France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (26 page)

In examining French and British policies on this matter it clearly appears before and after October 2, 1935, when Mussolini ordered the attack on Ethiopia, that both policies were very much focused on attempting to combine various degrees of resistance and appeasement.

The objective for France was to keep its “privileged relationship” with Italy while, at the same time, appearing to agree with the League of Nations. France had few interests directly affected by the crisis besides the security of Djibuti and the railway linking it to Addis Ababa. The Rome agreements provided guarantees on those two issues. Ideally the best approach would be to take part in the sanctions only very mildly, simply to appear to be respectful of collective security which was the stated basis of French policy.

Great Britain had much larger stakes in the matter. Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan were squeezed between Italian Libya and Ethiopia. It was a matter of survival, not simply a strategic issue. Should the waters of the Blue Nile and Lake Tana, its natural Ethiopian reservoir, be used for irrigation upstream it would create a disaster downstream, which was Britain’s responsibility. Its interests, therefore, went hand in hand with the “Peace Ballot,” which also, unfortunately, showed a determination not to go to war. This meant that no available means, even appeasement, would be overlooked to avoid war. On June 24 Eden had attempted a bilateral negotiation with Mussolini. He traveled to Rome after stopping in Paris and offered Mussolini a solution with vast territorial concessions in the Ogaden in exchange for compensation by Great Britain to Ethiopia in the form of an opening to the ocean in British Somaliland. Mussolini had rejected this indignantly and France had issued a protest, proof enough that the British actually didn’t only pursue a policy of resistance.

British doubts about France’s attitude were seen in dramatic tones. Could Laval be trusted? Whose side would France choose to be on, Italy or England?

During the entire period preceding October 2, the British didn’t know what the French attitude would be but were pleased to see her drawing closer to them. On June 19 Hoare still thought that France would be on Italy’s side. On August 21, however, he found that there was an “Anglo-French front.” From August 16 to 18, Laval, Eden, and Baron Aloisi held talks in Paris. The British were ready to accept the French concept of a
veiled protectorate by Italy under the auspices of the League of Nations.
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But once again Mussolini was to reject that concession repeatedly, then and in September, when a Committee of Five appointed by the League of Nations reached a similar conclusion.
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It was in September that the situation became serious. As Corbin wrote on September 1, “One of the main worries of the British public right now is to know what the position of the French government will be when the Italo-Ethiopian conflict is discussed in Geneva.”
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In Rome Ambassador de Chambrun was instructed to encourage Mussolini to be cautious and met with him on September 3. Mussolini was “worried” but “always cordial” as he was attempting to avoid a situation that would force him to withdraw from the League of Nations.
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The Italians were very displeased with the statements made by French Professor Gaston Jèze, the legal advisor to Ethiopia. The Italian press, for the most part, and Virginio Gayda, in particular, in the
Giornale d’Italia
attempted to keep France out of any action decided by the League of Nations and wrote glowing words about “the new Franco-Italian friendship that had been forged for the most part by the personal initiative of Mr. Laval.”
⁹⁹

During that same month of September Italian reinforcements poured into Eritrea and Somalia. On the other hand, following a British cabinet decision on August 22, part of the “Home Fleet” was dispatched to the Mediterranean during the second half of September in the hope that this naval concentration would deter Italy.
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Mussolini declared himself “humiliated.”
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However, at the same time France and Britain kept on discussing potential appeasement through territorial concessions to Italy. This was the focus of an important meeting in Geneva at the Hotel des Bergues on September 10 and 11 between Laval, Léger, and Massigli on one side and Hoare, Eden and Strang on the other.
¹⁰²

While the French government was trying to prevent war by attempting to satisfy Italy, it was also considering the issue of sanctions. Among the many memos written on the issue we shall extract the following comment that clearly stated the later position France took: “What could be recommended are gradual sanctions that take Italy’s specific economic condition into account.”
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On October 2 Mussolini issued the order to his army to invade Ethiopia. Even though this action was quite predictable, it still captured the imagination because of its suddenness. The Council of the League of Nations met on October 5. It first listened to the representatives of Italy and Ethiopia.
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The Assembly was called to meet on the 9th, and
on the 10th Baron Aloisi skillfully made the case for his government’s position. The other speakers, including Laval, supported the basic principles that involved economic sanctions.
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We shall not get into the complicated details of the proceedings but will focus on the main actions taken by France.

First, France did everything it possibly could to
delay
the vote in favor of sanctions while the British were in a hurry.
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The chosen method was to have the Committee of Eighteen in charge of sanctions study the issue.
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Laval then undertook many conciliatory moves toward Mussolini.
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Finally, Laval tried successfully to weaken the sanctions.
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Sanctions were decided upon between October 11 and November 18 and remained exclusively limited to the economic and financial areas. They did not include a number of products that were necessary to conduct military operations—iron, steel, copper, lead, zinc, cotton, wool, and most of all oil.

In spite of the very strong reaction of Italian public opinion against the “sanctionists,” Mussolini—whom Chambrun met on November 12—said that “we must not blame France” and he gave instructions to the press to follow that line.
¹¹⁰
He realized how soft France’s support for the League of Nations actually was. Yet France did make another important concession to Great Britain when, on September 24, she asked France to provide naval support in case of war between Britain and Italy. The minimum would be opening French ports to British ships. The first French answer on October 5 was very vague but on October 18 Laval agreed to this naval support. Deputy Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Decoux went to London on October 30 to meet with Admiral Chatfield, First Lord of the Admiralty, to set up the details of the potential collaboration. When Decoux voiced his opinion doubting that Italy might attack England, Admiral Chatfield answered, “With the dictators you never can tell. No one can say for sure that Mr. Mussolini will not take some serious decisions someday.” Other military and air force discussions took place in November and December.
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Laval had thus succeeded in carrying out a remarkable maneuver in reaching military agreements with both potential adversaries, Italy and Great Britain. These were not in fact actual agreements since they were negotiated in his particular style, but oral statements and written communiqués. Pierre Laval’s golden rule appears to have been to never quite go all the way on anything.

During the course of conversations regarding sanctions and military issues, the war was taking a positive course for Italy, followed by more
difficult circumstances. The possibility, already outlined in August and September, of making territorial concessions to Italy that could be satisfactory and to stop the war, then resurfaced. Mussolini was thinking about an annexation of the borderlands of Ethiopia and collective domination of the central part of the country. This was what Laval communicated to the British government on October 24.
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At a meeting at Geneva’s Hotel des Bergues on November 1 (Laval, Massigli, de Saint-Quentin—Hoare, Eden), the idea was offered once more by Hoare. Rather than a form of mandate, he preferred territorial concessions on the condition Italy would offer Ethiopia an opening to the ocean. Laval had “no preference” one way or the other either for a concession or a mandate. This was the origin of the “Hoare-Laval Plan.”
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Nothing much happened in November. Baldwin had dissolved the British Parliament on October 25 and general elections took place on November 15, returning to the House of Commons a weakened but very substantial conservative majority.

Those Conservatives, starting with their leaders Baldwin and Hoare, had not been very energetic towards the Italian aggressors. To reach an agreement even at Ethiopia’s expense had already been discussed on numerous occasions. The more the Italians penetrated deeper into Ethiopia the greater the concessions Ethiopia would be forced to make. Hoare had openly backed that view on November 1. It also allowed him to delay a potentially dangerous debate concerning oil sanctions that were being vocally demanded by anti-fascists around the world. Laval, Baldwin and possibly Mussolini all shared the need to reestablish peace by finding a solution to the problem. Without any regard for the Ethiopians,
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Mussolini called them barbarians. The leaders of the world’s two largest colonial empires were not saying as much but were not far from thinking that way. The British feared Mussolini might launch a desperate attack in the event of oil sanctions. The British army was weak and if the fleet was much stronger than its Italian opponent it was also vulnerable to air attack. British military circles also suspected that France would not participate in any action.

All this explains how not just Hoare but even permanent Undersecretary Vansittart, a vigorous defender of collective security, both ended up approving a negotiation on the basis of what is described above. At the end of November Laval pressed the issue, and Léger proposed a meeting between Laval and Hoare. Since the latter was to go on holiday in Switzerland, he decided to stop in Paris. Vansittart went with him.
Conversations took place in Paris on December 7 and 8.
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Taking advantage of British concerns and mixing half-hearted promises of military help with the proposals regarding Ethiopia, Laval was able to get his plan approved which then became the “Hoare-Laval plan” intended to remain secret. Italy would get two-thirds of Ethiopia in exchange for a small outlet to the ocean that it was prepared to give to that country. Italy would in effect have a protectorate over the rest.

What was to follow is well known. On December 13 a leak to the French press in
L’Œuvre
(Geneviève Tabouis) and
L’Echo de Paris
(Pertinax) told the world that the great champions of collective security offered an enormous payoff to the aggressors. Hoare was convinced that the leak originated in the Quai d’Orsay, “Was it intentional or due to negligence?”
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Did it come from Alexis Léger, who opposed the proposal and tried to scuttle it by making it public? Or was it Pierre Comert, head of the press office?
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There is no conclusive proof. The plan failed because of the violent protest by public opinion, especially among the British. It ended up forcing Hoare to resign—he was replaced by Anthony Eden on December 22. Laval lasted a few more weeks in power. By causing the indignation of the radicals, followed by their resignation from his cabinet, the Hoare-Laval plan ended Laval’s active political career on January 22, 1936, for a period of five years.

Laval had therefore made an empty gesture to the Germans and reached an important agreement with Italy without wanting to get into an alliance, he signed a mutual assistance pact with the USSR, which he emptied of any effectiveness; and he backed British policy for sanctions and made sure they would not work. As Roland de Margerie told a German diplomat, “The whole legacy of Barthou didn’t sit well with Laval.”
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Chapter V

T
HE
R
HINELAND
T
RAGEDY

(January–June 1936)

A
t the beginning of 1936 three main foreign policy issues were, or rather should have been, on the French people’s mind: the sanctions problem in the Italian-Ethiopian war; the ratification of the Franco-Soviet mutual assistance pact; and, finally, a possible Hitlerian coup in the Rhineland demilitarized zone—the left bank of the Rhine and a 50-kilometer strip on the right bank.

The Sarraut government, which replaced the Laval cabinet on January 24, 1936—it was to be the last of the National Union governments—presented itself to the country and to Parliament as a “transition” cabinet.

We have seen that the fall of Laval on January 22, 1936, was due to a decision by the Radical Socialist Party to join the Front that the socialists and communists had started back in June and July 1934, which, once enlarged, became the “Popular Front.” Laval was under attack on three issues: his very accommodating attitude toward Italian aggression in Ethiopia characterized by the willful ineffectiveness of the sanctions and the Hoare-Laval plan; his tolerant attitude toward the “leagues,” meaning the
threat of fascist subversion in France which was in effect more potential than real; and his deflationary economic policy, which irritated everyone. The rivalry between Daladier and Herriot within the Radical Party was to settle the matter. Daladier—who in any case hated the communists much more than his rival—was eager to seek revenge against the National Union for having instigated his downfall on February 7, 1934. There was no other way but to join the Popular Front. Herriot had been forced to resign as president of his party on December 18, 1935. For over one month he succeeded in holding together enough radicals to allow for the survival of Laval’s cabinet. But on January 22 the radical ministers resigned and the rest of the Laval government withdrew.