Synopses & Reviews
POINCAffiE A BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAIT By SISLEY HUDD ESTON BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1924 RAYMOND POINCARE. Photo Hmri . Vamuf. PREFACE IN this biographical portrait of Monsieur Poincare I have perhaps treated the man who has more greatly influenced the course of events in Europe since the war and perhaps before the war than any other Continental statesman, more sympathetically than is customary to-day either in England or in the United States. I make no apology, for the only purpose of such a study is to explain the sitter, and it is impossible to explain him without sympathy. This does not mean that I have taken M. Poincare s point of view as against the British or American point of view. It will be found that where I feel it necessary to condemn I have condemned without qualification and that on essential matters. But I have also condemned what appear to me to be the faults of British and American diplomacy. Our tactics have been frankly bad, and I have not hesitated to show where, hi my opinion, we have been wrong in our attitude towards M. Poineare, who, after all, represented the French people. It is foolish to attempt to differentiate between M. Poincare and the French people as though the French people were entirely right and M. Poincare entirely wrong. Could such a dividing line be drawn, M. Poincare would not have remained Prime Minister for nearly two and a half years. I have set down naught in malice nor aught ex tenuated, but I find myself unable to accept the 5 Poincare A Biographical Portrait full British case without critical comment. Surely it is for an American to criticise American policy, an Englishman to criticise English policy, a Frenchman to criticise Frenchpolicy. The responsibility for the present condition of Europe does not fall solely upon a single country nor upon a single man. We must all bear our share of blame. Nothing is more to be deprecated than the tendency which is so marked to-day to blame only the other country. That is a sign of weakness. The strong man or the strong country looks primarily for the flaws in his own reasoning and in his own conduct. quot When I published a book on the Peace Conference in 1919, the Spectator described me as a Francophobe. The accusation was untrue, and I now somewhat fear that the Spectator will regard me as a Franco phile. But I have not shifted from the position which I took up immediately after the signing of the lamentable Treaty of Versailles. I was then in a minority, opposed to the astronomical demands for reparations which the majority of people believed that Germany could pay, as though the Germans were a race of supermen who, after a devastating war, from which France, England and America found it difficult to recover, would not only be able to recover themselves immediately but could aid enormously in the recovery of all the countries which had been engaged in the war. Now I am once more in a minority in believing that at all costs the Entente between France and England must be maintained, that while they con tinue to tug in different directions there can be no peace and prosperity in Europe. When I was persuaded, somewhat reluctantly, to abandon my journalistic work for the Observer, the Westminster Gazette and the New Statesman in England, 6 Preface and for the New Republic, the Atlantic Monthly and other publications in America, to become the Paris correspondent of The Times, Ihad a twofold purpose. There were a number of English newspapers which were perfectly reasonable about reparations but were becoming more and more anti-French. There were, on the other hand, a number of English newspapers which were entirely unreasonable about reparations but exceedingly friendly towards France...