The Third Republic was stricto sensu the political regime of France from 1875 to 1940. However, this term generally includes the 5 years of hesitation preceding this regime (since the fall of the Second Empire in 1870).
Started in a predominantly royalist and Bonapartist parliamentary context, the Third Republic managed to impose itself and maintain itself longer (65 years) than all the other regimes since the French Revolution, despite major political crises - Decorations scandal , the Panama scandal, the Boulangist crisis, the Dreyfus affair, the establishment of secularism by the law of Separation of Churches and State, the creation of public schools, the school war that followed, etc. It is still to this day the longest of the French republics as well as the longest of the political regimes that France has experienced since 1789.
The Government of National Defense
During the war of 1870 resulting in the defeat and capture of the Emperor Napoleon III at Sedan on September 2, the socialists of Auguste Blanqui tried to organize an insurrection, but the parliamentary opposition, especially republican, led by Léon Gambetta succeeded in setting up a provisional government, known as National Defense. They proclaimed the republic on September 4, from the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. A national defense government was formed headed by General Trochu. Also members of this government are Emmanuel Arago, Adolphe Crémieux, Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, Léon Gambetta, Garnier-Pagès, Glais-Bizoin, Eugène Pelletan, Ernest Picard, Henri Rochefort, Jules Simon, all elected from Paris.
The war was not over in Sedan, however. On October 7 Gambetta left Paris in a balloon to try to reorganize the defense from the provinces. Indeed, with Paris besieged from September 19, the whole of France was blocked because of its star organization. On October 30, the hasty capitulation of Bazaine and the army of Metz (150,000 men) dealt a serious blow to France. It came at a time when the government, which had moved to Tours, had managed to organize an Army of the Loire. The Prussians, freed from the pressure of Bazaine, could then concentrate their forces on the Army of the Loire, which forced the government to fall back on Bordeaux. On January 18, German unity being achieved, the German sovereigns gathered at the Palace of Versailles proclaimed King William of Prussia Emperor. On January 28, Paris capitulated after 132 days of siege. The government negotiated a truce to hold elections. Jules Favre led the negotiations concerning the armistice. Opposed to the truce, Gambetta resigned.
Peace negotiations will be conducted later by Jules Favre and Adolphe Thiers with Bismarck. On May 10, 1871 the Treaty of Frankfurt was signed, Bismarck demanded and obtained:
* a significant war indemnity (6 billion francs - reduced after negotiation to 5 billion)
* Alsace and part of Lorraine (Belfort, which had been fiercely defended, under the command of Colonel Pierre Denfert-Rochereau, remains French)
* a parade of German troops on the Champs-Élysées.
This part does not concern the government of National Defense which was replaced after the elections of February 8 by a Thiers government.
February 8 elections
Elections held on February 8 brought a monarchist majority to the assembly. The main debate focused on the resumption of hostilities or capitulation. The short delay practically prevented any campaign, except in Paris. Voting by departmental lists favored union lists. The French, tired of the war or worried to see it approaching their region, always suspicious vis-à-vis the Parisian troubles, preferred to vote for the supporters of unconditional peace, that is to say the conservative lists. in which the notables figured prominently.
However, the occupied East, the threatened Lyon region, the South, the Alps and of course Paris renewed their attachment to the Republic.
The triumphant monarchists, however, were unable to immediately re-establish royalty. The Republic no longer worried them:convinced that a republic never lasted very long, they were delighted to see it assume defeat and restore authority in Paris. They entrusted Adolphe Thiers with these thankless tasks.
The Commune (March 18 - May 28, 1871)
The removal of the cannons from Montmartre, decided by Thiers, was the starting point of the communard insurrection.
The removal of the cannons from Montmartre, decided by Thiers, was the starting point of the communard insurrection.
Having borne most of the weight of the war, the city of Paris badly accepted the choices of Thiers, who moved the Assembly to Versailles, demobilized the mobiles and national guards, depriving many workers of income, demanded payment of the installments whose non-payment threatened 50,000 small traders with ruin, and abolished the moratorium on rents.
The revolt broke out when Thiers tried to confiscate the cannons of the National Guard (cannons financed by the Parisians) on March 18, 1871. The government assembled an army which the Communards call Versailles, made up in part of prisoners of war liberated by the Germans. On May 21, the Versaillese manage to enter the city. The Bloody Week began, with ruthless street battles, barricade by barricade, which ended with the defeat of the insurgents at the Père-Lachaise cemetery.
For Marxist historians, the events that led to the Commune were conscious provocations by Thiers who wanted to burst the Parisian abscess to establish a new regime on solid foundations. In fact, revolutionary Parisian circles were shattered for more than ten years by repression.
Early times of the Third Republic
Establishment of the Republic
The White Flag Affair
Pending a constitution, a National Assembly was elected on February 8, 1871, succeeding the government of National Defence. It included 30 Bonapartists, 200 Republicans and 400 Monarchists - themselves divided between 180 Legitimists and 220 Orleanists. Thiers was elected "head of the executive power of the French Republic". Every mention of the term "Republic", however, provoked the cry of "Provisional!" ". And the official posts were still held by the Bonapartists.
The monarchists kept Adolphe Thiers in power long enough to settle the consequences of the war while preparing for the return of their suitors. They voted to repeal the exile laws.
On May 8, a message from Henri d'Artois - claiming to be legitimists - suggested that he was giving up the white flag (of royalty) in favor of the tricolor flag. However, on July 3, d'Artois refused the visit of Philippe d'Orléans - an Orléanist pretender - ruining the merger projects of the two parties. As early as July 7, d'Artois published a manifesto expressing its attachment to the white flag.
Manifest text :
“France will call me and I will come to her wholeheartedly with my devotion, my principle and my flag. On the occasion of this flag, we talked about conditions that I must not undergo. I am ready to do anything to help my country rise from its ruins and regain its rank in the world; the only sacrifice I cannot make to him is that of my honour.
No, I will not allow the standard of Henry IV, Francis I and Jeanne D'Arc. It is with him that national unity was made; it is with him that your fathers, led by mine, conquered this Alsace and this Lorraine whose fidelity will be the consolation of our misfortunes. He overcame the barbarism of this land of Africa, witness to the first feats of arms of the princes of my family; it is he who will defeat the new barbarism with which the world is threatened. I will trust it without fear to the valor of our army; he has never followed, she knows, but the path of honour.
I received him as a sacred deposit from the old king, my ancestor, dying in exile; it has always been for me the inseparable memory of the absent fatherland; it floated on my cradle, I want it to shade my grave. In the glorious folds of this spotless standard, I will bring you order and freedom. French, Henri V cannot abandon the white flag of Henri IV. »
This intransigence, which smashes any possibility of a royalist restoration, drives the Orleanists and some of the Legitimists to despair.
Towards the Republic
The euphoria of the monarchists quickly subsided:on July 2, 1871, during the complementary elections, the Republicans won 99 of the 114 seats put to the vote.
Thiers, a fine politician, understood that, if he wanted to secure the broadest support, he had to conceal his intentions. On August 31, 1871, on the proposal of Rivet, the title of Thiers was clarified:President of the Republic, that is to say that he combines the functions of Head of State and Head of the Executive, even if the Assembly retains the constitutive functions and makes the president responsible to the Assembly.
The Assembly on this date began to form into groups, from left to right:
On the far left:Émile Littré
On the left:the "opportunistic republicans" Union Republicaine de Gambetta and the "four Jules":Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, Jules Grévy and Jules Simon.
in Center:
republican-conservatives and conservative-republicans, friends of Thiers (Auguste Casimir-Perier, Rémusat, Dufaure, Rivet, etc.)
the meetingChangarnier
the centre-right :the Orléanists who do not accept the white flag duc de Broglie, deputy at the same time as ambassador in London, the duc Decazes (Louis, son of Elie).
on the right:the "chevau-légers" - they met at the Passage des chevau-légers in Paris - these are legitimists in favor of the white flag, including the Duke of Audiffret-Pasquier.
the party ultramontane (liberal Catholicism) of Monseigneur Dupanloup, archbishop of Orléans.
The progress of the left-wing parties worried the conservatives, who delegated representatives to Thiers to express their emotion at the rise of radicalism. Which allowed Thiers to answer them:“Since you are the majority, why don’t you establish the monarchy? »; and get angry with the right.
However, on January 25, 1872, the Count of Chambord published a new manifesto for the white flag.
Gambetta's return to political life favored the progress of the radicals and forced Thiers to spare the center, he clearly took a position for a conservative Republic against a return to the monarchical regime. After the death of Napoleon III on January 7, 1873, the Bonapartists, to preserve the chances of the Prince Imperial, allied themselves with the Royalists. Thiers resigned on May 23, 1873 still convinced that after him chaos, but the right had already planned a replacement in the person of Mac-Mahon who was elected by 390 votes on May 24.
Mac Mahon Presidency
Declared of public utility, the construction of the Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre was considered by the supporters of the Moral Order as a means of expiating the events of the Commune and symbolically opposing the progress of the anticlerical Republicans.
Declared of public utility, the construction of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre was considered by the supporters of the Moral Order as a means of expiating the events of the Commune and symbolically opposing the progress of the Anticlerical Republicans.
Under the presidency of Mac-Mahon, of legitimist tendency, the tendency was towards moral order, based on respect for religious values with, for example, the publication of Le Pèlerin, the appearance of the Lourdes pilgrimage, the erasure of the history of the Commune by building the Sacré-Coeur basilica on the Montmartre hill.
Mac-Mahon, whose political ambition seems to be limited to the return of the king, assumes only the function of head of state and leaves the task of governing to Albert de Broglie, duc de Broglie (pronounced "Breuil"), a descendant of one of the most powerful aristocratic families in France and vice-president of the Council.
The return of the king seems imminent after a meeting between Henri d'Artois and Philippe d'Orléans but d'Artois still refuses to give up the white flag and the affair again fails. D'Artois being already old, the Orleanists impatiently await his disappearance. However, institutions were prepared which would be capable of functioning and of being modified in a monarchy. On November 20, the Duke of Broglie passed the law extending the mandate of the president to seven years to extend the presidency of Mac Mahon, but his majority crumbled and on May 16, 1874 he was replaced by Ernest Courtot de Cissey allied with the Bonapartists, victorious during the by-elections.
The Third Republic was definitively established on January 30, 1875 by the adoption, by a majority vote, at first reading 353 against 352, then by a larger majority at second reading 413 against 248, of the Walloon Amendment which provided:
“The President of the Republic is elected by an absolute majority of votes by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies meeting in the National Assembly. He is appointed for seven years; he is eligible for re-election. »
The three constitutional laws that establish the regime are then passed.
Having fulfilled its role, the Assembly separated on December 31, 1875.
Consolidation
MacMahon's attempts to strengthen the power of the president failed, and during the Crisis of May 16, 1877, the "Republic of the Opportunists" definitively took precedence over the monarchist Moral Order. After his resignation in 1879, his successor Jules Grévy and the various presidents of the council effectively established a secular, democratic and parliamentary republic.
Moreover, in order to form citizens attached to the Republic and to the Fatherland, Jules Ferry, Minister of Public Instruction from 1879 to 1883, endeavored to make the school a republican institution, through a series of reforms. the main ones being the following:
* Decrees of March 29, 1880 excluding religious congregations (mainly Jesuits) from education.
* Law of June 16, 1881 establishing free primary education.
* Law of March 28, 1882 making compulsory "primary education ... for children of both sexes aged between six and thirteen years of age".
The Boulangist crisis (1886-1889)
General Boulanger was Minister of War in 1886. Very popular in the fringe of the population disappointed by the Republic of the Opportunists and highly prized among the Revanchards (he was nicknamed "General Revanche"), he was considered by many Republicans as a danger to the Republic and to peace. Relieved of his ministerial duties in 1887 then retired in 1888, he became the rallying point for all discontented people:
The radicals and socialists, opponents of the Republic of the Opportunists,
The Nationalists of Paul Déroulède and the League of Patriots),
Representatives of the monarchist and bonarpartist right.
Boulanger becomes the meeting point of the most contradictory hopes and gives hope to all. some of his supporters. Threatened to go to the High Court of Justice for "undermining state security", he fled abroad in April 1889 (Belgium). The Universal Exhibition of 1889 helps to make it forget and the "boulangist" candidates are defeated in September in the elections of the same year.
The decorations scandal
In October 1887, the press updated a traffic of decorations by the own son-in-law of the president of the republic Jules Grévy. This scandal, relayed on the right by the Boulangists and on the left by the ambitious Jules Ferry and Georges Clemenceau, definitively cast opprobrium on the governance of the time. However, it was Sadi Carnot who inherited the presidency.
Anarchist attacks
The anarchist crisis, like the Boulangist crisis and the Dreyfus affair, is linked to this climate of economic instability (due to the Vienna crash), social and then political. This unfavorable situation contributes, like the Panama scandal, to the rise of anti-parliamentarianism. This "anarchist crisis" is characterized by numerous attacks, it was provoked by Ravachol.
July 11, 1892:Ravachol is an anarchist activist. He was guillotined in Montbrison for blowing up the homes of two Parisian lawyers, as well as a barracks (March 1892). These attacks will first cost him life, but after being tried for crimes committed in his native region (the Loire), he will be sentenced to death.
On June 21, the sentence was pronounced and he shouted:“long live anarchy”.
December 9, 1893:Auguste Vaillant, throws a bomb loaded with nails on the deputies, no dead, only one injured; during his trial he will justify this act by the desire to avenge Ravachol. He was executed on February 4, 1894.
April 27, 1894:Trial of Emile Henry for the attack of February 12, 1894 at the Café Terminus, and the explosion of November 8, 1892 at a police station.
Emile Henry loudly and proudly claimed his actions, reading a statement in which he analyzes corrupt society and pleads revolt.
June 24, 1894:Sadi Carnot, the President of the Republic, was assassinated by an Italian anarchist:Sante Geronimo Caserio, on June 24, 1894 in Lyon.
Rogue Laws:
This wave of attacks will give birth to new laws, called “rogue laws” by anarchists. The first (voted on December 12, 1893) condemns the apology of any crime as an offense; in order to increase the penalties imposed on anarchists who clearly and proudly claim responsibility for their attacks, to condemn the anarchist press and to be able to make "preventive" seizures more easily.
The second (of December 18, 1893) allows the judicial authorities to convict any person who participated (nearly or from afar), even if there was no execution.
The last:Condemnation of any person, any newspaper, having used anarchist propaganda (by libertarian extension)
"1. Either by provocation, or by apology [...] incited one or more persons to commit either theft, or the crimes of murder, pillage, arson [...]; 2. Or addressed a provocation to soldiers of the armies of land and sea, with the aim of diverting them from their military duties and from the obedience which they owe to their leaders [...] would be referred to the correctional police courts and punished with a imprisonment from three months to two years."
From now on, any libertarian guilty of the offense of speech, or of apology for acts of propaganda could be sentenced to prison. Thus some people have been condemned for rejoicing in the death of Sadi Carnot.
The Panama Scandal
The construction of the Panama Canal began in 1881 but proved to be more expensive than expected, until it became a money pit. Finally, and despite the opening of a public subscription, the entrepreneur had to file for bankruptcy in 1889, thus leading to the ruin of several tens of thousands of subscribers.
In 1892, Édouard Drumont, an openly anti-Semitic journalist denounced the affair and implicated several Jewish financiers who supported the project as well as many politicians linked to the financial community. This resurgence of anti-Semitism in France will be one of the triggers of the Dreyfus affair, three years later.
The Dreyfus affair (1894-1906)
In 1894, Captain Dreyfus, accused of spying for Germany, was sentenced to lifelong deportation to Devil's Island in Guyana. Several personalities try, in vain, to demonstrate the innocence of Dreyfus. In January 1898, in the newspaper L'Aurore by Georges Clemenceau, Emile Zola published the article "J'accuse" in which he accused the army of having condemned an innocent person and of not wanting to recognize him. France is then divided in two. For the Revisionists or Dreyfusards, it is necessary, in the name of justice, to bring out the truth whatever the consequences for the army. Many gather in the League of Human Rights, created on this occasion. For the Antidreyfusards, reason of state, the prestige of the army, the national interest require not to go back on the res judicata; the prestige of the army, an instrument of revenge, must not be undermined. Some find themselves in the Ligue de la patrie française or the Ligue des patriotes. In 1899, some even tried to organize a coup to establish an authoritarian regime. Following a review trial in 1899, Dreyfus was sentenced to 10 years in prison before being pardoned by the President of the Republic and then reinstated in the army in 1906. See also the detailed article:Affaire Dreyfus
Anticlericalism and the Separation of Powers
The law of associations
On July 1, 1901, Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, then President of the Council, passed a law framing the status of non-profit associations.
The Combes government
The 1902 elections were a triumph for the Radical party, and brought Émile Combes to power. The latter allied with the socialists of Jaurès through the Bloc des gauches. The Combes government led a fierce anticlerical fight, inter alia interpreting the 1901 law on associations with the aim of dissolving all unauthorized congregations, and refusing religious congregations any authorization. Then, in 1904, he prohibited even authorized congregations from teaching, including in public schools. Thus, nearly 2,000 schools were closed. In 1905, Combes formulated a bill proposing the Separation of Church and State, but fell before being able to have it adopted, for lack of a sufficient parliamentary majority. (Law of December 9, 1905)-
The First World War
In a context of extreme political tension in Europe, amplified in France by an exacerbated feeling of revenge against the German enemy, war broke out in the summer of 1914. France was then allied in particular to the United Kingdom and to Russia. On the western front, the forces of the Triple Entente were initially jostled by the strategy of the Germans, based on the speed and scale of the movement. But thanks to a recovery from Joffre on the Marne, they hold on and stop the opposing progress. From a war of movement, the conflict then turned into a war of position, on a line crossing the north and east of France. France is bogged down with Europe in a total war where industries, economies and mentalities are geared towards the goal of victory, or at least resistance.
Libérés by the cessation of fighting on the eastern front after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Germans unsuccessfully launched five major offensives (from March to July 1918) on the French front to force victory before the massive commitment of the States States newly entered into war. But the Allies regained the initiative on July 18 and pushed the front back almost 150 kilometers, pushing the exhausted Germans to accept the signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918.
However, France also came out exhausted by this 4-year conflict, which lasted for her until 1919 in the war in Russia against the Bolsheviks. The northern and eastern regions, the most industrial, were ravaged and their industrial apparatus destroyed. More than one and a half million men died at the front (10.5% of the active male population), and three and a half million were wounded and maimed.
But, contradicting the About William II, the republic withstood the shock of war, unlike the empires.
The interwar period
At the end of the war, France was bloodless, but the exact figures were impossible to determine, as the war and the Spanish flu had wreaked havoc, the extent of which is not easy to quantify (some think that the Spanish flu killed 20 million people on Earth, another 50 million):2,900,000 fewer inhabitants, 2,800,000 injured men, 630,000 widows and 750,000 orphans. 20,000 factories and numerous mines have been destroyed, half of the road network is unusable. A war loan of 32 billion gold francs must be repaid.
The National Bloc
The 1919 elections saw a centre-right coalition win nearly three-quarters of the seats in parliament. This “horizon blue room” had many veterans. The right-wing majority held power until 1924. It pursued a nationalist, anti-Bolshevik, pro-clerical and anti-union policy. Discounting war reparations from Germany, it increased public spending significantly. Germany refusing to pay its debt, Poincaré was forced to increase the tax by 20% and occupied the mining basin of the Ruhr in 1923. This occupation was a failure, the German miners organizing a general strike. Four governments succeeded each other during this legislature:Alexandre Millerand, Georges Leygues, Aristide Briand and Raymond Poincaré.
The Left Cartel
In 1924, a coalition of the Radical Republican Party and Radical Socialist Radical Socialists]], the Socialist SFIO Party and, depending on the department, left-wing Republicans, won the legislative elections. The President of the Republic, Alexandre Millerand, refuses to recognize this victory and calls a moderate, François-Marsal, to form the government. This obviously does not obtain a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Edouard Herriot becomes chairman of the board and Millerand will have to resign. Herriot, however, will not succeed in resolving the financial crisis. His second government, very short-lived, was no more successful. In 1926, President Doumergue then called on Raymond Poincaré, who formed a government of national unity and succeeded in restoring a balanced budget.
In 1928, the Marthe Hanau affair splashed political and media circles.
The Stavisky affair
In December 1933, the director of the Crédit Municipal de Bayonne, Gustave Tissier, was arrested for fraud and putting into circulation false cash vouchers, for 235 million francs. It was quickly discovered that Tissier was only the executor of the founder of Crédit Municipal, Serge Alexandre Stavisky, who had organized this scam with the complicity of the deputy and mayor of Bayonne, Dominique-Joseph Garat.
The case sparked a political scandal since it turned out that Stavisky was already being prosecuted by the courts, prosecutions stifled by the intervention of ministers or corrupt parliamentarians (Fall of the government of Camille Chautemps). The scandal was exploited by the far right and culminated in a riot on February 6, 1934 which brought about the fall of the government of Édouard Daladier.
6 and 9 February 1934
From 1931 the global economic crisis began to affect France. At the same time, government instability and numerous politico-financial scandals lead to the development of anti-parliamentarianism and the rise of the far right. So much so that on February 6, 1934, far-right demonstrators, including members of Action Française, tried to gain access to the National Assembly, whose goal was to overthrow the Republic and restore the monarchy. There were twelve dead and hundreds injured. A new government was formed by Gaston Doumergue. It was made up of personalities close to the far-right leagues:Pétain, Pierre Laval... On February 9, PCF demonstrations, banned by the new government, also killed several people. On February 12, the first united demonstration of all leftist forces took place.
The Popular Front
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The Popular Front was a coalition of left-wing parties (the PCF, the SFIO, the Radical Party and the USR) which governed France from 1936 to 1938 and which began with the presidency of Léon Blum. Malgré sa brièveté, cette période bouleversa les rapports sociaux du pays. Les accords de Matignon ont apporté notamment la semaine de 40 heures, les congés payés et les conventions collectives. Les différences de vues sur la guerre d’Espagne ont affaibli la coalition dès juin 1937.
Fin de la Troisième République
Guerres coloniales et politique extérieure
La France avait perdu l’essentiel de ses colonies lors de la guerre de Sept Ans (notamment l’Inde et le Québec). En 1802, Napoléon Ier avait vendu la Louisiane, la France n’avait dès lors plus de colonie. La conquête d’Alger en 1830 représentait un premier pas vers un renouveau de l’empire colonial français, mais la conquête coloniale fut surtout le fait de la Troisième République. Cette volonté mettant la France en concurrence avec le Royaume-Uni aida au rapprochement avec la Russie. Mais pendant cette période, l’ennemi fut toujours l’Allemagne, d’autant que cet empire devint également un concurrent dans l’expansion coloniale lorsqu’il commença à réclamer sa « place au soleil » après l’arrivée au pouvoir de Guillaume II et l’éviction de Bismarck.
Ferry-Tonkin
À partir de 1878, un large mouvement d’expansion impérialiste se développa, initié par le Britannique Benjamin Disraeli. En France, cette politique fut défendue par Jules Ferry, qui profita de la bienveillance intéressée de Bismarck. Le chancelier allemand voyait dans cette ambition coloniale un palliatif pour l’honneur national français et une source de dépenses difficilement valorisables, propres à affaiblir la France face à une Allemagne forte. Ainsi la Tunisie endettée devint-elle un protectorat français par le traité du Bardo en 1881. L’expansion s’effectua aussi en Afrique noire à partir du Sénégal et du Congo. En revanche, l’Égypte passa aux Britanniques malgré l’influence française due au percement du canal de Suez.
Soutenu par les militaires et les missionnaires mais contesté par les radicaux de Georges Clemenceau, Jules Ferry eut moins de facilités à obtenir les crédits nécessaires pour la colonisation de l’Indochine. Une défaite mineure au Tonkin le fit démissionner en 1885.
L’alliance russe
Promoteur de la Triple alliance et jouant habilement sur la rivalité franco-britannique, le chancelier Bismarck avait façonné l’Europe à son idée. Il entra cependant en désaccord avec Guillaume II qui obtint sa démission en 1890. La Russie isolée envisagea alors l’alliance avec la France. Passant outre les offres allemandes, elle ratifia un accord militaire secret le 4 janvier 1894. La Russie s’assurait ainsi contre l’Autriche-Hongrie et la France contre l’Allemagne et l’Italie. Cette nouvelle donne installait déjà les bases de la Première Guerre mondiale.
L’expédition de Madagascar
Faisant suite à l’accord franco-britannique du 5 août 1890, les Français envoyèrent en décembre 1894 21 000 hommes (dont 7 000 convoyeurs indigènes) dans une campagne de conquête de l’île de Madagascar. Les troupes expéditionnaires, dirigées par le général Duchesne, débarquèrent à Majunga en mars 1895. Le royaume Hova de Madagascar était potentiellement défendu par une armée de 35 000 hommes, mais ils n’opposèrent qu’une résistance sporadique, occasionnant à peine 20 morts du côté français. Cependant, d’importantes difficultés logistiques ralentirent l’expédition qui n’atteignit Tananarive, la capitale, que le 1er octobre. Mal acclimatés, 5 736 hommes des troupes expéditionnaires furent décimés par le paludisme et la fièvre typhoïde.
La reculade de Fachoda
Les visées coloniales de la France et du Royaume-Uni sur le continent africain devaient inévitablement déboucher sur un conflit. La situation se présenta le 18 septembre 1898 dans la ville soudanaise de Fachoda. L’expédition française du capitaine Marchand, installée depuis trois mois, vit arriver l’armée de Lord Kitchener.
Paris reçut aussitôt un ultimatum de Londres lui intimant de faire se retirer la colonne Marchand. L’opinion publique française, au nationalisme exacerbé par l’affaire Dreyfus, appela à en découdre avec l’ennemi héréditaire, mais le rapport de force était trop inégal et la France, revancharde envers l’Allemagne, ne pouvait se permettre de défier le Royaume-Uni. Le 10 novembre, l’ordre fut donné à Marchand de se retirer et d’abandonner la vallée du Nil aux Britanniques.
Les historiens considèrent généralement que cette affaire permit le rapprochement politique de la France et le Royaume-Uni, qui aboutit à l’Entente Cordiale le 8 avril 1904.
L’incident d’Agadir
Le 1er juillet 1911, l’empire allemand dépêcha une canonnière à Agadir pour signifier aux Français son désaccord concernant le traité d’Algésiras de 1906. L’Allemagne contestait les avantages de la France sur le Maroc et souhaitait une compensation.
Joseph Caillaux négocia une entente franco-allemande, conservant les avantages au Maroc mais concédant une partie du Congo au Cameroun allemand.
Cet accord mécontenta les opinions et Caillaux fut limogé et remplacé par Raymond Poincaré. Celui-ci se montra plus ferme vis-à-vis de l’Allemagne et resserra les liens avec la Russie et le Royaume-Uni.