An interesting sidebar: There used to be a cafe Le Figaro in Los Angeles. (It might still be there but I haven't been near the place in over 20 years.) The menu was a reproduction of the famous newspaper. The cafe gained repute for being a haven for left-wing radicals and effete intellectuals who spent hours discussing leftist authors and political systems. But considering the times, coffee shops were hot beds of alternative thinking. Funny that they would pick a cafe with a name that epitomized right-wing thinking. Life is, indeed, strange.
So back to Madam Caillaux. The trial began on July 20, 1914. She was acquitted on July 28, 1914. Unlike our times, trials went much quicker then. Total war broke out about two weeks later and France was totally unprepared. French society and diplomatic circles were so caught up in the trial that many missed some important events like Gabriel Princip shooting Archduke Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. It was just one month before acquittal but was during the last month of a four-month pretrial investigation which completely occupied all reportage. They missed other things too like the total breakdown of diplomacy, political intrigues that would have indicated that the existing political situation was rapidly spinning out of control. They would have noticed Germany mobilizing and other countries preparing for war. Here are some milestones:
* Midpoint in the trial, Serbia had been served papers by Austria backed by Germany. War was eminent. The ultimatum was so harsh that there was not doubt that there would be a Balkan war.
* While the French followed the trial, Germany and Austria mobilized. Warnings from lower-level officials were ignored as were data from spies.
* Poincaire, the existing PM, who was unaware of the ultimatum and had no idea about the mobilization made a trip to Russia to make sure the alliance was intact. The trip is a curious one with no concrete results. But it came at a weird time. He left Russia on July 23 to return to France. The trip had lots of press everywhere but in France and this is important because the Austrians timed the delivery of papers of war to coincide with Poincaire being in transit.
* The formal declaration of war from Austria on Serbia took place on July 28, 1914. There was nothing in the French press because of the Caillaux trial.
* August 1 Germany declares war on Russia. Germany was operating under something called the Schlieffen Plan. This was known to France and to Russia and basically stated that if Germany ever went to war with Russia, they would have to invade France first. So on August 3, Germany declares war on France.
* Germany invades France on August 23. Less than a month after the acquittal of Madam Caillaux, French troops were completely unprepared for the onslaught. Remember that modern communication did not exist in 1914 so while events spiraled out of control, French troops sat. In addition, one just doesn't call and get troops mobilized like in movies. It takes a lot of planning, the establishment of communication, preparation of tools of movement like trucks, tanks and cars, food requirements, water and sanitation, ammunition and a thousand other expendable items used by an army. In other words, the French military was caught completely unawares. By the time they realized the inevitable, it was too late. The enemy was at the gates.
So to recap: A huge trial, lots of scandal, a fixated press and public, an uninformed government, an increasing international crisis and a French army completely unprepared. This is the result of a fixation with news that had nothing to do with what was really happening. French government had broken down or stopped functioning because of a trial. In Part 3, I'll connect the dots between what happened to France in 1914 and what is happening currently in America.
FB
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