Murder of Jean Jaurès

After the attack on Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, the European states were gradually drawn into a new international crisis by the play of alliances, leading to the outbreak of World War I within a month. Throughout these four weeks, Jaurès, the most prominent opponent of the war, felt the tension rising inexorably, and tried until his death to oppose it.

At the age of fifty-four, Jean Jaurès was the leading figure in the French socialist movement, the SFIO (French Section of the Workers' International), and a celebrated figure in international socialism, particularly since the death in 1913 of August Bebel, the leader of German social democracy. Jaurès, who entered politics in 1885 as a Republican deputy, an admirer of Gambetta, and a supporter of the Jules Ferry government, was very attached to the defense of the fatherland, as he explained in his book L'Armée nouvelle, published in 1911, criticizing Marx's famous phrase: "proletarians have no fatherland".[1] He was convinced, however, that wars were caused by the clash of capitalist interests, and that it was the duty of the working class to oppose them.[2]

Jean Jaurès.

Along with the Socialist group, he supported the Viviani government, which he felt was genuinely hostile to the war. On July 14, at the SFIO's extraordinary congress, which met until the 19th, he expressed confidence in the will of the working class and its representatives in the main countries to oppose the conflict, including through the weapon of the general strike. He supported the Keir-Hardie-Vaillant motion, the names of a British and a French socialist, which called for a strike in the event of imminent conflict: "rather insurrection than war", to which Jaurès added that the strike should be "simultaneously and internationally organized".[3] This earned him an attack from a newspaper like Le Temps, which on July 18 accused him of supporting the "abominable thesis that would lead to disarming the nation at a time when it was in peril", to which he replied in L'Humanité that "the strike would also paralyze the aggressor".[4]

He learned with concern of the growing number of commitments made as part of the Franco-Russian Alliance to be celebrated in St Petersburg by President Poincaré and Prime Minister Viviani between July 20 and 23. For months, Jaurès' entire strategy had been to condemn the alliance with despotic Russia and to seek mediation and rapprochement with England – in vain. When he was informed of the breakdown of diplomatic relations between Austria and Serbia on July 24, he realized the seriousness of the threat. On July 25, he came to support Marius Moutet, the Socialist candidate in a by-election in Vaise, a suburb of Lyon, and gave a speech denouncing the "massacres to come".[5] As he confessed to Joseph Paul-Boncour, Viviani's chief of staff, he was overcome by pessimism when he expressed himself fatalistically:

Ah, do you think you'll do everything to prevent this slaughter?... Besides, we'll be killed first, and we may regret it later.[5].

Believing he could still put pressure on the government, he maintained a certain reserve with regard to the demonstration organized by the CGT in Paris on July 27. The Socialist Party executive, which met on July 28 at the instigation of Jaurès, again expressed its support to the government.

Hoping that Paris and Berlin would be able to retain their mutual alliances, he attended the emergency meeting of the International Socialist Bureau of the Second International, which met in Brussels on July 29 and 30, at the request of the French Socialists. The aim was to urge the German and French leaders to take action against their allies. The board decided to convene the congress of the Socialist International on August 9 in Paris, instead of August 23 in Vienna. In a somewhat surreal atmosphere, most of the delegates, including Hugo Haase, co-chairman of the German SPD, expressed confidence in the ability of the people to avoid war. On the evening of the 29th, at the Cirque Royal, Jaurès and Rosa Luxemburg were acclaimed at a massive anti-war rally. The International Socialist Bureau voted unanimously to call for more anti-war demonstrations.[6]

Jaurès wanted to use the power of trade union and political forces, but without paralyzing government action. To this end, on July 30 he persuaded Léon Jouhaux to postpone the day of demonstrations planned by the CGT on August 2 until the 9th.[7]

The greatest danger at the moment is not, if I may say so, in the events themselves [...]. [...] It lies in the growing restlessness, in the spreading anxiety, in the sudden impulses born of fear, acute uncertainty and prolonged anxiety. [...] What matters above all is continuity of action, the perpetual awakening of working-class thought and consciousness. That is the real safeguard. That is the guarantee of the future.

— Jean Jaurès – Extracts from his last article in L'Humanité, July 31, 1914[8]

When he returned to Paris on the afternoon of July 30, he found out that Russia was mobilizing. At the head of a socialist delegation, he obtained an audience with Viviani at around 8 pm, who revealed to him the state of preparation of the troops on the borders. Jaurès implored him to avoid any incidents with Germany.[9] Viviani replied that he had ordered French troops to retreat ten kilometers from the border to avoid any risk of incident with Germany.

On the morning of July 31, the Parisian press was unanimous in seeing Europe "on the brink of collapse". After consulting with friends and family such as Charles Rappoport and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Jaurès went to the Chamber of Deputies, where he was informed of the Austrian mobilization and the declaration of a state of threat of war (Kriegsgefahrzustand) in Germany.

He decided to meet again with the President of the Council, who was also Minister of Foreign Affairs, but saw only the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Abel Ferry, nephew of Jules Ferry. At the same time, Viviani was unavailable, as he was receiving the German ambassador, Count von Schoen, who had come to convey his government's ultimatum to France: to say by 1 p.m. on August 1 whether it was in solidarity with Russia. He realized that conflict could no longer be avoided. At the same time, prefects warned all French mayors to have horses and carriages ready for requisition orders. According to Pierre Renaudel, who witnessed his meeting with Abel Ferry, Jaurès declared that if the government persisted in going to war "(he) would denounce the crazy-headed ministers". Abel Ferry, in a distressed – and by no means threatening – tone, simply replied, "But my poor Jaurès, we'll kill you at the first street corner! ... ". Abel Ferry was killed at the front, mortally wounded by shrapnel in 1918.

The crowd in front of the crime scene. An ambulance is visible on the right.

At the end of the day, he went to his newspaper's headquarters to prepare an anti-war mobilization article for the August 1 issue. Beforehand, he went out to dinner at the Café du Croissant on rue Montmartre, with his newspaper colleagues, including Pierre Renaudel, Jean Longuet, Philippe Landrieu, Ernest Poisson and Georges Weill. He sat with his back to the open window, separated from the street by a simple screen. Observing from the street the café room where he had spotted Jaurès dining, hidden by the curtain, the assassin fired two shots: the first penetrated the parietal region of the head, the second lost itself in the woodwork surrounding a mirror.[10] Jaurès was almost killed instantly by a cerebral haemorrhage.[11] In the confusion, Madame Poisson, wife of L'Humanité contributor Ernest Poisson, shouted: "Jaurès is dead! She was later credited with the exclamation "Ils ont tué Jaurès!" (They've killed Jaurès!), echoed by the workers, who lamented, ""They've killed Jaurès. It's war!" It is this apocryphal version blaming the nationalists that has survived.[12]

Raoul Villain, Jaurès' murderer.

The murderer was Raoul Villain, a 29-year-old from Rémois, an archaeology student at the École du Louvre, and above all a member of the Ligue des jeunes amis de l'Alsace-Lorraine, a nationalist, pro-war student group close to Action Française.[13] He was arrested and declared that he had acted alone to "suppress an enemy of his country". This theory of an isolated act was repeated unchanged in the indictment drawn up on October 22, 1915.[13] He is described as an unassuming, calm and pious character, blond-haired, blue-eyed and youthful in appearance. Without ever having seen Jaurès, he gradually took it into his head to kill the traitor, the German.[14] Doubtless convinced of the necessity of his action since the previous December, he matured his deed throughout July, bought a Smith & Wesson revolver, practiced shooting, wrote a few incoherent letters, located the socialist leader's home, his newspaper, the café where he was a regular.[14]

For many months, even years, the nationalist press and representatives of the "patriotic" Leagues (such as Léon Daudet and Charles Maurras) had been raging against Jaurès' pacifist declarations and his internationalism, and singling him out as the man to be shot, because of his past commitment to Alfred Dreyfus. Statements of this kind abounded in the preceding weeks.[13]

Tell me, on the eve of war, do you think that the general who ordered [...] citizen Jaurès to be pinned to the wall and shot point-blank with the lead missing from his brain would not have done his most elementary duty?

— Maurice de Waleffe in L'Écho de Paris of July 17, 1914.

Alexander Izvolsky, Russian Ambassador to Paris.

But the outrageousness of the written word merely concealed the gradual rise of nationalism in public opinion, which Jaurès and the Socialists seemed unwilling to recognize. Since the crises in Morocco and the Balkans in recent years, confrontation with Germany had become inevitable, as Clemenceau sensed. In the winter of 1913 and spring of 1914, the two men clashed fiercely over his hostile stance against the three-year military service law. In May 1912, Council President Poincaré's decision to declare Joan of Arc's feast day a national holiday was symbolic. Similarly, the rallying of many radicals to the Republicans and representatives of right-wing parties to elect Poincaré as President of the Republic in January 1913 also testified to the political shift underway.[15]

In his 1968 book Ils ont tué Jaurès (They killed Jaurès), François Fontvieille-Alquier notes the troubling relationship between Raoul Villain and the Imperial Russian ambassador Izvolsky. On several occasions, people close to Jaurès accused the Russian services of colluding with Raoul Villain, who may have been manipulated. In fact, Izvolsky generously showered the nationalist and warmongering press with money, prompting Jaurès to describe its financing as being in the pay of "that scoundrel Izvolsky".[16] However, the reality of Villain's manipulation has never been formally proven.[16]

Raoul Villain was incarcerated awaiting trial throughout World War I. After fifty-six months of pre-trial detention, when the war was over, his trial was organized before the Seine Cour d'assises. Villain was lucky enough not to be tried until 1919, at his request,[24] in a climate of ardent patriotism. At the hearings from March 24 to 29, his lawyers, including the great criminal lawyer Henri Géraud, argued that he was insane. They also argued that he was a lone man, as evidenced by his interrogation by Célestin Hennion, the Paris Prefect of Police, on the night of July 31, 1914.[25] Among the witnesses on his behalf was Marc Sangnier, who came to defend the "moral value" of a former disciple.[26] Raoul Villain was acquitted on March 29, 1919 by eleven votes out of twelve, one juror even finding that he had done his country a service: "If the war's adversary, Jaurès, had prevailed, France would not have been able to win the war. Jaurès's widow was ordered to pay the costs of the trial.[27]

Anatole France.

On March 14, 1919, a fortnight earlier, the 3rd Paris Council of War, a military court, sentenced Émile Cottin, the anarchist who had shot Clemenceau several times on February 19, to death.[28]

In reaction, Anatole France wrote: "Workers, Jaurès lived for you, he died for you. A monstrous verdict proclaims that his assassination is not a crime. This verdict outlaws you and all those who defend your cause. Workers, watch out!".[29] On April 6, Paris socialist and trade union sections organized a demonstration to protest the verdict and honor Jaurès the pacifist. 100,000 people marched, and clashes with the police resulted in two deaths.[30]

Jean Jaurès monument in Carmaux.

Jaurès' official funeral, held on August 4, 1914, the first day of the war, was a sober affair. The 1919 verdict had shocked the left. Between 1921 and 1924, more than seven statues in tribute to Jaurès were inaugurated in various French towns. On June 3, 1923, at the inauguration of the Carmaux statue by his friend Anatole France, Édouard Herriot, leader of the Radical Party, suggested to the government that Jaurès' remains be transferred to the Panthéon.[32]

In 1924, Herriot became President of the Council of the Cartel of Leftists government, supported by the socialist SFIO party on the basis of a pacifist, anticlerical and social program against the policies of the National Bloc. Herriot saw the opportunity to give himself a symbolic foothold, while paying tribute to the man who had tried to prevent the war.[33] Édouard Herriot, Paul Painlevé, as well as Léon Blum and Albert Thomas, supporters of this government, had begun their political careers during the Dreyfus affair, and these Dreyfusards had been strongly influenced by Jaurès. The bill was passed by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies on July 31, 1924, the tenth anniversary of Jaurès's assassination, despite opposition from a section of the Right, and also from the Communists, who protested against the confiscation of Jaurès by the "Cartel of Death".

The ceremony, initially set for September 4 or September 22, the anniversaries of the creation of the Third and First Republics respectively, was finally decided for Sunday November 23, 1924. Léon Blum wanted a majestic ceremony, while a number of enthusiastic Socialists favored a particular emphasis, and the Radicals did not want to overdo it. The ceremonial was finally entrusted to Firmin Gémier, founder of the Théâtre National Populaire in 1920, who entrusted the execution to musician Gustave Charpentier and poet Saint-Georges de Bouhelier.

Jean Jaurès' tomb in the French Panthéon.

The day before the ceremony, the coffin was taken from Albi by train to the Gare d'Orsay, accompanied by miners from Carmaux. It was then taken to the Salle Casimir-Perier at the Palais Bourbon. In addition to family and friends, the wake was attended by officials: Édouard Herriot and his ministers, cartel deputies and senators, and delegations from the CGT and the Human Rights League.

On Sunday November 23, 1924, his remains were taken to the Panthéon, in an official procession attended by all left-wing political movements except the Communist party.

The official procession, preceded by the red banners of the socialist sections, was opened by delegations from party organizations mingling with the constituted bodies. The Carmaux miners followed. Jaurès's coffin, perched atop a spectacular hearse, was carried to the Panthéon via the boulevards Saint-Germain and Saint-Michel. Newspapers reported a crowd of 80,000 to 100,000.[34]

Herriot delivered a speech in the nave of the Panthéon to an audience of 2,000, followed by the reading of a poem by Victor Hugo. The ceremony ended with an oratorio sung by a 600-strong choir.

The Communists had wanted to pay tribute to Jaurès by organizing a separate delegation. Following the first procession, they followed the same route, singing L'Internationale. Carrying red flags and placards reading "War on war through proletarian revolution", "Let's institute the dictatorship of the proletariat" and "Against the fascist leagues, let's oppose the proletarian centuries", they chanted slogans such as "Long live the soviets", "Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat" and "Down with the bourgeois parliament!" The police prefecture counted 12,000 organized demonstrators, joined by tens of thousands of spectators.[35]

In the November 24 issue of L'Humanité, Paul Vaillant-Couturier wrote of the days of May 1871:

As you march past the Panthéon, salute, with the memory of Jaurès, one of the bloodiest battles of the Commune. The Versailles bourgeoisie is still in power. You can only drive it out with weapons in your hands.

To underline the fact that there was no (or no longer any) national consensus, Action Française organized a tribute on the same day to Marius Plateau, general secretary of the Camelots du Roi, assassinated in January 1923 by Germaine Berton, an anarchist militant who had justified her act by saying she had wanted to avenge Jaurès. Accompanied by representatives of the clergy, a crowd of leaders and militants made their way to the Vaugirard Cemetery to hear Léon Daudet celebrate their martyrdom.[36]

• In Roger Martin du Gard's fresco Les Thibault, the event is described as follows:

A brief clatter, the burst of a tire, interrupted him; followed, almost immediately, by a second bang and a crash of glass. A pane of glass on the far wall had shattered.
A second of stupor, then a deafening sound. The whole room stood up and turned to the shattered glass: "Someone shot through the glass! – "Who? – Where? – From the street!"
...
At that moment, Madame Albert, the manageress, ran past Jacques' table. She shouted, "Mr. Jaurès has been shot!

— Roger Martin du Gard in L'été 1914, 7th volume of Thibault.

Sources used for the writing of this article:

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