Stresa Front

4 Key excerpts on "Stresa Front"

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  Our Man in Berlin

  The Diary of Sir Eric Phipps, 1933-1937

  • G. Johnson(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  A three-power meeting began on 11 April at Stresa, between MacDonald, Flandin and Mussolini, and was intended to demonstrate a united front against the diplomatic and military threat posed by Hitler. Balance of power diplomacy had been used before 1914 as a means of neutralising the military strength of one or more nations. That the three Stresa powers were not natural political allies provides further indication of the gravity of the situation. And it was to be political incompatibility that was to prove to be the undoing of the alliance. As soon as the Italian Abyssinian campaign began in October 1935, the Stresa Front was defunct. 21 March 52 The Franco-Russian storm,53 combined with the announcement of three- Power meetings before and after the approaching visit of our Ministers have had a sobering effect here. His Majesty's Government have now, I think, a unique and perhaps last chance of concluding a comprehensive European agreement and making France and Germany see reason. Ever since October 1933 German policy has consisted in slamming doors and banging tables. Hitler spent sleepless nights, though progressively fewer, after each of his manifestations of force or ill temper. The fact that we have treated him like a civilised being and declined to imitate his pettish behaviour gives us the right to speak to him in no uncertain tones. This right, it is to be hoped, will be recognised even by England's most bleating pacifists. Germany should realise (and it is to be hoped British opinion too) that she now stands at the parting of the ways. On the one side reasonable and hon- ourable co-operation with an entirely peaceful Europe; on the other isolation with all its attendant risks and financial stress. These risks are greater than Germany will admit and might even imply the end of the Nazi regime.

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  Alternative to Appeasement

  Sir Robert Vansittart and Alliance Diplomacy, 1934-1937

  • Michael Roi(Author)
  • 1997(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  . . . Fortune favours the brave and the resolute tactics adopted by the three sponsors of the resolution were thus crowned with success." Harvey, too, thought the "united front at Stresa produced an immediate effect on Hider," concluding that the "united front is the only method to employ and it always works." 158 Information from other sources corroborated the conclusions of Clerk and Harvey, and Vansittart, himself, noted the impact on Germany of the "steadying effect of Stresa." 159 Indeed, he told Hankey on 27 May that "there is no doubt that Stresa and Geneva have largely contributed to Hider's softer tones." 160 In his eyes, this confirmed the assumption that the unanimity among France, Italy, and Britain would restrain German ambitions and compel Germany to adopt a more amicable stance toward a negotiated setdement It should also be noted that Wigram, Laurence Collier, and Vansittart anticipated that the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance, signed on 2 May 1935, would have a similar "salutary" effect in Germany and further encourage Hider's recent moderate tone. 161 The impression created in Germany by the Stresa Front together with the Franco-Soviet pact convinced these officials that Britain had to pursue alliance diplomacy to deal with the mounting German threat In a minute of 14 May 1935 endorsed by Vansittart and Collier, Wigram argued the case for alliance diplomacy: The Germans, in my view, for natural and simple reasons started the challenge to the existing order. To discourage the development of that challenge there is only one way; and that is the display of counter-force and counter-resolve. Good intentions and promises of equitable treatment alone will achieve nothing except more categorical demands. 162 Sharing Wigram's belief in the need for a "display of counter-force and counter- resolve," Vansittart saw the Stresa Front as the cornerstone of his alliance diplomacy.

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  French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918-1940

  The Decline and Fall of a Great Power

  • Robert Boyce(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The Rome agreements were strongly welcomed in France, and were ratified by parliament in March 1935 by only nine votes short of unanimity. The will to create a united front with Mussolini against Hitler prevailed over all other considerations, even in left-wing circles where the influence of Italian political émigrés had been strong. Only the Communists refused to welcome the agreements. Among the Socialists, while the change of attitude was less complete than among the Radicals, the Führer had by now largely replaced the spectre of Matteotti; the struggle for peace took priority over the struggle against Fascism.

  The Stresa Front, formed at the meeting of Laval with Ramsay MacDonald, the British prime minister, and Mussolini on 11 April 1935, appeared to crown the efforts of the two great democratic powers of Europe to anchor Italy at their side. The leaders of the three powers protested against Germany’s unilateral denunciation of treaties and confirmed their fidelity to the Locarno agreements. But only a few months later the Ethiopian war abruptly overturned their work.

  After the outbreak of war in October 1935, France initially sought to avoid conflict with Italy, hoping to complete the negotiations for the military convention which the high command insisted upon, and in order to safeguard the Stresa Front. The government was supported in this policy by politicians on the right and extreme right who were influential in French political circles and remained strongly sympathetic to Italy. They took the view that Ethiopia was a slave state, whereas Italy was fighting on the side of civilisation. This was the sense of the manifesto of the philofascist intellectuals published in Paris on 4 October 1935. The French government therefore devoted itself to resisting the extension of sanctions, which had been approved by the Assembly of the League of Nations on 9 October. Paris refused to associate itself with naval measures, and opposed the embargo on petrol and the closure of the Suez Canal. In concert with London, it sought a compromise, which led to the Hoare-Laval plan of December 1935.

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  Europe Between the Wars

  • Martin Kitchen(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Mussolini’s change of sides in 1936 came as something of a surprise. The Germans were still sending arms to Abyssinia and wanted to prolong the war, so as to divert Britain and France’s attention away from Europe. Once the war was over the Stresa Front could almost certainly have been revived, and Abyssinia need not have caused a fundamental realignment of Italian foreign policy. With Laval doing his trickiest best to preserve the alliance, it would seem that Mussolini acted largely out of pique at Britain and France’s efforts to negotiate a settlement, and their support, however half-hearted, of sanctions. Since Britain refused to make any continental commitment, the Stresa Front was a toothless affair that gave Italy no help at all in keeping Germany out of Austria. Germany, by contrast, appeared as a dynamic and forceful power, which was prepared to stand up against what appeared to Mussolini to be two feeble and declining states.

  The French would not respond to Hitler’s move without a British guarantee of support, and Eden would not take any action without full consultation. Negotiations between Britain, France and Belgium were inconclusive. Staff talks on the appropriate response to a German attack on France and Belgium resulted in Britain promising to send two divisions to France in the event of war. Although this hardly affected the military balance it was Britain’s first commitment to the defence of continental Europe since the war. The League Council met in London and condemned Germany’s violation of the treaty. Hitler’s cynical response was to suggest a new Western non-aggression pact, a demilitarised zone on both sides of the Rhine, and Germany’s return to the League.

  Hitler’s move was generally approved by the right in Britain and France, for they disliked the Franco-Soviet pact, and felt that Hitler had every right to do as he liked in his own back garden. Hitler was quick to exploit this situation by unleashing a massive anti-Communist campaign in the summer, and by signing the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan in November. Most important of all, on 25 July he agreed to Franco’s request to intervene on behalf of the rebels in Spain. His motives were almost entirely political and strategic; for he was determined that Spain should not become part of the Franco-Soviet anti-German bloc, and thus seriously weaken Germany’s position in the event of a war in the east. That such thoughts were uppermost in Hitler’s mind can be seen in his memorandum on the Four Year Plan of 1936, which marked the beginning of the intensified rearmament programme, in which he reaffirmed his absolute conviction that war between Germany and the Soviet Union was inevitable. German intervention in Spain must be seen in the context of this anti-Soviet policy, and the vigorous economic activity of the Germans in Spain was a result and not the cause of this decision, as was the testing of military equipment, the positive results of which should not be exaggerated.

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