Alliances are often about imposing brakes, not empowerment. The Anglo-French “entente” was unwritten, which caused tremendous anxiety in France, but this was essentially a way for Britain to restrain its partner without committing itself formally to continental war. French alliances with Poland and Czechoslovakia had been meant the same way (a means to limit the smaller countries’ behavior while not fully committing France), but that arrangement had suited neither Poland nor Czechoslovakia. The Franco-Soviet-Czechoslovak alliance had afforded no such intra-alliance control and fooled no one, paving the way for the collective failure to prevent Germany’s forbidden annexation of Austria and the dismemberment of the third partner, Czechoslovakia.171 Germany’s military had consumed 17 percent of national production in 1938, about the same as in the USSR but double the level in Britain or France; in 1939, the German percentage would rise to 20 percent. Militarily, Britain and France were still holding to a mostly defensive posture, leaving all the initiative in the hands of the aggressor.172
Even into 1939, Hitler’s references to the injustices of Versailles and to his desire merely to “unite” all ethnic Germans had still been eliciting sympathy in Britain.173 But his seizure of all the Czech lands, on March 15, 1939, and recognition of an independent Slovakia blew up British domestic politics. Rumors flew that Germany was preparing similar conquests of Romania, Hungary, and Ukraine.174 A Soviet military intelligence assessment (March 17) concluded that “the seizure of Czechoslovakia is the first act, the threshold to further, larger happenings,” and that even if, as some experts claimed, Germany’s next moves would be westward, it would still need raw materials for its military from the east.175 That same day, British ambassador Sir William Seeds asked Litvinov what the Soviet position would be in the event of a Nazi invasion of Romania. That same evening, after consulting Stalin, the foreign affairs commissar proposed a multipower diplomatic conference involving Britain, the USSR, Romania, Poland, and others. On March 18, a Saturday, the British cabinet met. “The Prime Minister said that until a week ago we had proceeded on the assumption that we should be able to continue with our policy of getting onto better terms with the Dictator Powers, and that although those powers had aims, those aims were limited,” the minutes recorded, indicating a possible policy shift. But Chamberlain, who celebrated his seventieth birthday that day, insisted that they continue seeking to negotiate, although he did become far more willing to warn Hitler against future aggression.176
German war preparations became blatant. On March 20, Ribbentrop issued an ultimatum to Lithuania to transfer the Baltic Sea deepwater port of Memel (Klaipeda), which had been awarded to independent Lithuania at Versailles, or risk military occupation. Lithuania capitulated, and the leaders of the 40,000 ethnic Germans in that country stepped up their agitation for subordination of Lithuanian foreign policy to Germany. This magnified the Kremlin’s high anxiety that the Baltic states would become staging grounds for an attack on the Soviet Union.177 On March 21, Ribbentrop informed the Polish ambassador, Jan Lipski, that Poland’s territorial desires vis-à-vis now nominally independent Slovakia might be satisfied if Poland handed Germany Danzig and allowed a German-controlled special transit route through Poland to and from East Prussia. Lipski was noncommittal. So as not to drive Poland into Britain’s arms, Hitler informed his brass that no seizure of Danzig would be carried out and ordered Nazi ruffians in Danzig to desist from provocations for now. Germany would instead wear Poland down. On March 23, King Carol II, from whom no territory was sought, agreed to closely align Romania’s economy with Germany’s, creating joint-stock companies for Romanian oil, manganese, copper, and bauxite, as well as grain, corn, fodder, and pigs, to be exchanged for German armaments, machines, and investments in Romanian transport and communications. A secret protocol obliged Bucharest to expand oil production.178