The following day, 18 March, amid rumours circulating that Germany was threatening Romania, the British cabinet endorsed the Prime Minister’s recommendation of a fundamental change in policy. No reliance could any longer be placed on the assurances of the Nazi leaders, Chamberlain stated. The old policy of trying to come to terms with the dictatorships on the assumption that they had limited aims was no longer possible. Chamberlain regarded his Birmingham speech, he told the cabinet, ‘as a challenge to Germany on the issue whether or not Germany intended to dominate Europe by force. It followed that if Germany took another step in the direction of dominating Europe, she would be accepting the challenge.’ Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, underlined the view that ‘the real issue was Germany’s attempt to obtain world domination, which it was in the interest of all countries to resist’. Britain alone, he argued, could organize such resistance — though he admitted that it was hard to see how Britain could effectively attack Germany — if the Germans invaded Romania or whether they turned on Holland. ‘The attitude of the German government was either bluff, in which case it would be stopped by a public declaration on our part; or it was not bluff, in which case it was necessary that we should all unite to meet it, and the sooner we united the better. Otherwise we might see one country after another absorbed by Germany.’ The policy had shifted from trying to appease Hitler to attempting to deter him. In any new aggression, Germany would be faced at the outset with the choice of pulling back or going to war. As the Foreign Secretary’s comments made clear, the geographical thrust of any new move by Hitler was immaterial to this new strategy. But the Prime Minister had little doubt as to where trouble might next flare up. ‘He thought that Poland was very likely the key to the situation… The time had now come for those who were threatened by German aggression (whether immediately or ultimately) to get together. We should enquire how far Poland was prepared to go alone these lines.’115 The British Guarantee to Poland and the genesis of the summer crisis which, this time, would end in war were foreshadowed in Chamberlain’s remarks.
Similar reactions were registered in Paris. Daladier let Chamberlain know that the French would speed up rearmament and resist any further aggression. The Americans were told that Daladier was determined to go to war should the Germans act against Danzig or Poland. Even strong advocates of appeasement were now saying enough was enough: there would not be another Munich.116
Before the Polish crisis unfolded, Hitler had one other triumph to register-though compared with what had gone before, it was a minor one. As we noted, Hitler had referred in his directive of 21 October 1938 to preparation for ‘the occupation of Memelland’.117 The incorporation of Memelland in the German Reich was now to prove the last annexation without bloodshed. After its removal from Germany in 1919, the Memel district, with a mainly German population but a sizeable Lithuanian minority, had been placed under French administration. The Lithuanians had marched in, forcing the withdrawal of the French occupying force there in January 1923. The following year, under international agreement, the Memel had gained a level of independence, but remained in effect a German enclave under Lithuanian tutelage. Trouble had flared briefly in 1935 when the Lithuanians put 128 Memelland National Socialists on trial, sentencing four of them to death. But other than launch a fierce verbal onslaught on the Lithuanians, Hitler had at the time done nothing. The matter died down as quickly as it had arisen. The Memel question was not raised again for another four years. But in March 1938, the German army had prepared plans to occupy the Memel in the event of war between Poland and Lithuania. Then in October Hitler had included the recovery of the Memel in the directive for taking over Czecho-Slovakia. By the end of the year, interested in agreement with Poland, Hitler had insisted that there should be no agitation from the restless Nazis in the Memel. Early in 1939, anxious to avoid any action which might provoke German intervention, the Lithuanians had yielded to all the wishes of the now largely nazified Memel population.118
Politically, the return of the territory to Germany was of no great significance. Even symbolically, it was of relatively little importance. Few ordinary Germans took more than a passing interest in the incorporation of such a remote fleck of territory into the Reich. But the acquisition of a port on the Baltic, with the possibility that Lithuania, too, might be turned into a German satellite, had strategic relevance. Alongside the subordination to German influence of Slovakia on the southern borders of Poland, it gave a further edge to German pressure on the Poles.119
