French Navy - 1910-1919
French Navy thought flourished at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. After years of warfare with the British, the legacy of a "defensive" navy doctrine, and preference to guerre de course and attrition warfare over warfare of annihilation and the decisive battle, the French Navy considered some different ideas. The École supérieure de guerre de la Marine was founded one hundred years ago in 1895and quickly became a center for advanced military thought.
Lagrande guerre, favoring the decisive battle and deep sea warfare {guerre de haute mer), in order to achieve command of the sea, occupied the center of the writings of a number of French Navyofficers at their war college in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Writings supporting la grande guerre primarily included: Admirals Jurien de la Graviere, "La marine aujourd hui," Journal of the RUSI [Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies] (1874) and Vice Admiral Gabriel Darrieus, La guerre sur mer (1907). Darrieus' War on the Sea was translated into English and published by the U.S. Naval Institute in 1908. The War on the Sea book came from a series of lectures delivered at the French Naval War College.
Other writings included then-Commander RenéDaveluy's, Etude sur la stratégie navale (1905), Leçons de laguerre russo-japonaise, La lutte pour l'empire de la mer (1906), and L'esprit de la guerre navale in three volumes (1909-1910). Daveluy's The Genius of Naval Warfare was translated into English and published by the U.S. Naval Institute.These writings paralleled those of American Rear AdmiralAlfred Thayer Mahan. The mainstream of French Navy officer corps thought was supported by concepts found in Mahan's writings. The 1910 The Naval Battle: Studies of the Tactical Factors, byLieutenant Adrien Edouard Baudry, was translated into English for use by American officers.
In June 1914 the Socialists in the French Chamber of Deputies had their fling and the fourth Ministry of Alexandre Ribot fell as it was being reared [it lasted from 09/06/1914 to 13/06/1914]. The response to the action of Germany in extending her preparations for war is a vote rejecting the application of the three years' military service law, and another disapproving M. Ribot's Cabinet and policy, which would have placed the credit of France in support of the army. To the Socialists the alliance with Russia was nothing, the prestige of France among the Powers was of little importance. They ignored political boundaries; they saw Europe as one camp divided between the forces of capitalism and labor.
The French Royalists deliberately aided the Socialists in the last elections, hoping thereby to force the Republicans from their position midway between revolution and reaction. The syndicates, with their clear and definite program, played a shrewd game in thwarting the policy of President Poincaire, and the Caillaux scandal gave them the strong hope, if not the means, of forcing his resignation. Torn by parties, apparently at the mercy of its anarchistic enemies, with a depleted treasury and a weakened army, the Third Republic was in a more precarious position than at any time since its founding. But it had survived forty-eight Cabinets.
Paris was in the grip of the Caillaux scandal. As late as 29 July 1914 Le Temps was still covering the Caillaux scandal. Senior French governmental officials failed to notice events on the world stage following the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The scandal had placed embassies on alert in Paris and most changed their codes just days before France entered the war. This left French intelligence blind in terms of decryption abilities at a time when these skills were desperately needed.
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