The Paris Embassy of Sir Eric Phipps, 1937-1939 John Herman
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The Paris Embassy of Sir Eric Phipps, 1937-1939 John Herman Submitted for the degree of PhD London School of Economics April 1996 UMI Number: U084431 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U084431 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 TtoCS P 12-T ^33-6 -2- ABSTRACT When Sir Eric Phipps arrived in Paris in April 1937 to begin his duties as H.M. Ambassador at Paris, he had just completed four years service as HM Ambassador at Berlin where he had achieved a reputation as a staunch anti-Nazi and as an anti-appeaser. By the end of his tenure at Paris in October 1939, however, he was widely accused of being a "defeatist/appeaser" and his reputation has never recovered. When Phipps left Berlin, German military power was in its ascendancy. He arrived in Paris at the age of 62 when French military preparations were at their nadir and the Popular Front was disintegrating. These factors led him to support that French political faction which was opposed to a resolute French policy and which by inclination was not Anglophile. This put him out of step with, and open to criticism from, the Foreign Office. His consciousness of French economic, political and military weakness propelled Phipps into playing a role which French historians have termed that of "the English Governess" towards the French, pressing them into adopting British policies and interfering in their internal affairs. While this was within the general framework of his instructions from the Foreign Office, he pursued his conception of Chamberlain's appeasement policy with a zeal that seems to have been based on closer contact with the Prime Minister and his entourage rather than with his professional colleagues. From the Spring of 1939 onwards, Phipps adopted a firmer attitude towards Germany bringing him more into conformity with the new orientation of British policy. On instructions from London, he took advantage of divisions in the French Cabinet to support Bonnet in bringing pressure on Daladier to make concessions to Italy which brought him into increasingly direct contact with 10 Downing Street. At the onset of the war, Phipps was a resolute advocate of a total Anglo-French victory over Nazi Germany. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank Professor Donald Cameron Watt and Professor Paul Preston for their advice, help and encouragement. Dr. Steve Morewood and the late Harold Freedman were also foremost amongst those who encouraged me to complete this thesis. My greatest debt, however, is to my wife whose stalwart support has been essential to me throughout. -4- CONTENTS Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 CHAPTER 1 Introduction: The Scope of the Problem 5 2 Phipps's Background, the Paris Embassy and 15 the Impact of Berlin. 3 Phipps's Unspoken Assumptions and the Paris 33 Milieu; Anglo-French Relations and the Foreign Office. 4 The First Five Months (April-September 1937). 58 5 The Decline of the Popular Front and the 86 Anschluss (October 1937-March 10, 1938). 6 The May Week-end Crisis and its Aftermath 132 (11 March - 31 August 1938). 7 The Munich Crisis - September 1938. 181 8 From Munich to the Polish Guarantee 232 (October 1938 to 31 March 1939). 9 The Outbreak of War and Retirement (17 March 284 to 23 October 1939); Conclusions and a Postscript. APPENDIX I The Principal Officials in Phipps's Paris Embassy 341 Bibliography 342 -5- CHAPTER1 INTRODUCTION; THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM Diplomatists, it is generally, though by no means exactly agreed, form an important link in the process by which one group of national decision makers form their perceptions, obtain their information on, and communicate their intentions to their opposite numbers in charge of other states, whether potential allies or potential enemies. They reflect, to a certain extent, the value systems of those who have appointed them and to whom they report. At the same time, living in an enclosed milieu, apart from the state to which they are appointed and physically distant from their country of origin, they are subject to various deformations professionelles (the range of which would make a fascinating study in itself). They are at once prisms and heliographs. Moreover, the role diplomats play changes as the nature of the elites they represent also changes....(1) Prior to 1914, British foreign policy decisions were taken by 'specific and easily identifiable individuals working within the confines of the foreign and diplomatic service' and their 'background, personal beliefs and character were all of great significance'. (2 ') After 1914, ambassadors and attaches tiad to operate in a ry\ world where the familiar restraints of diplomacy were fast disappearing* and, in the period of appeasement, their traditional authority and influence appeared to have been further eroded. By 1937, the British Government were faced with a declining economic and strategic position and a rapidly deteriorating international situation. The intensity of the international crisis, his personality, and his impatience with the Foreign Office increasingly led the new prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, to virtually 1) D.C. Watt, Foreword: the New International History* (to a special issue on Ambassadors & Attaches). The International History Review, DC 4, November 1987, p.519. 2) Keith Neilson, "My Beloved Russians: Sir Arthur Nicholson & Russia 1906-1914', ibid, p.521. 3) Alan Cassels: 'Afterword: Diplomats in an Age of Alien Ideologies and Bureaucratization', ibid, p.614. take over control of British foreign policy himself. This led to his reliance on a personal entourage including Sir Horace Wilson and Joseph Ball whom he encouraged to bypass the normal channels. An obvious effect of this was that the conflict between 10 Downing Street and the Foreign Office became acute. Paradoxically, this, in turn, increased the importance and influence of certain diplomats frequently in uneasy equilibrium between the two, particularly in the crisis capitals. It is significant that the three most important British ambassadors of the period (towards all of whom Vansittart would be bitterly critical). Henderson (Berlin), Perth (Rome), and Phipps (Paris), were amongst the most ardent supporters of Chamberlain's appeasement policy. Phipps, for example, increasingly reported what he thought Chamberlain and Halifax wanted to hear. During the Munich Crisis this brought him on a collision course with the Foreign Office, and there were calls for his dismissal. His powerful protectors included Sir Warren Fisher and Sir Maurice Hankey and his detractors were led by Vansittart and Oliver Harvey. In the struggle over policy, he was able to ride out the storm albeit with a diminished reputation in Foreign Office circles. In these circumstances, the informal aspects of the decision making process became increasingly important. In the case of Phipps, a close examination of his ambassadorship in Paris reveals that it was at least as, if not more, important than the traditional or formal machinery was frequently bypassed or ignored. There is, for example, the considerable amount of private and unofficial correspondence to, and from, the Embassy frequently amending, explaining or even contradicting official despatches and instructions which were intended for use 'off the record. Sir Orme Sargent, the assistant under secretary and superintendent of the Central Department, was nominally his immediate superior at the Foreign Office. There were strong hints and suggestions in some of his private letters to Phipps of possible or desirable courses of action which, he hastened to add, should not be taken or interpreted as constituting official instructions. Furthermore, he occasionally sent Phipps copies of the confidential minutes which he had appended to his despatches with instructions to destroy them as they were intended 'for (his) eyes only1 which was highly irregular, to say the least. In theory, this not only enabled Phipps to obtain a unique insight into F.O. thinking but also to amend, suppress or develop his officially expressed views in accordance with those of his nominal superiors at the Central Department. However, as the European situation deteriorated, this increasingly conflicted with Phipps's growing conviction of the correctness of Chamberlain's views, and exacerbated his relations with the Foreign Office particularly vis-a-vis his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Vansittart, the permanent under secretary and, later, chief diplomatic advisor to the Government. To these examples of the informal decision making process must be added Phipps's large private correspondence with his old friend, Sir Maurice Hankey, the secretary of the cabinet and of the C.I.D. Hankey, who was instrumental in securing his appointment to Paris, sent him, in the strictest confidence, highly confidential information on British defence policy and strategic problems as well as reports on cabinet meetings. He also provided Phipps with high level intimate political gossip which enabled him to tread a careful tightrope