost gastronomes of France and her colonies are indulging for five days and nights in an exotic orgy of taste, sampling Chinese chow, Greenland seal stew, Hindustan curries, Palestine dates, George Washington fried chicken, scrapple, grits.
Career of Lyautey. In the city of Nancy on Nov. 17, 1854 Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey was well born, the maternal grandson of an equerry to King Louis XVI, and the paternal grandson of a Senator of the Second Empire. His wife is a daughter of the Chief Equerry to Emperor Napoleon III. The family are Roman Catholics and proud.
Not until he was 40 did Major Lyautey get his big chance. Assigned to duty with the French Expeditionary Corps then conquering Indo-China, he became Chief of Staff and lifelong friend to famed Conqueror Joseph Simon Gallieni, he who in 1914 “saved Paris with taxicabs,” died in 1916, was created, posthumously in 1921, Marshal Gallieni.
Together Gallieni & Lyautey made short work of Indo-China, or rather long work, for instead of ravaging and rampaging they stopped to organize in every added area of conquest civil governments in which natives were expected to take part, much to their surprise. To Marshal Lyautey natives are neither “Chinks” nor “Niggers” but French, once they have been conquered.
From Indo-China the great Gallieni was called to pacify the Island of Madagascar, left Lyautey behind, found him indispensable, called him to Madagascar. Together the friends organized a government, stable ever since. Then, in 1902, Colonel Lyautey returned to France.
One year later General Lyautey was sent to Algeria on his own, pacified Becher, Haut-Guir and Moulouya. Year after year the Pax Lyautey expanded like a ripple. In 1912 General Lyautey was appointed resident general of all French Morocco, hailed with the nickname Lyautey L’Ajricain.
The chief service of Lyautey to France has in fact been this: he had sown contentment so deeply in Morocco before the War that during the War he could hold it with garrisons reduced almost to nil. When every Frenchman was needed to fight Germans, Lyautey not only made no demand for troops but sent from Morocco to France food, supplies and even native soldiers. Germany had counted on a revolution in Morocco. In 1916 the situation was so quiet there that Lyautey himself came to Paris, fought the Germans as War Minister in the Briand Cabinet.
Lyautey for President? Like many another, Lyautey did not win the War. Not long after it was won, Spanish bungling in their sector of Morocco gave the smart bandit-Sultan Abd-el-Krim his chance. For several years he did a Sandino, bore a charmed life, harassed Spanish garrisons, captured Spanish guns, castrated captured Spaniards, finally threatened French Morocco with his reign of Moslem terror.
By this time Lyautey was old and a Marshal. Younger officers, but under his aegis, proceeded to deal with Abd-el-Krim, using as their major weapon French bombing planes. In the end Krim crumpled, surrendered, lives today in lecherous exile with his harem on the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean (TIME, Sept. 20, 1926 et seq.). All his life Marshal Lyautey has written books, mostly about soldiering. He is a member of the French Academy, he is Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor and Marshal; but he will never be President of France.
Somebody will be elected President May 13, probably Aristide Briand or a gentle dark horse like President Paul Doumer of the Senate. The gentler the better. France fears what she calls “the man on horseback,” the man who from President might make himself Dictator. She did not choose Foch, Clemenceau, Joffre; she does not choose Lyautey.
*Net loss $8,000,000, largest in the 20th Century (Chicago World’s Fair, 1893, lost $14,000,000). The Paris Exposition of 1900 set the world’s all-time exposition attendance record: 39,000,000 (12,000,000 more than Wembley).
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