France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (66 page)

Georges Bonnet, still following the “English line,” wanted to take advantage in order to develop “Franco-British solidarity in the event of a German threat toward the West.” The Netherlands was not included in the Locarno stipulations that had been restated on March 19, 1936. The same was true regarding an Italian attack on France. Corbin was therefore instructed to see Halifax and ask him to view western security as a “single issue” so that “the solidarity of England and France” would be “assured in any event.”
¹⁵⁴
Corbin discussed the issue with Halifax and Cadogan on February 4.
¹⁵⁵
The result was not long in coming and lifted many doubts and ambiguous phrases from the minds of the French. On February 6, 1939, in the House of Commons, Chamberlain made the following statement, “I find it necessary to clearly state that
the solidarity of interests that unites France and England is such that any threat directed against France’s vital interests wherever it may come from must trigger Great Britain’s immediate cooperation
.”
¹⁵⁶
[Emphasis added.]

An official British note dated February 13 confirmed that solidarity, expressing the wish to see military discussions begin quickly.
¹⁵⁷

In the end the threat disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. It was a great comfort to French policy and secretly a relief to the Belgians. The French minister in The Hague, Vitrolles, met his Belgian counterpart Baron Herry, who did not hide “his satisfaction at being temporarily sheltered from German thunder.”
¹⁵⁸
Those rumors, Weizsäcker told Coulondre on February 28, “were not just absurd, they were also malevolent.”
¹⁵⁹

5.

R
OMANIA OR
C
ZECHOSLOVAKIA
?

More than the British, the French believed that the threat was aimed at Romania. The idea had serious merit when one considered that there was a German minority of 800,000 in that oil- and grain-producing country, which was obviously of economic interest to Germany. The situation
was reversed compared to Czechoslovakia, where the German “colonists” were scattered in many towns of Transylvania and, above all, there was no common border between Romania and Germany. An alliance with Hungary was required if Germany intended to target Romania for its next coup.

Adrien Thierry, French minister to Romania, was not worried in the short term.
¹⁶⁰
The French government, however, may have been influenced by the confidence displayed by one of its informers, Colonel, and later General, Didelet, who had replaced General Renondeau as military attaché in Berlin on October 25, 1938. Didelet was dogmatic, sure of himself, and very influential. General Gauché, head of the
Deuxième Bureau
attributes the “damaging” idea of the “German bluff” to him, meaning that a general war would have been impossible in 1939. Didelet’s point, which was persistently rejected by the
Deuxième Bureau
, was that the German army would not be able to use its full potential before 1942; Hitler would therefore not make the mistake of starting a general war before that date.
¹⁶¹
Gauché added that Didelet having been politely warned by the army chief of staff, admitted to having been too adamant. We are not told, however, the date when this took place.

As early as December 12, 1938, in an important dispatch from Didelet to Daladier,
¹⁶²
Didelet put forth his view of insufficient German preparation. He was well aware of an element that the Hitler specialists knew well: “The Führer wanted to accomplish the gigantic task he had assigned to himself while he was alive and…he was feeling pressed for time.” However, “Germany does not have the artillery required for an offensive on the Western front at this time.” Therefore the East-West dilemma was clear to him—Germany could only attack to the East. Didelet identified only three possible directions on November 12: Poland, Romania or the Russian Ukraine. In a letter to Daladier dated December 19, Gamelin mentioned Didelet’s
¹⁶³
“very remarkable report” which proved that his information was getting attention.

As a good information analyst, Didelet tried to focus on the most likely of the three potential targets. On January 10 he had identified it. The most threatened country was Romania. There were actually some signs of a German mobilization and that something might happen in March. But not in the West. “I continue to believe that Germany will not be ready either militarily, economically or from a moral point of view to risk a world war in 1939.”
¹⁶⁴

Once Germany occupied Bohemia and Moravia as well as Memel, Didelet kept it up with supreme confidence. “Logically the German drive should point to the south of the Carpathian Mountains. If Germany attacked Poland now it would be a mistake.”
¹⁶⁵
“I find,” he said, “two main reasons: 1. Mr. Hitler is not crazy; 2. He still does not have the capabilities to risk a general war.”
¹⁶⁶
Faced with such self-confidence, Ambassador Robert Coulondre, who was not as keen as his predecessor François-Poncet, displayed a lot of common sense. He was the first one early on to clearly draw attention to Czechoslovakia.
¹⁶⁷

A formal “guarantee” of that country’s borders did exist, dating back to Munich as expressed by England and France. When Ribbentrop visited Paris, Bonnet asked him about a German guarantee. According to the German report, Ribbentrop answered that “everything will depend on relations between Germany and Czechoslovakia… Bonnet only stated that in the final analysis, France had decided to offer guarantees mostly under the pressure of events… Bonnet didn’t delve deeper into the issue.”
¹⁶⁸
The French report did not go any further either.
¹⁶⁹
France, therefore, forgot that side of the issue, preferring to note the “pro-German” orientation of the new Czechoslovak leaders, Hacha, Beran, and Chvalkowsky. What was taking place was “the forced integration of Czechoslovakia into the German economic structure.”
¹⁷⁰
When, prior to Ribbentrop’s trip to Paris, Lacroix met with Minister of Foreign Affairs Chvalkowsky the latter expressed his wish “to know the shape and extent that those governments intended to give to the international guarantee of the new borders of the Czechoslovak state.” The only possible answer was that those discussions were ongoing.
¹⁷¹

France and England were naturally thinking of providing economic assistance to that unfortunate country. But as Lacroix noted, it “would not prevent the growing dependence of Czechoslovakia on Germany.”
¹⁷²
British plans included providing 12 million pounds sterling to Czechoslovakia as a British gift of 4 million and a loan jointly guaranteed by France and England of 8 million.
¹⁷³
Georges Bonnet would agree to it,
¹⁷⁴
but Paul Reynaud was not too favorable. “I can only continue to think that on a purely financial level, it would be impossible to justify since Czechoslovakia was sliding toward an ever closer economic domination by Germany, to agree to an additional effort on its behalf.”
¹⁷⁵

On December 15, 1938, Coulondre therefore said that one of the obvious objectives of German policy was to “vassalize” Czechoslovakia.
¹⁷⁶

On February 8 one of his staff members found out during a conversation with “an important member of Hitler’s entourage” that the “decomposition” (
Auflösung
) of the Czechoslovak state was expected to take place.
¹⁷⁷
On February 16 “some of the Führer’s advisers, feeling that dissolution was inevitable, would even go as far as recommending that the Reich would accelerate the process.” Germany’s influence was to be limited to Bohemia and Moravia.
¹⁷⁸
In any event, the conditions Germany would require for a guarantee of the Czechoslovak borders would be such as to lead to its complete vassalization.
¹⁷⁹
On February 26 Coulondre stated, always basing himself on serious sources, that Hitler “will complete…the vassalization of Czechoslovakia and would eventually erase Czechia from the map.”
¹⁸⁰
Once the unity of the German people, the Volkstum, had been achieved, the time would come to attack other peoples to acquire “living space.”
¹⁸¹

Hitler’s conquest of Bohemia and Moravia on March 15—the details of which we shall not examine here—did not take place with the sudden brutality of the coups of March 1936 and March 1938. Only Neville Chamberlain displayed a rather unjustified optimism to the end.
¹⁸²
As of March 11 the chargé d’affaires in Berlin, Montbas, announced that “the conflict between Czechs and Slovaks was suddenly taking a worrisome turn.”
¹⁸³
On the 12th he reported that troops were on the march toward the Czech border but he didn’t yet feel that “a serious resolution was imminent.”
¹⁸⁴
On the other hand, the French consul in Leipzig was forecasting “a forceful action would be attempted by Germany against Czechoslovakia on March 15 or 16.” It was to be “a lightning military action.”
¹⁸⁵
After having returned to Berlin on March 13, Coulondre sent a whole series of telegrams. “Everything looks as if a forceful operation was about to begin.”
¹⁸⁶
On March 14 at 6:30 p.m. he announced by phone the arrival in Berlin that evening of President Hacha and Minister Chvalkowski.
¹⁸⁷
By March 14 there wasn’t any further doubt. Corbin witnessed the shock effect of that move in Great Britain. For some time he had been looking for signs of a change in the country where “political opinion…is slow to react.” But now there existed “the threat of total German hegemony over the European continent.”
¹⁸⁸
Chamberlain and Halifax were very upset. Yet as Corbin noted with some perfidy, Halifax “had only one consolation, that he no longer needed to worry about the Czech guarantee that troubled his conscience and remained unresolved.”
¹⁸⁹

*
Achille Starace was the national secretary of the Fascist Party, with the rank of minister. [NDT]

Chapter XIII

T
HE
F
AILURE OF THE
G
RAND
A
LLIANCE

(March–August 1939)

“H
ad I been told three weeks ago,” wrote the ambassador to London, Charles Corbin, on April 4, “that during this time period the British government would have guaranteed the independence of Poland…that such a decision would have been cheered by a nearly unanimous Parliament and that no opposition to it would appear in the press or the public, I would have no doubt met such a forecast with an incredulous smile… The new orientation given to British foreign policy representing such a complete break with its traditional position is so important that it may be said without exaggeration as being of historical magnitude.” Because it was no longer as with the Netherlands, a matter of contiguous territories and “bastions.” “The objective was to oppose the establishment of German hegemony over continental Europe.” It was a return to its origins. “The dissenting conservatives that Messers Eden, Churchill, and Duff Cooper usually represented immediately rallied in support of the government.”
¹

The new attitude did not affect the top
appeasers
in the British diplomatic service. Lord Perth, who was leaving Rome permanently on April
24, 1939, departed “optimistic and reassured.” He met with Mussolini, and Count Ciano came expressly to the railroad station to bid him farewell. He was convinced that it would all end up at a conference. François-Poncet, who always thought him to be a dangerous dreamer, did not share his optimism.
²

Sir Nevile Henderson, always “an admirer of the National-Socialist regime, careful to protect Mr. Hitler’s prestige, was convinced that Great Britain and Germany could agree to divide the world among them,” became very angry on March 15, having been “wounded in his pride.” The crisis passed. “Yesterday,” wrote Coulondre on April 29, “I found him exactly the way I knew him in February.” He played down his government’s decision to reintroduce conscription. He found the German proposals made to Poland were quite acceptable. Basically “it appears that events barely touched Sir Nevile Henderson, like water over a mirror… It would seem that he forgot everything and failed to learn anything.”
³

1.

S
PAIN
: M
ORAL
F
AILURE AND
D
IPLOMATIC
S
UCCESS

The Spanish civil war that had been such a passionate cause and was the main focus of the attention of the diplomats in 1936 and 1937 had become a secondary matter in 1938. After Munich the issue reappeared in a new light: it was becoming highly probable that the Franco forces were going to win. Should there be a very late attempt to reestablish the situation? Or, on the contrary, was it best to try and backtrack by seeking reconciliation with the victors and separate Franco from the Fascist camp?