France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (23 page)

The requests made by Barthou were all negotiated without too many problems in the short term, except for the tearing down of the “loading docks.” The most noteworthy of those negotiations concerned Germany’s
repurchase of the mines of the Saar. The responsibility fell to the Committee of Three, which began in November by calling in French and German experts to Basel, then to Rome and finally to Naples. The French and the Germans chose November 22 to discuss matters directly.
²⁰
The French delegation was chaired by Jacques Rueff, the deputy director of the
Mouvement général des fonds
, along with senior treasury official Robert Lacour-Gayet representing the Bank of France and Jacques Fouques-Duparc representing the Quai d’Orsay. One of Jacques Rueff’s young deputies was treasury official Maurice Couve de Murville.
²¹

The German experts offered a one-time price of 900 million francs. Since the French franc was being used in the Saar, once reannexation took place those denominations in francs were to be exchanged for Reich marks. Germany would pay back 95% of the 900 million with the francs they took in.
²²
The French, who were justifiably skeptical about securing such an amount in French banknotes (it finally came to 175 million francs!), requested and obtained that the balance be paid either in certain rights on the mines in the Warndt—a portion of the southern Saar territory—and in additional coal deliveries.
²³
Agreements in principle were signed in Rome on December 3, 1934, and Rueff commented that these were “followed by Germany and fulfilled quite precisely.” After the plebiscite, the negotiation continued regarding its practical implementation, ending in an agreement signed in Naples on February 18, 1935.
²⁴

Even though Franco-German relations in the short term appeared to be taking a positive turn,
²⁵
the main issues remained unresolved. It was a well-known fact that Germany was rearming to the maximum. By the end of November the Quai d’Orsay estimated that its army had reached 300,000 men. Germany was building airstrips, training pilots and pulling ahead of France in commercial aviation. Military expenditures were increasing.
²⁶
On January 31 François-Poncet estimated that Germany had increased its demands and was taking a harder line regarding the armaments issue. In particular, it was refusing to let France retain a “margin of security.” The Reich, he added, “was going beyond the limits it had assigned itself that were justified by honor and security. I hope the British government knows what to expect and harbors no illusions on that issue.”
²⁷
“The Reich can rely on the understanding, conciliatory and mediating attitude of Great Britain.”
²⁸
And he feared that Hitler could succeed in splitting the fragile front of France and England.

On February 4 Hitler’s hardened stance became obvious. François-Poncet and British Ambassador Phipps presented him with a document
regarding disarmament and, in particular, the draft of an air force agreement that had been prepared during a Franco-British meeting in London from February 1 to 3.
²⁹
Hitler was “well disposed” to receive the document but then went into a long disquisition, complaining that he was always being accused of having ulterior motives, that France was wrong in failing to appreciate the “scope” and “merit” of his concession on Alsace-Lorraine, that he wasn’t reexamining the issue of the demilitarized zone but that, should Germany be provoked, she would have no problem in deciding one day to free herself from it.”
³⁰

François-Poncet worried even more on February 6, 1935 when a “reliable” source provided him with the minutes of a meeting between Hitler and a former deputy of Ludendoff on January 9, where he was reported to have said:

We Germans are a people who need space to maneuver…Russia is our new space and we shall therefore perform a great service for the entire world by freeing it from the menace of a particularly Jewish form of Bolshevism. It is in accomplishing that task that I shall truly become immortal.

He also counted on the collaboration of Japan and Hungary and perhaps Romania. He felt very antagonistic towards Poland and thought that Czechoslovakia was an “abscess in Central Europe.”
³¹

It was in such a worrisome atmosphere that Great Britain published a
White Book
on March 5, announcing a substantial rearmament. At the same time the French government introduced a bill reestablishing conscription for two years in order to make up for the shortfalls of the “low birth-rate classes.” It was the excuse that Hitler needed. The press began a violent campaign against the “enormous armaments” of countries other than Germany.
³²
Göring openly stated that the “air force pact” that the British were proposing was the opportunity for him to create a specifically military air force.
³³

Then there was an announcement that the Führer wasn’t feeling well. The French Parliament had voted on the two-year rule on March 15. Hitler returned from Berchtesgaden on the 16th, summoned François-Poncet and told him that he had just approved a law reestablishing compulsory conscription, increasing German forces to 36 divisions. It was all at once a unilateral violation of the Versailles treaty, the official announcement of an intense rearmament that had been going on for several years,
which everyone could see, and the threatening promise of continued German military efforts way beyond what was inferred by the desire for peace and equilibrium. François-Poncet issued a strong protest and would have preferred to be recalled to Paris. Laval didn’t dare go that far and the British, always seeking to be accommodating, decided to confirm a trip to Berlin that had been planned for several weeks by Sir John Simon and Anthony Eden (March 25). In truth, both British politicians had been in Paris on the 23rd, where they met with Laval and Italian undersecretary of state Fulvio Suvich and had agreed in principle to a French-British-Italian meeting at Stresa.

Clearly, Laval’s policy of seeking good relations with Germany by leaving the Saar had failed.

There was clearly only one way to divert Hitler’s attention from his idea of France as the “hereditary enemy” and that was to give him a free hand in the east. He attempted to secure that concession between 1933 and 1935 and again in December 1938, but did not succeed.
³⁴

2.

A S
MALL
S
TEP
T
OWARDS
I
TALY

Laval certainly felt much more sympathy towards Italy than Germany. After all, he and Mussolini were “men of the people.” The son of a small artisan from Predappio in Romagna and the son of a little innkeeper from Châteldon in the Auvergne, each one being the owner of a few plots of land, both belonged to precisely the same social class that was almost part of the peasantry. Both liked and claimed to know farming and cattle breeding. What’s more, they both had been extremist socialists who had converted to the right wing. If Mussolini’s right had taken the shape of fascism and Laval remained outwardly democratic, then this could be attributed to circumstance rather than their personal disposition. Laval, as we know, did not shy away from absolute power, while he obviously did not possess the Italian’s eloquence. But there were—said Léon Noël—between them

many common characteristics—starting with, it must be stated, a certain kind of vulgarity that didn’t draw either one toward things that were distinguished, elegant or refined. I don’t doubt that it tended
to foster in both men a distaste for the country of Lords, social prejudice, gentlemen and traditional British monarchy.
³⁵

Since 1931 they had both been thinking of a Franco-Italian rapprochement. As of October 1934 Laval had inherited one of Barthou’s projects to travel to Rome with the intent to go beyond friendship and perhaps enter into an alliance. The Laval trip to Rome was discussed in the fall of 1934, along with the kind of agreement that could be reached.
³⁶
Barthou wanted to go around November. His death, together with the King of Yugoslavia, was the work of Croat Ustashis. It quickly became clear that Italy would refuse to extradite them, especially their leaders, Ante Pavelic and Kvaternik.
³⁷
This didn’t help speed things up.

Laval let it be known that he would go to Rome on condition he could reach a general agreement whereby Italy would declare its intention to establish good relations with Yugoslavia and that the Yugoslav government would accept.
³⁸

At the end of 1934 everything confirmed that. “The Italian government is interested in one thing alone, to reach an agreement with France going beyond an understanding on specific points and that would have the value of a real alliance.”
³⁹
Italy offered to agree with France in case Germany “declared its freedom of action where armaments were concerned.”
⁴⁰
Preliminary negotiations were moving ahead quickly and on December 1, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs Fulvio Suvich proposed December 20 for Laval’s trip.
⁴¹

Beyond those “external” conditions, Ambassador de Chambrun negotiated with Mussolini and Suvich in Rome what was at the core of the issue. Since the Treaty of London of 1915, France had not kept its promise to give Italy some colonial territories. Now she was ready to hand over 113,000 square kilometers in southern Libya and 800 square kilometers near Djibuti. Mussolini felt this rather thin. France wanted to end the constraints created by the 1898 agreement on the special status of the Italians in Tunisia. Mussolini was already thinking about the conquest of Ethiopia and wanted, at the very least, to secure France’s economic disinterest in that country.

France dropped the idea of seeking an Italian guarantee for its Yugoslav ally, which immediately worried Belgrade,
⁴²
and agreed to not include the Little Entente in the agreement. Mussolini made concessions on the colonial territories since he wanted to reach an agreement. French Ambassador de Chambrun was in a hurry to conclude and kept on pressuring
the more reticent Quai d’Orsay to be more flexible. The agreement and the decision to set the dates of the trip to Rome was generated by France’s anti-Ethiopian stance following the recommendation of Bodard, the minister to Ethiopia, after the incident at Ual-Ual (December 5, 1934) where some Italian soldiers were killed.
⁴³

Laval went to Rome on January 4. His conversations with Mussolini took place on January 5 and 6. It was a lavish welcome. Besides the Duce, Laval also met with King Victor Emmanuel III and Pope Pius XI. The substance of those discussions is in part included in the eight agreements signed on January 7 and in the mystery surrounding the private conversation that took place between Laval and Mussolini.
⁴⁴

The main agreements concerned:

1. French territorial concessions: 800 square kilometers of the French Somalia; 114,000 square kilometers in southern Libya near the Tibesti mountains;

2. France’s
economic
retreat from Ethiopia in regions beyond the hinterland of French Somalia and the French railroad from Djibuti to Addis Ababa. Private French interests beyond those areas were to remain and the Italians would obtain seats on the board of directors of the railway;

3. Concerning the status of Italians in Tunisia, a detailed agreement was to be based on the principle of the progressive end to their special status over a thirty-year period;

4. Regarding the independence of Austria, a declaration would launch the idea of a collective non-aggression pact among the countries on its borders; and

5. Concerning the issue of making German rearmament official, the two countries pledged mutual consultations should this come to pass.

There was to be a complete secrecy regarding the protocol on French economic interests in Ethiopia.
⁴⁵

The issue of the Laval-Mussolini conversations is particularly important. At the end of 1935, in the midst of the Ethiopian war, Mussolini stated that in Rome Laval had given him a free hand to conquer Ethiopia
politically
. Laval protested and wrote him a letter, saying that he agreed to French
economic
disinterest except for the areas mentioned above. Mussolini answered by reiterating his point of view.
⁴⁶

Since neither of the two men was completely trustworthy and their talks took place without any witnesses, it is very difficult to come to a satisfactory conclusion. There are no other clues. Nothing within the
Quai d’Orsay’s files mentions that Pierre Laval hinted that he would accept the Italian conquest of Ethiopia. If he did, he failed to share it confidentially with anyone else.
⁴⁷
It is possible that a misunderstanding did take place. Mussolini knew the French language well for having taught it, but he could have been misled by some ambiguous expression or even a gesture. The “external” examination, meaning what we know about the way Laval conducted himself, seems to warrant that he was not given to such clear-cut and broad statements and that Mussolini was the originator of the myth.

Whatever the interpretations of the Laval-Mussolini conversations could be, it was clear that, following the Rome meetings the Duce forged ahead toward closer relations with France. Decisive proof may be found in the correspondence of the military attaché in Rome, General Parisot. On the evening of January 11, 1935 he received a phone call from Marshal Badoglio, requesting that he come to his office the following morning. Badoglio said that he was “worried by the thought that the general staffs of both countries could be caught unprepared for the possible fulfillment of the political agreements that had just been signed regarding Austria.” The agreement stated that, in the event of a threat to the independence and integrity of Austria, the two countries would consult each other. In other words Badoglio wished to begin military conversations. “It seems to me that the answer to that question belongs to the government,” was Parisot’s answer. He requested, in the event of a positive French answer, to be in contact with the General Staff.
⁴⁸
We should remember that it was at that precise moment that Gamelin took over from Weygand as the head of the French army.