740.00/239: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 2:10 p.m.]
1699. I asked Chautemps this morning what plans he had for following up the conversations in London. Chautemps said that he believed any immediate practical developments would be impossible due to the unwillingness of the British to make any concessions in the colonial domain to Germany.
During the conversations in London his Government had begun to approach delicately the question of whether France might be disposed to hand the Cameroons to Germany at once without any quid pro quo. Chamberlain had not made any direct statement on this subject but he, Chautemps, had perceived clearly what was in Chamberlain’s thoughts and had therefore said at once that France could not place herself in the position of being the only country to make concessions to Germany in the colonial domain and would do so only if England was prepared to make similar concessions and if such concessions should be a part of a general settlement. He had made it clear that he did not believe in throwing the hungry tiger a large tenderloin in order to improve the condition of his stomach.
Chautemps said that his declaration had stopped all suggestions which might conceivably have come from the British, to satisfy Germany’s colonial ambitions by giving her Portuguese, Belgian or French colonies. He believed that the British knew in advance that their study of the question of whether or not it was possible to hand colonies to Germany would result in the discovery that it was not possible to hand Germany any British colonies. Practical progress in the colonial domain therefore would be extraordinarily difficult.
Chautemps went on to say that Halifax had made one blunder of the first water in his conversation with Hitler. He had begun by saying to Hitler that he had not come to discuss matters in Central Europe and had accepted without protest Hitler’s reply that Great Britain was indeed very little interested in what might happen in Central Europe. One of the purposes of the declaration in the communiqué with regard to Great Britain’s interest in Central Europe had been to rectify this mistake of Halifax’s.
I asked Chautemps if he saw any possibility of using the London conversations as the basis for an improvement in relations between France and Germany. He replied that he had been much shocked by Neurath’s gesture in going to the railroad station in Berlin to see Delbos during the brief halt of the train, and also by the recent article written by Baldur von Schirach, chief of the Germany youth movement, [Page 187] published in Wille und Macht in which Von Schirach said that rapprochement between the French and German people was a task of such imperious necessity that youth should not lose an instant in making it a reality.
Chautemps said that he felt there was a genuine desire in Germany at the present time to develop closer relations with France. It was, of course, impossible for France to rush into the arms of Germany and form over night an offensive and defensive alliance; but it might be possible to inaugurate a period of genuine search for friendship. For his part he believed that Delbos, after visiting Warsaw, Bucharest, Belgrade, and Praha, should then visit Berlin to return the courtesy that Neurath had shown in coming to the railroad station to talk with him. He did not know whether this would happen or not. It would depend on the events of Delbos’ voyage.
He, Chautemps, was even ready to envisage going to Germany himself at some future date and would welcome visits to France of Neurath and other German dignitaries. He believes also that much could be done by taking seriously the article of Baldur von Schirach and by developing exchanges of young people between the two countries not by 50 at a time as in the past but by 5000.
In general, Chautemps said that he thought the wise policy with regard to Germany was the following:
To maintain as large military forces in the face of growing German military strength as it was possible to maintain.
To make no concessions except in the framework of a general settlement.
To indicate the greatest friendliness and the greatest desire to reach real reconciliation.
Chautemps went on to say that both he and Chamberlain believed that the Germans were entirely right in their view that article XVI should be eliminated from the Covenant of the League of Nations. He scarcely dared say this above his breath because Delbos did not agree with him; and Herriot and Paul-Boncour95 who were two of his closest political associates were still quite unaware that their god had died. They were on their knees in front of the altar of the League from which the deity had long since been removed. It was absurd to have in the Covenant of the League of Nations articles providing for military sanctions when every time there was a demand to have sanctions applied, the French and the British looked around the room and saw that they were the only people there who had arms in their hands and all the others merely had papers on which were written pious thoughts.
[Page 188]The three greatest armies in the world, aside from the French Army, were the German, the Italian, and the Japanese, and the French certainly could not undertake to send their soldiers to protect with their bodies the interests of countries all over the world against the will of those who controlled the German, Italian, and Japanese armies. Faced with any situation today, whether in China or Ethiopia or elsewhere, it was always England and France who were asked to carry the burden. The United States sits happily on the outside and every other nation in the world sighs with hands folded.
Chautemps said he would also say something else to me which was highly indiscreet. So far as he was concerned he looked with considerable equanimity on the possibility that Germany might annex Austria because he believed that this would produce an immediate reaction of Italy against Germany. Czechoslovakia was a different matter. The French could not permit Germany to overrun an ally.
I replied that I was not at all sure that a German attack on Austria would result at once in bad relations between Italy and Germany; but that I thought that the only basis for a stable independence of Austria must be a close entente between France and Italy. Chautemps then said, “I agree but what do you think of the latest lunacies of that blank Mussolini?” I told him that I had no rational explanation; and he replied that he could see no basis at the moment for any rapprochement with Italy.
Chautemps went on to say that he feared also that the Germans might demand the abandonment by France of the Franco-Soviet treaty of mutual assistance as a sine qua non for real rapprochement, although the Germans seemed recently to be somewhat less excited about Bolshevism and the Soviet Union. He would be quite ready to give the Germans all the assurances possible that France would never make a military alliance with the Soviet Union directed against Germany or indulge in military conversations with the Soviet Union and he would tell them frankly his own highly unfavorable opinion of the Soviet Union and Bolshevism but he could not formally abandon the treaty of mutual assistance with the Soviet Union.
Chautemps in conclusion said that he wished therefore to employ the period during which the British were studying the colonial question to improve as much as possible the atmosphere of relations between France and Germany, in the hope that when the Germans should become convinced that they could not obtain by force what they want they might be ready to agree to have peace on the basis of such real concessions as the French and British might be ready to make to them. The concession would be real.
- Joseph Paul-Boncour, French permanent delegate to the League of Nations.↩