july 1932 Briand Friedrich Sieburg Volume 10 • Number 4 The contents of Foreign Affairs are copyrighted.©1932 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this material is permitted only with the express written consent of Foreign Affairs. Visit www.foreignaffairs.com/permissions for more information. BRIAND By Friedrich Sieburg THE world which Aristide Briand has just left at the age of seventy is not the world he wanted. His death falls into the a void, so to speak, of life which had already lost its effec name tive significance. Aristide Briand! Has any other connected with post-war statesmanship awakened deeper emotions in the our world? Has any other inspired fonder hopes in contempora on our ries or handed graver doubts to posterity? The fact that new us: Briand is dead says nothing to he really had ceased to live. France has buried him with public honors; but the real meaning of his life already lies engulfed in quicksands of preju a dice, disappointment, impatience. Had his passing occurred an to few years ago, abyss would have seemed be opened up in the field of international relations. Today he vanishes leaving hardly a disturbance in the present rarefied atmosphere. came a were Death upon him like thief in the night; and there no at to watchers hand sound the alarm. Leaving his beloved a Cocherel in country of babbling brooks, he stole back to Paris a to die in his town residence, damp, musty, chilly mansion which he had not used for years. No one was allowed to accompany man him. The old was creeping away in secret! In the distant trees perspective stood the leafless of the Quai d'Orsay, rising a grimly through the balmy air of day in March. But through over a new was the offices of the Ministry there spirit sweeping. a man Andr? Tardieu is who radiates optimism and sparkles with wit. Andr? Tardieu is a man still far, far removed from making any plea of weariness ! It may seem hardly in keeping with present circumstances to allude to such a death in terms of regret. But we are constrained so. can us a to do Nor is this altogether futile, since it teach a was poignant lesson. Ended is life which always inspired with a a the noblest aspirations for better fate for humanity, life the to cause a best years of which had been dedicated the of shaping no career more career better Europe. But aptly than the of Aris can sort es tide Briand show that in the of world organization tablished the of Versailles the best of wills is by Treaty? good that even the can necessarily poisoned more, good promote evil. It was Briand's greatness that he tried to make men dif Council on Foreign Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Foreign Affairs ® www.jstor.org BRIAND 573 ferent. It was Briand's weakness that he tried to leave the world of Versailles unaltered. This inconsistency gradually made his policy incomprehensible to our to our the people of time, especially younger generations. one at On the hand, France could keep shouting him that he was to a placing the safety of his country second system of humanita rian coercion?in other an international words, organization. On the other hand, the Germans had frequent occasion for wrath at to him because he continued cripple the national energies of was on to Germany; because he bent bringing the Germans have faith in this, the worst of all possible worlds; because, with his was one moment a magic eloquence, he at arousing hopes for Europe a inhabited by better kind of human being, and then again chilling a all hearts by arming the allies of France and drawing cordon of a com mistrust tighter about Germany; because, in word, he an mitted the mistake of striving for ideal, though simultaneously to being careful take all precautions against the chance that his ideal might fail of fulfilment. Briand has shown clearly that one cannot at same one be prophet and politician the time; that same cannot propose the most Utopian schemes and at the time arouse. organize the mistrust which those schemes At the moment when Germany ceased to believe in Briand he was to the Germans back under his with the trying bring spell concept of the two Germanies. On all the platforms of Europe he was a a speaking of reasonable, European, Germany with which it was a possible to deal; and of hard-hearted, nationalist Germany no with which dealings could be had. And in doing that he was deepening the age-old gulf between Germany and France, to inclining Germans that forgetfulness which permits people to at the moment of his death, to overlook his day, ? great accomplish ment the humanization of international relations in the post war period. no There is great consolation in looking back, today, upon the road which Aristide Briand left behind him. That road seems to to bend round and back its starting point; and the atmosphere which, at the time when he rushed enthusiastically into the fray, was he eager to free from pollutions of hatred and armed mistrust, as as was has again become almost hard to breathe it then. The our us hurrying peoples of time sneeringly ask where Locarno is, corner now and in just what of the world is to be found the with to ering olive branch which Briand carried the four points of the 574 FOREIGN AFFAIRS a compass like dove of peace. Stresemann preceded him to the was not grave. Stresemann fortunate enough to be called upon to witness the collapse of his life's effort. Fighting off his memories as an he fought off the drowsiness of approaching end, Briand to name from time time still murmured the of his old antagonist, who had also been to a certain extent his friend. Did he realize to same that they both had succumbed the wound? In killing man Briand's policies, France killed the himself. He may have on news as a smiled receiving of his defeat candidate for the Presi same as a dency of the Republic. At the time he understood it scene. we must not hint that he withdraw from the And forget un the next, and perhaps the last, blow that fell upon him: the to compromising opposition of his country the German-Austrian customs union. On that occasion he confessed before the Senate, are his shoulders drooping, that there happenings in this world that dwarf a man, that reduce him in size. was a Aristide Briand the postilion of France that did not follow him. At the sharpest turn in his road he looked back, and saw that was must he alone. He have perceived that he had served neither nor mankind France wholeheartedly. He had used the d?bris of torn to the barriers which he had down between the peoples build new walls to fortify the Europe created by Versailles. To be sure, he labored indefatigably in the fields of arbitration and interna same tional adjustment; but at the time he strove for sanctions, and the to be derived from a new world entangled advantages a no order in such network of private alliances for France that ever re outsider has been able to unravel it. Time and again he to not was turned the premiership of France, but because he the a Briand whose gospel has soared like rocket into the sky of Eu was a rope's diplomatic night, but because he shrewd politician, an art able compromiser, because he knew the of cajoling opposi was as tions and convincing antagonists that everything they was ever to a would have it. What returning him power was, in not word, his humanity, his love of mankind, but his political now to dexterity, which had and again be placed at the service of France. Then both France and the world turned ? suddenly away from him the world, because he was too devious; France, because he was too European. on ever Wherever his head bobbed up the ever-changing yet monotonous scene of the international there conferences, hope seemed to follow him like a silver trail; yet ever and anon that BRIAND 575 was to everlasting foreign policy of France, which he supposed be transforming, showed itself stronger than his character, and in the end he would always be reduced to the necessity of picking up all the big ideas lying about in post-war statesmanship, and which a had been exalted for the consolation of distressed humanity, at and putting them the service of traditional "French interests." were to The magic formulae which lift the lid from the tomb of out to mere on Europe always turned be inscriptions that slab, or whether they spelled "European Union," "World Union," was "Disarmament." Briand attempting the impossible in trying to to help the peoples of Europe regain their normal growth, at same to their natural development, and the time in trying were perpetuate the order inwhich they condemned to live. That was on came to reason the point which he grief, that the why he died alone. Nevertheless, we feel sorrow at his death. For Briand stands as a out, against the background of post-war policies in Europe, man was ever whose activity inspired by deep human aspirations. ? a "These poor people what pity!" That exclamation, which so sounds foreign in any consideration of policy today, always on seemed inaudibly present his eloquent lips.