The popular front and Central Europe : the dilemmas of French impotence, 1918-1940

Between 1936 and 1938, the French alliance system in East Central Europe collapsed. The resulting dramatic expansion of German power led directly to the Second World War. This illuminating study investigates the implications of French military, economic and diplomatic policies in Central Europe from Versailles until the fall of France, establishing the proper context for the policy options of Léon Blum's Popular Front. It focuses on the clash between the French military and French radical politics in 1936–7 when Blum's government sought to rally to the defence of Czechoslovakia. The figure of Blum illustrates the insights and the dilemmas of a democratic Socialist caught up in the imbrication of foreign and domestic politics which increasingly characterised the 1930s. Frontmatter (page N/A) List of maps (page xi) Acknowledgements (page xiii) Abbreviations (page xv) Introduction (page 1) 1 The diplomats, the formation of the eastern alliance system and arms limitation, 1918-1935 (page 5) 2 The military, the Rhineland and the eastern alliances, 1918-1936 (page 48) Entr'acte: Paris, June 1936 (page 93) 3 Blum and the quandaries of external economic policy: the Schacht voyage (page 108) 4 Blum and the military: the Franco-Polish arms negotiations of 1936 (page 146) 5 Blum and the diplomats: the Franco-etite Entente negotiations of 1936 (page 188) 6 Blum and the diplomats: the Franco-Petite Entente negotiations, I (page 230) 7 The great eastern crises, 1938-1939, and the fall of France (page 280) Summary and epilogue: Leon Blum and Czechoslovakia in 1938 (page 307) Bibliography (page 324) Index (page 340) In her study of the failure of French democracy successfully to defend itself and its eastern allies in 1938-40, Dr. Jordan's wider themes include the effect of the search for detente on alliance systems, the politics of arms limitation, the role of ideology in foreign policy formulation, and the place of ethics in external affairs.