France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 (30 page)

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Authors: William I. Hitchcock

Tags: #History, #Europe, #France, #Western, #Modern, #20th Century, #Political Science, #Security (National & International), #test

BOOK: France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954
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Page 134
policy often led to unfavorable results, and so Paris sought instead to seize the initiative on the issue. In an effort to obstruct the rapid creation of a German national army, France proposed a European alternative: a supranational army in which member states pooled their resources, thus blocking the establishment of a powerful military machine under German command. This program seemed to complement Schuman's European policy, and paralleled the integrative features of the ECSC. Indeed, the European army offered a military analogue to the economic integration that Schuman championed. For these reasons, the French succeeded in persuading the American government that a nonnational, European army offered the means to secure a German contribution to western defense while skirting the problem of creating a German national army. Yet the plan proved considerably in advance of French public opinion, which remained wary of military cooperation with Germany and which feared the loss of French national sovereignty in military affairs. By the spring of 1952, when the French government signed the treaties instituting the European Defense Community (EDC), a majority was already being formed in the French Assembly that would block the scheme and stymie Schuman's efforts to apply the "European" solution to the thorny problem of German rearmament.
"We are up against the wall"
The Korean War had a dramatic impact on American military thinking. The historian Melvyn Leffler has recently shown that American officials did not believe an attack on Europe was imminent, but did read Soviet support of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung's invasion of South Korea as part of a larger Soviet strategy to probe for weaknesses in the resolve of the West to meet global challenges. As a consequence, the U.S. government believed it had to take the risk of meeting the Soviet challenge by hitting hard in Korea and boosting its military presence around the globe. The American response in Korea gratified the Europeans. They now believed that the United States would meet Soviet hostilities in Europe with equal determination. American military spending shot up, and more troops were soon dispatched to Europe. Yet these American efforts on behalf of Europe raised expectations in Washington that the Europeans would make similar sacrifices on their own behalf. Alongside national rearmament efforts, the United States wanted a greater degree of military coordination and hoped that common sense would lead European nations, especially France, to see the obvious logic
 
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in mobilizing German national resources, both manpower and industrial strength, for the defense of the West. Aware that French agreement to a German role in Europe's defense would be hard to secure, top American officials, particularly the High Commissioner John J. McCloy, pinned their hopes on a European Defense Force, which might bring Germans into the western defense network while denying them any national military institutions. Along with a larger American troop presence in Europe, American planners believed, the EDF scheme would reassure France that Germany posed no security threat to the West. By the end of August, the EDF concept had been accepted in its essentials by the American government and would be sprung upon the Europeans in the CFM meeting in New York in mid-September.
1
It is striking to note the distance between French and American thinking on the question of a German contribution to European defense in the summer of 1950. For despite what Ambassador David Bruce described as a "feeling of extreme nakedness" having overcome France due to its lack of military preparedness, the French government had no desire to clothe itself in German armor.
2
This reluctance stemmed not only from fears of a German military threat to France, strong as these were. Rather, the greater concern of the French government  one that had preoccupied French leaders since the end of the war  was the effect German rearmament would have on the balance of power in Europe. A swift buildup of Germany's military capabilities would surely weaken the regional framework of controls by which French planners had hoped to limit German independence. Equally alarming, rearmament might strengthen Germany's ties to the United States and Britain through the Atlantic Alliance. In such a scenario, France's claim to the leadership of the continent would be shattered. Only if this last point is emphasized can France's extraordinary opposition to German rearmament  in the face of overwhelming military arguments in its favor  be understood. German rearmament presented far more than a military threat to France. It placed France's entire postwar strategy of recovery in grave jeopardy.
French observers in Germany knew that the Korean War would have an important spillover effect in Europe. The swift strike by North Korea into the South offered a model that some imaginative minds feared might be imitated by the East Germans and Soviets in staging a similar assault into the Federal Republic. Armand Bérard, now the French deputy high commissioner in Germany, noted Chancellor Adenauer's anxiety at the absence of a western response to the formation of the East German
Volkspolizei,
which numbered about 60,000 men. In June, Ade-
 
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nauer asked the High Commission to let him build up a federal police force, beyond those already established at the
Länder
level. Bérard thought that Adenauer hoped to "draw from the Korean affair an argument for creating a federal police force of 25,000 men over which he could exercise control." Although Bérard detected "no campaign . . . for the re-establishment of German armed forces," he did observe heightened discussion of the issue. "The population wonders how it will be possible to participate in the defense of the Federal Republic in case of attack. The question of Germans participating in their own defense has now been raised." The policy of the High Commission, of course, was steadfast against German rearmament, but Bérard reported that American authorities were quietly outfitting small
Dienstgrüppen,
or Labor Service Units, with light weapons, as a means of getting around the AHC sanction.
3
Just as distressing, top American officials informed the French administration that they expected that the limits on German steel production, kept at 11.2 million tons per year, would have to be relaxed, as rearmament increased the need for this vital material.
4
Initially, the French planned to stand firm in total opposition to any German contribution to western defense. The arguments in favor of this position, as outlined by Hervé Alphand, now the French deputy to the NAC, made a certain amount of sense. Rearmament would be provocative to the Soviets and would not appreciably strengthen, in the immediate future, the defense of Europe. It would create a firestorm of public protest in both France and Germany, and it might compromise the policy of European integration that had been based on the assumption of a disarmed Germany. The government, Alphand continued, ought to consider a German financial contribution, and perhaps plan for German production of nonmilitary equipment such as transport vehicles under the supervision of the MSB. Even the police forces of the
Länder
might be strengthened.
5
Increasingly aware, however, that the Americans were already planning for a substantial mobilization of German resources for European defense, the Central Europe Office of the Foreign Ministry argued that the remilitarization of Germany was now unavoidable and that inflexibility by France would not deter the United States from moving forward. "The worst solution," thought the author of one long memorandum, "would be a de facto German rearmament undertaken against us, or without our participation." Using logic so often deployed to justify compromise, the author asked rhetorically, "can we, in maintaining our present position, block the movement already underway towards Ger-
 
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man rearmament? Or might we rather channel this activity and keep it within limits compatible with our own policy, and open discussions for a partial and tightly controlled rearmament?" If France conceded some degree of rearmament, it might receive substantial recompense. The French could insist that more American troops be deployed in Europe, that NATO members receive top priority in the rearmament process, that the German forces be limited to two-thirds of all French forces stationed in Europe and be placed in the smallest possible units, and that no German general staffer national army be established. If such conditions were placed on German rearmament, Adenauer's bid to augment German influence in Europe could be defeated. "This set of demands," the author concluded, "constitutes a rejection of the German attempt to link rearmament with the recognition of her equality of rights, and of the consequent total liberation of the German government." French flexibility now might forestall still greater compromises later.
6
As the Foreign Ministry considered tactics to contain the debate over German rearmament, Chancellor Adenauer stepped up the pressure on the occupation authorities to respond to his demand for a West German police force, as large as the East German
Volkspolizei,
and capable of participating in the defense of the Federal Republic. In light of American reversals in Korea  MacArthur's troops were now pinned down in the Pusan perimeter  Adenauer claimed that the German faith in the military might of the United States "had been severely shaken." On August 17, he confronted the AHC with a demand for a voluntary German defense force of 150,000 men, a token force but one that would have a strong psychological effect on the German public. André François-Poncet, the French high commissioner, asked him how such a force would be established and armed, and was not impressed by Adenauer's vague answers. In his monthly report on German affairs to Foreign Minister Schuman, François-Poncet described Adenauer as "vexed and irritated" by the Allied refusal to grant him the large police force he had sought in June. He now "brandished the horror of the
Volkspolizei
and the specter of war in hopes of launching a movement within American public opinion in favor of his views." Adenauer, "imperious and headstrong,'' really only sought to boost his own authority within Germany vis-à-vis the
Länder,
"which he hates." François-Poncet believed Adenauer's maneuvering an obvious attempt to take advantage of the international crisis for his own political gain, and felt that such machinations did not bode well for the FRG. "The Bonn Republic," he concluded, "is not popular; perhaps less so than the Weimar Republic. It has no roots.
 
Page 138
 . . . Federalism is threatened, not so much by the excessive pretensions of the central authorities, but by the lack of interest in this central power from the citizens themselves." In such an environment, the introduction of a frenzied debate on rearmament seemed unwise at best.
7
Yet Adenauer persisted. On August 29, he directed a long memorandum to the AHC on the subject of West German security, which he thought totally inadequate. He again asked for the creation of a federal police force "strong enough to guarantee internal security" and capable of providing some defense against an invasion of the GDR's
Volkspolizei
. The force would start at 25,000 men and soon rise to 60,000. Adenauer would act as its commander in chief. The chancellor, not content with rearmament, further demanded that the AHC revise the entire Occupation Statute and replace it with contractual agreements that gave the FRG "enough freedom of action" to fulfill the responsibilities of a sovereign state.
8
Adenauer sought to dress his request for a police force in a proposal for political evolution of the West German state, just as François-Poncet had expected. As the New York meeting of the CFM approached, each of the three occupation powers had to decide how to secure German participation in Europe's defense while denying Adenauer's political demands. The Americans favored German participation in an integrated force in which national contingents were placed under a single command. British foreign minister Ernest Bevin, by contrast, thought the German police force a good idea, one more likely to deter the reconstitution of a German national army than the European army scheme that Labour's nemesis, Winston Churchill, ardently promoted in the Council of Europe.
9
The French found both alternatives unacceptable. The new director general of the Quai d'Orsay, Guy le Roy de la Tournelle, felt that the European army idea would simply place various national armies into a common structure, not at all inhibiting the formation of a German army. Worse, German participation in such a scheme "would imply the abrogation, now or in the immediate future, of the Statute [of Occupation], and the recovery by Germany other equality of rights." The federal police force was no better, for without its constitutional link to the
Länder,
the force might soon emerge "as a veritable Praetorian Guard" in the hands of the chancellor.
10
Yet the Quai knew that in the New York talks, the French delegation would not be able to reject any and all suggestions for German participation in western defense. The tacit alliance between McCloy and Adenauer, and Bevin's support for the police concept, already threatened to

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