A Sense of the Enemy: The High Stakes History of Reading Your Rival's Mind (10 page)

Stresemann also did not expect the West to retaliate against Germany, and after the speech he received ample signals that his assessment was correct. Scheidemann’s allegations created a sensation across the Western press. The story ran prominently in all the major papers. Under the headline “German Royalists Accused of Raising Huge Secret Army,” the
Washington Post
detailed the stormy Reichstag session and the key points of Scheidemann’s speech, including, at the article’s start, the covert shipment of arms from Russia to Germany.
⁹
The following day, the
Post
’s page-one headline declared “Germany’s Cabinet, Defeated, Resigns in Face of Charges.”
¹⁰
Evidencing the general respect for Stresemann’s leadership in foreign affairs, the
Post
piece ended by observing that Stresemann had not been seriously attacked at any time during the past two days of bitter Reichstag debate, and therefore German foreign policy would likely remain unchanged.
The New York Times
also featured the story, while
Time
referenced it within an article on Weimar’s unstable coalitions.
¹¹

In Britain,
The Manchester Guardian
, having first broken the story, continued to run articles on the unfolding events. The newspaper reported that the issue had become the primary topic of discussion in
the press and Parliament. It added that “big sums” from the German taxpayer have been secretly diverted to fund illegal dealings in Russia and at home.
¹²
The next day,
The Guardian
ran a piece on German gun-running, filled with speculation about possible Reichswehr plans to acquire large quantities of arms from Russia, including rifles, field guns, howitzers, and antitank guns.
¹³
The paper followed up the reports on December 21 with a piece titled “The Exposure of German Militarists,” noting that French Socialist leader Leon Blum had requested an inquiry into the issues that Scheidemann had raised.
¹⁴

Unlike the left-leaning
Guardian
, the conservative newspaper
The London Times
downplayed the significance of Scheidemann’s disclosures, claiming that they were all well-known abroad. The
Times
itself had noted the rumored dealings between German and Soviet militaries back in 1922, shortly after the two nations signed their infamous Rapallo agreement, which was putatively restricted to diplomatic and trade issues, not military ones.
¹⁵
The
Times
now painted the German Socialists as having launched a fierce but undeserved attack on the German army. It reported almost none of the details contained within Scheidemann’s speech. Instead, it portrayed the Socialists as paranoids: “The more recent revelations of negotiations between Reichswehr officers and the Soviet Government with regard to the manufacture of arms, with all their schoolboy paraphernalia of false names and forged passports, made the Socialists still more suspicious . . .” The paper then described the Chancellor’s defense, that most of the allegations were either untrue or under investigation. Strongly suggesting support for the German Right, the article’s final sentence cited a Nationalist Deputy, Herr von der Schulenburg, who declared that “. . . if the assertions of Herr Scheidemann were true, his speech fulfilled all the requirements of an act of treason.”
¹⁶

Scheidemann’s speech was an embarrassment for Stresemann. He had repeatedly vowed that Germany would disarm, as this condition was central to the withdrawal of Allied troops from German soil. To make matters worse, just six days earlier he had received the Nobel Prize for Peace, owing to his accommodating fulfillment policy. If Scheidemann’s allegations were found to be true, then Stresemann would appear a hypocrite, and his Locarno success could be in jeopardy.

Stresemann’s deputy, Schubert, urged yet again that the relationship with Moscow be brought to an end, as the risks had become too great.
¹⁷
Stresemann disagreed. Instead, he waited to gauge both Soviet and Western reactions. He had good reason to think that Britain and France would be reluctant to pressure him into terminating the covert rearmament. As embarrassed as the German government might be by Scheidemann’s revelations, the British and French Foreign Ministers might be even more so, thanks in large part to the Nobel Foundation.

The timing of Scheidemann’s speech could hardly have been more awkward for Britain and France, nor more providential for Stresemann.
The Manchester Guardian
story appeared just as the French and British Foreign Ministers, Aristide Briand and Austen Chamberlain, were finalizing the withdrawal of the Inter-Allied Military Control Commission (IMCC), even though the Commission’s report stated that Germany had not met the disarmament conditions.
¹⁸
Four days later, the Foundation announced not only that Dr. Stresemann would receive the Peace Prize for his handling of European disputes but that Briand and Chamberlain, along with American Vice-President Dawes, would share the award for their roles in ushering in the spirit of Locarno. For the British, French, or American foreign ministries to have loudly protested German violations at the very moment when they were basking in their Nobel glory would have been an unmitigated embarrassment. It could have called into question the entire Locarno undertaking, the trustworthiness of Stresemann, and the credibility of the statesmen themselves. Instead of drawing attention to German rearmament, the Nobel laureates voiced their genuine hopes for future peace.

Upon learning that he had won the Nobel Prize, Austen Chamberlain declared: “I feel greatly honored by the award, because it sets the seal of international approbation on the work of peace accomplished at Locarno.”
¹⁹
French Foreign Minister Briand enthused over the announcement with equal relish:

Of course, I am delighted; but my ambition is that, ten years hence, the people will say that we deserved this award. Sir Austen Chamberlain, Dr. Stresemann and myself have worked together for the last two years in perfect harmony, with only one object in view. That object was the peace of the world. We have done our best, and will continue
in the same spirit. Today we have the distinguished honor of receiving the Nobel prize. But history will say whether we deserved it. For the sake of humanity I sincerely hope that it will.
²⁰

Commenting on Stresemann’s receipt of the honor,
The New York Times
reflected the popular view of him at the time. The newspaper called Stresemann “sincere in his tribute to the new spirit of the international accord.” The profile credited the Foreign Minister with changing German attitudes toward the once-detested League of Nations. Affirming the general perception,
The New York Times
proclaimed: “Stresemann has held firm to the major principle that for Germany the soundest policy is loyal cooperation with her former enemies.”
²¹

The Peace Prize was a windfall for Stresemann, as it constrained the French and British foreign ministers’ reactions. They could not raise objections to Germany’s covert rearmament without tarnishing the luster on their award.

Around the same time as the Nobel Prize awards, Stresemann was receiving many more signals that Britain and France were not prepared to make an issue of German violations. The official British response to Scheidemann’s revelations proved remarkably muted. The episode had no effect on the government’s impressions of Stresemann. It appears not even to have triggered an investigation into the extent of Stresemann’s knowledge of the Reichswehr’s activities. Instead, Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain remained exceedingly deferential to his German counterpart throughout the episode.
²²
At a Cabinet meeting on December 1, 1926, Chamberlain described how well he, Briand, and Stresemann had cooperated at a recent meeting in Geneva. Relations were so congenial that they envisioned the withdrawal of Allied forces from Germany in the very near future in exchange for a financial payment from Germany. Chamberlain hoped for another conference similar to Locarno, but he feared that the sensitive state of European public opinion was not yet ready for such an affair.
²³
Obviously, Stresemann did not know the details of this particular Cabinet meeting, but British and French compliance with German demands continued to be forthcoming.

At the following Cabinet meeting on December 15, just one day before Scheidemann’s speech but a week after
The Manchester Guardian
’s
exposé, Chamberlain reported that the IMCC would at last be fully withdrawn from German territory, thanks to Briand’s acceptance of German goodwill.
²⁴
The planned withdrawal date had been set for February 1, 1927, but in deference to Stresemann they reset the date to January 31, as this was the anniversary of the evacuation of Allied troops from Cologne and held symbolic value for the Germans.
²⁵

Chamberlain went on to assert that 99 of the 101 outstanding points not settled at Locarno had each been resolved. The remaining two issues involved what would today be called “dual use materials” and the disarmament of the Königsberg fortress. Both the British and French War Offices recognized the danger from the accumulation of large quantities of jigs and gauges. These devices could be used for commercial purposes, but they could also be used in weapons. As the minutes reveal, Stresemann’s word sufficed to allay any concerns. “Dr. Stresemann had, however, given an emphatic undertaking that there should be no accumulations.”
²⁶

The question of disarming the fortress proved more complicated. The Versailles Treaty stated in Article 180 that Germany’s system of fortified works along its southern and eastern frontiers should be maintained in its existing state. The British assumed that this referred to the state the fortresses were in at the war’s end. But the Germans devised a novel interpretation, insisting that the article meant that Germany could keep them up to date. Presumably the fortresses had the latest weaponry in 1918, and the Germans wanted them to have the latest weaponry now, in 1926. Though Chamberlain initially insisted on the British interpretation, General Paweltz, who was the German liaison officer to the IMCC, vehemently refused to agree. The talks might have foundered on this point, but then “Dr. Stresemann had insisted that the Germans had no offensive ideas and only contemplated the fortresses in their defensive capacity.”
²⁷
Again, Stresemann’s assurances were enough, and this provided the basis for renewed negotiations. In point after point, Germany was getting its way.

The day after Chamberlain informed the British Cabinet that the IMCC’s mission would soon end, Scheidemann delivered his stunning Reichstag address. But owing to the Christmas holiday, the British Cabinet did not reconvene until January. When it next met, the entire agenda was consumed by a single item: a crisis in China regarding the
seizure of a British concession. In fact, each weekly Cabinet meeting that month centered almost exclusively on the China issue. Unlike normal meetings at which a variety of domestic and foreign affairs were discussed, the China crisis absorbed the Cabinet’s near-complete attention.

If the secret rearmament in Russia had been well-known to the British, then why did they not seize this opportunity to protest it? Governments are often hamstrung in their ability to object to a country’s actions when their objections are based on covert intelligence reports. No government wants to risk exposing its spies, sources, or methods. But once a public disclosure occurs, governments are free to make diplomatic protests at no risk. Scheidemann’s speech handed the British a perfect chance to do this. Chamberlain, for one, could have expressed Her Majesty’s Government’s deep disapproval of Germany’s violations and demanded they cease. Instead, the British said nothing.
²⁸

From the British perspective, German rearmament was rather modest at this stage. Knowing that some German rearmament was inevitable, the British were willing to ignore these relatively minor violations. However, Britain’s lack of response only hastened the pace of Russo–German cooperation. As the incisive German diplomat in Russia, Gustav Hilger, observed in his post–World War II memoirs, after the Scheidemann affair German activities inside Russia rapidly expanded. More German officers than ever before came to Moscow, Hilger wrote, though greater efforts were taken to camouflage their identity.
²⁹

Some limited German rearmament was viewed as a positive development given concerns over a potentially resurgent Russia and the growing communist movement. But if the British truly feared a Russian resurgence, then the last thing they would have wanted was German aid to the Red Army. The Reichswehr was actively training Russian officers, teaching pilots, and establishing a school for instruction in tank warfare. German industrial plants agreed in some cases to give the Red Army one-third of the planes produced on Soviet territory. For Britain, however, a moderately rearmed Germany might also one day serve as a counterweight to France.