Page 146 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The French Diplomats 133

ing the negotiation over the sudetenland it had become known that Mus-
solini had sent messages to Hitler urging him to be conciliatory, and the
duce’s intervention at one critical point had been effective. François-Poncet
concluded that if peace was to be preserved, if Hitler was to be prevented
from provocative adventures, Mussolini would be the man to use his influ-
ence on the Führer. as the ambassador put it, Mussolini was the “key to the
future,” and the Frenchman was eager to encourage the italian dictator in
his supposed role as preserver of the peace.
For at least a year, François-Poncet had been convinced that Mussolini
was not willing to play second fiddle to Hitler. in a dispatch of september
29, 1937, he gave free rein to his ruminations in discussing the outcome of
a four-day meeting between the two dictators, even though neither govern-
ment had issued any official announcement on the high-level talks. the
diplomatic corps in Berlin, according to François-Poncet, agreed that Mus-
solini did not want to give “carte blanche to the Nazis.” it was even possible
that “he demanded a renunciation of all violence” by Hitler. François-Pon-
cet concluded by acknowledging uncertainty about the dictators’ inten-
tions, but the thrust of his comments was that Mussolini could be relied
upon to exert a moderating influence on the Führer. 89
in the fall of 1938, François-Poncet asked the Foreign Office for a transfer
to rome and in early October he left Berlin. in rome he quickly discovered
that he had misjudged Mussolini. there was little hard evidence that the
italian dictator could exert the kind of wide-ranging influence over Hitler
that François-Poncet had assumed. On the contrary, Hitler dominated the
relationship between the two. Moreover, it was now clear that a lasting,
peaceful relationship between France and Germany was an illusion. Never-
theless, it continued to be the ambassador’s dream, despite his later claims
that by 1938 he had abandoned it. 90
soon after italy declared war on France on June 11, 1940, François-Pon-
cet returned to his home country and lived in Grenoble, where he avoided
any involvement in public affairs. in august 1943, the Germans imprisoned
him, which made it easy for him to disavow his previous advocacy of good
relations with the Nazi regime. after World War ii, he once again was
honored with senior positions in the government and was elected to the
prestigious académie française. initially, he was an adviser to the French
government on German affairs; from 1949 to 1952, he served as high com-
missioner in Germany; and from 1953 to 1955, he was the French ambassa-
dor in Bonn. For the next twelve years he held the post of president of the
international red Cross, and once again came under suspicion of having