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The Last Piece of the Jigsaw: Britain and the Creation of the Western European Union, 1954

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Anne Deighton
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Extract

By 1955, the formation of a Cold War bloc in Western Europe was complete. The Western European Union (WEU), a redesigned Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO) within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with West Germany and Italy as members, was created. The 1954 Paris Agreements that established WEU also enabled West Germany to become a virtually sovereign actor, and a member of NATO. The Agreements were effected on the rubble of an acrimonious four-year international debate over a proposed European Defence Community (EDC). This would have created a European army for France, the Benelux countries, Italy and West Germany on the model of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and a parallel political community for the Six.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , July 1998 , pp. 181 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

1 The founder members of the Brussels Treaty Organisation of 1948 were Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. See generally, Dockrill, Saki, Britain's Policy for West German Rearmament, 1950–1955 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).Google Scholar On the significance of 1954, see Deighton, Anne, ‘Britain and the Cold War’, in Jones, Harriet and Brivati, Brian, eds., From Reconstruction to Integration: Britain and Europe since 1945 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

2 For a general account of WEU, see Deighton, Anne (ed.), Western European Union, 1954–1997: Defence, Security, Integration (Reading: European Interdependence Research Unit, St Antony's College, Oxford, 1997).Google Scholar On France, Elisabeth du Réau, ‘Pierre Mendès France, le création de l'Union européenne occidentale (UEO) et son devenir’, in Girault, René, ed., Pierre Mendès France et le role de la France dans le monde (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1991), 25–38.Google Scholar

3 This had arisen in 1950–51, over the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, between France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

4 Amery's correspondence is quoted in Dutton, David, Anthony Eden (London: Arnold, 1997), 306.Google Scholar

5 The Bonn Conventions were also known as the Contractual Agreements. West German Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had always insisted that West Germany could not be expected to play a role in the defence of the West unless her international status became more autonomous than that provided for under the Basic Law of 1949.

6 A 100 million dollar loan was given to the ECSC in an attempt to try to save EDC. Winand, Pascaline, Eisenhower, Kennedy and the United states of Europe (London: Macmillan, 1993), 62.Google Scholar

7 Cmnd 8562, 1952; Cmnd 9126, 1954. On the importance of the EDC to the politics of the Western Alliance, see Dwan, Renata, France and the EDC (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1996).Google Scholar

8 Foreign Relations of the United States, V, (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1983), 970–1 (henceforth FRUS, 1952–4). The discussions were principally about summitry questions (FRUS, 1952–4, 1013).

9 FRUS, 1952–4, 1015. The ‘Parodi group’ in the French Foreign Ministry, who were hostile to EDC, had also come up with a ‘little NATO’ proposal, ibid., 1033. The French continually asked to see the UK-US proposals, Roberts note, 24 Aug. 1954, FO 371/10958, Foreign Office Records, Public Record Office, London.

10 FRUS, 1952–4, 1045–7; 16 Aug. 1954, PM/IK/54/135, FO 800/779; FO to Woton, 26 Aug. 1954, FO 800/779. Roy Willis, F., France, Germany and the New Europe, 1945–1967 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), 185.Google Scholar

11 Chartwell, 23 Aug. 1954, PREM 11/618, Public Record Office, London.

12 Churchill note for FO and MoD, 20 Aug. 1954, PREM 11/618.

13 T 225/413, Public Record Office, London. Olaf Mager, ‘Anthony Eden and the Framework of Security: Britain's Alternatives to the European Defence Community, 1951–4’, in Heuser, Beatrice and O'Neill, Robert, eds., Securing Peace in Europe, 1945–1962 (London: Macmillan, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 CAB 128/27, 27 Aug. 1954, Public Record Office, London; Macmillan, Harold, Tides of Fortune, 1945–1955 (London: Macmillan, 1967), 481.Google Scholar Safeguards were: to keep the same German force levels as agreed in EDC (12 divisions); NAC approval for production, and research of arms in strategically exposed areas, and areas extending beyond Germany to parts of Turkey and Norway; an arms pool with EDC-type control for the Six over the production, export, import of arms and material; agreements on the restrictions by the Six on forces other than police, and on out-of-area operations; the extension of the US/UK forces commitment of 1952; extension of NATO to 50 years; agreement by the Germans not to use force to modify frontiers; and effective integration and control over troop movements within NATO areas.

15 CAB 129/70, C(54)276, 27 Aug. 1954.

16 On parties, see particularly Ceadel, Martin, ‘British Parties and the European Situation, 1952–1957’, in Nolfo, Ennio di, ed., Power in Europe? II: Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Origins of the EEC, 1952–1957 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1992).Google Scholar

17 Labour Party Archive, International Committee, Reel 8 (Bodleian Library, Oxford).

18 For an indication of the bitterness of the animosity during this period see CAB 128/27, 47th, 7 Jul. 1954; 48th, 8 Jul. 1954; 52nd, 23 Jul. 1954; Macmillan, Tides of Fortune, 537ff. On Churchill's quest for peace through summitry, Young, John W., Winston Churchill's Last Campaign: Britain and the Cold War, 1951–5 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Eden to Churchill, 26 Feb. 1953, FO 800/778; Churchill to Eisenhower, 22 Dec. 1953, Churchill to Dulles, 14 Aug. 1954, PREM 11/618.

20 Dutton, Eden, 239. Dutton concludes that Churchill should have retired from office in 1945, 246.

21 Young, , Churchill's Last Campaign, 288, 328.Google Scholar

22 Macmillan, , Tides of Fortune, 468. Silke Skär, ‘The Conservatives at Strasbourg’ (unpublished paper, Oxford University), 1996.Google Scholar

23 Macmillan, , Tides of Fortune, 480. Robert Rhodes James, Bob Boothby: A Portrait (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991), chapter 5.Google Scholar Conservative Party Archive, Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, 1951–5 (Bodleian Library, Oxford).

24 Le Monde, 9 Apr. 1954. For a full account of the impact of this, see Bell, P. M. H., France and Britain, 1940–1994: The Long Separation (London: Longman, 1997), 126–130.Google Scholar

25 Eden to Dulles, 4 Feb. 1953, FO 800/778, ZP/12/27G.

26 PM/53/24, 18 Mar. 1953, FO 800/778.

27 Macmillan, , Tides of Fortune, 567.Google Scholar

28 FRUS, 1952–4, 1111.

29 FRUS, 1952–4, 1123.

30 Jebb to Eden, 2 Jul. 1954, PREM 11/900.

31 Behind the EDC debate lay one more dimension of European security – nuclear weaponry. There were an increasing number of decision makers who felt that the EDC debate was increasingly irrelevant, for nuclear weaponry, not ground troops held the key to defence. Parallel to the tortured EDC negotiations, national and NATO planners had been working on new strategies to deal with nuclear technological advances: the ‘New Look’. It was in July 1954 that the British decided to proceed with the hydrogen bomb project. Macmillan, , Tides of Fortune, 567Google Scholar; Defence White Paper, Cmnd 9075, 1954; Dockrill, Saki, ‘Cooperation and Suspicion: United States Alliance Diplomacy for the Security of Western Europe, 1953–54’, Diplomacy and Statecraft vol. 5, no. 1 (March 1994), 138–182CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robert Wampler, NATO Strategic Planning and Nuclear Weapons, 1950–1957 (Nuclear History Programme, occasional paper No 6, 1990); Documents Diplomatiques Français, 1954, (hence DDF), 242–3.

32 Nutting to Eden, 1 Sep. 1954, FO 371/109581.

33 FRUS, 1952–4, 1124, 1142.

34 Nutting to Eden, 1 Sep. 1954, FO 371/109581.

35 FRUS, 1952–4, 1127.

36 Woton to FO, 1920, FO to Bonn, 1 Sep. 1954, PREM 11/909; FRUS, 1952–4, 1086, 1168.

37 So it was not the case that NATO was back to where it had been in May 1952, as Young argues, Young, Churchill's Last Campaign, 292. Churchill to Adenauer, 1 Sep. 1954, PREM 11; FRUS, 1952–4, 1093, 1150–1; Bonn to FO, 702, 6 Sep. 1954, PREM 11/909.

38 Paris to FO, 2 Sep. 1954, PREM 11/843; FRUS, 1952–4, 1134, 1149.

39 FO 800/770; Churchill to Adenauer, 1 Sep. 1954; Paris to FO No. 612, 8 Sep. 1954, PREM 11/843.

40 See DDF, 312, 313–5, and 328–9, in which Macmillan wrote to his old friend Massigli, that what he wanted to do was, ‘a. Faire a l'Angleterre un pas dans la bonne direction; b. Faciliter le vote du Parlement francais; c. Donner aux Américans la satisfaction de pouvoir dire que l'idéal européen n'est pas mort; d. Enfin, et ceci n'est négligeable, faciliter l'évolution du Labour Party qui avait lié son acceptation du réarmement allemand à la Communauté européenne de défense et qui va se trouver dans une situation trés difficile au prochain congrès: nous avons la chance que c'est un pere de l'Eglise travailliste, M. Bevin, qui a signé le traité de Bruxelles’. Macmillan, , Tides of Fortune, 471, 564; René Massigli, Une Comedie des Erreurs (Paris: Plon, 1978), 462Google Scholar; Eden, Anthony, Full Circle (London: Cassell, 1960), 151.Google Scholar See also Roberts, Frank, Dealing with Dictators (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991)Google Scholar; Young, John W., ‘German Rearmament and the European Defence Community’, in Young, John W., ed., The Foreign Policy of Churchill's Peacetime Administration, 1951–1955 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1988), 81–108Google Scholar; Charlton, Michael, The Price of Victory (London: BBC, 1983), 164.Google Scholar

41 CAB 128/27/2. 59th, 8 Sep. 1954.

42 T 225/438, 320/543/03, 11 Sep.1954, JICC report.

43 Churchill to Eden, 9 Sep. 1954, PREM 11/843.

44 His trip is fully described in his diary, Avon Papers, University of Birmingham. The author is grateful to Lady Avon for permission to consult the Avon Papers. Eden to Churchill, 11 Sep. 1954, FO 800/762.

45 Bonn to FO, 13 Sep. 1954, T 223/412; Bonn to FO Nos. 725, 727, 12 Sep. 1954, 729, 13 Sep. 1954, PREM11/909. Adenauer already had his own, similar ideas about the potential of the BTO, which would have involved the participation of Denmark.

46 ‘L'Allemagne entrerait a l'OTAN en passant par l'antichambre pacte de Bruxelles’, DDF, 359. See also DDF, 396; Paris to FO, Nos 645, 646, 647, 16 Sep. 1954, PREM 11/483; FRUS, 1952–4, 1201.

47 Paris to FO, nos 645, 646, 647, 16 Sep. 1954, PREM 11/483; FRUS, 1952–4, 1201. There seems to be little doubt that one of Mendès France's sub-texts was to achieve a competitive edge for the French in the armaments industry area, as the Americans suspected, FRUS, 1952–4, 1309. Calandri, Michael, ‘The Western European Union Armaments Pool. France's Quest for Security and European Cooperation in Transition, 1951–1955’, Journal of European Integration History, Vol. 1, no. 1 (1995), 37–64.Google Scholar The BDI and the French Patronat were also engaged in talks about a common armaments programme at this time. Gillingham, John, Coal, Steel and the Rebirth of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 358–9.Google Scholar

48 FRUS, 1952–4, 1164–6, 1186, 1197, 1209f; Bonn to FO, 17 Sep. 1954, FO 371/109583; Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy, 62–3. For report on Eden's trip, 17 Sep. 1954, CAB 128/27/2, 60th.

49 FRUS, 1952–4, 1213–1223; FO to Woton, no 4728, 18 Sep. 1954, T 224/414.

50 Documentation for the conference can be found in FRUS, 1952–4, 1295ff; FO371/109774 passim.

51 FRUS, 1952–4, 1304.

52 FRUS, 1952–4, 1360.

53 Gladwyn, Lord, Memoirs (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974), 274.Google Scholar

54 FO 371/109774 passim.

55 FRUS, 1952–4, 1324. There would be no other German forces beyond those committed to Western security – 12 divisions, 1300 aircraft and light coastal vessels, unless there was unanimous agreement for this on the NATO Council.

56 Article 1 of Protocol 1, Treaty on Western European Union.

57 Moscow to FO no. 1027, 23 Oct. 1954, 1462, FO 371/109296.

58 House of Commons Debates, 18 Nov. 1954, col 683.

59 House of Commons Debates, 18 Nov. 1954, cols 687–8.

60 Pierre Gerbet argues that the French thought that this would continue, ‘La Rélance Européenne jusqu'à la Conference de Messina’, in Serra, Enrico, The Relaunching of Europe and the Treaties of Rome (Brussels: Bruylant, 1989).Google Scholar

61 FRUS, 1952–4, NSC 5433/1.

62 17 Sep. 1954, CAB 128/27/2, 60th.

63 Conservative Party Archive (CPA): CRD2/34/7, FACo(54)8, Brief for debate on London and Paris Agreements, 15 Nov. 1954.

64 Western European Union Archive, WEU DG1/17; BTO A/2387, 21 Oct. 1954, Roberts note.

65 Kane, Elizabeth, Tilting to Europe, 1955–7 (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1996)Google Scholar, rehearses the shifts in British official thinking, from disbelief, to thoughts in some departments of sabotage, and then to attempts at accommodation with the Messina process.