Everything about Georges Bonnet totally explained

Georges-Étienne Bonnet (July 22/23, 1889 - June 18, 1973) was a French politician and leading figure in the Radical-Socialist Party.

Early career

Bonnet was born in the Dordogne region, the son of a lawyer. Bonnet studied law and political science at the Ecoce libre des sciences politiques and Sorbonne, and then went to work as an auditeur at the Conseil d'état.. In 1911, he launched a political career after marrying Odette Pelletan, the grand-daughter of Eugene Pelletan. Bonnet's wife, often known as Madame Soutien-Georges, ran a salon, and had great ambitions for her husband; one contemporary reported that Madame Bonnet was "so wildly ambitious for her husband that when a new ministry was being formed he was afraid to go home at night unless he'd captured a post for himself". In 1914, Bonnet joined the French Army, and in 1918 served as director of demobilization. In 1919, Bonnet served as a secretary to the French delegation at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and wrote a book Lettres á un Bourgeois de 1914 calling for widespread social reforms.
   Bonnet served in the Chamber of Deputies from 1924-28 and again from 1929-40. He was appointed undersecretary of state in 1925, the first in a series of high ministerial positions throughout the 1920s and 1930s. During his time as in the Chamber, Bonnet was regarded as a leading expert in financial and economic matters. In 1932, Bonnet headed the French delegation at the Lausanne Conference. During the Lausanne Conference, the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, commenting on Bonnet's abilities, asked "Why isn't he in the Cabinet?". In 1936, Bonnet emerged as the leader of 18 Radical deputies who were not fond of their party's participation in the Front Populaire. As a result, the French Premier Léon Blum exiled Bonnet by appointing him the French Ambassador to the United States in January 1937, through Bonnet never learned English. Upon hearing of Bonnet' appointment, the American Ambassador to France, William C. Bullitt wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about Bonnet: "I don't think you'll like him. He is extremely intelligent and competent on economic and financial matters, but he's not a man of character. You may remember that he led the French delegation to the London economic conference where he led the attacks agaisnt you".
   On June 28, 1937, Bonnet returned to France when the Premier Camille Chautemps appointed him Finance Minister. Bonnet first major act as Finance Minister was to oversee the devaluation of the franc, with value of the franc going from 110.8 francs/per British pound to 147.20. The devaluaton had largely imposed on Bonnet by the fact that the 10 billion francs that had been set aside in September 1936 to defend the value of the franc following the devalution of that year had been spent by middle of 1937. As Finance Minister, Bonnet imposed sharp cuts to military spending. Bonnet felt that the costs of the arms race with Germany were such that it was better for France to reach an understanding that might end the arms race, rather then continue to spend gargantuan sums on the military. Besides for the economic problems associated with budgetary stablity and the attempts to maintain the value of the franc against currency speculation, Bonnet was highly concerned with the social conflict caused by the need for increased taxation and decreased social services in order to pay for the arms race. In a meeting with Franz von Papen, the German Ambassador to Austria, in November 1937, Bonnet together Chautempts expressed the hope that an understanding might be reached whereas France might accept Central and Eastern Europe as Germany's sphere of influence in return for German acceptance of Western Europe as France's sphere of influence. Moreover, Bonnet became the leading spokesman within the French Cabinet for the idea that the French alliance system in Eastern Europe that far from representing a source of strength for France were rather a net liability that only served to embroil France in conflicts with Germany. Throughout his career, Bonnet was noted as an advocate of "sacred egoism", namely the notion that France must do what was right for France with no regard for any other state.
   Bonnet's cuts to military spending created a major row with the War Minister Édouard Daladier, who was able to persuade the Cabinet to rescind the most severe of Bonnet's economy measures to the French Army under the grounds in the current international climate, the French Army needed more, not less francs. Since the Ministers of the Air and the Marine were not as substantial personalities as Daladier, the French Navy and French Air Force were not able to reversal the Finance Minister's cuts. In January 1938, following the fall of Chautempts's government, Bonnet made a serious effort to form a new government, but in the end, had to content himself with being appointed Minister of State.

Foreign Minister, 1938-1939

In April 1938, following the fall of the second Blum government, Bonnet was appointed as Foreign Minister under Premier Édouard Daladier (despite their quarrel of 1937, by this time Daladier and Bonnet were reconciled ). Bonnet was a staunch supporter of the Munich Agreement in 1938 and was firmly opposed to taking military action against Nazi expansion, for the most part, preferring to follow a course of appeasement. In 1938-1939, there were three fractions within the French government. One fraction led by Bonnet felt that France couldn't afford the crippling costs of an arms race with Germany (as an expert in financial matters and a former Finance minister, Bonnet was acutely aware of the damages inflicted by the arms race on an economy already weakened by the Great Depression), and so sought a détente with the Reich. An second fraction led by Paul Reynaud, Jean Zay and Georges Mandel favored a policy of resistance to German expansionism, and a third fraction led by Daladier stood halfway between the two other fractions, and favored appeasement of the Reich as the way of buying time to rearm. In 1938, Daladier believing that France need more time to rearm was willing to leave foreign policy largely in the hands of Bonnet as the best way of avoiding a war with Germany in 1938. In addition, Daladier felt that the best way of watching Bonnet was to include him in the Cabinet, especially Daladier wished to see the Popular Front continue, whereas Bonnet wished to see the end of the Popular Front. In Daladier's viewpoint, if Bonnet were outside of the Cabinet, his ablity to engage in intrigues to break up the Popular Front would be corresponding increased while including in the Cabinet limited his room to manoeuvre. Moreover, an additional complication was posed by Bonnet's desire for the Premiership, which gradually led to a breakdown with his once warm relations with Daladier. Bonnet was extremely critical of what he regarded as the "war-mongers" of the Quai d'Orsay, and right from the beginning of his time as Foreign Minister, he tended to exclude his senior officials from the decision-making progress, prefering instead to concentrate authority in his hands..
   In June 1938, there was a major dispute between Daladier and Bonnet over the question of continuing French arms shipments to the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Daladier was in favor of continuing arms shipments as long as the Italian forces were in Spain, whereas Bonnet argued for ending arms supplies as a way of improving relations with Italy, and went as far to tell the British Ambassador Sir Eric Phipps that his country should "lay great stress with Daladier on the importance to the Pyrenees frontier remaining closed". Bonnet was successful in having the frontier closed.
   Between April 27-29, 1938, Bonnet visited London with Daladier for meetings with Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax to discuss the possibility of a German-Czechoslovak war breaking out, and what the two governments could do to stop such a war. During the talks, the French ministers argued for firm statements that both nations would go to war in the event of a German aggression, and agreed to a British suggestion that the two nations pressure Prague into making concessions to the Sudeten Heimfront of Konrad Henlein. The London summit marked the beginning of a pattern that was to last throughout 1938, where the French would begin talks with the British by demanding a harder line against the Reich, and then agree to follow the British line. In the viewpoint of Bonnet and Daladier, these tactics allowed them to carry out their foreign policy goals while providing them with a cover from domestic politics by presenting their foreign policy as the result of British pressure. As Bonnet told the American Ambassador William C. Bullitt, his "whole policy was based on allowing the British full latitude to work out the dispute" because otherwise France would have to bear the main responsibility for pressure for concessions on Czechoslovakia. Throughout the summer of 1938, Bonnet led most of the diplomatic pressure applied to President Edvard Beneš for concessions to Henlein come from London, leading to sharp complaints from the British that Bonnet should do more to apply pressure on Beneš.
   Between May 9-14, 1938, Bonnet attended the meeting of the League Council of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. During the meeting, Bonnet met with the Soviet Foreign Commissar, Maxim Litvinov, who offered vague and evasive answers to Bonnet's questions about what the Soviet Union proposed to do in the event of a German attack on Czechoslovakia. At the same time, Bonnet was informed by the Polish and Romanian delegations that if Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, they'd refuse the Red Army transit rights to come to aid of Czechoslovakia, and that any Soviet violation of their neutrality would be resisted with force. After the League meeting, Bonnet met with Lord Halifax in Paris, where he urged Halifax to "work as hard as he could for a settlement in Czechoslovakia so that the French wouldn't be faced with a crisis which they definitely didn't want to face". As Lord Halifax reported to the British Cabinet, Bonnet "wanted His Majesty's Government to put as much pressure as possible on Dr. Beneś to reach a settlement with the Sudeten-Deutsch in order to save France from the cruel dilemma between dishonouring her agreement [theFranco-Czechoslovak alliance of 1924] or becoming involved in war".
   During the May Crisis of 1938, on May 21, Bonnet advised Lord Halifax that Britain should warn Berlin that if the Germans attacked Czechoslovakia, then Britain would become involved in the ensuring war, only to be informed that London had already delivered such a warning. In a talk with Phipps, Bonnet attacked Beneš for ordering Czechoslovak mobilization without informing France first, and criticized Prague's for its "hasty action", through at meeting with the Czechoslovak Minister to Paris, Štefan Osuský on May 21, Bonnet didn't criticize Prague as he'd promised Phipps he'd do. Phipps urged Bonnet to use the crisis as an excuse to renounce the Franco-Czechoslovak alliance of 1924, but this Bonnet refused to do unless France could secure a stronger commitment from Britain to come to France's aid in the event of war with Germany. During the crisis, Bonnet issued a cautiously worded press statement supporting Prague, but refused to issue a démarche in Berlin. At a subsequent meeting with Phipps on May 22, Bonnet was informed not to interpret the British warnings to Berlin during the May Crisis as blank cheque for British support for either Czechoslovkia or France. Bonnet took "copious notes" of the British message, and stated that "if Czechoslovakia were really unreasonable, the French Government might well declare that France considered herself released from her bond". On May 25, 1938, Bonnet told the German Ambassador to France, Count Johannes von Welczeck that France would honour her alliance with Czechoslovakia should Germany invade that nation, and highlined his main foreign policy goals when he declared:"if the problem of the minorities in Czechoslovakia was settled peacefully, economic and disarmament problems might be considered".
   On May 31, 1938, Bonnet refused a British request for an Anglo-French démarche to Beneš demanding concessions to the Sudeten German Heimfront, but promised to commit the French Minister in Prague, Victor de Lacroix to do more to pressure the Czechoslovaks. In his instructions to Lacroix for the démarche, Bonnet instead merely asked for more information and stated: "The information that you've transmitted to me on the state of the negotiations between the Prime Minister and the representatives of the Sudetens doesn't allow me to pronounce as fully as the British Government believes itself able to do on the character and substance of M. Henlein's proposals...I ask you, therefore to obtain urgently the necessary details on the proposals submitted to M. Hodza...". The British discovery of Bonnet's instructions, which Lacroix inadvertently revealed to the British Minister in Prague, Sir Basil Newton led to much Anglo-French recriminations. Throughout the spring and early summer of 1938, Bonnet refused to apply pressure through official channels, and instead used unofficial emissaries to carry the message that France might not go to war in the event of a German invasion, leading Prague to place more assurance on French statements of public support that wasn't warranted. Bonnet had his friend, the journalist Jules Saurerwein tell Beneš in an interview that "Victory isn't a state that endures forever" in the summer of 1938.. Not until July 17,1938 did Bonnet issue a set of instructions to Lacroix which explicitly warned Beneš and his Prime Minister, Milan Hodža that because of the attitude of the British, France couldn't risk a war in 1938, and Prague should do its utmost to reach a settlement with Germany.
   Following the reports from General Joseph Vuillemin of the French Air Force after a visit to Germany about the strength of the Luftwaffe, and a memo from André François-Poncet, the French Ambassador to Germany on August 18, 1938 stating it was quite likely that Adolf Hitler planned to attack Czechoslovakia sometime soon, Bonnet began quite insistent that the a joint Anglo-French warning be sent to Berlin, warning against invading Czechoslovakia. On August 22, 1938, Bonnet had Charles Corbin, the French Ambassador in London press for an outright British commitment to come to France's side in the event of war breaking out in Central Europe, and used the ensuring British refusal as a reason in Cabinet discussions as why France couldn't go to war. Starting in August 1938, Bonnet started to become hostile towards what he felt to Daladier's excessive belligence and lack of willingess to compromise with the Germans, and often urged in private that Daladier change his stance. In early September 1938 as part to prevent war through a mixture of threat and conciliation, Bonnet had a series of meetings with Count Welczeck, telling him that France would honor the terms of the Franco-Czechoslovak treaty should the Germans invade Czechoslovakia, while insisting that his government was quite open to a compromise solution.
   When it appeared quite likely in mid-September 1938 that war could break out at any moment in Central Europe following Hitler's violent speech blasting Czechoslovakia on September 12 followed by a failed revolt in the Sudetenland, Bonnet become quite frantic in his efforts to save the peace. Bonnet told Phipps: "I repeated all this with emotion to Sir Eric Phipps telling him that an no price should we allow ourselves to be involved in war without having weighted all the consequences and without having measured in particular the state of our military forces. On September 14th, Phipps was informed by Bonnet: "We can't sacrifice ten million men in order to prevent three and half million Sudetens joining the Reich". Bonnet went on to advocate as his preferred solution to the crisis as the neutralization of Czechoslovakia with wide-ranging autonomy for the Sudetenland, but was was prepared as "last resort" to accept a plebiscite on the Sudetenlanders joining Germany. During the same talk, Bonnet "expressed great indignation with the Czechs who, it seems, mean to mobilise without consulting the French...he has therefore given a broad hint to Beneš that France may have to reconsider her obligations", and that "we are not ready for war and we must therefore make the most far-reaching concessions to the Sudetens and to Germany". At a summit meeting in London with the leading British ministers on September 18th, Bonnet and Daladier agreed formally to the idea of ceding the Sudetenland to Germany, but pressed strongly as the price for making such a concession, in return a British guarantee of the remainder of Czechoslovakia. On his return to Paris, in a meeting with Osuský, Bonnet was very vehement that Prague agree to the Anglo-French plan agreed to in London at once. In a letter to Daladier on September 24, 1938, Bonnet wrote : "If France declared war against Germany, her position would be weaker than at any time since 1919. In fact, France in this case would have to stand alone on land the force of the combined German and Italian armies, without counting Japan, which in the Far East, will doubtless attack Indo-China...For five months, night and day, in the course of our confident collaboration, we've struggled for peace. I beg you to continue in this course. It is the only one which can save the country...". At the same time, Bonnet's relations with René Massigli, the Quai d'Orsay's Political Director began to deteriorate quite rapidly as Massigli felt that Bonnet was too anxious to avoid a war at any price.
   On September 25, 1938, Daladier and Bonnet returned to London for another set of meetings with British leaders; during this summit, Bonnet said almost nothing during the Anglo-French meetings. When Britain rejected Hitler's Bad Godesberg ultimatum on September 26, Bonnet sought to prevent the news of the British rejection appearing in the French press, as it now appeared that British were pushing the French towards war, and deprived Bonnet of using British pressure as an excuse. As the crisis reached its climax in late September 1938, Bonnet called upon his "peace lobby" which comprised a collection of various politicans, journalists and industrialists to pressure the Cabinet against going to war for Czechoslovakia.. Some of the promient members of Bonnet's "peace lobby" were the politicans' Jean Mistler, Henri Bérenger, Jean Montigny, Anatole de Monzie, François Piétri, Lucien Lamoureux, Joseph Caillaux, the industrialist Marcel Boussac, and the journalists' Jacques Sauerwein, Emile Roche, Léon Bassée, and Emmanuel Berl. Together with Bonnet, the "peace lobby" sought to influence the government both within the corridors of power and both appealing to public opinion. In this regard, Bonnet especially valued the contribution of his close friend, Bassée who served as the political director of the Havas news agency. At a Cabinet meeting on September 27th, Bonnet spoke out against French mobilization, and threatened to resign if the Cabinet were to order such a step. The atmosphere at the Cabinet meeting was very tense as Daldadier insisted upon mobilization, leading to many heated words. Bonnet was very much in favor of the Munich conference of September 30th, which averted the war Bonnet labored against, but wasn't part of the French delegation to Munich.
   Starting with the May Crisis, Bonnet began a campaign of lobbying the United States to become involved in European affairs, asking that the Washington inform Prague that in the event of a German-Czechoslovak war the "Czech government wouldn't have the sympathy of the American government if it shouldn't attempt seriously to produce a peaceful solution...by making concessions to the Sudeten Germans which would satisfy Hitler and Henlein". In a meeting with the American Ambassador William C. Bullitt on May 16, 1938 Bonnet stated his belief that another war with Germany would be more dreadful then any previous war and "he [Bonnet] would fight to the limit against the involvement of France in the war".. As part of his effort to gain Bullitt’s trust, Bonnet showed the American notes received from the British government during the Czechoslovak crisis.. In a radio broadcast sent direct to the United States on July 4, 1938 Bonnet proclaimed his belief in the "common ideals" which linked France and the United States as a way of pressuring for greater American interest in the crisis in Central Europe. During a speech delivered on September 4, 1938 at the unveiling of a commemorative plaque at Pointe de Grave honoring the La Fayette's's departure to America in 1777 and the arrival of the A.E.F in 1917, Bonnet stated in an oblique way that France would go to war if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia, and experessed hope that the U.S would fight on France's side. During the same ceremony, Ambassador Bullitt stated that "France and the United States were united in war and peace", leading to a major storm by American isolationists, and a statement from President Franklin D. Roosevelt that it was “100 per cent wrong” the U.S. would join a “stop-Hitler bloc”. Roosevelt's statement had the effect of confirming Bonnet in his course of seeking to avoid a war with Germany. In addition, a highly exaggerated estimate of the strength of the Luftwaffe presented by Charles Lindbergh in August 1938, supplemented by a highly negative assessment of the ability of the Armée de l'Air by the Air Force's General Joseph Vuillemin to survive a war had the effect of reinforcing Bonnet's determination to avoid a war with Germany.
   Relations between Bonnet and his officials at the Quai d'Orsay, especially René Massigli were very poor, leading to Bonnet to condemn Massigli quite strongly in his memoirs. In turn, Massigli was to accuse Bonnet of seeking to alter the documentary record in his favor. On October 24, 1938, Bonnet had Massigli sacked as the Quai d'Orsay's Political Director and exiled him as Ambassador to Turkey. Throughout his career, Bonnet was widely respected for his intelligence, but often inspired great mistrust in others, in part because of his highly secretative methods of working and his preference for verbal as opposed to written instructions. Neville Chamberlain described Bonnet as "Clever, but ambitious and an intriguer". Georges Mandel proclaimed his belief that "His long nose sniffs danger and responsiblity from afar. He will hide under any flat stone to avoid it". The French columnist André Géraud who wrote the pen-name Pertinax stated that Bonnet was capable of only pursuing the line "of least resistance". Sir Winston Churchill described Bonnet as "The quintessence of defeatism". In December 1938, Lord Halifax's private secretary Oliver Harvey referred to Bonnet as "a public danger to his own country and to ours". In December 1939, the British Chief Diplomatic Advisor Robert Vansittart wrote: "As to M. Bonnet he'd better trust to time and oblivion rather than to coloured self-defence. He did a lot of really dirty work in 1938...if I ever had to play cards with M. Bonnet again I'd always run through the pack first, just to make sure that the joker had been duly removed".
   Others were more sympathetic to Bonnet. Lord Halifax wrote in response to Vansittart's memo that "I am disposed to think but I know it's a minority view that M. Bonnet isn't so black (or so yellow) as he's often painted". Joseph Paul-Boncour, a political opponent of Bonnet's spoke of his great "kindness and help". The editor of the Le Petit Parisien, Elie J. Bois felt that Bonnet had "the makings of a good, perhaps a great, foreign minister". Anatole de Monzie commented that "Whilst very courageous in the long run, he's much less so in the heat of the moment...Because he's reticent, he's accused of lying or of deceit. False accusation...Bonnet is discreet so that his policy may be successful...There is in him an obvious ability, an excessive flexibility. He jumps too quickly, on to the bandwagon, on to all bandwagons. What does it matter to me?...If he aims for the goal and means to reach it by devious means, I care only for the goal. Now I note that having adopted the peace party, he's sticking to it with all the foresight of a statesman". The French historian Yvon Lacaze has argued against the popular image of Bonnet as a slick and amoral opportunist, and instead attributed Bonnet’s views about avoiding another war with Germany to his memories of service in the trenches of World War I.
   In the fall of 1938, Bonnet started to advocate the ending of the French alliance system in Eastern Europe, and ordered his officials at the Quai d'Orsay to start preparing grounds for renouncing the French treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland. Speaking before the Foreign Affairs Commission on the Chamber of Deputies in October 1938, Bonnet spoke of his desire to "restructure" the French alliance system in Eastern Europe and of his wish to "renegotiate" treaties which might bring France into a war "when French security isn't directly threatened". In his efforts to end the eastern alliances, Bonnet found his hands tied by opposition from other members of the French government. As he noted during talks in October with a group of Deputies who had formally asked the Foreign Minister to end French commitments in Eastern Europe: "If I was free, I'd carry out your policy; but I'm not: I'd have against me the majority of the Cabinet, led by Reynaud and Mandel, and I can't count on Daladier, for Gamelin believes that in the event of war Polish military assistance would be indispensable". As part of his general tendency towards seeking to weaken the French eastern alliances, Bonnet did his best to put off giving the international guarantee to Czecho-Slovakia that France had promised in the Munich Agreement. On November 25, 1938 Bonnet informed the French Ambassador to Poland, Léon Noel that France should find an excuse for terminating the 1921 Franco-Polish alliance, but found that his views on this issue created considerable opposition within the Quai d'Orsay, who argued that Poland was too valuable ally to be abandoned, and that if France renounced the Polish alliance, then Warsaw would align herself with Berlin. In December 1938, during the visit of the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to Paris to sign the largely meaningless Declaration of Franco-German Friendship, Ribbentrop was later claim that Bonnet had promised him that France recognized all of Eastern Europe as Germany's exclusive sphere of influence, leading to a long war of words between the two foreign ministers in the summer of 1939 over just what precisely Bonnet said to Ribbentrop. Ribbentrop was to use Bonnet's alleged statement to convince Hitler that France wouldn't go to war in the defence of Poland in 1939. In January 1939, Bonnet commissioned a study for the French Cabinet which concluded that for all intents and purposes that the 1935 Franco-Soviet alliance was now defunct, and hence there no grounds for hope about help from the Soviet Union. Moreover, rumors in the French press over the winter of 1938-39 that France was seeking the the end of the eastern alliances generated concerns both in the Chamber of Deputies and in the press, leading Bonnet to state in a speech to the Chamber on January 26, 1939: "So, gentlemen, let us dispose of the legand that our policy has destroyed the engagements that we've contracted in Eastern Europe with the USSR and with Poland. These engagements remain in force and they must be applied in the same spirit in which they were conceived".
   On November 30, 1938, there were "spontaneous" demonstrations in the Italian Chamber of Deputies organized by Benito Mussolini and his Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano demanding that France cede Tunisia, Corsica and French Somaliland to Italy. In response, Bonnet sent out a message to André François-Poncet, the French Ambassador in Rome informing the latter that he should see Count Ciano to complain about that “Such behavior may appear rather unusual in the presence of the French Ambassdor and immediately following the unconditional recognition of the Italian Empire". At the same time, Bonnet had ordered Charles Corbin, the French Ambassador in London to tell Chamberlain and Lord Halifax during their scheduled visit to Rome in January 1939 that they should allow any weakening of Anglo-French relations at the expense of improved Anglo-Italian relations. During a meeting between François-Poncet and Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister claimed that the demonstrations were purely "spontaneous", and didn't reflect the views of his government. In early January 1939, Bonnet and Daladier approved of the idea of sending the banker Paul Baudoin as an unofficial diplomat to find out just what exactly the Italians wanted from France. When Baudoin visited Rome in February 1939, he reported that the Italians wished only for some economic concessions from the French in the Horn of Africa, but when the news of Baudoin's visit was leaked to the French press, Bonnet was forced to disallow Baudoin. In response to complaints from François-Poncet about Baudoin's mission, Bonnet stated to the former that: "The rumos you're telling me have no basis in fact. You are fully aware that any conversation, any Franco-Italian negotiation offical or unofficial could only be handled by you, and that no direct or indirect transaction couldn't be considered outside your purview".
   In January 1939, negotiations were opened between the French and the Turks over resolving the Hatay dispute. Leading the French term were Gabriel Puaux, the High Commissioner of Syria and Massigli, the French Ambassador in Ankara. The continuing feud between Massigli and Bonnet was reflected in Bonnet's habit of refusing Massigli negotiating instructions for weeks on end, thereby placing Massigli in an embarrassing situation when he attempted talks with the Turks. During the talks, Bonnet had first backed Paaux, who was opposed to any weakening of French control over the Sanjak of Alexandretta, before deciding upon settling the dispute in favor of the Turks as a way of potentially winning Turkish support in the event of a war with Germany. Despite efforts of maintain some sort of French presence in Alexandretta, the Franco-Turkish talks were to end in June 1939 with the Turks being given total control over the disputed region.
   By early 1939, it was clear that the days of the Spanish Republic were numbered, and Bonnet felt it was time for France to recognize the Spanish Nationalists as the legitimate government of Spain (Until that time, Paris had recognized the Republican government as the legitimate government). On January 20, 1939, Bonnet had a meeting with the former president of Mexico, Francisco León de la Barra who was living in exile in Paris and asked that de la Barra serve as an unoffical French diplomat in talks with the Spanish Nationalists. In response to reports from de la Barra that ties between General Francisco Franco and the Axis powers were strained, Bonnet then sent out Senator Léon Bérard to sound out the Nationalists about establishing diplomatic relations. Bonnet told Bérard to inform General Jordana, the Nationalist Foreign Minister that provided that General Franco was willing to promise that all German and Italian forces were to be withdrawn after the end of the Spanish Civil War, then Paris would recognize the Nationalists. The major dispute during the talks between Bérard and Jourdana concerned whatever the recognition of the Burgos government would be de jure as Franco wanted or de facto as Bonnet wanted, and if Franco would promise to remain neutral should a war occur between France and Germany. However by February 1939, Bonnet believed that the rapid collapse of the Republican war effort made recognition of the Burgos government imperative if France were to have any hope of having influence with General Franco, and on February 28, 1939 France broke diplomatic relations with the Republican government in Madrid and recognized the Nationalist government in Burgos.
   In response to the "Dutch war scare" which gripped London in late January 1939 when the British government received false reports of an imminent German invasion of the Netherlands, Lord Halifax had Phipps inquire what the France would do if such an invasion were to take place.. Bonnet had Corbin inform Lord Halifax that the French attitude towards an event would depend upon what the British attitude was towards France if the latter were the victim of aggression, thereby leading to Chamberlain's statement about the House of Commons on February 6, 1939 that any German attack on France would be automatically considered an attack on Britain..
   In March 1939, following the German destruction of the rump state of Czecho-Slovakia and the proclamation of the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, Bonnet had Hervé Alphand of the Ministry of Commerce, who was in Berlin to negotiate a trade treaty recalled in protest. The German move badly damaged Bonnet's creditability, and as part of the aftermath, the Union des Intellectuels francais sent out a letter signed by 17 intellectuals calling for an inquiry into Bonnet's conduct of foreign affairs. Ties between Daladier and Bonnet were stressed when in protest over the German coup Daladier ordered the recall of Robert Coulondre, the French Ambassador to Germany without consulting Bonnet, who was much offended by Daladier's act. In April 1939, Bonnet in turn went behind Daladier's back in suggesting that Britain apply pressure on the French Premier to make more concessions to Italy regarding the Franco-Italian disputes over influence in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea regions. The differences on opinion between Daladier and Bonnet over question of making concessions to Italy, which Daladier was firmly opposed to, led Daladier to increasing taking direct control of foreign policy by dealing directly with the Quai d'Orsay's Secretary-General Alexis Saint-Legér Léger, and pushing Bonnet aside from April 1939 onwards. In April 1939, Daladier told the Romanian foreign minister Grigore Gafencu "he was going to get rid of Bonnet quite shortly", and on May 6th, Daladier stated to Bullit he'd a great deal of "...mistrust of Bonnet and said that he might replace him in the immediate future". As Count Welczeck noted in May 1939: "Bonnet was ...a man who would go to the utmost limits to avoid a European war up to the last moment. He regretted therefore that foreign affairs were so much more in the hands of M. Daladier than M. Bonnet".
   Following the British "guarantee" of Polish independence on March 31, 1939, Bonnet had a meeting with the Soviet Ambassador to France, Jacob Suritz and asked "in a form to be determined" for the Soviet Union to provide military support for Poland and Romania should those nations be attacked by Germany.. In particular, Bonnet stated that "It was obvious that there had to be an agreement between the USSR and Romania or the USSR and Poland for the Franco-Soviet Pact to come usefully into play".. Suritz commented that unless the Poles and Romanians allowed the Red Army transit rights, there was little the Soviet Union could do for those nations, leading Bonnet to reply that he felt he could pressure both nations into argeeing to provide the desired transit rights.. Bonnet commented that he felt it was time to "begin immediate discussions between France and the USSR in order to precisely determine the help the USSR could provide to Romania and Poland in the event of German aggression"..
   In contrast to his enthusiasm for improving ties with Moscow in the spring of 1939, Bonnet felt the opposite about relations with Warsaw. In May 1939, during talks with the Poles aimed at strengthening the political and military aspects of the Franco-Polish alliance, Bonnet sabotaged the negotiations by bogging down the talks on the political accord on procedural details, and ensured that no political accord was signed, which was the precondition for the military accords (not until September 3, 1939 was the political accord finally signed). In June of 1939, Bonnet's reputation was badly damaged when the French agent of the Dienststelle Ribbentrop, Otto Abetz was expelled from France for engaging in espionage, two French newspaper editors were charged with receiving bribes from Abetz, and the name of Madame Bonnet was prominently mentioned in connection with the Abetz case as a close friend of the two editors, through it should be noted that no evidence has ever emerged linking Bonnet or his wife to German espionage or bribery.
   During the ultimately failed talks for an Anglo-Franco-Soviet alliance in the spring and summer of 1939, Bonnet together with the rest of the French leadership pressed quite strongly for the revived Triple Entente, often to the considerable discomfort of the British. In the spring and summer of 1939, Bonnet was an very strong advocate of the revived Triple Entente concept, believing that a "grand alliance" of the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France would deter Germany from attacking Poland. At a meeting with Lord Halifax on May 20-21, 1939 in Geneva, Daladier and Bonnet pressured the British Foreign Sectartary quite strongly for a "grand alliance" as the only way of stopping another world war. In the spring of 1939, Bonnet went so far as to inform Moscow that he supported turning over all of eastern Poland to the Soviet Union regardless of what the Poles felt about the issue, if that was to be the price of the Soviet alliance. On June 2, 1939 when the Soviet government offered up its definition of what constituted "aggression", upon which the intended alliance was come into play, Bonnet sided with the Soviets against the British, who felt that the Soviet definition of "aggression" was too loose a definition and phrased in such a manner as to imply the Soviet right to inference in the internal affairs of nations of Eastern Europe. On July 1, 1939 in response to message from the Soviet Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov about what nations the intended "grand alliance" was meant to protect, Bonnet sent a telegraph in reply stating the purpose of the "grand alliance" was "the mutual solidarity of the three great powers...in those conditions the number of countries guaranteed is unimportant". By early July 1939, Bonnet grew increasingly irritated over what he regarded as British foot-dragging in the talks with the Soviets, and with the Poles for refusing to grant transit rights to the Red Army. Bonnet wrote to Lord Halifax at this time stating "We reaching a critical moment, whre we find it necessary to do everything possible to succeed". As part of an effort to save the talks, Bonnet wrote up and presented to both London and Moscow the text of a joint communiqué stating to the world their determination to resist aggression and that they "agreed on the main points of the political agreement". Bonnet's effort was blocked by Molotov, who stated his government had no interest in issuing such a communiqué.
   When the Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks were on the verge of breaking down in August 1939 over the issue of transit rights for the Red Army in Poland, Bonnet instructed the French Embassy in Moscow to falsely inform the Kremlin that the Poles had granted the desired transit rights as part of a desperate bid to rescue the alliance talks with the Soviets. The conclusion of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 23, 1939 left Bonnet highly dejected, believing the prospect of Soviet economic support for Germany would undermine the effectiveness of a British blockade of Germany (which was widely assumed in France to be a precondition of defeating Germany), and hence his return to advocating renouncing the Polish alliance as the best way of avoiding war.
   At a Cabinet meeting on August 22, 1939, Bonnet spoke against French mobilization and argued that France should seek to find a way to end the alliance with Poland. At an another meeting of the French Cabinet and leading French military officials on August 23, 1939, Bonnet sought to pressure General Maurice Gamelin into stating that France couldn't risk a war in 1939, and stated that France should find a way of renouncing the 1921 alliance with Poland. On August 30, 1939, Bonnet was the leading spokesman for the idea of using the peace mediation prospoals of Benito Mussolini as a pretext for ending the alliance with Poland, but was overuled by the French Cabinet led by Daladier. After the German aggression against Poland began on September 1, 1939, Bonnet continued to argue against a French declaration of war, and instead urged that the French take up Mussolini's mediation offer; if the Poles refused to attend Mussolini's conference (which was widely expected since Mussolini's revised peace plan on September 1 called for an armistice, but didn't call for the removal of German troops from Poland, which was the major Polish precondition to accepting the Italian plan), then the French should denounce the Polish alliance. Bonnet together with his allies in the "peace lobby" both within and without the government, Anatole de Monzie, Jean Mistler, Marcel Déat, Paul Faure, Paul Baudoin, Pierre Laval, René Belin, Adrien Marquet, and Gaston Bergery all spent the days September 1-3 lobbying the Daladier government, the Senate and the Chamber against going to war with Germany. On September 3, 1939, Britain declared war on Germany, which had the effect of resolving the debate in Paris, and led to Daladier finally having the French declaration of war issued later that same day. Bonnet was demoted to minister of justice with the coming of war on September 13, 1939.

Later career

On June 21, 1940, Bonnet together with Pierre Laval helped to pressure President Albert Lebrun into changing his mind about leaving for Algeria. Bonnet supported the Vichy government and served on the National Council from December 1940, but since the council never met, Bonnet's role in Vichy wasn't a large one. Bonnet spent most of World War II living on his estate in the Dordongne, and attempting to secure himself an office in Vichy, through Bonnet was later to claim to have been involved in the Resistance. According to the Gestapo records, Bonnet contracted the Germans once in February 1941 to see if it were possible if the Germans would pressure Laval to include him in the Cabinet, and again in June 1943 to reassure them that he'd no intention of leaving France to join the Allies. On April 5, 1944, Bonnet left France for Switzerland, where he was to stay until March 1950. After the war, proceedings were begun against him but eventually dropped, though he was expelled from the Radical Party in 1944. During his time in exile, Bonnet was to write a five-volume set of memoirs. Bonnet throughout his career had been very much concerned with his reputation, and during his time as Foreign Minister, had a team of journalists to engage in what is known in France as Bonnetiste writing, namely a series of books and pamphlets meant to glorify Bonnet as the defender of the peace and Europe’s savior . After leaving the Quai d'Orsay, Bonnet took with him a large number of official papers, which he then used to support the claims made in his voluminous memoirs, where Bonnet depicted himself as waging a single-handed heroic battle to save the peace. Many have charged Bonnet with "editing" his papers to present himself in the best possible light, regardless of the facts. In the early 1950s, Bonnet had a celebrated debate on the pages of the Times Literary Supplement with one of his leading critics, the British historian Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier over some of the claims contained in his memoirs. At issue was the question whether Bonnet had, as Namier charged, snubbed an offer by the Polish foreign minister Colonel Józef Beck in May 1938 to have Poland come to the aid of Czechoslovakia in the event of a German attack. Bonnet denied that such an offer had been made, which led Namier to accuse Bonnet of seeking to falsify the documentary record. Namier concluded the debate in 1953 with words "The Polish offer, for what it was worth, was first torpedoed by Bonnet the statesman, and next obliterated by Bonnet the historian".
In 1953, an amnesty for those convicted of "national disgrace" allowed to run for office again, and in 1956, Bonnet returned to his old seat in the Dordonge. Readmitted to the Radicals in 1952, he was once again expelled in 1955 for refusing to support Pierre Mendès-France. Nevertheless, he was once again elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1956 and continued to serve in that body until 1968, when he lost his seat..

Endnotes

Reference

Adamthwaite, Anthony France and the Coming of the Second World War 1936-1939, London: Frank Cass, 1977, ISBN 0 7146 3035 7.
Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste France and the Nazi Threat The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932-1939, New York: Enigma Books, 2004, ISBN 1-029631-15-4.
Frankenstein, Robert "The Decline of France and French Appeasement Policies, 1936-9" pages 236-245 from The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement edited by Wolfgang Mommsen and Lothar Kettenacker, George Allen & Unwin, London, United Kingdom, 1983, ISBN 0049400681.
Jackson, Peter "Intelligence and the End of Appeasement" pages 234-260 from French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918-1940 The Decline and Fall of A Great Power edited by Robert Boyce, London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0-415-15039-6.
Lacaze, Yvon “Daladier, Bonnet and the Decision-Making Process During the Munich Crisis, 1938” pages 215-233 from French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918-1940 The Decline and Fall of A Great Power edited by Robert Boyce, London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0-415-15039-6.

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