Delcassé, Théophile

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DELCASSÉ, THÉOPHILE

delcassÉ in the chamber of deputies
delcassÉ and the diplomatic revolution
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DELCASSÉ, THÉOPHILE (1852–1923), foreign minister of France (1898–1905 and 1914) and architect of the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale of 1904.

Théophile Delcassé was born in southwestern France, the son of a minor court official (huissier) in Pamiers (Ariège), on the edge of the Pyrenees. After studies at the University of Toulouse, Delcassé followed the route of ambitious young men to Paris, where an introduction to Léon Gambetta (1838–1882), the leading Radical politician of the early Third Republic, led to a career in journalism. Writing for Gambetta's newspaper, La République française, Delcassé soon became involved in politics, and at age twenty-five he inherited the paper's column on colonial and foreign affairs.

Delcassé's articles made him one of the Radical Party's leading voices on foreign affairs, and Gambetta encouraged him to stand for office but died in 1882 before securing the election of his protégé. Delcassé became a strong supporter of Jules Ferry (1832–1893) in the mid-1880s when Ferry launched his controversial policy of colonial expansion. Delcassé backed Ferry in La République française, although others denounced him for the expansionism or for colonial cooperation with Germany. When Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929), the most passionate voice of the Radical Party after the death of Gambetta, attacked Ferry in parliament in 1885, leading to the overthrow of the Ferry government, Delcassé was a member of the inner circle who met with Ferry.

delcassÉ in the chamber of deputies

His close ties to Gambetta and Ferry and his growing reputation as an authority on international relations earned Delcassé the support needed for a successful parliamentary campaign, and he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies from Ariège in 1889, a seat he would hold until 1919. In his first major speech, in November 1890, Delcassé attacked the government of Charles de Freycinet (1828–1923, a former rival of Gambetta) for following a weak foreign policy and for backing down to the English in Egypt. Delcassé became a leading voice on French colonial affairs, resulting in his appointment as undersecretary for the colonies in 1893–1894 and then minister of the colonies in 1894–1895. In these posts he advocated cautious expansionism, based on a realistic appraisal of national interests rather than expansion for expansion's sake.

Delcassé used his prominent position in the Radical Party to support the Franco-Russian Alliance as it evolved in the 1890s at a time when many Radicals feared that collaboration with autocratic Russia compromised the liberal-democratic principles of the party. When Henri Brisson (1835–1912) formed a cabinet including several Radicals in 1898, Delcassé was considered the logical choice to be foreign minister.

delcassÉ and the diplomatic revolution

Delcassé came to office in June 1898, at the height of the Fashoda Crisis, in which Britain and France confronted each other over control of Egypt and the Sudan. He extracted France from a vulnerable position by withdrawing a small exploratory mission (the Marchand mission) from the banks of the Nile (where they confronted a large British army), and won praise for his resolution of the crisis, but Delcassé realized that the Fashoda affair had exposed French vulnerability. He consequently negotiated two protocols strengthening the Franco-Russian Alliance (1899 and 1901) and then contemplated the need for France to resolve its differences with either Britain (in colonial affairs) or Germany (in continental affairs). The latter possibility remains the most controversial issue in the scholarly interpretation of Delcassé's career.

Delcassé briefly considered a Franco-German détente—the idea that had destroyed Ferry's career but later won a Nobel Peace Prize for Aristide Briand (1862–1932) and later still made the European Union possible—but he found negotiations much easier with the British. Delcassé thus became the central architect of the Anglo-French treaty of 1904, known as the Entente Cordiale. By this agreement, Britain and France settled centuries of lingering colonial disputes. France recognized the British position in Egypt, and Britain recognized the French position in Morocco.

The Entente Cordiale was not a military alliance analogous to the Franco-Russian Alliance or Germany's Triple Alliance, although it evolved into military collaboration. Combined with the Russian alliance, it represented one of the greatest diplomatic revolutions in modern European history, ending the isolation of France and counter-balancing the German alliances.

When Germany precipitated a crisis in 1905 to test the Entente Cordiale, a nervous Chamber of Deputies drove Delcassé from office. He remained a leading voice in international affairs and returned to serve as minister of the navy in 1911–1913. When World War I began in 1914 and the French formed a coalition ministry of all talents (the "sacred union"), Delcassé returned to the Foreign Ministry, where he stayed until 1915.