The Enigma of Clemenceau

Few New Yorkers are aware that in the heart of their own city, on the facade of the Sheridan Theatre in Greenwich Village, there is a little shrine where a flame burns perpetually to the memory of Georges Clemenceau, the principal architect of victory in the First World War. It seems especially fitting today that one should be reminded of this great figure whose story can teach so much. This little flame dedicated to a great memory brings together two generations, two wars.

It has always been acknowledged that Clemenceau “le Perë la Victoire” brought France to herself in the dark hours of 1917 and roused in his people the unity and courage which turned defeat into victory. and now, faced again with the problems of peace, men are beginning to see that here too Clemenceau was wise. His keen sense of reality led him to point the way towards a peace that, had he prevailed, might have been more lasting. Yet this man, so great in war and so farsighted in peace, was constantly subjected to the most violent and passionate criticism. He who became in his old age the architect of victory was long called “the Tiger.” Apparently there were in him two men, one a destroyer, the other a creator. His life is full of contradictions and he has remained a sort of enigma even for his admirers. “In me an anarchist and a conservative mingle,” he said of himself.

What is the key to this enigma? How could he accomplish such great things? Apparently for him, as for each man, existed an inner psychological problem which is also a great human problem, whose solution commands all outward actions and influences the entire life of the individual. It is this inner problem which explains the contradictions of Clemenceau's attitudes and behavior that we wish to study here, for its progressive solution is enlightening and valuable as an example. Indeed because Clemenceau solved successfully this problem, his contradictions fused into unity and thus, father of his own victory, he became the father of v