p Poland’s position was entirely different. In a conversation with Louis Barlhou in Geneva on June 4, 1934, Joseph Beck said he was sceptical of the chances of success for this Pact.^^123^^ Litvinov cabled from Geneva on the same day to say that Beck was ”against the pacts we have proposed”. On Juno 27, he stated that "Poland is the main hindrance to Ihe realisation of a regional pact".^^124^^

p The Soviet diplomacy did whatever it could to explain to the Polish government the immense importance which the Eastern Pact could have for her independence. Izvestia said on July 16, 1934, that the Eastern Pact offered Poland some real guarantees of the security of her borders which could not be regarded as sufficiently ensured by the Polish- German declaration of friendship and non-aggression. The paper expressed the hope that the Polish government "on reflection, will find this pact useful both for the Polish Republic and for universal peace".

p The position of Finland regarding the Eastern Pact was also negative. As the German Minister in Finland W. Blticher pointed out, Finland was looking at the Eastern Pact very negatively and was, on the contrary, seeking a closer relationship with the countries hostile towards the Soviet Union.^^125^^

p Right from the outset Nazi Germany set out to wreck the talks on the Eastern Pact. The German Foreign Minister von Neurath declared (if tentatively) on June 13 to Litvinov who was passing through Berlin that "the outline of the Pact is unacceptable to Germany".^^126^^ German diplomacy was frantically active against the Pact, for it could have been an obstacle in the way of the Reich’s aggressive designs. The German Foreign Ministry was summoning, one after the other, the ropresentaLives of the countries which were projected as parties to the pact. German diplomats were just as active in this subversive business in the capitals of the countries concerned.

p Barthou decided to inform Britain, too, about the plans for concluding the Pact. He passed the outline to the British on June 27. The position of Britain, which was an influential nation in Europe, was of great importance in the talks on the Pact. Had Britain supported the idea of concluding the Eastern Pact, that could have foreclosed the 62 successful outcome of the negotiations, or the more so, if she became a party to the Pact as well. While giving instructions to the Soviet Embassy in Britain for discussions with British statesmen, Litvinov wrote on June 28, 1934, that "there is no means to keep bellicose Germany in check except by concluding pacts of mutual assistance".^^127^^

p The plans for the conclusion of the Eastern Pact, howover, did not conform to the basic foreign policy concept of Britain’s ruling quarters which dreamed of turning the fascist thrust eastward.^^128^^ Therefore, the British government found itself among the opponents of the Pact right away. On June 13, 1934, the German Ambassador in London von Hoesch wrote about the results of his conversation with the British Foreign Secretary John Simon: "The inclusion of Russia in the European security combination is on the whole obviously not very congenial to him." ^^129^^

p The Soviet Embassy in London had every reason to report to Moscow, as it qualified the position of Britain, that it was one of "ill will" towards the Eastern Pact. "The Eastern Pact was to have strongly consolidated our international positions, ensured the security of our Western borders and made things easier for us in the Far East. That could not exactly delight the British government." ^^13^^° The American Baltimore Sun noted on February 13, 1935, that there were some people in Britain who hated the USSR more than they loved peace... None of those people could admire the Eastern Pact which promised peace to communist Russia at least for 10 years. None of them would regret to see Germany, Poland and Japan attack the USSR together. They would be gladly selling war equipment to them for that purpose.

p The London government did not like that the conclusion of the Eastern Pact would have strengthened the position of France, Britain’s ally. It preferred to see France dependent on Britain which offered the British government a reliable instrument of influencing all French foreign policy and, by the same token, virtually assured Britain her major role in resolving many European problems.

p Barthou made a special visit to London early in July 1934 to compel a reversal of Britain’s unfavourable attitude towards the Eastern Pact. British diplomacy ultimately decided to meet the French ally half-way nominally, but in actual reality there was nothing but a semblance of 63 British “support”. The sum and substance of British policy vva.s this: it was to make public a statement of British support for the idea of the Eastern Pact with a view to preventing the possible conclusion of a bilateral French-Soviet treaty of mutual assistance (British diplomacy was particularly averse to such a treaty), but to do everything possible to make the successful completion of negotiations on the Eastern Pact impossible by all kinds of backstage tactics. First of all, British diplomacy called for Germany to be involved in an agreement between the USSR and France on mutual assistance, although there was no doubt (rather just because of that) that Germany would not accept that proposal.

p Speaking in Parliament on July 13, the British Foreign Secretary John Simon declared that Britain supported the Eastern Pact.^^131^^ At the same time, in private conversations British government officials made it clear to the German government that they had no sympathy at all, in actual fact, for the Eastern Pact. On July 19, Simon told the German Ambassador Hoesch that "the British Government had decided to support the Pact proposals in view of the threatened alternative of a formal Franco-Russian alliance, which Britain wished to avoid in all circumstances. . .” ^^132^^

p The U.S. government was also opposed to the conclusion of the Eastern Pact. As American historian Foster Rhea Dulles pointed out in this connection, the United States of America "hoped that if war broke out in Europe, it might somehow be channeled into a crusade against Communism and accomplish the purposes which Allied intervention had failed to achieve in 1918." ^^133^^

p Without giving an official answer for the time being to the proposal to join the Eastern Pact, Germany still did not make any secret of her negative attitude to it, seeking to frustrate the Pact plans.

p The government of Poland, claiming that the pact could not be concluded without Germany, also stuck to its negative position.

p The conclusion of the Eastern Pact was to meet the national interests of the Baltic countries. But it turned out that neither France, nor Britain wished to come to their aid in the event of German aggression. For instance, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Robert Vansittart told the Secretary-General of the Ministry 64 for Foreign Affairs of Latvia V. Munters that he did not see the slightest prospect ahead for the British and French governments to assume any ohligations regarding a guarantee of the status quo in the Baltic region. ^^134^^

p In those circumstances Latvia and Estonia took up what amounted to a wait-and-see position. Lithuania alone, under an immediate threat from Nazi Germany, was the only one of the Baltic countries to have unconditionally supported the Eastern Pact.

p The new phase in the negotiations about the Eastern Pact began in the autumn of 1934. Hitler and Neurath, talking with the Polish Ambassador Lipski in Berlin on August 27, 1934, proposed secret Polish-German co-operation with the aim of preventing the conclusion of the Eastern Pact. At the same time the Nazis made clear the ground on which far-reaching Polish-German co-operation was possible. Hitler declared that if Poland’s outlet to the sea had been cut east of Eastern Prussia in Versailles in 1919, Poland and Germany would long since have been allies and Poland could be turning her eyes East.^^135^^ A few days later Lipski communicated Poland’s consent to “undeclared” co- operation with the Nazi Reich with a view to scuttling the Pact.

p On September 8, 1934, Germany sent an official memorandum to the other projected parties to the Eastern Pact announcing that she did not intend to participate in a multilateral treaty providing for mutual assistance. The German government indicated that it preferred bilateral agreements. Still, considering it politically disadvantageous to turn down unconditionally the idea of concluding a multilateral treaty at all, it expressed its consent to the signing of a treaty that would contain nothing beyond obligations about nonaggression and consultations.^^136^^

The Polish government followed in the footsteps of the Nazi Reich. On September 27, 1934, it officially declared that it could not adhere to the Eastern Pact unless Germany was in it. Poland said also that she would not bo a party to a pact together with Czechoslovakia and Lithuania.^^137^^ That was a clear indication of the Polish rulers’ ill designs in respect of those two states.