WW1 President of France Raymond Poincare

On 28 June 1914, Poincaré was at the Longchamps racetrack when he received news of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Poincaré was fascinated by the report but stayed on to watch the race.

In 1913, it had been announced that Poincaré would visit St. Petersburg in July 1914 to meet Tsar Nicholas II. Accompanied by Premier René Viviani, Poincaré went to Russia for the second time (but for the first time as president) to reinforce the Franco-Russian Alliance. On 15 July, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Leopold von Berchtold, used a back channel to informed foreign countries of Austria-Hungary‘s intention to present an ultimatum to Serbia. When Poincaré arrived in St. Petersburg on 20 July, the Russians told him by 21 July of the Austrian ultimatum and German support for Austria. Although Prime Minister Viviani was supposed to be in charge of French foreign policy, Poincaré promised the Tsar unconditional French military backing for Russia against Austria-Hungary and Germany. In his discussions with Nicholas II, Poincaré talked openly of winning an eventual war, not avoiding one. Later, he attempted to hide his role in the outbreak of military conflict and denied having promised Russia anything.

Poincaré arrived back in Paris on 29 July and at 7 am on 30 July, with Poincaré’s full approval, Viviani sent a telegram to Nicholas affirming that:

in the precautionary measures and defensive measures to which Russia believes herself obliged to resort, she should not immediately proceed to any measure which might offer Germany a pretext for a total or partial mobilization of her forces.

In his diary entry for the day, Poincaré wrote that the purpose of the message was not to prevent war from breaking out but to deny Germany a pretext and thereby obtain British support for the Franco-Russian alliance. He approved of Russian mobilization. A French covering force, five army corps strong, was deployed on the German border at 4:55 pm, as per normal premobilization procedure. Poincaré and Viviani demanded that the covering force be installed ten kilometers from the border, for the sole reason that France would look innocent in the eyes of Britain.A note was immediately sent to London to tell the British about the maneuver and gain their sympathy against Germany.

On 31 July the German ambassador in Paris, Count Wilhelm von Schoen, presented to Viviani a quasi-ultimatum warning that, if Russia did not end its mobilization within twelve hours, Germany would mobilize. Mobilization meant war. That same day, the Chief of the General Staff of the French Army, General Joseph Joffre appealed for general mobilization, falsely claiming that Germany had been secretly mobilizing for two or three days. Poincaré backed Joffre’s request. French general mobilization was decreed at 1600 hours on 1 August.On 1 August, Poincaré lied to Francis Bertie, the British ambassador to France, claiming that Russian mobilization had only been decreed after Austria’s.

After Germany declared war on France on 3 August, Poincaré said: “Never was a declaration of war received with such satisfaction”. He appeared before the National Assembly at 3 pm on 4 August to announce that France was now at war forming the doctrine of the union sacrée in which he announced that: “nothing will break the union sacrée in the face of the enemy. “Dans la guerre qui s’engage, la France […] sera héroïquement défendue par tous ses fils, dont rien ne brisera devant l’ennemi l’union sacrée” (“In the coming war, France will be heroically defended by all its sons, whose sacred union will not break in the face of the enemy”). During the meeting, Poincaré and Viviani were silent on Russia’s mobilization, claiming instead that Russia had been negotiating to the end.

Later war

Poincaré became increasingly sidelined after the accession to power of Georges Clemenceau as Prime Minister in 1917. He believed the Armistice happened too soon and that the French Army should have penetrated far deeper into Germany. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, negotiating the Treaty of Versailles, he wanted France to wrest the Rhineland from Germany to put it under Allied military control.

Ferdinand Foch urged Poincaré to invoke his powers as laid down in the constitution and take over the negotiations of the treaty due to worries that Clemenceau was not achieving France’s aims. He did not, and when the French Cabinet approved of the terms which Clemenceau obtained, Poincaré considered resigning, although again he refrained.