The Twilight of French Eastern Alliances, 1926-1936: French-Czechoslovak-Polish Relations from Locarno to the Remilitarization of the Rhineland

555 Pages·1988·20.01 MB·English

by  Piotr Stefan Wandycz

Piotr S. Wandycz
The Twilight of
French Eastern Alliances,
1926—1936
French-Czechoslouak-Polish Relations
from Locarno to the Remilitarization of the Rhineland
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Princeton, New Jersey
Copyright © 1988
by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press,
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom:
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wandycz, Piotr Stefan.
The twilight of French eastern alliances, 1926—1936 : French-Czechoslovak-
Polish relations from Locarno to the remilitarization of the Rhineland / Piotr
S. Wandycz.
p. cm.
“Sequel to .. . France and her eastern allies, 1919—1925“—Pref.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN o—691—05528—9 (alk. paper)
I. France—Foreign relations—1914—1940. 2. France—Foreign relations—
Czechoslovakia. 3. Czechoslovakia—Foreign relations—France. 4. France—
Foreign relations—Poland. 5. Poland—Foreign relations—France. 6.
Europe—Politics and government—1918-1945.1. Wandycz, Piotr Stefan.
France and her eastern allies, 1919-1925. II. Title.
DC394.W36 1988
327.440437—dci9 88-5789
C1P
For
Kasia, Joanna, and Antoni

Contents
Preface / xi
Abbreviations/XV
Background: The French System/ 3 /
Part One. Post-Locarno Diplomacy 1
Chapter 1. The Shadow of Locarno /19
The Powers/19
The Eastern Allies ! 29
Geneva, Berlin, Prague / 3 6
Chapter 2. The Turbulent Year 1926 / 47
Piłsudski"s Coup d’Etati 47
Crisis in Prague, Union Nationale in Paris l 56
Thoiry and Its Repercussions 163
Chapter 3. Eastern or Central European Locarno/73
Polish Diplomatic Offensive!73
Polish Advances and Czechoslovak Reserve! 82
A Stalemate ! 91
Chapter 4. Toward the Evacuation of the Rhineland /106
Continuing Frustrations: Zaleski in Rome! 106
Elusive Pursuits: Beneš in Berlin /113
Polish Moves Snubbed ! 120
Chapter 5. The End of an Era /13 3
Moves and Countermoves in Central Europe! 133
Renewed Polish Efforts: The Hague Conference! 140
The Aftermath of The Hague! 148
An Overview! 156
viii Contents
Part Two. The Depression
Chapter 6. Revisionism and Briand’s European Union /163
Rhineland Evacuated !163
Briand’s European Union ! 170
Revisionism RampantÍ178
Chapter 7. Austro-German Union and Financial Diplomacy /192.
The Curtius—Schober Project 1192
Political Moratorium and the Soviet Angle! 103
Annus Terribilis / 2,11
Chapter 8. French Initiatives and Failures / 222
Plan Tardieu ! 222
French-Polish Malaise! 229
Gleichberechtigung! 238
An Overview ! 252
Part Three. Responses to Hitler
Chapter 9. A Dilemma: The Four Power Pact / 259
Disarmament or Preventive Warf ! 259
The Four Power Pact! 273
Fiopes Deceived ! 290
Chapter 10. At Crossroads, the German-Polish
Declaration of Nonaggression / 300
Alternatives! 300
An Intermezzo ! 315
The Declaration of z6 January 1934! 324
Chapter 11. Louis Barthou and His Diplomacy/336
Beginnings ! 3 3 6
In Warsaw and Prague ! 347
The Eastern Pact ! 35 6
Chapter 12. Fronts or Façades? / 371
Laval’s First Steps 1371
Toward the Stresa Front! 381
Paris, Moscow, Prague!395
Chapter 13. The Test of 7 March/410
; The Impact of the Ethiopian Crisis ! 410
^ Hodža Plan and the Ratification of
the Franco-Soviet Treaty ! 422
Contents ix
Remilitarization of the Rhineland / 431 '
The Epilogue /445
Appraisal: A Pattern of Relations / 448
Appendices/47t?
Bibliography /491
Index / 523

Preface
Ecartée de l’Europe centrale, la France resterait-elle
nue grande puissance?
Victor de Lacroix to Delbos, 17 July, 1936
This book is chronologically a long-delayed sequel to my France and Her
Eastern Allies 1919-1925 {Minneapolis, r962). The delay proved a bless­
ing in many respects, for during the last two decades the French archives
were made available for research as were several Polish collections scat­
tered around the world. In contrast to my previous, somewhat pioneering
efforts, I was confronted this time with an over abundance of sources, cer­
tain important gaps notwithstanding.
The past twenty years have seen a significant extension of our knowl­
edge of European diplomacy in the 1920s and early 1930s. A “new inter­
national history” has appeared utilizing the freshly opened archives and
seeking a more integrated approach to the study of diplomacy. Several
valuable monographs and specialized articles on France and East Central
Europe have been published; however, no comprehensive treatment of the
French “system” has appeared.
The present work concentrates on France, Poland and Czechoslovakia
(and deals only tangentially with the Little Entente). In addition to consid­
ering bilateral relationships, 1 have attempted to place the political, mili­
tary and economic intercourse between the three states within the chang­
ing international context. In the course of my research, many questions
had to be faced. To what extent can one speak of an integrated French
system of eastern alliances? Was such a combination one of the main op­
tions for the preservation of peace and status quo in interwar Europe?
How was it conceived by the three main partners? Did the interaction
between Paris on the one hand, and Warsaw and Prague on the other,
represent a paradigm of a great power-smallcr states relationship that
transcends the 1920s and 1930s? Does the story throw a light on the West-
East rapports in general?
An investigation of events during the decade after Locarno appeared
particularly useful in providing an understanding of the eventual disinte­
xii Preface
gration of the French eastern alliances. Both December 1925, the date of
the finalization of the Locarno pact, and March 1936 stand out as mile­
stones of a process that culminated with the Anschluss, the Munich con­
ference, and the invasion of Poland. Whereas these latter events have been
extensively examined in many works, the former has not. To mention but
one glaring gap, there is still no monograph on Locarno.
My research and writing would have been impossible without the gen­
erous support of several institutions and many individuals. Two years
spent in Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, and Britain—1972-73 under the
International Research and Exchanges Board program and 1977-78 as a
Guggenheim Fellow—allowed me to do most of my research in European
archives. Grants from the American Philosophical Society and the Hoover
Institution in 1980 enabled me to do research in Stanford; a grant of the
American Council of Learned Societies in 1982 gave me another oppor­
tunity to complete work in European archives. I acknowledge all this as­
sistance with gratitude.
The Griswold Committee of the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale
provided a generous stipend for the typing of this manuscript for which I
am grateful.
Many friends and colleagues have assisted me in various ways, and I
wish I could enumerate them all. Among those Czechoslovak historians
who went out of their way to make my stay in their country fruitful and
intellectually rewarding, Jaroslav Valenta and Zdeněk Sládek (and his
wife) deserve special thanks. Colleagues and friends in France who pa­
tiently answered my numerous requests include Bernard Michel, Georges
Mond, Zbigniew Rapacki, Henry Rollet, and Georges-Henri Soutou. I am
obliged to Colonel Henry Fournier-Foch for copies of documents from
Marshal Foch papers, now at Chateau de Vincennes. I would like to thank
René Massigli, Ambassadeur de France, for permission to use his papers
at the Quai d’Orsay. I am grateful to Jerzy Łukaszewski, rector of the Col­
lege d’Europe in Bruges, who kindly located some documents for me in the
Belgian Archives, and to Peter Krüger, who did the same in the Bundesar­
chiv. Alice Teichová graciously answered several of my queries. Among
Polish historians, Henryk Bułhak kept me au courant of latest Polish pub­
lications, while Zbigniew Landau and Jerzy Tomaszewski were particu­
larly helpful with regard to my research on economic issues. When visiting
Poland I profited from conversations and discussions with many diplo­
matic historians. Let me mention only Henryk Batowski, Tadeusz Jędrusz-
czak, Michał Pułaski Alina Szklarska-Lohmannowa, and Marian Zgór-
niak.
I am most grateful to several former Polish diplomats whom I consulted,
particularly Count Edward Raczyński. I owe a special debt to Wacław
Jędrzejewicz, a soldier and politician of interwar Poland, its historian in