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The First Capitulation: France and the Rhineland Crisis of 1936

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

R. A. C. Parker
R. A. C. Parker
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Extract

ON March 7, 1936, German troops entered the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. Germany thus violated Articles 42 and 43 of the Treaty of Versailles and Articles 1 and 2 of the Treaty of Locarno of 1925. Remilitarization moved forward for about one hundred miles the areas of concentration for any German armed attack in the west and advanced the defensive line that could be held by the German army. It severely weakened France and, in consequence, all the other powers concerned to maintain the Paris peace settlements and to preserve the peace of Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , April 1956 , pp. 355 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1956

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References

1 Flandin, P.-E., Politique française, 1919–1940, Paris, 1947Google Scholar; Gamelin, M.-G., Servir, Paris, 1947Google Scholar; Paul-Boncour, J., Entre deux guerres, Paris, 1945–1946.Google Scholar

2 See, e.g., Gamelin, , op. cit., II, p. 215.Google Scholar

3 Le Temps, March 8, 1936.

4 Gamelin, , op. cit., II, p. 201Google Scholar (the couverture was the last stage of armed readiness before general mobilization); Toynbee, A. J., Survey of International Affairs, 1936, London, 1937, p. 267.Google Scholar

5 Le Temps, March 8, 1936.

6 Gamelin, , op. cit., II, pp. 201–2.Google Scholar

7 Le Temps, March 9, 1936.

8 Gamelin, , op. cit., II, p. 202.Google Scholar

9 Le Temps, March 9, 1936.

10 Ibid.

11 Broadcast printed in Heald, S., ed., Documents on International Affairs, 1936, London, 1937, p. 51.Google Scholar

12 Flandin, , op. cit., p. 201Google Scholar; Sarraut, in Assemblée Nationale, No. 2344: Les Evénements survenus en France de 1933 à 1945. Témoinages et documents recueillis par la commission d'enquête parlementaire, Paris, 1951 (hereafter cited as Les Evénements), III, p. 585.

13 Le Temps, March 10, 1936.

14 Gamelin, , op. cit., II, p. 203Google Scholar; and General Albord, Tony in hes Evénements, V, p. 1257.Google Scholar

15 Gamelin, , op. cit., II, p. 202.Google Scholar

16 Documents on International Affairs, 1936, op. cit., pp. 61–69.

17 Gamelin, , op. cit., II, pp. 204–8.Google Scholar

18 Le Temps, March 12, 1936.

19 Documents on International Affairs, 1936, op. cit., pp. 127–33. A plan, embodied in these proposals, for an international force to occupy the western portion of the former demilitarized zone until a final settlement was reached, came to nothing. The Germans succeeded in enmeshing the whole question of the Rhineland and security in protracted negotiation, never concluded.

20 Flandin, , op. cit., p. 210Google Scholar, and in Les Evénements, I, p. 158, where he says that “A French government wishing to make use of die terms of the agreements of March 19 could have made Germany withdraw her troops and stop her fortifications and have obliged England to intervene at the side of France by virtue of the agreements.”

21 Documents on International Affairs, 1936, op. cit., p. 133.

22 Macartney, C. A., Survey of International Affairs, 1925, London, 1928, II, pp. 440–41.Google Scholar Articles 42 and 43 of the Treaty of Versailles set up the demilitarized zone.

23 Paul-Boncour, , op. cit., III, pp. 31–32.Google Scholar

24 Les Evénements, III, pp. 581 and 583; see also p. 668.

25 Flandin, Almough (op. cit., p. 198)Google Scholar precedes his statement that the League had to be seized of the dispute with the word malheureusement—as though that obligation imposed some inconvenience, which could only be delay, on French action.

26 Gamelin, (op. cit., II, p. 203)Google Scholar seeks to give an impression of soldierly readiness for action. His remarks on the meeting of military members of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre of March 9 are limited to the statement that he told his commanders “to hold themselves ready to take their commands, since the couverture involved their moving into action to make secure the operation of their Army Corps of the vanguard.” This sounds active and promising. On the other hand, a description of his statement by one who was present (General Albord, Tony, in Les Evénements, v, p. 1257)Google Scholar shows Gamelin giving a depressed and depressing account of military possibilities.

27 Gamelin, , op. cit., II, p. 212.Google Scholar

28 Les Evénements, II, p. 389.

29 Ibid., III, p. 668.

30 Flandin, , op. cit., p. 119Google Scholar; Paul-Boncour, , op. cit., III, p. 33Google Scholar; Les Evénements, III, p. 621.

31 Gamelin, , op. cit., II, p. 203, n. I.Google Scholar

32 Les Evénements, II, p. 388.

33 Ibid., IV, p. 908.

34 Ibid., III, P. 605. Sarraut puts the meeting on the 9th, but clearly refers to the same meeting.

35 Gamelin, , op. cit., II, pp. 208–II.Google Scholar

36 Zulbid., II, p. 208. Sarraut says he does not remember having received this document at the time—but he does not deny its authenticity (Les Evénements, III, p. 622).

37 Revue politique et parlementaire, No. 561 (November 1946), p. 119.

38 Les Evénements, IV, p. 908; III, p. 799; III, p. 621.

39 In Assemblée Nationale, No. 2344: Rapport fait au nom de la commission chargée d'enquêter sur les événements survenus en France de 1933 à 1945, par M. Charles Serre, Paris, 1951, I, pp. 143–44.

40 Les Evénements, II, pp. 509–11. The above statements on the Arbeitsdienst are based on his testimony. The N.S.K.K. was a volunteer motorcycle corps.

41 Benoist-Méchin, J., in Histoire de l'armée allemande, Paris, 1938, n, pp. 584–85 and 613Google Scholar, confirms M. Dobler's statements. Benoist-Méchin (p. 619) gives the total troops available to the German army by the end of 1936 as 1,510,000. In the autumn of 1935, the German army disposed of 800,000 troops. But many of these were insufficiently trained and the German army had no trained reserves. The French could have counted on the Polish and Czech armies to sway the balance further in their favor. A large-scale French attack, using the forces of the couverture, would therefore have promised success-and the fact that it would have made subsequent general mobilization more difficult would not have mattered. From the German side, General Jodl declared at Nuremberg: “We occupied the Rhineland with approximately one division, but only three battalions of that went into the territory west of the Rhine. … There could not be any question of aggressive intention. … Considering die situation we were in, the French covering army alone could have blown us to pieces” (Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1948, XV, p. 352).

42 Rapport fait …, par Serre, M. Charles, op. cit., I, p. 39.Google Scholar

43 Les Evénements, II, p. 389.

44 Ibid., III, P. 603.

45 Ibid., V, p. 1264.

46 Quoted in Reynaud, P., Au coeur de la mêlée, Paris, 1951, p. 156.Google Scholar

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48 Les Evénements, III, p. 585.

49 Sir Lewis Namier made this vital point in his penetrating essay on Flandin, in Europe in Decay, London, 1950, p. 23.Google Scholar

50 Les Evénements, I, p. 149.

51 Ibid., III, pp. 590–92.

52 Presumably this meant the question of the German return to the League and linked questions. While dieir troops moved forward, the Germans had produced a communication offering a German return to the League, new pacts, etc.

53 Les Evénements, III, p. 799.

54 Flandin, , op. cit., p. 208.Google Scholar

55 Les Evénements, III, p. 592; Flandin, , op. cit., pp. 202 and 208.Google Scholar

56 Flandin, , op. cit., p. 197.Google Scholar

57 Les Evénements, III, P. 574.

58 Ibid., I, p. 144.

59 Flandin, , op. cit., p. 199.Google Scholar

60 Paul-Boncour, , op. cit., III, p. 35.Google Scholar

61 Perhaps Sarraut alone could not have secured a decision for firmness; Sarraut and a less faindiearted Flandin together probably could. Zay, Jean, in Souvenirs et solitudes, Paris, 1945, pp. 65–66Google Scholar, talking of these events, records his experience that “In a Council of Ministers … there is no example of a minister who has made up his mind failing to get accepted die solution he has chosen in a question within his competence. On the odier hand, when the minister concerned does not make any proposal, there is no example of the Council deciding anything for itself. M. Flandin proposed nothing.”

62 SirS., Winston, Churchill, , in The Second World War, I: The Gathering Storm, London, 1948, p. 153Google Scholar, describes his anguished prophecies made at the time in London.