2-359-903 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Georges Clemenceau, French statesman, 1897. Clemenceau (1841-1929) served as Prime Minister of France from 1906-1909. He returned to the premiership in 1917 during the First World War and galvanised French morale undermined by the disastrous Nivelle Offensive and the army mutinies that followed it. After the war finished he was one of the architects of the Treaty of Versailles. In the 1890s he was a prominent supporter of the disgraced Captain Albert Dreyfus and in 1898 published Emile Zola's famous open letter J'accuse on the front page of L'Aurore, the newspaper that he published. A photograph from Album de Photographies dans L'Intimite de Personnages Illustres, 1865-1905, 4th album, Editions MD, Paris.