740.00/1235: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State

859. Bonnet showed me this morning the text of the latest proposal that he had made to the Soviet Union.

The document consisted of three brief paragraphs the first of which stated that if France should become engaged in war because of military assistance given to Poland or Rumania, the Soviet Union would support France immediately with all her military forces.

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The second paragraph provided that if the Soviet Union should become involved in war because of assistance given to Poland or Rumania, France would support the Soviet Union immediately with all her military forces.

The third paragraph contained an agreement that conversations should take place at once for the purpose of concerting measures to make the assistances envisaged effective—in other words, that there should be immediate military conversations between the General Staffs of France and the Soviet Union.

Bonnet said that Suritz, the Soviet Ambassador, had informed him this morning that this text would be entirely acceptable to the Soviet Union provided that Great Britain should agree to sign a similar agreement with the Soviet Union.

I asked Bonnet why he had mentioned Poland and Rumania. He said that he had done so because he wanted to make it clear that the states envisaged were Poland and Rumania and no others.

He added that he had proposed an alternative text to cover the same but omitting the names of Poland and Rumania. This text provided that if France should become involved in war because of support given to states in Eastern Europe or the Balkans the Soviet Union would come to the assistance of France; and mutatis mutandis that France would come to the assistance of the Soviet Union.

Bonnet said that until this morning the British Government had refused to accept this French proposal and had continued to insist that the Soviet Union should make a unilateral declaration guaranteeing by name Poland and Rumania.

I lunched with Sir Eric C. Phipps today who said to me that this was indeed the position of his Government but that he had just received a long telegram before luncheon on this subject. Only the first two sentences of the telegram had been decoded and he did not know whether or not the British Government was now prepared to accept the French proposal.

Incidentally, the British Ambassador informed me that he felt that the British Government should and would support Poland to the utmost in refusing any German claim for Danzig or roadways across the Corridor. He added that it was obvious that if Great Britain should not support Poland at this moment Polish resistance to Germany might disintegrate and the entire edifice of resistance to Germany which was being built up might crumble.

Incidentally, the British Ambassador said to me twice that he felt as did his Government that the most effective measure which could be taken at the present time to build up resistance to Germany and Italy would be an early change in our Neutrality Act.

Bonnet said to me that he felt that no concessions should be made to Germany at the present time but that every effort should be made [Page 244] to push resistance to Germany and added that he felt that with[in?] a week or so the President would have an opportunity for a magnificent reply to Hitler.

Both Bonnet and the British Ambassador and also the Polish Ambassador66 expressed the opinion to me that Hitler’s speech67 showed that he did not dare to make war at the present time. They all felt that if resistance to Germany should be increased the disinclination of Germany to risk war would be increased also and that Hitler in the end would be compelled to negotiate on a reasonable basis.

Bullitt
  1. Juljusz Lukasiewicz, Polish Ambassador in France.
  2. For extracts in translation of Hitler’s speech to the German Reichstag on April 28, 1939, see German White Book, Documents on the Events Preceding the Outbreak of the War (New York, German Library of Information, 1940), doc. Nos. 214, 266, 295, and 343, pp. 226, 284, 314, and 364, respectively.