300. War minister Blomberg and the German brass were apprehensive and instituted extensive air-raid precautions, spreading the anxiety. Hossbach, Zwischen Weltkrieg und Hitler, 97–8; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, I: 262.
301. Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, III/ii: 30 (March 2, 1936).
302. Medlicott, Britain and Germany, 24–5 (citing CP73[36], CAB24, 261, extract in FO 371/19889); DBFP, 2nd series, XV: 713–36.
303. The German ambassador reported that the war minister, Duff Cooper, had told him “that though the British people were prepared to fight for France in the event of a German incursion into French territory, they would not resort to arms on account of the recent occupation of the German Rhineland.” DGFP, series C, V: 57–8 (Hoesch, March 9, 1936); The Times, March 13, 1936. “With two lunatics like Mussolini and Hitler you can never be sure of anything,” Prime Minister Baldwin would observe. “But I am determined to keep the country out of war.” Jones, Diary with Letters, 191 (April 30, 1936).
304. DBFP, 2nd series, XVI: 45–226; Braubach, Der Einmarch deutscher Truppen, 26–8; Emmerson, Rhineland Crisis, 97–8; Gunsburg, Divided and Conquered, 301–1; Bell, France and Britain, 205–6; Adamthwaite, France, 37–9; Höhne, Zeit der Illusionen, 325. “The need, and yet the difficulty, for Britain and France to work in tandem was the dominant feature of Anglo-French relations,” one scholar aptly noted of the interwar period. Davis, Anglo-French Relations, 189.
305. Kershaw, Hitler: 1889–1936, 581–9. The United States did not bother to register a protest.
306. Shirer, Berlin Diary, 49–51. The ambassadors of Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and Poland chose not to attend. Dodd and Dodd, Ambassador Dodd’s Diary, 318 (March 7, 1936). Hitler, at the opera house, had proposed “negotiations” to demilitarize both sides of the Rhine, and yet again offered nonaggression pacts to all and sundry. Then, he dissolved the Reichstag and called for new elections (the Nazis would win a publicly announced 98.7 percent of the vote). Litvinov wrote to Maisky (March 9) castigating the British for rewarding aggressors by intending to enter negotiations with Germany now, pronounced “collective security” and the League of Nations in grave danger, and noted (March 10) Hitler’s finesse in driving a wedge between Britain and France. DVP SSSR, XIX: 130, 134.
307. DDF, 2e série, II: 15–6 (April 1, 1936).
308. The treaty specified “military aid” in the event of a third-party attack on either country. Article 3 stipulated that troops “will be withdrawn from that territory as soon as the danger is passed, just as took place in 1925 with respect to the withdrawal of Soviet troops.” The Soviets published the treaty with a delay, following a major border clash near Tamsagbulag that involved tanks and aircraft. Izvestiia, April 8, 1936; Tisminets, Vneshniaia politika SSSR, IV: 99–104. The Soviet-Mongolia treaty did not mention Chinese sovereignty over Mongolia (recognized in a 1924 Sino-Soviet agreement) and Chiang Kai-shek’s government sent two diplomatic notes of objection. Stalin played it both ways. “No other country except us recognizes Mongolia,” Stalin had told Genden. “You are still a part of China. We have no obligation to help you at all.” Friters, Outer Mongolia, 203–4 (citing Chinese Year Book, 1938, 321–2); China Weekly Review, April 7, 1936: 227, April 25: 270; Baabar, Twentieth-Century Mongolia, 347–8. The treaty was signed by Amar (head of state) and Genden (prime minister), but not long after the signing, Amar displaced Genden, whom the Mongol leadership resolved to send to Moscow as ambassador. Genden, upon arrival, would refuse to take up the post and would be sent to Crimea on “medical leave,” effectively taken hostage. RGANI, f. 89, op. 63, d. 21, l. 1–3, d. 25, l. 1; Dashpürev and Soni, Reign of Terror in Mongolia.
309. Stalin’s informal adviser Varga had been propagating the thinking that “the imperialists” might go after each other. Varga, “Konets Locarno.” Mistakenly, George Kennan surmised that Stalin had decided upon a great purge of the upper ranks (his potential opposition) following the March 1936 German reoccupation of the Rhineland, in order to gain a free hand to deal with Germany. But in foreign policy he already had a free hand, and the terror was not a single decision. Kennan, Russia and the West, 286–90. Kennan’s argument was repeated by Ulam, Stalin, 404–7.
310. DDF, 2e série, II: 15–6 (April 1, 1936).
