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Hitler Denounces the Anglo-German Naval Agreement — And the Polish Non-Aggression Pact — The Soviet Proposal of a Three-Power Alliance — Dilemma of the Border States — Soviet-German Contacts Grow — The Dismissal of Litvinov — Molotov — Anglo-Soviet Negotiations — Debate of May 19 — Mr. Lloyd-George’s Speech — My Statement on the European Situation — The Need of the Russian Alliance — Too Late — The “Pact of Steel” Between Germany and Italy — Soviet Diplomatic Tactics.
WE HAVE REACHED THE PERIOD when all relations between Britain and Germany were at an end. We now know, of course, that there never had been any true relationship between our two countries since Hitler came into power. He had only hoped to persuade or frighten Britain into giving him a free hand in Eastern Europe; and Mr. Chamberlain had cherished the hope of appeasing and reforming him and leading him to grace. However, the time had come when the last illusions of the British Government had been dispelled. The Cabinet was at length convinced that Nazi Germany meant war, and the Prime Minister offered guarantees and contracted alliances in every direction still open, regardless of whether we could give any effective help to the countries concerned. To the Polish guarantee was added a Rumanian guarantee, and to these an alliance with Turkey.
We must now recall the sad piece of paper which Mr. Chamberlain had got Hitler to sign at Munich and which he waved triumphantly to the crowd when he quitted his airplane at Heston. In this he had invoked the two bonds which he assumed existed between him and Hitler and between Britain and Germany, namely, the Munich Agreement and the Anglo-German Naval Treaty. The subjugation of Czechoslovakia had destroyed the first; Hitler now brushed away the second.
Addressing the Reichstag on April 28, he said:
Since England today, both through the press and officially, upholds the view that Germany should be opposed in all circumstances, and confirms this by the policy of encirclement known to us, the basis of the Naval Treaty has been removed. I have therefore resolved to send today a communication to this effect to the British Government. This is to us not a matter of practical material importance – for I still hope that we shall be able to avoid an armaments race with England – but an action of self-respect. Should the British Government, however, wish to enter once more into negotiations with Germany on this problem, no one would be happier than I at the prospect of still being able to come to a clear and straightforward understanding.1
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which had been so marked a gain to Hitler at an important and critical moment in his policy, was now represented by him as a favour to Britain, the benefits of which would be withdrawn as a mark of German displeasure. The Fuehrer held out the hope to the British Government that he might be willing to discuss the naval problem further with His Majesty’s Government, and he may even have expected that his former dupes would persist in their policy of appeasement. To him it now mattered nothing. He had Italy, and he had his air superiority; he had Austria and Czechoslovakia, with all that implied. He had his Western Wall. In the purely naval sphere he had always been building U-boats as fast as possible irrespective of any agreement. He had already as a matter of form invoked his right to build a hundred per cent of the British numbers, but this had not limited in the slightest degree the German U-boat construction programme. As for the larger vessels, he could not nearly digest the generous allowance which had been accorded to him by the Naval Agreement. He, therefore, made fine impudent play with flinging it back in the face of the simpletons who made it.
In this same speech Hitler also denounced the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact. He gave as his direct reason the Anglo-Polish Guarantee,
which would in certain circumstances compel Poland to take military action against Germany in the event of a conflict between Germany and any other Power, in which England in her turn would be involved. This obligation is contrary to the agreement which I made with Marshal Pilsudski some time ago…. I therefore look upon the agreement as having been unilaterally infringed by Poland and thereby no longer in existence. I sent a communication to this effect to the Polish Government….
After studying this speech at the time, I wrote in one of my articles:
It seems only too probable that the glare of Nazi Germany is now to be turned onto Poland. Herr Hitler’s speeches may or may not be a guide to his intentions, but the salient object of last Friday’s performance was obviously to isolate Poland, to make the most plausible case against her, and to bring intensive pressure upon her. The German Dictator seemed to suppose that he could make the Anglo-Polish Agreement inoperative by focusing his demands on Danzig and the Corridor. He apparently expects that those elements in Great Britain which used to exclaim, “Who would fight for Czechoslovakia?” may now be induced to cry, “Who would fight for Danzig and the Corridor?” He does not seem to be conscious of the immense change which has been wrought in British public opinion by his treacherous breach of the Munich Agreement, and of the complete reversal of policy which this outrage brought about in the British Government, and especially in the Prime Minister.
The denunciation of the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934 is an extremely serious and menacing step. That pact had been reaffirmed as recently as last January, when Ribbentrop visited Warsaw. Like the Anglo-German Naval Treaty, it was negotiated at the wish of Herr Hitler. Like the Naval Treaty, it gave marked advantages to Germany. Both agreements eased Germany’s position while she was weak. The Naval Agreement amounted in fact to a condonation by Great Britain of a breach of the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, and thus stultified both the decisions of the Stresa front and those which the Council of the League were induced to take. The German-Polish Agreement enabled Nazi attention to be concentrated first upon Austria and later upon Czechoslovakia, with ruinous results to those unhappy countries. It temporarily weakened the relations between France and Poland and prevented any solidarity of interests growing up among the states of Eastern Europe. Now that it has served its purpose for Germany, it is cast away by one-sided action. Poland is implicitly informed that she is now in the zone of potential aggression.
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The British Government had to consider urgently the practical implications of the guarantees given to Poland and to Rumania. Neither set of assurances had any military value except within the framework of a general agreement with Russia. It was, therefore, with this object that talks at last began in Moscow on April 15 between the British Ambassador and M. Litvinov. Considering how the Soviet Government had hitherto been treated, there was not much to be expected from them now. However, on April 16 they made a formal offer, the text of which was not published, for the creation of a united front of mutual assistance between Great Britain, France, and the U.S.S.R. The three Powers, with Poland added if possible, were furthermore to guarantee those states in Central and Eastern Europe which lay under the menace of German aggression. The obstacle to such an agreement was the terror of these same border countries of receiving Soviet help in the shape of Soviet armies marching through their territories to defend them from the Germans, and incidentally incorporating them in the Soviet-Communist system of which they were the most vehement opponents. Poland, Rumania, Finland, and the three Baltic States did not know whether it was German aggression or Russian rescue that they dreaded more. It was this hideous choice that paralysed British and French policy.
There can, however, be no doubt, even in the after light, that Britain and France should have accepted the Russian offer, proclaimed the Triple Alliance, and left the method by which it could be made effective in case of war to be adjusted between allies engaged against a common foe. In such circumstances a different temper prevails. Allies in war are inclined to defer a great deal to each other’s wishes; the flail of battle beats upon the front, and all kinds of expedients are welcomed which, in peace, would be abhorrent. It would not be easy in a grand alliance, such as might have been developed, for one ally to enter the territory of another unless invited.
But Mr. Chamberlain and the Foreign Office were baffled by this riddle of the Sphinx. When events are moving at such speed and in such tremendous mass as at this juncture, it is wise to take one step at a time. The alliance of Britain, France, and Russia would have struck deep alarm into the heart of Germany in 1939, and no one can prove that war might not even then have been averted. The next step could have been taken with superior power on the side of the Allies. The initiative would have been regained by their diplomacy. Hitler could afford neither to embark upon the war on two fronts, which he himself had so deeply condemned, nor to sustain a check. It was a pity not to have placed him in this awkward position, which might well have cost him his life. Statesmen are not called upon only to settle easy questions. These often settle themselves. It is where the balance quivers, and the proportions are veiled in mist, that the opportunity for world-saving decisions presents itself. Having got ourselves into this awful plight of 1939, it was vital to grasp the larger hope.
It is not even now possible to fix the moment when Stalin definitely abandoned all intention of working with the Western Democracies and of coming to terms with Hitler. Indeed, it seems probable that there never was such a moment. The publication in Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939–41, by the American State Department of a mass of documents captured from the archives of the German Foreign Office gives us, however, a number of facts hitherto unknown. Apparently something happened as early as February, 1939; but this was almost certainly concerned with trading and commercial questions affected by the status of Czechoslovakia, after Munich, which required discussion between the two countries. The incorporation of Czechoslovakia in the Reich in mid-March magnified these issues. Russia had some contracts with the Czechoslovak Government for munitions from the Skoda Works. What was to happen to these contracts now that Skoda had become a German arsenal?
On April 17, the State Secretary in the German Foreign Office, Weizsaecker, records that the Russian Ambassador had visited him that day for the first time since he had presented his credentials nearly a year before. He asked about the Skoda contracts, and Weizsaecker pointed out that “a favourable atmosphere for the delivery of war materials to Soviet Russia was not exactly being created at present by reports of a Russian-British-French Air Pact and the like.” On this the Soviet Ambassador turned at once from trade to politics, and asked the State Secretary what he thought of German-Russian relations. Weizsaecker replied that it appeared to him that “the Russian press lately was not fully participating in the anti-German tone of the American and some of the English papers.” On this the Soviet Ambassador said, “Ideological differences of opinion had hardly influenced the Russian-Italian relationship, and they need not prove a stumbling-block to Germany either. Soviet Russia had not exploited the present friction between Germany and the Western Democracies against her, nor did she desire to do so. There exists for Russia no reason why she should not live with Germany on a normal footing. And from normal, relations might become better and better.”
We must regard this conversation as significant, especially in view of the simultaneous discussions in Moscow between the British Ambassador and M. Litvinov and the formal offer of the Soviet, on April 16, of a Three-Power Alliance with Great Britain and France. It is the first obvious move of Russia from one leg to the other. “Normalisation” of the relations between Russia and Germany was henceforward pursued, step for step, with the negotiations for a triple alliance against German aggression.
If, for instance, Mr. Chamberlain on receipt of the Russian offer had replied, “Yes. Let us three band together and break Hitler’s neck,” or words to that effect, Parliament would have approved, Stalin would have understood, and history might have taken a different course. At least it could not have taken a worse.
On May 4, I commented on the position in these terms:
Above all, time must not be lost. Ten or twelve days have already passed since the Russian offer was made. The British people, who have now, at the sacrifice of honoured, ingrained custom, accepted the principle of compulsory military service, have a right, in conjunction with the French Republic, to call upon Poland not to place obstacles in the way of a common cause. Not only must the full co-operation of Russia be accepted, but the three Baltic States, Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia, must also be brought into association. To these three countries of warlike peoples, possessing together armies totalling perhaps twenty divisions of virile troops, a friendly Russia supplying munitions and other aid is essential.
There is no means of maintaining an Eastern Front against Nazi aggression without the active aid of Russia. Russian interests are deeply concerned in preventing Herr Hitler’s designs on Eastern Europe. It should still be possible to range all the states and peoples from the Baltic to the Black Sea in one solid front against a new outrage or invasion. Such a front, if established in good heart, and with resolute and efficient military arrangements, combined with the strength of the Western Powers, may yet confront Hitler, Goering, Himmler, Ribbentrop, Goebbels and Company with forces the German people would be reluctant to challenge.
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Instead, there was a long silence while half-measures and judicious compromises were being prepared. This delay was fatal to Litvinov. His last attempt to bring matters to a clear-cut decision with the Western Powers was deemed to have failed. Our credit stood very low. A wholly different foreign policy was required for the safety of Russia, and a new exponent must be found. On May 3, an official communiqué from Moscow announced that “M. Litvinov had been released from the office of Foreign Commissar at his request and that his duties would be assumed by the Premier, M. Molotov.” The German Chargé d’Affaires in Moscow reported on May 4 as follows:
Since Litvinov had received the English Ambassador as late as May 2 and had been named in the press of yesterday as guest of honour at the parade, his dismissal appears to be the result of a spontaneous decision by Stalin…. At the last Party Congress, Stalin urged caution lest the Soviet Union should be drawn into conflict. Molotov (no Jew) is held to be “the most intimate friend and closest collaborator of Stalin.” His appointment is apparently the guarantee that the foreign policy will be continued strictly in accordance with Stalin’s ideas.
Soviet diplomatic representatives abroad were instructed to inform the Governments to which they were accredited that this change meant no alteration in Russian foreign policy. Moscow radio announced on May 4 that Molotov would carry on the policy of Western security that for years had been Litvinov’s aim. The eminent Jew, the target of German antagonism, was flung aside for the time being like a broken tool, and, without being allowed a word of explanation, was bundled off the world stage to obscurity, a pittance, and police supervision. Molotov, little known outside Russia, became Commissar for Foreign Affairs, in the closest confederacy with Stalin. He was free from all encumbrance of previous declarations, free from the League of Nations atmosphere, and able to move in any direction which the self-preservation of Russia might seem to require. There was in fact only one way in which he was now likely to move. He had always been favourable to an arrangement with Hitler. The Soviet Government were convinced by Munich and much else that neither Britain nor France would fight till they were attacked, and would not be much good then. The gathering storm was about to break. Russia must look after herself.
The dismissal of Litvinov marked the end of an epoch. It registered the abandonment by the Kremlin of all faith in a security pact with the Western Powers and in the possibility of organising an Eastern Front against Germany. The German press comments at the time, though not necessarily accurate, are interesting. A dispatch from Warsaw was published in the German newspapers on May 4, stating that Litvinov had resigned after a bitter quarrel with Marshal Voroshilov (“the Party Boy,” as cheeky and daring Russians called him in moments of relaxation). Voroshilov, no doubt on precise instructions, had declared that the Red Army was not prepared to fight for Poland, and, in the name of the Russian General Staff, condemned “excessively far-reaching military obligations.” On May 7, the Frankfurter Zeitung was already sufficiently informed to state that Litvinov’s resignation was extremely serious for the future of Anglo-French “encirclement,” and its probable meaning was that those in Russia concerned with the military burden resulting from it had called a halt to Litvinov. All this was true; but for an interval it was necessary that a veil of deceit should cover the immense transaction, and that even up till the latest moment the Soviet attitude should remain in doubt. Russia must have a move both ways. How else could she drive her bargain with the hated and dreaded Hitler?
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The Jew Litvinov was gone, and Hitler’s dominant prejudice placated. From that moment the German Government ceased to define its foreign policy, as anti-Bolshevism, and turned its abuse upon the “pluto-democracies.” Newspaper articles assured the Soviets that the German Lebensraum did not encroach on Russian territory; that indeed it stopped short of the Russian frontier at all points. Consequently there could be no cause of conflict between Russia and Germany unless the Soviets entered into “encirclement” engagements with England and France. The German Ambassador, Count Schulenburg, who had been summoned to Berlin for lengthy consultations, returned to Moscow with an offer of an advantageous goods credit on a long-term basis. The movement on both sides was towards a compact.
This violent and unnatural reversal of Russian policy was a transmogrification of which only totalitarian states are capable. Barely two years since, the leaders of the Russian Army, Tukhachevsky and several thousands of its most accomplished officers, had been slaughtered for the very inclinations which now became acceptable to the handful of anxious masters in the Kremlin. Then pro-Germanism had been heresy and treason. Now, overnight, it was the policy of the State, and woe was mechanically meted out to any who dared dispute it, and often to those not quick enough on the turn-about.
For the task in hand no one was better fitted or equipped than the new Foreign Commissar.
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The figure whom Stalin had now moved to the pulpit of Soviet foreign policy deserves some description, not available to the British or French Governments at the time. Vyacheslav Molotov was a man of outstanding ability and cold-blooded ruthlessness. He had survived the fearful hazards and ordeals to which all the Bolshevik leaders had been subjected in the years of triumphant revolution. He had lived and thrived in a society where ever-varying intrigue was accompanied by the constant menace of personal liquidation. His cannon-ball head, black moustache, and comprehending eyes, his slab face, his verbal adroitness and imperturbable demeanour, were appropriate manifestations of his qualities and skill. He was above all men fitted to be the agent and instrument of the policy of an incalculable machine. I have only met him on equal terms, in parleys where sometimes a strain of humour appeared, or at banquets where he genially proposed a long succession of conventional and meaningless toasts. I have never seen a human being who more perfectly represented the modern conception of a robot. And yet with all this there was an apparently reasonable and keenly polished diplomatist. What he was to his inferiors I cannot tell. What he was to the Japanese Ambassador during the years when, after the Teheran Conference, Stalin had promised to attack Japan, once the German Army was beaten, can be deduced from his recorded conversations. One delicate, searching, awkward interview after another was conducted with perfect poise, impenetrable purpose, and bland, official correctitude. Never a chink was opened. Never a needless jar was made. His smile of Siberian winter, his carefully measured and often wise words, his affable demeanour, combined to make him the perfect agent of Soviet policy in a deadly world.
Correspondence with him upon disputed matters was always useless, and, if pushed far, ended in lies and insults, of which this work will presently contain some examples. Only once did I seem to get a natural, human reaction. This was in the spring of 1942, when he alighted in England on his way back from the United States. We had signed the Anglo-Soviet Treaty, and he was about to make his dangerous flight home. At the garden gate of Downing Street, which we used for secrecy, I gripped his arm and we looked each other in the face. Suddenly he appeared deeply moved. Inside the image there appeared the man. He responded with an equal pressure. Silently we wrung each other’s hands. But then we were all together, and it was life or death for the lot. Havoc and ruin had been around him all his days, either impending on himself or dealt by him to others. Certainly in Molotov the Soviet machine had found a capable and in many ways a characteristic representative – always the faithful Party man and Communist disciple. How glad I am at the end of my life not to have had to endure the stresses which he had suffered; better never be born. In the conduct of foreign affairs, Sully, Talleyrand, Metternich, would welcome him to their company, if there be another world to which Bolsheviks allow themselves to go.
* * * * *
From the moment when Molotov became Foreign Commissar, he pursued the policy of an arrangement with Germany at the expense of Poland. It was not very long before the French became aware of this. There is a remarkable dispatch by the French Ambassador in Berlin, dated May 7, published in the French Yellow Book, which states that on his secret information he was sure that a Fourth Partition of Poland was to be the basis of the German-Russian rapprochement. “Since the month of May,” writes M. Daladier in April, 1946, “the U.S.S.R. had conducted two negotiations, one with France, the other with Germany. She appeared to prefer to partition rather than to defend Poland. Such was the immediate cause of the Second World War.” 2 But there were other causes too.
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On May 8, the British Government at last replied to the Soviet Note of April 16. While the text of the British document was not published, the Tass Agency on May 9 issued a statement giving the main points of the British proposals. On May 10, the official organ, Isvestia, printed a communiqué to the effect that Reuter’s statement of the British counter-proposals, namely, that “the Soviet Union must separately guarantee every neighbouring state, and that Great Britain pledges herself to assist the U.S.S.R. if the latter becomes involved in war as a result of its guarantees,” did not correspond to fact. The Soviet Government, said the communiqué, had received the British counter-proposals on May 8, but these did not mention the Soviet Union’s obligation of a separate guarantee to each of its neighbouring states, whereas they did state that the U.S.S.R. was obliged to render immediate assistance to Great Britain and France in the event of their being involved in war under their guarantees to Poland and Rumania. No mention, however, was made of any assistance on their part to the Soviet Union in the event of its being involved in war in consequence of its obligations towards any Eastern European state.
Later on the same day, Mr. Chamberlain said that the Government had undertaken their new obligations in Eastern Europe without inviting the direct participation of the Soviet Government on account of various difficulties. His Majesty’s Government had suggested that the Soviet Government should make, on their own behalf, a similar declaration, and express their readiness to lend assistance, if desired, to countries which might be victims of aggression and were prepared to defend their own independence.
Almost simultaneously the Soviet Government presented a scheme at once more comprehensive and more rigid which, whatever other advantages it might present, must in the view of His Majesty’s Government inevitably raise the very difficulties which their own proposals had been designed to avoid. They accordingly pointed out to the Soviet Government the existence of these difficulties. At the same time they made certain modifications in their original proposals. In particular, they [H.M.G.] made it plain that if the Soviet Government wished to make their own intervention contingent on that of Great Britain and France, His Majesty’s Government for their part would have no objection.
It was a pity that this had not been explicitly stated a fortnight earlier.
It should be mentioned here that on May 12, the Anglo-Turkish Agreement was formally ratified by the Turkish Parliament. By means of this addition to our commitments, we hoped to strengthen our position in the Mediterranean in the event of a crisis. Here was our answer to the Italian occupation of Albania. Just as the period of talking with Germany was over, so now we reached in effect the same deadlock with Italy.
The Russian negotiations proceeded languidly, and on May 19 the whole issue was raised in the House of Commons. The debate, which was short and serious, was practically confined to the leaders of parties and to prominent ex-Ministers. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Eden, and I all pressed upon the Government the vital need of an immediate arrangement with Russia of the most far-reaching character and on equal terms. Mr. Lloyd George began, and painted a picture of gloom and peril in the darkest hues:
The situation reminds me very much of the feeling that prevailed in the early spring of 1918. We knew there was a great attack coming from Germany, but no one quite knew where the blow would fall. I remember that the French thought it would fall on their front, while our generals thought it would fall on ours. The French generals were not even agreed as to the part of their front on which the attack would fall, and our generals were equally divided. All that we knew was that there was a tremendous onslaught coming somewhere, and the whole atmosphere was filled with I will not say fear, but with uneasiness. We could see the tremendous activities behind the German lines, and we knew that they were preparing something. That is more or less what seems to me to be the position today … we are all very anxious; the whole world is under the impression that there is something preparing in the nature of another attack from the aggressors. Nobody quite knows where it will come. We can see that they are speeding up their armaments at a rate hitherto unprecedented, especially in weapons of the offensive – tanks, bombing airplanes, submarines. We know that they are occupying and fortifying fresh positions that will give them strategic advantages in a war with France and ourselves…. They are inspecting and surveying, from Libya to the North Sea, all sorts of situations that would be of vital importance in the event of war. There is a secrecy in the movements behind the lines which is very ominous.
There is the same kind of secrecy as in 1918, in order to baffle us as to their objects. They are not preparing for defence…. They are not preparing themselves against attack from either France, Britain, or Russia. That has never been threatened. I have never heard, either privately or publicly, any hint or suggestion that we were contemplating an attack upon Italy or Germany in any quarter, and they know it quite well. Therefore, all these preparations are not for defence. They are for some contemplated offensive scheme against someone or other in whom we are interested.
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Mr. Lloyd George then added some words of wisdom:
The main military purpose and scheme of the Dictators is to produce quick results, to avoid a prolonged war. A prolonged war never suits dictators. A prolonged war like the Peninsular War wears them down, and the great Russian defence, which produced no great military victory for the Russians, broke Napoleon. Germany’s ideal is now, and always has been, a war which is brought to a speedy end. The war against Austria in 1866 did not last more than a few weeks, and the war in 1870 was waged in such a way that it was practically over in a month or two. In 1914, plans were made with exactly the same aim in view, and it was very nearly achieved; and they would have achieved it but for Russia. But from the moment they failed to achieve a speedy victory, the game was up. You may depend upon it that the great military thinkers of Germany have been working out the problem, what was the mistake of 1914, what did they lack, how can they fill up the gaps and repair the blunders or avoid them in the next war?
Mr. Lloyd George, pressing on from fact to fancy,
Mr. Lloyd George, pressing on from fact to fancy, then suggested that the Germans had already got “twenty thousand tanks” and “thousands of bomber airplanes.” This was far beyond the truth. Moreover, it was an undue appeal to the fear motive. And why had he not been busy all these years with my small group ingeminating rearmament? But his speech cast a chill over the assembly. Two years before, or better still three, such statements and all the pessimism of his speech would have been scorned and derided; but then there was time. Now, whatever the figures, it was all too late.
The Prime Minister replied, and for the first time revealed to us his views on the Soviet offer. His reception of it was certainly cool, and indeed disdainful:
If we can evolve a method by which we can enlist the co-operation and assistance of the Soviet Union in building up that peace front, we welcome it; we want it; we attach value to it. The suggestion that we despise the assistance of the Soviet Union is without foundation. Without accepting any view of an unauthorised character as to the precise value of the Russian military forces, or the way in which they would best be employed, no one would be so foolish as to suppose that that huge country, with its vast population and enormous resources, would be a negligible factor in such a situation as that with which we are confronted.
This seemed to show the same lack of proportion as we have seen in the rebuff to the Roosevelt proposals a year before.
I then took up the tale:
I have been quite unable to understand what is the objection to making the agreement with Russia which the Prime Minister professes himself desirous of doing, and making it in the broad and simple form proposed by the Russian Soviet Government.
Undoubtedly, the proposals put forward by the Russian Government contemplate a triple alliance against aggression between England, France, and Russia, which alliance may extend its benefits; to other countries if and when those benefits are desired. The alliance is solely for the purpose of resisting further acts of aggression and of protecting the victims of aggression. I cannot see what is wrong with that. What is wrong with this simple proposal? It is said, “Can you trust the Russian Soviet Government?” I suppose in Moscow they say, “Can we trust Chamberlain?” I hope we may say that the answer to both questions is in the affirmative. I earnestly hope so.
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This Turkish proposal, which is universally accepted, is a great consolidating and stabilising force throughout the whole of the Black Sea area and the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey, with whom we have made this agreement, is in the closest harmony with Russia. She is also in the closest harmony with Rumania. These Powers together are mutually protecting vital interests.
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There is a great identity of interests between Great Britain and the associated Powers in the South. Is there not a similar identity of interests in the North? Take the countries of the Baltic, Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia, which were once the occasion of the wars of Peter the Great. It is a major interest of Russia that these Powers should not fall into the hands of Nazi Germany. That is a vital interest in the North. I need not elaborate the arguments about [a German attack upon] the Ukraine, which means an invasion of Russian territory. All along the whole of this eastern front you can see that the major interests of Russia are definitely engaged, and therefore it seems you could fairly judge that they would pool their interests with other countries similarly affected.
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If you are ready to be an ally of Russia in time of war, which is the supreme test, the great occasion of all, if you are ready to join hands with Russia in the defence of Poland, which you have guaranteed, and of Rumania, why should you shrink from becoming the ally of Russia now, when you may by that very fact prevent the breaking-out of war? I cannot understand all these refinements of diplomacy and delay. If the worst comes to the worst, you are in the midst of it with them, and you have to make the best of it with them. If the difficulties do not arise, well, you will have had the security in the preliminary stages.
* * * * *
His Majesty’s Government have given a guarantee to Poland. I was astounded when I heard them give this guarantee. I support it, but I was astounded by it, because nothing that had happened before led one to suppose that such a step would be taken. I want to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that the question posed by Mr. Lloyd George ten days ago and repeated today has not been answered. The question was whether the General Staff was consulted before this guarantee was given as to whether it was safe and practical to give it, and whether there were any means of implementing it. The whole country knows that the question has been asked, and it has not been answered. That is disconcerting and disquieting.
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Clearly Russia is not going to enter into agreements unless she is treated as an equal, and not only is treated as an equal, but has confidence that the methods employed by the Allies – by the peace front – are such as would be likely to lead to success. No one wants to associate himself with indeterminate leadership and uncertain policies. The Government must realise that none of these states in Eastern Europe can maintain themselves for, say, a year’s war unless they have behind them the massive, solid backing of a friendly Russia, joined to the combination of the Western Powers. In the main, I agree with Mr. Lloyd George that if there is to be an effective eastern front – an eastern peace front, or a war front as it might become – it can be set up only with the effective support of a friendly Soviet Russia lying behind all those countries.
Unless there is an eastern front set up, what is going to happen to the West? What is going to happen to those countries on the western front to whom, if we have not given guarantees, it is admitted we are bound – countries like Belgium, Holland, Denmark. and Switzerland? Let us look back to the experiences we had in 1917. In 1917, the Russian front was broken and demoralised. Revolution and mutiny had sapped the courage of that great disciplined army, and the conditions at the front were indescribable; and yet, until the Treaty was made closing the front down, more than one million five hundred thousand Germans were held upon that front, even in its most ineffectual and unhappy condition. Once that front was closed down, one million Germans and five thousand cannon were brought to the West, and at the last moment almost turned the course of the war and forced upon us a disastrous peace.
It is a tremendous thing, this question of the eastern front. I am astonished that there is not more anxiety about it. Certainly, I do not ask favours of Soviet Russia. This is no time to ask favours of countries. But here is an offer, a fair offer, and a better offer, in my opinion, than the terms which the Government seek to get for themselves; a more simple, a more direct, and a more effective offer. Let it not be put aside and come to nothing. I beg His Majesty’s Government to get some of these brutal truths into their heads. Without an effective eastern front, there can be no satisfactory defence of our interests in the West, and without Russia there can be no effective eastern front. If His Majesty’s Government, having neglected our defences for a long time, having thrown away Czechoslovakia with all that Czechoslovakia meant in military power, having committed us, without examination of the technical aspects, to the defence of Poland and Rumania, now reject and cast away the indispensable aid of Russia, and so lead us in the worst of all ways into the worst of all wars, they will have ill-deserved the confidence and, I will add, the generosity with which they have been treated by their fellow-countrymen.
There can be little doubt that all this was now too late. Attlee, Sinclair, and Eden spoke on the general line of the imminence of the danger and the need of the Russian alliance. The position of the leaders of the Labour and Liberal Parties was weakened by the vote against compulsory national service to which they had led their followers only a few weeks before. The plea, so often advanced, that this was because they did not like the foreign policy, was feeble; for no foreign policy can have validity if there is no adequate force behind it and no national readiness to make the necessary sacrifices to produce that force.
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The efforts of the Western Powers to produce a defensive alignment against Germany were well matched by the other side. Conversations between Ribbentrop and Ciano at Como at the beginning of May came to formal and public fruition in the so-called “Pact of Steel,” signed by the two Foreign Ministers in Berlin on May 22. This was the challenging answer to the flimsy British network of guarantees in Eastern Europe. Ciano in his Diary records a conversation with Hitler at the time of the signature of this alliance:
Hitler states that he is well satisfied with the Pact, and confirms the fact that Mediterranean policy will be directed by Italy. He takes an interest in Albania, and is enthusiastic about our programme for making of Albania a stronghold which will inexorably dominate the Balkans.3
Hitler’s satisfaction was more clearly revealed when on the day following the signing of the Pact of Steel, May 23, he held a meeting with his Chiefs of Staff. The secret minutes of the conversation are on record:
We are at present in a state of patriotic fervour, which is shared by two other nations – Italy and Japan. The period which lies behind us has indeed been put to good use. All measures have been taken in the correct sequence and in harmony with our aims. The Pole is no “supplementary enemy.” Poland will always be on the side of our adversaries. In spite of treaties of friendship, Poland has always had the secret intention of exploiting every opportunity to do us harm. Danzig is not the subject of the dispute at all. It is a question of expanding our living space in the East and of securing our food supplies. There is, therefore, no question of sparing Poland, and we are left with the decision: to attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity. We cannot expect a repetition of the Czech affair. There will be war. Our task is to isolate Poland. The success of the isolation will be decisive.
If it is not certain that a German-Polish conflict will not lead to war in the West, then the fight must be primarily against England and France. If there were an alliance of France, England, and Russia against Germany, Italy, and Japan, I should be constrained to attack England and France with a few annihilating blows. I doubt the possibility of a peaceful settlement with England. We must prepare ourselves for the conflict. England sees in our development the foundation of a hegemony which would weaken her. England is, therefore, our enemy, and the conflict with England will be a life-and-death struggle. The Dutch and Belgian air bases must be occupied by armed force. Declarations of neutrality must be ignored.
If England intends to intervene in the Polish war, we must occupy Holland with lightning speed. We must aim at securing a new defence line on Dutch soil up to the Zuyder Zee. The idea that we can get off cheaply is dangerous; there is no such possibility. We must burn our boats, and it is no longer a question of justice or injustice, but of life or death for eighty million human beings. Every country’s armed forces or government must aim at a short war. The Government, however, must also be prepared for a war of ten or fifteen years’ duration.
England knows that to lose a war will mean the end of her world power. England is the driving force against Germany.
The British themselves are proud, courageous, tenacious, firm in resistance and gifted as organisers. They know how to exploit every new development. They have the love of adventure and the bravery of the Nordic race. The German average is higher. But if in the First World War we had had two battleships and two cruisers more, and if the battle of Jutland had begun in the morning, the British Fleet would have been defeated 4 and England brought to her knees. In addition to the surprise attack, preparations for a long war must be made, while opportunities on the Continent for England are eliminated. The Army will have to hold positions essential to the Navy and air force. If Holland and Belgium are successfully occupied and held, and if France is also defeated, the fundamental conditions for a successful war against England will have been secured.5
On May 30, the German Foreign Office sent the following instruction to their Ambassador in Moscow: “Contrary to the policy previously planned we have now decided to undertake definite negotiations with the Soviet Union.” 6 While the ranks of the Axis closed for military preparation, the vital link of the Western Powers with Russia had perished. The underlying discordance of view can be read into Foreign Commissar Molotov’s speech of May 31 in reply to Mr. Chamberlain’s speech in the Commons of May 19.
As far back [he said] as the middle of April, the Soviet Government entered into negotiations with the British and French Governments about the necessary measures to be taken. The negotiations started then are not yet concluded. It became clear some time ago that if there was any real desire to create an efficient front of peaceable countries against the advance of aggression, the following minimum conditions were imperative:
The conclusion between Great Britain, France, and the U.S.S.R. of an effective pact of mutual assistance against aggression, of an exclusively defensive character.
A guarantee on the part of Great Britain, France, and the U.S.S.R. of the states of Central and Eastern Europe, including without exception all the European countries bordering on the U.S.S.R., against an attack by aggressors.
The conclusion between Great Britain, France, and the U.S.S.R. of a definite agreement on the forms and extent of the immediate and effective assistance to be rendered to one another and to the guaranteed states in the event of an attack by aggressors.
The negotiations had come to a seemingly unbreakable deadlock. The Polish and Rumanian Governments, while accepting the British guarantee, were not prepared to accept a similar undertaking in the same form from the Russian Government. A similar attitude prevailed in another vital strategic quarter – the Baltic States. The Soviet Government made it clear that they would only adhere to a pact of mutual assistance if Finland and the Baltic States were included in a general guarantee. All four countries now refused, and perhaps in their terror would for a long time have refused, such a condition. Finland and Esthonia even asserted that they would consider a guarantee extended to them without their assent as an act of aggression. On the same day, May 31, Esthonia and Latvia signed non-aggression pacts with Germany. Thus Hitler penetrated with ease into the frail defences of the tardy, irresolute coalition against him.