Background
Paul Painlevé was born in Paris, December 5, 1863, the son of a draftsman. Painlevé's prodigious gifts in science and mathematics elevated him from his modest background to academic distinction.
mathematician politician statesman
Paul Painlevé was born in Paris, December 5, 1863, the son of a draftsman. Painlevé's prodigious gifts in science and mathematics elevated him from his modest background to academic distinction.
He graduated with honors from the Ecole normale supérieure, took a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Paris, and received a professorship at Lille in 1887.
By 1904, barely forty years old, he reached the summit of French academic achievement as professor of mechanics and mathematics at the École polytechnique. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1910 and took his place with the Independent Socialists, to the right of the militants of the SFIO (unified Socialist party). Soon he was the leader of the Republican-Socialists, one of several splinter groups that made up the Independent Socialists. Painlevé's political and scientific worlds merged in his early interest in aviation. He flew with Wilbur Wright in 1908 and subsequently led the French Air League. Within the National Assembly he devoted most of his energies to committees on naval and aviation affairs.
Painlevé served on the Chamber's aviation and munitions committee after the war broke out, but his main role during the first year of fighting was that of critic from the political Left. He took up the cause of General Sarrail with vehemence: in August 1915, he joined other parliamentary leaders in forcing the government to pledge four divisions for Sarrail's planned campaign at the Dardanelles. But he continued a drumfire attack on the government, pushing for a strong commitment to the Balkans and to Sarrail's plans. With the collapse of Prime Minister Viviani's government in October, Painlevé received his first cabinet post: minister of public instruction and military inventions in the government of Aristide Briand.
Painlevé's fourteen-month tenure in this office was stormy. He continued to act as Sarrail's leading advocate, aiding the Left's favorite general to circumvent War Minister Gallieni. In January 1916, Painlevé promised Sarrail to support all the needs of the Salonika front and throughout 1916 he blocked efforts by Briand to fire or at least to control Sarrail. Painlevé was drawn by Sarrail's political sympathies, but the minister's visits to the front in France led to a more significant military connection. He soon became closely linked to the politically conservative General Pétain, whose appeal was his opposition to the prevailing offensive posture by the High Command.
In December 1916, Painlevé rejected Briand's offer of the war minister's post. Painlevé had insisted on bringing with him Pétain as the new commander in chief, a proposal Briand could not accept. Neither could Briand's successor, Alexandre Ribot. Painlevé became war minister in March 1917 under Ribot only after pledging not to undercut the new commander, General Nivelle, and his projected offensive. Painlevé soon wavered. Rumors in high military circles indicated Nivelle's plans led to bloodly disaster, and Painlevé took soundings among Nivelle's subordinates. Some gave lukewarm endorsements, while Pétain predicted outright calamity. At the climactic meeting of civil and military leaders at Compiègne (April 6), Painlevé led the criticism of the offensive; he defended the government's right to intervene in operations. Nivelle threatened to resign and President Poincaré intervened to turn the meeting in favor of Nivelle; Painlevé gave in, ignominiously, for the moment.
The war minister responded to the debacle at the Chemin des Dames by ignoring his March pledge to Ribot. Pro-Nivelle elements in the cabinet made it impossible simply to fire the failed commander. Engaged at Vimy Ridge, the British also objected to suspending the French offensive. Painleve eased Nivelle out, and on April 29 he brought in Pétain as the army chief of staff; in reality, Pétain was to serve as Painlevé's restraint on Nivelle. By early May the cabinet was ready to see Nivelle go.
Painlevé's talents saw their best use in the crisis of spring/summer 1917. Sarrail s calls for massive reinforcements for the Balkans went unheard. Instead, Painlevé supported Pétain and the reshaping of military policy on the western front. Large-scale offensives ceased. Pétain directed his efforts to restoring order in the mutinous French army. To that end, Painlevé suspended the soldiers' right of appeal from courts-martial to civilian courts in cases involving mass indiscipline. Meanwhile, Painleve and Poincare applied clemency freely in such cases often to Pétain's dismay. Discipline was to be restored, but not at the cost of a bloodbath. With the fall of Ribot in September 1917, Painlevé formed a short-lived government while continuing on as war minister.
He was the last wartime premier to govern on the basis of national conciliation. Elements of the Left still accepted him as one of their own, the man who stopped the deadly offensives of the Joffre-Nivelle era; the Right respected his links with Pétain. The embittered atmosphere and the national malaise of late 1917, however, exceeded Painlevé's abilities. Wright has judged him the worst prepared of France's wartime premiers; his brief tenure as war minister was his only other cabinet post. Pétain's carefully prepared success in the October Malmaison offensive gave Painlevé a military victory. It did no good. Socialists refused to join his cabinet in protest against Ribot's presence, and the union sacrée was broken. The Right fired charges of government softness toward defeatism; the Left lashed out at Painlevé's alleged failure to defend accused radicals such as Minister of the Interior Malvy with sufficient fervor. Painlevé could hardly govern in his preferred role of conciliator. He lacked the taste and the ability Georges Clemenceau soon displayed to rule as quasi-dictator.
Painlevé's sole achievement was in response to the Caporetto crisis. He used the Italian distress call to press the British for a unified strategy on the western front. Traditional British opposition softened to permit the formation of a political body, with a military secretariat attached. This Supreme War Council was a cautious first step to the inter-Allied unity of 1918.
Painlevé's government fell on November 13, 1917, brought down by the Right over the issue of softness toward subversion. He had no further role to play in the direction of the war. Painlevé returned to political prominence only in the mid-1920s. He served briefly as premier in 1925, then as war minister in several succeeding governments. He died in Paris, October 29, 1933.
He married Marguerite Petit de Villeneuve in 1901. Marguerite died during the birth of their son Jean Painlevé in the following year.