"If it is said that the war is won, it would perhaps be more accurate to say that there is a lull in the storm. At the very least, it is necessary to provide for all eventualities. Recent discoveries have enabled us to pierce the enemy's designs to a greater extent than hitherto. They were not merely a dream of military domination on the part of Prussia, but a definite conspiracy expressly aiming at the extermination of France. Industrially France is extremely difficult to reconstruct, whereas Germany has kept her factories intact and ready to start working efficiently forthwith. Indeed, industrially and commercially, as between France and Prussia, the victory is the latter's. ... the war debt of Germany is almost entirely domestic and can easily be repudiated, while that of France must be paid. In the immediate future we shall have to pay regularly abroad immense sums, by way of interest solely, out of our internal resources."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from FrancePrime Ministers of FrancePoliticians from FranceDefense ministersInterior ministers
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Interview with the Associated Press (9 February 1919), quoted in The Times (11 February 1919), p. 10
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Georges_Clemenceau
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Georges Clemenceau
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. Clemenceau served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. He was one of the principal architects of the Treaty of Versailles at the France Peace Conference of 1919.
103 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Georges Clemenceau →
Related Quotes
"Is it not fairly clear that the very idea of a fatherland, which is still so potent among us, has lost some of its na…"
"What are we doing, then, if not proceeding, article by article, to restore Germany's power, which, by a truly miracul…"
"In truth, the bulk of the German nation, the Reich Government (so well personified in the circumstances by the late H…"
"My education was built up upon ruthlessly hard-and-fast ideas crowned by a patriotism that nothing could shake. In th…"
"I ask myself whether there is to be found a single Frenchman who could admit that we should refrain from exacting fro…"
"It is Germany, guilty of the greatest crime in the history of Europe, a crime premeditated, prepared, and carried out…"
"The Locarno pacts offer only the insubstantial semblance of a guarantee; they are an illusion calculated to mislead e…"
"Unquestionably and naturally, in Germany, as everywhere else, the workmen, peasants, and lower middle class are true …"
"The great mistake made by the Governments that have succeeded one another in France since 1920 is to have dandled our…"
"I scan the horizon in vain for any sign of a recovery. Day by day the position grows more serious through our inertia…"