Paris 1935: Destiny's Crossroads
On Reflection – Some Words
Hoare-Laval
Everyone could now see that the Hoare-Laval Agreement was a very shrewd, farseeing agreement which could have saved the Negus of Abyssinia from ruin before his army was destroyed.
Winston S. Churchill, Times, May 9, 1936
If (1) settlement by compromise is to be vetoed in the name of League principles, and (2) the League is unable to make these principles prevail, our last state will be worse than our first. We shall have lost the advantages of ordinary diplomacy, and gained none of the benefits of the new order.
Veteran journalist J.A. Spender, Times, May 12, 1936
We are all agreed now that the best chance of stopping Hitler was when he sent his troops into the Rhineland; and that we failed. I know you think that the last chance was at Munich. I disagree. The last chance was at Stresa. Austria, not Czechoslovakia, was the essential bastion of Central Europe.
Only one power could have saved Austria and that was Italy. We could have had Italy. But the price was Abyssinia [Ethiopia]. It was well worth paying; and believe me, it would have been a benefit, not harm, to the Abyssinians.
Pierre Laval, conversation with British parliamentarian Robert Boothby, March 1940.
In rejecting the Hoare-Laval pact, the British people put moral considerations, considerations of honor, above the national interest. History rarely records this as wise policy.
J. Kenneth Brody, The Avoidable War, 2000.
The Rhineland
If the French had marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs, for the military resources at our disposal would have been fully inadequate for even a moderate resistance…A retreat on our part would have spelled collapse…The forty-eight hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-wracking in my life.”
Adolph Hitler, from Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s Interpreter, quoted from William Shire’s The Nightmare Years: 1930-1940, 1984.
Would Hitler have retreated before a French riposte in the Rhineland? Historians today are not so sure. “We now know, one of the most eminent has concluded, that Hitler would at least have tried to fight—he was quite mad enough for that.”
The stakes were overwhelming and Hitler’s determination and conviction are well known…At all events, he was not put to the test.
Brody, The Avoidable War, 2000.
Since the challenge of March 7, 1936, the entire structure of 1919 had been collapsing; the edifice of Versailles was now just a historical memory. It was a terrible blow to French policy and also to British policy, though this would only become apparent later. The ‘gathering storm’ was absolutely certain after March 1936.
Maurice Baumont, The Origins of the Second World War, 1978, quoted from Brody, The Avoidable War.
The Principals
Not long after his resignation as Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare returned to the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty…he was a member of the Big Four that under Chamberlain dominated government. In wartime he served usefully as Ambassador to Spain. A grateful government rewarded his services to the state with a peerage and as Viscount Templewood, he lived elegantly and devoted himself to literature and sport.
Brody, The Avoidable War, 2000.
For his role in the Pétain government [Laval was prime minister during much of the German occupation of France 1940-44] he was promptly indicted on the day of victory. His trial was less a judicial proceeding than a calculated act of vengeance.
The trial opened on October 4, 1945. Judgment of death was rendered on October 10 and the execution set for October 15. Laval bore all this with immense courage and spiritual grace.
Brody, The Avoidable War, 2000.
The officer raised his saber. Laval cried “Vive la France.” The saber was lowered, the volley exploded…From throughout the prison came raucous cries: “Assassins, assassins. Vive Laval.”
Brody, The Trial of Pierre Laval, 2010.