A World at Arms (30 page)

Since the Germans had promised support for Soviet claims to Bessarabia and consistently maintained that they had only economic interest in the whole area, they urged the Romanians to satisfy Soviet demands. The Romanians, however, were reluctant to take the initiative, not only because they still hoped to hold on to at least parts of Bessarabia but also because they feared that territorial concessions to the Soviet Union would immediately precipitate territorial demands from their Bulgarian and Hungarian neighbors. The initiative was taken by the Soviet Union which, in view of Germany’s well understood reliance on Romanian oil, notified Berlin of the forthcoming Soviet demands. These were to be presented in a manner calculated to be doubly shocking. Stalin demanded not only the whole of Bessarabia but in addition called for the cession of the Bukovina, a rich area previously never under Russian control.
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Furthermore, the demand on Romania was in ultimatum form, less than two days being allowed for a response, with an invasion to be launched forthwith if Soviet demands were not complied with. If peace did break out in Western Europe, Stalin wanted to be certain that the borders of the Soviet Union had first been pushed forward as far as possible.

The Germans persuaded Moscow to limit Soviet demands to the northern portion of the Bukovina and, together with the Italians, strongly urged the Romanian government to accept the Soviet ultimatum. Blaming the Romanians for the situation in which they found themselves, the Germans saw Romania’s political position as of more interest to Italy,
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and were primarily concerned about any possibility of fighting which might endanger the productivity of the oil fields. Pressed on all sides and with no hope of support, the Romanians, who at one time appear to have seriously contemplated following the Finnish example of 1939 by fighting if the Soviets demanded more than the 1856 border, decided to give in and turn over the areas demanded by the Soviet Union. In very quick marches, the Red Army seized the territories ceded and later went on to occupy a few islands in the Danube as well. The real analogy to Finland would be that of driving Romania fully into German arms.
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Beyond Romania lay Bulgaria, a country which the Soviet Union
had approached in the fall of 1939, but where there had also been a lull in Soviet pressure because of the Russo-Finnish war. The Germans left open their own policy toward Bulgaria if the Soviet Union demanded bases there but did not see the issue as pressing during the winter of 1939-40.
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The Bulgarians hoped to take advantage of the obvious shifting in the European situation in the early summer of 1940 but were exercising some caution.
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They most wanted to regain an outlet on the Aegean Sea, having lost the last portion of it after World War I; their second demand was the return of the southern Dobruja from Romania; and finally they hoped to gain portions of southern Yugoslavia. The Bulgarians preferred to resolve all this peacefully–a rather unlikely speculation–but were in any case told by the Germans that this was something they should work out with the Italians.
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From the perspective of the Soviet Union, however, it all looked rather different. If Bulgaria obtained
all
of the Dobruja from Romania–and it should be noted that in his conversations about Soviet agreement to Bulgarian aspirations Molotov regularly referred to the Dobruja,
not
the southern Dobruja as others did–then the Soviet Union would have a common border with Bulgaria once Bessarabia had been annexed. Simultaneous Soviet support for Bulgaria’s access to the Aegean Sea would open the possibility for the Soviet Union to obtain bases on both the Black Sea and Aegean coasts of Bulgaria and thus to have bases on both sides of Turkey’s European territory.
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These aspirations and others apparently put forward at about the same time looking toward territorial concessions on the Turkish–Soviet border, as well as calling for alterations in the terms of the convention governing the Straits into the Black Sea,
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would, however, be blocked by German policy changes in the summer of 1940. The policy changes, to be discussed later in this chapter, also altered the role of Romania in German plans, simultaneously and similarly changing the role of Finland.

Like Romania, Finland made an effort to improve relations with Germany in the hope of obtaining support in case of Soviet moves analogous to those then being made in the Baltic States. But at first, here as in the case of Romania, the initial German reactions were only in the economic sphere, with interest focused on displacing the British controlling share of the nickel mines in the Petsamo area. As Soviet pressure on Finland revived in June 1940, the Finns stalled and simultaneously tried to appease Germany by withdrawing from the League of Nations, recognizing the puppet state of Slovakia, and
accommodating the Germans on the question of nickel supplies.
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It is not yet clear–and will not be until relevant Soviet archives are accessible–whether the Soviet moves on Finnish diplomatic issues and domestic politics in June, July, and August of 1940 were designed as steps toward the incorporation of Finland into the Soviet Union, as Molotov subsequently described Soviet intentions in his conversation with Hitler on November 13, 1940.
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Here, as in the case of Romania, the Germans at first concentrated exclusively on an economic issue–nickel in this case as it had been oil in the other.
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Very soon, however, here too a fundamental change in German policy produced an entirely different situation with immediate ramifications for basic political rather than economic questions. That big shift was the German decision to attack the Soviet Union, a decision involving a dramatic revision of German policy toward both Finland and Romania, which now became prospective allies for German offensive plans. This revision in turn would have major immediate implications for German relations in the fall of 1940 with the powers involved: the Soviet Union and Italy. Before this whole complex of issues can be examined, however, it is necessary to turn back to the situation in the West and the choices made there by the French, British, and American governments.

NEW CHOICES IN FRANCE, BRITAIN, AND THE UNITED STATES

The German breaching of Weygand’s new defensive line and the subsequent capture of Paris produced a major crisis in the French government. As in 1914, the government moved to Bordeaux, but unlike 1914, defeatism rather than resolution characterized many of its members. Two major differences can be seen in the longer perspective which now separates us from those two occasions. The first is the purely military one. A week after the German advance of 1914 had forced the French government to move to Bordeaux, the Allied victory in the first Battle of the Marne had given the French renewed confidence in their ability to recover from great initial defeats. In 1940, on the other hand, the days following the government’s leaving Paris not only saw the capital itself seized by German troops but obvious signs that the Germans could occupy all of France’s European territory; and that therefore any continuation of the war would necessarily have to be conducted from North Africa and the other French territories around the globe, using the French fleet,
whatever troops were stationed and could be raised overseas or could still be evacuated, and alongside her British ally.

Such a prospect involved a second factor in which the situation would prove very different from 1914. It required a grim determination to fight on, and it was this which was most lacking.
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There were those inside the government and those soon to join it who believed that this was an impossible and even an undesirable prospect, and who thought that there might be a place for a defeated France in a German-controlled Europe. They would under no circumstances fight on against the Germans and Italians. When British planes began to bomb Italy from French bases, they had trucks driven onto the runway.
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In the remaining years of World War II, these men were prepared to see French forces fighting against the British, the Americans and other Frenchmen, but not against the Germans, Italians, or Japanese. Although the Germans themselves invariably rejected their approaches, as will become evident, they themselves banked on a German victory and hoped for some crumbs from Hitler’s table. In this approach, a few were motivated by a sense of inevitability, more by opposition to the values of the Third Republic, most by disdain if not hatred for the British, and all by a sense of the futility of further fighting against Hitler–if the great French army could not halt the Germans, then no one could.
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This element was led by two men who from 1940 to 1945 symbolized a regime which came to be called after the resort which served as the seat of the new government, Vichy.
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The famous World War I military leader, Marshal Philippe Pétain, and the Third Republic politician, Pierre Laval, formed a new Cabinet which persuaded the French Assembly to grant them full powers and which tried to extricate France from the war. In this endeavor they were opposed by a tiny number of Frenchmen of whom Charles de Gaulle, a junior general who left France for England and urged a continuation of the fight against Germany on the day after the French request for an armistice, came to be the symbol and eventual leader. The new Vichy government leaders were not deterred by their treaty promise to England not to make a separate peace with Germany, and they in fact believed that the British were likely themselves to make such a deal.

The negotiations for that French treaty with England had contributed to the development of a radical and novel idea: a permanent direct association of the two countries in some kind of a merged combined state. Originally it had been contemplated that such a union
would grow out of their wartime association.
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In the great military crisis of May–June 1940 it was suggested that this step be taken immediately; De Gaulle in particular urged the British government to take it to assist Reynaud in keeping France in the war. The British Cabinet approved the proposed union, but the French government never considered the idea seriously although it grew in part out of their own initiative.
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A deal with a winning Hitler looked more promising than union with a losing Britain; the same day, June 16, on which the British government accepted the idea of union with France, Reynaud was replaced as Prime Minister by Pétain, who promptly asked for an armistice.

The French were encouraged to take this route in June 1940 by the shrewd maneuvering of the Germans, who saw the possible danger to themselves of continued French resistance very much more clearly than many of those now coming to power in France.
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The Pétain government, which asked for an armistice through Spain as intermediary on June 17, was confronted by a German government which adopted a policy that combined continued rapid military advances with the offering of terms that were extremely harsh but which left open the prospect of a minimal unoccupied France. Since Hitler knew that in the absence of a German navy he could not readily seize the French colonial empire by force, and also wanted to make sure that the French navy did not join the British, he offered terms which a French government might accept.
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He would not for now demand the French colonies–which might otherwise fight on–or the French navy–which might sail to British ports insofar as it was not already there.
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He would, however, insist on occupation of the majority of the country, including its whole Channel and Atlantic coasts, and enormous payments which made the post-World War I reparation demands look like small change.

Hitler also insisted that the French agree to an armistice with Italy before a German–French armistice could take effect. In order to get the French to agree to this procedure and make it work, he persuaded Mussolini to limit Italian demands lest the French continue in the war or the French colonies Italy might want see that demand as a signal to defect from the homeland and join Britain. The singularly inglorious record of the Italians in what little fighting they had done on the Franco-Italian border facilitated German policy; Mussolini felt in no position to ask for what he really wanted in the way of either European or African territory.
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He had hoped and still hoped to obtain Nice, Savoy, and Corsica in Europe, Tunisia, French Somaliland and bases on the coast of Algeria and Morocco in Africa, Syria in the Middle East, and the
French fleet; but for now he had to restrict himself to a minimal occupation zone and some demilitarization in the French colonial empire. The two armistice agreements, the Franco-German and the Franco-Italian ones, accordingly both went into effect on the night of June 24–25.
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In France itself and in most of the French colonial empire the war appeared to be over. The encroachments of Germany and Japan which prejudged any future settlement were only just beginning; the key point in the eyes of the Vichy leaders was to reverse the trend toward a more democratic society which had characterized pre-war France and had, in their judgement, weakened it. Perhaps the French island of Martinique in the West Indies most clearly symbolized the new system: authority was vested in a military man–in this case an admiral, all the nation’s problems were blamed on the Third Republic, the officials hated Britain, the United States and de Gaulle with approximately equal vehemence. Above all, the time seemed finally to have arrived to reverse the verdict of French society on the Dreyfus case, that watershed in the recent history of the country in which equality had triumphed.
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At one point it. looked as if others might follow the French example. The King of Belgium had remained in the country and had tried to keep the Cabinet there as well. The latter had originally left to stand by the Allies, but in late June made some attempts to contact the Germans, return to Belgium, and work out an accommodation with the Third Reich. At first the Berlin authorities observed the soundings of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot with restraint, but by the end of June Hitler had decided that all such approaches should be rejected. He had other ideas for the future of Belgium, which were likely to be hindered rather than helped by the presence of a Belgian government.
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There are some hints in the surviving records that the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg may also have thought of returning home in some accommodation with Germany; here too the German government was determined not to be obstructed in its annexationist ambitions.
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