Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1936, General, British Commonwealth, Volume I

740.0011 Mutual Guarantee (Locarno)/475: Telegram

The Ambassador in Germany (Dodd) to the Secretary of State

Berlin, March 18, 1936—8 p.m.
[Received March 18—6:50 p.m.]

85. I submit the following as certain important objectives and considerations at the London discussions as viewed from Berlin:

First. French efforts to persuade England, in default of immediate economic or military action against Germany, to make an agreement on the lines of the abortive 1919 Anglo-American-French treaty⁹ or of the so-called Geneva protocol of 1924.¹⁰ This is in accord with the constant French pressure on England throughout the post-war period to have such a British guarantee which has, as a matter of fact, come ever closer to realization as England has found it necessary to occupy herself more and more with the continent and in her new position of champion of the League. As opposed to this French thesis, the German view is that France can accomplish the same end by the “new Locarno” and other proposals in Hitler’s memorandum; that this would avoid a return to the policy of pre-war alliances achieving the desired result in the modern cooperative manner.

Second. The military reoccupation of the Rhineland zone and especially its fortification which Germany intends is a serious threat to the preponderance of French influence in central and eastern Europe if indeed it does not definitely end it. With the Rhineland zone as provided in the Versailles treaty, the French army constituted a conserved threat against Germany if and when she might undertake a military adventure either against Russia or in the Danubian region. It was this which has given France such dominating influence in central and eastern Europe as much as the weakness of the Germany army under the Versailles treaty. With the demilitarized zone reoccupied and fortified, France and if necessary Belgium also may be contained by a relatively moderate force and thus prevented from creating an effective immediate military diversion in support of the Little Entente or Russia. In brief, a fortified Rhineland zone and the powerful army which Germany proposes to have would seem to spell the end of France’s present position on the continent.

Repeated to London, Paris, Rome, Brussels, Geneva.

Dodd

9. Signed June 28, 1919; for text, see Foreign Relations, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. xiii, p. 757.
10. Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, October 2, 1924; for text, see League of Nations, Official Journal, Special Supplement No. 24, Annex 13, p. 107.