The reoccupation of the Rhineland did not take the French by surprise. They had been brooding on it apprehensively ever since the beginning of the Abyssinian affair. In January 1936 Laval left the foreign ministry—a victim, like Hoare, of the outcry against the Hoare-Laval plan. Flandin, his successor, claimed to be more pro-British. He at once went to London to discuss the Rhineland problem. Baldwin asked: what has the French government decided to do? It had decided nothing; and Flandin returned to Paris to extract a decision from his colleagues. He failed; or rather he obtained only a declaration that “France would place all her forces at the disposal of the League of Nations to oppose a violation of the Treaties”. Thus the decision was passed in advance from Paris to Geneva, where the League was already in full dissolution.
On 7 March the French ministry met in a state of high indignation. Four ministers, including Flandin and Sarraut, the prime minister, were for immediate action; but, as often happened with French ministers, these strong men had ascertained that they were in a minority before raising their voices. General Gamelin, the chief of staff, was called in and delivered the first of those oracular judgements with which he was to tantalise French statesmen, and British also, in the following years. Gamelin was a man of high intelligence, but without fighting spirit; fitted to be a politician rather than a soldier, he was determined that the politicians should not shift the decision from their shoulders to his own. As chief of the fighting services, he had to claim that they were ready for any task that they might be called upon to fulfil; on the other hand, he wished to impress upon the politicians that they must spend a great deal more money on the army if it were to be of any use. At bottom Gamelin’s subtle equivocations were more than an expression of his personality. They reflected the contradiction between France’s conscious determination to maintain her traditional position as a Great Power and her unconscious, but more genuine, resignation to a modest, defensive position. Gamelin might talk of taking the initiative against Germany; the defensive equipment of the French army and the psychology of the Maginot line made this impossible.
Gamelin began with brave words. Of course the French army could advance into the Rhineland and defeat the German forces there. Then he unfolded the difficulties. Germany, he claimed, had nearly a million men under arms, of whom 300,000 were already in the Rhineland. Some classes of French reservists would have to be called up; and, if there were any German resistance, there must be general mobilisation. Moreover, it would be a long war; and, in view of Germany’s industrial superiority, France could not hope to win it if she fought alone. There must be the certainty of at least British and Belgian support. This was also necessary for political reasons. The Treaty of Locarno authorised France to act immediately and alone only in case of “flagrant aggression”. But was a movement of German troops into the Rhineland “flagrant aggression”? It did not affect the “national territory” of France; given the Maginot line, it did not even threaten French security in a more remote future. If France acted alone, she might find herself condemned as the aggressor by the Locarno Powers and the Council of the League.
Here were riddles for the politicians to solve. With a general election approaching in France, none of the ministers could contemplate general mobilisation; only a minority supported the recall of reservists. All thought of action disappeared; diplomacy took its place. The French could shift the blame from themselves to their allies, just as Gamelin had shifted it from himself to the politicians. Italy, though a Locarno Power, would of course do nothing while sanctions were still being applied against her. Poland declared that she would fulfil her obligations under the Franco-Polish treaty of 1921; but this treaty was strictly defensive, and the Poles were only committing themselves to go to war if France were actually invaded—which they knew Hitler did not at the moment intend. The Poles offered to mobilise if France did so; on the other hand, the Polish representative abstained from voting against Germany when the question came before the Council of the League. Belgium was equally reticent. In 1919 the Belgians had given up their old neutrality and made an alliance with France in the hope that this would increase their security. Now that the alliance threatened to involve action, they jettisoned it abruptly.
Only the British remained. Flandin went over to London, ostensibly canvassing for support. Actually he was more concerned to take his responsibility across the Channel and to leave it there. Baldwin displayed his usual sympathy and goodwill. Tears stood in his eyes as he confessed that the British had no forces with which to support France. In any case, he added, British public opinion would not allow it. This was true: there was almost unanimous approval in Great Britain that the Germans had liberated their own territory. What Baldwin did not add was that he agreed with this public opinion. The German reoccupation of the Rhineland was, from the British point of view, an improvement and a success for British policy. For years past—ever since Locarno if not before—the British had been urging France to adopt a strictly defensive policy and not to be drawn into war for some remote “eastern” cause. As long as the Rhineland remained demilitarised, the French could still threaten Germany, or so it appeared. The British were haunted by the fear that the situation of 1914 might be repeated—that they might be dragged into war for the sake of Czechoslovakia or Poland as, in 1914, they supposed they had been dragged into war for the sake of Russia. The German reoccupation of the Rhineland removed this fear. henceforward France had a defensive policy imposed upon her, whether she would or no; and most Frenchmen made no great complaint.
Flandin accepted Baldwin’s veto without much argument. He never contemplated independent action by France. Any attempt to emulate the French statesmen of 1914 would, he believed, involve a breach with Great Britain; and Gamelin had laid down that action was impossible in such conditions. The British insisted on diplomacy. Therefore diplomacy there must be. The Council of the League met in London. Only Litvinov, the Soviet foreign commissar, proposed sanctions against Germany; and his advocacy was in itself enough to damn the proposal. The Council resolved, though not unanimously, that the treaties of Versailles and Locarno had been broken. Hitler was invited to negotiate a new arrangement of European security, to replace that which had been destroyed. He responded to the invitation: he had “no territorial claims in Europe”, wanted peace, proposed a twenty-five-year pact of non-aggression with the Western Powers. The British in their turn sought further definition with a list of precise questions. To this Hitler did not reply at all. Silence followed. The last remnants of Versailles had gone, and Locarno with them. It was the end of an epoch: the capital of “victory” was exhausted.
