France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 (4 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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Schuman Plan of 1950, which cemented Franco-German rapprochement and provided a foundation for later and more ambitious projects of European integration, complemented American policy and indeed reflected America's own New Deal experiences in creating institutions that built a national consensus in favor of productivity.
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There is much in the following analysis to support Hogan's notion that American aid, ideas, and at times pressure were crucial to the transformation that occurred in French thinking about the German problem. American diplomacy directly influenced the shift in France's position away from a revanchist stance toward Germany to the more constructive and generous policies visible by 1948. At the same time, however, throughout the course of the book, I have shown that France, despite its dependence and its weak international position, possessed a great degree of leverage in the inter-Allied debates on the postwar settlement in Europe: a degree of influence in fact incommensurate with any objective assessment of French power at the time. Milward first alerted historians to this phenomenon and my work has brought forward strong supporting evidence. In case after case, the French proved capable of subverting Washington's goals, using integrative mechanisms  those very institutions championed by the United States  to pursue the French national interest. For example, the Marshall Plan, although it underscored French financial dependence, also enhanced French bargaining power. After 1948, and in light of Britain's reluctance to take the leadership of Europe, the success of the ERP and Washington's entire vision of postwar Europe depended on the active support of France. The Marshall Plan thus had an important balancing effect on Franco-American relations. Likewise, the Schuman Plan of 1950, a scheme ardently supported in Washington, nonetheless reflected French national interests and grew out of an assessment in the Foreign Ministry that American policy, so favorable to a rapid restoration of West Germany, jeopardized France's postwar position in Europe. The Schuman Plan may have served Washington's priorities, but it derived from the French determination to lock France and Germany into a balance of power so as to keep Germany from once again becoming Europe's dominant state. The Schuman Plan never would have found so many willing supporters within the Foreign Ministry had it not been readily justifiable in strictly national terms. The same dynamic played out during the debate over German rearmament, when the United States found itself dependent on France for the success of the EDC. That scheme failed not because of France's weak political institutions but because key policymakers and political leaders con-
 
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cluded  rightly  that the EDC might limit French influence in Europe and hamper French military sovereignty while increasing German stature. In examining all of these complex debates, this book tries to restore to the history of U.S.-European diplomacy a sense of balance by giving the French role its due.
The record of France's diplomatic activity during the first decade of the Cold War offers important evidence that despite the overwhelming power of the United States at a time of European debility, Europeans, often successfully, took the initiative and showed resourcefulness in advancing their own ideas and interests. Indeed, France's postwar diplomatic record offers an excellent case with which to test one of the dominant historiographical theses about U.S.-European relations in the early Cold War, that of a European "invitation" to the United States to exercise "imperial" rule.
In 1984, the Norwegian historian Geir Lundestad asserted that the United States forged an "empire by invitation" in western Europe after the Second World War  if empire could be defined loosely to mean "a hierarchical system of political relationships with one power clearly being much stronger than the other."
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This empire had two particular characteristics. First, it was consensual, based on a common set of interests, and recognized to be beneficial to both ruler and ruled. Europeans sought American aid and military assistance in the crucial years of reconstruction, even as those requests for aid led to dependence on Washington. In return for such aid, the Europeans subscribed to the broad ambitions of U.S. global strategy in the Cold War.
The second feature of Lundestad's "empire" is that it allowed America the opportunity to set the basic framework for international relations among its client states while allowing each client the freedom to maneuver within the system. Washington, Lundestad claimed, was less interested in enforcing specific policy choices than in asserting a basic structure for the alliance system that reflected long-term American interests. Thus, in Lundestad's model, lesser powers could defy Washington's directives with great frequency, provided that they accepted the framework of the imperial system itself.
Yet the evidence gathered in this study suggests that the French did not accept the framework of the imperial system offered by Washington, but resisted it, fought it, attempted to undercut it, and finally succeeded in altering the structure of international relations in order to defend their interests more effectively. This is not to deny that the decade was characterized by American "ascendancy" over Europe, to use Charles
 
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Maier's term.
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Rather, it is to suggest a greater degree of complexity in U.S.-European relations than that offered by the "empire by invitation" thesis. After all, few American statesmen and planners felt themselves in the position of imperial rulers. On the contrary, what constantly troubled them in this period was the amount of autonomy Europeans possessed, an autonomy that was enhanced by Washington's increased reliance on them as partners in the Cold War. Dependence cut both ways. In the lengthy debates over German occupation policy, over economic relations and integration, and especially over rearmament, France clung tenaciously to its own vision of an international settlement, often in the face of powerful American pressure to conform to Washington's wishes. These were not minor disagreements within the framework of an imperial, hegemonic system that both partners supported, as Lundestad suggests. The two nations were debating the very structure of the alliance system itself. The resulting framework that emerged in 1955 was more the product of compromise and evolution than imperial fiat.
Finally, this book sheds additional light on a topic that has engaged a number of economic historians, namely, the origins of European integration. Here, historians such as Alan Milward, Frances Lynch, H. J. Kusters, and John Gillingham have taken the lead in debunking the notion, so popular among leading European and American political and academic elites of the period, that European integration was the inexorable result of economic growth, and that the process was carefully channeled and encouraged by a few farseeing, civic-minded internationalists. The "new Europe," it was hoped, would supersede the age-old rivalry of nations on the war-torn continent and replace it with a new, supranational sense of responsibility. Yet the evidence gathered here shows just how lively national competition and rivalry remained in the first postwar decade. Rather than diminish the importance of the nation-state, the movement in favor of European integration simply offered another arena in which the competition of the European states could unfold. France supported European integration not out of altruism but because to do so was consistent with the national interest. When, as in the case of the EDC or the stillborn European Political Community, these interests were not advanced, France withdrew its support, revealing that every step toward a united Europe had first to be measured in terms of the national interest.
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This pattern still holds true in today's Europe. The states of the continent are aware that in many respects, integration helps strengthen the sinews of national power. At the same time, national leaders have
 
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constituents to whom they remain responsible, who act as a check upon a too rapid erosion of national frontiers. Many of these constituents, especially in France, have deemed the sacrifices required to create a common European currency inconsistent with their own interests, especially the continuation of generous public sector benefits. Even the wealthiest states in Europe today, such as Germany, have begun to wonder if the needs of the continent as a whole ought really to come before the demands of their citizens.
The contest visible in Europe today between national and European interests has been raging since the 1940s, and in almost every case, the national interest has won out. The history of postwar Europe is not, then, one of an unimpeded march toward supranationalism but of a long, drawn-out effort to refigure the architecture of international relations so that states might both protect and advance their own interests while also improving the stability and prosperity of the region. It has been a tempestuous and at times disheartening effort, but one in which the stakes have always been high and the competition fierce. In this ongoing process, French diplomacy and national strategy has played a crucial role. In the first decade of the Cold War, France helped set the terms of debate in European politics for the subsequent forty years. In the process, the faceless technocrats within the halls of the French administration helped build a stronger, a more stable, a more influential, and a more secure France  in short, a France restored.
 
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Chapter 1
The Founding of the Fourth Republic and the Conditions for French Recovery
''We had gained our victory," Simone de Beauvoir remembered thinking in the summer of 1944. "The present was all we could desire; it was the future that made us uneasy." This was a common enough reaction among French men and women to the events of that August: the moment of victory was sublime but short-lived. The French could exult in their liberation only briefly before commencing the painful process of rebuilding a nation traumatized not just by war and the German occupation, but by a decade of bitter, partisan strife. Setting out on the path toward recovery, as de Beauvoir sensed, would not be easy.
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The task was made more difficult by the fractured political landscape. From the opening days of the liberation, two conceptions of the priorities of the moment emerged. The first, expressed by the diverse resistance organizations that made up the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR), demanded a new regime for France and an immediate settling of scores with a recent history marked by injustice and the subversion of democracy. The second, espoused by the president of the Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Françcaise (GPRF), General Charles de Gaulle, sought to assure order, maintain France in the ranks of the great powers, and resume the life of a republican nation.
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Both visions claimed to reflect the general desire of the country to put an end to the civil war that had been raging for the previous four years. In fact, these conceptions were fundamentally opposed. The resistance, in emphasizing the need for a new departure, continually pointed out the bankruptcy of an ancien régime that included both the Third Republic and Vichy, and condemned those complicitous in either. In seeking to confront and judge the immediate past, the resistance soon alienated those masses of French citizens who wanted nothing more than to forget the ugly war years and to move on. De Gaulle, by contrast, spoke of national reconciliation, and this implied a burying of hatchets along with the realities of the Vichy
 
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period. A mere six weeks after the liberation of Paris, de Gaulle sent a clear signal that, for the sake of national unity, wartime behavior would be quietly overlooked by the new regime. In a speech on October 14, 1944, he portrayed the treason of Vichy as the work of a "handful of malefactors," while claiming that the "immense majority" of the nation had remained of "good faith." In conjunction with this general absolution, de Gaulle promised an easy, steady transition from war to peace. On October 25, he claimed that "France is a country in order. I assure you it will remain so. I guarantee that order will continue and that France will take the road of new democracy without any commotion, because that is the general desire." Here was an assurance of an orderly transition of regimes free from Jacobin experiments.
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For some of France's leading
résistants,
de Gaulle's swift assertion of authority at the expense of the CNR represented an outright betrayal of the ideals they had fought for during the war.
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But in many respects, the struggle between de Gaulle and the resistance for control of postwar France echoed a larger national conflict that predated the war years. For the liberation witnessed the revival of a number of unresolved disputes that the war had interrupted. Since at least 1936, when the Popular Front came to power, France had been engaged in a nationwide debate over the need to reform and resuscitate a flagging and feeble democracy. The pressure for reform did not by any means come solely from the left: the entire Vichy experiment, foreshadowed by the growing stridency of the prewar French right, was predicated on the need for a national revolution to rid France of the scourge of republicanism. First the Popular Front, then Vichy, and finally the resistance expressed deep dissatisfaction with the timeworn patterns of French politics. Thus, despite the show of national unity around de Gaulle in the months following the liberation, it was to be expected that partisan groupings from across the political spectrum would mark out their positions, ready to rekindle the contentious arguments over the social and political structure of the nation.
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Two themes in particular dominated the public discourse about the priorities of recovery. First came the problem of defining the postwar political order and of shaping the new regime. A consensus had clearly existed even before the war regarding the failure of the Third Republic's 1875 constitution. The right had shown its revulsion for it during the riots of February 6, 1934; the Popular Front, though strongly republican, was nonetheless a critic of the abuses of the system; Vichy of course unequivocally rejected the Third or any Republic. The challenge facing France's political elites was to build a consensus in favor of a suitable

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