The Independent role of the Army

The latter lay in a completely different direction. Even as the Third Republic was evolving into the final form of the political rule of the bourgeoisie, it was also simultaneously developing all its internal contradictions. One of these fundamental contradictions is that between a Republic based upon the rule of a bourgeois parliament and a big standing army adapted to the needs of colonial and world politics. In a strong monarchy, the army is reduced, as a matter of course, to an obedient tool in the hands of the executive power. However, in a parliamentary republic, with its momentarily changing government composed of civilians, with an elected chief-of-state whose post may go any one of the “rabble”, whether formerly a tanner’s apprentice or a slick-tongued lawyer, the army, with its outspoken caste-spirit, naturally shows the tendency to become an independent power, only loosely tied to the state apparatus as a whole.

The cultivation of “pressure group” politics on the part of the bourgeoisie of France has gone so far as to result their falling into separate groups, which, without any feeling of responsibility for the whole, have made the government and parliament a plaything of their special interests. This development has, on the other side, given rise to the army developing from an instrument of the state into an independent “pressure group” of its own, prepared to defend its interests without regard for the Republic, despite the Republic, and against the Republic.

The contradictions between the parliamentary Republic and the standing army can be solved only through the dissolution of the army into the civil population and the organization of the civil population into the army. This would mean changing the army from an instrument of conquest and colonial rule into an instrument of national defense In short, the solution must be found in replacing the standing army by a militia. As long as this is not done, the internal contradictions will continue to result in periodic crises, in clashes between the Republic and its own army, which the obvious results of the army’s growing independence, its corruption and insubordination, become ever more prominent.

The mutiny of the military heads was one as of their attempt to assert their independence of the republican civil authorities. It by no means indicated a desire to lose this independence entirely through the establishment of monarchy. Hence the farcical character of the actions of the monarchists. A stormy pillow-fight in the press, an ear-splitting tumult by the anti-Semitic rowdies, the appearance of cheering crowds before the offices of the Nationalist press, and the noisy shattering of windows in the offices of the pro-Dreyfus papers, the insulting of innocent passers-by, the attempt to heat up the president at the race track ... but in the midst of this electrically-charged, nerve-wracking atmosphere – not a single serious political movement to carry through a coup d’état . The ferment came to a head in that great historical moment when the extravagant buffoon, Deroulede, grabbed General Roget’s bridle as he was leading his troops into the barracks and, with an emphatic pose, sought to lead him against the President’s palace in the Elysee, without having the slightest notion what General Roget was expected to do once he got there, nor what was to result from the whole adventure. The rogue in military uniform proved wiser than the fool in civilian clothes and a sword stroke across Deroulede’s fingers was the answer to the beau geste of the anti Semitic leaders. Thus ended the sole attempt at a monarchist coup d’état.