740.0011 Mutual Guarantee (Locarno)/537: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Straus) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 28—10:55 a.m.]
266. I called on Flandin yesterday afternoon to present Wilson. Flandin said that he expected the definitive German reply to be little if any more satisfactory than the interim reply of March 24th.24 On the other hand, he found Eden’s speech and the debate in the House of Commons quite satisfactory. The British Government he felt was in advance of British public opinion but if the German reply turns out to be what is now expected British opinion may well move more rapidly towards the position taken by its Government. He expressed the view that “there was a large part of bluff” in Hitler’s coup of March 7th and said that if only the British Government had clearly understood the situation and taken a firmer stand at the side of France—“not much would have been required, no military action”—Germany could have been brought up sharply and obliged to come to some arrangement making the possibility of future war much more remote. But the British Government he said evidently seriously apprehending that a firm attitude would have meant immediate war with Germany and feeling that Britain was entirely unprepared in a military sense was unwilling to adopt the only attitude which would actually have removed at least for some time the danger of armed conflict. In thus speaking of Britain he was not in any sense resentful or critical but seemed merely regretful that a great opportunity to deal properly with the situation had been lost.
Repeated to London, Berlin, Geneva.
- British Cmd. 5175, Miscellaneous No. 6 (1936): Correspondence with the German Government regarding the German Proposals for an European Settlement, March 24–May 6, 1936, p. 1.↩