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The Czechoslovak Factor in Western Alliance Building, 1945–1948

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The Czechoslovak Factor in Western Alliance Building, 1945–1948 The Czechoslovak Factor in Western Alliance Building, 1945–1948 ✣ Peter Svik Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/1/133/698771/jcws_a_00622.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Introduction On 17 March 1948, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg concluded the Treaty of Economic, Social and Cultural Collaboration and Collective Self-Defense, commonly known as the Brussels Treaty. Exactly one month later, the Brussels Pact, a politico-military body entrusted to carry out the tasks envisaged under the treaty, was established.1 Although scholars now widely regard the pact as a mere prelude to the es- tablishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, its importance is greater than traditionally supposed. In fact, the pact’s creation brought to an end a centuries-long era in which the European powers sought to achieve security through a system of alliances based on mutual monarchic allegiances or bilateral treaties. This change in approach was attributable mainly to developments in the fall of 1947, when attempts, especially on the part of France and Czechoslo- vakia, to build bridges between the West and the East proved futile. This “third way” policy had vocal supporters within the British Labour Party, but British foreign policy officials did their best to prevent any potential Franco- Czechoslovak treaty from weakening Western European security. The British wished instead to tie France into a Western-leaning alliance. Lastly, the making of the Brussels treaty prompted the United States to agree to talks with West European governments on the creation of a North Atlantic security system that would more effectively address the concerns that had led to the Brussels treaty. The key research question of this article—namely, the importance of Czechoslovak developments in building up the Western alliance from May 1. “Record of a Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg in Paris,” 17 April 1948, in The National Archives of the United Kingdom, London (TNAUK), Foreign Office Files (FO) 371/73057. Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 18, No. 1, Winter 2016, pp. 133–160, doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00622 C 2016 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 133 Svik 1945 to March 1948—is best understood in the larger context of international foreign policymaking in the post–World War II period and its fundamental change in the approach to security arrangements between states. Although the influence of the Communist takeover on the developments in Western Europe and the North Atlantic is generally acknowledged, there is still no detailed, nuanced analysis of the question at hand. The Czechoslovak factor is mostly referred to as a deus ex machina that did no more than accelerate the negotiations between France, the United Kingdom, and the Benelux countries Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/1/133/698771/jcws_a_00622.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 on the establishment of the Brussels Pact. In consequence, the only important effect according to many accounts is that the negotiating parties were more easily able to overcome the divergences in their negotiating positions than would otherwise have been the case.2 However, the literature includes four notable exceptions to this argument. In an article on the part played by Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak in the formation of the Brussels Pact, the Belgian historian Jean Stengers examines the relative importance of three factors that prompted the British and the French to move from their initial position to one in line with the attitude adopted by the Benelux countries.3 The first of these was the Benelux countries’ negative response to the Anglo-French proposal. The second was pressure from the U.S. State Department that the proposed association should be a multilateral agreement on the pattern of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance of September 1947. The third factor was a recognition that the coup in Prague represented an important change in the overall sit- uation. However, of these factors, Stengers concludes that the last was the least important.4 Cees Wiebes and Bert Zeeman later presented a very sim- ilar argument, observing that “a careful examination of the weeks preceding the conclusion of the Treaty of Brussels shows ...that Benelux tenacity and American pressure were as important, or even more important, in this process as the events in Czechoslovakia or Norway.”5 2. See Andre´ Dumoulin and Eric´ Remacle, L’Union de l’Europe occidentale: Ph´enix de la d´efense europ´eenne (Brussels: Bruylant, 1998), pp. 3–27; Wolfgang Krieger, “Foundation and History of the Treaty of Brussels, 1948–1950,” in Norbert Wiggershaus and Roland G. Foerster, eds., The Western Security Community, 1948–1950 (Providence: Berg, 1993), pp. 229–249; Maurice Va¨ısse, “L’echec´ d’une Europe franco-britannique ou comment le pacte de Bruxelles fut cre´eetd´ elaiss´ e,”´ in Raymond Poidevin, ed., Histoire des d´ebuts de la construction europ´eenne (mars 1948–mai 1950) (Paris: LGDJ, 1986), pp. 369–389; and John Baylis, “Britain, the Brussels Pact and the Continental Commitment,” International Affairs, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Fall 1982), pp. 615–629. 3. Jean Stengers, “Paul-Henri Spaak et la traite´ de Bruxelles de 1948,” in Raymond Poidevin, ed., Histoire des d´ebuts, pp. 119–142. 4. Ibid., pp. 132–136. 5. In the case of Norway, Cees Wiebes and Bert Zeeman refer to rumors in Western diplomatic circles in early March 1948 that Moscow had proposed a treaty of alliance. See Cees Wiebes and Bert Zeeman, 134 The Czechoslovak Factor in Western Alliance Building, 1945–1948 The Italian historian Antonio Varsori briefly outlines the effect of the February events on British attitudes in an article titled “Reflections on the Origins of the Cold War.”6 According to Varsori, the British (especially Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin) reacted to the Prague coup in three ways. They used it as a vehicle for mobilizing public opinion, for justifying an “informal declaration of war” with the Soviet Union that was the creation of the Brussels Pact, and for ensuring that the United States was drawn into the defense of Europe. Varsori also describes how the Labour government was able to contrast its Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/1/133/698771/jcws_a_00622.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 firmness in 1948 with the ineffectiveness of Neville Chamberlain in 1938. At Munich the Tories had sought to appease the Nazi aggressor—ten years later Labour, faced with the Soviet menace, had demonstrated its readiness to resist aggression with all the means at its disposal.7 Moreover, the West European socialist party leaders, impressed by the events in Prague, recognized the real nature of the Soviet regime and definitively turned away from their postwar, idealistic faith that only “Left could speak to Left.”8 What all these interpretations have in common is a predominant focus on the “Western” factors that launched and drove the process leading to the signing of the Brussels Treaty on 17 March 1948. One exception to this rule is a study by the U.S. scholar Vojtech Mastny (who was born in Czechoslovakia) titled “The February 1948 Prague Coup and the Origins of NATO.”9 In its conclusion, Mastny argues that the events of February 1948 were of critical importance to the extent that they “prompted the alteration of the Brussels Pact in a fashion that made this institutional predecessor of NATO more acceptable to the United States than it would otherwise have “Benelux,” in David Reynolds, ed., The Origins of the Cold War in Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 180. The Belgian historian Luc de Vos is even more dismissive of the importance of the coup, saying only that “the Communist coup in Prague on 27 February 1948 allowed the British and the French to change tack on the Benelux plans without too much loss of face.” See Luc de Vos, “A Little ‘Fish’ in a Big Political ‘Pool’—Belgium’s Cautious Contribution to the Rise of Military Integration in Western Europe,” in Wiggershaus and Foerster, eds., The Western Security Community, p. 96. 6. Antonio Varsori, “Reflections on the Origins of the Cold War,” in Odd Arne Westad, ed., Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 283–302. 7. Ibid., p. 289. 8. Ibid. See also Antonio Varsori, “From Dunkirk to Washington via Brussels (1947–1949),” in Saki Dockrill et al., eds., L’Europe de l’Est et de l’Ouest dans la Guerre froide 1948–1953 (Paris: PUPS, 2002), pp. 9–19; Antonio Varsori, “The First Stage of Negotiations: December 1947 to June 1948,” in Ennio Di Nolfo, ed., The Atlantic Pact Forty Years Later (New York: W. de Gruyter, 1991), pp. 19–40; and Antonio Varsori, Il Patto di Bruxelles (1948): Tra integrazione europea e alleanza atlantica (Rome: Bonacci, 1988), pp. 62–106. 9. Vojtech Mastny, “The February 1948 Prague Coup and the Origins of NATO,” in Carsten Due- Nielsen, Rasmus Mariager, and Regin Schmidt, eds., Nye fronter i Den kolde Krig [New frontiers in the Cold War] (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2010), pp. 114–130. 135 Svik been, [and this] prepared the way for America’s formal ... participation in an organizational structure for the defense of Europe.10” However, in general, “the war scare provoked by the Czechoslovak events subsided by the end of the year [1948]. This happened despite the major crisis incited by Iosif Stalin’s imposition of the Berlin blockade, for the Western Allies quickly gained the upper hand by establishing their successful airlift.”11 Yet despite drawing a strong correlation between the Prague coup and the creation of the Brussels Pact, even Mastny does not place the relationship between these two events Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/jcws/article-pdf/18/1/133/698771/jcws_a_00622.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 into a broader perspective of post-1945 international policymaking.
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