Le Petit Matin
- Foreign Policy
- The Chancellor and M. Schacht Explain the Financial Plan's Proposals to President Hindenburg
- The Prince of Wales Has Arrived in Paris
Le Petit Matin's front page for 29 October 1926 was dominated by the aftermath of the Thoiry talks. In a signed foreign-policy column, Henry Barde answered Italian newspapers, notably the Tribuna and the Corriere della Sera, which had suggested before the Italian ambassador's call on Briand that the Franco-German rapprochement was faltering and that France might turn back toward Italy; Barde insisted that the Thoiry conversations sat within the Locarno agreements that Italy itself had signed. A Berlin dispatch reported that the Chancellor and M. Schacht briefed President Hindenburg on the Thoiry financial plan, and that German political circles expected long negotiations because France had postponed ratifying the Mellon-Bérenger debt accord, seen there as the first condition for any American credit. A short report described photographers firing magnesium flashes and suburban crowds cheering as the Prince of Wales left a Paris station.
Translation
Foreign Policy
The visit that the Italian ambassador, Baron Romano Avezzana, has just paid to M. Briand on his return from Rome had been widely discussed in advance in the Italian press. The Tribuna and the Corriere della Sera in particular published articles on the subject which said, in substance, that the Franco-German rapprochement appeared very difficult. France, so the argument ran, would not be sorry to turn back toward Italy. It is of the utmost importance not to allow credence to be given to the legend that the Franco-German rapprochement could be turned against Italy. The Thoiry conversations between MM. Briand and Stresemann naturally fall within the framework of the Locarno agreements, which Italy signed just as Great Britain did.
The Chancellor and M. Schacht Explain the Financial Plan's Proposals to President Hindenburg
BERLIN, 28 October. — President Hindenburg today received the Chancellor and M. Schacht, who briefed him on the state of the negotiations concerning the financial plan arising from the Thoiry conversations. The general opinion in political circles is that these negotiations will be lengthy because of the postponement of the ratification of the Mellon-Bérenger agreement. It is still believed that this ratification is the first condition for any call on American credit, in whatever form.
The Prince of Wales Has Arrived in Paris
Numerous photographers set off their magnesium and take numerous photographs. When the Prince comes out of the station, the crowd of suburbanites pressing around the station warmly cheers the Prince, who smiles and waves
Context
What Briand and Stresemann agreed at Thoiry, and how it fit Locarno
Henry Barde's column defends the Thoiry talks by placing them inside the Locarno framework. In 1926 the French and German foreign ministers, Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann, met in the French village of Thoiry. There Stresemann pledged material support to stabilize the franc, while Briand agreed to return the Saar Basin to Germany early and to bring an early end to the military control and occupation of the Rhineland. The comprehensive settlement the two men negotiated at Thoiry failed to survive the growing national opposition in both countries, and historians often see the meeting as both the peak and the endpoint of the Locarno policy. Barde's insistence that the rapprochement was not aimed at Italy, and his statement that Italy had signed the Locarno agreements just as Britain had, are the paper's own argument, made against an Italian press reading that the Franco-German track was already stalling.
Why Mellon-Bérenger ratification was treated as the key to American credit
The Berlin dispatch ties the financial side of Thoiry to an American condition. The Mellon-Bérenger agreement of 29 April 1926 fixed the amount and rate of repayment of France's wartime debt to the United States, and Ambassador Henry Bérenger signed it subject to ratification by the French Parliament. Meanwhile the United States had begun quietly preventing private or public loans to France as long as the debt question remained unsettled. That practice explains why German political circles, as reported here, regarded ratification as the first condition for any appeal to American credit; on the paper's account, the Thoiry financial plan therefore had to wait on a French vote. The agreement was deeply unpopular in France, where people felt the United States should waive the debt, and parliamentary ratification was delayed until July 1929.
Italy's bid for a role in Tangier in 1926
Barde was answering Italian papers that pictured France turning back toward Italy, and one live Franco-Italian question that year was Tangier. In a telegram of mid-August 1926, the American ambassador in Spain relayed the Spanish government's account that Spain and Great Britain had agreed to admit Italy to the administration of the Tangier International Zone, provided Italy adhered to the zone's statute. Negotiations to that end were then under way in Rome, while France had not yet concurred in the proposal. The excerpt does not say what Baron Romano Avezzana discussed with Briand. The telegram shows only that, about two months before his visit, France was the power still withholding consent to an Italian role in Tangier.
Magnesium flash at the station
The report that photographers 'set off their magnesium' at the Prince of Wales's arrival describes the ordinary press technique of the day. Flash powder, a mixture of magnesium powder and potassium chlorate, had been introduced by the German inventors Adolf Miethe and Johannes Gaedicke in 1887, and through the 1920s flash photography normally meant a professional photographer sprinkling powder into the trough of a T-shaped flash lamp and firing it. Each ignition produced a brief, brilliant flash together with smoke and noise. Enclosed flashbulbs were first produced commercially in Germany only in 1929, so the photographers who greeted the prince in October 1926 were still working with open powder. The article's picture of numerous photographers firing magnesium therefore describes repeated bursts of light and smoke around the prince as he left the station.
Original
La politique extérieure
La visite que vient de faire à son retour de Rome l'ambassadeur d'Italie, le baron Romano Avezzana à M. Briand a été par avance fort commentée dans la presse italienne. Particulièrement la Tribuna et le Corriere della Sera ont à ce propos publié des articles qui disaient en substance que le rapprochement franco-allemand apparaissait fort difficile. La France ne serait pas mécontente de se retourner vers l'Italie. Il importe au plus haut point de ne pas laisser s'accréditer cette légende que le rapprochement franco-allemand pourrait être tourné contre l'Italie. Les conversations de Thoiry entre MM. Briand et Stresemann se situent naturellement dans le cadre des contrats de Locarno que l'Italie a signés comme la GrandeBretagne.
Le chancelier et M. Schacht exposent au président Hindenburg les projets du plan financier
BERLIN, 28 octobre. - Le président Hindenburg a reçu aujourd'hui le Chancelier et M. Schacht qui lui ont exposé l'état des négociations relatives au plan financier qui découle des conversations de Thoiry. L'opinion générale dans les milieux politiques est que ces négociations seront de longue durée à cause de l'ajournement apporté à la ratification de l'accord Mellon-Bérenger. On continue à croire que cette ratification est la condition première de tout appel de crédit américain sous quelque forme que ce soit.
Le Prince de Galles est arrivé à Paris
De nombreux photographes font marcher le magnésium et prennent de nombreuses photographies. Lorsque le Prince sort de la gare, la foule des banlieusards se pressant aux environs de la gare acclame chaleureusement le Prince qui sourit et salue