Clemenceau did what might have been expected of him. He appealed to all Frenchmen of every shade of opinion to sink all minor differences in one solid combination for the defence of the country. Day after day, this powerful journalist and orator laboured to encourage his countrymen and to denounce unceasingly all who, honestly or dishonestly, stood in the way of the vigorous and successful prosecution of the war which should free France for ever from yet other attempts by Germany to destroy her as an independent nation. The memory of the dark days of 1870 was obliterated by the horrors of 1914 onwards. In good and bad fortune the Radical leader kept the same resolute attitude and used the like stirring language. _L'Homme Libre_, defaced and then suppressed by the Censor, was succeeded by _L'Homme Enchaîné_. Ever the same policy of relentless warfare, against the enemy at the front, and the traitors at the rear, was steadily pursued. Ministry might come, Ministry might go, but still Clemenceau was at his post, save when illness compelled him to quit his work for a short time. Nor did he waver in his views as to the general strategy to be pursued. Without making any pretence to military knowledge, but well advised by experts on military affairs, and firmly convinced that whatever success Germany might achieve elsewhere she would never be satisfied unless France was crushed, he persistently opposed diversion of strength from the Western front. _There_ this terrific struggle for world-domination would eventually be decided. The civilisation of the West must be subdued to German culture, France and England must be brought under German control, before the great programme of Eastern expansion for the Teutonic Empire could be entered upon with the certainty of success. These were the opinions he held as to Germany's real objects. Therefore, in opposition to the views of important personages in Great Britain and in Allied countries, Clemenceau withstood any frittering away of force on tempting adventures, away from the main field of warfare. This not because he confined himself to the narrow programme of freeing France from the invaders, but because the waste of troops on wild-cat enterprises weakened the general strength of the Allies at the crucial point of the whole struggle. In that decision his judgment was at one with the ablest British strategists, and the event has shown that he did not underrate the importance of the warfare on the Western front. There alone, especially after the collapse of Russia, was it possible to deliver a crushing blow at the German power. There alone could all the forces of the Allies of the West be effectively concentrated for the final blow. CHAPTER XVIII THE GREAT WAR