740.00/484: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 6:25 p.m.]
1680. Bonnet has just informed me that the French Government will appoint an Ambassador to Rome on Friday or Saturday of this week. (Incidentally Daladier said to me today that he believed that diplomatic relations with Italy should be resumed at once). Bonnet said that the three leading candidates were François-Poncet, now Ambassador to Germany, Noel, now Ambassador in Warsaw, and François Pietri, member of the Chamber of Deputies. He insisted that the choice between them had not yet been made. Bonnet went on to say that he felt that it was going to be possible to draw Italy quickly into the French-English camp. In the late crisis Mussolini had been most uncertain as to whether or not it was in the interests of Italy to march with Hitler and French information at the moment indicated that Mussolini was ready for a compromise on Spain. He, Bonnet, was confident that the Spanish situation would be settled by mediation within 3 months.
Bonnet said that he thought the moment was also propitious for the initiation of immediate conversations with Germany on financial, economic, and disarmament questions. He hoped that if the first initiative taken by the French should be well received the United States would participate in the conversations for disarmament and the recreation of economic life which might follow.
I asked Bonnet if France would denounce the Franco-Polish alliance17 in view of Poland’s recent conduct. Bonnet replied that he did not expect any change in the Franco-Polish alliance although the most that could be said for Poland’s action was that Poland had warned France in advance. I asked Bonnet what would become of the Franco-Soviet pact of mutual assistance. He replied that he did not anticipate any immediate change in this pact but that he did not know what the future might bring forth. All his information indicated [Page 84] that the Soviet Union was on the verge of an intense internal crisis. Litvinov had been in Paris in hiding during the critical days of the decisions with regard to Czechoslovakia. On the morning of the expiration of the Polish ultimatum to Czechoslovakia when it appeared certain that Poland would attack Czechoslovakia he (Bonnet) had had a private and secret conversation with Litvinov and had asked Litvinov point blank whether or not if Poland should attack Czechoslovakia the Soviet Union would attack Poland in accordance with the promises made to Praha by the Soviet Government and the public announcements to this effect made by the Soviet Government. Litvinov had replied that the Soviet Government would do nothing in support of Czechoslovakia.
Bonnet was of the opinion that the success of the efforts which he hoped to be able to undertake to improve relations with Germany and Italy would depend entirely on whether or not there should now be a rebirth of national spirit in France which would permit a great strengthening of French production especially in the field of aviation. He said that he believed that the Chamber of Deputies should be dissolved at once and new elections held. He thought that it would be impossible to produce a revival in France so long as every life [sic] was dependent on Communist votes. Incidentally Daladier said the same thing to me today and added that he hoped the results of the elections, which he intended to bring about, would be the complete elimination of the Communists from the Government majority.
I asked Bonnet what measures he thought would be taken in the financial field and he said that he thought Marchandeau intended to suggest some kind of very limited exchange control and added that he believed Marchandeau had received the full approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Morgenthau, for the institution of a small measure of his control. I said that I had no information whatsoever to this effect and Bonnet replied that the negotiations between Marchandeau and the Secretary of the Treasury18 had been conducted by the French Financial Attaché in Washington. I asked Bonnet what this would carry and he replied that he was uncertain. Bonnet was still in a state of intense relief engendered by the disappearance of the danger of immediate war and was most optimistic with regard to the future.
- Treaty signed at Paris, February 19, 1921, League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. xviii, p. 11.↩
- See vol. ii, pp. 256 ff.↩