Vossische Zeitung
- The Continuation of Thoiry
- City and Wall Street
- The French Signature
This Berlin liberal daily's page followed up on the Briand–Stresemann meeting at Thoiry. From Paris came word that Austen Chamberlain, returning from a Mediterranean cruise, had met Briand at the Quai d'Orsay, and a joint communiqué called their accord closer than ever and tied Franco-German relations to Locarno and Thoiry. A London report put the main obstacle in the United States: Wall Street had cooled toward British soundings about German bond issues, and the Washington Treasury reportedly discouraged a large German loan because it might spare France from ratifying its war-debt agreement without reservation. Editor Georg Bernhard's signed column argued that the understanding had moved from speeches to detailed work. He noted Hindenburg's assent and Poincaré's grudging consent, warned of covert opposition, and described French hopes that Briand's policy would end 'American debt bondage'.
Translation
The Continuation of Thoiry
News service of the "Vossische Zeitung" lst Paris, October 2. The British Foreign Secretary Chamberlain arrived in Paris today. He was received personally by Briand at the Gare de Lyon in Paris and went immediately to the British Embassy. The talks between him and Briand began at half past five at the Quai d'Orsay and were over at about 7 o'clock. The following communiqué was issued: "Briand and Chamberlain met this afternoon and held a discussion at the Quai d'Orsay, in the course of which they noted and set out precisely the agreement of their points of view and of their political activity with regard to the solution of the international problems now pending. Chamberlain, who had been kept informed in Geneva of Briand's conversations with Stresemann, had had to leave Geneva before the meeting at Thoiry took place, and had allowed himself a period of rest during a fortnight's cruise around the Mediterranean. Before returning to London and resuming the direction of the Foreign Office, he considered it necessary to stop in Paris in order to confer with the French Foreign Minister. The two statesmen examined the whole foreign situation and above all Franco-German relations, whose direction has been defined by the Locarno treaties and the Thoiry conversations. The conversations took place in a favorable atmosphere, and it could be established that the accord between the two ministers in the service of peace was closer, more cordial and more trusting than ever." The French Foreign Minister Briand then, supplementing this communiqué, made a series of statements to the French press in which he stressed that he … Chamberlain …
City and Wall Street
News service of the "Vossische Zeitung" whe London, October 2. According to information available here, the crux of the difficulties standing in the way of an early Franco-German understanding lies in the United States. Various appeals have been addressed by leading British politicians to Washington and New York to stop the empty American chatter about Europe's "cantonal fragmentation" and instead to promote the consolidation of Europe, and its most fundamental precondition, Franco-German understanding, by making German issues easier. These efforts by British politicians have so far not had the desired success. Wall Street has been rather cool toward British soundings as to how large an amount of German bonds it would be prepared to issue; indeed, the Treasury in Washington is said to have informed the banks that it would not look kindly on a German issue on a larger scale, because the financial proceeds of a German loan operation could free France for a long time from the predicament of having to ratify the Franco-American debt agreement without reservation. [?]
The French Signature
By Georg Bernhard. The work for Franco-German understanding has passed from the stage of ceremonial speeches into the stage of practical work. Bureaucrats' hands will now have to take over the filigree work on the details that is ultimately to form the substructure for carrying the ideas of Geneva and Thoiry over into practice. It goes without saying that the opponents of the work of understanding, on this side and the other, are feeding the sober reflections that are being made on both sides now anyway. This work can no longer be openly disrupted. The authorities in Germany and in France, Reich President Hindenburg and Prime Minister Poincaré, have declared their agreement with what Briand and Stresemann agreed in broad outline. Poincaré, it is true, could not refrain, in keeping with his old habit, from having the last word in the discussion, which, as always, he treated as the equivalent of an exchange of legal briefs, and from plainly showing the sweet-and-sour face with which he gives his blessing to what simply cannot be avoided. But even if open resistance to a new policy therefore does not seem advisable to the opponents of understanding, what they can do in secret, they do. In France, where the masses are already deeply imbued with the idea of getting along with Germany, the belief prevails that the successes of Briand's policy will bring liberation from American debt bondage. For there, debt bondage is how people generally understand the dependence of French finances on the sum that the United States demands as repayment of, and interest on, the debts jointly contracted in the war. That is also the underlying reason why even the Socialist Party in the French Chamber has refused to give its consent to the signing of the Franco-American debt agreement. * Now certain disappointments are already becoming noticeable that the signing of this debt- still …
Context
Why Chamberlain's stop in Paris mattered after Locarno
The communiqué quoted in the Paris report ties Franco-German relations explicitly to 'the Locarno treaties and the Thoiry conversations,' and that pairing helps explain why a British foreign secretary wanted to be seen endorsing a bilateral Franco-German initiative. Under the main Locarno treaty, Britain was one of the five powers that guaranteed the inviolability of the Franco-German and German-Belgian borders, which gave London a direct stake in any change to the western settlement. The treaties took effect on 14 September 1926, conditional on German entry into the League of Nations, and Germany had received its permanent Council seat on 10 September. The Thoiry meeting between Briand and Stresemann followed in the same month. Chamberlain's own aims fitted a Franco-German rapprochement: he hoped that better relations between Paris and Berlin would lead France gradually to abandon its eastern 'cordon sanitaire.' Read against that background, the communiqué's emphasis on an accord 'closer, more cordial and more trusting than ever' can be understood as a sign that Britain, as a Locarno guarantor, was not setting itself against the Thoiry talks.
How the Mellon–Bérenger agreement entangled American lending with Thoiry
The London dispatch reports, citing unnamed information, that the U.S. Treasury discouraged a large German bond issue because the proceeds could relieve France of having to ratify 'the Franco-American debt agreement without reservation.' That agreement was the Mellon–Bérenger accord, signed on 29 April 1926 subject to ratification by the French parliament. It fixed the amount and schedule of France's wartime debt to the United States. France had sought a clause linking its payments to German reparations, as in its settlement with Britain, but Washington refused any such linkage. The United States had also already used capital markets as leverage: it quietly blocked private and public loans to France while the debt question remained unsettled. The report of Treasury guidance to Wall Street about German issues rests on the correspondent's unnamed information, but it matches this documented American practice of withholding credit until France accepted the debt terms. If a German bond operation financed by American investors had eased French finances, France would have had less reason to ratify, and that was the dilemma the dispatch described.
Why the French spoke of 'debt bondage' and how long ratification took
Bernhard's claim that French opinion regarded the American debt as 'debt bondage,' and his note that even the Socialists refused to back signature, reflect a well-documented hostility. Many French people believed the United States should waive the debt in view of France's wartime losses. Some 20,000 veterans demonstrated in Paris against the Mellon–Bérenger agreement, and successive governments postponed ratification. The hope Bernhard described, that Briand's policy toward Germany would free France from this burden, did not come true in the form expected in 1926. The Chamber of Deputies ratified the agreement only on 21 July 1929, after an all-night session and by a margin of 300 to 292. Poincaré, whose grudging assent to Thoiry Bernhard mocks as a lawyer's insistence on the last word, was the man who in 1929 threw all his effort into getting ratification through parliament. By then the reparations question had moved on to the Young Plan negotiations.
Who Georg Bernhard was, and what became of Thoiry
The signed column came from the Vossische Zeitung's own editor-in-chief. Georg Bernhard, trained in banking and a business journalist by profession, was sole editor-in-chief of the Ullstein-owned paper from 1920 to 1930. He made it a left-liberal organ and argued firmly for an understanding with France despite the Treaty of Versailles. That background explains the column's approach. It treats rapprochement as settled policy, blames the 'opponents of the work of understanding' on both sides for covert obstruction, and reads the dispute through public finance: debts, signatures and loans. Bernhard later sat in the Reichstag for the German Democratic Party from 1928 to 1930. His optimism that the work 'can no longer be openly disrupted' proved premature. Thoiry is generally remembered as a missed opportunity, because neither Briand nor Stresemann could bring domestic opinion with him on the proposed settlement.
Original
Die Fortführung von Thoiry
Nachrichtendienst der " Vossischen Zeitung " lst Paris, 2. Oktober Der englische Außenminister Chamberlain ist heute in Paris eingetroffen. Er wurde am Lyoner Bahnhof in Paris von Briand persönlich empfangen und begab sich sofort in die englische Botschaft. Die Aussprache zwischen ihm und Briand hat um ½6 Uhr am Quai d'Orsay begonnen und war gegen 7 Uhr beendet. Folgendes Communiqué wurde ausgegeben: " Briand und Chamberlain trafen sich heute nachmittag und hatten am Quai d'Orsay eine Besprechung, in deren Verlauf sie die Uebereinstimmung ihres Gesichtspunktes und ihrer politischen Tätigkeit hinsichtlich der Lösung der augenblicklich schwebenden internationalen Probleme konstatierten und präzisierten. Chamberlain, der in Genf über die Unterhaltungen Briands mit Stresemann auf dem laufenden gehalten worden war, hatte Genf verlassen müssen, bevor die Zusammenkunft in Thoiry stattgefunden hatte, und hatte sich eine Zeit der Ruhe während einer vierzehntägigen Rundfahrt durch das Mittelmeer gegönnt. Bevor er nach London zurückkehrte und die Leitung des Foreign Office wieder übernahm, hielt er es für notwendig, in Paris Station zu machen, um sich mit dem französischen Außenminister zu unterhalten. Die beiden Staatsmänner haben die gesamte auswärtige Lage geprüft und vor allen Dingen die deutsch-französischen Beziehungen, deren Richtung die Verträge von Locarno und die Unterhaltungen von Thoiry präzisiert haben. Die Unterhaltungen fanden in einer günstigen Atmosphäre statt, und es konnte festgestellt werden, daß die Uebereinstimmung der beiden Minister im Dienste des Friedens enger, herzlicher und vertrauensvoller als jemals war. " Der französische Außenminister Briand gab dann in Ergänzung dieses Communiqués der französischen Presse gegenüber eine Reihe von Erklärungen ab, in denen er betonte, daß er Chamberlain
City und Wallstreet
Nachrichtendienst der " Vossischen Zeitung " whe London, 2. Oktober Der Kernpunkt der Schwierigkeiten, die einer baldigen deutschfranzösischen Verständigung entgegenstehen, liegt nach hier vorliegenden Informationen in den Vereinigten Staaten. Verschiedene Appelle sind von maßgebenden englischen Politikern nach Washington und New York gerichtet worden, das leere amerikanische Geschwätz über die " kantonale Zerrissenheit Europas " einzustellen und statt dessen lieber durch Erleichterung deutscher Emissionen eine Konsolidierung Europas und deren grundlegendste Voraussetzung, die deutsch-französische Verständigung, zu fördern. Diese Bemühungen englischer Politiker haben bisher nicht den gewünschten Erfolg gehabt. Die Wallstreet hat sich gegenüber englischen Fühlern, bis zu welcher Höhe sie bereit sein würde, deutsche Bonds zu emittieren, recht kühl verhalten, und zwar soll das Schatzamt in Washington die Banken dahin informiert haben, daß es eine deutsche Emission größeren Stiles nicht gern sehen würde, weil das finanzielle Ergebnis einer deutschen Anleiheoperation Frankreich auf lange Zeit aus der Zwangslage befreien könnte, vorbehaltlos das französischamerikanische Schuldenabkommen ratifizieren zu müssen. [?]
Die französische Unterschrift
Von Georg Bernhard Die Arbeit für die deutsch-französische Verständigung ist aus dem Stadium der Festreden in das Stadium der praktischen Arbeit gekommen. Bürokratenhände werden jetzt die Filigranarbeit an den Einzelheiten übernehmen müssen, die schließlich den Unterbau für die Ueberführung der Gedanken von Genf und Thoiry in die Praxis bilden soll. Es ist selbstverständlich, daß von den Gegnern des Verständigungswerkes hüben und drüben die nüchternen Erwägungen genährt werden, die man sowieso jetzt auf beiden Seiten anstellt. Offen stören kann man dieses Werk nicht mehr. Die Autoritäten in Deutschland und in Frankreich, der Reichspräsident Hindenburg und der Ministerpräsident Poincaré, haben sich einverstanden erklärt mit dem, was Briand und Stresemann in den Grundzügen vereinbarten. Poincaré hat es zwar nicht unterlassen können, seiner alten Gewohnheit gemäß, in der Diskussion, die er, wie immer, dem Wechsel juristischer Schriftsätze gleichstellte, das letzte Wort zu behalten und deutlich die süß-saure Miene zu zeigen, mit der er seinen Segen zu dem gibt, was nun einmal nicht zu vermeiden ist. Aber wenn deshalb auch der offene Widerstand gegen eine neue Politik den Gegnern der Verständigung nicht ratsam erscheint, was sie im geheimen tun können, tun sie. In Frankreich wo die Massen bereits von dem Gedanken des Sich-Vertragens mit Deutschland tief erfüllt sind, herrscht der Glaube, daß die Erfolge der Briandschen Politik die Befreiung von der amerikanischen Schuldknechtschaft bringen werden. Denn als Schuldknechtschaft faßt man dort allgemein die Abhängigkeit der französischen Finanzen von der Summe auf, die die Vereinigten Staaten als Rückzahlung und Verzinsung der im Krieg gemeinsam aufgenommenen Schulden fordern. Das ist auch der innere Grund, aus dem selbst die sozialistische Partei in der französischen Kammer sich geweigert hat, die Zustimmung zur Unterzeichnung des französisch-amerikanischen Schuldenabkommens zu geben. * Nun machen sich bereits gewisse Enttäuschungen darüber bemerkbar, daß noch immer die Unterzeichnung dieses Schul -