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Georges Clemenceau Quotes
1841–1929 France
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (28 September, 1841 – 24 November, 1929) was a French statesman who led the nation in the First World War. A leader of the Radical Party, he played a central role in politics during the Third Republic.
France Academics Politicians Also known as: Clemenceau, Clemenceau, Georges, George Clemenceau
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The Locarno pacts offer only the insubstantial semblance of a guarantee; they are an illusion calculated to mislead easily satisfied consciences and to lull more vigilant minds to sleep. In their inadequacy lies their danger. The spirit of Locarno itself is positively injurious to the interests of our country.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
Internal policy, I wage war; foreign policy, I still wage war; I still wage war. Russia betrays us; I continue the war: unfortunate Rumania is forced to capitulate; I continue the war, and I will continue it down to the last quarter of an hour.
For you a hundred years is a very long time; for us it does not amount to much. I knew men who had seen Napoleon with their own eyes. We have our conception of history and it cannot be the same as yours.
If Germany, still obsessed by her traditional militarism, persists in her Deutschland über Alles, well—let the die be cast. We shall take up the atrocious War again at the point where we left it off. We must have the courage to prepare for it, instead of frittering away our strength in lies that no one believes, from conference to conference.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
As for myself, what more can I say? I am bitterly censured for having refused to give my country a strategic frontier. How can I take seriously those who, both great and small, reproach me with this, since they know that I could not—apart from any question of the rights of peoples—annex the Rhineland without breaking off our alliance, WHICH NO ONE DARED TO SUGGEST TO ME?
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
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