Raymond Nicolas Landry Poincaré (French: [ʁɛmɔ̃ pwɛ̃kaʁe]; 20 August 1860 – 15 October 1934) was a French statesman who served as President of France from 1913 to 1920, and three times as Prime Minister of France. He was a conservative leader, primarily committed to political and social stability.
Trained in law, Poincaré was elected as a Deputy in 1887 and served in the cabinets of Dupuy and Ribot. In 1902, he co-founded the Democratic Republican Alliance, the most important centre-right party under the Third Republic, becoming prime minister in 1912 and serving as President of the Republic for 1913–1920. Attempting to exercise influence from a traditionally figurehead role, he visited Russia in 1912 and 1914 to repair relations with Russia which had been strained by the Bosnian Crisis of 1908 and the Agadir Crisis of 1911. He likewise played an important role during the July Crisis of 1914 which ultimately led to France's participation in World War I. From 1917 onward, he exercised less influence after his political rival Georges Clemenceau had become prime minister. At the Paris Peace Conference, he favoured Allied occupation of the Rhineland.
In 1922 Poincaré returned to power as prime minister. In 1923 he ordered the Occupation of the Ruhr to enforce payment of German reparations. By this time Poincaré was seen, especially in the English-speaking world, as an aggressive figure (Poincaré-la-Guerre) who had helped to cause the war in 1914 and who now favoured punitive anti-German policies. His government was defeated by the Cartel des Gauches at the elections of 1924. He served a third term as prime minister in 1926–1929.
Poincaré was an International Member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Nicknamed Le Lion ("the Lion"), Poincaré is honored as a victorious wartime leader in France.
Born in Bar-le-Duc, Meuse, France, Raymond Poincaré was the son of Nanine Marie Ficatier, who was deeply religious and Nicolas Antonin Hélène Poincaré, a distinguished civil servant and meteorologist. Raymond was also the cousin of Henri Poincaré, the famous mathematician. Educated at the University of Paris, Raymond was called to the Paris Bar, and was for some time law editor of the Voltaire. He became at the age of 20 the youngest lawyer in France and was appointed Secrétaire de la Conférence du Barreau de Paris. As a lawyer, he successfully defended Jules Verne in a libel suit presented against the famous author by the chemist, Eugène Turpin, inventor of the explosive melinite, who claimed that the "mad scientist" character in Verne's book Facing the Flag was based on him. At the age of 26, Poincaré was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, making him the youngest deputy in the chamber.
Poincaré had served for over a year in the Department of Agriculture when in 1887 he was elected deputy for the Meuse département. He made a great reputation in the Chamber as an economist, and sat on the budget commissions of 1890–1891 and 1892. He was minister of education, fine arts and religion in the first cabinet (April – November 1893) of Charles Dupuy, and minister of finance in the second and third (May 1894 – January 1895). In Alexandre Ribot's cabinet, Poincaré became minister of public instruction. Although he was excluded from the Radical cabinet which followed, the revised scheme of death duties proposed by the new ministry was based upon his proposals of the previous year. He became vice-president of the chamber in the autumn of 1895 and, in spite of the bitter hostility of the Radicals, retained his position in 1896 and 1897.
Along with other followers of "Opportunist" Léon Gambetta, Poincaré founded the Democratic Republican Alliance (ARD) in 1902, which became the most important centre-right party under the Third Republic.
In 1906, he returned to the ministry of finance in the short-lived Sarrien ministry. Poincaré had retained his practice at the Bar during his political career, and he published several volumes of essays on literary and political subjects.
"Poincarism" was a political movement over the period 1902–1920. In 1902, the term was used by Georges Clemenceau to define a young generation of conservative politicians who had lost the idealism of the founders of the republic. After 1911, the term was used to mean "national renewal" when faced with the German threat. After the First World War, "Poincarism" refers to his support of business and financial interests. Poincaré was noted for his lifelong feud with Georges Clemenceau. Clemenceau and Poincaré absolutely detested one another and engaged in one of the longest running feuds in French politics. The British historian Anthony Adamthwaite described Poincaré as having an "obsession with Clemenceau verging on paranoia" and as a "cold fish whose one passion was cats".
Poincaré became Prime Minister in January 1912, and began a policy meant to block Germany's ambitions for "world power status", and worked to restore ties with France's ally, Russia. During the Bosnian Crisis of 1908-1909, the Franco-Russian alliance had been badly strained when France refused to support Russia after Austria-Hungary, supported by Germany, threatened war. During the Second Moroccan Crisis in 1911, Russia refused to support France when Germany threatened war. The lack of French interest in supporting Russia during the Bosnia crisis was the nadir of Franco-Russian relations with Tsar Nicholas II making no effort to hide his displeasure at the lack of support from what was supposed to be his number one ally. At the time, Nicholas seriously considered abrogating the alliance, and was only stopped by the lack of an alternative. Russia's refusal to support France during the Second Moroccan Crisis in 1911 reflected the enduring bitterness caused in St. Petersburg by France's refusal to support Russia during the Bosnia crisis which ended with humiliation. Poincaré believed a rift in the Franco-Russian alliance could only benefit Germany. Germany would be encouraged to think that it was possible to threaten war with France as the Russians might not honour the alliance. In August 1912, Poincaré visited Russia to meet Tsar Nicholas in order to strengthen diplomatic ties. Poincaré believed the rapprochement would deter Germany from risking a demarche to war, and thus avoid a repeat of the Second Moroccan crisis. Tsarist Russia, despite its Francophilia, was generally disdainful of most of the leaders of the Third Republic, but Poincaré was an exception, regarded in St. Petersburg as a strong leader who meant what he said. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Sazonov, in a report to Nicholas wrote that, after meeting Poincaré: "Russia possesses a sure and faithful friend, endowed with a political spirit above the line and an inflexible will.".
At the same time, Poincaré hoped to pursue an expansionist policy at the expense of Germany's unofficial ally, the Ottoman Empire. For historical, economic and religious reasons, the French had traditionally been very interested in the Levant region of the Middle East. France had for centuries been the protector of the Maronite Christians, most recently in 1860, when France had threatened war following the massacres of the Maronites by local Muslims and Druze, while the Ottoman authorities did nothing. In the early years of the 20th century, there was an influential Levantine lobby within France to argue that it was France's mission to take over Ottoman Syria (roughly what is now modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). Poincaré was a leading member of the Comité de l'Orient, the main group that advocated French expansionism in the Middle East. Poincaré's willingness to begin a rapprochement with Imperial Germany in order to allow France to pursue its ambitions in the Middle East was strengthened by the outcome of the First Balkan War, where Bulgaria - whose army had been trained by a French military mission - rapidly defeated the Sultan's army - whose forces had been trained by the German military. Bulgaria's swift victory over the Ottomans was a great blow to German prestige, and correspondingly boosted French confidence, something that allowed Poincaré to approach Berlin from a position of strength.