SOME DOCUMENTS RELEVANT TO FRANCE'S RESPONSE TO GERMANY'S
INVASION OF POLAND.
The file contains the following documents in the order of
appearance in the file:
(1) Address by Edouard Daladier, Premier, in the Chamber of
Deputies, September 2, 1939.
(2) Telephone communication from Robert Coulondre, French
Ambassador to Germany, to the French Minister for Foreign
Affairs (Georges Bonnet), September 3, 1939
(3) Statement by Edouard Daladier, Premier, to the Nation,
September 3, 1939
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(1) Address by Edouard Daladier, Premier, in the Chamber of
Deputies, September 2, 1939.
Gentlemen,
The Government yesterday decreed general mobilization.
The whole nation is answering the call with serious and resolute
calm. The young men have rejoined their regiments. They are
now defending our frontiers. The example of dignified courage
which they have just set to the world must provide inspiration
for our debates. In a great impulse of national brotherliness
they have forgotten everything which only yesterday could divide
them. They no longer acknowledge any service but the service of
France. As we send them the grateful greeting of the nation let
us all pledge ourselves together to be worthy of them.
Thus has the Government put France into a position to act in
accordance with our vital interests and with national honor.
It has now the duty of setting forth before you the facts as
they are, fully, frankly, and clearly.
Peace had been endangered for several days. The demands of
Germany on Poland were threatening to provoke a conflict. I
shall show you in a moment how - perhaps for the first in time
history - all the peaceful forces of the world, moral and
material, were leagued together during those days and during
those nights to save the world's peace. But just when it could
still be hoped that all those repeated efforts were going to be
crowned with success, Germany abruptly brought them to naught.
During the day of August 31 the crisis reached its peak. When
Germany had at last let Great Britain know that she agreed to
hold direct negotiation with Poland, a course which she had ,
let it be said, refused to me, Poland, in spite of the terrible
threat created by the sudden armed invasion of Slovakia by the
German forces, at one endeavored to resort to this peaceful
method. At one o'clock in the afternoon M. Lipski, the Polish
Ambassador to Germany, requested an audience from Herr von
Ribbentrop. Peace seemed to be saved. But the Reich Minister
for Foreign Affairs would not receive M. Lipski till 7:45 P.M.,
seven hours later. While the latter was bringing the consent of
his Government to direct conversations, the German Minister
refused to communicate Germany's claims to the Polish
Ambassador, on the pretext that the Ambassador had not full
powers to accept or reject them on the spot.
At 9 P.M. the German wireless was communicating the nature and
the full extent of these claims; it added that Poland had
rejected them. That is a lie. That is a lie, since Poland did
not even know them.
And at dawn on September 1 the Fuhrer gave his troops the order
to attack. Never was aggression more unmistakable and less
warranted; nor for its justification could more lies and
cynicism have been brought into play.
Thus was wear unleashed at the time when the most noteworthy
forces, the authorities who ewre at the same time the most
respected and the most impartial, had ranged themselves in the
service of peace; at the time when the whole world had joined
together to induce the two sides to come into direct contact so
as to settle peacefully the conflict which divides them.
The Head of Christianity had given voice to reason and feelings
of brotherhood; President Roosevelt had sent moving messages and
proposed a general conference to all countries; the neutral
countries had been active in offering their impartial good
offices. Need I say that to each of these appeals the French
Government gave an immediate welcome and complete assent?
I myself, Gentlemen, if I may be allowed a reference to my own
person, thought it my duty as a Frenchman to approach Herr
Hitler directly. The Head of the German Government had let me
know on August 25, through M. Coulondre, our Ambassador in
Berlin, that he deplored the fact that in case of an armed
conflict between Germany and Poland, German blood and French
blood might be shed. I immediately had a definite proposal put
to the Fuhrer, a proposal wholly inspired by the real concern to
safeguard without any delay the peace of the world now
imperiled.
You were able to read, I think in fact that you must have read
these texts. You know the answer I was given; I will not dwell
on it.
But we were not disheartened by the failure of this step, and
once more we backed up the effort to which Mr. Chamberlain
devoted himself with splendid stubbornness. The documents
exchanged between London and Berlin have been published. On the
one side impartial and persevering loyalty; on the other side,
embarrassment, shifty and shirking behavior. I am also happy at
this juncture to pay my tribute to the noble efforts made by the
Italian Government. Even yesterday we strove to unite all men
of goodwill so as at least to stave off hostilities, to prevent
bloodshed and to ensure that the methods of conciliation and
arbitration should be substituted for the use of violence.
Gentlemen, these efforts towards peace, however powerless they
were and still remain, will at least have shown where the
responsibility lies. They insure for Poland, the victim, the
effective co-operation and moral support of the nations and of
free men of all lands.
What we did before the beginning of this war, we are ready to do
once more. If renewed steps are taken towards conciliation, we
are still ready to join in.
If the fighting were to stop, if the aggressor were to retreat
within his own frontiers, if free negotiations could still be
started, you may well believe, Gentlemen, the French Government
would spare no effort to ensure, even today, if it were
possible, the success of these negotiations, in the interests of
the peace of the world.
But the time is pressing; France and England cannot look on when
a friendly nation is being destroyed, a foreboding of further
onslaughts, eventually aimed at England and France.
Indeed, are we only dealing with the German-Polish conflict? We
are not, Gentlemen; what we have to deal with is a new stage in
the advance of the Hitler dictatorship towards the domination of
Europe and the world. How, indeed, are we to forget that the
German claim to the Polish territories had been long marked on
the map of Greater Germany, and that it was only concealed for
some years to facilitate other conquests? so long as the
German-Polish Pact, which dates back only a few years, was
profitable to Germany, Germany respected it; on the day when it
became a hindrance to marching towards domination it was
denounced unhesitatingly. To-day we are told that, once the
German claims against Poland were satisfied, Germany would
pledge herself before the whole world for ten, for twenty, for
twenty-five years, for all time, to restore or to respect peace.
Unfortunately, we have heard such promises before!
On May 25, 1935, Chancellor Hitler pledged himself not to
interfere in the internal affairs of Austria and not to unite
Austria to the Reich; and on March 11, 1938, the German army
entered Vienna; Chancellor Shuschnigg was imprisoned for daring
to defend his country's independence, and no one to-day can say
what is his real fate after so many physical and moral
sufferings. Now we are to believe that it was Dr. Schuschnigg's
acts of provocation that brought about the invasion and
enslavement of his country!
On September 12, 1938, Herr Hitler declared that the Sudeten
problem was an internal matter which concerned only the German
minority in Bohemia and the Czechoslovak Government. A few days
later he maintained that he violent persecutions carried on by
the Czechs were compelling him to change his policy.
On September 26 of the same year he declared that his claim on
the Sudeten territory was the last territorial claim he had to
make in Europe. On March 14, 1939, Herr Hacha was summoned to
Berlin: ordered under the most stringent pressure to accept an
ultimatum. A few hours later Prague was being occupied in
contempt of the signed pledges given to other countries in
Western Europe. In this case also Herr Hitler endeavored to put
on the victims the onus which in fact lies on the aggressor.
Finally, on January 30, 1939, Herr Hitler spoke in loud praise
of the non-aggression pact which he had signed five years
previously with Poland. He paid a tribute to this agreement as
a common act of liberation, and solemnly confirmed his intention
to respect its clauses.
But it is Herr Hitler's deeds that count, not his word.
What, then, is our duty? Poland is our ally. We entered into
commitments with her in 1921 and 1925. These commitments were
confirmed.
I, myself, in the Chamber said, on May 11 last:
"As a result of the journey of the Polish Minister for Foreign
Affairs to London and of the reciprocal pledges of guarantee
given by Great Britain and Poland, by a common agreement with
this noble and brave nation we tool the measures required for
the immediate and direct application of our treaty of alliance."
Parliament approved this policy.
Since then we have never failed both in diplomatic negotiations
and in public utterances, to prove faithful to it. Our
Ambassador in Berlin has several times reminded Herr Hitler
that, if a German aggression were to take place against Poland,
we should fulfill our pledges. And on July 1, in Paris, the
Minister for Foreign Affairs said to the German Ambassador to
France:
"France has definite commitments to Poland. These engagements
have been further strengthened as a result of the latest events,
and consequently France will at once be at Poland's side as soon
at Poland herself takes up arms."
Poland has been the object of the most unjust and brutal
aggression. The nations who have guaranteed her independence
are bound to intervene in her defense.
Great Britain and France are not Powers that can disown, or
dream of disowning, their signatures.
Already last night, on September 1, the French and British
Ambassadors were making a joint overture to the German
Government. They handed to Herr von Ribbentrop the following
communication from the French Government and the British
Government, which I will ask your leave to read to you:
"Early this morning the German Chancellor issued a proclamation
to the German Army which indicated that he was about to attack
Poland.
"Information which has reached His Majesty's Government in the
United Kingdom and the French Government indicates that attacks
upon Polish towns are proceeding.
"In these circumstances it appears to the Governments of the
United Kingdom and France that by their action the German
Government have created conditions, (viz., an aggressive act of
force against Poland threatening the independence of Poland)
which call for the implementation by the Government of the
United Kingdom and France of the undertaking to Poland to come
to her assistance.
"I am accordingly to inform your Excellency that unless the
German Government are prepared to give His Majesty's Government
satisfactory assurances that the German Government have
suspended all aggressive action against Poland and are prepared
promptly to withdraw their forces from Polish territory, His
Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom will without
hesitation fulfill their obligations to Poland."
And indeed, Gentlemen, it is not only the honor of our country:
it is also the protection of its vital interests that is at
stake.
For a France which should allow this aggression to be carried
out would very soon find itself a scorned, an isolated, a
discredited France, without allies and without support, and
doubtless, would soon herself be exposed to a formidable attack.
This is the question I lay before the French nation, and all
nations. At the very moment of the aggression against Poland,
what value has the guarantee, once more renewed, given for our
eastern frontier, for our Alsace, for our Lorraine, after
repudiation of the guarantees given in turn to Austria,
Czechoslovakia, and Poland? More powerful through their
conquests, gorged with the plunder of Europe, the masters of
inexhaustible natural wealth, the aggressors would soon turn
against France with all their forces.
Thus, our honor is but the pledge of our own society. It is not
that abstract and obsolete form of honor of which conquerors
speak to justify their deeds of violence; it is the dignity of a
peaceful people, which bears hatred toward no other people in
the world and which never embarks upon a war save only for the
sake of its freedom and of its life.
Forfeiting our honor would purchase nothing more than a precious
peace liable to rescission, and when, tomorrow, we should have
to fight after losing the respect of our allies and the other
nations, we should no longer be anything more than a wretched
people doomed to defeat and bondage.
I feel confident that not a single Frenchman harbors such
thoughts today. But I well know, too, Gentlemen, that it is
hard for those who have devoted their whole lives to the cause
of peace and who are still prompted by a peaceful ideal to
reply, by force if needed, to deeds of violence. As head of the
Government, I am not the man to make an apology for war in these
tragic hours. I fought before like most of you. I can
remember. I shall not utter a single one of those words that
the genuine fighters look upon as blasphemous. But I desire to
do my plain duty, and shall do it, as an honorable man.
Gentlemen, while we are in session, Frenchmen are rejoining
their regiments. Not one of them feels any hatred in his heart
against the German people. Not one of them is giving way to the
intoxicating call of violence and brutality; but they are ready,
unanimously, to discharge their duty with the quiet courage
which derives its inspiration from a clear conscience.
Gentlemen, you who know what those Frenchmen are thinking, you
who even yesterday were among them in our provincial towns and
in our countryside, you who have seen them go off - you will not
contradict me if I evoke their feelings here. They are peace-
loving men, but they have decided to make every sacrifice needed
to defend the dignity and freedom of their country. If they
have answered our call, as they have done, without a moment's
hesitation, without a murmur, without flinching, that is because
they feel, all of them, in the depths of their hearts that it
is, in truth, whatever may be said, the very existence of France
that is at stake.
You know better than anyone else that no government, no man,
would be able to mobilize France merely to launch her into an
adventure. Never would the French rise to invade the territory
of a foreign country. Theirs is the heroism for defense and not
for conquest. When you see France spring to arms it is because
she feels herself threatened.
It is not France only that has arisen; it is the whole, far-
flung empire under the sheltering folds of our tricolour. From
every corner of the globe moving protestations of loyalty from
all the protected or friendly races are reaching the mother
country today. The union of all Frenchmen is thus echoed beyond
the seas by the union of all people under our protection who in
the hour of danger are proffering both their arms and their
hearts. And I wish also to salute all the foreigners settled on
our soil, who on this very day in their thousands and thousands,
as though they were the volunteers of imperiled freedom, are
placing their courage and their lives at the service of France.
Our duty is to make an end of aggressive and violent
undertakings; by means of peaceful settlement, if we can still
do so, and this we shall strive our utmost to achieve, by the
wielding of our strength, if all sense of morality as well as
all glimmering of reason has died within the aggressors.
If we were not to keep our pledges, if we were to allow Germany
to crush Poland, within a few months, perhaps within a few
weeks, what could we say to France, if we had to face aggressors
once more? Then would those most determined soldiers ask us
what we had done with our friends. They would feel themselves
alone, under the most dreadful threat, and might lose, perhaps
for all time, the confidence which now spurs them on.
Gentlemen, in these hours when the fate of Europe is in the
balance, France is speaking to us through the voice of her sons,
through the voice of all those who have already accepted, if
need be, the greatest sacrifice of all. Let us recapture, as
they have done, that spirit which fired all the heroes of our
history. France rises with such impetuous impulses only when
she feels in her heart that she is fighting for her life and for
her independence.
Gentlemen, today France is in command.
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(2) Telephone communication from Robert Coulondre, French
Ambassador to Germany, to the French Minister for Foreign
Affairs (Georges Bonnet), September 3, 1939
I have the honor to confirm as here below the communication
which I made to Your Excellency by telephone at 1 P.M.
Herr von Ribbentrop returned at noon. I was received at this
hour by the State Secretary, but the latter informed me that he
was not in a position to tell me whether a satisfactory reply
had been made to my letter of September 1, nor even whether such
a reply could be given thereto. He insisted that I should see
Herr von Ribbentrop himself. In these circumstances I asked to
be received by the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the earliest
possible moment.
I was received by Herr von Ribbentrop at 12:30 P.M.
I asked him whether he could give me a satisfactory reply to my
letter which I had handed to him on September 1 at 10 P.M.
He replied to me as follows:
"After the delivery of your letter, the Italian Government
notified the German Government of a proposed compromise, stating
that the French Government was in agreement. Later, Signor
Mussolini intimated to us that the contemplated compromise had
failed owning to British intransigence. This morning the
British Ambassador handed us an ultimatum, due to expire two
hours later, We rejected it for the reason which is explained
in the memorandum which I handed to the British Ambassador today
and of which I give you a copy.
"If the French Government feels bound by its commitments to
Poland to enter into the conflict, I can only regret it, for we
have no feeling of hostility towards France. It is only if
France attacks us that we shall fight her, and this would be on
her part a war of aggression."
I then asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if I was to infer
from his utterances that the reply of the Government of the
Reich to may letter of September 1 was in the negative. "Yes,"
he replied.
"In these circumstances I must, on behalf of my Government,
remind you for the last time of the heavy responsibility assumed
by the Government of the Reich by entering, without a
declaration of war, into hostilities against Poland and in not
acting upon the suggestion made by the Governments of the French
Republic and of His Britannic Majesty to suspend all aggressive
action against Poland and to declare itself ready to withdraw
its forces promptly from Polish territory.
"I have the painful duty to notify you that as from today,
September 3, at 5 P.M., the French Government will find itself
obliged to fulfill the obligations that France has contracted
towards Poland, and which are known to the German Government.
" 'Well,' Herr von Ribbentrop remarked, 'it will be France who
is the aggressor.' "
I replied to him that history would judge of that.
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(3) Statement by Edouard Daladier, Premier, to the Nation,
September 3, 1939
Men and Women of France.
Since daybreak on September 1, Poland has been the victim of the
most brutal and most cynical of aggression. Her frontiers have
been violated. Her cities are being bombed. Her army is
heroically resisting the invader.
The responsibility for the blood that is being shed falls
entirely upon the Hitler Government. The fate of peace is in
Hitler's hands. He chose war.
France and England have made countless efforts to safeguard
peace. This very morning they made a further urgent
intervention in Berlin in order to address to the German
Government a last appeal to reason and request it to stop
hostilities and to open peaceful negotiations.
Germany met us with a refusal. She had already refused to reply
to all the men of goodwill who recently raised their voices in
favor of the peace of the world.
She therefore desires the destruction of Poland, so as to be
able to dominate Europe quickly and to enslave France.
In rising against the most frightful of tyrannies, in honoring
our word, we fight to defend our soil, our homes, our liberties.
I am conscious of having worked unremittingly against the war
until the last minute.
I greet with emotion and affection our young soldiers, who now
go forth to perform the sacred task which we ourselves did
perform before them. They can have full confidence in their
chiefs, who are worthy of those who have previously led France
to victory.
The cause of France is identical with that of Righteousness. It
is the cause of all peaceful and free nations. It will be
victorious.
Men and Women of France!
We are waging war because it has been thrust on us. Every one
of us is at his post, on the soil of France, on that land of
liberty where respect of human dignity finds one of its last
refuges. You will all co-operate, with a profound feeling of
union and brotherhood, for the salvation of the country.
Vive la France!
Collected and transcribed by
Larry W. Jewell
[email protected]
