France and the Nazi Threat: The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939 (3 page)

Flagship of the new prospectus was the multi-volume
History of International Relations
(
Histoire des relations internationales, 1953-58
) a broad synopsis of international affairs from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the end of World War II. Renouvin directed the whole enterprise and wrote four of the eight volumes. It was a truly formidable achievement, which has not been bettered since. True, surveys spanning fifty years or more like A. J. P. Taylor’s
The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918
(1953) and William L. Langer’s
The Diplomacy of Imperialism
(1935) were plentiful but astonishingly, no one had had the courage and energy to tackle the big picture.

Building on a chronological narrative Renouvin and his team skillfully connected foreign relations and geopolitics. “Our goal,” he affirmed, “is to show what are the most important transformations between peoples and to assess… the causes. These transformations have sometimes been the result of conflicts… sometimes the result of a slow evolution of deep forces, material and cultural.”
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The History accomplished three important things. By addressing the intersection of foreign policy and long-range dynamics it rehabilitated diplomatic, restoring it to first-class citizenship in the historical profession. Secondly, while conceding Europe a central role Renouvin and associates systematically engaged with other cultures and continents. Lastly, their work analyzed not just inter-state relations but relations between
peoples. Even today after nearly half a century the eight volumes constitute a unique achievement in the literature, exemplifying the Gallic genius for writing successful grand syntheses. Nothing comparable came from the English-speaking world.
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When over thirty years later Paul Kennedy’s
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
(1987) appeared it focused on the interplay of economic change and military conflict since 1500 rather than the general evolution of the international system. Duroselle and Renouvin in tandem authored an
Introduction to the History of International Relations
(
Introduction a l’Histoire des relations internationales, 1964
), defending their choice of an historical rather than a theoretical perspective:

We do not underestimate the value of these [theoretical] investigations, but, rather than scanning history for proof of theories elaborated beforehand, we thought it wiser to look at the past with a view to forming only such conclusions as the data warranted. This method, incidentally, may enable us to provide theorists of international relations with new material or topics to reflect on.
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International relations aka diplomatic came of age in France in the 1970s with the creation of new chairs of international relations starting with Paris X Nanterre in 1973. Energized by Duroselle the field went from strength to strength. One key initiative was insistence on the centrality of military strategy and technology. Surprisingly, Renouvin for all his emphasis on deeper forces had rather overlooked it. His successor successfully promoted military history in the academy as well as fostering dialogue with the military. Increasingly research and teaching highlighted the history of relations between peoples as well as states. Links with the United States, Italy and Switzerland gave the French school a high international profile. In 1974 Duroselle, with Jacques Freymond of the University Institute for Advanced International Studies in Geneva, founded the quarterly Relations Internationales, giving Francophones who previously had to publish in English-language journals their own voice. Historians, declared Duroselle in the new journal, “could no longer neglect” insights and concepts from other social sciences.
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Until the 1970s French policy on the eve of World War II was a Cinderella subject. Historians steered clear of it partly because they were deterred by the dearth of data, partly because they assumed that there was very little French leaders could have done to influence events.
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Almost to a man French participants blamed Britain for leading France to
defeat. Accordingly, research focused on Britain and Germany as prime movers. France like most European states locked away its secrets for fifty years. For the prewar decade that left almost nothing in the public domain save self-serving memoirs and
The French Yellow Book
, a tendentious selection of documents printed in September 1939 as a propaganda exercise. In 1963 the foreign ministry started publishing selections from its archives in the multi-volume series
Documents diplomatiques français, 1932-1939
(Paris 1963-1986) but it was clear that readers would have a long wait before the collection reached the outbreak of war. Nor did the replacement in 1979 of the fifty-year closure period by the current thirty-year rule trigger a rush to the archives. Access remained restricted because records were being trawled for the preparation of the official series. Given this constraint the fully declassified records for the first post-World War I decade evoked most interest, provoking a new revisionist historiography of France’s stance on international security, reparations, disarmament and the Ruhr occupation of 1923.

Enter Duroselle. He was the first to write with full benefit of the diplomatic record. Editorship of the official documentary series brought oversight of all files, giving him a huge advantage over competitors. Additionally, the work of graduate students in his research seminar, the most prestigious in international relations in France, enabled him to draw a much fuller and more rounded picture than would have been possible for a lone investigator. Thus
France and the Nazi Threat
was the first and for a long time the only account to be based on unrestricted access to the documents. It was not however a deeply revisionist work like Fritz Fischer’s
Germany’s Aims In the First World War
(1967) or Robert O. Paxton’s
Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 1940-1944
(1972) nor did it offer startling revelations about the period. Deploying captured German files Paxton effectively demolished the myth that Vichy’s collaborationism shielded France from the worst of German occupation policy. But on the slide to war there was no received wisdom, only a plethora of conflicting interpretations chasing too few facts. The lasting achievement of Duroselle was to demystify the decade by establishing a persuasive explanation of diplomatic defeat based on close scrutiny of the records.

Why publish now an English translation of
La Décadence
a quarter of a century since the first French edition? For one reason, the monograph has stood the test of time, making it the classic account of France’s part in the seven year run-up to the second European conflict; for another the
subtle analysis and balancing of people, issues and influences brilliantly captures the distinctive perspective of France’s international historians. And the theme of the book is one of the most important in twentieth century history. The fall of France was the fulcrum of the century. If French power, as many expected at the time, had withstood Hitler’s onslaught the war would have had a different ending. Without victory over France Hitler would not have invaded the Soviet Union. Hostilities might have ended in a negotiated peace without becoming a world conflict, keeping France a key player in world politics. More importantly, it was the collapse of French diplomacy that led to 1940. Menaced by Hitler and Mussolini French diplomacy suffered a double defeat: failing to prevent the war of 1939; failing to ensure that if war came the nation fought in the best conditions.

The book showcases the new approach to the study of international relations devised by Renouvin and Duroselle. Analysis of issues and actions blends with sharp vignettes of personalities, the ensemble grounded in an evaluation of forces and attitudes. All in clear, taut, lively and jargon-free prose. A powerful Preface sets the scene, profiling protagonists and the political constraints with which they had to contend. Duroselle underscores the millstone of domestic politics. The ephemeral coalition governments of the 1930s responded in different ways to internal and external issues. Holding together brittle cabinets privileged caution, compromise and fudging of issues rather than decisive and timely decision-making. Important too were the roles of pressure groups and public opinion. Duroselle illuminates the activity of small decision-making groups, especially foreign minister Georges Bonnet and his allies. The core is a year-by-year narrative of how leaders perceived the pre-war international crises, what they did or did not do about them, and why they responded thus. Midway through the story four thematic chapters (VI-IX) evaluate the foreign policy making process, dissecting in turn the legacy of World War I on French opinion, the nation’s self-image, economic interests, military strategy and the diplomatic machine.

How does Duroselle explain France’s loss of friends and influence in the approach to war? Contrary to what some writers have alleged he does not offer decadence as a catchall interpretation. In this sense the original French title “La Décadence” was not well chosen because willy-nilly it suggests an all-pervasive moral deterioration, a rotting state and society. In fact Duroselle wrote solely about the effects of political weakness,
contending that institutional insufficiencies and the prevailing political culture discouraged the reappraisal of foreign policy goals and timely initiatives. Who then were responsible—diplomats? politicians? generals? The governing elite as a whole, in Duroselle’s judgment, must bear a heavy burden of “collective responsibility” for ultimate failure.
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This is not an original insight but a restatement of the conventional explanation for the collapse of 1940 first sketched out by Marc Bloch in
Étrange défaite
(1946). But Bloch wrote without documents “in a white heat of rage” in the immediate aftermath of disaster.
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Writing in the 1970s Duroselle pinpoints the casual, careless and slipshod style of leadership. Léon Noël, secretary general of the prime minister’s office, recalled how on New Year’s Day 1935 foreign minister Pierre Laval called a conference to finalize arrangements for a Rome summit. Instead of business-like discussion, participants swapped anecdotes and jokes. This was no festive exception. A month later Laval and premier Pierre-Étienne Flandin got ready for a London meeting. The two discussed travel arrangements.

Only a few, notably foreign ministers Louis Barthou and Bonnet, applied themselves seriously and single-mindedly to policy-making. During an eighteen-month tenure of the Quai d’Orsay Bonnet labored ceaselessly to stop France fighting for its ally Czechoslovakia in 1938 and for Poland in 1939. Duroselle awards diplomats higher grades than politicians or foreign ministry officials for their efforts to keep Paris well briefed on developments in leading capitals. Yet they were not always read. And even if they had been consistently heeded the war of nerves that began in 1936 called for a new kind of relationship between foreign and defense policy-making. Intergovernmental co-ordination had never been the Republic’s strong suit. Ministers behaved like great feudal barons jealously guarding the independence of their departments. And liaison between the foreign ministry and war ministry was especially poor. Indeed, the whole government machine demanded drastic overhaul.

No book is perfect.
France and the Nazi Threat
has its defects. One glaring omission is the lack of a conclusion. Curiously Duroselle did not attempt in this book or its 1939-1945 sequel on the war and Vichy years any kind of general stocktaking in the light of the historiographical debate on France’s downfall. The opportunity to weigh and assess diplomacy within the wider frame of society and culture was missed. The book’s strength is also a weakness. The important gaps in the French record mean that Duroselle’s reliance on the French papers yields little more than the bare bones of policy. Many secret documents were lost or destroyed
during World War II. No official records were kept of Cabinet discussions. Thus the surviving archive largely comprises instructions from Paris, reports from French posts abroad, minutes of official meetings and, very occasionally, a think piece on policy options. Only rarely would a minister or high official make detailed annotations on incoming dispatches and telegrams. By contrast, ministers and top officials often unburdened themselves quite freely to American and British envoys. Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, for example, confided in American ambassador William C. Bullitt. If the minutes of a Franco-British conference are missing then Duroselle cites the British record. But it’s an exception, not the rule. Of course, historians can easily burn their fingers using non-French sources. Policymakers rehearsed different scripts for different envoys. But the marked discrepancies between American, British and German records of conversations with foreign minister Bonnet and the minister’s own account confirm his essential trickiness. Nor, despite their intrinsic importance, does Duroselle explore the Republic’s foreign policy options. Did alternatives exist? Would more appeasement have satisfied Hitler and avoided conflict? This seemed to be Bonnet’s working assumption in 1938-39. Were firmness and a readiness to stop Hitler by force a practical choice?

Apologists for France’s eclipse have consistently pointed to perfidious Albion. Duroselle unconvincingly argues for a watered-down version in the form of the English governess, bullying and cajoling her French charges. “French statesmen,” he writes, “practiced appeasement because they needed British help and were subject to constant British pressure.”
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However “the English governess” is hard to swallow. Ministers were their own worst enemies. British tutelage was deliberately fostered to shield France from the consequences of disengagement from Central and Eastern Europe. Publicly decisionmakers solicited British commitments; privately they invited a British lead. Ministers far from being reluctant recruits in a British-inspired enterprise were committed to conciliation. They cherished the illusion of economic agreements with the Fascist dictators leading to political rapprochement. Daladier, for instance, intervened personally to expedite economic talks with Germany in February 1939. Also, he toyed with the idea of inviting Göring “to make a visit to Paris.”
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Just before Hitler’s occupation of Prague in mid-March he assured the Fuhrer that France was ready “to pursue and develop with the Reich the policy of collaboration affirmed in the declaration of 6 December” (Franco-German Declaration, 6 December 1938).
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