This quote is often attributed to Clemenceau who did in fact say it. It should be noted, however, that Talleyrand (the famous French Foreign Minister during part of the French Revolution, then under Napoleon and then again during the Restoration) is also credited with a similar remark - with which the well-educated Clemenceau would almost certainly have been familiar. In the original French, the quotation runs as follows: "La guerre est une chose trop sérieuse pour être laissée à des militaires." Clemenceau made it in 1886 when he was informal leader of the Radicals in the Assemblée Nationale. Clemenceau had a life-long and unswerving conviction that ultimate control of the army should be in the hands of elected politicians. Clemenceau was also scarred throughout his life by France's defeat in the 1870-1 Franco-Prussian war - a war in which France's generals did not distinguish themselves. The French Minister of War in 1870 (a general) assured Napoleon III that the French army was ready to go to war. MacMahon and Bazaine were largely responsible for the humiliations at Sedan and Metz. Bazaine was later prosecuted for his early surrender at Metz - which freed up a substantial section of the Prussian army to tighten the siege of Paris. Later, Clemenceau displayed his determination to maintain civilian control over the army during the First World War. As a newspaper editor, he campaigned to expose military incompetence during the early years of the war (as a physician he particularly focused on poor treatment of the wounded) and as chairman of the French Senate's war (I can't remember the exact title) committee he insisted on proper scrutiny of the conduct of the war and regular inspections by elected politicians to the Front. He also played a large part in securing the transfer of the French C-in-C Joffre away from active day-to-day control of the French armies. Later, when President of the Council (i.e. Prime Minister) in 1917-8, Clemenceau was determined to maintain ultimate control of the French war effort in civilian (i.e. his) hands. It is in this context that Aristide Briand repeated Clemenceau's already famous 1886 remark to the British Prime Minister David Lloyd-George. If anyone wants to know more (I can recommend several good biographies of Clemenceau), please feel free to drop me a line on jdc3579@hotmail.com. If I don't answer, please assume that your mail has gone into junk mail, that I haven't had the chance to check the hotmail account within seven days and that it's been automatically deleted (!)