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Some Comments on the Nature of the Nationalist Revival in France before 1914
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
Extract
It is frequently asserted by students of the history of the Third French Republic that the years before 1914, and especially from 1911 to 1914, were a period of nationalist revival, a somewhat exceptional period when politics were dominated by a novel concern for national unity, prestige, and power; by calls for order, tradition, and discipline; and by catchwords connected with all these things. I propose to inquire first into the social aspect of this apparent change in the ruling ideology of the Republic, and then into the background and nature of the Nationalist movement.
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References
page 220 note 1 Cf. Buthman, W. C., The Rise of Integral Nationalism in France, New York 1939Google Scholar; Carrol, E. M., French Public Opinion and Foreign Affairs, 1870–1914, New York 1931Google Scholar; Brogan, D. W., Development of Modern France, London 1947Google Scholar; Capus, A., Les Moeurs du Temps, Paris1912Google Scholar; Chéradame, A., La Crise française, Paris 1912Google Scholar; Giraud, V., Le Miracle français, Paris 1914; and many others.Google Scholar
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page 221 note 2 In the Sables d'Olonnc, for instance, the Action française allied with Catholic and bourgeois interests in 1914 to secure the defeat of Henri Bazire, successor of Drumont as editor of La Libre Parole and leader of a rival movement on the Right.
page 222 note 1 Thus we find the Catholics putting up “a free-thinking Republican” as they did at Rennes in 1914 to secure the defeat of a distrusted Catholic like Louis Deschamps, or indulging in intramural struggles like those which preceded the election of Paul Simon at Brest against another Catholic candidate. Cf. Delourme, P., Trente-cinq ans de politique religieuse, Paris 1956, Ch. VII, passim.Google Scholar
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page 224 note 1 Ibid., P. 743; the similarity to the Poujadist appeal might well be noted.
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page 225 note 1 Poincarism was the respectable Nationalism of 1912–1914, which “allowed all good men to come to the aid of their party” by providing a leader acceptable to good Republicans.
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page 235 note 1 Variot, J., Propos de Georges Sorel, Paris 1935.Google Scholar
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page 237 note 1 London 1944, p. 35 and passim.
page 238 note 1 Op. cit., p. 419.
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