The Revolution Changes Course
The Revolution Changes Course
The Social Republic of France faced a reckoning in the second half of the 1870s as the Anarcho-Blanquist coalition under Pierre Saint-Michellon sought to effect a drastic reorganization of society. The Blanquists, taking advantage of the anarchists’ far less coordinated party, were able to dominate the coalition and force through several reforms. Chief among these were the redistribution of land in the countryside, the establishment of local communes, and a concerted attack on the Catholic Church.
Beginning in 1875, Paris would forcibly close down numerous churches, declaring that the Church was a symbol of the old order and an enemy of the people. Even in the cities these provisions were viewed as a step too far while in the countryside the attempt to eradicate the Church actively inflamed tensions that had never been solved. Tensions would slowly rise with sporadic acts of violence and sabotage in the countryside until they reached their peak in summer 1876.
The summer of 1876 was a particularly hot one. As death from heatstroke popped up across the nation, tensions rose alongside the temperature. By August, the situation was critical as the people in the countryside utilized the communes originally set up to make them support the Republic to plot against it. It was decided that a coordinated action would be taken across the country beginning on August 14th. France was about to see its first general strike.
The strike began inauspicious enough. When a train arrived in Orleans, the workers at the station found that its cars were empty. When asked where the food was, the conductor replied that the farmers had refused to sell it. This incident would be swiftly overtaken by a flood of such reports across the next two days. By the time September arrived, the situation became serious as the cities began to run short on food. Paris received several demands from the strikers, demanding an end to the persecution of the Church, the restoration of destroyed and closed places of worship, and the passage of an act that would provide funds for the modernization of French agriculture.
The general strike completely shattered the Blanquist-Anarchist coalition. The anarchists, while supportive of anti-clericism, were opposed to the measures adopted by the Blanquists in their crusade against the Church. While they had gone along due to the increased autonomy given to the village communes, the majority would officially withdraw their support from the Blanquists and state they were willing to negotiate.
The Blanquist response was one of indignation. Refusing to call new elections, they stubbornly insisted on creating a minority government and steadfastly refused to negotiate. Utilizing their connections in the army (many of the Social Republic’s military commanders were at the very least sympathetic), they called out the Garde Nationale to forcibly requisition food and distribute it to the cities. The first town to be visited was Mantes, where Garde Nationale members from Paris marched on September 8th to enforce the transfer of food. The result was the so-called Battle of Mantes, a standoff between militiamen and sympathetic Guardsmen and the Parisians that lasted until the Parisian commander, unwilling to shed French blood, elected to withdraw.
The Battle of Mantes gripped headlines across the country and stirred up outrage in many of the city dwellers at the use of military force, abortive as it was, against Frenchmen exercising their rights. Viewing the Blanquists, not the strikers, as the main impediment to ending the ever more unpopular crisis, the general strike extended into the cities. France ground to a halt as what little food had been trickling into the cities rooted itself in place when the teamsters and rail workers entered the picket line.
The spread of the General Strike from the countryside to the cities proved to be too much for the Blanquists. Their government would collapse, soon being replaced by a Centrist government capable of governing without a coalition. The Centrists, propelled to power with considerable help from the countryside, soon agreed to all of the striker’s demands, resulting in a final end to the strike as shipments of meat and grain from the last few holdouts in Auvergne left for the cities on October 15th.
The dramatic failure of the Blanquists and the success of the 1876 General Strike would shake France to its core. Ironically, it would strengthen support for the Social Republic in the culturally conservative countryside as the establishment of local communes, the rise of a government willing to listen to their demands, and the effectiveness of coordinated action caused many to rethink their opinion of leftist ideology. Calls for the reinstatement of the monarchy, although never fully disappearing, began to fade into the background as rural culture began to take on a larger emphasis on religion and mutual support groups.
In the cities, the results were drastically different. The Anarchists, never the most cohesive of groups, effectively dissolved as a unitary political body in the aftermath of the General Strike while the Blanquists faded into irrelevance. The Centrist rise to dominance would fall apart in the 1880 elections due to a mixture of uninspiring ideals and lukewarm governance since solving the General Strike. The result was political chaos as no one party was strong enough to seize control. Despite being a solid minority at a mere 24% of the seats in the National Council, the Centrists once again became the official ruling party of the Social Republic of France.
It was into this vacuum that one Georges Ernest Boulanger stepped in. A former officer in the Garde Nationale, he had turned in his commission rather than participate in the Blanquist order to requisition food. Since then he had begun to gather a small but growing following, allowing him to run for a seat in the National Council in the 1884 elections. Tapping into fears of the Social Republic betraying its ideals, revanchist sentiments against Germany, and a general discontent with the current state of affairs, he would lose his bid for the seat but would be propelled to the national spotlight in the process. By 1886, Boulangism looked to be the dominant force in French politics, forcing a snap election from the Centrists and seizing control of the National Council in a loose coalition. Europe looked on in bated breath as General Revanche took over the reins of France.
Fortunately for both France and Europe at large, Boulanger was well aware that France was in no condition to face down the German Empire even with the troubles it was having. Instead, he turned his sight to the French colonial empire as a way to build up French prestige and national pride.
Ever since the foundation of the Social Republic in 1871, the French Empire had been in an awkward limbo. While anti-imperialist sentiments were not exactly unpopular in the Republic, they had neither the momentum nor the impetus to turn the national discussion of France to the future of the Empire. The result was a continuation of the status quo with only minor improvements for the natives as Paris granted them more autonomy.
This would change with the rise of Boulanger. Boulanger, a convert to socialist ideals in the early years of the Republic due to both it and Japan’s success, sought to transform the French Empire into an alliance of Socialist states. Utilizing French-occupied Vietnam as a testing ground, he would empower local socialists to form the Social Republic of Vietnam and in 1887 would support their invasion of northern Vietnam, resulting in the fall of the entirety of non-Siamese Indochina into Socialist hands. Attempts to cross the border into China were driven back by the reforming Chinese. Despite the minor defeat at the hands of the Chinese, Boulanger would be buoyed by his success and turned his attention to Africa in an attempt to replicate it there.
This would prove to be a mistake. While socialist thought had grown in Africa, it held little sway with the Taureg tribes that had dominated the Algerian Sahara since the Mokrani Revolt in 1871. Indeed, the French control in the entire region had remained shaky due to Paris’ apathy to the colonies. Boulanger attempted to counteract this by bringing the total number of men in the region up to 50,000 and officially recognizing the independence of a French-aligned Algerian state in 1887. While the coastal strip remained securely in French hands, attempts to press into the Sahara were either met with disappointment as French columns lunged at nothing or stinging defeats as small French detachments were defeated by their Taureg opponents.
This situation would last until 1892, resulting in a steady drain on French manpower as they tried to desperately make something out of their intervention until domestic concerns finally forced Boulanger to admit that the entire enterprise was a failure. While the Social Republic of Algeria would survive on the coast, its grip on the interior was effectively non-existent. The young republic would soon become wracked with ethnic tensions as French settlers and locals vied for control in the Algerian National Council and the Algerians sought their land back.
To the south in Senegal, French efforts to establish control outside of the Four Communes, the oldest French settlements in West Africa, had been abandoned with the rise of the Social Republic. As the French pulled back along the Senegal River, the Toucouleur Empire followed in their wake. By 1888, the French position in West Africa had all but disappeared as the local French governor elected to consolidate his position rather than getting bogged down in a campaign of revolutionary expansion.
The French countryside, empowered by its victory in the General Strike, had yet to find its voice in the National Council, instead being forced to rely on the Centrists and Anarchists. Boulanger’s rise had begun to change that, however, as his emphasis on French nationalism sparked an upsurge of patriotism among all who heard his message. While Boulanger’s focus on the old Blanquist ideals of violent revolution would help revive French pride and unify the country behind the idea of carrying the Revolution abroad, his constant neglect of all but the most pressing domestic issues would see his support begin to dwindle as the appeal of pure nationalism lost its glimmer.
Just as Boulanger had stepped into a political vacuum left by the decline of others, so too did a new, powerful, force enter French politics. His name was Roland Beaumont, a young man born in the western Pyrenees in 1858. His father had served in the Franco-Prussian War, regaling his son with stories of glory and camaraderie that would shape his worldview. He would grow to become a fervent Germanophobe, viewing them as responsible for the degradation of La Belle France to the position of pariah in Europe. Stories of the continuing aristocratic domination of the German Empire would see him fully embrace socialism as the answer to France’s ills. In particular, he would stumble upon the works of an old socialist writer who had fallen out of favor some decades past… Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
For Beaumont, the exposure to Proudhon was a watershed moment in his life. Utilizing a synthesis of nationalism and anarchism, he would strike upon the idea of the nation-citoyen (Citizen-Nation): an institution in which the state is utterly abolished because the very essence of the nation is infused with its people, making the state obsolete as every person will serve the nation as easily as they would serve themselves.
Beaumont’s entrance into politics would occur after he mustered out of the army in 1890 due to an injury while serving in Algeria. Utilizing his experience as a soldier, he would run for the office of mayor in Bayonne. Running on a platform of increased support for the town’s industrial sector and restoring the local Catholic Church to its pre-suppression glory, he won in a landslide. His subsequent purge of the upper echelons of the city government and filling them with supporters propelled him to national prominence as a no-nonsense veteran willing to undertake extreme actions to enforce his vision. Beaumont would utilize this popularity ruthlessly, launching a tour of the country in 1891 that saw his radical militant and pro-Church politics but orthodox syndicalist economics gain immense popularity among a countryside that had felt silenced in the National Council for decades. In the cities, Beaumont would gain a following among veterans and the working class as an agent of change who felt that the Social Republic was in a rut. Where Boulanger had begun the changes necessary to revitalize France, it was hoped that Beaumont would be able to complete them.
The runup to the national elections of 1892 would see Beaumont form his own party, l’Esprit du Nation. Initially staffed with comrades from his days in Algeria and friends from around Gascony, l’Esprit du Nation would rapidly grow into a nationwide movement that boasted 100,000 members. Despite Beaumont’s personal popularity, his party would have subpar electoral success, forcing them to become the junior partner in a coalition with Boulanger. Beaumont himself would give up his status as mayor of Bayonne to take a seat in the National Council, a situation that would serve him just fine as he stirred up trouble and kept his eye on the 1896 elections.
In the interim between the 1892 and 1896 elections, Beaumont would become intimately familiar with the realities of intra-party politics as his regional following exploded into a national phenomenon. Tapping into a deep feeling of resentment in all walks of life, Beaumont drew to himself a diverse following from arch-conservatives to revanchist Marxists. As part of the creation of a national organization, l’Esprit du Nation was forced to undergo a standardization of doctrine and come to grips on what exactly they wanted.
Beaumont himself would dominate these discussions, with factions in the party attempting to sway him to their side. Much of this was complicated by the fact that Beaumont was a devout Catholic who had drawn a significant amount of support from fellow devout Catholics. Betraying them and supporting full secularization was simply a non-option. But Beaumont believed that he was not just a voice for Catholics, but for all of France. Ignoring that a non-significant part of the population was non-religious or did not define themselves by their Catholicism would betray that fundamental part of Beaumont’s vision for France.
Over 1892 and 1893, l’Esprit du Nation would finish crystalizing its doctrine, eventually settling on a concrete platform:
- Restore government support for the Catholic Church
- Protection of all Christian denominations as legitimate forms of faith
- Strengthening of the office of President to the level necessary to ensure France’s restoration as a great power
- Increased industrial output to strengthen the nation
- Mechanization of agriculture
- Embrace of modern technology
- Reclamation of the Lost Provinces
- Strengthening of the military
- Rationalization of the military
- Pushing the boundaries of science with ever-increasing speed
Greetings, fellow citizens. Today I stand before you with a simple purpose, to talk with you about the current status of our beloved France. It is no secret that ever since the Revolution our nation has been adrift, torn apart by divides. The ties between urban and rural, between the farmer and the factory worker, have been inflamed by people consumed by an obsession with so-called “class warfare”, the idea that there exists a class of oppressed and a class of oppressors. Despite their supposed renunciation of Karl Marx, the Anarchists and Blanquists have seized upon this to legitimize their attacks on the old system of France.
In this, they weren’t entirely wrong. I think none among you would disagree that the old landlords were rapacious maggots who ate away at good Frenchmen. But where the other Communards were wrong is by decrying this class as permanent enemies. Once they were stripped of their power, they were Frenchmen like any other. This was a mistake, the blood that ties us together overcomes all class barriers! The blood of Frenchmen runs in all of our veins! From Brittany to Occitania, we are all Frenchmen! Even in the Lost Provinces, we are Frenchmen! In Algeria, we are Frenchmen! In St. Pierre and Miquelon we are Frenchmen! Even in Guyane we are Frenchmen!
But what exactly does that mean? If you went into the National Council and asked those seated there, they would give you a vague answer, something like “A shared culture and language.” But, once again, what does that mean? To me, what makes a Frenchman French is the blood coursing through their veins, their devotion to the wellbeing of France, their loyalty to its leaders, their willingness to die for their countrymen. That is what makes a Frenchman French. France is a nation of brothers in arms, forged in revolution and war. This is our national legacy, one that we must never forget.
(pause)
Looming over all of this, however, is the Church. The Holy Catholic Church serves as a unifying point for many in France, particularly in the countryside, and it would be remiss to avoid mentioning it in any discussion about France. The farmers of France have long been the backbone of the old order, showing their support for the King in the days gone bye. In modern times, they have fiercely resisted Paris’s attempts to impose their anti-clerical vision on the entirety of the nation. And for this, I congratulate you! The People’s Strike definitively proved that the lessons of the Commune were absorbed by the rural population and made them conscious of their power! Attacks on the key institution of the Church were resisted and turned back in a way that showed not only your power but also your restraint!
But this lesson must not be misinterpreted. The victories of the People’s Strike were not due to the innate power of the religious and rural populations, but due to the power of Frenchmen working together! The power to force those in power to respect their wishes is what makes the people strong! The power to unite from weak individuals to unstoppable nations is what makes the people strong! The ability to channel this power into an unstoppable force is what makes the French nation strong!
It is to this end that I ask you to band together in support of myself and l’Esprit du Nation in reviving the glory of France! Together, as a nation, we will recreate a glory unseen since Napoleon and Robespierre! Together we will spread Revolution across Europe, revitalizing a continent languishing under the rule of corrupt monarchies and greedy aristocrats! We shall put the power in the hands of the people, ensuring that, under France’s leadership, a new Europe where the common folk will be able to control their own fate! The communes of rural France, the unions of the cities, the pied noirs of Algeria, the Bretons, the Occitanians, the Basque, all must set aside their differences to create a united whole capable of once again bringing Europe to its knees!
(pause)
This is most likely meaningless to you, however. What good is uniting as a nation to you when your stomach grows empty, your prospects in life become non-existent, your future meaningless? Fear not, my brothers and sisters, for I too have felt the malaise that has struck our great nation. I too have felt what it is like to be adrift with no purpose. While I was fortunate enough to find a calling, many of you have not. Many of you sleepwalk through life, lacking the willpower to face another day.
I swear to you, on my life, that as President I will do all in my power to revitalize France! I will ensure that you will be able to do what you want when you want, that your life will be filled with meaning! Fulfillment for the nation and fulfillment for the citizen! That is my promise! That is what I will bring! Come with me, my family, and bring about a future for all!
In this, they weren’t entirely wrong. I think none among you would disagree that the old landlords were rapacious maggots who ate away at good Frenchmen. But where the other Communards were wrong is by decrying this class as permanent enemies. Once they were stripped of their power, they were Frenchmen like any other. This was a mistake, the blood that ties us together overcomes all class barriers! The blood of Frenchmen runs in all of our veins! From Brittany to Occitania, we are all Frenchmen! Even in the Lost Provinces, we are Frenchmen! In Algeria, we are Frenchmen! In St. Pierre and Miquelon we are Frenchmen! Even in Guyane we are Frenchmen!
But what exactly does that mean? If you went into the National Council and asked those seated there, they would give you a vague answer, something like “A shared culture and language.” But, once again, what does that mean? To me, what makes a Frenchman French is the blood coursing through their veins, their devotion to the wellbeing of France, their loyalty to its leaders, their willingness to die for their countrymen. That is what makes a Frenchman French. France is a nation of brothers in arms, forged in revolution and war. This is our national legacy, one that we must never forget.
(pause)
Looming over all of this, however, is the Church. The Holy Catholic Church serves as a unifying point for many in France, particularly in the countryside, and it would be remiss to avoid mentioning it in any discussion about France. The farmers of France have long been the backbone of the old order, showing their support for the King in the days gone bye. In modern times, they have fiercely resisted Paris’s attempts to impose their anti-clerical vision on the entirety of the nation. And for this, I congratulate you! The People’s Strike definitively proved that the lessons of the Commune were absorbed by the rural population and made them conscious of their power! Attacks on the key institution of the Church were resisted and turned back in a way that showed not only your power but also your restraint!
But this lesson must not be misinterpreted. The victories of the People’s Strike were not due to the innate power of the religious and rural populations, but due to the power of Frenchmen working together! The power to force those in power to respect their wishes is what makes the people strong! The power to unite from weak individuals to unstoppable nations is what makes the people strong! The ability to channel this power into an unstoppable force is what makes the French nation strong!
It is to this end that I ask you to band together in support of myself and l’Esprit du Nation in reviving the glory of France! Together, as a nation, we will recreate a glory unseen since Napoleon and Robespierre! Together we will spread Revolution across Europe, revitalizing a continent languishing under the rule of corrupt monarchies and greedy aristocrats! We shall put the power in the hands of the people, ensuring that, under France’s leadership, a new Europe where the common folk will be able to control their own fate! The communes of rural France, the unions of the cities, the pied noirs of Algeria, the Bretons, the Occitanians, the Basque, all must set aside their differences to create a united whole capable of once again bringing Europe to its knees!
(pause)
This is most likely meaningless to you, however. What good is uniting as a nation to you when your stomach grows empty, your prospects in life become non-existent, your future meaningless? Fear not, my brothers and sisters, for I too have felt the malaise that has struck our great nation. I too have felt what it is like to be adrift with no purpose. While I was fortunate enough to find a calling, many of you have not. Many of you sleepwalk through life, lacking the willpower to face another day.
I swear to you, on my life, that as President I will do all in my power to revitalize France! I will ensure that you will be able to do what you want when you want, that your life will be filled with meaning! Fulfillment for the nation and fulfillment for the citizen! That is my promise! That is what I will bring! Come with me, my family, and bring about a future for all!
