Read France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 Online

Authors: William I. Hitchcock

Tags: #History, #Europe, #France, #Western, #Modern, #20th Century, #Political Science, #Security (National & International), #test

France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 (13 page)

 
Page 57
between the programs of arms production, the conception of national defense and the economic program." The plan that the CGP was to produce should be addressed to the nation as a whole, "integrated into the general policy of the country  in the most elevated sense of the word."
38
The Monnet Plan was infused with this concern for the overall coordination of domestic and foreign policy goals. Precisely because Monnet believed that German coal was the key to recovery, he argued that France's future depended on the successful pursuit of French interests in Germany. Monnet told his colleagues, "we must have unity on the principal objective," which was ''the increase in our coal supply." Because this increase could come only from the Ruhr, a "satisfactory solution to the German problem is more important even than the negotiations to receive American credits." To this Philip could wholeheartedly agree: "The plan cannot be isolated in its economic and financial aspects from the conduct of our foreign policy." Philip went even further than Monnet in reducing the objectives of the plan to two basic elements: the reinsertion of France in the world economy and the provision of a broadly defined security, based solidly on economic power. For both these men, then, France's national interest required the coordination of foreign policy with the priorities of the domestic economy. This was the beginning of an important link in the minds of French officials.
39
Yet the Quai d'Orsay was not so enthusiastic about conceding German industrial recovery to the Anglo-Americans as Monnet and Philip seemed to be. It is true that de Gaulle's departure had come as a relief to Georges Bidault. De Gaulle, dour, imperious, and overbearing, openly expressed disdain for his foreign minister, and their relationship since the liberation had been cool at best. Bidault could not have been less like his former chief. Charming, witty, intelligent, he was also impetuous, melodramatic, and known to have a penchant for alcohol. Yet he threw himself into tortuous and complex negotiations with great zeal, aware that it was the art of negotiation, rather than grandstanding, that promised the greatest results. "At last," Bidault remarked to his MRP colleagues the night de Gaulle resigned, "it will perhaps be possible to have a foreign policy."
40
But this personal antipathy aside, Bidault shared with the former president a deep mistrust of Germany and a suspicion that the British and Americans were inclined to favor a speedy German recovery without thinking through the consequences. In particular, Bidault feared that a rapid German recovery under American guidance might provoke the Russians into a preemptive invasion of western Europe. Bidault thus urged a policy of caution and détente upon his Anglo-
 
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Saxon partners.
41
As a consequence, Bidault did not yet accept Philip's line of thinking. Philip believed that France should accept the inevitable and instead of opposing German recovery, try to control and organize it to benefit French commercial interests. Bidault, even after the reparations and level-of-industry agreement was signed at the end of March, continued to block any effective four-power operations in Germany because he refused to allow central administrations  so important in the carrying out of reparations policy  to be erected.
42
Thus, in the words of the secretary-general of the Foreign Ministry, Jean Chauvel, Bidault remained "strikingly attuned to the thinking of Colombey" (de Gaulle's provincial residence), pressing on with the general's combative policy in Germany after his resignation, despite pressure from within and without France to modify it.
43
On the first of February, Secretary of State Byrnes, perhaps hoping for a shift in French policy in the wake of the change in leadership, asked Bidault if he would "review the French attitude on the establishment of central German agencies." Explaining once again to Bidault that the United States sought to create central agencies simply to ensure uniform treatment of Germany by all of the occupying powers, Byrnes tried to sweeten the pill by hinting at future discussions of the French proposals concerning the revision of Germany's western frontier. Byrnes also instructed Caffery to let Bidault know "discreetly" that the more cooperation the Americans received, the more disposed they would be toward granting credits to France.
44
Bidault accepted none of this. In reply to Byrnes's message, Bidault reiterated France's demand for the separation of certain industrial regions from Germany. Further, Bidault argued that this must be done
before
the ACC extended its control over all of German territory. Bidault viewed this last position as essential, believing that once the ACC  and German-staffed agencies  were in control of Germany west of the Rhine, this region would never be amputated to serve France's security interests. The exact extent of the future Germany should be settled; then administrative services could be established. This, Bidault wrote, was "simple logic."
45
His memorandum clearly reflected the Quai's sensitivity that France had not, on the whole, been dealt with squarely by the other occupying powers. The government had not received detailed responses to its proposals on Germany, nor had French representatives been able yet to raise the question of Germany's western border in a full meeting of the CFM. Alphand wrote to Bidault that the American political adviser in Germany, Robert Murphy, and General Clay "are violently
 
Page 59
opposed to the French position, and everything is happening as if, in order to make us give in, they will refuse even the most legitimate of our demands." Alphand believed, with some reason, that Clay wanted to block wheat and coal supplies to the French zone to make the French knuckle under.
46
The Americans, of course, claimed that it was not Clay, but the very absence of central administrations that had obstructed deliveries of wheat and coal to the French zone. Yet in using strong-arm tactics, the Americans ensured that Bidault would not back down on the question of central agencies, and that he continued to favor de Gaulle's policy of confrontation over cooperation.
47
In addition to Byrnes, Bidault had to contend with his Socialist colleagues who, following de Gaulle's departure, pressed their attack on the foreign minister's policies. Just as Philip in the CEI had outlined a more flexible strategy toward Germany, so President Félix Gouin, still feeling his way as the new leader of the government, wanted Bidault to modify his positions. In late January, he appointed, without consulting Bidault, the Socialist Party's patriarch, Léon Blum, to lead the special delegation to the United States to seek financial help for France, a mission whose success could only help his party's prestige, and which Bidault could not openly oppose. In February, Gouin confronted Bidault and demanded modifications on German policy, seeking to strengthen Blum's negotiating position by allowing him the power to bargain with the Americans over Germany in exchange for credits. Bidault could not accept what the chief of protocol at the Quai privately called "the bartering of our future security with a momentary easing of our financial difficulties," and threatened to resign if pressed too hard on Germany. Gouin, propped up by a shaky three-legged coalition, could not afford an open break with the MRP. But Gouin did make a major speech on March 30 at the Socialist Party National Congress, calling for a shift in foreign policy, including an Anglo-French alliance, before a final settlement of the Ruhr issue had been reached. He also thought the "annexationist" policy toward Germany must be abandoned. Nothing so characterized the difficulties of building a coherent strategy for French foreign policy: while Bidault remained inflexible, Gouin, Auriol, Blum, and other Socialists of cabinet rank were in contact with the American ambassador, trying to cut a deal that would enhance the Socialist Party's prestige and undermine the foreign minister, a political rival. In the meantime, the Quai d'Orsay privately derided Blum's "begging visit" to America, the ostensible purpose of which was to secure the means to rebuild this penurious nation.
48
 
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Despite this bickering within the French government, the Blum mission was a considerable success, returning home with a loan package of over $ 1 billion. The outcome, however, owed less to French negotiating skill than to growing American fears of French political and social instability. Ambassador Caffery, for one, argued to the State Department that without a substantial loan, the future of the governing coalition would be placed in jeopardy. From mid-February onward, throughout the eleven weeks of Franco-American negotiations, Caffery pleaded with the State Department, on the most basic political grounds, to give the French satisfaction. Events were beginning to overtake the lengthy negotiations. Elections had been set for early June, and the nation was also gearing up for a referendum on the constitutional project whose greatest supporter was the PCF and which the United States opposed. For Caffery, the Blum mission had taken on an importance far greater than the actual sums being discussed. The United States, he argued, had an opportunity to show its determination to remain in Europe, to help rebuild it, and to refute Communist claims that the Americans were not really interested in Europe's future. Painting a lurid picture, Caffery cabled to the State Department his view: "if we delay too long, it is difficult to see how the Communists, with their iron party discipline and powerful propaganda machine oiled by billions of francs, can fail to benefit in the coming elections." When the nation did in fact reject the PCF-inspired constitution on May 5, the State Department pressed its advantage in the National Advisory Council, with William Clayton arguing that "there is a good chance of saving Western Europe from collapse and the economic and social chaos which might otherwise easily occur" if no French loan were forthcoming.
49
Though the French could exploit American fears about the Communists to secure loans, they had little success in selling their German policy. In May 1946, General Clay, now American military governor, frustrated by the refusal of France to accept the principle of economic unity and by the Russian determination to continue dismantling regardless of the larger consequences, suspended reparations deliveries from the American zone. This action undermined the plan signed in March and implicitly demonstrated that four-power control of Germany was dead. Between April and July, another session of the CFM convened, this time in Paris, to plan the Paris Peace Conference at which treaties of peace with Italy and Hitler's Eastern European allies were to be signed. These activities placed Paris in the international spotlight, which delighted Bidault, who as host, could indulge his taste for
le grand geste
before the
 
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eyes of the world.
50
But behind closed doors, France made little progress in advancing its views on Germany. Again, Bidault had trouble getting Germany on the agenda and, when he succeeded in securing a commitment from the other powers for "preliminary" talks on the subject, each again revealed reservations about the French proposals.
51
Perhaps most striking about the Paris Conference, however, was that the clash over German policy between France and the occupying powers that had so soured the discussions in the ACC was largely overshadowed by the deterioration of U.S.-Soviet relations. In the State Department, opinion was now running strongly against the Soviet Union, with George Kennan's February "Long Telegram" signaling the beginning of a new, and hostile, reading of Soviet international behavior. Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech in March gave a chilling conceptual framework to the nascent clash of ideologies. In the same month, a crisis over Soviet expansion in the Near East confirmed in the minds of American officials that they needed a tougher policy toward their erstwhile ally.
52
The Paris meetings also produced an unexpected development, one that did not bode well for Bidault's German policy. Secretary Byrnes, frustrated by the lack of four-way cooperation in Germany, challenged all the occupying powers to fuse their zones together with the American zone, and thus break down the compartmentalized zonal structure that had impeded the Potsdam accords. This was a move of enormous importance: either the Soviets would comply and join their zone with the others in a bid to keep Potsdam alive, or the United States would, in George Kennan's words, "carry to its logical conclusion the process of partition . . . [and] rescue the western zones of Germany by walling them off against eastern penetration and integrating them into [the] international pattern of western Europe rather than into a united Ger0many." The decision of the Soviets not to join the zonal fusion, and of the British to do so, clearly divided Germany, and Europe.
53
The creation of the Anglo-American bizone (it would begin to function officially on January 1, 1947) presented the French leadership with a difficult decision. By refusing to join the bizone, France risked antagonizing the western powers and losing any support for French objectives in Germany. But if France joined the bizone, these objectives were still not guaranteed any support. Herve Alphand, in assessing the outcome of the Paris Conference, was forced to admit that all three powers remained steadfast in their opposition to the detachment of German territory in the west, and believed that France had to accept instead some kind of international control of "a German Ruhr." But for Alphand, the

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