Abstract
However divided British statesmen were on the issue of the League of Nations and collective security, they were almost unanimous in their desire to pacify and conciliate pre-Hitler Germany. Certainly all members of the second Labour Government earnestly believed that solutions to the outstanding questions relating to Germany, especially those concerning reparations and the early evacuation of occupation forces from the Rhineland, were both desirable and attainable; and in this respect at least they also had the support of most of the outgoing Conservative Ministers. But if there was no divergence of aim between the two administrations, there was undoubtedly a contrast in the methods employed, for whereas Austen Chamberlain and his colleagues had sought European pacification in close co-operation with Paris, most of the new Labour Ministers preferred the tactic of pushing rather than cajoling the French into making concessions to Germany.
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Notes
See W. R. Tucker, The Attitude of the British Labour Party towards European and Collective Security Problems,1920–1939 (Geneva, 1950 ) pp. 85–93, for a detailed examination of the issues involved.
More detailed accounts are to be found in W. M. Jordan, Great Britain, France and the German Problem,1918–1939 (London, 1943 ) pp. 502–29.
Andrew McFadyean, Reparation Reviewed (London, 1930).
Hans Ronde, Von Versailles bis Lausanne: Der Verlauf der Reparationsverhandlungen nach dem ersten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart and Cologne, 1950).
Arnold J. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, 1924(London, 1926) pp. 323–99.
Arnold J. Toynbee et al., Survey of International Affairs, 1929 (London, 1930) pp. 111–66.
Julius Curtius, Der Young-Plan: Entstellung und Wahrheit (Stuttgart, 1950) P. 13.
E. N. Peterson, Hjalmar Schacht: For and Against Hitler: A Political-Economic Study of Germany, 1923–1945,(Boston, 1954 ) p. 83.
The Young Report was published in Great Britain as Cmd. 3343 of 1929–30. For a useful short summary of the implications of the Plan, see Thomas W. Lamont, ‘The Final Reparations Settlement’, Foreign Affairs (New York), Vii (1929–30) 336–63.
C. G. Dawes, Journal as Ambassador to Great Britain (New York, 1939 ) p. 44
Sir Frederick Leith-Ross, Money Talks: Fifty Years of International Finance (London, 1968) p. 124. Leith-Ross’s three colleagues were Pierre Quesnay of France, Alberto Pirelli of Italy and Emile Francqui of Belgium.
Hjalmar Schacht, The End of Reparations (New York, 1931) p. 100.
Arnold J. Toynbee et al., Survey of International Affairs, 1930 (London,1931) p. 507.
Ludwig Zimmermann, Deutsche Aussenpolitik in der Ara der Weimarer Republik (Göttingen, 1958) pp. 378–9. See also Henderson to Lindsay, telegram no. 65,30 Aug 1929, Foreign Office Confidential Prints and General Correspondence, Public Record Office (hereafter abbreviated to F.O.), 408/54.
For details of Briand’s attitude towards the evacuation of the Rhineland, see Arnold J. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, 1927 (London, 1929) pp.109–14, and Toynbee et al., Survey of International Affairs, 1929, pp. 167–80.
Ibid., pp. 379–80. See also Paul Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatischer Biihne, 1923–1945 (Bonn, 1949) p. 180.
Curtius’s tear jerking account (Sechs Jahre Minister der Deutschen Republik (Heidelberg, 1948) p. 90) was rather less than fair to the French delegates, whose conciliatory conduct was far ahead of the bulk of their compatriots. According to Curtius, a supposedly despairing Stresemann clutched his heart at 1.3o a.m. and cried out ‘Ich kann nicht mehr’. But Curtius took no account of the difficulties Briand had to face in justifying his actions to the French Chamber of Deputies. For this see Arnold Wolfers, Britain and France between Two Wars: Conflicting Strategies of Peace since Versailles (New York, 1940) p. 82.
Hugh Dalton, ‘British Foreign Policy, 1929–1931’, Political Quarterly, II (1931) 493.
Ibid., p. 494. For a similar view see Arthur Salter, Recovery — The Second Effort (London, 1932) p. 247.
For example in Quintin Hogg (sometime Lord Hailsham), The Left was Never Right (London, 1945) p. 121.
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© 1970 David Carlton
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Carlton, D. (1970). The German Problem to the End of the First Hague Conference, 1929. In: MacDonald versus Henderson. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00675-5_2
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