Poincaré, Raymond

(1860-1934)

   statesman

   Raymond Poincaré, the nationalistic statesman who served four terms as prime minister and was president of France from 1913 to 1920, was born in Bar-le-Duc and educated in Paris. He was the cousin of the mathematician henri poincaré. A noted lawyer of the Paris bar, deputy (1887-1903), senator (1903-13), minister of public instruction (1893-94), and finance (1894, 1895, 1906), Poincaré began his political career as a moderate. As prime minister with the portfolio of foreign affairs (January 1912-January 1913), he adopted a firm stance vis-à-vis Germany and sought to strengthen France's ties with Great Britain and Russia (which he visited for the first time in 1912). Elected to the presidency of the third republic in 1913, he followed a rightist foreign policy and helped to put through the law requiring three years' military service (August 1913), the unpopularity of which contributed to a legislative victory for the left in 1914. After having asked the Republican-Socialist rené viviani to help him form a government, Poincaré undertook with him a second visit to Russia to strengthen the alliance with France (July 1914). When Austria-Hungary sent its ultimatum to Serbia (30 July), Poincaré assured the czar that he could count on France, thus contributing to encouraging Russia to declare a general mobilization (this caused his opponents to give him the name "Poincaré-la-guerre" upon his return). From the beginning of World War I, he was the champion of the "Union sacrée." The military difficulties, however, and especially the failure of General georges nivelle's offensive in 1917, as well as the political ones (pacifism or defeatism in parts of public opinion), of a seemingly unending war, obliged Poincaré to entrust his government to georges Clemenceau (November 1917). Reelected to the Senate at the end of his presidential term (1920), named president of the Reparations Commission (February-May 1920), he was recalled to the premiership upon the fall of the aristide briand government (January 1922-June 1924), with once again the portfolio of foreign affairs. A supporter of the Treaty of Versailles, he ordered the occupation of the Ruhr (1923) because of Germany's late payment of reparations, but the hostility of Great Britain as well as financial difficulties caused him to soften his views and to support the Dawes Plan, a 1923 plan set up to monitor Germany's reparations payments, as decided by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919). After the victory of the cartel des gauches in the 1924 elections, Poincaré resigned, but the financial crisis returned him to power in 1926. He formed a cabinet of national unity (Union nationale) with the Radicals but excluding the Socialists; it included Aristide Briand, louis barthou, edouard herriot, paul painlevé, and andré tardieu). Invested with full powers in financial affairs, Poincaré governed by decree and, practicing economic politics, created new taxes, establishing the fund for autonomous amortization, and stabilizing to an extent the franc. After the departure of the Radicals from the government (Congress of Angers, 1928), Poincaré had to depend on the center and the right for support. He had to resign shortly after because of illness (1929). He left his memoirs, entitled Au service de la France (1926-33). Poincaré was elected to the Académie Française in 1909.