Talk:Georges Clemenceau

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Could someone clarify his role in the Paris Commune? For those who don't know much about French history (like me), they will be puzzled at who the "central committee" is, why the French government almost arrested him, and all of that business. ugen64 01:51, Dec 15, 2003 (UTC)

• Done. Even if it is a few years later! Rusty2005 15:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

==

I believe the correct spelling is «Clemenceau», and «Clémenceau» is a common mistake. This second spelling should therefore be removed from the page, and maybe a note about this difficulty added. Other example of such a trap: Grevisse (not Grévisse).

Cleanup tag

I think this article should be divvied up into sections.-Grick(^{talk to me})

I agree, more like Woodrow Wilson.

Just added the tag. It doesn't even have a "career box," showing his positions and times in office. Any takers? - Darkhawk (30 Mar, 2006 @ 0:25 EST)

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I would be interested in more discussion regarding Clemenceau's behaviour regarding the execution of war resisters, deserters, pacifists, etc after 1917; while his 'total war' attitude made him popular amongst some, his record regarding dissent in the military would be a useful counterpoint Pacificbiblio 14:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Article review

The author of this article tries to persuade the reader that Georges Clemenceau was a politician as well as a newspaper owner/editor who took sides in various situations. He sided with different governments before he became premier himself; he also advocated the Versailles treaty which one might say led to the rise of Nazism in Germany. But more about the implications of the treaty later. The author is trying to persuade the reader that Clemenceau was one of the main reasons for the “events that led to World War II.” The author lists a good number of Clemenceau’s political decisions and pays special attention to his publishing Zola’s letter “J’accuse.” As a matter of fact, the author does not make that much of an implicit assumption. It is somewhat explicit even: Clemenceau was the contrary of what you might call a political opportunist. If he did not like something, he resigned from office. The most convincing argument the author makes is, like I said above, one of Clemenceau as an astute political actor (if not politician himself). His influence helped some people to power as well as some people off of that position of power. Clearly the man can be a Radical, a Socialist Radical etc. He also could advise people not to vote for certain candidates, a sure sign of a powerful and influential figure. The least convincing argument is the one of Clemenceau being responsible for WWII. “Since most people believe the effects of his decision contributed to the events that lead to World War II, Clemenceau's historical reputation can be argued to have suffered as a result.” This statement seems to come out of a dark pit of knowledge. I really would like to know who these “people” are. Surely Clemenceau was not the only supporter of the Versailles treaty. About the sources, the author does not include any sources whatsoever. This seriously jeopardizes the article. Arguably, everything that I have said above (about the “people”) could have been better supported with better references. It seems unlikely though that the author somehow knew all these facts about Clemenceau, so there must be sources; it might only have been a mistake. It seems that the author is deeply convinced that supporting Dreyfus was a good thing. He says that publishing Zola’s letter was “an active and honourable part as supporter of Emile Zola and an opponent of the anti-Semitic and Nationalist campaigns.” I understand the good intentions of the author, but this makes his article highly biased. It is the view of the author himself, not the view of an anti-Dreyfusard. Even if they were anti-Semitic views, the people who considered themselves anti-Dreyfusards had the right to do so. The article only briefly mentions that after undertaking the direction of L’Aurore, Clemenceau “campaigned for the revision of the Dreyfus affair, and for the separation of Church and State.” It does not seem that obvious, but the separation of Church and State in France was an extremely important change. I would have liked learn more about Clemenceau’s implication in the process. It would seem that the lack of sources/references did not allow the author to write about this specific subject.

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Regarding Versailles - I think Clemenceau could be described as an unreconstructed Nationalist; I do not think his actions were opportunist but clearly vengeful nationalism which clearly helped lead to the rise of Hitler and WWII. He was not alone at Versailles regarding either his Nationalism nor his responsibility for later events.

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I agree entirely with the view of Clemenceau as an unreconstructed nationalist. He may have been determined to punish those who had committed crimes against France, but he was silent on the crimes France had committed against other countries for almost 400 years, the most recent and devastating being the Napoleonic Wars. Others will include the constant attempts to aggrandize France under Louis XIII and XIV, the entry of France in the Thirty Years' War, and so on. The treatment of France at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 contrasts favourably with Clemenceau's treatment of Germany at Versailles. In addition, the Congress system held the peace for many years, the Treaty of Versailles did not. T A Francis (talk) 17:19, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

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T A Francis you say: "The treatment of France at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 contrasts favourably with Clemenceau's treatment of Germany at Versailles." That may be true, but perhaps you conveniently forget the Carthaginian peace the German Empire exacted on Russia with the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which happened just before Germany was defeated by France and her allies on the Western Front. If Brest-Litovsk was any indication of what terms the Kaiser may have sought from France and Britain, and it is the best indication as it was virtually contemporary, I can only assume that it would have been quite harsh indeed (understatement).

Clemenceau was hardly the only politician pushing for harsh peace terms. French strategists argued that an invasion of Germany was necessary. When they were denied that possibility, by objections from the US and UK, they were then forced to try and exact a comensurate monetary punishment for the terror unleashed on her populace for four miserable years. Many seem to overlook this viewpoint. Some have argued that an invasion of Germany would have deprived Hitler and others of the "stab in the back" myth, that somehow Germany could have carried on the war successfully after 1918, but were betrayed by wealthy Jewish politicians, etc. The fact is - the German Army was soundly defeated, but the populace of Germany never even saw a battle up close. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.110.209.150 (talk) 22:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Please amplify the "Wilson scandal"

I have found the following at another web site on the Wilson scandal:

"Meanwhile, Daniel Wilson, the son-in-law of President Grévy, was discovered to have trafficked in medals of the Legion of Honor, and the so-called Wilson scandal forced Grévy from office (Dec. 2, 1887)"

I think that inclusion of this information in some form would help the article on Clemenceau. The article mentions this scandal, but I imagine that very, very many people have no idea about what it was, and some will associate it with Woodrow Wilson, even though he was still a college professor in 1887.

It was a minor scandal. Daniel Wilson was his son-of-law, as you just mentionned, so why confuse him with Woodrow? Not every Wilson, even scandalous, leads to him! Tazmaniacs 00:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Other information section

I think that the "Other information" section of this article should be removed. The Aircraft carrier and street thing should be moved into a legacy section, other things into the chronicle biography and the pointless anecdotes should be deleted. Any thoughts? Carl Logan 21:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I got rid of the more pointless anecdotes and someone should reform the section into 'things that are named after Clemenceau' or something like that LGF1992UK (talk) 15:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC), Wikipedia Trivua Cleanup Team

Belgium Invaded Germany?

Please don't make fun of me for excessive nerdo-ness. There's an old story about what "future" historians will say about responsibility for World War I. I have seen a quote attributed both to Briand and Clemenceau, that while no one could be sure exactly what historians would say, Briand/Clemenceau was sure they would not say Belgium invaded Germany.

Could a Clemenceau commando clear this up for me?

I remain both thankful & too lazy to find it for myself. Bill Abendroth (talk) 21:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. Referencing and appropriate inline citation guidelines not met. With proper inline citations, this article would easily qualify as B if not GA --dashiellx (talk) 13:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Why Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is from "Peruvian history"? Vandalism?

And what does mean "Ainsworthian"? also vandalism?

Entire page is confusing

So who was Prime Minister between the two Clemenceau terms? What was he doing and saying when WWI broke out? WHY was he brought back?

I've been reading through a lot of French political articles this week, and this one is the least well edited. Who served before, between and after him - can this information be placed in one section so that it is easy to find, as it is on most of the other wiki-articles about politicians?--Levalley (talk) 18:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Amazingly after reading this article I still do not know how he died?--DrusMAX (talk) 1:34, 14 Nov 2009

What About What Happened after 1920?

There is no mention anyplace of anything he may have or may have not accomplished after 1920. There's more information on sports figures than there is on what is arguable one of the great figures of the 20th century. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WarLord (talk • contribs) 20:31, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Early years

At the end of this section there appears this extraordinary non sequitur of a sentence, "He was also believed to study in the Bauhaus school of thought, as during the later weimar years, there was a cultural boom, as a shining beacon of hope for Germans". Is this vandalism or am I missing something? Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 23:45, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Request for Comments

There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages.

The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion.

Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:20, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Mary Plummer

On the article Mary Plummer (Clemenceau's wife), I added three citations; previously there weren't any. However, I have a few issues: (1) Are these sources reliable? (IMO, an unreliable source is better than no source at all, at least in this case.) (2) I'll need citations for the rest of the factoids in the article. (3) All three citations have the words, in red, “External link in |website=”, which looks ugly. What's the best way to fix that? (4) One of these sources says she was born on 18 March, 1849; rather than 1848.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 00:06, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

References

Pronunciation of surname

I note that the name Clemenceau has no acute accent on the first "E"... it therefore seems unlikely to me that his name was pronounced "klaymenceau" (sorry, I don't know how to write it in IPA). At the moment the IPA for the name suggests "klaymenceau". Any authoratative sources about this? I suspect most French people can settle this in one second. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.218.201 (talk) 20:07, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi, it is pronounced CLÉMENCEAU, although there is no acute accent...--Gabriel HM (talk) 21:57, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

French WP has this to say about all that:

À l'état civil, son nom est « Georges Benjamin Clémenceau », avec un accent aigu sur le premier « e ».

Lors de sa naissance et dans sa jeunesse, l'écriture de son nom de famille est variable, avec ou sans accent, ce qui était courant pour les noms propres dont l'orthographe n'était pas stabilisée jusqu'à la seconde moitié du xɪx^e siècle. D'après l'historien Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, c'est Georges Clemenceau lui-même qui a imposé en mars 1884, dans les colonnes de son journal La Justice, l'écriture « Clemenceau », sans qu'il puisse donner une explication précise à cette attention soudainement portée à l'orthographe de son nom. La prononciation [klemãso:] (« Clémenceau ») est toutefois préférée à [kləmãso:] (« Clemenceau »). Les deux orthographes se retrouvent pour le nom des membres de sa famille.

So, going by official state records, his last name was "Clémenceau", but he (and some, but not all, members of his family) chose to write it "Clemenceau", but either way, it is pronounced /kle.mɑ̃.so/. French WP has even taken the unusual step of including this IPA script in the Georges Clemenceau article, something that it seldom does with any article with a French name. Kelisi (talk) 01:40, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Religion in the infobox

This comment is regarding the following unexplained revert:[1]

There have been several RfCs on religion in the infobox

15 June 2015 RfC: RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion.

This RfC had a clear consensus for removing the religion parameter from the infobox for individuals (living, deceased, and fictional), groups, schools, institutions, and political parties that have no religion, but that RfC was determined by the closing administrator to not apply to nations.

17 June 2015 RfC: RfC: Religion in infoboxes of nations.

This RfC had a clear consensus for removing the religion parameter for countries, nations, states, regions, etc., all of which were determined to not have religions.

31 December 2015 RfC: RfC: Religion in infoboxes.

This RfC was a response to certain individuals insisting that the previous RfCs did not apply to their favorite pages (schools, political parties, sports teams, computer operating systems, organized crime gangs...) and had a clear consensus that in all all infoboxes in all Wikipedia articles, without exception, nonreligions should not be listed in the "Religion=" parameter of the infobox.

11 April 2016 RfC: RfC: Religion in biographical infoboxes.

In this RfC, there was a clear consensus to remove the "religion=" and "denomination=" parameters from all infoboxes, not just the ones that call atheism/agnosticism a religion.

There have been four RfCs on this, and all four showed the same overwhelming consensus. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:22, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Jailed in 1914?

Commander Ladoux, chief of French Intelligence in WWI, had a memoir come out three years after he died in 1933. In it, he has this to say about an American he calls ‘R.’ on Clemanceau’s staff:

“I cannot, as yet, assume the responsibility of giving details as to the second mission which I confided to R. at the end of 1914. All I can say is, it was of a peculiarly delicate nature, as Clemenceau, to whom it was transmitted, was actually imprisoned as a result of the attitude he took toward it.”

What is this? I never heard this had happened to him in 1914. More research on this point would improve the article. 31.94.12.240 (talk) 19:15, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

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== Contradiction in 1918: Crackdown