France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (8 page)

1.

F
RANCE AND THE
E
ND OF
R
EPARATIONS

Our purpose here is not to examine the overall issue, but only to describe France’s actions. The Lausanne conference, which had been planned prior to Herriot taking office, was scheduled to begin on June 16, 1932. On the 11th, the British Prime Minister, Ramsay Macdonald, and the head of the Foreign Office, Sir John Simon, stopped in Paris on their way to Switzerland. For the British, it was all very clear: German reparations must be canceled entirely. Herriot wrote, “I told them that I was willing to go further than the Young Moratorium but I didn’t want a cancellation; … we must not let Germany strengthen her power at our
expense nor must we let her upset the economic balance in her favor…I showed that Germany could continue her payments.”
¹³
Therefore, the initial French position couldn’t have been clearer. But Herriot reportedly thought the meeting had been so “cordial,” so “intimate,” that he made a first concession—Germany would not be required to pay anything on July 1, on the condition that this non-payment be considered a “suspension.”

On June 13, Herriot arrived in Geneva. On the 15th, he was in Lausanne for last minute preparations. On the 16th, the conference began. Along with the prime minister, the French delegation included Germain-Martin, minister of finance, Julien Durand, minister of commerce, Joseph Paganon, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs and Georges Bonnet, all of them Radicals. From the start, two factors weakened Herriot’s resolve: Macdonald suggested that the discussions on war debt (France was in debt both to England and the United States) and those on reparations be linked. Then Herriot had a conversation with the new German chancellor, von Papen, who appealed to his compassion by invoking “the misery and disquiet of the German people.”
¹⁴
As a result, it was decided as early as June 17 that the reparation payments would be suspended for the duration of the conference. Herriot was satisfied because he had a sentence inserted stipulating that the solution to the problem would be sought “within the framework of a universal settlement.”

On the same day, speaking after von Papen who complained about Germany’s fate, and Neville Chamberlain who wanted a “clean slate” for everyone, Herriot lined up the figures prepared by his team of experts, showing that France stood to lose more than her partners would from a suspension of payments. Sir John Simon sent a note over to him: “You will allow me to congratulate you for putting things in such a reasonable light.” Actually, Herriot had opened a new breach. He had declared that he saw a link between improving security and restoring the world economy. Back in Paris on Saturday, June 18, Herriot’s actions received approval of the government and of Joseph Caillaux, president of the senate committee on finance. The “net annual balance” of reparations was calculated (meaning the difference between the amount of reparations taken in by a country and the amount of war debt it had to pay): the balance in Reichsmarks for France was 359.5 million, for Great Britain 66.9 million and for Italy 35.7 million. France clearly stood to lose the most. As for Germany, as soon as the crisis ended, it would find itself in a dominant position.

Back in Geneva on Monday, June 20th, Herriot continued the discussion with the British who were mostly worried about German recovery, for economic reasons. He thought he had the backing of several British experts, including the economist John Maynard Keynes; of Arthur Slater, director of the financial section of the League of Nations; and of the Americans, especially Senator William Borah, chairman of the senate foreign relations committee.

But the erosion of the French position took place between the 21st and the 28th. Herriot came to thinking that canceling reparations was possible on two conditions: first if America agreed to ending its war debt; and second, that Germany would pay the balance. After Herriot returned to France, Germain-Martin, Georges Bonnet and Laboulaye, a diplomat we shall discuss below, conducted the negotiations. The Germans proposed linking reparations and security; there would be military staff agreements based on “equal rights” that would serve to compensate France for its financial sacrifices. But Herriot refused “equal rights” as energetically as he refused the pure and simple cancellation of reparations. We shall see later on what happened to that vigorous attitude. As far as reparations were concerned, in any case, the range of possibilities was narrowing. The debate only concerned the final German payment. Germany offered to pay 2 billion gold marks. Herriot demanded 4 billion. Macdonald offered to mediate. Herriot agreed to come down to 3 billion. Von Papen accepted with “a heavy heart.” So, by July 8, reparations had been canceled, except for a balance that Germany, in the end, would not pay.
¹⁵

Furthermore, Herriot had made this conditional upon the cancellation of France’s war debt to the United States. But the Americans seemed extremely unlikely to accept.
¹⁶
Again, an equivocation was to allow giving in on this essential question. This was the so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” of July 8, a document that does not appear in the final draft of the Lausanne Conference (drawn up on July 2 and signed on the 9th). Adopted by France, Belgium, Italy and Great Britain, this unofficial agreement stipulated that “as concerns the creditor governments [creditors of reparations]…the ratification [of the Lausanne accords] would not be effected until a satisfactory solution had been found as concerned these countries and their own creditors.” This meant that the cancellation of reparation payments would be ratified when and only when the United States had agreed to cancel their war debts. If that were impossible, then “the agreement with Germany will not be ratified.”
¹⁷
This amounted to
sheer obfuscation, even outright lying, for everyone knew that the situation was such that Germany would no longer make any payments no matter what the American attitude was. Consequently, this “gentlemen’s agreement” was nothing but a screen behind which Herriot could modestly hide the broad withdrawal he had accepted from his initial position.

It is possible to see this withdrawal as inevitable in the face of pressing economic necessity. One had to be realistic. The United States would be faulted for not seeing how the turmoil caused by the world crisis made their position as pitiless creditors to insolvent debtors futile; but this criticism applies to France as well where Germany was concerned. In this sense, Herriot was right. But why begin with a completely opposite position? And, most of all, why not “trade” on the important concession granted to Germany? As we shall see, Herriot would proceed in that direction, but he would be completely unsuccessful.

England, for its part, offered France a very strange type of compensation, the “trust agreement.” On July 13, the French cabinet unanimously approved, without reservations, two texts submitted by the British ambassador, Lord Tyrrell. In a memorandum dated July 12, England proposed to establish “a better system of European relations.” “We should very frankly exchange views and information with one another regarding all issues that could arise of a nature similar to that which has just been so happily resolved at Lausanne and that could touch upon the European state of affairs.” Such a pact was to be public and other nations would be asked to join it.
¹⁸

Countries promising to consult each other regarding their problems is oftren idle talk. But Herriot was even more delighted because Macdonald, who was traveling in the French prime minister’s special train carriage, had expressed “a great pleasure to work with you again.” There were, of course, some “bad guys” in both countries: Churchill and Lloyd George in Great Britain, the “Blumites” in Paris. But both heads of government were kindred sprits.

The emptiness of such an agreement became clear very soon. Herriot wrote to Macdonald
¹⁹
that their “friendship was like that of two older brothers wanting to help the junior members of the family.”
²⁰
But the younger brothers were worried. The trust agreement seemed so futile that the third party countries were convinced it was hiding something more sinister. Colonel Beck of Poland thought so,
²¹
as did the Germans who felt, quite wrongly, that they could detect in it a secret renewal of the Entente Cordiale, one of their bad memories.
²²
Germany agreed to subscribe
to the agreement but wanted it restricted to the great powers, therefore excluding Poland and Czechoslovakia, for instance.
²³
Herriot wished on the contrary to extend it to all of Europe.
²⁴
Still, Germany adhered to it on July 25.
²⁵
The Americans feared that it would lead to a European conspiracy against the repayment of war debts.
²⁶

The trust agreement, interpreted narrowly, meant that the English and the French would consult each other on every matter before any negotiation. Almost immediately, the British refused to do so, particularly regarding their debts to the United States. By October and November 1932, it was only being mentioned occasionally, and it became irrelevant. Having obtained what they wanted, namely the end of reparations, the British leaders did not worry much about consulting with France. They preferred—as they did in Lausanne—to make a decision unilaterally and then bring the French progressively to accept their own views. We shall see many examples of this in the future.

2.

H
ERRIOT
, D
ISARMAMENT AND
“E
QUAL
R
IGHTS
”

The year 1932 had seen the tentative beginnings of an unhappy disarmament conference that had opened in Geneva on February 2 and that, apart from the members of the League of Nations, included the United States and the USSR. The conference originated with the Treaty of Versailles requiring Germany to limit its troops to 100,000 men and its armaments to light weapons, and presented this unilateral disarmament as a prelude to general disarmament. The Americans and the British whose power was mainly in the navy, had established a system of disarmament to their benefit in that area (at the Washington conference of 1921–1922, and the London conference of 1930). They were both favorable to a broad disarmament of the ground forces because it would affect them very little.
For the Anglo-Saxon countries disarmament was the way to ensure security
.

In 1932 France was said to have “the strongest army in the world.” For that reason, the French were constantly accused of being “militaristic.” Every single government was equally deaf to Anglo-American thinking. For them, security had to come before disarmament and France, with its population of 40 million, could not face a Germany of 65 million
unless she was disarmed—as prescribed in the treaty of Versailles—but also prevented from rearming by a system of automatic sanctions. Herriot had been the main champion of the “Geneva protocol” of 1924, that would have made arbitration mandatory and which the British and Americans had rejected. Refusal of arbitration would be the criteria for aggression. In that event, all members of the League of Nations would automatically apply military sanctions, in other words make war on the aggressor. The pact of the League of Nations made sanctions conditional to the unanimous approval of the Council, which was unrealistic. This had happened very recently. In September 1931, when the Japanese attacked China to take over Manchuria, the Council refrained from issuing any sanctions, and the world looked on powerlessly throughout 1932, as the Japanese invasion went ahead.

Herriot’s 1924 formula, “Arbitration, security, disarmament,” remained the table of the law for him, his predecessors and successors. In other words, France would never agree to disarm
before
its security was guaranteed, either through a new Geneva protocol, or by means of a vast regional network of alliances. “Beginning in 1924, French diplomacy reiterated unfailingly and on every occasion the link between security, disarmament and mutual assistance.”
²⁷

Faced with the French position,
²⁸
Germany was rearming, and France knew it. In 1927, Briand, in a badly conceived grandiose gesture, abandoned the principle of military control. The Germans were taking advantage of this as best they could. The Army Chief of Staff’s
Deuxième Bureau
(military intelligence) was providing a lot of information on the subject. The German military’s obvious intention, and particularly that of General von Schleicher who had the greatest influence (he was to become chancellor on December 2, 1932), was to transform the Reichswehr from its Treaty of Versailles numbers to a force of 21 divisions. This was what Germans called the
Umbau
.
²⁹

Germany’s clandestine, but well established rearmament, posed a terrible problem for France. She was faced not only with Germany systematically widening the breach, but also with the two powerful Anglo-Saxon countries that basically were encouraging her to disarm. In effect, the disarmament conference turned into a debate between France, wanting to keep its margin of security, and Germany, seeking to be granted “equal rights” for armament issues (
Gleichberechtigung
) as a prelude to actual equality. There were a few rare Germans who probably would have preferred to see France partially disarm rather than have Germany rearm but
none in military circles, and the rise of national socialism didn’t favor them. Shouldn’t France have accepted “general disarmament” in order to help those Germans who were thinking along those lines?

Before the period covered by this study, there had been the “Tardieu Plan,” the first French initiative in Geneva, introduced on February 5, 1932. It didn’t get much discussion. It proposed that an international force be created, composed of national contingents from each country, through regional agreements for mutual assistance, within the League of Nations framework. This force would have use of bombers, heavy artillery, and some warships that would then no longer be at the disposal of national armies.