France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (76 page)

But, without informing Noël, Daladier and Bonnet followed the opposite policy and were giving Poland increasing assurances.
⁶⁴
Gamelin went even further and, with General Kasprzycki, initialed a very detailed document in the event of a German aggression against Poland or Danzig:

1. Immediate action in the air.

2. As of the third day “offensive actions on limited objectives” against Germany.

3. “As soon as the main German effort begins against Poland,
France would start an offensive action by engaging the bulk of its forces against Germany
.” [Emphasis added.] This could take place as of the fifteenth day.

Poland, for its part, would engage “with all its forces” in defensive actions and would take the offensive “as soon as circumstances allow it.” Should Germany attack France through Belgium or Switzerland, “the Polish army would make every effort to engage a maximum of German forces.”
⁶⁵

Such emphatic exaggeration of both French possibilities and of the Polish ability to resist is difficult to explain. It should also be pointed out that both generals had not at all discussed their respective military plans. Daladier gave the text to Bonnet on May 19.
⁶⁶
Bonnet became frightened and was able to have Gamelin write an interpretive letter to General Kasprzycki on May 20: “According to instructions I have received from my government the protocol of the conversations we have just held will become a military agreement once the political agreement that is now being discussed is signed and naturally inasmuch as it fits in with the latter.” The implementation will depend on the two governments. A handwritten note by Gamelin on the cover sheet of the letter states, “I have again met with General Kasprzycki and he told me that he agreed with this interpretation.”
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There were to be no further military command talks.
⁶⁸
On September 1 the French would still not have any information regarding Polish plans and vice versa. Léon Noël noticed the surprising degree of suspicion displayed by the Warsaw leadership.
⁶⁹
They showed an extraordinary optimism that was truly surprising, reported very accurately by military attaché General Musse. He was in constant contact with General Stachiewicz, the chief of staff, and even with Marshal Rydz-Smigly. On August 9 General Stachiewicz, witnessing German troop movements near the borders, “feels that the intimidation ploy will be pushed very far by
the leadership of the Reich and even going so far as to be concentrated on the Polish borders. But Poland will not bend and
if Hitler thinks that an attack on Poland would start a general war, he will stop in time
.” [Emphasis added.] He didn’t think the discussions taking place between the west and the USSR were of any importance. “The main point is that the Reich cannot plan to consider the USSR as being on its side,
and that does not appear to be a likely possibility
.”
⁷⁰
[Emphasis added.] And the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement was only two weeks away!

The discussions did in fact continue. But they dealt exclusively with possible help with armaments and its financial aspects. Léon Noël insisted with Bonnet who did so with Daladier. On May 17 the Poles requested a 2 billion franc loan. Gamelin agreed (on June 23) on condition that it would not reduce French arms manufacturing in any way. The chiefs of staff reached the conclusion “on the need to give priority to Poland.”
⁷¹
Paul Reynaud was favorable when approached but suggested that the Poles be asked for a specific list. General Faury was sent to Poland for this purpose at the end of June.
⁷²
Polish General Kossakovsky arrived with the list at the beginning of August.
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A few light tanks were shipped in time and that was all.

The Franco-British staff talks went much further as expected, and deserve to be examined closely. In order to follow the discussions we shall first examine the army and air force on one hand; and then the navy. The talks were held in three phases in London: March 29 to April 4; April 24 to May 5; and August 28 to 31. We shall only cover the first two phases here.

Regarding the army, Gamelin was completely confident. “We may consider quite dispassionately,” he wrote to Daladier on January 7, 1939, “the possibility of a coming conflict that would pit France and England against the totalitarian states of the Axis.”
⁷⁴
And Weygand, despite the fact that he did not like his successor that much, added in July 1939, “The French army is now greater than at any time in history; it has first class equipment, top of the line fortifications, its morale is excellent and the commanders are excellent. No one here wants war but I can say that if we must win a new victory we shall win it.”
⁷⁵

Gamelin led the discussions regarding the army. Regarding the air force, he was in the difficult role of being the one asking. The actual initiative for the talks—which France had proposed for a long time—came from Great Britain and was dated February 25, thereby preceding the Prague incident, that would delay them until March 29. However,
Daladier and Gamelin had prepared the directives for the French delegation as early as March 7 and 8.
⁷⁶
Those directives are of great interest in that they show the “general strategic conception of the war”: “In a conflict opposing England and France on one side to Germany and Italy on the other, Germany was to be sure “the biggest chunk,” morally and materially much stronger than its ally. Therefore, the French high command felt that continental, insular and colonial Italy would be the initial target of the offensive effort.” It would be necessary to cover ourselves from Germany and consider “some offensive (at least on the local level) to create a diversion” in case Poland and Romania enter the war. “Regarding an offensive on German soil, it should only begin after decisive results are achieved…against Italy.”

To reach this objective a reinforcement of the British expeditionary force and the need to distribute the tasks accordingly became necessary, should the Italians attack Corsica, Tunisia, or Egypt, in order to counter them in Libya, or if they attacked Djibuti, then foment rebellion in Italian East Africa through political action. Finally, “if Japan enters the conflict it will be necessary to help China by all available means and reestablish as quickly as possible its best supply route by clearing the Hong Kong-Canton region. We should expel the Japanese from Hainan as soon as possible.”
⁷⁷
One has to marvel at how easily Gamelin uses terms such as “it’s necessary,” and “we should” without stating which forces he intended to use for those objectives.

We must also point out a first attempt at a unified command—something that was so hard to achieve in 1914–1918. From the start a “Franco-British High Committee” worked discreetly and included government leaders, defense ministers and commanders in chief. The head of the British delegation was Captain Dankwerts, head of planning at the Admiralty. General Lelong, military attaché, or Vice-Admiral Odend’hal in his absence, headed the French delegation. We shall rely mostly on the brief summaries that were prepared for Daladier.

The first set of meetings (March 29 to April 4) was mainly exploratory. The French plan to contain Germany and knock Italy out first was retained. The transport plans of the British expeditionary force to France were no cause for optimism—a first group of two infantry divisions and a few other elements would be ready within thirty days; a second group (one infantry division) would be ready within three months! “The British at first seemed obsessed with a defensive posture in every theater; it was only little by little that they agreed to not systematically neglect the opportunity
to take the offensive.”… “They were mostly interested in the threat coming from the air, and above all where London was concerned.”

Regarding the air force, the British
initially
refused to send fighter units to France. On the other hand, they accepted to engage units into battle, especially in the event Germany were to attack Belgium. They would bomb enemy convoys. The danger came from the fact that Germany’s bombers were double the size of the Allies’. The bombing of Germany’s industry was discussed at length but during the initial phase “the allied reaction as far as the air force is concerned will be mainly concentrating on security.”
⁷⁸

The most interesting element is the joint French and British note regarding general strategy. It is indicative of what would be—rightly or wrongly—the war doctrine of the allies.
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Would it be a short war or long war? Germany and Italy cannot hope to increase their resources appreciably during the course of the war; they therefore were counting, in order to achieve success,
on a short war
. [Emphasis added.] “France and England are, on the contrary, more likely to see their war potential increase month by month on condition that they successfully protect their war industries and maritime communications from air and naval attacks…” “Facing the initial German-Italian effort
they will first have to hold out, then last until such a time as the offensive becomes possible
.” [Emphasis added.] Shortly after the initial phase of the discussions the Italians took over Albania, leading the French to reconsider the issues.

On April 9, Daladier, Bonnet, Campinchi and Guy La Chambre; Generals Gamelin, Vuillemin, Bührer and Colson, a representative of Darlan, and Alexis Léger met to discuss Mediterranean issues. Tunisia was already protected as we have indicated previously. One-fourth of France’s air defenses were located in Tunisia from where they could bomb Rome. For political reasons Bonnet recommended to not garrison too many troops at the Belgian and Spanish borders. He offered a broad diplomatic survey showing how Great Britain for the most part “was as involved as possible.”
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Six days later the Army high command produced a study of the forces with related numbers
⁸¹
insisting on the Eastern alliances that could divert 25 to 30 German infantry divisions. Once Germany was denied resources from the East, “Germany would be engaged in a long war.” The Axis could not fight such a war. Yet there were in Germany:

54 regular army divisions

35 to 40 reserve divisions

35 to 36 Landwehr divisions

About 17
Grenzschutz
(border defense) divisions. Soon Germany would have 200 then 240 divisions. Italy had 85 divisions, 75 of which were in Italy proper. The Axis could count immediately on a total of 250 divisions.

The Allies facing them had only 120. One hundred French divisions (82 of them within metropolitan France) and 19 potential British divisions! How could the balance be tilted more evenly? By either using the Eastern allies (50 Polish divisions, 35 Romanian, and 25 Yugoslav divisions), or through a heavy bombing campaign…that could not be undertaken. Therefore “we must” hold out (once again “we must”).

During the second phase of the Franco-British talks (April 24 to May 4) some issues were discussed in greater detail. First of all, the British promised that within eighteen months they would be able to send to France: 1. Four infantry divisions and two mobile divisions during the first six weeks; 2. Ten territorial divisions in months 4, 5, and 6; 3. The final 16 territorial divisions during the ninth to twelfth month or 32 divisions in one year! There were no specific decisions made regarding Poland; perhaps the expected alliance with the USSR would allow for the creation of a “continuous Eastern front.”

In the Far East they adopted a defensive stance in the expectation of starting an offensive from Indochina.

A “plan for the deployment of the air force on the continent” was prepared and this time the British committed themselves in the event of an invasion of Belgium and Holland to use their “entire” bomber air force. In the event of an attack on Italy, the British would relieve the French air force against Germany—this was, as previously noted, an old French project.

The British stuck to their point of keeping
almost all their fighter planes in Great Britain
at least during the initial months.
⁸²
Other meetings handled coordination in North Africa, in Rabat between General Noguès and General Ironside,
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in the Middle East and in Singapore
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from June 22 to 27.
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The conclusion of that last meeting was very clear: “The conference wishes to state that the weakness of our naval and air forces in the Far East is a source of worry. Our weakness gives the Japanese such superiority by preventing us from keeping open our vital lines of communication and preventing the enemy from taking advanced operational bases from where he could directly threaten our vital interests.”

England, naturally, was the leader where naval matters were concerned.
⁸⁶
During the meetings we mentioned, the naval experts usually sat apart. The two allies to be were burdened with heavy duties:

Security in the Channel, mainly, for the passage of the British expeditionary corps;

Security in the Atlantic, mostly for commercial navigation if the Suez route was cut;

Security of communications in the western Mediterranean (transport between French North Africa and metropolitan France) and as a secondary task the eastern area (communications with Egypt and the Levant).

It was decided that the
North Sea
would be England’s sole responsibility. Because of “autarky” its stockpiles and free access to Swedish iron ore, and Romanian oil, Germany could launch a naval offensive. However, in that area England enjoyed a 4 to 1 advantage in overall strength (“The Main Fleet”), but the British, going back to an old idea, asked that the French send their battleships
Strasbourg
and
Dunquerque
to the area since they were better equipped to prevail over the German “pocket battleships.” The French admiralty refused.