France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (53 page)

The initial agreed upon principle was to have Great Britain control the nationalist coasts (the Atlantic except Galicia and the Canary Islands) and France (Galicia, Spanish Morocco, and the Island of Majorca); the republican coasts by Germany (between Malaga and Cartagena) and by Italy (from Cartagena to Port-Bou and the Island of Minorca). Both the French navy and the British admiralty were extremely reluctant because it would involve a large number of ships.
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If the exercise was limited to controlling the ports, twenty-five ships would be enough: twelve British, five French, six Italian, and three German.

Finally on February 16, 1937, the Non-Intervention Committee adopted the French proposal for land and sea controls. The agreement on the volunteers was to be enacted on February 20 (the general non-intervention agreement would cover them as well) and the controls were to be in place by March 6.
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François-Poncet noted that there appeared a feeling of lowered tension at that time.
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Actually there were several delays. The naval patrols began on a “limited basis” only as of April 20, meaning with a smaller number of “observers” than originally planned.
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The London Committee meetings before and after that date were mired in useless discussions. It was a well-known fact that Italian “volunteers” were coming in—these were actually fully equipped military units. The Italians denied it or were evasive and the naval patrols would, furthermore, not last. On May 29 two Spanish republican aircraft attacked the German pocket battleship
Deutschland
and twenty-three German sailors were killed. On the same day a German ship bombarded Almeria and Germany announced that it was ending its participation in the controls.
¹³⁰
The work of the Non-Intervention Committee
was suspended. French and British efforts to have it resume its work and “internationalize” naval controls succeeded only in part. The Germans and Italians demanded that Franco be recognized as having “rights as a belligerent.” In the meantime during the course of the summer, Franco occupied the Basque region. It was their condition in principal for a hypothetical withdrawal of the volunteers.

Once Germany returned to the Committee on June 16, a new incident took place on the 19th, a torpedo attack on the German cruiser
Leipzig
. Delbos suggested opening an inquiry.
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But the matter was to be resolved differently. Germany and Italy withdrew from the Non-intervention Committee. Delbos then summoned the German and Italian ambassadors, von Welczeck and Cerruti, announcing that France and Great Britain would continue the controls on their own. The initiative yielded no results.
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At that point there were several attacks by unidentified submarines in the Mediterranean. The Spanish republican government claimed that they were Italian. Naturally, Italy denied it. France and England were well aware that these were acts carried out by Italy and had to pretend not to know. Both agreed to propose a conference to address “piracy in the Mediterranean.”
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France even proposed to return to an older project
¹³⁴
intended to reach a “Mediterranean Pact” that would include Spain, Greece, Great Britain, France, Italy, Yugoslavia and Turkey, and possibly even the countries on the Black Sea, including the USSR. England had rejected it in 1936, opting for a direct agreement with Italy on January 2, 1937;
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Delbos seized upon that lifevest and discussed the possibility at a council of ministers meeting on August 29.
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This time Eden gave a polite and evasive answer; what he really wanted was a meeting of the Mediterranean powers.
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Delbos, along with many countries, agreed but was surprised to see Germany being invited since she was not a Mediterranean country. Germany and Italy refused to go along.

The conference was held at Nyon between Geneva and Lausanne, from September 10 to 17.
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It was very much dedicated to technical issues. It gave Delbos the opportunity to voice all his worries to Eden regarding Italy’s growing influence in Spain. A few naval patrol decisions were reached and since Italy agreed to take part in those patrols, “piracy” ended as if by magic. There was another reprieve and more evidence that French policy, which remained strictly defensive, was successful in more or less avoiding incidents but could not really help the republicans nor seriously slow down Franco.

The policies of Delbos, especially once he no longer had Blum’s energy backing him, no doubt avoided violent catastrophes because Hitler took no brutal initiatives in 1937. However, there were a series of near failures. We have seen it in Spain. Many other initiatives also failed, such as the attempt to reinforce the Little Entente—the alliance of three pro-French countries directed against Hungary. Why not have a French alliance with the Little Entente but this time directed against Germany? The idea was discussed throughout the end of 1936. The Czechoslovaks were favorable;
¹³⁹
the Romanians somewhat less so. The Yugoslavs under Prince Paul’s authoritarian regime, as regent with Prime Minister Stoyadinovich, refused to go along and were attracted to a rapprochement with Bulgaria.
¹⁴⁰

It was also possible to combine the alliance documents of the three countries and France along the same lines as the Franco-Polish treaty. It was a proposal coming from Victor Antonescu, the Romanian foreign minister who had replaced the pro-French Titulescu on August 29. The directorate of political affairs opposed the idea because it “would not bring about any progress.”
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Was it wise in general to forge new ties with those Eastern allies? The directorate of political affairs remained unconvinced and once again successfully persuaded Delbos.
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Furthermore, the British were not too keen on the idea that France would be extending its obligations.
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The project was shelved in March 1937.

The project to bring Czechoslovakia and Poland closer together, both being allied to France, looked better. But it was like fitting a square peg in a round hole. Colonel Beck’s Poland kept on “flirting” with Germany, and the Rambouillet agreements of September 1936 were an important milestone, promising Poland 2 billion francs over four years for military purchases.

The origins of the agreement are worth noting. When Delbos summoned Ambassador Léon Noël at the beginning of June, he also met with Blum and Daladier. All three ministers were in favor of maintaining the Polish alliance. Contrary to Colonel Beck, who was hated by the entire French left, it was known that General Rydz-Smigly was a Francophile. A decision was reached to confirm an invitation to the general to visit France and discuss the funding issue. Léon Noël succeeded in convincing Delbos to set the elimination of Colonel Beck as a precondition. Delbos wanted to orchestrate the move himself. The plot failed because
of a trip Gamelin took to Poland from August 12 to 16, much to the ambassador’s regret. Gamelin appeared to be taking the first step, when the Poles were actually the ones seeking help. Beck became suspicious and replaced Chlapowski, who was pro-French, with one of his personal friends, Julius Lukasziewicz. The negotiation took place without Noël and Delbos did not dare ask that Beck be replaced.
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Was it because of clumsiness or had some ministers changed their minds? The matter remains unresolved.

The USSR disliked the Rambouillet agreement. It wished to complete the Franco-Soviet Pact to include a military agreement. However, the initiatives of Ambassador Potemkin and the military contacts and meetings between Delbos and Litvinov failed to produce any results. Violent anti-communism in France and the fear of losing the smaller allies in the East proved stronger. Franco-Soviet relations deteriorated. The purge of the army and the execution of Marshal Tukhachevsky (May—June 1937) put an end to any serious negotiations.
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By the end of 1937 Delbos, who much preferred his trips to Périgord to any long distance travel, nevertheless decided to follow in Barthou’s footsteps and visit the allies. His friend André Ganem, a top official at the League of Nations, gave him the idea.
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It was to be his swan song. The decision was reached in November. Chautemps and Delbos traveled to London, then Delbos left on December 2 on a three-week “friendship tour.”
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He passed through Berlin where von Neurath came to pay his respects on board his train. Warsaw was the first stop where he met with Rydz-Smigly and Beck. Contrary to Léon Noël’s recommendations, he avoided discussing the hot topic of Polish-Czechoslovak relations.
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From Warsaw he went to Bucharest on December 8 where he met with King Carol, Prime Minister Tatarescu and Foreign Minister Antonescu. Belgrade was the next stop on December 12 where the crowd cheered him. Warm words of little consequence were exchanged but no conclusion was reached. The trip ended with a visit to the “true friends,” the Czechoslovaks (December 14). Delbos mentioned the German-speaking population of the Sudetenland and advised making some concessions. “The visit was a complete success,” said Beneš. Delbos returned to Paris on December 19 but it was impossible to assess whether his trip had truly been productive or not.

In 1936–1937 France also signed treaties giving independence to Syria and Lebanon. However, those agreements were not ratified by Parliament.
They were part of what were “unequal” politics rather than foreign affairs. One consequence of those decisions was that Turkey made demands over the Sandjak of Alexandretta in the Hatay region of northern Syria. The area was given a new status on January 27, 1937; we shall revisit the ramifications of those events further ahead.
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It was on July 26, 1937 that Japan—which had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany in November 1936—began its war against China while France, whose interests were at great risk, was unable to take any kind of action.

Chapter XI

T
HE
Y
EAR OF
M
UNICH

1.

T
HE
M
ARCH
1938 C
RISIS

T
he months preceding the Anschluss of March 11–12, 1938, may be viewed as one of the most passive moments in French foreign policy. The diplomats saw what was happening and were carefully describing every event with very few details escaping their analysis. However, the government leaders were powerless to control events.

Some decisions were obviously kept secret. On November 5, 1937, when Hitler announced to his closest staff and his generals that it was his intention to quickly settle accounts with Austria and Czechoslovakia,
¹
François-Poncet was informed of that meeting. He sent a telegram on November 6, commenting, “it is difficult to find out what the topics of that meeting were.” Perhaps issues relating to raw materials? “But it still is surprising that so many high-ranking officers were summoned to the chancellery to discuss only that.”
²

On November 6 Ribbentrop was in Rome for the ceremony of Italy’s joining the Anti-Comintern Pact. Blondel,
³
the French chargé d’affaires in Rome, François-Poncet,
⁴
and Charles Corbin,
⁵
the ambassador to London, all commented on the event. They did not know the key comment
Mussolini made to the Nazi leader regarding Austria. Hitler was able to infer that Mussolini no longer had an interest in Austria and immediately concluded that the Anschluss could now have priority.

French diplomacy, on the other hand, had been worried about a possible Anschluss since 1934 and saw the unstoppable start of the chain of events leading to it. The minister to Vienna, Gabriel Puaux, noted as early as January 25, 1937, that he was getting “alarming information indicating that Austro-German relations have cooled considerably in last few weeks.” Which method would they use? A Nazi uprising? An instigated incident? Would the Austro-German agreement of July 11, 1936, be cancelled? An ultimatum?
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Something, in any case, was in the works and François-Poncet felt the same way.
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The next step took place when Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg was summoned to Berchtesgaden on February 12, 1938. French diplomats knew of that move in advance.
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The result was that the Nazi Arthur Seyss-Inquart became the minister of the interior in the Austrian cabinet. Questions were intensely being asked about what had been discussed, and about the meaning of the initiative that was the cause of renewed anxiety. The meeting had been “more adversarial than it was previously thought” with Hitler making ominous threats of military intervention.
⁹

The only French attempt to stop the unfolding crisis took place at that time. The second Chautemps cabinet now in power was weak and lacking any kind of prestige. Yvon Delbos was in his final weeks at the Quai d’Orsay and looked “wiped out” after a year and a half of non-intervention in Spain. He was also undergoing extremely violent attacks by the communists.
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“How can we get involved in a dispute between a country of 70 million and one of 7 million when all the cannons are on the other side?” was his purported comment to newsmen.
¹¹

Yet on February 17 Delbos made a proposal to the British for a joint initiative in Berlin that was to be stronger than the vague steps taken by François-Poncet and British Ambassador Nevile Henderson to Ribbentrop.
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In a conversation with Sir Eric Phipps and in a telegram to Corbin, Delbos noted that “the Führer is counting on our passivity.” He proposed, as Schuschnigg had requested, a “preferably joint and in any case coordinated” initiative, whereby both democracies would reaffirm “that in general any action tending to redraw the territorial status quo in central Europe would be resolutely opposed by the western powers.” A financial and economic rapprochement of the countries along the Danube would be examined with Vienna and Prague as well.
¹³