Édouard Daladier
Édouard Daladier was born in Carpentras, a town in the Vaucluse region of France, on the 18th of June 1884. He grew up as the son of a village baker and received his formal education at the lycée Duparc in Lyon. It was there that he first encountered socialist politics during his teenage years. After graduating from school, Daladier did not immediately enter high-level politics. Instead, he worked as a school teacher and later became a university lecturer. His teaching career took him to Nîmes, Grenoble, Marseille, and finally Paris, where he taught history at the Lycée Condorcet.
His entry into public office began locally when he was elected mayor of his hometown, Carpentras, in 1912. He subsequently sought election to the Paris Chamber of Deputies but lost to a Radical-Socialist Party candidate. This defeat did not stop him; he eventually joined that party and rose through its ranks. When World War I broke out in August 1914, Daladier was mobilized at age 30 with the French Army's 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment. He held the rank of sergeant upon mobilization.
The war brought him face-to-face with the horrors of modern combat. In mid-1915, his regiment was destroyed in heavy fighting against the Imperial German Army on the Western Front. The surviving remnant was assigned to other units, and Daladier was transferred into the 209th Infantry Regiment. In 1916, he fought with this unit during the Battle of Verdun. During the battle in April 1916, he received a field commission as a lieutenant after earning commendations for gallantry in action. By May 1917, he had been awarded the Legion of Honour for his bravery. He ended the war as a captain leading a company and also received the Croix de Guerre. After demobilization, he was elected to the Paris Chamber of Deputies for Orange, Vaucluse, in 1919.
After entering the Chamber of Deputies, Daladier became a leading member of the Radical-Socialist Party. He was responsible for building it into a structured modern political party. For most of the interwar period, he served as the chief figure of the party's left wing. His supporters favored a governmental coalition with the socialist Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO). As a government minister in various posts during the coalition governments between 1924 and 1928, Daladier played an instrumental role.
In 1926, he helped engineer the Radical-Socialists' break with the SFIO. This move led to the first Cartel des gauches with the centre-right Raymond Poincaré in November 1928. In 1930, he unsuccessfully attempted to gain socialist support for a centre-left government. Despite similar negotiations breaking down later that year, he formed a government of the republican left in 1933. In January 1934, he was considered the most likely candidate of the centre-left to form a government capable of calming public opinion after the revelations of the Stavisky Affair, a major corruption scandal.
The government lasted less than a week before falling in the face of the 6th of February 1934 riots. After Daladier fell, the coalition of the left initiated two years of right-wing governments. He returned to public prominence in October 1934 by taking a populist line against the banking oligarchy known as the Two Hundred Families. He became president of the Radical-Socialist Party and brought it into the Popular Front coalition. His physical appearance earned him the nickname "the bull of Vaucluse" due to his thick neck and large shoulders. Cynics quipped that his horns were like those of a snail.
Daladier became Minister of National Defence in the Léon Blum government and retained the crucial portfolio for two years. At the first meeting of the Supreme Defence Committee on the 26th of June 1936, he complained that other nations had someone to direct their defence policies. He cited examples such as Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg in Germany, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov in the Soviet Union, Benito Mussolini in Italy, and Sir Thomas Inskip in Britain. He stated from now on he would be playing that role in France.
His first order of business was the nationalization of the entire French arms industry. He accused French arms firms of failing to provide the military with necessary weapons on time or in full. On the 11th of August 1936, the nationalization bill was approved by the National Assembly, and the French state took control of the arms industry. Daladier asked General Maurice Gamelin to submit a four-year plan for military modernization. When Gamelin submitted a plan budgeted at 9 billion francs, Daladier rejected it as too low. He added an extra 5 billion francs to create a total of 14 billion francs.
During an emotional interview with Prime Minister Léon Blum, Daladier persuaded him to accept the larger budget. He issued a stark warning that Germany was winning the arms race. The Blum cabinet approved his 14 billion franc plan for rearmament on the 7th of September 1936. The American historian Joseph Maiolo wrote that this program launched in 1936 was "the biggest arms program ever attempted by a French government in peacetime." Daladier also favored a hawkish line towards Italy. In January 1937, he played a crucial role in having Admiral François Darlan appointed commander of the Navy.
Daladier's last government was in power during negotiations preceding the Munich Agreement. France pressured Czechoslovakia to hand the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. From April to May 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain strongly but unsuccessfully pressed Daladier to renounce the French-Czechoslovak alliance. This pressure led Britain to become involved in the crisis. At the Anglo-French summit in London on 28, the 29th of April 1938, Chamberlain pushed Daladier again. Daladier firmly informed him that France would stand by its obligations.
Unlike Chamberlain, Daladier had no illusions about Hitler's ultimate goals. He told the British in a late April 1938 meeting that Hitler's real aim was to eventually secure "a domination of the Continent in comparison with which the ambitions of Napoleon were feeble." He warned that after obtaining oil and wheat from Czechoslovakia, Germany would turn on the West. On the 25th of September 1938, at the Bad Godesberg Summit, Hitler rejected Chamberlain's offer. He declared that the Sudetenland had to go home to the Reich by the 1st of October.
Upon hearing these demands, Daladier told his cabinet that France intended to go to war. The next day, he told US Ambassador William Christian Bullitt Jr. that he preferred war to the humiliation of the terms. He ordered the French military to mobilize and imposed a blackout at night so German bombers could not be guided by city lights. However, on the 29th of September 1938, Chamberlain announced Mussolini had offered a compromise solution. Daladier felt France could not win against Germany without Britain on its side. He attended the Munich Conference held on the 30th of September 1938.
The agreement concluded that Czechoslovakia would turn over the Sudetenland to Germany within ten days. Daladier was happy to have avoided war but felt the treaty was shameful. When he returned to Paris, crowds cheered him at Le Bourget Airfield. He turned to his aide Alexis Léger and commented: "Ah! les cons! s'ils savaient..." which translates to "Ah! The fools! If only they knew..."
At a rally in Marseille in October 1938, Daladier announced a new policy called J'ai choisi mon chemin: la France en avant! meaning I have chosen my path; forward with France!. His government's domestic policies were based on firmness. This meant ending the social reforms of the Popular Front government to increase French productivity. A series of decree laws issued on the 1st of November 1938 by Finance Minister Paul Reynaud ended the 40-hour work week. Taxes were sharply increased, social spending slashed, and defense spending raised.
Saturday was once again declared a workday, and the power of unions was restricted. In a radio broadcast on the 12th of November 1938, Reynaud stated, "We are going blindfold towards an abyss." He argued that however much pain these reforms caused, they were absolutely necessary. As part of putting the economy on a war footing, Reynaud increased the military budget from 29 billion francs to 93 billion francs. The French Communist Party called for a general strike to protest these decrees.
The one-day general strike of the 30th of November 1938 proved to be the first test of Daladier's new policy. He declared a national emergency and ordered the military to Paris. Police dispersed striking workers with tear gas and stormed factories occupied by them. Any worker participating in the strike would be fired immediately without severance pay. After one day, the strike collapsed. Daladier justified his policy under the grounds that if France faced the German challenge, production had to increase.
Despite these harsh measures, the government established a more generous system of family allowances set as a percentage of wages. For the first child, it was 5%, for the second child 10%, and for each additional child 15%. A home mother allowance was also created for mothers not professionally employed. All mothers whose husbands collected family allowances became eligible for this benefit. In March 1939, the government added 10% for workers whose wives stayed home to care for children.
After the Molotov, Ribbentrop Pact was signed, Daladier responded to public outcry by outlawing the French Communist Party. During the Danzig Crisis, he was greatly influenced by advice from Robert Coulondre, the French ambassador in Berlin. On the 31st of August 1939, Daladier read out a letter from Coulondre stating: "The trial of strength turns to our advantage. It is only necessary to hold, hold, hold!" After the German invasion of Poland on the 1st of September, he reluctantly declared war on the 3rd of September and inaugurated the Phoney War.
In March 1940, Daladier resigned as prime minister because of his failure to aid Finland's defense during the Winter War. He was replaced by Paul Reynaud but remained defence minister. His antipathy to the new prime minister prevented Reynaud from dismissing Maurice Gamelin as Supreme Commander. As a result of the massive German breakthrough at Sedan, Daladier swapped ministerial offices with Reynaud and became foreign minister while Reynaud became defence minister. Under the impression that the government would continue in North Africa, Daladier fled to French Morocco.
He was arrested and tried for treason by the Vichy government during the Riom Trial. Daladier was interned in Fort du Portalet, in the Pyrenees. He was kept in prison from 1940 until April 1943 when he was handed over to the Germans. He was deported to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. In May 1943, he was transported to Itter Castle in North Tyrol with other French dignitaries. He remained there until the end of the war. He was freed after the Battle for Castle Itter.
After the war ended, Daladier was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1946. He acted as a patron to the Radical-Socialist Party's young reforming leader, Pierre Mendès-France. He also was elected as the Mayor of Avignon in 1953. He opposed the transferal of powers to Charles de Gaulle after the May 1958 crisis but failed to secure re-election in the subsequent legislative elections. He withdrew from politics after a career of almost 50 years at the age of 74.
Daladier died in Paris on the 10th of October 1970, at the age of 86. He was buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The Canadian historian Robert Young wrote that Daladier's historical reputation has been tainted by his association with appeasement. His image is often described as that of a "weary Sancho Panza to Chamberlain's Don Quixote," namely of a weak, cowardly man who signed the Munich Agreement out of personal weakness rather than conviction.
Young noted that though Daladier was no longer premier in May, June 1940, the popular image of the French defeat of 1940 is one of an effortless German triumph. This perception links him to appeasement as the popular image of the appeasers is of cowardly men unable to stand up to Hitler. In the English-speaking world, British appeasers like Chamberlain are seen as individuals whose support for appeasement is explained by their own personalities. Conversely, the support of French appeasers like Daladier is explained by them being French, implying cowardice is a national characteristic.
Young argued that the picture of Daladier as a key figure in a process of inexorable national decline ending in France's defeat in 1940 is too teleological and deterministic. It fails to address Daladier's efforts at increased rearmament and attempts to forge an alliance with Great Britain against Germany. He maintained that much historical writing on Daladier is more concerned about making sweeping generalizations about the French than understanding what actually happened.
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Common questions
When and where was Édouard Daladier born?
Édouard Daladier was born in Carpentras, a town in the Vaucluse region of France, on the 18th of June 1884.
What role did Édouard Daladier play during World War I?
Édouard Daladier served as a sergeant upon mobilization in August 1914 and rose to the rank of captain by the end of the war. He received the Legion of Honour for bravery in May 1917 and earned the Croix de Guerre after fighting at the Battle of Verdun in April 1916.
How did Édouard Daladier rearm the French military between 1936 and 1938?
Édouard Daladier nationalized the entire French arms industry through a bill approved on the 11th of August 1936. He secured a total budget of 14 billion francs for military modernization which the Blum cabinet approved on the 7th of September 1936.
Why did Édouard Daladier sign the Munich Agreement on the 30th of September 1938?
Édouard Daladier signed the agreement because he believed France could not win against Germany without Britain on its side. He attended the conference after Hitler declared that the Sudetenland had to go home to the Reich by the 1st of October 1938.
What happened to Édouard Daladier during World War II?
Édouard Daladier was arrested and tried for treason by the Vichy government before being interned from 1940 until April 1943. He was deported to Buchenwald concentration camp in May 1943 and later transported to Itter Castle where he remained until the end of the war.
When did Édouard Daladier die and how is his historical reputation described?
Édouard Daladier died in Paris on the 10th of October 1970 at the age of 86 and was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery. His historical reputation has been tainted by his association with appeasement and often described as a weak man who signed the treaty out of personal weakness rather than conviction.