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The Patriotism of Gambetta: From Jacobinism to Combinazione

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

H. Tint
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Extract

The patriotism of the French underwent a far-reaching reorientation between 1871 and 1940. Understood as the readiness to do one's best for one's country, if necessary by fighting for it, the most significant change that affected French patriotic feeling during this period is its shift from the political left to the right. Popular response to the republican call to arms after the fall of the Empire in 1870 was to know no future parallel in its magnitude and enthusiasm. Excluded from positions of political prominence, the working classes and their leaders soon came to think that if they had a patrie, it was not the Third Republic. On the other hand, the right after a century of forgetfulness, rediscovered the old patriotic slogans as the left discarded them. And it used them with considerable skill to its political advantage. But the difference between left- and right-wing patriotism is that defeat in 1870 brought to power a man determined to fight against heavy odds, Gambetta; while defeat in 1940 brought to power a man determined to capitulate before the enemy, Pétain. And yet it has to be recognized that the origins of this transformation are to be found in the policies of the same Gambetta who, no doubt deservedly, is commonly hailed as the Jacobin hero of French resistance in 1870–1.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , July 1962 , pp. 365 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1962

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References

1 Rouher had epitomized French policy in 1867 in these words: “Jamais l'Italie n'entrera dans Rome. Jamais, jamais la France ne supportera cette violence faite à son honneur et à la catholicité.”

2 Bury, J.P.T., Gambetta and the National Defence, p. 40Google Scholar.

3 For a full discussion of these points see J.P.T. Bury, op. cit., passim.

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6 Ibid., p. 89.

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8 Letters de Gambetta, ed. Halévy, D. (Paris, 1938), no. 206, Sept. 9, 1874Google Scholar. “C'est dans ces graves et périlleuses batailles électorates qu'on juge, sans nuages, l'excellence de la politique que nous suivons.”

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10 Ibid., pp. 100–1.

11 Lettres, no. 127, September, 1871.

12 Discours, II, 171–2.

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17 Lettres, no. 224, Dec. 3, 1874.

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21 Lettres, no. 287, Sept. 20, 1876 to Juliette Adam.

22 See Lettres, “Avant-Propos”. The editors suggest that this particular “letter” is excluded from their collection because its authenticity is doubtful.

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24 Ibid., pp. 221–2, Sept. 20, 1875.

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27 It opened on May 1, 1878.

28 Lettres, no. 357, Feb. 20, 1878. Gambetta, in a later letter to Léonie Léon (Lettres, no. 358, Feb. 21, 1878) mentioned another speech that Bismarck made on the same day in which the latter paid some lip service to the rule of law in Europe to justify his calling the Berlin Conference. But this added reference alters our verdict on Gambetta's conclusions in no way.

29 See note 17.

30 For the more sinister right-wing accounts of Gambetta's alleged relations with Bismarck, see de Roux, M., La République de Bismarck (Paris, 1915)Google Scholar, including Bainville's translation of correspondence secrète de Gambetta et de Bismarck.

31 See note 9.

32 Discours, VIII, 378–9.

33 Gambetta believed that elections by party lists rather than by single member constituencies would make for stability, by eliminating purely local issues and purely local politicians from the electoral platform.

34 Lettres, no. 555, August 5, 1882, to Camille Depret.

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44 Lettres, no. 543, June 23, 1882, to Léonie Léon.

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46 Discours, VII, 82.

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