Beyond the Balance of Power: France and the Politics of National Security in the Era of the First World War, by Peter Jackson

Abstract

Peter Jackson Beyond Balance of Power: France and Politics of National Security in Era of First World War Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 559 pp., $110 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-107-03994-0Peter Jackson opens his new book with juxtaposition of Theodore Ruyssen, president of Association de la paix par le droit and Edouard Herriot, Radical party politician, Third and Fourth Republic stalwart, and three times premier of France. The two men, speaking respectively in 1911 and 1924, echoed similar themes. Both stressed need to construct an international order based on rule of law. As Herriot put it, arbitration, security, and disarmament would ensure peaceable international relations and so constitute best means to guarantee French security. Jackson argues such words were not idle, for Herriot's ministry of 1924-1925 embedded what he calls at heart of French security policy (5).Juridical internationalism insisted that France's security was best obtained through exercise of international law and adherence to accepted norms of international behaviour. Juridical internationalism was one of two principal ways of thinking about France's relations with world. For bulk of period that Jackson analyzes, it was, as he admits, lesser. The greater-what Jackson labels traditional view-was bred in bone of French policymakers. This was a preoccupation with realities of power based on French experience in centuries before 1914. French security rested on a combination of alliances, military force, and economic might. What mattered was strategic preponderance (78). For traditionalists, balance of power was at core of French security policy.The central argument of Jackson's book is that scholars, fixated on traditional view, have failed to appreciate existence of internationalist thinking in France during era of First World War. For too long analysis has stopped at acceptance of notion of balance of power as determinant. Consequently, historians have misunderstood not just nature of French security policy but also contributions of French thinking to evolving notions of internationalist thought globally. According to Jackson, appreciating existence of both strands within French thinking recasts scholarly narrative that has dominated assessments of French policy-making. France, having won First World War, was a state that moved steadily toward an exposition of internationalist notions as hope for international relations generally.How is this argument made? Jackson begins with a survey of groups within France that made security policy, namely political elites, foreign policy fonctionnaires, and military. Their collective adherence to traditional view was, if not axiomatic, nearly so, at least before 1914. One of virtues of this work lies in its demonstration that while military remained faithful to traditional view, attitudes of political elites and foreign policy fonctionnaires shifted in favour of internationalist thinking. The latter's influence in France dated to nineteenth century, as Jackson demonstrates in his second chapter, where he traces influence of extra-parliamentary pressure movements, growing links to likeminded associations abroad, and key role of men such as parliamentarian Leon Bourgeois, described as the most influential voice of French juridical for nearly 30 years (65).Although Bourgeois was an apostle of internationalism, it was grim reality of First World War that prompted rethinking. Thus part II of book considers French state at war. In wartime jockeying that existed among politicians, foreign ministry, and military, conflict bestowed loudest voice on military. Yet, as Jackson observes, more far-sighted observers appreciated that world was changing, a point driven home by 1917, when Russian exit from war, coming to power of Bolsheviks, and entrance of United States trumpeted an explicitly internationalist clarion. …