France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 (31 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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isolate France. François Seydoux, director of the Europe Office, therefore proposed that the delegation stand against an expansion of the police force  which could too easily be manipulated by the executive branch  and concede the establishment of volunteer German units, designed to provide support in the rear of the Allied armies. "Far better," argued Seydoux, "that the Germans be placed in the framework of Allied formations than that they form a large police force which might risk becoming the core of a German national army." The unpalatable idea of small German units placed under Allied command now seemed the only way to head off a more radical rearmament of Germany by the Anglo-Americans.
11
This position was a far cry from accepting the American scheme of a European Defense Force, comprised of national, if integrated, armies. Though Seydoux had a reputation as a "European," his tactics were motivated by a single purpose: to avoid the restoration of German sovereignty in security matters. Indeed, he argued that European integration itself was endangered by the prospect of rearmament, for if Adenauer came to believe that rearmament would place Germany on an equal footing with the other European powers, he would have little incentive for cooperating with European political institutions. "Precipitous initiatives" that gave Germany greater influence in Europe could threaten the entire integration movement. Therefore, in any discussion of rearmament, Seydoux argued, one principle must persist: "we must refuse Germany full and total equality of rights." Germany's political evolution must come through a political and economic, not a military, community.
12
Jean Monnet, then about one month into the negotiations on the Schuman Plan, made precisely the same point in a hurried letter to Schuman just before the foreign minister's departure to New York. The Schuman Plan, he began, had given France two great opportunities. It would end the "economic handicap" of French industries by breaking the hold of German steel cartels over production and distribution of coal in Europe and, more important, it confirmed French leadership of the continent. Germany had accepted this deal because it offered a means to achieve political equality alongside the other European states, and because it tempered the harshest features of the occupation. However, Monnet warned, if the Washington talks produced any hint that Germany might increase its political stature in Europe, or receive in exchange for rearmament an amelioration of the occupation controls, then the Schuman Plan would become unnecessary. "If the Germans obtain
 
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that which they expect from the Schuman Plan independently of it, then we will run the risk of seeing them turn against us" and reject the coal and steel pool. Of course, Monnet knew that the question of rearmament could not be postponed. To protect the Schuman Plan, therefore, France must take the initiative, and propose the participation of Germany "in a federated organization for the rearmament of western Europe." In this way, the Germans would be allowed to participate in western defense, but only through the mechanisms of a united Europe, of which the Schuman Plan was the prerequisite. For Monnet, as for Seydoux, flexibility now on the rearmament question would buy time for the Schuman Plan to be secured, and thus guarantee that Germany was not able to use rearmament to augment its political position in inter-Allied negotiations.
13
It is important to note, then, that as the CFM convened in New York to hold meetings in parallel with the North Atlantic Council, serious proposals had been put forward within the French Foreign Ministry to concede some role to Germany in the European defense system. Schuman, in the first session of the foreign ministers' meetings, acknowledged to his American and British colleagues that "it would seem illogical for us to defend western Europe, including Germany, without contributions from Germany." But France had, he continued, "a serious psychological problem" regarding German rearmament, and as a consequence the French must not be pressed to take a position too soon. The tactics adopted by the United States during these meetings, however, did not allow for continued concessions to the political sensitivities of the French public. After weeks of debate between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of State, the U.S. government developed a "package proposal" that Acheson offered to the NATO allies on September 15. The United States would commit itself to send between four and six more divisions to Europe for continental defense; these forces would be placed alongside European national forces in an integrated force; and the whole would be commanded by an American supreme commander. The United States made one demand: that German units, perhaps at the divisional level, be included in the integrated force. Acheson made it clear that the proposal was to be accepted or rejected in its entirety. In the face of Acheson's rigid position, Schuman had no choice but to reject the scheme. Acheson pressed Schuman to admit simply the principle of German participation. Schuman refused, saying no discussion on the use of German
national
units would be tolerated in France, certainly not before much more progress had been made on the rearmament of the rest
 
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of NATO. Schuman was willing to allow for an expanded use of
Länder
police forces, the raising of small mobile units equipped with light arms, and the mobilization of Germany's industrial base for some military production. These concessions, substantial from the French point of view, were all that France could offer. Although the final communiqué of the NAC meetings announced agreement on the integrated force concept, the French blocked any decision on Germany's role within it. The foreign ministers agreed to let the NATO defense ministers take up the issue again on October 28 in Washington.
14
The focus of French activity once again switched back to Paris. Unless some compromise were reached with the United States, the American forces, part of Acheson's package proposal, might never be sent to Europe, and Schuman would be blamed for breaking apart the Atlantic Alliance. In such a scenario, the Americans might unilaterally rearm the Germans along national lines. What plan could the French government propose that would make unnecessary the constitution of German national military units yet meet the American insistence on including Germans in the integrated force? And further, how could such a concession be given without pulling the rug out from under the Schuman Plan negotiations? In a long memorandum for Foreign Minister Schuman, who was still in New York, Jean Monnet fleshed out the idea he had proposed on September 9. "The organization, on a national basis, of the necessary participation of Germany in the common defense," Monnet argued, "would permit Germany to separate herself from Europe rather than be integrated with it." If Germany should, through rearming, regain her "freedom of action" on the continent, the moral effect on her neighbors would be devastating. Monnet described a nervous Europe watching this sovereign, confident Germany, "strengthened by her industrial and demographic potential," upsetting the balance that the Allies had hoped to establish in Europe. German national rearmament, therefore, ''would mark the failure of the Schuman Plan." If, however, France proposed "an enlarged Schuman Plan," one that comprehended a common defense system  built along genuinely supranational lines like the coal and steel pool  then European unity would not only be strengthened, but the balance between France and Germany would be secured in military as well as in economic terms. Monnet argued that the logic of the planning consensus, which lay behind the Schuman Plan, be applied to the military arena. By making such a proposal, France could consolidate its position as the chief force behind the construction of a new Europe. The concept clearly appealed to Schuman. At the end of
 
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the NAC talks, he privately confided to Acheson that France must "take the initiative" on the question of rearmament, perhaps linking it to European integration.
15
Throughout October, top officials in the Foreign Ministry struggled with the problem of reining in German rearmament, while not appearing too inflexible before the demands of the United States. "It must be clearly stated," wrote the deputy director for political affairs in the Foreign Ministry, Roland de Margerie, "we cannot avoid the question any longer. We are up against the wall." For much the same reason that the Foreign Ministry had accepted Monnet's coal and steel plan, the proposal for a supranational defense system also earned some degree of support there. Following the logic behind Monnet's ideas, de Margerie outlined an extensive argument that also echoed the position of François Seydoux. If the French sought compromise on the rearmament question now, they could "influence the outcome of a debate in which, very likely, we can no longer prevail." Given the near unanimity in support of the American proposals at the NATO meetings in September, some degree of German rearmament seemed inevitable. France must therefore take the initiative and ''assure herself of the greatest possible degree of control over the execution of rearmament," while avoiding "the risks inherent in the American proposal." De Margerie added one last compelling point to his argument: "the extent of the aid promised to us for rearmament, as well as for our expenses in Southeast Asia . . . will depend on our future attitude towards the participation of German units in the defense of western Europe." Close cooperation with Washington in these endeavors "is indispensable to us," but would be hard to secure should France remain intransigent on the German question.
16
To demonstrate its willingness to compromise, France had to take active steps on the rearmament issue. When Ernest Bevin informed Schuman that he had changed his position on the police force concept and now unequivocally supported the integrated force idea of Secretary Acheson, France was placed in an isolated and vulnerable diplomatic position and had to make some kind of constructive counterproposal to the American idea.
17
On October 14, Monnet outlined in yet another memo to Schuman a scheme for a European army, "united in command, in its organization, its equipment and its financing, and placed under the direction of a single supranational authority." This proposal would allow France to emerge from its negative position toward rearmament and promote a compromise settlement of the issue. More important, Monnet noted, "it would allow me to pursue, with a great chance of success,
 
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the coal-and-steel negotiations."
18
The following day, three highly placed Quai officials, all associates of Monnet  Roland de Margerie, Schuman's private secretary Bernard Clappier, and Quai adviser Jacques Bourbon-Busset  privately approached Charles Bohlen of the American Embassy and presented him with a scheme for a European army, to be placed under the aegis of NATO, in which Germany would participate. The plan would depend, however, on prior German agreement to the Schuman Plan. The Frenchmen implied that Schuman, Pleven, and René Mayer were in favor of the scheme. Acheson, informed of the idea, was not impressed. The proposal, he said, "postpones any solution for many months." Acheson had fixed his hopes on the October 28 meeting of NATO defense ministers to produce a "workable" plan for German participation in European defense. The French knew, then, that a scheme for a future European army, after the coal and steel pool had been formed, would be poorly received in Washington.
19
Yet the idea had already been picked up within French policy circles and thoroughly applauded. Armand Bérard made a cogent argument in favor of prompt French action on a European integrated army. The Germans, Bérard believed, would welcome the constitution of a Franco-German force because such an organization would be less provocative to the Russians than a German national army backed and armed by the United States. In their common wish to avoid open hostilities between East and West, the French and Germans could work together to find a European response to their own security problems. But above all, Bérard argued, France must avoid the temptation to remain totally hostile to any discussion of German rearmament. Some form of German military was inevitable; the challenge was to make sure that French views were given careful consideration in the construction of such a force.
20
François Seydoux concurred. France, he wrote in a policy paper, faced two choices: it could either remain inflexible and watch "German rearmament go forward in the framework of German-American relations," or it could accept the inevitability of German rearmament and, indeed, take the initiative on the issue. As Seydoux put it, it was time to "make [France] the champion of a European Army, itself integrated into a unified Atlantic force, placed under French command
[sic]
and containing German contingents." Seydoux calculated that by accepting the European army concept, France could augment its bargaining power, insist on the size, equipment, and role of these German forces, demand prohibitions against a German general staff, and oblige the Germans to accept the Schuman Plan before the European army came into being.
 
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Above all, the army plan would buy France time to get underway its own ambitious rearmament scheme. The Germans, Seydoux thought, would accept the idea, for though it denied them any national military institutions, it would allow Germany's political status to evolve within "an international régime limiting the sovereignty of all the states of western Europe."
21
The logic of the Schuman Plan had found its way into military planning.
Despite French awareness of American misgivings about the plan, the arguments in favor of a bold French proposal for a European army  a scheme in fact designed to ensure passage of the Schuman Plan  carried the day in the French cabinet. On October 24, 1950, Premier René Pleven announced in the Chamber of Deputies that France proposed the creation of a European army, formed of nonnational contingents of European soldiers, under the command of a European defense minister. For good measure, the defense minister would report to a European parliament. Germany would be invited to participate in the army by placing units of the "smallest possible" size at its disposal. In the meantime, none of these initiatives would be put in place until the Schuman Plan was signed. This scheme, known as the Pleven Plan, was a hopelessly obvious attempt to delay German rearmament until enduring European political and economic institutions, designed to contain Germany's freedom of action on the continent, were solidly in place. For this reason, the plan found little support in Washington, still less in London and Bonn, but promptly received the approbation of the governing coalition in the National Assembly and was approved in a vote by 348 to 224.
22
Just what were the implications of the Pleven Plan for the rearmament program in western Europe? As the NATO defense ministers convened in Washington on October 28, Lewis Douglas, American ambassador to Britain, raised some penetrating questions about the French plan that, it later emerged, the French were unable to answer. What precisely would be the relationship of the European army to NATO? Would it be subservient or equal to NATO? What powers would the European defense minister possess, and how would his relationship to the NAC be defined? Would the use of minuscule German units limit their effectiveness?
23
Until satisfactory answers to these questions were forthcoming, the United States insisted on German infantry divisions, recruited, trained, quartered, and paid by the FRG, and linked to other European units in corps-size groups. As safeguards against any German abuses of this remilitarization, the Germans would be denied a general staff and their officers would serve under the supreme commander; the

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