500.A15A4 General Committee/771
Memorandum by The Chargé in Great Britain (Atherton)52
I called on the Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Robert Vansittart, today and asked him regarding the developments which had taken place since my conversation with Sir John Simon on disarmament and the British memorandum, outlined in my telegram No. 21, January 29, 1 p.m.
[Page 17]Sir Robert replied that as far as the French were concerned they could not expect any immediate official reply, if indeed, due to the political situation in Paris, the matter would come up for serious consideration during the life of the Daladier Government. Sir Robert felt that the present French Cabinet was merely a reshuffle and that events had brought M. Daladier back to power too soon, for which he was personally regretful, since he did not see how Daladier could retain the confidence of the Chamber more than a month at the outside. Since there were no official indications from the Government to the French press, the Foreign” Office did not consider newspaper reports of the French attitude towards the British memorandum of great value.
The Under Secretary of State then referred to Italy, and stated that Mussolini’s public statement a day or so ago was very much along the “realistic” lines expected, but did not at all mean, according to the British interpretation, that the Duce was not prepared to support the English thesis while he felt there was any hope of its adoption.
The first reports of the German interpretation of the British memorandum, the Foreign Office felt, were almost embarrassingly favorable, and Hitler’s anniversary speech on Tuesday, January 30th, did nothing to dispel the belief that the memorandum might constitute a happy basis for new discussions. Sir Robert mentioned the growing power of Hitler in Germany since the elections of November 12th and gave as a test of his strength the successful negotiations of the German-Polish Pact, which Hitler even mentioned in his Reichstag speech, knowing that it would be coldly received by the North German representatives. However, Hitler was a South German at heart.
Sir Robert pointed out that to offset his reference to the Polish Pact and the disarmament proposal, Hitler had pointed out two fields where he obviously intended to seek success; one in the Saar, and the other in the matter of future relations with Austria. Sir Robert felt it would be foolish if for some adequate quid pro quo the French would not be willing to forego the plebiscite in the Saar and all the bitterness that an early return to Germany would avoid.
As regards Austria, the Under Secretary of State said three alternatives were open: (1) outside support to Dollfuss,53 including some sort of commercial advantages accruing to him which would retain him in his waning power; (2) the elimination of Dollfuss, whereupon Austria must swing towards Germany in a Nazi movement, or (3) towards Italy in Fascisti sympathy. Sir Robert considered the second alternative more probable and felt that even an appeal to the League of Nations could not prevent a régime whereby all the formalities of [Page 18] frontiers, customs and sovereign independence would be maintained while at heart Austria was a political and commercial Nazi affinity to Germany.
The Foreign Office felt that the Austrian question was full of danger which might, however, never come to a head. Anyway, the present European situation was such that it seemed almost certain that no early consideration of the British memorandum could be sought. Presumably, therefore, the scheduled meeting of the officers of the Bureau in London on February 13th might be postponed by Mr. Henderson, or, alternatively, the officers of the Bureau might meet and agree that the European situation was such that an adjournment, without fixing a date to summon the Bureau, would permit further and profitable study of the disarmament question.