Evening star., 1928-12-02
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feeling certain that he was bound to
do something which would show that
French diplomacy was no longer going
to be lectured to and guided by the
British government.
Tried to Force France.
The same thing was happening then
which constantly had watched before,
when italian minister for foreign af-
fairs, in many of the Supreme Councils
which followed the conclusion of the
Versailles treaty. Certain statesmen
had wished to force France to revise
her opinions too rapidly, and, there
fore, they had gone the wrong way.
Although sincerely desirous of helping
France by indicating her best course,
they only increased her bitterness and
her diStruSt.
Better work for European reconcile
alton was done. dare to say, by those
who, like myself. loyalty sided with
France in great number of questions
but who gave her a friendly warning
when the time really had come for her
to accept new situation.
This. and no other. was the practical
way at that time, and even during my
Paris ambasSadorShip, to exert over
French statesmen an influence all the
more efhcaciouS in that it was modest
and not Self-eEacing.
But was it possible to hope for a
modest action from Lord Curzon, and
for policy that was not self-advertiS-
ing from demagogic newcomers?
Situation in 1922.
This not being the place for a his
f0riRQl hi
myself to stating the conclusions of nv
observations at the end of 1922; Poln-
care felt, rightly or wrongly, that the
prestige of France obliged him to do
something. In this dangerous period
nothing forced his hand so much as the
hostility which was being shown against
him in England. where a generous offer
made in vain by Bonar Law and blindly
reJected by the French and by the new
Italian rulers had been only a paren-
thesis in long, pickering psychological
situation. Poincare felt himself obliged
to choose between a dangerous step for
ward and a humiliating retreat, SEEM
1ngly imposed on him by England
Being Frenchman, he chose. at the
last moment and with tragic internal
hesitation, for the dangerous step 1t
was the Ruhr: nothing else was pos
siole. But the man who did it was
certainly not, at the bottom of his
heart, the Poincare-la-Ruhr the war
like Poincare full of hatredS. In real
ity, his Ruhr policy had been prompted
at least as much by his desire to create
a new situation in the Franco-British
relations as a means of pressure upon
Germany.
Has National Characteristics.
I know that nothing is more danger
Gus than to make generalizationS.
But how can one resist the tempta-
ton, when thinking and writing about
Raymond Poincare? So easy and then
again so difficult does it appear, alter J
nately, to speak of him This F,
may happen because. to anybody having |
a certain intimacy with the spirit of the |
old French provinces, Raymond Poin- |
care-powerftil personality as he isl
seems to embody most of the TYPICAL !
of mental France, espe- |
cially of her juridical mind.
That is why one is tempted sometimes |
to consider him as the personif1cation OF |
the highest type of the logical French
mind. But logical mind, French or
not. has certainties. And 1 always felt,
and still feel, that Raymond Poincare