France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (21 page)

The rhetoric changed only in July once the Eastern pact project was made public. Gabriel Péri presented it as a “Soviet Government initiative.”
¹¹⁹
By July 18 the matter became clear and Gabriel Péri had to take a position. “Here is the objection: Doesn’t the pact bring back the policy of alliances? Doesn’t it imply a military alliance between the USSR and France? Answer: An alliance is an agreement between some powers aimed
at others. The Eastern pact is aimed at no one else.”
¹²⁰
We notice that the Communist Party had to explain why, having condemned alliances and the encirclement of Germany for fifteen years, it was suddenly backing the idea of a pact that Litvinov himself, just like Barthou, wanted to turn into an alliance.

L’Humanité
, however, did not linger on such a dangerous topic. It chose rather to “drown” the Franco-Soviet pact project into the ideas closer to the wishes of its readership: the entrance of the USSR into the League of Nations
¹²¹
and the non-aggression pacts.
L’Humanité
was virtually the only French daily in September 1934 to avoid mentioning anything regarding a possible alliance between the two countries. Gabriel Péri made a show of believing that Barthou’s policy of seeking alliances was “inspired by that sinister figure, the late” and was exclusively aimed at Italy.
¹²²
We can illustrate this uncomfortable position by quoting two articles by Gabriel Péri published after Barthou’s death.

We don’t forget—he wrote on October 11
¹²³
—that Louis Barthou had been for years the implacable enemy of the working class and that he was the one who, acting for Poincaré at the Genoa conference, gave insulting answers to Tchicherin’s peaceful proposals. It is a fact that at the time of his demise, Louis Barthou—by force of circumstance—thanks to the increased power of the proletarian state had lent his name to a policy of peaceful relations with the Soviet Union.

It is noteworthy that the word alliance was not used.

On October 14
¹²⁴
he once again circumvented reality. “Obviously the two policies, the French and the Soviet, were not identical; obviously they responded to different issues; one uses the old alliance system as its model while the other tried to apply the principle of non-aggression to international relations. But in the end they both reach a result that is positive for peace.”

By now it was clear that both the USSR and France were trying to reach an alliance and the formula of “non-aggression” appeared to be totally inappropriate.

       
2.
    
The pacifist left that favored collective security

While they were deeply split on internal policy, the socialists and radicals were united until the spring of 1934 on the main issues of foreign policy. Barthou’s program, as it began taking shape in July, started creating some uneasiness.

In July 1934 the socialists accepted the principle of “unity of action” with the communists, which was one of the origins of the Popular Front. The radicals were still far removed from such an alliance but, strangely enough, they drew much closer to communist positions in foreign policy than to the SFIO.

As early as July 13, 1934,
¹²⁵
Léon Blum published an important article in
Le Populaire
entitled “National defense against fascism.” He stated that, contrary to what Maurice Thorez was saying, the Communist Party had made deep policy changes, and he attributed that about-face to “instructions coming from Moscow.” This meant a bilateral understanding between France and the Soviets in foreign policy. As a firm believer in collective security, Léon Blum rejected the possibility that such a rapprochement could lead to an alliance. “Messrs. Doumergue and Barthou are obviously attempting to give the Franco-Soviet rapprochement the same shape as the pre-war Franco-Russian alliance. The Socialist Party must clearly and openly declare that it will fight on this issue as on all the other issues, against the government of the
Bloc National
. It remains opposed to closed pacts that divide Europe into antagonistic clans; it remains opposed to military alliances that accelerate the armaments race.”

The socialist position was both closer to its own ideas and less realistic than that of the communists who, having attacked the
Bloc National
rather harshly, reduced their criticism on only one issue: the transformation of the Eastern pact into a bilateral mutual assistance treaty. This doesn’t mean that the SFIO was not pleased by the USSR’s entry into the League of Nations, nor accused the right and in particular “the newspaper of Mr. Bunau-Panama” (meaning Bunau-Varilla’s
Le Matin
) of opposing it.
¹²⁶
Then in September the SFIO newspaper was oddly silent regarding those issues; only a “party bulletin” by Léon Ogromski expressed satisfaction with the USSR’s entry into the League of Nations because it favored non-aggression pacts. Not one word was said about a possible military alliance.

The radicals accepted the idea of a real alliance much more easily. However, they had two different approaches: that of Herriot who backed
all types of rapprochement including an alliance, and he told the radicals in Lyon how pleased he was to see the USSR become a member of the League.
¹²⁷
The Radical-Socialist Party even issued a proclamation expressing its satisfaction.
¹²⁸
But this group very quickly viewed the alliance the same way the “right-wing realists” did, as we shall see further ahead.

We may sum up this position by quoting an editorial in
L’Homme Libre
.
¹²⁹
“Rejected from the Berlin orbit by Hitler’s political brutality, Russia naturally turned to Paris…We think it would be a considerable mistake to reject such advances. Because whatever we may think or do, Russia is a great power whose reach, in the event of conflict, could weigh heavily on the outcome of the fighting.”

There was, however, another group centered around Paul-Boncour, the League of Nations man who would readily follow the same line as Léon Blum. In July
L’Œuvre
published articles by Paul-Boncour
¹³⁰
and Pierre Cot that were rather hostile to Barthou’s policies. “Mr. Barthou,” wrote Pierre Cot,
¹³¹
first wants to sign regional pacts before he negotiates a general armaments reduction.” Other writers in
L’Œuvre
, for example, Jacques Duboin and Henry de Jouvenel;
¹³²
however, embraced the idea of an alliance somewhat earlier. Geneviève Tabouis, who appeared to be very well informed on that issue, wrote as early as September 4
¹³³
that Germany and Poland in all probability would turn down the Eastern pact. She inferred that France and the USSR would be left alone facing each other. “Even though it may be too early to discuss, could not the shape of this commitment be the simple assurance of mutual assistance in case of a German attack either to the East or to the West?” She advised to take this path because there could be a danger if Russia “tires of waiting for political cooperation with Europe that she has been requesting for the past year and falls back on the system of the Treaty of Rapallo.” According to her, such a strong tendency did exist among the Russian military.

Those reasons were only partly convincing to Paul-Boncour. He expressed his satisfaction that the USSR was entering the League of Nations as “the only ray of light on a pretty dark horizon.” A few days later, in an article entitled “A la recherché du temps perdu,” he was self-congratulatory regarding the Franco-Soviet rapprochement that he had recommended to Herriot as early as 1922. He said he was in favor of a mutual assistance pact without stating if it should be collective or bilateral.
¹³⁴

       
3.
    
The realistic right

A large segment of the right, while bitterly critical of the Soviet regime, was also very much aware of the Nazi threat and therefore was ready to favor a rapprochement, even an alliance, with the USSR. Furthermore, the thought of an alliance, which was so distasteful to the left-wing parties was, on the contrary, accepted by the right, which viewed it as a return to tradition. The right had always been skeptical of, or even hostile to, the League of Nations and considered the disarmament conference to be a fraud. An editorial in
Le Figaro
, published soon after the negotiations on disarmament broke down and during Barthou’s trip to Warsaw,
¹³⁵
was entitled “The Return to the Alliances.” “Mr. Barthou’s trip to Warsaw is more than a visit by a cabinet minister, it’s the reversal of one policy and its replacement with another. It’s the defeat of an ideology and the vengeance of realism. As a Polish newspaper writes, France is giving up the clouds to let itself be guided by the facts. France is rebuilding its diplomacy on the basis of traditional alliances.”

This position, which was very close to that of Barthou, became somewhat hesitant when the intended ally was the USSR. Which attitude would prevail, mistrust of the regime or the growing respect for the increased power of the Red Army? General Niessel, who would certainly not qualify as being pro-Russian,
¹³⁶
wrote in regard to the Soviet air force mission visiting France in August 1934 that the USSR’s air force had made “considerable progress.”
¹³⁷
In the daily
Le Petit Journal
,
¹³⁸
Edouard Pleiffer went even further in his praise: “Any anti-communist Frenchman who visits the USSR returns with positive things to say regarding the already vast achievements of the Soviets; he also comes back convinced that the Russian people are emerging surprisingly quickly and shall play a growing role in European affairs.”

Finally, this realistic right was very responsive to the following point: if we don’t reach an agreement with the USSR, she will reach one with Germany, a thought that haunted Barthou as we have previously noted. We must also quote a prophetic article by Vladimir d’Ormesson in
Le Figaro
:
¹³⁹
“It is certainly desirable in Europe’s present condition to prevent the leaders of the Reichswehr looking to the USSR as a factory, a training ground, and a reserve. Without a doubt, for the Reichswehr Russia remains the master card that National Socialism has lost and that it must absolutely retrieve in order to start a war in Europe once zero hour approaches.”

Le Figaro
, where a Dr. A. Legendre periodically published articles that were violently hostile to the USSR,
¹⁴⁰
did not follow that line of thought to the end. A rapprochement, yes; entrance of the USSR into the League of Nations, certainly; Eastern pact, perhaps.
¹⁴¹
But no alliance. On the one hand, “there is the weight of a mass of 160 million people with a well-equipped army that everyone agrees has become one of Europe’s best,” and the fact that “the country was recapturing in Europe the diplomatic position it had occupied in the past.”
¹⁴²

But on the other hand, the system changed when Germany refused to join the Eastern pact. “Such a pact would then take on the unmistakable appearance of a Franco-Soviet alliance pure and simple and
we shall say so clearly, we want no part of a Franco-Soviet alliance
. We don’t want it for one thousand reasons, the first one being that it would be immoral and scandalous, the second that it would be illusory and the third that it would be fraught with dangers to us.”
¹⁴³

In the face of
Le Figaro
’s rejection,
L’Écho de Paris
, whose readership was entirely middle class, accepted, on the contrary, not just the rapprochement but also the alliance. Pertinax was the backer of the rapprochement, and he wanted it to become a real alliance.
¹⁴⁴

L’Écho de Paris
had a very interesting position. Pertinax (who was on holiday from August 8 to September 13, 1934) seemed to be particularly well informed and was haunted by the thought of a new Rapallo.
¹⁴⁵
He was constantly supporting a mutual assistance pact,
¹⁴⁶
and felt that the advantages of a rapprochement outweighed the disadvantages. “We shall not deny that French diplomacy has engaged in a rather shocking enterprise. Russia’s communist and dictatorial institutions, its terrorism, are as far removed as they can be from the political ideals that our people cherish. But for now Russia is extremely fearful of Hitler’s Germany. The French government felt it had to take the opportunity to link Russia to our side and prevent it from placing its resources at the disposal of the Reichswehr in potential war.”
¹⁴⁷

The team at
L’Écho de Paris
also included Henri de Kérillis, a great supporter of the rapprochement who was traveling in the USSR at the time.
¹⁴⁸
The arrival of Russian flyers in Paris was announced on the front page of the newspaper with pictures and laudatory comments.
¹⁴⁹

Similar positions were taken by
L’Ordre
(Émile Buré), by
Le Petit Parisien
(Georges Bonnet) and, naturally, by
Le Temps
which, as usual, was marching in step with the Quai d’Orsay.

       
4.
    
The right-wing die-hards

Some right-wing large circulation dailies that were tied to financial interests such as
Le Journal
and
Le Matin
were always very much opposed to any improvement in relations with the USSR and even to its being admitted to the League of Nations. The position of
Le Matin
was quite typical, underlining the fact that “the USSR was not just another country” and that it “couldn’t be anyone’s friend or ally since any conflict was viewed as an opportunity to bring about revolution and the destruction of civilization.”
¹⁵⁰
“The Soviets are flirting with us and at the same time they undermine us,” wrote Philippe Barrès.
¹⁵¹
Short unsigned editorials in larger print were constantly attacking the USSR.
¹⁵²
The idea of the “Trojan horse” was used by Edmond Laskine, a university academic.
¹⁵³