The most serious threat to the stability of France's Third Republic was General Boulanger's bid for power in 1888-89. Most recent scholarship of the Boulanger Affair has focused on the combination of socialism and national chauvinism in the movement supporting Boulanger's campaign, and has seen in this alliance the left-wing origins of twentieth-century fascism. William Irvine challenges that analysis, arguing that it was royalist and conservative support which provided the crucial financial and electoral backing to the Boulanger movement. This places the origins of the exploitation of mass politics by extreme rightists in France much earlier than had previously been supposed. Irvine's book is based on previously unused archive materials, including the private papers of the French royal family, which have only recently been made available to scholars.
Recent scholarship on General Boulanger's 1888-89 bid for power in France's Third Republic has focused on the combination of socialism and national chauvinism in the movement supporting Boulanger's campaign, seeing in this alliance the left-wing origins of 20th-century fascism. In this groundbreaking new study, Irvine challenges that analysis, arguing that royalist and conservative supporters provided the crucial financial and electoral backing to the Boulanger movement. This places the origins of the exploitation of mass politics by extreme rightists in a much earlier period than has been supposed. Based on archival materials only recently made available to scholars, including the private papers of the French royal family, Irvine's book makes a major contribution to the debates in European history and sociology regarding the relationship between conservative interests and anti-democratic mass movements.
'a valuable contribution to our understanding of the reactions of the royalist leadership to Boulangism'
Sharif Gemie, College of St Paul and St Mary, Cheltenham, French History
