But when all is said, the opposition of the Socialists does not in the least enfeeble the Government. For four long years our troops have held their own at the front with a line which was steadily being worn down. Now a huge body of German soldiers fresh from Russia and in good heart come forward to assail us. Some retreat was inevitable. From the moment when Russia thought that peace could be obtained by the simple expression of wishes to that end, we all knew that, sooner or later, the enemy would be able to release a million of men to fall upon us. That meant that such a retirement as we have witnessed must of necessity follow. Our men have kept their line unbroken against odds of five to one. They have often gone sleepless for three days and even four days in succession. But our great soldiers have had great leaders, and our army as a whole has proved itself to be even greater than we could expect.

"The duties we have to perform here are, in contrast, tame and even petty. All we have to do is to keep cool and hold on. The Germans are nothing like so clever as they think themselves to be. They have but a single device. They throw their entire weight into one general assault, and push their advantage to the utmost. True they have forced back our line of defense. But final success is that which alone matters, and that success for us is certain. Give way we never shall.”

"Germany has once more staked her all on one great blow, thinking to cow us into abandoning the conflict. Her armies have tried this desperate game before. They tried it on the Marne, they tried it on the Yser, they tried it at Verdun, they tried it elsewhere. But they never succeeded, and they never will."

"Our Allies today are the leading nations of the world. They have one and all pledged themselves to fight on till victory is within our grasp. The men who have already fallen have not fallen in vain. By their death they have once more made French history a great and noble record. It is now for the living to finish the glorious work begun by the dead.

Even in the short perspective of these few years Georges Clemenceau stands forth like a legendary hero. Descended in a direct line from the great makers of the French Revolution, he has all their impetuosity, their fire, their idealism, their courage. Like them he appeared upon the scene in the very nick of time, just at the most critical moment when the slightest wavering amongst the Allies would have spelt German's triumph. He re-galvanized their slowly ebbing energy, symbolizing in his own personality the soul of France, of a France at war, determined to fight to the bitter end, to fling all her men, all her resources into the balance, rather than accept defeat.

That indomitable courage, that energy, bore all before them in the allied armies both in England and America. Force of circumstances as well as the whole bent of his nature made Clemenceau the very pivot of the war. He was the incarnation of the great struggle and of its victorious end.

Georges Clemenceau has a powerful face with marked features, high cheek bones, bushy eyebrows, small and strangely piercing eyes, all denoting his love of struggle and effort. His manner of speaking is abrupt and sharp. The nervous brevity of his sentences, the shortness of his expressions make his conversation appear like a game of fencing. He has always spent much of his time at fencing schools, being a dangerous duellist, and the sharp retort of his conversation has all the swiftness of the thrust of foil and sword.

And underlying all that combative instinct and impetuosity, is a deep undercurrent of idealism and human kindness.

Clemenceau was born in 1841, at Mouilleron-enPareds in the "Bocage Vendean" not far from Fontenay-le-Comte. Vendée is a French Province where feelings over political convictions and their struggles have always run high. During the French Revolution

the Vendeans rebelled, taking arms against the Republic. They were divided into two parties, the Whites and Blues, the former being Royalists, the latter Republicans. Clemenceau is a Vendean Blue. He has inherited his strong love of politics and the combative instinct from his native soil.

His father, a village physician born in 1811, was full of memories of the Great Revolution. He handed them down to his son, so that one generation only separated Clemenceau from the old Vendean Blue, his father, which goes far to explain certain traits of his political character and personal temperament.

After having graduated as a Doctor in Paris, where his youth was spent in the Latin Quarter, he went to London and from thence to America where he passed some years, and where he married. He knows America well, and has always followed American politics with the keenest interest.

When he returned to Paris at the end of the Second Empire, he flung himself into the political struggle then going on, with all the ardour of his passionate nature. During the siege of Paris and the Subsequent period of the "Paris Commune" he was Mayor of Montmartre. Immediately after the Franco-Prussian war he was made a Deputy to the French Chamber from Paris and he voted against peace, and for the continuation of the war. He was reelected Deputy

for Montmartre in 1876.

From that time dates the first period of his political career; he became leader of the radicals, the most dangerous, the most brilliant leader the opposition ever had to contend against. He founded a paper called "La Justice.' His influence as an orator and journalist daily grew. For more than twenty years he was known as "the Great Demolisher" of ministries and cabinets. His writings and speeches all bore the imprint of his abrupt and vigorous nature. His was a tongue that lashed, and a mind that carried all before it in its own headlong impetuosity.

It would be unfair to believe that this part of Clemenceau's life was merely destructive and negative. He was no doubt responsible for the downfall of many ministers, but they were for the most part men who scarcely deserved a better fate.

Clemenceau from the first made a determined stand against Colonial expeditions. He may have been at times somewhat lacking in comprehension and foresight in assuming that attitude; but that anti-colonial mind was derived from two sources. First of all the conviction that sooner or later France would be called upon to fight against Germany, and needed therefor to maintain intact all her resources in men and money. Secondly, that French colonial ambition would to a dead certainty, lead to rivalry with England, "and all for the benefit of the King of Prussia."