Minimising the Damage: Louis Barthou as the Head of the French Delegation in Genoa

Abstract

The article aims to explore the contents, pecularities and the results of Louis Barthou’s, French minister of justice, activities in Genoa as the head of French delegation at the international conference. The author bases his research on the French diplomatic documents and on the diary of General Edmond Buat, the chief of French army General staff. The latter source gives a revealing picture of the reactions of the authorities in Paris on Barthou’s diplomacy. Te detailed study of Barthou as the head of the French delegation seeks to add new details to our general understanding the Genoa conference’s history, and to reveal, how the important international decision-making was linked to the “human factor”, how the human beings interpreted and re-interpreted the “national interests” and left their mark on the process. This problematics seems to be applicable to the current international relations as well. Author concludes that Barthou couldn’t radically transform the basic aims of France in Genoa, as they were formulated by the president of the French Council of ministers and the French foreign minister Raymond Poincaré before the conference. In the same time, acting as the head of the French delegation, he contributed significantly to the process and mechanics of their realisation. Barthou softened the consequences of Poincaré’s harsh measures, though the French leadership didn’t expect something beneficial from this international meeting, initiated by the British Prime Minister David Lloy George. Thus, if to estimate the Barthou’s mission as minimising the damage of the Genoa conference to France, he was rather successful in it.