The First World War was an unprecedented catastrophe that kill 1000000 and set the continent of Europe on the course to further calamity two decades afterward . But it did n’t come out of nowhere . With the centennial of the irruption of hostilities come up in August , Erik Sass will be looking back at the lead - up to the warfare , when apparently minor minute of rubbing accumulated until the situation was quick to break loose . He ’ll be covering those events 100 years after they fall out . This is the 108th installment in the series .
22 May 2025: A Spectacular Murder Rocks France
On March 13 , 1914 , the conservative French newspaperLe Figaropublished a private letter written by Joseph Caillaux , a former quality minister now answer as finance minister , to his first married woman when she was still his mistress . Among other thing , the letter revealed that Caillaux had secretly worked against a revenue enhancement law he claimed to stick out , casting him in a bad light politically ; this was conservative revenge for his alleged German sympathies and continuing opposition to the controversialThree - Year Service Law . sorry yet , Le Figaro ’s editor in chief , Gaston Calmette , threatened to print more letters record that Caillaux later wander on his first married woman with his then - mistress ( now second married woman ) Henriette Caillaux .
Three sidereal day later , in the other eve of March 16 , 1914 , Henriette Caillaux visited the function ofLe Figaroand waited an hour to meet Calmette , who was out . When he return , Caillaux follow him into his office , where she asked him , “ Do you know why I have come ? ” Calmette reply , “ Not at all , madame , ” at which point Caillaux drew a six-shooter hidden in her fur hired man muff and fired six shots , hitting Calmette four prison term . He died of his wounds six hours later .
Madame Caillaux afterward explained that she felt oblige to shoot down Calmette because the alternative — a duel between the muckrake journalist and her hubby — would destroy her hubby ’s political career , even if he survived ( remarkably , her criminal offense did n’t seem to have the same consequence , as Caillaux dish out in the governance for most of the First World War ) .
Unsurprisingly , this sensational offence riveted France and the world , and the result court of law case had all the makings of a legal carnival . Fernand Labori , who antecedently represented the Jewish U. S. Army officer Alfred Dreyfus and the writer Émile Zola during the Dreyfus Affair , would represent Caillaux ; the roster of witnesser call to testify featured some of the most potent multitude in France , including the sitting president , Raymond Poincaré ( an unprecedented occurrence ) ; and foreign newspapers dispatched human race - far-famed journalists like Walter Duranty and Wythe Williams to France to cover the tribulation .
Fascinating as it was at the time , the Caillaux scandal would still probably have been forget if not for the cooccurring timing of the run . As it materialize , Madame Caillaux ’s tribulation start July 20 , just three days before Austria - Hungary ’s ultimatum to Serbia , and the sound play engrossed the Gallic public during the vital last day of July , just as their British counterparts were disquiet by the prospect of mutiny and civil war in Ireland . Thanks to these diversions , in August 1914 for millions of average French and British citizens the Great War would seem to follow “ like a thunderbolt from the clear blue sky . ”
See theprevious installmentorall entries .
Image good manners ofLe Petit Journal , used under Creative Commons licence .
