Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [112]
If Germany attacked, he told Cecil, it could strike deep into France long before the United States and Britain responded. “If there were any other natural features which could be made an equally good line of defence he would not have asked for the Rhine frontier, but there were absolutely none.” His preference was an independent Rhineland which could be grouped together with Belgium, France and Luxembourg in a defensive confederation. “I think Foch is going too far,” said his friend Henry Wilson, “but it is at the same time clear to me that neutrals like the Luxembourgs and the Belgians unduly expose the flank of the poor French, and that therefore some precaution must be taken, such as that no Boche troops should be quartered over the Rhine, and possibly no Boche conscription in the Rhenish provinces.” Foch’s second choice was a neutral and demilitarized state, or perhaps states, in the Rhineland. Its inhabitants, he felt, were naturally inclined toward France; in time, they would recognize that their best interests lay in looking westward rather than to the east.14
French troops made up the majority of the occupying forces in the Rhineland, and the French commanders there shared Foch’s views completely (including Marshal Pétain, who was to take a rather different view of Germany in the Second World War). The Rhineland, said General Charles Mangin, was the symbol of “immortal France which has become again a great nation.” Mangin, whose career had been spent mainly in France’s colonies, saw the local inhabitants as natives to be won over, with festivals, torchlit processions, fireworks and a firm hand. The French also wooed the Rhinelanders with economic concessions, exempting them from the continuing blockade of Germany.15
For an exhilarating few months in 1919, it looked as though powerful separatist forces were stirring among the largely Catholic Rhinelanders, who after all had never really settled down comfortably under Prussian rule. But were they ready to throw themselves into the arms of France? The mayor of the great Rhine city of Cologne, a cautious and devious politician, spoke for the moderates. Konrad Adenauer toyed with separatism but gave it up as a lost cause by the spring.16 The diehard separatists remained a small minority.
Clemenceau chose not to know what his military was up to. Nor did he directly forbid it from intriguing with the separatists. He himself did not care so much how the Rhineland was managed, as long as it did not become, yet again, a platform for attacks on France. He wanted the Allied occupation to continue; indeed, he wanted it extended to the eastern side of the Rhine to protect the bridgeheads. If he could get this guarantee for France’s security, he was prepared to back down on other French demands, such as reparations. He urged his allies to keep the peace terms together as a package. As he told Balfour in February, he did not want the disarmament terms, even though nearly ready, to be given to the Germans because they would feel that they had nothing left to bargain with and so be difficult on everything else.17
Clemenceau had to move carefully on the Rhineland: his critics at home were watching him closely. From the Elysée Palace, Poincaré warned: “The enemy is picking herself up and if we do not remain united and firm, everything is to be feared.” Poincaré’s view that France should have direct control of the Rhineland had much support in France. While the government had been careful during the war, for propaganda reasons, not to talk publicly about annexing parts of Germany, private French citizens had set up committees and rushed into print with their aspirations (without the censors making any effort to stop them). The river had always been the boundary between Western civilization and something darker,