• 2 Curzon, 5.10.23, CAB 32/9/E3 in the National Archives at Kew, London. [TNA]

2The alternative, as he later expressed it to the Imperial Conference on 5 October 1923, was stark - “If France and ourselves permanently fall out, I see no prospect of the recovery of Europe or of the pacification of the world.”2 Yet no such alliance was formed in the 1920s and when, eventually, one was agreed in 1938 it was arguably much too late. Why were the two principal European victors from the First World War unable to negotiate the pact that leading decision-makers on both sides of the Channel believed would preserve the hard-won peace and indeed was essential to doing so?

• 3 For helpful assessments of French policies and Anglo-French relations in their broader context see (...)

3An analysis of the 1921-1922 negotiations suggests that the answer lies in a ‘return to normalcy’ in which the ambiguities of Anglo-French relations, so apparent in their pre-war dealings, re-emerged after their costly victory. The discussions about an Anglo-French alliance between cabinet ministers in Britain, the advice offered by diplomats and other men of influence on both sides of the Channel and the exchanges between British and French leaders revealed a continuing relationship dogged by mutual suspicion and antagonism tempered by a grudging recognition by both states that the other was vital to the realisation of its objectives. The unsolved problem was to find a way to reconcile their very different perceptions of an ideal international order without sacrificing the interests that each saw as vital to its national and great power interests. Germany’s future role was the key European issue. Britain was anxious to revive the German economy and re-establish trading links, perceiving its population as 65 million potential customers, whereas the current dominant strand of French policy saw a prosperous and populous Germany as a security menace. An alliance with Britain might alleviate such concerns but it must be couched in such terms that there could be no repetition of the uncertainty during the July 1914 crisis about Britain’s commitment. To what extent was France prepared to sacrifice its imperial ambitions and policy independence to clinch such a treaty – if indeed Britain was prepared to offer one?3

• 4 Saint-Aulaire to Briand, Desp. 36, 14.12.21 Documents Diplomatiques Français 1921 Tome II (1 juille (...)
• 5 Charles Seymour (ed.) The Intimate Papers of Colonel House (4 vols., London, Ernest Benn, 1928) Vol (...)

4Curzon’s 1921 assessment was prompted by the attempt in early December of the French ambassador to London, the Comte de Saint-Aulaire, to resurrect the possibility of an alliance raised by the abortive 1919 British guarantee.4 The only concession that Britain made before the First World War to the Bismarckian system of long-term peacetime alliances was the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902, renewed in 1905 and 1911. Such an alliance with a European power would represent a revolution in British foreign policy yet, in March 1919, the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, offered France a ten year guarantee of British support against an unprovoked German aggression, pledging also to build a Channel railway tunnel to speed British troops to France’s aid. He perceived that allaying French security concerns was the key to unblocking the log-jam of difficult problems that threatened to wreck the Paris peace conference – Germany’s eastern frontiers, reparations, disarmament, the futures of Fiume and Danzig, Anglo-French disputes over the Middle East but especially the French demand, to which Britain and America were implacably opposed, to detach the Rhineland west of the Rhine from Germany. On 14 March he persuaded the American president, Woodrow Wilson, to join him in offering guarantees to the French premier, Georges Clemenceau. The ploy worked though its sincerity may be doubted – Wilson’s close adviser, Edward House, noted in his diary for 20 March, “I have my doubts as to the Senate accepting such a treaty, but that is to be seen. Meanwhile it satisfied Clemenceau and we can get on with the real business of the Conference.”5

• 6 Antony Lentin, ‘The Treaty That Never Was: Lloyd George and the Abortive Anglo-French Alliance of 1 (...)
• 7 Lentin, ‘The Treaty That Never Was’ pp. 125-126.

6All was not what it seemed. On 27 June 1919 Lloyd George altered the wording of the final draft such that the Anglo-French treaty would “only” become operative after the American treaty’s ratification. Clemenceau, who had not noticed the alteration, signed, believing that the Anglo-French treaty was the “ultimate sanction of the Peace Treaty” and “the keystone of European peace.”6 Britain ratified with remarkably little parliamentary debate in July but, after the Senate’s refusal on 19 November 1919 to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, Wilson’s government made no attempt to ratify its guarantee. Lloyd George’s offer was a typical example of his interpretation of the rules of a coin toss – heads I win, tails you lose. If the Americans honoured their commitment the chances of a serious German threat to the peace greatly receded, if they did not Britain was relieved of any formal obligation. Not unreasonably there was deep resentment in France and a feeling that Clemenceau had been duped.7

• 8 Clemenceau, Grandeur, p. 113; J.-B. Duroselle, Clemenceau (Paris, Fayard, 1988) p. 879.
• 9 Eastern Committee minutes, 2.12.18, CAB 24/27 TNA.
• 10 Meeting of the Imperial Conference, 22.6.21, CAB 32/2/E4 TNA.

7Over the next two years British decision-makers debated the advantages or otherwise of an alliance, partly because some considered the guarantee left a moral debt but mainly to induce a more generous French attitude to Germany. Most remained uncommitted. The discussions took place in the context of a highly ambivalent attitude towards France in which sympathy for a wartime ally combined with deep suspicion about French motives and policies. Lloyd George’s response to Clemenceau’s 1921 complaint that, since the armistice, British policy had been anti-French – “Well, was it not always our traditional policy?” - was revealing.8 Curzon had already expressed fears in December 1918 that “the great power from which we have most to fear in the future is France.”9 In 1921 he warned the Imperial Conference of “the lure of the Ruhr” – a reference to the French predilection for recommending an occupation of the Ruhr valley in response to German infractions of the Treaty, seen by Britain as a thinly disguised attempt to annex the mineral-rich region. This, taken in conjunction with French control of Alsace-Lorraine and the Saar, he saw as evidence of France’s ambition to be “the economic mistress of Europe in respect of coal, iron and steel …and also.. the military monarch.”10

• 12 Comte de Saint-Aulaire, Confessions d’un Vieux Diplomate (Paris, Flammarion, 1953) p. 536.

10France was thus perceived, simultaneously and paradoxically, as an ally whose cooperation was absolutely essential to the maintenance of European peace, as an insecure and declining power, and as a dangerous imperial rival, with a very different interpretation of a secure international order. As Paul Cambon, the veteran French ambassador in London lamented to his successor, Saint-Aulaire, “The misfortune is that the English are not yet aware that Napoleon is dead.”12 Suspicion was not confined to government circles. Robert Graves, the poet and First World War veteran up at Oxford after the war, recorded that,

• 14 Churchill to Lloyd George 28.11.21, F/10/1/48, Lloyd George Papers in the Parliamentary Archive, Lo (...)

11Yet there was much evidence of sympathy in Britain for France at a political, personal and municipal level based on their recent shared sacrifices and as the Colonial Minister, Winston Churchill, forcefully reminded Lloyd George in November 1921, “It would be an enormous shock to the British public, who have 600,000 graves in France, if the statesmen were to tell them that we had backed the wrong horse.”14

• 15 E7 in CAB 32/2, TNA.

12Although many in Britain wished to turn their back on Europe and follow the advice of Jan Smuts, the South African leader and former member of the Imperial War Cabinet who told the Imperial Conference on 6 June 1921, “..I would rather assume a position of independence, putting the British Empire entirely aside from all of them..,”15 they knew this was impossible. As Harold Nicolson, from the Foreign Office, pointed out to the Committee of Imperial Defence in July 1920,

• 17 Churchill to Lloyd George, 22.3.20, F/9/9/20 LGP. As Colonial Secretary in 1921 he changed his mind (...)
• 18 Hardinge to Lloyd George, 22.6.21, F/53/1/63, LGP.

14Most British decision-makers agreed that an alliance with France would allay its security fears but disagreed about whether this would induce a more or less benevolent French attitude to Germany. As War Minister in March 1920 Winston Churchill advised Lloyd George, “You ought to tell France that we will make a defensive alliance with her against Germany, if & only if she entirely alters her treatment of Germany & loyally accepts a British policy of help & friendship towards Germany.”17 Charles Hardinge, Britain’s ambassador in Paris, agreed, writing to Lloyd George in May 1921, “I feel that until France obtains some guarantee of assistance by us against possible aggression by Germany, she will continue to be unreasonable and tiresome over all questions affecting her relations with Germany...”18

• 19 Hankey to Lloyd George ‘Secret and personal’ 25.6.21, F/25/1/48 LGP.

16Or – put more crudely (and conveniently forgetting the Rhineland concession) – “it is doubtful if France could be bought, and even if she were bought it is doubtful whether she would stay bought.”19

• 21 Memorandum 2.9.20, F/90/1/18, LGP.

18Philip Kerr, Lloyd George’s influential private secretary, who believed Britain’s future lay with its empire, also advocated leaving “Europe to itself with such assistance as the League of Nations can give to it.”21 but Clemenceau’s reluctance to trust French security to an untried international experiment was, in part, what had prompted the Anglo-American guarantee offers in the first place.

• 22 CID paper 246-B, 28.6.20 in CAB 4/7, TNA.
• 23 Cabinet Paper 919, 20.3.20, in CAB 24/101, TNA.
• 24 R.S. Churchill, Lord Derby: ‘King of Lancashire’ (London, Heinemann, 1959) passim, his letter to Ll (...)

19In June 1920 Austen Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, stressed the importance of France and Belgium to British security – a point that Poincaré, as French premier, would emphasise in his later negotiations with Lloyd George. Chamberlain asked “...if it be once admitted that we cannot afford to see Germany dominating Belgium and Holland or overwhelming France, is it not far better that this vital object of British policy should be consecrated and defended by a public treaty..?”22 Henry Wilson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, who believed Britain must recognise its position as a key European power, went far beyond the idea of a guarantee, declaring “I conclude that a close offensive and defensive Alliance should be entered into between the British, French and Belgian Governments.”23 Lord Derby, British ambassador in Paris 1918-1920 and War Minister in the Conservative government of 1922-1924, was perhaps the most determined and persistent supporter of an Anglo-French alliance.24

• 25 CAB 23/18/6, TNA.

20Closely linked to Lloyd George’s guarantee was his undertaking to build a Channel tunnel, an idea over a century old but now deemed a technical possibility. On 11 November 1919 Hankey crafted a deliberately less than ringing endorsement of the Cabinet’s decision that it “was in favour of not opposing the construction of the Channel Tunnel” subject to the investigation of any possible security risk.25 Some of the protagonists in this debate expressed opinions parallel to their contributions to the alliance discussions though others took different stances on the two issues.

• 26 Home Ports Defence Committee Paper 40-M, 17.1.20; CID Paper 94-A, 28.1.20 in FO 371/3765, TNA.
• 27 Note 6.2.20 in WO 32/5302, TNA.
• 28 CID Paper 99-A, 26.11.20 in FO 371/3765, TNA.

21Hankey produced copious memoranda throughout the 1920s, whenever the question arose, warning of infiltration through the tunnel by rats, immigrants and Bolsheviks, mustering political, economic, social, and military arguments to bolster his inveterate opposition. Paradoxically many of the arguments about whether to build a tunnel revolved around how easy or otherwise it might be to destroy it – either inadvertently by sabotage (Hankey instanced “Attempts by secret agents to place explosive charges with clockwork mechanisms in trains passing through the tunnel”) or by design should British security require this. Here Hankey warned of the dire consequences of illness incapacitating the officers designated to destroy the tunnel, communication failure or the malfunctioning of the equipment.26 At the War Office Churchill favoured the tunnel but could not persuade Henry Wilson, whose professional opinion was based on his conviction that it must be part of a coherent European defence policy. “Then if,” he argued, “a consistent and well-defined foreign policy of friendship for France, of determination to defend France and Belgium from foreign aggression and of a plan for fighting on the Continent on a continental scale is impossible then I am opposed to the tunnel.”27 Chamberlain, another supporter of a French alliance, also opposed the tunnel, stating that the requirements necessary for its defence were such that: “It is scarcely too much to say that if we accept them, England would exist for the defence of the tunnel rather than the tunnel for the defence of England.”28

• 29 “The Cabinet accepted my view and the proposal was definitely turned down.” Lord Hardinge of Penshu (...)

22Hardinge, then the Foreign Office Permanent Under Secretary, later claimed that his was the final, and decisive, contribution to the debate.29 On 1 May 1920 he advised the Cabinet that,

• 31 Hankey to Andrew Bonar Law, 9.12.22, CAB 63/33; Curzon, minute, 19.4.22 W3271/1397/17 in FO 371/826 (...)

23The project certainly lapsed into bureaucratic inertia and Curzon’s later claim in 1922 that financial considerations prevented its construction was, he admitted “..a dishonest answer. The real reason is strategical.”31 The tunnel posed the issue of European commitment, literally, in concrete terms. Balfour’s contribution on 5 February 1920 articulated the instinctive reaction of many of his colleagues,

• 33 J.M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (London, Macmillan, 1919) p. 5.

24The tunnel and the alliance both collided with the sentiment expressed by John Maynard Keynes in his brilliant, if flawed, polemic, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, that “England still stands outside Europe. Europe’s voiceless tremors do not reach her. Europe is apart and England is not of her flesh and body.”33

• 34 See Andrew Barros, “Disarmament as a Weapon: Anglo-French Relations and the Problems of Enforcing G (...)

26Philosophical differences also contributed to policy disputes. By late 1921 the official British position, based on estimates of the quantity of weapons destroyed and the size and equipment of the new German army, was that the task of disarming Germany was nearing completion. The French were less easily persuaded, suspecting (not without reason) that Germany was using every subterfuge to retain as much as possible of the organisation of the old army. Rather than simply counting weapons and effectives the French sought the more elusive and intangible goals of breaking Germany’s “military spirit” and achieving “moral disarmament.”34 Reparations posed similar problems. In April 1921 the Reparation Commission, established two years earlier by the Paris peace conference to avoid the political repercussions of naming an immediate sum for Germany’s debt, proposed a total liability of £6,600 million. In May an inter-Allied conference dominated by Lloyd George and the French premier, Aristide Briand, reduced this in realistic terms to £2,500 million by dividing the sum payable into A, B and C bonds of which the C bonds, that no-one ever expected to be realised, accounted for over £4,000 million. A schedule of payments was agreed but, by December, Germany sought a moratorium. British sympathy for this request created further Anglo-French tensions which were exacerbated by the knowledge that the United States showed no inclination to forgive repayment of its wartime loans, adding further pressure to secure German contributions to offset the burden on domestic taxpayers.

• 35 Tels. 3818-3819, 4.12.21, DDF 1921, Tome II, n. 2, p. 719.

27By the end of 1921 problems over disarmament, reparations, their inability to resolve the disputed interpretation of the Upper Silesian plebiscite results, and policy differences in the Near and Middle East prompted Philippe Berthelot, the Secretary-General at the Quai d’Orsay, to suggest to Saint-Aulaire that Curzon’s forthcoming visit to Paris might offer a good opportunity to consider the broad context of the Anglo-French relationship.35 When he next met Curzon on 5 December Saint-Aulaire broached “in a strictly personal and academic manner” the possibility of an Anglo-French alliance, the conclusion of which would need to be preceded by a resolution of the points of friction between the two states. During the course of a long conversation Saint-Aulaire raised many of the contentious issues that formed part of Lloyd George’s later negotiations first with Briand and then with Poincaré. He stated that the 1919 guarantee was both humiliating and useless, any pact must be reciprocal and there must be a clear definition of what constituted “unprovoked aggression.” The most likely danger, however, was an indirect aggression aimed at a French ally such as Poland and, accepting that Britain would not see this in the same light as France, nonetheless the alliance required some provision to tackle this problem, perhaps by reference to the League. In return for British assistance in Europe Saint-Aulaire suggested that France could offer 100,000 Senegalese troops to defend India against a Russian or Russo-German attack, thus extending the objectives of an alliance into a world-wide commitment.

• 36 Saint-Aulaire to Briand, Desp. 36, 14.12.21, DDF 1921, Tome II, pp. 719-731. On British troop numbe (...)

28He outlined his perception of British concerns about French policy – the maintenance of an unnecessarily large army of 800,000 facing a disarmed Germany; French naval construction; the suspicion that France sought the destruction of Germany despite the disastrous effects this would have on the European economy; and a refusal to consider any accommodation with Russia, condemning that country to anarchy. He suggested three possible initiatives which might alleviate these problems: the entry of Germany into the League would reassure those who believed the French intended to crush Germany and the ensuing increased confidence would assist economic revival; limited French disarmament; French participation, in cooperation with Britain and possibly the United States, in the economic regeneration of Russia. Although an alliance was not without its risks for France, not least the absence of sufficient British troops for immediate continental commitment, Saint-Aulaire believed it was the best assurance against German revenge and could facilitate the solution of many of the problems besetting Europe.36

• 37 Coalition Unionists won 335 seats, an effective majority in a House of 707 M.P.s in which the 73 su (...)

29Saint-Aulaire had picked a good moment to revive interest in the idea. For Briand, recently returned from the Washington naval conference, his hope of improved Franco-American relations disappointed, a closer link with Britain now seemed even more desirable. Lloyd George meanwhile found himself under increasing political pressure. He became prime minister in December 1916, fatally splitting the Liberal Party between supporters of himself and his predecessor, Henry Asquith, who resigned after losing the confidence of his Conservative coalition partners. Lloyd George was thus a Liberal leading a Coalition government entirely dependent on Conservative support, a situation emphasised by the massive Tory block in the House of Commons after the December 1918 general election.37

• 38 Lord Beaverbrook, The Decline and Fall of Lloyd George (London, Collins, 1966) pp. 119-121 and pp.  (...)

31Sir George Younger, the Tory party chairman, peremptorily dashed Lloyd George’s hopes of the Coalition fighting an early election, in which the Irish settlement and the results of the Washington naval conference might boost his Liberal following.38 He needed a spectacular success to reinvigorate his value to his Conservative partners and to re-establish his liberal credentials which had taken a battering from some of the repressive policies adopted during the Anglo-Irish war. His answer, pinning great faith in the liberal belief of the virtues of trade, was a massive political and economic project to allow Germany to undertake the reconstruction of Soviet Russia. This would generate funds which would enable it to pay reparations and in turn allow Britain and France to service their debts to the United States, incidentally killing bolshevism with prosperity. The revival of the German and Russian economies would reconcile them to the Versailles settlement, ease European security concerns, facilitate disarmament and, by revitalising the market for British goods, reduce domestic unemployment. Given all these benefits which could also ensure his own political future, a guarantee to France in return for its endorsement of the project seemed worthwhile.

• 39 ICPs 209, 209A, 210, 211, 212, DBFP Vol. XV, pp. 760-785.

32In conversations in London between 19 and 21 December 1921 with Briand, Louis Loucheur, the Minister for the Liberated Regions, and Berthelot, Lloyd George declared that, although Britain was prepared to forego most of its reparation payments and forgive all the wartime debts owed by its allies if the United States would abandon claims for the repayment of British debts, this was unlikely to happen. Thus, for France to obtain the resources to repair its devastated regions and for Britain to be able to reduce its high level of over two million unemployed, it was crucial that Germany be permitted to prosper sufficiently to generate the funds and reinvigorated markets necessary for both outcomes. This required Germany to increase its earnings from exports and external ventures. He suggested calling a great economic conference aimed at rehabilitating Central and Eastern Europe. Germany would have a particular role in resuscitating Russian industry, earmarking 50 per cent of the ensuing profits for reparations, enabling it to raise loans to make immediate payments.39

• 41 ICP 211A, DBFP Vol. XV, pp. 785-787.

34It was clear that more persuasive arguments were required hence, when Briand raised the question of an Anglo-French alliance on 21 December, Lloyd George offered something similar to the 1919 guarantee. Briand, reiterating many of Saint-Aulaire’s points, wanted more, having in mind “a very broad Alliance in which the two Powers would guarantee each other’s interests in all parts of the world, act closely together in all things, and go to each other’s assistance whenever these things were threatened.” Lloyd George would not go so far, Britain would guarantee France against a German invasion but would not become entangled in the affairs of Eastern Europe, where the populations were “unstable and excitable” and likely to start fighting at any time in conflicts whose causes could be difficult to ascertain. Stressing the importance of reintegrating Russia and Germany into a stable international system, he promised to talk further with Briand before the January inter-Allied conference in Cannes.41

• 42 DDF 1921, Tome II, p. 796.
• 43 DBFP Vol. XVI, p. 862.

35There was no doubt on either side of the Channel of the benefits of an alliance. A French foreign ministry departmental note of 28 December 1921 argued that such an arrangement between the two principal European powers would be the best guarantee of peace and prevent others exploiting differences between them.42 In a characteristically long memorandum on the same date Curzon declared that it would guarantee “a speedy return to conditions of peace” and prevent “the renewal of war for at least a generation, if not longer.” 43And yet the subsequent exchanges produced no agreement, though providing a fascinating series of examples of the importance of perception in human relationships.

• 44 DDF 1922 Tome I, p. 213.
• 45 Poincaré to Saint-Aulaire, 22.5.22 DDF 1922 Tome I, p. 560.

36On 3 February 1922 Poincaré issued Saint-Aulaire the extraordinary instruction to make Curzon see that “we understand the interests of England better than he does”44 and he was convinced that his forthright speech in Bar-le-Duc in April 1922, threatening independent action against Germany to enforce the treaty, could only serve to hasten the conclusion of a pact.45 Curzon thought otherwise,

• 47 DDF 1921 Tome II, p. 817.
• 48 DDF 1922 Tome I (1 janvier-30 juin) p. 83.
• 49 Hardinge Papers, Cambridge University Library, Vol. 45, p. 7 and p. 15.

37Mistaken perceptions were not confined to the politicians. Both respective ambassadors were convinced that the alliance was worth more to their host than to their native country and hence they advised Paris and London not to conclude the pact without obtaining satisfactory recompense. On 31 December Saint-Aulaire advised Briand to require a pact as the price of French acceptance of the economic conference, which the Cannes conference decided would be held in Genoa.47 On 12 January 1922 he telegraphed that Lloyd George’s political survival depended on the success of Genoa – “This situation raises the price of our agreement, which is indispensable to him.”48 Equally Hardinge told Curzon on 20 January 1922 that he had “the whip-hand” of Poincaré because the “pact is absolutely essential to his policy, and that if for any reason he fails to obtain the pact from us, his Government will undoubtedly fall,” reiterating, on 27 January, “I again say do not be in too great a hurry to sign the Pact.”49

• 50 Hardinge Papers, Vol. 45, p. 4.
• 51 Saint-Aulaire Confessions p. 608.
• 52 DBFP Vol. XVI, p. 862-869.

38Both sides demanded unacceptable conditions to achieve the pact. Hardinge’s advice to Curzon on 3 January 1922 was typical – “there should be no concession on our part of any kind without an entire change of attitude on the part of the French.”50 The French resented being asked to pay again for a guarantee they believed they had already purchased by renouncing the Rhineland – Saint-Aulaire said the pact, like the weaving of Ulysses’s wife Penelope, was forever being unravelled.51 Curzon’s 28 December memorandum acknowledged the European benefits of an alliance but doubted its value in imperial or world terms, scornfully rejecting Saint-Aulaire’s belief that Britain would be grateful for French colonial troops defending the Hindu Kush, writing scathingly of “the tenuous consolation of abundant swarms of black troops let loose from the swamps or sands of Africa.” He was not convinced of French reliability because of the constant changes of ministry and he objected to French policies around the world which were unfriendly or inconsistent with British objectives. The conclusion of the pact, which he judged to be “a considerable boon,” must depend on a settlement of outstanding disputes over the Near East, Tunisia and Tangier. “I earnestly hope,” he wrote, “that it will not be proposed to give the guarantee for nothing.”52

• 53 Memorandum from Lloyd George to Briand, 6.1.22, Papers Respecting Negotiations for an Anglo-French (...)
• 54 Ibid. pp. 125-127.
• 55 Cabinet 1 (22) 10.1.22 in CAB 23/29, TNA.
• 56 CMD 2169 pp. 129-130.

39Subsequent negotiations revealed that neither party was willing to sell its support cheaply. At Cannes on 6 January 1922, in return for French participation in the Genoa conference and an alignment of policies (to Britain’s advantage) over a number of issues, Lloyd George offered a unilateral British ten-year guarantee against any direct and unprovoked German aggression against the soil of France.53 Replying on 8 January Briand sought much more. The arrangement must be bilateral, Britain must accept that any violation by Germany of Articles 42, 43 and 44 of the Treaty of Versailles relating to the demilitarisation of the Rhineland would constitute an unprovoked direct aggression and that German violation of the treaty disarmament clauses would trigger common action. Britain and France should reach an agreement about the size of their armed forces, there must be General Staff consultation and an agreement for both countries to discuss any matter likely to endanger the general peace, thus extending the scope of the pact beyond western Europe. He also hinted at the possibility of expanding any Anglo-French agreement into a broader European security framework similar to the proposals of the Washington conference for a pact to maintain peace in the Pacific.54 In London a cabinet meeting confirmed that a unilateral guarantee was the only offer available.55 The British draft of a treaty, on 13 January, reflected this – a ten year unilateral guarantee against an unprovoked direct aggression against the soil of France, undertakings to “consult” and “concert” if Germany infringed the Rhineland or disarmament clauses of the Treaty and the requirement that the Dominions could only be committed to the pact by the agreement of their own parliaments.56

• 57 Telegram from Millerand to Briand, 7.1.22, Georges Suarez, Briand: Sa Vie, son oeuvre (Six vols., P (...)
• 58 Jules Laroche, Au Quai d’Orsay avec Briand et Poincaré (Paris, Hachette, 1957) pp. 152-153 and 146- (...)

40Nothing was resolved before, in mid-conference, under pressure from the French president, Millerand, for apparently agreeing to invite the Soviets to Genoa without adequate safeguards and compromising France’s ability to act against German treaty infractions by accepting the idea of a non-aggression pact as part of the Genoa deal, Briand returned to Paris and resigned. 57Such was the febrile atmosphere that a trivial incident in which Lloyd George gave Briand a golf lesson was translated into unjustified inferences that Briand was also his pupil in matters of statecraft. Lloyd George warned Briand not to stand in front of his private secretary, Sir Edward Grigg, who was about to drive –‘Take care, if the ball hits you here (he indicated his temple) Briand couic! And then ….Poincaré!’58 Briand did not die on the golf course but Britain’s least favourite Frenchman now came to power.

• 59 CMD 2169 pp. 130-137.
• 60 Hardinge to Curzon, 16.1.22, CMD 2169 p. 130.
• 61 DDF 1922 Tome I, p. 103.
• 62 His former Liberal colleague, Reginald McKenna, called him “Lliar George.” “Menteur,” wrote Henri J (...)

41Lloyd George returned via Paris, holding an unofficial conversation with Poincaré on 14 January 1922 that set the tone for their future relationship. Even through the clipped phrases of the British minutes the dislike and tension between the two men is palpable. Poincaré reiterated Briand’s points about the need for a bilateral treaty but laid particular emphasis on a military convention specifying the forces each would commit and for the coordination of military planning by their General Staffs. Lloyd George said this was not possible, but that Britain’s word was its bond, as it had been in 1914. The discussion continued on similar lines until Poincaré gave his personal opinion that “the treaty was useless without a military convention.” Lloyd George responded that, if that became the French government’s official position, “There would then be no more draft treaty to discuss.”59 Poincaré made his own attempt at linguistic subtlety by telling Lloyd George that “though there might be ‘différences’ [differences] between them, there would never be ‘différends’ [disputes].”60 but the French minutes record a more telling exchange at the end of the conversation. Lloyd George remarked “I see you are a greater fan of written documents than me, I believe more in conversation and the given word.” Poincaré replied “Fine, but what’s written remains, and assists precise memories.”61 The extent to which Lloyd George’s word was his bond was certainly a complicating factor in both domestic and international politics.62

• 63 CMD 2169 pp. 137-140.
• 64 War Cabinet 616A in CAB 23/15, TNA.
• 65 CMD 2169 pp. 140-161.

42Poincaré submitted his own draft proposal on 26 January, supported on 1 February by a long memorandum outlining French requirements. He suggested a bilateral pact for thirty years offering support in case of any German unprovoked aggression against either party. Any violation of Articles 42-44 would constitute such an aggression. There should be a constant entente between the two General Staffs and an agreement “to concert together on all questions of a nature to endanger the peace or to jeopardise the general order of things set up under the treaties of peace.”63 The French believed that serious problems were unlikely in the next ten years (the British clearly agreed having adopted the ten year rule on 15 August 1919, predicating defence planning on the assumption of no major conflict in that period64) and hence the pact needed to be extended. He wanted any infringement of the Rhineland clauses to trigger the alliance but the French perception was that Germany would attack the settlement in the east before confronting France directly thus the wider proposal about threats to the settlements indicated a desire to include the concept of indirect aggression into any agreement.65

• 66 CMD 2169 pp. 163-172.

43Curzon never responded officially to Poincaré’s proposals, but, on 19 March, he gave Saint-Aulaire a strong personal indication of what Britain might accept, based on a note he had prepared on 1 February. A bilateral pact was possible, so too an extension beyond ten years, to perhaps fifteen or twenty years but Britain would go no further than consulting on any response to German treaty violations, whether in the Rhineland or elsewhere. Curzon made it clear that any reference to military understandings in the treaty text was unacceptable and that, while with some reluctance, Britain could accept that its frontier was now the Rhine, it was certainly not the Vistula. Britain would not countenance the concept of indirect aggression, nor would it extend the scope of any pact to encompass all the peace settlements, especially in Eastern Europe. Furthermore there could be no pact unless the two countries first reached agreements on the issues dividing them.66

• 67 Set up in rather strange circumstances, apparently by Edouard Beneš, the Czech foreign minister but (...)
• 68 ICP 236, DBFP Vol. XIX, pp. 177-178.
• 69 CID Meeting 157 in CAB 2/3, TNA. See also John Keiger, Raymond Poincaré (Cambridge, Cambridge Unive (...)

44Before Curzon’s response, a further meeting between Lloyd George and Poincaré at Boulogne on 25 February67 at one point, deteriorated into barbed exchanges about the value of Britain’s commitment to France in 1914.68 There was insufficient time at that meeting to discuss the pact but Poincaré’s determination to exclude treaty matters from Genoa and his general reluctance to engage with the project removed the main motive for Lloyd George’s interest. There was thus no meeting of minds and no further significant negotiations transpired. Indeed, within months the Committee of Imperial Defence was considering (for theoretical and, in the case of the RAF, cynical reasons) the “hardly conceivable” possibility of French airplanes dropping 75 tons of bombs daily on London.69

• 70 John Ferris, The Evolution of British Strategic Policy, 1919-1926 (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1989) p. (...)

45Was it a missed opportunity? In one sense it clearly was. Their mutual belief that a formal alliance between the two most powerful European states would guarantee European peace for a generation has been endorsed by John Ferris who argued that “until 1936 an Anglo-French alliance would have been the strongest military force on earth, dominant in Europe and easing indirectly Britain’s problem of the Pacific. Even after 1936 such an alliance would have remained a formidable combination.”70 The unanswerable question is whether such an alliance would have created an improved and more stable European settlement because the argument becomes circular. In the absence of the Americans, who had profoundly influenced the peace settlements, everything depended on the relationship between Britain and France. If they could reach broad agreement on their policies, goals and methods – a mutual precondition for the conclusion of an alliance - they could shape European developments in a direction favourable to their vision of the future and the French security concerns at the heart of the pact would thus disappear. If, as transpired, they did not agree, their policies would merely frustrate each other, leading to neither a revision of the settlements nor to their strict execution.

• 71 DDF 1921 Tome II, p. 729.

46In practical terms it was not. The two victorious imperial powers did not perceive that the precarious nature of the international system required a radical reassessment of traditional methods and policies. Britain, the reluctant European, would commit to western Europe but not beyond, adopting a patronising demeanour. For an alliance to be concluded it is probable that, quite apart from the already impossible requirement to offer enthusiastic support to Genoa, Poincaré would have had to sacrifice his need for precise and unambiguous commitments by Britain, to accept a much vaguer treaty text and to rely on Saint-Aulaire’s conviction that “England is not merely a factory and a trading desk, it is also, it is even above all, a conscience.”71 As 1914 had shown, it was not necessarily what was written in formal agreements but what they were perceived to mean or imply which really counted, but this constituted too great a leap of faith to achieve the British support that Poincaré believed would flow, in any case, for selfish security reasons.

• 72 Derby to Austen Chamberlain, 1.9.22, Austen Chamberlain Papers, Birmingham University Library, AC.3 (...)
• 73 Saint-Aulaire, Confessions p. 550 and p. 582.
• 74 Hardinge Papers, Vol. 44.

47Lord Derby suggested that “a personal difference between Lloyd George and Poincaré” lay at the heart of Anglo-French disagreement72 but their negotiations on the pact indicate that, despite their obvious personal dislike, matters ran much deeper. Lloyd George and Briand, a Welshman and a Breton, might well have been able to understand each other’s language and both were masters of compromise and constructive ambiguity – Saint-Aulaire referred to them disparagingly as “the two cronies” and “Celtic Siamese twins”73 – but Briand and Poincaré took very similar positions on the alliance. The tone of the exchanges may have changed, the substance did not and the two propositions were so far separated that, whether dealing with the more flexible Breton or the hard-line Lorrainer, it is difficult to see an outcome satisfactory to both Britain and France. In a private letter to Hardinge on 28 December 1921 Curzon wrote “Of course the real objection to an alliance is…that we cannot trust them.”74 That feeling was undoubtedly replicated on the other side of the Channel, particularly with regard to Lloyd George, constituting yet another sad example of those post-war mirror images of perception that would play a major role in bringing about an eventual outcome disastrous to both states, to Europe and the wider world.