The World at War

FRANCE - From the Armistice to the Great Depression 1918 - 1929

FRANCE - From the Armistice to the Great Depression Timeline

1918November 11 The Supreme Allied Commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, dictates the terms of an armistice to German plenipotentiaries at Rethondes in the Forest of Compèigne. The Germans sign the Armistice at 5:10 a.m.
A cease-fire ending the First World War takes effect at 11 a.m.
November 18 French troops led by General Petain enter Metz, Lorraine.
November 23 The last German troops are withdrawn from Alsace and Lorraine.
December 8 President Poincaré, Premier Clemenceau, Marshal Joffre and Generals Petain, Haig and Pershing visit Metz to mark the return of Lorraine to France.
President Poincaré hands General Petain the baton marking his elevation to Marshal of France.
December 9 President Poincaré, Premier Clemenceau and the military chiefs visit Strasbourg to mark the return of Alsace to France.
December 14 President Wilson arrives in Paris to attend the Peace Conference.
Goncourt Prize for Literature
Georges Duhamel for Civilization
1919January 9 The Seine rises nearly 6 meters over flood stage at Paris. Residents of the Rue LeBlanc are evacuated. The bears in the Jardins des Plantes are released from their cages.
January 10 The Seine rises 6 meters in 3 hours at Paris. A transmission line from the Issy electric generating station breaks leaving entire Left Bank without service.
January 14 All prisoners of war held by the Allies are released.
January 17 The French steamer Chaounia en route from Marseilles to Piraeus and Istanbul, sinks in the Gulf of Messina after hitting a mine.
January 18 The opening session of the Paris Peace Conference convenes at the Quai d'Orsay.
January 19 Jules Védrines lands his Caudron on the roof of Les Galeries Lafayette but damages the landing gear. The store's management has offered a prize of 25,000 francs to the first pilot to land and take off from the terrace of its building.
January 25 The Versailles Conference adopts President Wilson's proposal to create a League of Nations.
André Citroën's factory on the Quai de Javel, Paris ends production of munitions and returns to production of automobiles.
February 8 Henry Farman inaugurates scheduled air service between Toussus-le-Noble, near Paris to Kenley near London.
February 14 France and the United States reject Winston Churchill's call for intervention against the Bolsheviks.
February 15 -22 The Spanish Flu kills 908 people in Paris.
February 19 Premier Clemenceau is wounded in an attack by anarchist Louis Cottin.
March 23 Raoul Villain, who assassinated Jean Jaurès in 1914, is acquitted of murder by the assize court.
February 25 André Tardieu outlines French demands before the Paris Peace Conference and calls for establishment of the Franco-German border along the Rhine.
March 31 Premier Clemenceau relinquishes French claims to German territory west of the Rhine in exchange for British and American guarantees over the objections of Marshal Foch.
April 6 150,000 demonstrators protest the acquittal of Jean Jaurès assassin, Raoul Villain. Two people are killed and 10,000 arrested.
CASG defeats Olympique de Paris 3 to 2 in the second final of the Coupe de France football match.
April 7 30,000 people gather in Paris to pay hommage to Jean Jaurès.
The French Football Federation is established.
April 16 André Marty, an engineering mechanic, leads a high seas mutiny on the Protet, a ship of the French Black Sea Fleet.
Sergeant Godefroy flies an airplane through the Arc de Triomphe.
April 19 The Red Flag is hoisted on the cruisers France and Jean Bart in the Black Sea.
April 20 The crews of four ships of the French Black Sea Fleet; France, Jean Bart, Waldeck-Rousseau and Justice, mutiny at Odessa. The squadron is returned to Toulon leaving the White Army of Dinikine in a weakened position.
April 21 Jules Védrines is killed while attempting to fly from Paris to Rome.
May 1 Troops breakup May Day demonstrations in Paris. A General Strike is launched in Le Havre. 10,000 workers parade through Tours.
May 3 French troops are withdrawn from the Ukraine.
June 19 The first issue of Le Républicain Lorrain, a regional daily, is published.
June 28 The Treaty of Versailles is signed in the Hall of Mirror at the Palace of Versailles. The war between Germany and the Allied Powers formally ends.
July The British Parliament approves a treaty guaranteeing the Rhine border between France and Germany on condition that the United States also ratify it.
July 14 Marshals Joffre, Foch and Petain lead a six hour victory parade down the Champs-Elysées.
July 17 Suzanne Lenglen and Elizabeth Ryan win the final of the women's doubles at the Wimbeldon tennis tournament.
July 18 The Tour de France resumes. Founder Henri Desgrange institutes an award of a yellow jersey to be worn by the winner of each preceding stage in the race. Eugene Christophe dons the first yellow jersey in Grenoble.
July 19 Georges Carpentier defeats Englishman Dick Smith to win the European middle weight boxing championship.
August 4 The Musee Rodin opens in Paris.
August 25 The Post Office awards a contract to carry airmail between Paris and London to la Compagnie général transaérienne.
September 21 The Orient Express resumes its prewar schedule linking Paris and Istanbul.
October 9 The first post-war Salon de l'Automobile opens in Paris.
November 13 Fire destroys the Opéra de Marseilles.
November 19 Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare & Company, an English bookstore and lending library, on the Rue Dupuytren, Paris. The store becomes a favorite gathering spot for American literati during the years between the world wars.
The Chamber of Deputies approves a bill granting suffrage to women by a vote of 329 to 95 but the Senate refuses to debate the matter.
November 27 France ratifies the Treaty of Neuilly ending the state of war between Bulgaria and the Allied Powers.
November 30 The Paris newspaper strike ends after 20 days.
December 3 Painter Auguste Renoir dies in Cagnes sur Mer at age 78.
During the Year Raymond Orteig, the French owner of New York’s Brevoort and Lafayette hotels puts up a purse of $25,000 to the first aviator to fly nonstop from Paris to New York or New York to Paris within the next five years.
Goncourt Prize for Literature
Marcel Proust for A l'Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs
Notable Books Les Croix de Bois by Roland Dorgeles
La Symphonie Pastorale by André Gide
Colas Breugnon by Romain Rolland
1920January 1 Tristan Tzara, Romanian author and father of Dadaism, arrives in Paris.
January 11 All seats are at stake in Senate elections. The first Senators from the restored departments of Alsace and Lorraine are elected.
January 16 The League of Nations convenes for the first time in Paris.
January 18 Premier Georges Clemenceau resigns after losing the contest to succeed outgoing President Raymond Poincaré to Paul Deschanel. Clemenceau's opponents argue that he is too pro-American and should have gotten a better reparations deal at Versailles.
January 20 Alexandre Millerand becomes Premier.
January 24 Italian sculptor Amadeo Modigliani dies in Paris at age 36.
January 26 The Allied Council of Ambassadors is constituted in Paris to deal with issues left unresolved at the conclusion of the Peace Conference.
February 5 Marshal Ferdinand Foch enters the Academie francaise.
February 9 Alsatians of the 1920 military class are called to the French colors for the first time since 1870.
February 15 General Estienne predicts that an independent mechanized armored force will become the basis of future military success.
February 18 Paul Deschanel succeeds Raymond Poincaré as President of the Republic. Poincaré refused to stand for reelection in protest of Versailles Treaty which he regards as too lenient in its treatment of Germany. He remains a member of the Senate.
April 5 Maurice de Waleffe bemoans the inundation of France with American films in an article in Paris-Midi.
April 23 The Senate, sitting as the High Court, convicts former Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux of correspondence with the enemy for having attempted to privately negotiated a separate peace with Austria and Bavaria in 1918. Caillaux is sentenced to 3 years in prison, 10 years deprivation of civil rights and a 5 year ban on foreign travel.
April 29 Louis Blériot is fined 5,000,000 francs for illegal profiteering on construction of military aircraft during the war.
May 18 Raymond Poincaré resigns from the presidency of the Reparations Commission.
May 30 Joan of Arc is canonized by Pope Benedict XV.
June 4 The Treaty of Trianon ends the state of war between Hungary and the Allied Powers.
July 4 Suzanne Lenglen wins the women's, women's doubles and mixed doubles championships at the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
July 5 20,000 war orphans parade before the United States embassy in Paris in a show of thanks for American aid.
June 18 Transport Minister Yves Le Troquer conducts the first French passenger train pulled by a diesel powered locomotive.
June 30 The Delage Automobile Company promotes its "service after the sale" philosophy by opening a service station two steps from the Casino in Deauville. The company announces that it will soon open garages in Monte Carlo, Biarritz and along the coast of Brittany.
July 11 Former Empress Eugènie, widow of Napoléon III, dies in Madrid at age 94.
August 10 The Treaty of Sèvres ends the state of war between the Allies and Turkey.
August 13 Greek Premier Eluetherios Venizelos survives an assassination attempt by two Greek officers in Paris.
September 21 President Paul Deschanel is forced to resign due to the onset of mental illness.
September 23 Alexandre Millerand is elected President of the Republic. Georges Leygues becomes Premier.
September 29 The first radio receivers go on sale in Paris.
November 11 An Unknown Soldier of the World War is laid to rest beneath the Arc de Triomphe.
December 8 The President of the Republic, Alexandre Millerand, dedicates the victory monument at Verdun.
December 25 The 18th Congress of the Socialist Party meets at Tours. The Party is sharply divided. On the Left, the majority led by Cachin and Frossard favor adherence to the Communist 3rd International. On the Right, the old pre-war majority led Pierre Renaudel and Aristide Albert-Thomas favors continued adherence to the 2nd Socialist International. The Center is held by the rebuilders; Jean Longuet, the grandson of Karl Marx, Paul Faure and Adrien Pressemane. Leon Blum leads the struggle to hold the party together.
December 27 Léon Blum sensing the inevitable rupture launches a final appeal to the Communists, "While you run the adventure, we will remain to guard the old house. Let us remain brothers separated by a family quarrel that will one day allow us to reunite."
December 29 The Congress of Tours votes on the Cachin-Frossard motion to join the Communist 3rd International. The motion carries with 2/3s of the delegates in favor. The Section Francaise de l'Internationale Communiste is born.
December 30 The Congress of Tours adopts a resolution expelling Paul Faure and Jean Longuet from the ranks of the Party.
December 31 The Congress of Tours ends. The split in the Socialist ranks is definitive. The Communist majority claims 150,000 members and takes control of L'Humanité. The Socialist minority led by Blum, Faure and Longuet retreat to the Tours city hall and form the Section Francaise de l'Internationle Ouviers (French Section of the Worker's International). The SFIO claims a mere 30,000 of old party membership but only 13 of the 68 Socialist deputies join the ranks of the Communists.
Nobel Peace Prize Leon Bourgeois for his work in founding the League of Nations. Bourgeois' 1910 essay Pour la Societe des Nations inspired President Wilson's proposals at the Versailles Conference.
Goncourt Prize for Literature
E. Perochon for Nene
Notable Books Les Champs Magnetiques (Magnetic Fields) by André Breton
Notable Recording Mon homme - Mistinguett
1921January 4 L'Humanité becomes an organ of the Communist Party.
January 12 The Government of Premier Georges Leygues resigns.
January 16 Aristide Briand becomes Premier for a fourth time and forms his seventh cabinet.
February 19 General Franchet d'Esperey is promoted to Marshal of France.
Marshal Foch signs a secret military and economic alliance with Poland.
March 1 Paris' Orly Airport opens with four hangers and an 800 X 750 meter landing field.
April 8 The Section Francaise de l'Internationale Communiste becomes the French Communist Party.
April 14 Paris' Grand Season of Dada opens with a visit to the church of Saint Julien le Pauvre conducted by Tristan Tzara, André Breton and Paul Eluard.
April 18 The Reparations Commission established under the Treaty of Versailles awards France 52% of German reparations.
April 24 Red Star defeats Olympique de Paris 2 to 0 to win the Coupe de France in a football match played before 18,000 spectators at Pershing Stadium in Vincennes.
Film producer Louis Nalpas opens Le Ciné-Studio de la Victorine in Nice.
April 29 An amnesty is granted to the mutineers of the French Black Sea fleet.
April General Joseph Gallieni, hero of the Marne, is posthumously promoted to Marshal of France.
May 5 France defeats England in a football match for the first time on the centenary of Napoleon's death.
May 13 A trial of Maurice Barres, organzied by André Breton and Louis Aragon, is conducted at the hall of the Learned Societies of Paris.
May 16 France reestablishes diplomatic relations with the Holy See after a 17 year interruption.
May 31 Communist leaders Marcel Cachin and Ludovic Frossard arrive in Moscow to discuss terms for the French party's adhesion to the 3rd International.
June 6 Playwright Georges Feydeau dies in Rueil at age 59.
June 16 Robert de Flers enters the Acadèmie francaise.
June 18 Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel, a play by Jean Cocteau, premiers in Paris.
June 22 Oxford University awards an honorary doctorate to Georges Clemenceau.
July 2 Jack Dempsey knocks out Frenchman Georges Carpentier in the 4th round of a world's heavyweight boxing championship match before 90,000 at Boyle's Thirty Acres in Jersey City, New Jersey.
July 11 The National Assembly cancels the Bastille Day parade. Temperatures rise to 36°Centigrade.
July 18 Albert Calmette and Jean Guerin of the Pasteur Institute, Lille perfect a tuberculosis vaccine.
July 19 Marcel Cachin and Ludovic Frossard represent the French Communist Party at the Comintern Congress at Petrograd.
July 31 Legislation is enacted restricting abortion and the promotion of contraception.
July Suzanne Lenglen wins the women's singles championship at Wimbledon for a third time.
General Weygand is dispatched to Warsaw as head of a French military aid mission to Poland.
August 13 Marcel Cachin and Ludovic Frossard present Lenin's 21 Conditions for adhesion to the 3rd International at a meeting of 30,000 Communists at the Cirque de Paris.
September 7 France and Belgium sign a secret defense pact.
September 14 New national identity cards bearing a photo and finger print are introduced.
October 12 Georges Carpentier defeats Battling Levinsky to win the World Middleweight Boxing Championship in bout in New York.
November 11 The first refrigerators are installed in the Paris market (Les Halles).
December 16 Composer Camille Saint Saëns dies at age 86 in Algiers.
December 24 Camille Saint Saëns is given a grandiose funeral at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris.
December 30 Sacha and Lucien Guitry direct the first live radio broadcast from France.
The first weather bulletin, read by a military engineer, is transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.
During the Year American columnist Elsa Maxwell and British fashion designer Edward Molyneaux open Les Acacias.
Shakespeare & Company moves to the Rue de L'Odeon.
Nobel Prize for Literature
Anatole France, "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace and a true Gallic temperment."
Goncourt Prize for Literature
René Maran for Batouala
Notable Books Les Maries de la Tour Eiffel by Jean Cocteau
Si le Grain ne Meurt by André Gide
Ouvert la Nuit by Paul Morand
Lunes en Papier by André Malraux
Notable Recording Dans la vie, faut pas s'en faire - Maurice Chevalier
1922January 10 Jean Cocteau host the gala opening of Paris' Le Boeuf sur le toit nightclub, a gathering place for the avant garde and jazz enthusiasts.
January 12 The Government of Premier Aristide Briand resigns.
January 15 Former President Raymond Poincaré becomes Premier for a second time.
February 2 Ulysses, James Joyce's masterpiece, is published by Shakespeare & Company.
February 7 Marie Curie becomes the first woman elected to the Medical Academy.
February 25 Henri Désiré Landru is guillotined at the prison of Saint Pierre de Versailles 2 years after his arrest by Mantes police for the murders of ten women and a boy and burning their bodies.
March 1 The first issue of Littérature, a surrealist magazine edited by André Breton, appears.
The cornerstone of the Grand Mosque is laid in Paris.
March 21 A exhibition of works by Giorgio de Chirico, the Italian inventor of metaphysical painting, is staged at la galerie Paul-Guillaume, Paris.
March 30 President Millerand leaves Paris for Bordeaux to begin a 40 trip to North Africa.
April 7 The first mid-air collision of two airliners occurs 29 kilometers north of Beauvais between a Daimler Airways Dehavilland 18 and a Grand Express Aériens Farman Goliath. Seven people are killed.
April 11 Eugène Criqui defeats Englishman Ben Calicott in a flyweight boxing match in Paris.
April 16 The second Colonial Exposition of Marseilles opens.
May 1 Police maintain radio and an airplane for surveillance of the May Day demonstrations for the first time.
May 4 Les Vaches au Marais, a painting by Camille Corot, is sold at auction for 71,000 francs.
May 7 Red Star defeats le Stade Rennais 2 to 0 in the final match of the Coupe de France football championship.
May 11 Georges Carpentier scores a first round knockout against Ted Lewis in a bout staged in London.
May 15 André Citroën introduces the Torpédo 5CV, a car capable of attaining speeds of 60 miles an hour, priced at 3,900 francs.
May 21 The British steamer Egypt sinks in the Raz de Sein off Brittany following a collision with freighter La Seine. 102 people are killed.
June 25 The first congress of the CGTU, the Communist trade union federation formed following a break with the Socialist CGT, meets in Saint Etienne.
July Suzanne Lenglen wins the women's singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles titles at the Wimbledom tennis tournament.
August 26 The cruiser France, flagship of the Mediterranean fleet, sinks in the Bay of Quiberon after striking an uncharted rock.
August 28 A state of siege is declared in Le Havre following clashes between police and striking dockworker which left 4 men dead.
October 7 Gold ingots shipped to England by the Bank of France at the beginning of World War I are returned to Paris.
October 9 Le Havre dockworkers return to work without satisfaction of their demands.
October 30 The First electric locomotives on the French railways are put in service on the Pau-Tarbes line.
November 6 La Société francaise de radiodiffusion, the first privately operated radio station in Paris, goes on air.
November 18 Marcel Proust dies of pneumonia in Paris at age 51
November 22 Former Premier Georges Clemenceau calls for rejection of the Versailles Treaty in a speech delivered in New York..
During the Year American William Bird establishes Three Mountains Press at 29 Quai d'Anjou, Paris and hires Ezra Pound as Editor.
Parfumier Francois Coty buys Le Figaro, a conservative morning paper, and begins funding extreme right-wing causes.
Goncourt Prize for Literature
Henry Beraud for Le Vitriol de la Lune
Notable Books Ulysses by James Joyce
Les Thibaults by Roger Martin du Gard
1923January 6 Financial bulletins are broadcast by French radio stations for the first time.
January 11 Germany defaults on reparations. French troops occupy the Ruhr. Berlin orders a campaign of passive resistance against the occupation. German workers launch a general strike. Industrialists close the region's mines and factories. French and Belgian workers are sent to reopen Ruhr industries. France extracts $91 million.
January 20 The Chamber of Deputies approves legislation granting a tax break to cinemas which present French films as at least 25% of their features.
March 26 Actress Sarah Bernhardt dies in Paris at age 78 while producing her first film.
April 1 The term of compulsory military service is reduced from 3 years to 1½ years.
May 6 Red Star defeats FC Séte 4 to 2 to win its third Coupe de France football championship.
May 27 André Lagache and René Leonard win the first 24 hours of Le Mans automobile endurance race driving their No.9 Chenard & Walker at an average speed of 92km/h.
June 2 Journalist Pierre Labric descends the stairway of the Eiffel Tower on a bicycle.
June 10 Naval officer and author Pierre Loti dies in Hendaye at age 76.
July 1 The Casino de Paris presents En Douce, a new revue starring Mistinguett.
July 6 Surrealist Tristan Tzara and Man Ray host La Coeur à Gaz soirée at the théàtre Michel. The evening begins with an appearance by Kiki de Montparnasse and a showing of Le Retour de la Raison and ends with André Breton's break with Dadaism and police intervention.
July 22 Henri Pèlissier becomes the first French cyclist to win the Tour de France since 1911.
September 26 The German Government calls for an end to passive resistance in the Ruhr and agrees to discuss resumption of reparations payments.
October 12 The Communist Party calls for demonstrations against the Rif War in Morocco.
October 25 The Swedish Ballet performs Blaise Cendars' La Création du Monde at the Théàtre des Champs Elysées.
November 16 Premier Poincaré announces that the occupation of the Ruhr has cost France 691 million francs and returned 590 million francs.
December 4 The death of nationalist author and anti-Drefussard Maurice Barrés becomes an occasion for a surréalist masquerade.
December 21 The French airship Dixmunde is wrecked off Sicily. None of the 50 men aboard survives.
December 28 Engineer Gustave Eiffel dies in Paris at age 91.
Gaston Ramon announces the perfection of a vaccine against diphtheria and tetanus.
Goncourt Prize for Literature
L. Fabre for Rabevelau le mal des Ardents
Notable Books Le Ble en Herbe by Colette
Genetrix by Francois Mauriac
Notable Recordings La Butte Rouge - Yves Montand
1924January 22 A bronze star is placed in the square before Notre Dame de Paris marking the starting point for calculation of distances along the French highway system.
January 25 The 1st Winter Olympic Games open at Chamonix on the slopes of Mont Blanc. The games draw 258 athletes from 16 countries.
Raymond Poincaré and Edvard Benes sign the Franco-Czechoslovakian Treaty of Alliance.
February French explorer Alexandra David-Neel enters the forbidden city of Lhasa in Tibet.
March 29 Premier Poincaré forms a new cabinet and pushes a 20% across the board tax increase through the National Assembly.
May 4 The 8th Olympiad of the modern era opens in Paris. Over 4,000 athletes from 44 countries participate.
May 11 A left wing coalition headed by Radical-Socialist Edouard Herriot wins the general election. Herriot opposes the occupation of the Ruhr and the Poincaré tax increase.
May 19 Sir Galahad defeats Epinard in one of the last one on one horse races run at Saint Cloud.
June 1 The Government of Premier Raymond Poincaré resigns.
June 8 Frederic Francois-Marchal is appointed to lead a two day caretaker government.
June 13 Gaston Doumergues is elected President of the Republic by a vote of 515 to 309 over Paul Painlevé.
June 14 Edouard Herriot is appointed Premier. Herriot forms a Radical-Socialist cabinet with the support but not the participation of the Socialists. The Communists join the conservatives in opposition.
July 7 American Music, A Declaration of Independence is performed by Olga Rudge and George Antheil at La Salle Pleyel under the sponsorship of Ezra Pound.
October 12 Author and Nobel laureate Anatole France dies in Saint Cyr sur Loire at age 80. His state funeral sparks several incidents with the surrealists.
October 26 La Croisière Noire, 8 Citroën B2 tracked vehicles carrying 16 people under the direction of Georges-Marie Haardt, departs Algiers for Tananarive, Madagascar.
October 28 France establishes diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
November 23 The ashes of Jean Jaurès are transferred to the Panthéon.
During the Year The Gross National Product reaches pre-World War levels.
National Defense bonds worth 4 billion francs disappear from the Treasury. The thief is never found.
Conservative Paris deputy Pierre Taittinger found Jeunesses Patriotes, a paramilitary recruited from the ranks of university students.
Goncourt Prize for Literature
Thierry Sandre for La Chevrefeuille, Le Purgatoire, Chapitre XIII
Notable Books Manifestes du Surréalisme by André Breton
Le Soulier de Satin by Paul Chauldel
Le Discorde Chez l'Ennemi by Charles de Gaulle
Notable Films Entr'acte - directed by René Clair, screenplay by Francis Picabia, music by Erik Satie
1925January Former Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux is granted an amnesty from his 1920 conviction for treating with the enemy during World War I.
February 26 L'Excelsior publishes the first French crossword puzzle.
April L'Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes opens in Paris.
April 6 The Bank of France informs the Government that it is about to reach the debt limit of 41 billion francs.
April 9 Finance Minister Anatole de Monzie's legislation raising the debt ceiling to 45 billion francs and imposing a 10% forced loan of capital is approved by the Chamber of Deputies.
April 10 The Herriot Government resigns after the Senate defeats the financial bill by a vote of 156 to 132.
April 17 Paul Painlevé is appointed Premier and forms another Radical-Socialist cabinet.
May 3 The first episode of the first true French comic strip, Alain Saint Ogan's Zig et Puce veulent aller en Amerique (Zig and Puce want to go to America), appears in Le Dimanche Illustré.
June 25 Citroën's Croisière Noire arrives in Tananarive, Madagascar eight months after departing Algiers.
June The Testament, an opera by Ezra Pound, premiers at La Salle Pleyel, Paris.
July 4 A lighted advertisement for Citroën makes its appearance on the Eiffel Tower.
October 2 La Revue Negre starring Josephine Baker opens at the Theatre des Champs Elysées. The Charleston is introduced to Paris.
October 10 The New Yorker publishes the first of 700 Letters from Paris by Janet Flanner.
October 16 France, Britain, Germany and Italy sign the Locarno Pact. The Pact guarantees the Versailles borders, demilitarization of the Rhineland and admits Germany to membership in the League of Nations.
November 11 Georges Valois founds le Faisceau, the first party to promote Fascism in France.
November 22 The Chamber of Deputies defeats a proposed fourteen year 1% tax on capital by 3 votes. The Painlevé Government resigns.
November 28 Aristide Briand is appointed Premier for a fifth time.
December 17 The heavy cruiser Duquesne is launched at the Arsenal de Brest.
During the Year France claims sovereignty over a small sector of the Antarctic.
Goncourt Prize for Literature
Maurice Genevoix for Raboliot
Notable Books L'Or by Blaise Cendars
Les Faux Monnayeurs by André Gide
Notable Films Napoléon - written and directed by Abel Gance
Notable Recordings Valentine - Maurice Chevalier
1926January 20 The Third Underground Congress of the Italian Communist Party convenes in Lyon.
February 10 France and Poland oppose German admission to the League of Nations.
February 23 A syndicate of French jewelers buys the Romanoff crown jewels including the Czar's crown.
February 25 Henri Desire Landau is guillotined at Versailles for the murder of 12 women.
March 14 The luxury liner Ile de France is launched at Ateliers et Chantiers de France, Dunkerque.
March 26 La Galerie Surréaliste opens on the Rue Jacques-Callot, Paris with an exhibition of paintings by Man Ray.
May Ukrainian nationalist Simon Petlioura is killed in Paris by Soviet agents.
May 30 Camille Schneider organizes the first celebration of Mothers Day in France.
June 19 George Antheil's Ballet Mechanique premiers at the Theatre des Champs Elysées. The work is scored for 16 synchronized player pianos, 6 airplane propellers, xylophones, car horns, gongs and other devices meant to convey the noise of modernity.
July 17 The Bank of France refuses to raise the debt ceiling to permit repayment of short term government loans. The Aristide Government resigns. The franc falls to 50 to 1 against the dollar.
July 19 Edouard Herriot is appointed Premier.
July 21 The "Wall of Silver" prevails. Chamber of Deputies supports the Bank of France in its refusal to raise the debt ceiling. The Herriot Government loses a vote of confidence 290 to 273.
July 23 Raymond Poincaré is appointed Premier for a third time.
The value of the franc declines to £1 = 240 francs.
July 27 The Poincaré Government is approved by a 358 to 131 vote in the Chamber of Deputies.
August 7 France returns to the gold standard and allows free convertibility of the franc.
August 24 France proposes that Belgium return Eupen and Malmédy to Germany.
The heavy cruiser Tourville is launched at the Arsenal de Lorient.
September 21 French Ace of Aces René Fonck attempts to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. Fonck’s Sikorsky S-35 tri-motor biplane is seriously overloaded. It fails to liftoff and bursts into flames. Fonck escapes the crash but his radioman and mechanic are both killed.
November 30 France joins with Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium to form an international steel cartel.
December 5 Claude Monet, the father of Impressionism, dies at age 87 in Giverny.
December 14 Josephine Baker opens Chez Josephine on the Rue Fontaine, Paris.
December 26 The Vatican places L'Action Francaise and several works by Charles Maurras on the Index of Prohibited Books.
During the Year Redressement Francais is founded by Ernest Mercier founds to campaign for the replacement of parliamentry government with technocracy.
Nobel Peace Prize Aristide Briand and German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann for their work on the Locarno Pact.
Nobel Prize for Physics
Jean-Basptiste Perrin, "for his work on the discontinuous structure of matter."
Goncourt Prize for Literature
H. Deberly for Le Supplice de Phedre
Notable Books Sous le Soliel de Satan by Georges Bernanos
La Mort Difficile by René Crevel
Capitale de la Douleur, L'Amour, La Poesie by Paul Eluard
La Tentation de l'Occident by André Malraux
Notable Recordings Ca, c'est Paris - Mistinguett
1927January Surréalist leaders Louis Aragon, André Breton and Paul Eluard join the French Communist Party.
March 6 The heavy cruiser Suffren is launched at the Arsenal de Brest.
April 26 American naval aviators Commander Noel Davis and Lieutenant Stanton Wooster are killed near Langley Field, Virginia while testing the American Legion, an experimental aircraft they are preparing for an attempted nonstop flight from New York to Paris.
May 8 Charles Nungesser and François Coli depart LeBourget Field near Paris at 5:17 a.m. bound for Roosevelt Field, New York in a Levasseur PL8 biplane L'Oiseau blanc (White Bird). They are last sighted clearing the west coast of Ireland 5 hours later.
May 9 Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear over the Atlantic. Several witnesses later report hearing an airplane in the vicinity of Harbour Grace, Newfoundland at approximately 9:30 a.m. Another reports the sound of an airplane near Round Lake, Maine.
May 17 L'Orangerie is inaugurated with an exhibition of works by Claude Monet.
May 21 Charles Lindbergh lands the Spirit of Saint Louis at Le Bourget Field at 5:21 p.m. to complete the first non-stop airplane flight between New York and Paris . 100,000 Parisians mob the 25 year old pilot at the end of his 33 ½ hour journey.
June The battleship Béarn is recommissioned as an aircraft carrier.
July France defeats the United States 3 sets to 2 breaking America's seven year hold on the Davis Cup.
August 23 The execution of Sacco and Vanzetti sets off a wave of Communist backed anti-American riots.
September The American Legion holds it annual convention in Paris to mark the 10th anniversary of America's entry into World War I.
September 14 American dancer Isadora Duncan dies at Juan les Pins.
Nobel Prize for Literature
Henri Bergson "in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented."
Goncourt Prize for Literature
Bedel for Jerome 60 - Latitude Nord
Notable Books La Trahison des Clercs by Julien Beudel
Quai des Brumes by Pierre Mac Orlan
Therese Desqueyroux by Francois Mauriac
A la recherche du temps perdu - Le Temps Retrouvé by Marcel Proust
Notable Films Un Chapeau de Paille d'Italie - written and directed by René Clair after a play by Eugène Labiche
Notable Recordings Madame Arthur - Yvette Guilbert
1928April 5 A law mandating sickness, disability, old age and death insurance for all workers earning more than 35,000 francs per annum is enacted.
April 20 The heavy cruiser Colbert is launched at the Arsenal de Brest.
April 29 The Right and Center win a majority in elections for a new Chamber of Deputies. The Radical-Socialists attribute their loses to support for Poincaré. The Communist win over a million votes but drop from 26 to 14 seats in the new Chamber of Deputies.
May 1 Francois Coty launches another Rightist newspaper, Le Gaulois.
June 25 The Government devalues the franc by 80% in an effort to reduce the national debt. Introduction of the "Poincaré franc" destroys the savings of millions of account holders.
July France retains the Davis Cup title defeating the United States 4 sets to 1.
August 8 The value of the franc rebounds against Sterling. £1 = 125 francs.
August 27 The Kellogg Briand Peace Pact outlawing war is signed in Paris by 15 nations.
September 15 Victor Laurent-Eynac is appointed to the newly created post of Air Minister.
November 6 The Radical-Socialists withdraw from the cabinet.
November 11 Premier Poincaré forms a new Government composed entirely of conservatives.
Nobel Prize for Medicine
Charles Nicolle in recognition of his work on the transmission of typhus.
Notable Books Les Conquérants by André Malraux
Notable Films La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc - directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, screenplay by Joseph Delteil and Carl Theodor Dreyer
1929February 18 Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky, exiled in Turkey, requests political asylum in France.
February 21 The Government denies Leon Trotsky's request for asylum.
March 20 Marshal Ferdinand Foch dies in Paris at age 78.
April 12 The flying boat transport Commandant Teste, model on the Japanese Titose class transports, is launched at FC de la Gironde, Bordeaux.
April 24 The heavy cruiser Foch is launched at the Arsenal de Brest.
May 19 Raphaël Elizé, a 38 year old native of Martinique, becomes the first non-White mayor in metropolitan France at Sablé in the Sarthe.
June 25 Playwright Georges Courteline dies in Paris at age 71 following the amputation of his left leg.
July France defeats the United States 3 sets to 2 to win a third consecutive Davis Cup.
July 12 Louis Lucien Klotz former finance minister under Georges Clemenceau is sentenced to 2 years in prison for issuing checks without funds to cover them.
July 26 Premier Raymond Poincaré resigns citing ill health.
July 29 Aristide Briand becomes Premier for the sixth time and forms his eleventh cabinet.
August 29 Premier Briand and German Foreign Minister Stresemann sign an accord requiring complete evacuation of French troops from the Left Bank of the Rhine.
October 22 The Briand Government resigns.
November 3 André Tardieu becomes Premier.
November 14 Navy Minister Georges Leygues lays the cornerstone of the Naval Academy in Brest.
November 24 Georges Clemenceau dies in Paris at age 88.
During the Year The Young Plan further reduces German reparations payments.
Nobel Prize for Physics
Louis Victor de Broglie, "for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons."
Goncourt Prize for Literature
M. Arland for L'Ordre
Notable Books Les Enfants Terrible by Jean Cocteau
Colline by Jean Giono
Marius by Marcel Pagnol
Courrier Sud by Antoine de Saint Exupery
Notable Films L'Argent - based on a novel by Emile Zola, written and directed by Marcel L'Herbier
Un Chien Andalou - directed by Luis Buñuel, screenplay by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali
La Chute de la Maison Usher - based on a novel by Edgar Allen Poe, written and directed by Jean Epstein

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