France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (16 page)

This system held up international trade and, complicated everything, giving too much incentive to imports (in order to secure the funds necessary to pay the exporters). France would have preferred multilateral agreements. They were discussed at the council of the League of Nations, but nothing came of those discussions.

3.
    
Beginning in July and August 1931, France first unilaterally established “quotas” on farm products in order to limit imports; then, after negotiating with its partners, it set quotas on industrial products (which is why these were called “bilateral quotas” or “friendly quotas”). The quota system lies halfway between export duties and putting a stop to all trade. It protected the producers at home, but created endless detailed negotiations. After setting a global quota for each product, it was divided among the different countries that
might export to France, in proportion to goods bought during the “normal” period! It becomes immediately obvious how rigid and arbitrary such a system was.

In 1933, the year we are examining in this chapter, any remaining hope of reorganizing international trade vanished mainly because the new president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had decided to solve the economic crisis at the level of his own country and not at the international level. His predecessor, Herbert Hoover, had considered a multilateral solution, and offered to call a broad world economic conference in order to handle the daunting issue of debt.

The conference was prepared during the first months of 1933. It was to be held in London. France sent Jean Parmentier to the preparatory commission. Parmentier, was an honorary director of the
Mouvement general des fonds
, favored a rigid solution to the problem of war debts.
¹²²
He felt that, through the Hoover moratorium, the United States had rescinded previous agreements, so that it became necessary to renegotiate the issue. Paul Claudel and his financial attaché Mönick, on the other hand, thought that there should be a “gesture” to coincide with Roosevelt’s inauguration on March 4. Both remained optimistic since they believed Roosevelt favored a compromise solution. On January 10, 1933, Claudel met secretly with the president-elect “in a friendly house.” Paul-Boncour sent him detailed instructions for the meeting, knowing full well that to ask the French parliament to go back on its December 15, 1932, vote would be a lost cause.
¹²³
Just as Claudel and Mönick had hoped, the discussion was “entirely interesting and pleasant. Roosevelt is a man of the world but without any affectation, full of humanity—a man whom I sensed was a true friend of France.” Roosevelt was a great charmer. He mentioned how the United States had only repaid their war debts of the eighteenth century under the Restoration and then without interest. “We do not consider France to have defaulted”—it has simply delayed one of its payments. But on every other subject he remained vague. He did not consider a moratorium, but a
modus vivendi
. He was enigmatic about the gold standard and trade tariffs, and asked Claudel to come and see him again. He did not commit to anything.
¹²⁴
The French were somewhat disappointed, therefore, when negotiations on the debt opened between the British and the Americans. England had made a payment on December 15 and the Americans didn’t know that it would be the last one. Claudel took comfort in the thought that, from the sidelines,
“France was about to witness a very bitter and very close fight between the two countries.”
¹²⁵

In February, before Roosevelt became president, there was a moment of hope. Paul-Boncour received the American diplomat William Bullitt, a personal friend of Roosevelt’s. The president-elect had told him to ask the French government to send over a “confidential emissary.”
¹²⁶

Who should go? Paul-Boncour thought of Herriot who answered that he felt honored by the choice but “the obligations of political life” kept him from leaving and he put off his trip for a few weeks. So Mönick was sent to meet with Roosevelt.
¹²⁷
The meeting took place on February 18 in New York. Mönick was very surprised that Roosevelt barely mentioned the debt issue, but talked instead of a vast and very vague plan of cooperation. “The fate of western civilization will be in jeopardy, Roosevelt said, unless the United States, France, and England begin to collaborate efficiently and in the immediate future.” This was the reason he wanted to meet with an eminent political figure.
¹²⁸
France and England would talk with the United States as equal partners. The Quai d’Orsay thought this represented a “coup de théâtre.”
¹²⁹
They could see the United States and France bringing England back to the gold standard.

There was a “coup de théâtre” but it came from a completely different direction. Herriot, who had finally made himself available, was sent to Washington with stately pomp.
¹³⁰
But, as he was sailing the Atlantic on the
Ile-de-France
, he suddenly learned, on April 20, that far from again linking the British pound to the gold standard, Roosevelt had decided to unlink the dollar. Herriot’s disappointment was softened by the fact that Roosevelt came to greet him on the steps of the White House. He enjoyed that sort of flattery. Conversations were held in the presence of British Prime Minister Macdonald who was then in Washington. They ranged over all international matters. Roosevelt, according to Herriot, was the one who took the lead in demanding payment of the debt installment. Herriot, who had proposed this payment, was easily convinced. But, back in Paris, he could not “alter a decision that did us such harm.”
¹³¹
It seems that in late April, Daladier and Paul-Boncour had thought of “proposing to parliament that the December installment be paid,” on condition that there be a new agreement.
¹³²
These conditions, however, would not be accepted and the negotiations were grinding to a halt. On June 1, André Lefèvre de Laboulaye, who had succeeded Paul Claudel as ambassador to Washington, was told by Bullitt
that Roosevelt had forbidden the American delegation in London to broach the subject of the debt.
¹³³

The deep disappointment that was felt when the United States left the “gold bloc,” deepened even further because of the American attitude at the London conference in June where sixty-four nations were participating. The European experts, who had “prepared” it under the auspices of the League of Nations, had proposed a classic internationalist program. The gold standard was to be reestablished, currency exchange controls abolished, and trade tariffs lowered. The French representative, George Bonnet, fought a losing battle. Lined up against him were the United States, England, and Germany. The failure of the conference—which Roosevelt was seeking—became clear when, on June 22, a very modest proposal for the
de facto
stabilization of currencies was swiftly rejected by the American delegation.
¹³⁴
. The only countries to sign on to the wish that “gold be reestablished as the international monetary standard”
¹³⁵
were those of the “gold bloc.”

Jacques Rueff, a great expert and one of the most insightful observers of this period, wrote soon after,
¹³⁶
“The entire world economy fell into deep chaos; in every sector, in every market, in goods and services, in the capital markets and the workforce markets, any stability was destroyed; everywhere, suffering and often despair and ruin revealed the human face of the economic catastrophe that was devastating the entire world.”

As for Paul-Boncour, all he could do was accept economic nationalism. “There is no need to demonstrate the danger of a view that tends to isolate countries and, by abolishing any commonality of interest between them, weakens the very basis of their peaceful relations.”
¹³⁷

*
Roughly equivalent to a Ph.D. degree.

*
Should we trust Germany?

Chapter III

T
HE
B
ARTHOU
E
RA

(1934)

F
rench public opinion in 1933 was less interested in Hitler, the Four Power Pact, the London conference or Franco-Soviet relations than in the crisis and the suffering caused by deflation and the various scandals. Several arrests at the very end of December, including those of the director of the
Crédit municipal
in Bayonne and Deputy Mayor Garat, brought to light a series of irregularities masterminded by an international swindler, Alexander Stavisky, who committed suicide on January 7, 1934. Since the Cartel des Gauches was in power at the time, right-wing politicians and newspapers launched campaigns against corruption. We shall not get into the Stavisky affair but rather measure its consequences. First, the Chautemps cabinet fell on January 27, 1934—and Paul-Boncour left the Quai d’Orsay; this was followed by unrest and a series of riots. The main riot, on February 6, led to Daladier’s resignation after a very short time in office. This was the end of the Cartel des Gauches and the beginning of an era of violent attacks against its leaders: Herriot, Daladier, Chautemps, and even Paul-Boncour (he had been the lawyer of Stavisky’s wife, Arlette Simon, long before her marriage).

Albert Lebrun, president of the republic, thought the solution was to form a government of “national union” with a leader who would be “above all parties, and who through his prestige and authority could bring back unity and internal peace. Mr. Lebrun first thought of Louis Barthou, but everyone agreed on Gaston Doumergue.”

Doumergue had been president of the republic from 1924 to 1931, and had retired to his home in Tournefeuille, near Toulouse. He was preparing to leave on a pleasure trip to Egypt. He accepted, and having been out of touch with parliament, quite naturally looked to his contemporaries and the former prime ministers whom he knew personally.
¹

The new government was in stark contrast to those that had preceded it. For one thing, it contained many elderly men. Barthou was 72, Doumergue was 71 and the minister of war, Marshal Pétain, was 78. As
Le Figaro
put it: the government “raised great hopes and brought great disappointments… It is a raft built on stormy seas and painfully at that. The navigation is—for the most part—in the hands of veterans, men who were young before the war or in 1900. Public opinion had not requested their return.”
²
It didn’t really create national union; the hostility of the communists and the socialists (they staged demonstrations on February 9 and 12) made that clear. It was in fact a massive return of the right. Two state ministers flanked Doumergue—Tardieu for the right and Herriot for the left. This wasn’t the first time Herriot took part in a “union” government. He had done so before with Poincaré in July 1926. The business-oriented right wing with Flandin, Piétri, and Laval and the Catholic Right with Louis Marin were both strongly represented, along with seven radicals.

Still, somewhat unwittingly, Doumergue scored a coup in distributing the ministerial posts when he appointed Louis Barthou to the Quai d’Orsay.

1.

L
OUIS
B
ARTHOU AND
H
IS
P
LANS

As research progresses and more documents in the archives become available, the importance of Barthou’s tenure at the Quai d’Orsay stands out. What is increasingly clear is that, for a brief period, one clearly senses an unmistakable recovery on the path toward decadence. It is even tempting
and rather futile at the same time to speculate over what might have happened had Barthou not been shot on October 9, 1934. His intentions and his plans remain shrouded in mystery. What role did he play personally? What part did ministry officials or even his ministerial cabinet have remains unclear.
³

He was not liked personally and did not attract much sympathy. He had risen from humble origins as an important local leader.
⁴
He was born in Oloron-Sainte-Marie near Pau, on August 25, 1862, the same year as Briand, who was from Nantes. Barthou’s father owned a hardware store and his grandfather had been an elementary school teacher. His family was deeply republican. He was a very good student, became a great admirer of Victor Hugo, Michelet, and Claude Bernard and had anticlerical views. Like many men with political ambitions, he became a lawyer in Pau. “The passion for politics,” he wrote, “is not linked to family tradition; it is a personal calling… Politics is the art of governing; it is the will, the passion to lead. Those who have no taste for it have difficulty acquiring it but those who love it find it even more difficult to give up.”
⁵
At 26 he was elected to the Pau city council and in 1889, at 27, became the for the Oloron area. He remained a deputy until he was elected to the Senate in 1924 and was therefore very much a seasoned member of parliament with a career spanning 46 years! In that sense he resembled Poincaré, who had also been elected at a very young age, rather than Briand, who was first elected at 40. In 1894, when he was only 32, he was appointed to his first cabinet post (as minister of public works). He would hold cabinet appointments seven times before the First World War, and was once Prime Minister, from 1913 to 1914. He was wealthy, having married the daughter of an important merchant. His only son was killed in December 1914 at Thann, a source of endless sorrow.