Posted on 04/16/2009 6:46:59 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
In this situation the Germans and Italians began to glimpse certain opportunities. Goering, who now had an important influence on Hitler in foreign affairs, saw Mussolini in Rome on April 16 and called the Duce’s attention to Stalin’s recent speech to the Communist Party Congress. He had been impressed by the Soviet dictator’s statement that “the Russians would not allow themselves to be used as cannon fodder for the capitalist powers.” He said he “would ask the Fuehrer whether it would not be possible to put out feelers cautiously to Russia . . . with a view to rapprochement.” And he reminded Mussolini that there had been “absolutely no mention of Russia in the Fuehrer’s latest speeches.” The Duce, according to confidential German memorandum of the meeting, warmly welcomed the idea of a rapprochement of the Axis Powers with the Soviet Union. The Italian dictator too had sensed a change in Moscow; he thought a rapprochement could be “effected with comparative ease.”
The object [said Mussolini] would be to induce Russia to react coolly and unfavorably to Britain’s efforts at encirclement, on the lines of Stalin’s speech . . . Moreover, in their ideological struggle against plutocracy and capitalism the Axis Powers had, to a certain extent, the same objectives as the Russian regime.
This was a radical turn in Axis policy, and no doubt it would have surprised Chamberlain had he learned of it. Perhaps it would have surprised Litvinov too.
On the very day of this discussion between Goering and Mussolini, April 16, the Soviet Foreign Commissar received the British ambassador in Moscow and made a formal proposal for a triple pact of mutual assistance between Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. It called for a military convention between the three powers to enforce the pact and a guarantee by the signatories, to be joined by Poland, if it desired, of all the nations in Central and Eastern Europe which felt themselves menaced by Nazi Germany. It was Litvinov’s last bid for an alliance against the Third Reich, and the Russian Foreign Minister, who had staked his career on a policy of stopping Hitler by collective action, must have thought that at last he would succeed in uniting the Western democracies with Russia for that purpose. As Churchill said in a speech on May 4, complaining that the Russian offer had not yet been accepted in London, “there is no means of maintaining an Eastern front against Nazi aggression without the active aid of Russia.” No other power in Eastern Europe, certainly not Poland, possessed the military strength to maintain a front in that region. Yet the Russian proposal caused consternation in London and Paris.
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
The British Government had to consider urgently the practical implications of the guarantees given to Poland and to Roumania. Neither set of assurances had any military value except within the framework of a general agreement with Russia. It was therefore with this object that talks at last began in Moscow on April 15 between the British Ambassador and M. Litvinov. Considering how the Soviet Government had hitherto been treated, there was not much to be expected from them now. However, on April 16 they mad a formal offer, the text of which was not published, for the creation of a united front of mutual assistance between Great Britain, France, and the U.S.S.R. The three Powers, with Poland added if possible, were furthermore to guarantee those States in Central and Eastern Europe which lay under the menace of German aggression. The obstacle to such an agreement was the terror of these same border countries of receiving Soviet help in the shape of Soviet armies marching through their territories to defend them from the Germans, and incidentally incorporating them in the Soviet-Communist system, of which they were the most vehement opponents. Poland, Roumania, Finland, and the three Baltic States did not know whether it was German aggression or Russian rescue that they dreaded more. It was this hideous choice that paralysed the British and French policy.
Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm
More information at #2. Wooing Stalin.
Someone should dig out the footage of Hitler mocking this letter in front of the party faithful. He took particular glee, with appropriate responses, as he ticked off the nations that Roosevelt had mentioned: Finland, Estonia, Latvia...et al. Howling laughter ensured when he mentioned Great Britain, Iran.
I don't have footage but Shirer gives a fascinating eyewitness account which I will reproduce on the anniversary of Hitler's Reichstag speech - April 28th.
Rahm Emanuel, who now has an important influence on Obama in foreign affairs, saw Calderon in Mexico City on April 16 and called his attention to Brazilian President Lula de Silva's recent speech tirade over "white, blue-eyed" people.
History repeats.....
This is further down the line, but I’m reading a biography on Marshal Petain. According to the author (Charles Williams) in June 1940, when the French Army was essentially beaten but holding out at the Aisne River. The French Government in Bordeaux had sent to Spain for them to request an Armistice from Berlin. But Petain who at the time had been made head of the Government, got on the radio that evening and ordered the cease fire. Problem was that Berlin had not received the request for armistice, yet. This blunder cost France dearly. The German offensive was grinding to a halt due to the resistance and thin supply lines. There was serious discussion of retreating back to Belgium to resupply.
If Petain had waited until hearing back from Berlin, before announcing the cease fire, France would of gotten excellent terms in her favor. Probably even retaining the whole country and being able to regroup and rearm. Germany may have took a step back to rethink things. At least the war could of been put off for 6-12 months. Instead upon hearing the cease fire, whole units of French troops started surrendering or melting away.
The author contributed this to the Government being to far away to get updated reports from the Army quick enough and that Petain’s mind was just to entrench in surrendering, thinking that all was lost.
Gee, why didn't he just go ahead and ask for a new pony while he was at it?
You are doing great work, thank you again.
Mussolini attributed the letter to "infantile paralysis."
Hitler was unknowingly mocking his own death and the end of his Reich.
6 decades later, Saddam Hussein likewise mocked President Bush's offer of peace to Iraq...unknowingly mocking his own death and the end of Ba'ath Party rule.
In both instances, the above is due to a fundamental ignorance of American Exceptionalism.
The rest of the world still doesn't get us. They are accustomed to offers of peace either being tricks, or cries of weakness.
And vast numbers of their people die in vain because of that lack of education.
Absolutely true. However, don't you think that democrat presidents exhibit an inordinate naivete regarding foreign thugs and foreign affairs in general. Wilson started this with his idealistic view of peace after WW I. This letter seems, on the face, very naive. Roosevelt, of course, later learned that force is the only thing dictators understand.
Truman was an exception, but Stevenson (another Illinois poll) had he been elected, would have given away the store. Kennedy was naive until the summit and the Cuban crisis. Johnson, being a bit of a thug himself, was an exception. Carter was a disaster, we are still paying the price for that novice. Clinton used US power only when it suited him domestically (Serbia), not when it was necessarily good for the country.
Their failed nominees, McGovern, Mondale, Kerry, and Gore, would have been very bad.
Obama has three big problems out there right now, Iran, North Korea, and the pirates. His responses so far put him squarely in the camp of Wilson, Stevenson, McGovern, Kerry, and Carter. With the break up of a nuclear armed Pakistan looming, we could be in for a rough ride.
I wouldn’t put Wilson, FDR, or Truman into the naive camp. It’s not their fault that the rest of the world fails to grasp American Exceptionalism.
It’s an ignorant world. Dictators die due to that ignorance, as do vast numbers of their people.
When American Exceptionalism has been made stone-cold clear so that even an arrogant Asian or European elitist can’t miss it, Wilson’s and FDR’s idealism has been bourne out, such as evidenced by “big stick” Teddy Roosevelt, not FDR, winning the Noble Peace prize for brokering the end of the Russian/Japanese war.
And it wasn’t Wilson’s fault that Europe was petty and vindictive after WW1...causing WW2.
No, Wilson doesn't get off the hook that easily -- although his wife was the cause of much of the mischief.
I think FDR was more farsighted than most isolationist Americans of his time. But doubt if in April 1939 he considered a war requiring US intervention as inevitable. No doubt, he believed some effort to avoid war was necessary.
But your comment about "moral high ground" makes a good point: for the western democracies in the 1930s, there could be no such thing as "preemptive war," or a "military police action," or a "war to liberate countries from fascism." There were no UN resolutions and the US had no NATO "one for all and all for one," type treaties. There was no way that FDR could "draw a line in the sand" and threaten a US military response if Hitler misbehaved.
And remember, many if not most Americans believed German false propaganda claiming Germany was innocent of starting the First World War. It was therefore completely necessary for Americans to be 100% convinced that the NEXT war was 100% caused by German aggression.
"Moral high ground" is exactly right. Americans in 1939 (as today) would fight and die for nothing less. FDR knew that full well. So: ONLY a direct attack could bring the US into a "foreign war."
And that meant FDR could only wave an olive branch at the fascist monsters, in hopes its sweet smell might somehow calm their animal spirits.
Of course, it didn't work.
The day after Litvinov made his far-reaching offer to the British ambassador in Moscow, on April 17, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin paid a visit to Weizsaecker at the German Foreign Office. It was the first call, the State Secretary noted in a memorandum, that Merekalov had made on him since he assumed his post nearly a year before. After some preliminary remarks about German-Russian economic relations, the ambassador turned to politics and
asked me point-blank [Weizsaecker wrote] what I thought of German-Russian relations . . . The Ambassador spoke somewhat as follows:
Russian policy had always followed a straight course. Ideological differences had had very little adverse effect on relations between Russia and Italy and need not disturb those with Germany either. Russia had not exploited the present friction between Germany and the Western democracies against us, neither did she wish to do that. As far as Russia was concerned, there was no reason why she should not live on a normal footing with us, and out of normal relations could grow increasingly improved relations.
With this remark, toward which he had been steering the conversation, M. Merekalov ended the talk. He intends to visit Moscow in a day or two.
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
On April 17 the State Secretary in the German Foreign Office, Weizsaecker, records that the Russian Ambassador had visited him that day for the first time since he had presented his credentials nearly a year before. He asked about the Skoda contracts, and Weizsaecker pointed out that “a favourable atmosphere for the delivery of war materials to Soviet Russia was not exactly being created at present by reports of a Russian-British-French Air Pact and the like.” On this the Soviet Ambassador turned at once from trade to politics and asked the State Secretary what he thought of German-Russian relations. Weizsaecker replied that it appeared to him that “the Russian Press lately was not fully participating in the anti-German tone of the American and some of the English papers.” On this the Soviet Ambassador said, “Ideological differences of opinion have hardly influenced the Russian-Italian relationship, and they need not prove a stumbling-block to Germany either. Soviet Russia has not exploited the present friction between Germany and the Western Democracies against her, nor does she desire to do so. There exists for Russia no reason why she should not live with German on normal footing. And from normal relations might become better and better.”
We must regard this conversation as significant, especially in view of the simultaneous discussions in Moscow between the British Ambassador and M. Litvinov and the formal offer of the Soviet on April 16 of a Three-Power Alliance with Great Britain and France. It is the first obvious move of Russia from one leg to the other. “Normalization” of the relations between Russia and Germany was henceforward pursued, step by step, with the negotiations for a Triple Alliance against German aggression.
If, for instance, Mr. Chamberlain on receipt of the Russian offer had replied, “Yes. Let us three band together and break Hitler’s neck,” or words to that effect, Parliament would have approved, Stalin would have understood, and history might have taken a different course. At least it could not have taken a worse.
Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm
4/17/39 Update at #17. German-Soviet pact, exploratory phase.
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