Georges Ernest Boulanger

• 1. The Soldier From Rennes

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  Georges Ernest Boulanger was born on the 29th of April 1837 in Rennes, Brittany. He entered the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1855 and graduated to join the French Army the following year. His first combat experience came in 1857 during the French conquest of Algeria in Kabylia. He later fought in the Austro-Sardinian War where he received a wound at Robecchetto con Induno. This injury earned him the Légion d'honneur decoration. During the Franco-Prussian War he served as chef de bataillon and was wounded again at Champigny-sur-Marne while fighting near Paris. He subsequently helped crush the Paris Commune between April and May 1871. While leading troops against the Panthéon siege he suffered a third wound. Patrice de MacMahon promoted him to commander of the Légion d'honneur before Boulanger resigned in protest over his provisional status.

• 2. Reforms And The Rifle

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  Boulanger gained most popularity when serving as Minister of War starting in January 1886 under Charles de Freycinet. He introduced reforms allowing soldiers to grow beards to improve morale. He also managed to quell a major workers' strike in Decazeville. The general vigorously pressed for the adoption of a new rifle within just five months of 1886. This weapon used smokeless powder Poudre B developed by P. Vielle two years earlier. The resulting 8×50mmR Lebel cartridge became an unprecedented high-velocity ammunition. Its double taper and rim design handicapped French firearm development for decades. The hastily designed Lebel Model 1886 rifle became obsolete much faster than magazine rifles from other European militaries. Boulanger ordered one million rifles produced by May 1887 but his manufacturing proposal proved entirely unrealistic. Even with maximum effort it took several years to fulfill the order.

• 3. The Eclectic Movement

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  A crowd of ten thousand people stormed the Gare de Lyon on the 8th of July 1886 when Boulanger departed Paris. They covered his train with posters reading Il reviendra meaning He will come back. The general decided to gather support for his own movement after being removed from the Paris region. His eclectic political movement capitalized on frustrations among French conservatives. It advocated three principles: Revanche for revenge on Germany, Révision for revision of the constitution, and Restauration for restoration of the monarchy. Notable conservative figures backed this new popular movement immediately. Count Arthur Dillon and Alfred Joseph Naquet supported him openly. Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart the Duchess of Uzès financed him with immense sums. Paul Déroulède led the Ligue des Patriotes in support of the cause. The government was astonished that Boulanger received around 100,000 votes in a partial election in Seine without even running as a candidate.

• 4. Elections And Flight

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  In January 1889 Boulanger ran as a deputy for Paris and won the seat with 244,000 votes against 160,000 for his main adversary. A coup d'état seemed probable and desirable among his supporters during this intense campaign. The opportunity passed with his procrastination on the 27th of January 1889. Ernest Constans the Minister of the Interior decided to investigate the matter. He attacked the Ligue des Patriotes using laws banning secret society activities. Shortly afterward the French government issued a warrant for Boulanger's arrest for conspiracy and treasonable activity. On the 1st of April he fled Paris before it could be executed. He went first to Brussels and then to London. On the 4th of April Parliament stripped him of his immunity from prosecution. The French Senate condemned him and his supporters Rochefort and Count Dillon for treason. They sentenced all three men to deportation and confinement.

• 5. The Grave In Brussels

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  After his flight support for him dwindled rapidly. The Boulangists were defeated in the general elections of July 1889 after the government forbade Boulanger from running. Boulanger himself went to live in Jersey before returning to Belgium. He returned to the Ixelles Cemetery in Brussels in September 1891. There he killed himself with a bullet to his head on the grave of his mistress Madame de Bonnemains. Her name was Marguerite Brouzet and she had died in his arms the preceding July. He was buried in the same grave as her. Alexander Meyrick Broadley had taken Boulanger and Henri Rochefort to a male brothel according to allegations by Le Figaro in 1890. This scandal caused a sensation but Dillon was forced to publicly deny involvement.

• 6. Historical Interpretations

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  Some historians viewed the Boulangist movement as a proto-fascist right-wing movement. Zeev Sternhell presented Boulangism as a precursor of fascism. France's traditional right was based in followers of the Catholic Church and led by nobility whose ancestors survived the Reign of Terror. Boulanger's new movement was based on mass populist following that was national rather than merely religious or class-based. Jacques Néré stated that Boulangism was first and foremost a popular movement of the extreme left. William D. Irvine argued that Boulangism is better understood as the coalescence of fragmented forces of the Left. Boulanger had support from former Communards from the Paris Commune including Victor Jaclard and Ernest Granger. Some supporters of Blanquism also backed him such as Henri Rochefort. The ideology of France's radical right formed partly during the Dreyfus era by men who had been Boulangist partisans of the Far Left a decade earlier.