Joseph Caillaux
Joseph (Marie Auguste) Caillaux (born March 30, 1863 in Le Mans , † November 21, 1944 in Mamers ) was a French statesman of the Third Republic and Prime Minister from June 1911 to January 1912. He was a former advocate of a national income tax and was imprisoned for opposition to World War I.
Caillaux came from a notable family . His father had already held ministerial posts twice.
After a career at the high level of financial administration from 1888 onwards, he was elected to parliament in 1898 and finally Minister of Finance seven times. The initially liberal politician turned increasingly to the radicals after the Dreyfus affair . During Georges Clemenceau's first term in office from 1906 to 1909, Caillaux introduced income tax .
During his short term as Prime Minister (1911/12) he concluded the Morocco-Congo Agreement with the German Empire , which sealed the French protectorate over Morocco . This earned him massive public doubts about his patriotic attitude. After a Senate committee expressed similar criticism, he was forced to resign as premier in January 1912. In 1913/14 he was again Minister of Finance. In 1913 he was for a short time chairman of the Radical Party, which he led with a decided left-wing course. This was expressed, among other things, in his strong opposition to the extension of the service in the army to 3 years on the eve of the First World War .
Gaston Calmette , the then editor of Le Figaro , threatened in a press campaign against Joseph Caillaux to publish love letters from Caillaux's wife Henriette to her husband, who at the time of writing was still married to another woman. Henriette Caillaux then shot Calmette on March 16, 1914 in his editorial office. Joseph Caillaux resigned the next day, took over the defense of his wife in the subsequent process and obtained an acquittal.
During the First World War, Caillaux, who had meanwhile moved decisively to the left, advocated negotiations and a peace treaty with the German Reich. Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau accused him in 1917 of making common cause with Germany. A trial that followed only in 1920 sentenced him to three years imprisonment for “correspondence with the enemy”. After an amnesty in 1925, which restored his political reputation, Caillaux served three times as finance minister (1925, 1926 and 1935), but was unable to counter the crisis of the franc during this period. In this capacity he concluded a foundation agreement with the British Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill in 1926 on the war debts that the French government had taken on from the British government until 1918. In addition, Caillaux was a member of the Senate from 1925 to 1940 , where he continued to exert considerable influence on French budgetary policy as chairman of the finance committee.
In 1937, Caillaux took part in the overthrow of Léon Blum's Popular Front government and supported Prime Minister Édouard Daladier's attempts to negotiate with Nazi Germany in 1938/39. After the defeat of 1940 , the Vichy regime failed to win Caillaux on its side.
Individual evidence
- ^ Edward Berenson, The Trial of Madame Caillaux , University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1992
literature
- Jean-Claude Allain: Joseph Caillaux . Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1978–1981
Web links
- Literature by and about Joseph Caillaux in the catalog of the German National Library
- Newspaper article about Joseph Caillaux in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
|
Paul Peytral Raymond Poincaré Louis-Lucien Klotz Charles Dumont Anatole de Monzie Raoul Péret Louis Germain-Martin |
Minister of Finance of France June 22, 1899–7. June 1902 October 25, 1906–24. July 1909 March 2, 1911-27. June 1911 December 9, 1913–17. March 1914 April 17, 1925-29. October 1925 June 23, 1926–19. July 1926 June 1, 1935–7. June 1935 |
Maurice Rouvier Georges Cochery Louis-Lucien Klotz René Renoult Paul Painlevé Anatole de Monzie Marcel Régnier |
| Ernest Monis |
Minister of the Interior of France June 27, 1911-14. January 1912 |
Théodore Steeg |
| Ernest Monis |
Prime Minister of France June 27, 1911-14. January 1912 |
Raymond Poincaré |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Caillaux, Joseph |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Caillaux, Joseph Marie Auguste (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French statesman of the Third Republic and Prime Minister from June 1911 to January 1912 |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 30, 1863 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Le Mans |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 21, 1944 |
| Place of death | Mamers |