Abstract
The drawing together of the Western alliance resulted from the operation of a complex web of a number of gradual processes. Foremost among those processes was the development of the German question.1 It was in this framework that the so-called ‘Byrnes treaty’ had a significant impact on the relations among the Western allies. The main concept at the base of that US initiative, i.e. American direct responsibility in Europe, foreshadowed the role assumed by Washington in the first steps of the process leading eventually to the Atlantic Alliance. During the period 1946–48, witnessing the widening rift between East and West, direct or indirect discussions about the Byrnes treaty kept alive the concept and the practice of a close cooperation between Washington and the Western European allies.
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Notes
D. Sanders, Losing an Empire, Finding a Role: British Foreign Policy since 1945 (London: Macmillan, 1990), p. 53.
D. Dimbleby & D. Reynolds, An Ocean Apart: the Relationship between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (London: Hodder & Stoughton), 1998, p. 176: ‘At the centre of the deepening of the Cold War was Germany.’
D. Reynolds, Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century (London: Longman, 1991), pp. 160–61.
G. Warner, ‘Britain, the United States and Western Europe: Some Reflections on Documents on British Policy Overseas’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 1990), p. 103.
W. Loth, The Division of the World 1941–1945 (London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 98–9, 123. Dimbleby & Reynolds, cit., pp. 170–1.
Carolyn Wood Eisenberg, Drawing the Line: the American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 228–9.
On the criticisms to Byrnes at home: Robert L. Messer, The End of an Alliance: James F. Byrnes, Roosevelt, Truman, and the Origins of the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), pp. 167–88. DBPO, I, IV, Halifax to Bevin, 10 Mar. 1946, No. 49, pp. 155–6.
J. Gimbel, The Origins of the Marshall Plan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976), pp. 111–13; Gimbel argues that the treaty was meant as Byrnes’s ‘major effort to bring France around’. Carolyn Wood Eisenberg, Drawing the Line, op. cit., p. 228.
Denise O’Neal Conover, ‘James F. Byrnes and the Four-Power Disarmament Treaty’, Mid-America, Vol. 70, No. 1 (1988), p. 20.
On this latter aspect see also: W.W. Rostow, The Division of Europe after World War II. 1946 (Aldershot: Gower, 1982), pp. 5–6 and passim.
John L. Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 52–4.
On the French policy, see: Eisenberg, Drawing the Line, op. cit., pp. 166–76; Gimbel, The Origins, op. cit., 38. A. Grosser, Affaires Extérieures. La politique de la France 1946/1984 (Paris: Flammarion, 1984), pp. 33–8.
PRO CAB 109/8 CP(46)139, cit., COS(46)105(0), 5 Apr. 1946. Julian Lewis, Changing Direction: British Military Planning for Post-war Strategic Defence, 1942–1947 (London: The Sherwood Press, 1988), pp. 263–4.
Anne Deighton, The Impossible Peace: Britain, the Division of Germany and the Origins of the Cold War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 54–80;
J. Fosche-poth, ‘British Interest in the Division of Germany after the Second World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 21 (1986), p. 400.
Deighton, The Impossible Peace, op. cit., p. 75; the other condition being raising the food ratio in Germany and rendering Western Germany self-supporting. G. Warner, ‘From Ally to Enemy: Britain’s Relations with the Soviet Union, 1941–1948’, in M. Dockrill and B. McKercher, Diplomacy and World Power: Studies in British Foreign Policy 1890–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 221–43, p. 236.
Deighton, The Impossible Peace, op. cit., chapter 3; P. Cornish, British Military Planning for the Defence of Germany 1945–50 (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 15.
A. Cairncross, The Price of War: British Policy on German Reparations, 1941–1949 (New York: Blackwell, 1986), p. 159.
O’Neal Conover, James F. Byrnes, op. cit., p. 25. For the French attitude in general, see: Anne Lacroix Ritz, ‘Sécurité française et ménace militaire allemande avant la conclusion des alliances occidentales: les déchirements du choix entre Moscou et Washington (1945–1947)’, Relations Internationales, No. 31, (automne 1987), p. 304 ff; H. Bungert, ‘A New Perspective on French-American Relations during the Occupation of Germany, 1945–1948: Behind-the-Scenes Diplomatic Bargaining and the Zonal Merger’, Diplomatic History, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Summer 1994), pp. 333–52; Gimbel, The Origins, op. cit., p. 116. The British had judged the French position as ‘reserved’, FO 371/ 55382, 27 Apr. 1946.
A. Bullock, Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 270.
Ritchie Ovendale, The English Speaking Alliance: Britain, the United States, the Dominions and the Cold War 1945–1951 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985), pp. 44–6.
Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power, 1945–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 248–9. Later in the year Lambert of the Northern Department will comment that ‘one cannot help a feeling that the real Soviet objective in these negotiations has been to separate us from the US and possibly even from France’, PRO FO 371/66371, N 12488, minute by A.E. Lambert, 23 Oct. 1947.
Klaus Schwabe, ‘The Origins of the United States’ Engagement in Europe, 1946–1952’, in Francis H. Heller and John R. Gillingham, NATO: the Founding of the Atlantic Alliance and the Integration of Europe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), p. 164.
Philip Zelikow, ‘George C. Marshall and the Moscow CFM Meeting of 1947’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol. 8, No. 2, (July 1997), pp. 97–124; Gaddis, op. cit., p. 55. ‘On the American and British sides, the forthcoming Moscow conference of Foreign Ministers was viewed as climactic. Either the Allies would find a way to harmonise differences and reintegrate the zones or Germany would be divided’, Eisenberg, Drawing the Line, op. cit., p. 277. A fact to note: the Truman doctrine seemed to have no immediate impact on the Moscow negotiations, p. 290.
G. Warner, ‘Ernest Bevin and British Foreign Policy 1945–1951’. Gordon Craig and Francia L. Lowenheim, The Diplomats, 1939–1979 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 106–8.
Roy E. Jones, ‘Reflections Upon an Eventful Period in Britain’s Foreign Relations’, International Relations, II, No. 8 (October 1973), pp. 524–40.
See also A. Adamthwaite, ‘Britain and the World, 1945–1949: the View from the Foreign Office’, in J. Becker and F. Knipping, Power in Europe? Great Britain, France and Germany in a Postwar World, 1945–1950 (Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1986), pp. 15–16.
On the Eastern Mediterranean, see Bruce R. Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East: Great Power Conflict and Diplomacy in Iran, Turkey and Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); Bullock, op. cit., pp. 361–71.
Lord Strang, Home and Abroad (London: André Deutsch, 1956), pp. 292–3.
Frank K. Roberts, ‘Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary’, in R. Ovendale, The Foreign Policy of the British Labour Governments, 1945–1951 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1984), pp. 21–42, 29.
PRO FO 371/67672, 2317, 26.2.47; R. N. Rosecrance, Defense of the Realm: British Strategy in the Nuclear Epoch (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 60.
John W. Young, Britain, France, and the Unity of Europe, 1945–1951 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1984), p. 51.
M. Dockrill, ‘British Attitudes towards France as a Military Ally’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 1990), pp. 49–70.
D. Ardia, Il patío di Dunkerque. Alle origini dell’alleanza ocidentale (Padova: Signum, 1983).
For an historiographical review of the treaty, see Bert Zeeman, ‘Britain and the Cold War: an Alternative Approach. The Treaty of Dunkirk Example’, European History Quarterly, Vol. 16 (1986), pp. 343–67.
Wayne Knight, ‘Labourite Britain: America’s “Sure Friend”? The Anglo-Soviet Treaty Issue, 1947’, Diplomatic History, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Fall 1983), p. 280.
V. Rothwell, Britain and the Cold War, 1941–1947 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982), chapter 8.
John Bayliss, ‘Britain, the Brussels Pact and the Continental Commitment’, International Affairs, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Autumn 1984), pp. 615–29.
PRO FO 371/64511, 9838, from Washington to Foreign Office, Balfour-Boh-len conversation, 20 July 1947. On Bohlen’s assessment of the situation by mid-1947 and his suggestions on how to cope with it, see T. Michael Ruddy, The Cautious Diplomat: Charles E. Bohlen and the Soviet Union, 1929–1969 (Kent and London: The Kent State University Press, 1986), p. 76. In his memoirs Bohlen recalls in general terms the Byrnes proposal and notes how ‘By late 1947 positions on both sides had hardened. There seemed to be no basis for compromise, no common ground.…’,
Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929–1969 (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1973), pp. 274–5.
On the Brussels pact see A. Varsori, Il Patto di Bruxelles (1948): tra integrazione europea e alleanza atlantica (Roma: Bonacci Editare, 1988);
John Bayliss, ‘Britain, the Brussels Pact and the Continental Commitment’, International Affairs, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Autumn 1988), pp. 617–29.
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Ardia, D. (2001). The Byrnes Treaty and the Origins of the Western Alliance, 1946–48. In: Twentieth-Century Anglo-American Relations. Contemporary History in Context Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333985311_4
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