112 Facts About Robert Coulondre

Robert Coulondre was a French diplomat who served as the last French ambassador to Germany before World War II.

Robert Coulondre was stationed in London in May 1909, was appointed attache at the Foreign Minister's office in March 1912 and became assistant consul in Beirut in 1912.

Robert Coulondre helped negotiate the Sykes-Picot agreement of May 1916 laying out the British and French spheres of influence in the Middle East after the anticipated defeat of the Ottoman empire.

In October 1918, Robert Coulondre protested on behalf of France against the actions of the Emir Faisal in attempting to occupy all of Lebanon while asking Paris to dispatch the French Navy to land marines in the coastal cities of Lebanon "before it was too late".

Robert Coulondre delivered a protest to the Emir Faisal, pointing out the Sykes-Picot Agreement had assigned Lebanon to France, leading Faisal to claim his reasons for sending the Arab Northern Army into Lebanon were "purely military".

Robert Coulondre met with Field Marshal Sir Edmund Allenby, who apologised to him, insisting it was all a "misunderstanding", and ordered Ayubli out of Beirut on the night of 10 October 1918.

On 16 October 1918, Robert Coulondre told Gilbert Clayton that France wanted to occupy the Beqaa Valley in accordance with the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which was rejected by the British who assigned the valley to Faisal's agents.

Robert Coulondre was a member of the "Protestant clan" that dominated the Quai d'Orsay in the first part of the 20th century.

From 1920 to 1936, Robert Coulondre had closely studied the German economy and in 1931 when the premier, Pierre Laval, visited Berlin to discuss the crisis caused by the collapse of the banks in Central Europe, Robert Coulondre had accompanied him as an adviser.

Riddell refused to add nickel to the sanctions list, despite Robert Coulondre pressing him on that point.

Robert Coulondre suggested that either Te Water or Riddell propose that derivatives from iron be added to the sanctions list.

On 19 October 1935, in response to a protest from the Spanish delegate Salvador de Madariaga about the exclusion of finished iron from the sanctions list, Robert Coulondre stated that the major iron producers such as the United States were not members of the League.

Robert Coulondre went to Moscow with two guiding principles with the first being that Nazi Germany was a menace that had to be stopped and the second being that the best way to do that was an alliance with the Soviet Union.

Robert Coulondre was chosen as the ambassador to Moscow by the Popular Front government of Leon Blum, who felt that an experienced diplomat well known for calling for closer ties to Moscow was the ideal man to represent France to the Kremlin.

Robert Coulondre later wrote that the Quai d'Orsay's information about the Soviet Union was almost non-existent as discovered looking through the files "that relations with the USSR, established in 1924, had been neither very close nor very well cultivated since then, notwithstanding the pacts".

Robert Coulondre described his superior, the Foreign Minister, Yvon Delbos, as being paranoid about the Soviets and fearful that the alliance that France had signed with the Soviets in 1935 was merely a device which Joseph Stalin might use to "push" France into a war with Germany.

When Robert Coulondre presented his credentials as an ambassador for the republic to the Soviet Chairman Mikhail Kalinin, he received a blast when Kalinin told him that the French were not treating their alliance seriously with Kalinin chiding him for the unwillingness of the French general staff to open up staff talks with their Soviet counterparts.

Robert Coulondre often told his hosts that many of the French right were willing to accept an alliance with the Soviets to stop Germany, but the militant ultra-leftwing line pursued by the French communists terrified them.

Robert Coulondre reported to Paris that the Soviets wanted to strengthen the Franco-Soviet alliance as a way to counterbalance the German-Japanese bloc that had emerged.

Robert Coulondre was told that a "state of virtual war" existed on the border between the Mongolian People's Republic and the state of Manchukuo with the Soviets saying that the Japanese Kwantung Army was violating the border on an almost daily basis, leading to constant skirmishes along the frontier and it was believed that a full scale Soviet-Japanese war could break out at any moment.

From November 1936 onward, Robert Coulondre grew increasingly frustrated with what he regarded as foot-dragging on the part of Delbos, who seemed to be looking for any excuse to terminate the alliance with the Soviet Union.

Robert Coulondre was frightened by the Yezhovshchina, seeing it as evidence of turn towards isolationism and increased xenophobia in the Soviet Union.

Robert Coulondre called the Yezhovshchina a "crisis of growth" towards what Robert Coulondre called "counterrevolutionary absolutism", Russian nationalism as the basis of a Soviet identity, and a growing military might supported by an expanding industrial basis as the Soviet regime continued to build factories at a manic pace.

Robert Coulondre reported to Paris in October 1936 about daily life during the Yezhovshchina that: "Quand un Russe regarde une fenetre, on ne sait jamais s'il admire le paysage ou s'il a envie de sauter".

Robert Coulondre attended the second Moscow trial show of January 1937 and the third Moscow show trial of March 1938, often known as the "Great Trial" as the two leading accused were the former premier Alexei Rykov and Nikolai Bukharin, the leader of the moderate faction of the Communist Party.

When Robert Coulondre told Litvinov in 1937 that King Carol II of Romania was prepared to allow the Soviets overflight rights to send aid to Czechoslovakia in the event of a German invasion, Litvinov insisted on land transit rights as well, which the Romanians refused, leading to Robert Coulondre to the conclusion that the Soviets were not serious about helping Czechoslovakia.

Robert Coulondre continued to press for Franco-Soviet staff talks to resume for the rest of his ambassadorship, but Gamelin remained opposed and the talks were never resumed.

Robert Coulondre concluded his interview by saying the Soviet Union had been excluded from the Paris peace conference of 1919 and only chose to defend the Versailles system because it wanted to, not because it had to.

Robert Coulondre always stated his opinion that if France had to choose between the Soviet Union and Poland as an ally, it should pick the former rather than the latter as the Soviet Union had much greater military and industrial power.

On 5 April 1938, Robert Coulondre took part in a conference of the French ambassadors in Eastern Europe in Paris called by Paul-Boncour, in which it was agreed it was necessary to end the conflicts between France's allies in Eastern Europe.

Robert Coulondre was assigned to end the vexatious question of transit rights for the Red Army, which both Poland and Romania were adamant in refusing to grant.

Robert Coulondre credited the charge to the Second Sino-Japanese War, writing that the Soviets were intensely paranoid that Japan might attack them at any moment, making them reluctant to become involved in a European war.

Robert Coulondre stated that the fact that the Republic of China had not collapsed in 1937 in the face of the Japanese invasion together with the evidence that stiffening Chinese resistance had led Japan to become bogged down in China meant the Soviets could "make a corresponding greater effort in the West".

Robert Coulondre added that the main Japanese offensive in China intended to end the war, launched in June 1938, was in the Yangtze river valley in central China was a source of great relief to Moscow since it indicated that Japan would not be invading the Soviet Union that year.

Just when Robert Coulondre believed it might finally be possible to open staff talks between the French and Soviet armies, he was recalled to Paris by the new foreign minister Georges Bonnet whom he learned had very different ideas about French policy in Eastern Europe, favoring a deal that would let Germany have Eastern Europe as its sphere of influence in exchange for leaving France alone.

On 5 July 1938, Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg, the German ambassador in Moscow, reported to Berlin that Robert Coulondre had told him that he received word from Litvinov that the Soviets had only intervened in the Spanish Civil War in 1936 because Stalin did not want to "lose face" with the foreign communists, especially the French Communist Party, and the Soviets were willing to pull out of Spain if Germany did likewise.

Robert Coulondre himself reported to Paris that the Soviets were not keen to be involved in the Spanish Civil War where no Soviet interests were at stake and especially with Germany and Italy intervening on the other side, concluding that Moscow was looking for a dignified way out of Spain without loss of face now that war was threatening to break out in Central Europe.

Robert Coulondre stated that his sources in Moscow had told him that the decision to intervene in Spain had been undertaken because of Stalin's feud with Leon Trotsky in order to maintain Stalin's revolutionary and anti-fascist credentials against Trotskyism among communists worldwide and the Soviets had no real interest in ensuring the victory of the Republicans over the Nationalists, stating the war in Spain was an expensive distraction for the Soviet Union.

On 12 July 1938, Coulondre reported that the a Czechoslovak military mission together with M Hromadko, the president of the Skoda works had arrived in Moscow for talks.

On 21 September 1938, Robert Coulondre reported that the previous day the Soviet Union had promised Czechoslovakia "unconditional air support" in the event of a German invasion, through the ambassador added that he had seen no practical effort to put this promise into effect.

On 24 September 1938, Robert Coulondre reported to Bonnet that the Soviets were still willing to stand by their alliance with Czechoslovakia and were criticizing President Edvard Benes for agreeing to the Anglo-French plan to transfer the Sudetenland to Germany.

Robert Coulondre reported: "When I entered his study, I felt there is the coldness which penetrates one in a house where there is a dead person".

On 4 October 1938, Robert Coulondre handed over to the Soviet Vice Foreign Commissar, Vladimir Potemkin, the text of the Munich Agreement.

Robert Coulondre reported to Paris an odd conversation where Potemkin first in a formal and cold tone of voice said "I simply wish to state that the Western Powers have deliberately kept the USSR out of the negotiations".

Robert Coulondre predicted there was a real possibility of the Soviet Union trying to achieve an alliance with Germany against the western powers and of another partition of Poland.

In October 1938, Robert Coulondre was appointed the French ambassador to Germany as the French Premier Edouard Daladier was determined to wrestle control of foreign policy from his appeasement-minded foreign minister Georges Bonnet and felt that replacing Andre Francois-Poncet as ambassador to Berlin with Robert Coulondre, a diplomat known for anti-Nazi views, was a way of weakening Bonnet.

Robert Coulondre saw himself as more serving Daladier rather than his nominal superior Bonnet, and throughout his time in Berlin he had much influence on Daladier.

On 22 November 1938, Robert Coulondre arrived in Berlin and presented his credentials as an ambassador for the republic to Adolf Hitler at the Reich Chancellery on the Wilhelmstrasse on the same day.

Robert Coulondre wrote in his memoirs: "After having gone to Moscow to work for an entente against Hitler, I was now to go to Berlin to work for an entente with Hitler".

Robert Coulondre told me that upon taking the appointment, he intended to do all he could to improve Franco-German relations.

Unlike Francois-Poncet, Robert Coulondre chose not to join the group of four.

Robert Coulondre looked shy with pleasant smiling eyes in a square face and a high, willful forehead.

Robert Coulondre described the Nazi Party leaders as he met them in hostile tones.

Robert Coulondre wrote he had the impression that Baron Ernst von Weizsacker, the State Secretary of the Auswartiges Amt, did not want a war with France, but his relations with Weizsacker were cold and distant as Robert Coulondre never trusted him.

The American historians Carl Schorske and Franklin Ford wrote that everything that has emerged since 1945 showed Robert Coulondre was right to distrust Weizsacker, a thoroughly duplicitous and dishonest man.

About Hitler, Robert Coulondre wrote he enjoyed "une puissance diabolique" over the German people, a power which he exercised with "une habilete satanique".

Robert Coulondre saw little evidence of a German interest in a detente with France, and instead noted the recurring theme of Hitler's speeches was the "harshness" of the Treaty of Versailles, which justified everything his government did to end the international system established in 1919.

Robert Coulondre was not entirely certain just what Hitler was getting shots of from the needles of Dr Morell, but he believed that the "energy shots" were affecting Hitler's mind and health in a negative way.

Likewise, Robert Coulondre reported that the prosperity of the Reich was more apparent than real as the demands of the Four Year Plan designed to prepare Germany for a "total war" by 1940 had caused foreign exchange to be used to import raw materials that Germany lacked such as high-grade iron and nickel.

Robert Coulondre further noted that the largest sources of food for the Reich were the farms of Eastern Europe, and that for Germany to bring Eastern Europe under its control would allow greater food to be imported without using up foreign exchange.

On 13 December 1938, Robert Coulondre reported to Paris that he learned much about the "National Union of the Ukraine" terrorist group, whose headquarters were on 79 Mecklenburg Street in Berlin, and which had been financed and armed by the SS.

Robert Coulondre further noted that the "National Union of the Ukraine" group was not just trying to send its agents into the Soviet Ukraine as expected, but into the Polish region of Eastern Galicia, which had a Ukrainian majority, which led him to conclude that the Reich was becoming hostile to Poland.

On 15 December 1938, Robert Coulondre reported that he believed the majority of the German people did not want war and found that a surprising large number had favorable views of France.

Furthermore, Robert Coulondre came to believe that the prosperity of the Third Reich was only superficial and the massive rearmament program of the Nazi regime had created serious structural economic problems for Germany, which Robert Coulondre believed Hitler would attempt to resolve by seizing parts of Eastern Europe in order to exploit.

On 15 December 1938, Robert Coulondre reported that the situation for the German Jewish community was worsening by the day and predicted the Nazis were planning to push Jews to the "margin of society".

Robert Coulondre reported that since he arrived in Berlin, the Nazi regime had passed laws forbidding Jews to own cars; from going to museums, sports events, theaters, cinemas or concerts; from attending universities or colleges; and from going on certain streets.

Robert Coulondre noted that a law had been passed requiring all Jews to add the names Israel or Sarah as part of their first names to order to identify them as Jews.

Robert Coulondre speculated that "other, more radical measures" might be coming.

When Robert Coulondre asked Ribbentrop about negotiating the "guarantee" of Czecho-Slovakia, he found that Ribbentrop kept giving him various excuses as why that was not possible right now, leading Robert Coulondre to suspect that Germany was not content with the Sudetenland and wanted all of Czecho-Slovakia.

At least five weeks before the Germany moved against Czecho-Slovakia, Robert Coulondre had been predicating that such a move was imminent.

Robert Coulondre noted that in late February-early March 1939 a sharp anti-Czech tone to the stories appearing in the German newspapers that resembled the stories that had appeared in 1938 right down to the accusations of a "blutbad" of ethnic Germans in Bohemia, which led him to guess that something was planned against Czecho-Slovakia.

On 2 March 1939, Ribbentrop issued a note to the British charge d'affairs George Ogilvie-Forbes and Robert Coulondre that declared that his government saw "an extension of this guarantee obligation to the Western powers not only no factor for the appeasement" but instead "a further element likely to strength wild tendencies, as has been the case in the past".

Robert Coulondre reported to Paris that "the Munich Agreement no longer exists", and stated that he believed that Hitler was still preoccupied with Eastern Europe, he would be willing to turn west if he thought that Germany was losing the arms race with Britain and France.

Robert Coulondre advised Paris must rearm "to the limit of our capacity", but as discreetly as possible.

When Robert Coulondre presented Weizsacker on 18 March 1939 with a French note protesting against the German occupation of the Czech lands, the latter accordingly to his own account:.

When Weizsacker continued to rudely refuse to accept the note, Robert Coulondre sharply accused him of being a very poor diplomat, saying the French government had every right to make known its views to the German government, and that Weizsacker was failing in the most elementary duties of the diplomat by seeking to conceal the views of France from his own government.

Robert Coulondre threw the note down at Weizsacker's desk and the latter reluctantly agreed he "would regard it as transmitted to us through the post".

The American prosecutor had not, and then produced the Yellow Book in court to show that Robert Coulondre's account did support Weizsacker's accounts of his arrogant and abusive behavior.

Robert Coulondre reported to Paris that the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia proved that Hitler wanted to dominate Europe, and the best that France could do was rearm to the maximum in order to deter Hitler from choosing war.

In March 1939, Robert Coulondre reported to Paris that Captain Stehlin had a long chat with General Karl Bodenschatz, who served as the Luftwaffe liaison officer to Hitler.

On 29 April 1939, Robert Coulondre reported to Paris that when Germany occupied the Czech part of Czecho-Slovakia on 15 March 1939, that Henderson, "always an admirer of the National Socialist regime, careful to protect Mr Hitler's prestige, was convinced that Great Britain and Germany could divide the world between them" was very angry when he learned that the Reich had just violated the Munich Agreement as it "wounded him in his pride".

On 7 May 1939, Robert Coulondre reported to Paris that the dismissal of Litvinov as Soviet Foreign Commissar had caused much comment in official circles in Berlin, and that accordingly to his sources Germany was planning to invade Poland that year and was willing to sign a pact with the Soviet Union to achieve that goal.

Robert Coulondre's intelligence was quickly confirmed by the German mole Erich Kordt.

In June 1939, as the Danzig crisis deepened, Robert Coulondre wrote that "Hitler has never up till now undertaken any move which he was not certain of success", and stated his belief that a forceful French stand in favor of Poland would deter Germany from choosing war to resolve the Danzig crisis.

At a meeting with Weizsacker, Robert Coulondre was informed that all talk of der Fuhrer going to Danzig that weekend to proclaim the Free City's return to Germany were nonsense as Hitler would never put himself into danger, an assessment that Robert Coulondre agreed with.

Robert Coulondre noted in a dispatch to Paris on 21 June 1939:.

Robert Coulondre reported to Paris that he had heard rumors that Colonel-General Wilhelm Keitel, the chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, and Colonel-General Walter von Brauchitsch, the Army's commander, had warned Hitler that Germany could not defeat Britain, France, and the Soviet Union all at once, which for him was further evidence of the need to have the Soviet Union join the "peace front".

Robert Coulondre further noted that Danzig crisis was now escalating as the Reich had made the status of the German minority in Poland into an issue instead of just the Free City of Danzig, the city-state which was not part of Poland and was thus potentially easier to resolve than the question of the volksdeutsche minority in Poland.

At the height of the Danzig crisis, Robert Coulondre was summoned to a meeting with Hitler at about 7:00 pm on 25 August 1939.

Hitler further taunted Robert Coulondre by noting that all of the nations that were supposed to join the "peace front" like Turkey, Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia had dropped out, saying that nobody would "die for Danzig".

Robert Coulondre told Hitler that he would pass on his message to the French cabinet, but warned him that France would keep its word and stand by Poland if Germany did indeed choose war.

Robert Coulondre gave as good as he got-even mentioning the alleged victim of Polish assassination who had actually died a month earlier in a domestic crime of passion.

Robert Coulondre told Hitler "in the name of humanity, for the repose of his own conscience not to let pass this last chance of a peaceful solution".

At another point, Robert Coulondre spoke of all of millions of women and children who would die if the Danzig crisis came to war.

Robert Coulondre reported to Paris that the meeting with Hitler did not go well, with Hitler saying he promised to renounce any claim on Alsace-Lorraine as a sign of his goodwill towards France and the Danzig crisis had now reached such a point that he had no other choice but to attack Poland.

Robert Coulondre replied that the war could be stopped and it was only the attitude of Hitler that was making war inevitable.

Robert Coulondre reported to Paris his "sadness" that Daladier's letter had not moved Hitler at all, saying "he stands pat".

Robert Coulondre took the reports he heard of fighting along the German-Polish border together with the pull-back of the Wehrmacht forces as meaning that the French deterrence diplomacy was indeed working.

Robert Coulondre concluded that Hitler was bluffing and that provided that France and Britain remained resolute, then he would back down rather than chose war.

Later the same day, when Robert Coulondre saw the notes that Henderson had made of his meeting with Hitler to discuss the peace plan proposed by the Swedish businessman and amateur diplomat Birger Dahlerus, he noted that Hitler's stalemates were "more like a diktat imposed on a conquered country than an agreement to negotiate with a sovereign state".

Robert Coulondre however reluctantly accepted the Dahlerus plan as it committed Germany to negotiate with Poland to resolve the Danzig crisis, which Hitler had been refusing to do until then, which led to hopes that here was a possible means of preventing a war.

Robert Coulondre felt the "final offer" was just an alibi for aggression, but very reluctantly supported Henderson's contention that an effort should be made to take up the "final offer" if only to prove Britain and France did everything within their power to save the peace.

At noon on 3 September 1939, Robert Coulondre went to the Auswartiges Amt main office on the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin, to be greeted by Weizsacker.

Robert Coulondre arrived at the Auswartiges Amt, wearing the full ceremonial uniform as an ambassadeur de France, bringing with him the ultimatum in a sealed briefcase and as everyone at the Auswartiges Amt could guess what was in the briefcase, Robert Coulondre recalled the atmosphere was electric with tension.

When Robert Coulondre presented the ultimatum to Weizsacker, the latter replied that he was not in a position to know if Germany could withdraw its forces from Poland, which led Robert Coulondre to insist on seeing Ribbentrop.

Robert Coulondre had the sense that both Ribbentrop and Weizsacker were acting as if they started a war that had escalated beyond their control as both men seemed to be trying to talk him out of delivering the declaration of war.

When Ribbentrop accused France of being the "aggressor", Robert Coulondre replied that "History will be the judge of that".

Robert Coulondre then turned his back on Ribbentrop and Weizsacker, leaving the Auswartiges Amt, never to return.

From 10 January 1940 to 13 March 1940 Robert Coulondre served as the chief of staff for Daladier, leaving office when Daladier resigned on 13 March 1940.

Robert Coulondre served as the French ambassador to Switzerland between 30 May-30 October 1940.

On 2 May 1941, as part of the investigation that led to the Riom trial of 1942, Robert Coulondre was questioned by a magistrate about his responsibility and that of Daladier for the French declaration of war against Germany in 1939.

The magistrate was looking for information that Daladier had acted criminally in declaring war on Germany, and the answers that Robert Coulondre gave him were such that he did not appear as a witness at the Riom trial.