France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (18 page)

Then there was Doumergue who called a special commission on April 14, 1934, to review the facts. Both state ministers, Herriot and Tardieu, also took part, as did the military authorities and Weygand, Gamelin and Admiral Durand-Viel. René Massigli represented the Quai d’Orsay. Weygand defended his well-established position forcefully. Massigli stated his objections and Tardieu supported Weygand: “We don’t believe in controls.” As for Herriot, he was for an arms agreement but did not press his position as forcefully.
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A decision had to emerge from this debate and the many notes, thoughts and statistics compiled for months. François-Poncet wrote a dramatic account of the last minute hesitations.
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According to him, he was the one who sealed Barthou’s decision, but Barthou told him, “You should be arguing all this upstairs, not here!” Meaning in Doumergue’s office, which was on the floor just above at the Quai d’Orsay. But when he did go to see the Prime Minister, the ambassador could not get a word in edgewise; Doumergue cut him off and started on “a totally irrelevant soliloquy.” This meant, according to the ambassador, that he had already made up his mind.

Still, the documents don’t tell the same story, there are no traces of such forceful resistance in any of them and no sign that Barthou ever thought of resigning and refrained from doing so out of patriotic duty. As a matter of fact, two notes, dated April 16, resulted from the April 14 discussions. The first one, addressed to the minister, was from the French office at the League of Nations. It established the conditions for a disarmament agreement. A system of controls must be instituted “with perfect reciprocity,” under the oversight of a permanent commission of the League of Nations; it should not be left to the countries themselves. It would be automatic and permanent and would not “search for minute violations,” but would pursue a general evaluation regarding observance of the agreement. It would deal chiefly with weapons manufacturing, which would be subject to fixed quotas, and with arms budgets, which would be capped.
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This document doesn’t evince any forceful recommendations either way. Obviously, the Quai d’Orsay didn’t share François-Poncet’s relative optimism.

The other note was written by Doumergue himself.
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Since the last British note, he said, “a most serious and important event has occurred.” What had happened was the surprise announcement on March 22 that the German military budget was to be greatly increased, a jump of 352 million marks. Germany had made clear its intention to rearm, come what may, and it was doing so unilaterally. “By taking this action, Germany appears to have turned any discussion about guaranteeing the implementation of the disarmament agreement, moot.” The only solution for France was “to see to its own security.” In the margin of this note, Barthou, who, according to François-Poncet, received it directly from the prime minister, had written, “This note was handed to me by Mr. Gaston Doumergue for the purpose of laying out the main ideas of our response to Great Britain. It must be placed in the file.” There is not a word showing Barthou heroically resisting a solution he supposedly abhorred.

As early as the next day, April 17, the cabinet unanimously approved a document prepared by the staff of the Quai d’Orsay, but extensively and carefully edited by Barthou.
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The document was the communiqué that would be handed to Sir Ronald Campbell, the councilor at the British embassy. It was a ringing declaration announcing that France would no longer pursue useless negotiations with Germany. The point made was similar to the one contained in Doumergue’s note. Germany “intends to increase dramatically and immediately the power not only of its army but also of its navy and air force.” It was doing so “against the stipulations of the treaty, which, in the absence of any agreement, still determines the status of its armaments.” And so France must “place the conditions of its own security ahead of any other consideration.” Only Germany’s return to the League of Nations, would permit France to consider a disarmament agreement. But there was no sign that Germany had any such intention. France had made greater sacrifices in the war than any other country. “Its commitment to peace must not be mistaken for an abdication of its defense.”

France in effect still allowed, albeit in vague terms, the disarmament conference to continue its work but,
having reached the conclusion that nothing could prevent Germany from rearming, France was refusing to disarm
. Didn’t France still enjoy an overwhelming superiority over her rival? The point was to avoid losing that superiority. But this concerned the future. “We shall see”—as Gamelin told François-Poncet—“how long it takes Germany to catch up with the 20 billion we have spent on armaments.”
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The April 17 note led to much debate; it was generally approved in France where government bonds increased. Many in Britain, on the other hand, took the position that France was responsible for rearmament.

For Barthou, this felt like freedom. The debate in the cabinet, as he told Campbell, “was one of the best I have ever experienced during my long career as minister.”
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When he met Arthur Henderson on April 7, he said, “I don’t in the least enjoy, even though I am an academician, writing a different diplomatic note every other week. Conversations would certainly be a more efficient method.” In fact, Barthou was a realist and did not quite believe in the efficacy of controls, even at a time when that idea was gospel truth for the French political class. In any case, had controls uncovered important German infractions, would they be followed by effective sanctions? Would we close our eyes like the British government or would we complain about our fate, as the French government did?

The situation was now clear; the time had come to strengthen France. Louis Barthou was very skeptical of collective security and determined to achieve it through alliances.

In the short term, the episode led to a semi-heroic conclusion that didn’t displease France’s touchy chauvinism. In a sense, the French weren’t wrong; they were finally granted the satisfaction of witnessing a French minister standing fast against England.

At the end of May 1934, Barthou was in Geneva for more talks about disarmament, but without believing in them. On the 30th, Sir John Simon gave a speech where he pandered to Germany and criticized France. For him, there was only one plan—the British one and he seemed to “forget that there was a French plan and an Italian plan as well as the British plan.” On April 16, the German position was very close to the British position. “The unspoken conclusion was obvious: the French clearly were the obstacle to any agreement.”

Barthou replied “very forcefully.” His speech was, according to Massigli, “one of the most important ever made in Geneva.”
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In an aggressively sarcastic tone, Barthou referred to Sir John Simon as “my dear colleague and not quite a friend” and restated the fact that France too had a plan for disarmament, even if Sir John Simon pretended not to know about it. England might not care a fig, but for France, security was a requirement. In the end, what the British government really wanted France to do was allow Germany to rearm. He even quoted Mirabeau’s words: “War is Prussia’s main industry.”
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Sir John Simon was furious, and considered leaving Geneva. Barthou saved the day by inviting all his opposite numbers to lunch on June 1. The Belgian minister Hymans has written a colorful account of those peace-making festivities. “Barthou poured out his Mediterranean wit and all his literary erudition in seeking to charm and impress the British statesman, who listened and accepted what was being said with a smile, soon participating in the conversation showing how well versed his was in literary matters.” They discussed Thucydides, the Peloponnesian war and the art of public speaking.
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It was a day of relaxation, which, according to Massigli, “…seemed to have underlined the failure of the operation attempted two days before to place the blame for the failure of the conference squarely on France.”
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3.

T
HE
V
ISIT OF THE
S
MALLER
A
LLIES

The Four Power Pact signed in July 1933 is a necessary starting point. The content had been watered down to such an extent that it had no vigor left to it because France feared to disappoint Poland and the three countries of the Little Entente—Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia—while those countries did their best to eliminate whatever remained of the pact. On August 15, 1933, during a visit of the new ambassador, de Chambrun, Mussolini felt that “an atmosphere of the Four Power Pact still existed.”
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Paul-Boncour then offered an outline for discussion, aimed at “not letting opposite blocs, subject to conflicting influences, appear in Eastern and Central Europe.”
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He was actually alluding to economic links.

In any case, those economic links were being discussed to no avail since 1919. As to reconciling Hungary, which wanted part of Slovakia and part of Transylvania, with Czechoslovakia and Romania, which did not wish to be dismembered, it was like placing a circle in a square.
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Let us proceed with caution, was Mussolini’s comment to ambassador de Chambrun on September 4, 1933.
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In February 1933 the Little Entente was in fact reinforced, but in the past tense, meaning that it remained directed against Hungary, Bulgaria and the restoration of the Hapsburgs but not at all against Nazi Germany, despite the fact that the date coincided with Hitler’s rise to power. In September 1933 Czech President
Mazaryk defended his project of a “Danube Federation.” But his partners didn’t follow suit, especially Austria and Hungary, and Mussolini was against it.
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Furthermore Romanian foreign minister Titulescu at the end of the fall of 1933, began a policy of rapprochement with Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia that resulted in the signing of the Balkan Pact in Athens on February 9, 1934.
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These events, while of interest to French diplomacy, were taking place, for the most part, without her involvement. Italy was clearly hostile. The split remained unchanged between “revisionist” and “satisfied” countries.

Mussolini himself buried the Four Power Pact after Germany left the League of Nations. Speaking to the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations on November 14, he condemned the treaties and the League of Nations. He asked for a territorial revision because, as he said, “Europe couldn’t reach an understanding if great injustices were not first set right.” “Lately there had been,” he added, “a heavy silence regarding the Four Power Pact.” Too bad, Italy would not take new initiatives on that issue.
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And he added in a lofty article published on December 31, 1933, and ringing like a bad omen that, “Barring a revision through the Four Power Pact, the last word will belong to ‘his majesty the Cannon!’”

With Poland things would go much further. Its leaders, Marshal Pilsudski and Colonel Beck, practiced a eighteenth-century brand of foreign policy full of secrecy and cynicism. That’s how Jules Laroche
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and Léon Noël,
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the two French ambassadors at that time, assessed it. In 1933 the changes in Polish diplomacy were quite spectacular. As France’s ally, Poland leaked a rumor of a joint preventive war against Hitler.
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France would have no part of it.
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The rumor started, no doubt, with an incident on March 13, 1933—the landing of Polish units on the Westerplatte opposite Danzig in what appeared as a “provocation of Germany.”
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The troops very quickly returned to their ships.

Following the Four Power Pact, the situation took an entirely different turn—that of a definite rapprochement between Poland and Nazi Germany. During a meeting on November 2, 1933, Jules Laroche asked Beck whether Germany had offered him a non-aggression pact. No, he answered. “Naturally should such an offer be made we would examine it seriously.”
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As he observed the various steps taken by Lipski, his Polish colleague, François-Poncet was becoming increasingly suspicious. Germany was attempting to “dismantle the stones from the wall that hemmed in its ambitions one by one.”
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In point of fact, Hitler’s Germany operated “through conspiracy and dramatic coups” and “regrettably
the Poles appear to like that method.” A German-Polish declaration
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was then made on November 16, announcing ongoing negotiations between the two countries. Was it a Polish or a German initiative? Was it reassuring or worrisome? French diplomacy was vigorously seeking to understand those issues until January 26, 1934, a few days before Louis Barthou took over and Lipski’s explicit denials notwithstanding—the Polish tour de valse was announced officially:
the two countries were signing a non-aggression declaration
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What could the motivations have been? The answer is outside our subject, which is to study French foreign policy and not that of Poland or Germany. It is true that ambassadors François-Poncet, Laroche, and Léon Noël (who was then in Prague) were carefully analyzing that event in many reports and cables. They concluded that while reaffirming its loyalty to the alliance with France, Poland had switched sides. “That agreement won’t last ten years!” said Beneš to Léon Noël.
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François-Poncet was particularly angry because on January 24 he met his Polish colleague Lipski who lied by omission, hiding the fact that he was about to sign the pact with Hitler’s Germany. From then on there could no trust. We could no longer treat him as an ally.
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Laroche was also just as incensed. Marshal Pilsudski and Colonel Beck received him on January 29 when he voiced his complaints. The meeting was lively. After all, said the Marshal, who had trouble expressing himself but knew how to be ironic, he acted this way because of the uncertainty of French policy and its endless concessions under pressure coming from Great Britain and now Italy. “Important cable” wrote Louis Barthou in the margin on February 11.
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