Louis Barthou next became Prime Minister, and the important legislative measure of the year was the new military law. The Germans having largely increased their army, it was deemed necessary, in spite of the violent opposition of the Socialistic Radicals and the Socialists and the attempts of the syndicalists of the _Confédération générale du travail_ to work up a general strike, to abrogate the Law of 1905 and to return to three years of military service without exemption. M. Barthou pushed the three-years bill already supported by the Briand Cabinet. France took upon herself an enormous financial burden, coupled with a corresponding loss of productive labor, yet events soon proved the wisdom of the step. The opposition to the Cabinet was virulent. There were now two great groupings of the chief political parties.[18] The Radicals and Socialistic Radicals, under the name of "Unified Radicals" waged war against the President and the Ministry. They were under the inspiration of men like Clemenceau and the active leadership of Joseph Caillaux and tried to revive the methods of the old _Bloc_ of Combes. They declared their intention of repealing the three-years law and proclaimed the tenets of their faith at the Congress of Pau. The Briand-Barthou-Millerand group, supporters of Poincaré, soon formed a Moderate Party with a programme of conciliation and reform known as the "Federation of the Lefts." The Barthou Cabinet had been overthrown early in December, 1913, after a vote on a government loan. President Poincaré had to call in a Radical Cabinet led by Gaston Doumergue, the programme of which Ministry was, after all, less "advanced" than the Pau programme, especially as to the three-years bill. M. Caillaux, the master-spirit of the Radicals, was the Minister of Finance and the object of the hostility of the Moderates. They claimed that he used his position to cause speculation at the Stock Exchange, and accused him of "selling out" to Germany in the settlement after Agadir. The _Figaro_, edited by Gaston Calmette, began a violent campaign. Among the charges was that during the prosecution in 1911 of Rochette, a swindling promoter, the then Prime Minister Monis, now Minister of Marine, had, at Caillaux's instigation, held up the prosecution for fraud, during which delay Rochette had been able to put through other swindles. In the midst of the public turmoil over these charges Caillaux's wife went to Calmette's editorial offices and killed him with a revolver. Caillaux resigned and, the Rochette case having come up for discussion in the Chamber, when Monis denied that he had ever influenced the law, Barthou produced a most damaging letter. A parliamentary commission later decided that the Monis Cabinet _had_ interfered to save Rochette from prosecution.