France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (65 page)

While Ciano was making some rather reassuring statements, on February 3 François-Poncet sent an extremely pessimistic telegram.
¹¹⁷
A few days later
Il Popolo d’Italia
published some news regarding Baudoin’s visit. François-Poncet got angry.
¹¹⁸
“The fact that Mr. Baudoin avoided any contact with the ambassador during his visit was naturally very much noticed.” Had he not been to see Mussolini?
¹¹⁹

Georges Bonnet replied curtly, “The rumors you are telling me have no basis in fact. You are fully aware that any conversation, any Franco-Italian negotiation official or unofficial could only be handled by you, and that no direct or indirect transaction could not be considered outside your purview.”
¹²⁰
What was the scope of that mission? Daladier quickly
ended it on March 20.
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According to Italian historian Toscano, Mussolini did not believe in it. Ciano tried unsuccessfully to reopen the negotiation on March 19 by sending an emissary to Baudoin, who could only inform him of Daladier’s decision.
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The other matter concerned reinforcements in Tunisia and Libya. England, with its presence in Egypt, was extremely sensitive to the issue. Who had initiated this problem? Following the demonstrations of November 30, the general staff analyzed the issue as early as December 1938, while the Radio Bari broadcasts to the Arab world were worrying the Residents General in Tunisia and Morocco.
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The Italians were also occupying a small portion of French Somalia that had been ceded to them in January 1935—but that agreement had not been ratified. What could France do? asked Mandel, the minister of the colonies. In Djibuti there were 1,500 men and a dozen planes, while the Italians had 150,000 troops and 200 planes in East Africa.
¹²⁴

The matter resurfaced in February 1939. On the 17th Daladier informed Bonnet that there were at the beginning of 1939 some 60,000 Italian soldiers in Libya, 34,000 of them in Tripolitania. These troops were also being constantly reinforced, and had now reached roughly 100,000 men.
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The Permanent Committee of National Defense took up the matter on February 24.
¹²⁶
Due to recent reinforcements France had 42,000 men in Tunisia. The colonial chief of staff, General Bührer, estimated that he could send in another 6,000 as well as southern Algerian Goums. The British had 12,000 soldiers in Egypt and transferred a division of 8,000 men from Palestine. Finally, there were some 20,000 Egyptian soldiers. Gamelin pointed out that Italy could not concentrate more than 150,000 troops in Libya. Should Italy attack, France would initially take a defensive position. However, 441,000 men (fourteen infantry divisions) could be mobilized in North Africa. “After three weeks,” said Gamelin, “we must take a clearly superior position over the Italians. In addition, we will have the Italians in Tunisia as hostages and it will no doubt be difficult for us to prevent them from being massacred by the natives.”

The air force was an issue. According to General Vuillemin, there were 20 Italian planes in Libya, and 150 in Sardinia and southern Italy. The British had 145 planes, 32 of which were modern. Vuillemin thought it was possible to quickly send six groups to Tunisia.

Finally, French fortifications of the “Mareth Line” could be relied on. When Gamelin praised them, Daladier asked, “What about the planes?”
Gamelin answered with supreme assurance, “What can the plane do against men dug into trenches on the ground?” Daladier concluded by generalizing the issue: “If the summer of 1939 goes by without a war we will have no fears from the standpoint of the air force because we shall recapture whatever quality we had lost.”

There was no obvious danger. But then an exasperating incident took place. Sir Eric Phipps received instructions from his government for an initiative (“strange” as Charvériat refers to it) inspired by his colleague in Rome, Lord Perth: If you increase your troops in Tunisia, Italy must increase its army in Libya. “The British,” said General Dentz at a meeting in the Quai d’Orsay, “are accepting every Italian statement uncritically.”
¹²⁷

This provided another opportunity for François-Poncet to make ironic remarks about Lord Perth
¹²⁸
who was always ready to “switch roles.” The entire matter was quickly overcome. On March 15 Hitler was about to show most graphically where the real danger was going to be.

4.

T
HE
U
KRAINE OR
H
OLLAND
?

It may be stated unequivocally that the signing of the Franco-German declaration of December 6, 1938, did not change the underlying worries regarding Hitler’s intentions. It became equally clear that, following Chamberlain’s visit to Rome on January 12, the French felt reassured about a possibly imminent conflict provoked by Italy with German support. The diplomats, the military attachés, journalists and all the informers then began speculating. Would Hitler attempt a new violent coup? Where would it take place? For some time the East or West dilemma was basically centered on the
Ukraine-Netherlands
option. These, however, were not the only possible options.

The Ukraine appeared initially in François-Poncet’s report on November 18, 1938. It came from a German Catholic leader through the Holy See. Among the “ideas boiling” in Hitler’s “stormy head,” this one did not sound that farfetched.
¹²⁹
When he arrived in Berlin, his successor, the new ambassador Robert Coulondre, found Hitler “very much undecided,” divided between the “hard liners”—Goebbels, Himmler, and Rudolf Hess—and the “moderates”—Göring, Funk, and Lammers. The
latter group was in favor of a “return of the Reich to the international circles.”
¹³⁰
Nevertheless, it was legitimate to fear what was being prepared. Wasn’t Germany attempting to instigate a revolt first in the Polish Ukraine and later in the Soviet Ukraine? It would be the start of the traditional
Drang nach Osten
, the push to the East, combined with the grandiose dream of
Lebensraum
as described in
Mein Kampf
. While Coulondre was in Paris for Ribbentrop’s visit the chargé d’affaires, Hugues de Montbas, mentioned a plan that he said came from Hitler. It was to create a “greater Ukraine”—“to set up with the help of Poland, if possible, a kind of condominium, something like a ‘European Manchukuo’ more or less tightly vassalized with the elimination of Poland to follow later on.” From Rome François-Poncet insistently raised the issue: “A Ukraine revived by him, which he would more or less openly protect, driving a kind of trident into the flesh of the Muscovites, the Poles and the Romanians…would be enough to excite his imagination, his craving for prestige and power.”
¹³¹
But Noël does not think that Poland would take part in a German adventure in the East. Poland wanted—and would stubbornly continue to want—a policy of “equilibrium” between its two powerful neighbors.
¹³²

In any case, telling signs were being constantly detected: the visit to Vienna and Berlin of a delegation of the Ukraine National Union, which was in contact with Alfred Rosenberg; rumors of anti-Stalin unrest in the Soviet Ukraine—with some 730,000 square kilometers and a population of 34 million;
¹³³
and above all the draft of a law in the Polish Diet on the autonomy of the Polish Ukraine (population of 6 million) by Mudryj, the head of the Ukrainian group. Léon Noël, while reporting this news, voiced doubts regarding both the rumors of unrest in the Soviet Ukraine and about the success of the initiative in Poland.
¹³⁴
As Germany, after attaching the
Deutschtum
to the Reich, was preparing for the conquest of
Lebensraum
, it was understandable that many Nazi officials should discuss the Ukraine; Rosenberg’s Center for Studies and Research, the offices under Goebbels; the Ost-Europa organization directed by former minister Curtius, etc.
¹³⁵
Léon Noël was discreetly in contact with a member of the Polish Ukrainian group, who wanted the backing of France and England, but was counting more on Germany even though his movement was motivated by national principles rather than the concept of German hegemony.
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Soviet Ambassador Suritz noted that both Mandel and Gamelin believed in the threat looming over the Ukraine.
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This wave of rumors of all kinds would abate after Colonel Beck’s visit to Hitler on January 14, 1939. Coulondre asked Ambassador Lipski, who traveled to Berchtesgaden with the minister, about the content of the conversation. He was “reticent” on many issues but stated “there was absolutely no chance of a German intervention to create a greater Ukraine.”
¹³⁸
François-Poncet
¹³⁹
and Coulondre
¹⁴⁰
were to confirm this and the subject reappeared only from time to time.

Does this mean that French diplomacy took steps to channel the Germans toward the East to provoke a German-Soviet war? Several Soviet writers have supported such a view, Potemkin in particular.
¹⁴¹
It is not backed up by any documents at all. It is true that right-wing newspapers did voice such a hope, but the archives show no traces of any kind. During the weekly meetings between the Quai d’Orsay and the three branches of the military, the Ukraine was never mentioned. The only text is a note on the issue by Admiral Darlan, dated January 22: “Can England and France sustain a conflict against Germany and Italy?” Darlan, who prided himself as being a realist, stated that such a war should be avoided. “For twenty years we have had an ideological foreign policy that was land-based and exclusively European when it should have been realistic, naval and worldwide… We must first of all conserve our Empire. The rest is secondary. Also, if Germany does not support Italy’s demands, we should allow her freedom of action in the East.” But this represented only Darlan.
¹⁴²
Furthermore, in a conversation on February 22, 1939, with Ambassador Naggiar, Litvinov brought up the mission of Fernand de Brinon to Rome. “The Commissar believes that this journalist was backing the well-known German plan to conquer the Ukraine that is viewed by some people in France and England as a miracle drug that will save the two countries from Italo-German threats.”
¹⁴³
Coming from de Brinon it was not something outlandish, but there would have to be proof of instructions from Daladier which have not been found. Otherwise, it is only a blatant accusation. Naggiar in any case protested vigorously.

Did Georges Bonnet dream all this up? Soviet Ambassador Suritz offered a rather plausible explanation: “Bonnet and those who shared his views would breathe a sigh of relief had the Germans really attacked the Ukraine.”
¹⁴⁴
But Bonnet did not discuss it. The “Bonnet Papers” include a “General study by the Minister’s cabinet regarding the scope of the Franco-Soviet Pact,” dated January 1939. The study must have been undertaken at his request and tied in—while watering it down—to his October 1938 position when he sought to cancel the pact. The cabinet concluded
in this case that “without a specific military agreement,” the “help and assistance” clauses were not automatic. The League of Nations, as Litvinov said, was dead. “If the League of Nations is dead then clearly the Franco-Soviet Pact disappears.” The USSR, in any case, did not precisely abide by its commitments to not get involved in French matters. Finally, there was the Franco-British agreement of March 19, 1936. “The direct military help that France could bring to the USSR in case of German aggression would depend mainly on the way the cabinet in London viewed the situation.”
¹⁴⁵

On the other hand, a few cabinet ministers such as Mandel, Patenôtre, and Campinchi did not hesitate to tell Soviet Ambassador Suritz that they favored a “revival of the Franco-Soviet Pact.”
¹⁴⁶
The British do not appear to have believed in a Ukrainian issue, nor did the Soviet ambassador to Great Britain, Maïsky, whom Corbin queried on the subject on December 16.
¹⁴⁷
The British were not too favorable to the Franco-Soviet Pact.
¹⁴⁸

Starting in January the British were haunted by another threat, a sudden attack on the Netherlands. Lord Halifax, head of the Foreign Office, discussed the issue with Corbin on January 28. He no longer believed in a threat to the Ukraine but rather in an attack in the West, an air attack on London but mostly an action against the Dutch. There were no objective facts—he said—but only a series of clues. Great Britain would then be compelled to resort to force of arms. What would France do? I said—Corbin reported—“that our information did not match completely.” And he mentioned the threat no longer on the Ukraine but against Romania. The Franco-British staff discussions that had been decided during the meeting of November 24 and that the British it seemed had let drag out now suddenly became urgent.
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At the same time Sir Eric Phipps handed Bonnet an aide-mémoire from Halifax. “All information confirms the fact that the dangerous period will begin toward the end of February.” What was the French viewpoint on the risks incurred by the Netherlands?
¹⁵⁰

Charvériat, the director of political affairs, was immediately asked to study the issue. He drafted a note stating that France had “similar” information but originating from Germany’s periphery and added, “It is not without interest to witness the British government seeking our assistance on its own initiative.” It would be an opportunity to request its commitment in the event of a German attack through Switzerland, an Italian aggression and to pressure it to finally reestablish conscription.
¹⁵¹
Additional
information came from Washington; Germany and Italy “were said to have signed an offensive and defensive alliance… Germany was said to have decided to turn toward the West.” She would attack the Netherlands not Belgium.
¹⁵²
The Directorate of Political Affairs was still skeptical and continued to view Germany’s action as going East.
¹⁵³
Only later, in order to support Italy’s demands, could she turn to the West.