Pierre Renouvin

Pierre Renouvin (January 9, 1893 – December 7, 1974) was a French historian concerned with the field of international relations. Renouvin was born in Paris and attended the Lycée-Louis-le-Grand, where he was rewarded his aggrégation in 1912.^[1] Renouvin spent the years 1912-1914 traveling in Germany and Russia.^[1] Renouvin served as an infantryman in World War I, where he was badly wounded in action in April 1917, losing his left arm and the use of his right hand.^[1] Renouvin married Marie-Therese Gabalda (1894-1982) and worked as teacher between 1918-20 at the Lycée d’Orleans.^[2] Renouvin served as the director of the War History Library at the Sorbonne between 1920–22, as lecturer at the Sorbonne between 1922–33 and as a professor at the Sorbonne between 1933-64.^[1]

Researching the Origins of a Catastrophe

Renouvin began his historical career specializing on the origins of the French Revolution, especially the Assembly of Notables of 1787 for which he was rewarded his PhD, but after World War I, he turned to the study of the origins of World War I.^[3] As a veteran whose body had been scarred by the war, Renouvin was very interested in knowing why the war had began. In the interwar period, the question of responsibility of the war had immense political implications because the German government kept on insisting that because of the Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles was the "war guilt clause", that the entire treaty rested upon Article 231, and if could be proven that Germany was not responsible for the war, then the moral basis of Versailles would be undermined. As such, the Auswärtiges Amt had a War Guilt Section devoted solely to proving that the Reich was not responsible for the war of 1914, and funded the work of Americans like Harry Elmer Barnes who likewise was determined that it was the allies who were the aggressors of 1914.

In 1925, Renouvin published two books described as “definitive” by the historian David Robin Watson in The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing about World War I.^[4] In the first book, Les Origines immédiates de la guerre (28 juin-4 août 1914) Renouvin demolished German claims of non-responsibility for the First World War, and that it France that had supposedly started the war.^[3] In Les Origines immédiates de la guerre, Renouvin wrote about the origins of the war:

"Germany and Austria did not agree to accept any other solution other than the resort to force; they decided on their plan deliberately and after coolly considering all the possible consequences. With regard to the immediate origins of the conflict, this is the fact that dominates all the others".^[5]

The American historian Jay Winter and the French historian Antoine Prost wrote in 2005 about Renouvin that: "We have come back full circle to his position, published only seven years after the end of the conflict. One can only admire how scholarly and cautious he was, and how well his conclusions have stood the test of time".^[6] In the second, book Les Formes du gouverment de guerre, Renouvin offered a comparative political history of Germany and France in the First World War, describing how France was able under the strain of war to preserve her democracy whereas in Germany what small elements of democracy that had existed in 1914 had been swept away by military dictatorship by 1916 headed by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff.^[3] Both books involved Renouvin in a polemical debate with the French Left, German historians and German apologists like Harry Elmer Barnes who claimed that it was France together with Russia that were the aggressors in the July Crisis of 1914.^[3] During the 1920s, it was often claimed that in the years 1912-14, there had been a strategy of Poincaré-la-guerre (Poincaré's War), whereas the French President Raymond Poincaré had supposedly in conjunction with the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia planned an aggressive war to dismember Germany.^[3] Through a close study of the documents then available in the 1920s, Renouvin was able to rebut the charges of Poincaré-la-guerre and of Germany as a victim of Franco-Russian aggression, and subsequent research since then has confirmed Renouvin’s initial conclusions.^[3] Through Renouvin's work was funded by the French government to rebut the claims of the War Guilt Section of the Auswärtiges Amt, and the French leftists attacked Renouvin for being an "official" historian, Renouvin was critical of aspects of French pre-war policy, and he was the first historian to expose the French Yellow Book of 1914 (a collection of diplomatic documents relating to the July Crisis) for containing forgeries.^[7] Renouvin described his work in 1929 as:

"Tens of thousands of diplomatic documents to read, the testimony of hundreds of thousands of witnesses to be sought out and criticized, a maze of controversy and debate to be traversed in quest of some occasional revelation of importance-this is the task of the historian who undertakes to attack as a whole the great problem of the origins of the World War".^[7]

During the 1920s, one of the most popular historians on the subject of the July Crisis was the American Harry Elmer Barnes-who was closely associated with and funded by the Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War in Berlin headed by the prominent völkisch activist Major Alfred von Wegerer, a pseudo-historical research institute in its turn secretly funded by the German government-who had emerged as the world's leading advocate of the thesis that First World War was indeed Poincaré-la-guerre. After publishing his book The Genesis of the World War in 1926, Barnes was invited by the former German Emperor Wilhelm II to visit him in his Dutch exile to thank him personally. An awestruck Barnes wrote back to describe his meeting with the former Kaiser that: "His Imperial Majesty was happy to know that I did not blame him for starting the war in 1914...He disagreed with my view that Russia and France were chiefly responsible. He held that the villains of 1914 were the International Jews and Free Masons, who, he alleged, desired to destroy national states and the Christian religion".^[8] Wilhelm's anti-Semitic remarks about the war being the work of the Jews set Barnes off in an increasing bizarre anti-Semitic search to blame all of the world's problems on the Jews, a process that culminated after 1945 when Barnes become one of the world's first Holocaust Deniers.^[9] Given that Renouvin and Barnes had markedly different views on who was responsible for the war, and in light of Barnes's tendency to personally attack anyone whose views differed from him in the vituperative language possible (often accompanied by claims that Barnes's targets were just puppets of the Jews), Renouvin and Barnes became involved in a rancorous debate about just who was responsible for the war.^[3]

Because the German government had published a selective and misleading collection of documents relating to the July Crisis, whereas the French government had not published any documents from the Quai d'Orsay, Renouvin’s work was not widely accepted in the 1920s, but a fuller opening of the German archives after World War II has validated Renouvin's scholarship.^[3] Renouvin himself often complained in the 1920s-1930s that the Quai d'Orsay's policy of keeping its archives closed while the Auswärtiges Amt was publishing its archives made it seem like the French had something to hide, and thus made ordinary people all round the world more open to the German case than otherwise would have been the case. Renouvin himself took the lead in having the French archives opened, becoming the president of the French historical commission in charge of publishing the French documents relating to the July Crisis.^[3] Renouvin himself created a magazine relating to the subject Revue d”histoire de la Guerre Mondiale (Review of the History of the World War), and published another book on the subject, La Crise européenne et la grande gueree (The European Crisis and the Great War) in 1934.^[3]

Forces Profondes

In addition, Renouvin expanded his historical work to feature broader studies of international relations.^[3] In 1946, Renouvin published La Question d'Extrême Orient, 1840-1940 (The Question of the Far East, 1840-1940), which was followed by Histoire des relations internationles between 1953–58, which covered international history from the Middles Ages to 1945.^[3] In 1964, Renouvin published with the French historian Jean-Baptiste Duroselle Introduction a l’histoire des relations internationals (Introduction to the History of International Relations).^[3] As a historian, Renouvin came to be concerned more and more with broader social forces that influenced diplomatic history.^[3] Together with his protégés Jean-Baptiste Duroselle and Maurice Baumont (1892-1981) he started a new type of international history that included taking into what Renouvin called forces profondes (profound forces) such as the influence of domestic politics on foreign policy.^[10] In many ways, Renouvin's work with the forces profondes was the diplomatic historians' equivalent to the Annales school.^[10]

L'Armistice de Rethondes

In his 1968 book L'Armistice de Rethondes (The Armistice of Rethondes), Renouvin examined how World War I ended in November 1918.^[11] Renouvin argued that the armistice which ended the war on 11 November 1918 was a product of not only of the military situation, but public opinion in the Allied nations as well, and in its turn, the armistice predetermined many aspects of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, thus ensuring that the American President Woodrow Wilson had less for maneuver during the Paris peace conference than often presumed.^[11] Renovuin maintained that after the failure of the Kaiserschlacht ("Emperor's Battle") which was the "final offensive" intended to win the war for Germany in the spring of 1918, the Allies had turned the tide, and from the summer of 1918, the Allies were slowly, but surely pushing the Germans out of France.^[11] Renouvin noted that the 8th of August 1918 was the "black day of the German Army" as that day marked the successful beginning of the Battle of Amiens with the Canadian Corps of the British Expeditionary Force smashing through the German lines, leading to the Hundreds Days' Offensive with French, British Commonwealth, and American forces steadily advancing through northern France and into Belgium. By October 1918, the Ottoman Empire had surrendered, Austria-Hungary had collapsed as a state following a French-led offensive in the Balkans under the command of Marshal Louis Franchet d'Espèrey while America's enormous industrial capacity and manpower meant that Germany had no hope of victory in the long-run even if the situation could somehow be stabilized to the Reich's advantage in the fall of 1918.^[11] In October 1918, American forces had broken through at Verdun, leading to the much-feared "rupture" on the Western Front which the Allies could advance through.^[11] Renovuin argued that given the direction that the war had been taken by late 1918 that "Plan 1919" as Marshal Ferdinand Foch's plan for an offensive in the spring of 1919 intended to take the Allies straight to Berlin would have succeeded without a doubt had it actually been launched.^[11]

In the midst of this disastrous situation for the Reich, the High Seas Fleet mutiny broke out with the sailors of the High Seas Fleet mutinying rather going on a "death cruise" in the North Sea intended to see the High Seas Fleet destroyed in a battle with the Anglo-American Grand Fleet just so that German admirals could claim that the High Seas Fleet had not been useless in the war.^[11] Renouvin wrote that for German elites, the High Seas Fleet mutiny was the final straw, and as such, they were determined to end the war while something could be saved for the Reich rather than see Germany destroyed forever as a great power and/or being swept from power by the revolution that the High Seas Fleet mutiny had sparked.^[11] Renouvin noted that such was the determination of German elites to salvage something out of the catastrophe of 1918 that the German officer corps-until then a bastion of monarchism-turned against the monarchy with Wilhelm's generals ordering him to abdicate as the Allies made it clear that they would not sign an armistice with Wilhelm II under any conditions. Renovuin wrote that "Wilson did not know Europe" as the president ignored the wishes of his Allies and of American public opinion which did not want any half-way measures that might allow Germany to fight again.^[11] Renouvin argued that Wilson had no master-plan for the peace, instead improvised his diplomacy in response to events, and vastly overrated his personal powers of persuasion when it came to dealing with both friends and foes.^[11] Renouvin maintained that the armistice of 11 November 1918 was a muddled affair on both sides; the Germans only signed the armistice to end a losing war while preparing to resume the struggle if an opportune moment occurred while the French and the British had insisted on an armistice so harsh that Germany could never resume the war for exactly that reason.^[12] Renouvin stated that Wilson in his turn wanted the Reich to continue to exist as a state because as long as Germany remained, his allies needed American assistance, which gave Wilson leverage in negotiating the peace that would be favorable to American interests.^[12] Renouvin argued that at the same time Wilson did not want Germany to resume its quest for "world power status" that might one day threaten the United States, which meant that Wilson was not the advocate of a generous peace towards Germany that English-speaking historians often liked to claim that he was.^[12]

To resolve this dilemma, Renouvin wrote that Wilson had agreed to the Anglo-French demand for a harsh armistice while at the same time promising the Germans that the Fourteen Points, a set of vague and idealistic war aims Wilson had introduced earlier in 1918 would be the basis of the peace.^[12] Renouvin argued that the new leaders of Germany-while knowing very well that they were defeated-were still committed to maintaining the Reich as a great power. Renouvin wrote that for German elites annexing Austria on the basis of self-determination promised in the 14 points while having economic domination over central and eastern Europe was the best that could be managed in conditions of late 1918 and would be the basis for a revival of German power when the time came.^[12] Renouvin stated that the armistice of 1918 was the worse possible way to end the war as it codified a situation where there were too many clashing interests: French public opinion believed that France would annex the Rhineland after the war (an impression reinforced by the armistice demand that the Allies occupy the Rhineland, something that occurred in December 1918); Soviet Russia's aim of spreading communism all over the world meant that the new Soviet regime could never be a constructive force in international relations; British leaders were worried that the November Revolution which had toppled the German monarchy might had been the beginning of a broader revolutionary wave about to sweep over Europe, bringing Communism to power all over Europe (which would require the continued existence of the German military as a counter-revolutionary force); and finally Wilson's claim that he could make peace on the basis of the 14 points while destroying German militarism forever was totally unrealistic.^[12] Renouvin wrote that the act of signing an armistice with Germany meant that the German government was going to be the Allied partner for peace-albeit not an equal partner, but a partner nonetheless-and that once the fighting stopped on 11 November 1918, the pressure of public opinion that did not want to see the war resumed meant that the Allied leaders had to certain extent make a peace that the Germans would not reject out of hand.^[12] After the armistice, Renouvin argued that public opinion in the Allied nations changed, and ordinary people did not want to see the resumption of the war that had killed and wounded so many, which thus limited the options of the Allied leaders when it came to peace-making in 1919.^[12] Renouvin wrote all of the contradictions of the armistice, which created facts on the ground that were difficult to change and the very differing interests of the powers became the basis of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, a compromise peace that displeased everyone as it did not destroy Germany as a great power while being irksome enough to ensure that the Germans would never accept Versailles as legitimate.^[12] Alongside these lines, Renouvin noted that the Allies had imposed the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, but the responsibility for fulfilling it rested with the Germans, who could scarcely be expected to embrace a treaty designed to permanently block the Reich from "world power status".^[12] Renouvin further argued that the need to safeguard France's sécurité ("security") was incompatible with Germany's ambitions to become a world power, and as such the compromise Treaty of Versailles merely provided France with the illusion that its sécurité was safeguarded while ensuring that the basis for a revival of German power were in place.^[12] Renouvin concluded that it would have been better if the armistice of 1918 had not been signed, and the Allies instead had continued the war until Plan 1919 was successfully executed.

His many disciples included not just French but also foreign historians as the famous Greek scholar Dimitri Kitsikis, in honor of whom the Greek State created the Dimitri Kitsikis Public Foundation.

References

Work

• Les formes du gouvernement de guerre, 1925.
• Les Origines immédiates de la guerre (28 juin-4 août 1914), 1925.
• La Crise europenne et la grande guerre, 1904-1918, 1934.
• La Question d'Extrême Orient, 1840-1940, 1946.
• Les Crises du XXe siècle de 1914-1929, 1957-1959.
• co-written with Jean-Baptiste Duroslle Introduction à l'histoire des relations internationales, 1964.

References

• Duroslle, Jean-Baptiste "Pierre Renouvin" pages 497-507 from Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, Volume 27, 1975.
• Halperin, S.W. Some Twentieth-Century Historians: Essays on Eminent Europeans (University of Chicago Press, 1961). pp 143–70
• Jackson, Peter "Post-War Politics and the Historiography of French Strategy and Diplomacy Before the Second World War" pages 870–905 from History Compass, Volume 4/5, 2006.
• Mombauer, Annika The Origins of the First World War, London: Pearson, 2002
• Watson, David Robin "Renovuin, Pierre" pages 993-995 from Kelly Boyd, ed., The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999) 2: 993-95
• Mélanges Pierre Renouvin: études d"Hisotire des relations internationles, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966.