France and Britain
法国与英国
The position of both France and Britain in the face of this gathering storm was one of acute and increasing difficulty. Although there were many important differences between them, both were liberal-capitalist democracies which had been badly hurt by the war, which were unable (despite their best efforts) to recover in any sustained way the rosy Edwardian political economy of their memories, which felt under large and growing pressure from the labor movement at home, and which possessed a public opinion eager to avoid another conflict and overwhelmingly concerned with domestic, “social” issues rather than foreign affairs. This is by no means to say that the diplomacy of London and Paris was identical; because of their quite different geographical-strategical positions, and the varying pressures brought to bear upon their respective governments, the two democracies frequently differed about how to handle the “German problem. ”92 But while they quarreled as to the means, both were unanimous over the end; in the troubled post-1919 years, France and Britain were unquestionably status quo powers.
法国和英国面临着一场即将来临的风暴，两国处境变得日趋险恶和艰难。尽管两国之间在许多方面存在着严重分歧，但两国都是自由的资本主义民主国家，在第一次世界大战中都饱受创伤，它们都未能（尽管他们已尽了最大努力）持续不断地恢复它们记忆中美好的爱德华时代的政治经济状况。两国都感到国内工人运动的沉重和日益增长的压力，公众舆论迫切要求避免另一次冲突，它们全力关心的是内政、“社会”问题，而不是外交事务。这绝不是说伦敦和巴黎的外交政策是一致的。由于两国所处的地理战略位置不同，双方政府所受的压力是不同的，这两个民主国家在如何处理“德国问题”上常常出现分歧。不过，尽管它们在处理手段上争论不休，但最终目的还是一致的。在1919年后的动乱年代中，法国和英国无疑是两个维持现状的强国。
At the beginning of the 1930s, it was France which seemed the stronger and the more influential, at least on the all-important European scene. Throughout these years it possessed the second-largest army among the Great Powers (after the Soviet Union) and also the second-largest air force (again, the Russian totals were larger). Diplomatically, it was immensely influential, especially at Geneva and in eastern Europe. It had suffered severe economic turbulence in the years immediately following 1919, when the franc had to readjust to the awkward facts that it could no longer rely upon Anglo-American subsidies and that German reparations would be far less than expected. But Poincaré’s 1926 stabilization of the currency found French industry in the middle of a remarkable boom; pig-iron production soared from 3. 4 million tons in 1920 to 10. 3 million tons in 1929, steel output from 3 to 9. 7 million, automobiles from 40,000 to 254,000; while chemicals, dyestuffs, and electrical products had all escaped from the pre-war German domination. The favorable fixing of the franc helped French trade, and the Bank of France’s large stockpile of gold gave it an influence throughout central and eastern Europe. Even when the “Great Crash” came, France seemed the least affected—partly because of its gold holdings and advantageously placed currency, partly because the French economy was much less dependent upon the international market than, say, Britain’s. 93 After 1933, however, the French economy began to collapse in a steady, systematic, frightening way. The vain attempts to avoid a devaluation of the franc when all of the other major trading countries had gone “off” gold meant that French exports became less and less competitive, and its foreign trade collapsed: “imports went down by 60 percent and exports by 70 percent. ”94 After some years of paralysis, the 1935 decision to deflate heavily dealt a blow to the sagging French industrial sector, which was further hit when the 1936 Popular Front administration forced through a forty-hour working week and an increase in wages. That action, and the massive devaluation of the franc in October 1936, accelerated the already enormous flow of gold out of France, badly hurting its international credit. In the agriculture sector, which still employed half of the French nation, and whose yields were still the least efficient in western Europe, surplus production kept prices down and worsened the already low per capita income, a trend accelerated by the drift back to the villages of those losing their jobs in industry; the only (very dubious) benefit of this return to the land was that, as in Italy, it disguised the true level of unemployment. Housebuilding fell off dramatically. The newer industries, like automobiles, stagnated in France just as they were recovering elsewhere. In 1938, the franc was only 36 percent of its 1928 level, French industrial production was only 83 percent of that a decade earlier, steel output a mere 64 percent, building 61 percent. Perhaps the most awful figure—in view of the implications for French power—was that its national income in the year of Munich was 18 percent less than that in 1929;95 and this in the face of a Germany which was fantastically more dangerous, and at a time when massive rearmament was vital.
20世纪30年代初，法国似乎更强、更有影响一些，至少在非常重要的欧洲舞台上如此。在那些岁月里，在大国中，法国拥有一支第二大的陆军（仅次于苏联），空军也占第二位（同样，苏联的飞机总数多一些）。从外交上看，法国具有巨大的影响，尤其在日内瓦和东欧。在1919年以后的几年里，法国经受了严重的经济动荡，被迫重新调整法郎以适应下述严峻的现实：法国不能再依赖英美的援助，德国的战争赔款远远少于所期望的数量。但是，1926年普恩加莱[4]所实行的稳定货币的政策，使法国工业走上了腾飞的道路：生铁产量从1920年的340万吨猛增到1929年的1030万吨，钢产量从300万吨增加到970万吨，汽车从4万辆上升到25.4万辆；化工、染料和电器产品都打破了战前德国的垄断局面。法郎的有效稳定帮助了法国的贸易，法兰西银行中大量的黄金储备使法国的影响遍及整个中欧和东欧。甚至当“大萧条”发生时，法国受到的影响似乎最小——这一方面是由于法国手里握有大量的黄金，同时有效地调整了货币；另一方面是法国经济不像其他国家（如英国）那样严重依赖国际市场。
After 1933, however, the French economy began to collapse in a steady, systematic, frightening way. The vain attempts to avoid a devaluation of the franc when all of the other major trading countries had gone “off” gold meant that French exports became less and less competitive, and its foreign trade collapsed: “imports went down by 60 percent and exports by 70 percent. ”94 After some years of paralysis, the 1935 decision to deflate heavily dealt a blow to the sagging French industrial sector, which was further hit when the 1936 Popular Front administration forced through a forty-hour working week and an increase in wages. That action, and the massive devaluation of the franc in October 1936, accelerated the already enormous flow of gold out of France, badly hurting its international credit. In the agriculture sector, which still employed half of the French nation, and whose yields were still the least efficient in western Europe, surplus production kept prices down and worsened the already low per capita income, a trend accelerated by the drift back to the villages of those losing their jobs in industry; the only (very dubious) benefit of this return to the land was that, as in Italy, it disguised the true level of unemployment. Housebuilding fell off dramatically. The newer industries, like automobiles, stagnated in France just as they were recovering elsewhere. In 1938, the franc was only 36 percent of its 1928 level, French industrial production was only 83 percent of that a decade earlier, steel output a mere 64 percent, building 61 percent. Perhaps the most awful figure—in view of the implications for French power—was that its national income in the year of Munich was 18 percent less than that in 1929;95 and this in the face of a Germany which was fantastically more dangerous, and at a time when massive rearmament was vital.
然而，1933年后，法国经济开始发生逐步的、系统的、可怕的崩溃。当其他主要贸易国“抛售”黄金时，法国试图避免法郎的贬值是徒劳无益的。这就意味着法国的出口产品越来越没有竞争能力，外贸崩溃了：“进口额下降了60%，出口额下降了70%。”经过几年的瘫痪之后，1935年紧缩通货的决定又给奄奄一息的法国工业部门以沉重的一击；1936年人民阵线政府强迫执行一周40小时工作制和增加工资的决定，又进一步打击了工业部门。这一情况连同1936年10月法郎的严重贬值，加速了已开始的黄金大量外流，严重损害了法国的国际信贷。在农业部门，法国还有一半人口从事农业，而其产量在西欧仍然是最低的。过剩的生产使价格下跌，因而又进一步恶化了已经较低的人均收入，失业的工业人口流回农村也加速了这种趋势的发展，回乡种地的唯一好处（非常令人怀疑的好处），就是掩盖了失业的真实人数，像在意大利发生的一样；建筑业急剧衰落；新兴工业，如汽车制造业，在别的国家正在复苏，而在法国却处于停滞状态。1938年，法郎的价值只是1928年的36%，法国工业生产只是10年前的83%，钢产量和建筑面积仅为10年前的64%和61%。考虑到法国作为一个“大国”的含义，也许最令人生畏的数字是，在签订《慕尼黑协定》的那一年，法国国民收入比1929年下降了18%，而这种情况是在德国变得越来越危险的时刻发生的，大规模扩充军备是生命攸关的。
It would be very easy, therefore, to explain the collapse of French military effectiveness in the 1930s solely in economic terms. Aided by the relative prosperity of the late 1920s, and worried about clandestine German rearmament, France had sharply increased her defense expenditures (especially upon the army) in the budget years 1929–1930 and 1930–1931. Alas, the false hopes placed in the Geneva disarmament talks, followed by the effects of the depression; both had their toll. By 1934, defense expenditures still represented the 4. 3 percent of national income which they had done in 1930–1931, but the absolute sum was over 4 million francs less, since the economy was sinking so fast. 96 Although the Popular Front government of Léon Blum sought to reverse this decline in arms expenditures, it was not until 1937 that the 1930 defense estimates were exceeded—and most of that increase went into repairing the more obvious deficiencies in the field army, and into further fortifications. In these critical years, therefore, Germany bounded ahead, both economically and militarily:
所以，单从经济上来解释20世纪30年代法国军事力量崩溃的原因是非常容易的。20年代末，法国得益于相对的繁荣，并由于担心德国暗中重整军备，因而在1929～1930年和1930～1931年两个财政年度里，急剧地增加了国防开支（特别是增加了陆军的开支）。可悲的是，法国对日内瓦裁军谈判还抱有不切实际的幻想，随后又受到经济萧条的影响，这些都使法国付出了惨重的代价。1934年，法国国防开支仍占国民收入的4.3%，与1930～1931年相同，但因为经济衰落迅猛异常，绝对数减少了400多万法郎。尽管莱昂·勃鲁姆[5]的人民阵线政府试图扭转军费开支下降的局面，但直到1937年才突破了1930年的国防预算，增加的军费大部分用来弥补陆军野战部队的明显缺额以及进一步构筑工事。而在这些危机的年月里，德国在经济和军事上都向前迈进了一大步：
France had fallen behind Britain and Germany in automobile production; it had slumped into fourth place in aircraft manufacturing, from first to fourth in less than a decade; its steel production had increased by a miserly 30 percent between 1932 and 1937, compared to the 300 percent increase enjoyed by German industry; its coal production showed a significant decline over the same five-year period, a development which is largely explained by the return of the Saar coal fields in early 1935 and the consequent increase in German production. 97
在汽车生产上，法国落后于英国和德国；在飞机制造上，法国在不到10年的时间里，从第一位迅速下降到第四位；其钢产量在1932～1937年只可怜地增加了30%，而德国的工业生产却增长了300%；法国煤的生产在这5年内更是严重下降，而德国的煤炭生产却是持续增长的，大多数人认为其原因是由于1935年初萨尔煤田还给了德国。
With this swiftly weakening economy, and with the debt charges and the outlay for 1914–1918 war pensions composing half the total public expenditure, it was impossible for France to reequip its three armed forces satisfactorily even when, as in 1937 and 1938, it spent over 30 percent of its budget upon defense. Ironically, the ungrateful French navy was probably the best catered for, and possessed a wellbalanced and modern fleet by 1939—which was of little help in stemming a German blow on land. Of all the services, the most badly affected was the French air force, which was continually starved of funds and for which a small-scale, scattered aeronautics industry eked out a living by producing a mere fifty or seventy planes a month between 1933 and 1937, about one-tenth of the German total. In 1937, for example, Germany built 5,606 aircraft, whereas France produced only 370 (or 743, depending upon the source one uses). 98 Only in 1938 did the government begin pouring money into the aircraft industry, thus producing all the inevitable bottlenecks which come with a too-sudden expansion, not to mention the design— and flying—difficulties caused by the move to newer, high-performance aircraft. The first eighty of the promising Dewoitine 520 fighters were accepted by the air force only in January-April 1940, for example, and its pilots were just beginning to practice flying the plane, when the Blitzkrieg struck. 99
由于经济迅速衰落，债务负担和1914～1918年战争抚恤金又占了公共开支总额的一半，因此，当1937年和1938年法国把预算的30%用于国防上时，它已经不可能令人满意地重新装备三军部队了。具有讽刺意味的是，没有太大贡献的海军的装备大概是最好的，到1939年，它已拥有一支均衡发展的现代化的舰队。但它在对付德国的陆上打击时却无济于事。在各军种中，受影响最严重的是法国空军，其资金一直匮乏，靠一个规模小而分散的航空工业勉强维持，在1933～1937年每月只能生产50到70架飞机，这大约是德国每月飞机总产量的l/10。例如，1937年德国生产了5606架飞机，而法国却只生产了370架（资料来源不同，也有说是743架）。只是在1938年，法国政府才开始把资金倾注到航空工业上，由于突如其来的膨胀，故不可避免地引起各个环节上的堵塞，更不用说由于要换装新型、高性能的飞机而引起的设计和试飞的困难。例如，1940年1～4月，法国空军只收到原先定购的520架“德瓦蒂纳”式战斗机中的首批80架飞机，而当法国飞行员刚刚开始练习试飞时，德军的“闪电战”就开始了。
But behind these economic and production difficulties, most historians concede, lay deeper-seated social and political problems. Shocked by the losses of the Great War, depressed by repeated economic blows and disappointments, divided by class and ideological concerns which intensified as politicians struggled unsuccessfully with the problems of devaluation, deflation, the forty-hour work week, higher taxes, and rearmament, French society witnessed a severe collapse in public morale and cohesion as the 1930s advanced. Far from producing a union sacrée, the rise of fascism in Europe had caused—at least by the time of the Spanish Civil War— further divisions of French opinion, with the extreme right preferring (as the street chant went) Hitler to Blum, and with many among the left disliking both a rise in arms spending and the proposed abrogation of the forty-hour week. Such ideological clashes interacted with the volatility of the parties and the chronic instability of French interwar governments (twenty-four changes between 1930 and 1940) to give the impression of a society sometimes on the brink of civil war. At the very least, it was hardly capable of standing up to Hitler’s bold moves and to Mussolini’s distractions. 100
许多历史学家承认，在这些经济和生产困难后面，还隐藏着更深刻的社会和政治问题。由于法国在第一次世界大战中遭到令人震惊的惨重损失，又为不断的经济打击而感到沮丧，政治家未能成功地战胜货币贬值、通货紧缩、每周40小时工作制、高税收和扩充军备等问题，这使得各个阶级和各种意识形态之间的相互关系更加紧张，到了30年代后期，法国社会在公共道义和团结方面发生了严重的崩溃。结果，法西斯主义在欧洲的崛起，至少到西班牙内战爆发时，非但在法国远未产生神圣的联合，而且还造成了法国舆论进一步的分裂：极右派宁愿要希特勒，而不要勃鲁姆（如他们在街上高喊的那样），而左派中的许多人既不支持军费开支的增长，也不支持取消每周40小时工作制的提议。这些意识形态的冲突使党派变化无常，使两次大战之间的法国政府处于长期的不稳定状态中（1930～1940年政府更换了24次），因此所造成的印象是，法国社会有时已濒临内战的边缘。无论如何，法国已没有能力承受希特勒的鲁莽行动和墨索里尼的精神错乱。
As so often before in French politics, all this affected civil-military relations and the standing of the army in society. 101 But quite apart from the general atmosphere of suspicion and gloom in which France’s leaders had to operate, there existed a whole array of specific weaknesses. No effective body existed, like the Committee of Imperial Defence or the Chiefs of Staff Sub-Committee in Great Britain, to bring together the military and the nonmilitary branches of government for strategic planning in a systematic way, or even to coordinate the views of the rival services. The leading figures in the army, Gamelin, Georges, Weygand, and (in the background) Pétain, were in their sixties and seventies, defensive-minded, cautious, uninterested in tactical innovations. While flatly rejecting de Gaulle’s proposals for a smaller, modernized, tank army, they did not themselves grapple with alternative ways of using the newer weapons of war. The policy of combined arms was not practiced. Problems of battle control and communications (e. g. , by radio) were ignored. The role of aircraft was downgraded. Although French intelligence provided lots of information about what the Germans were thinking, it was all ignored; there was open disbelief in the efficacy of using large-scale armored formations, as the Germans were doing in their maneuvers; and all the copies of translations of Guderian’s Achtung Panzer sent to every garrison library in France remained unread. 102 What this meant was that even when French industry was galvanized into producing considerable numbers of tanks—many, like the SOMUA- 35, of very good quality—there was no proper doctrine for their use. 103 Given such failures in command and training, it was going to be extraordinarily difficult for the French army to compensate for the country’s sociopolitical malaise and economic decline if ever it came to another great war.
同以前法国政治中常出现的情况一样，所有这一切都影响了军民关系以及军队在社会上的地位。但是，除了法国领导人不得不在其中工作的那种怀疑和沮丧的普遍气氛之外，还存在着以下一些具体弱点：没有一个像英国的帝国国防委员会或参谋长小组委员会那样有效的机构，来把政府中的军事部门和非军事部门联系在一起，以便系统地制订战略计划，或者协调军种之间的相互竞争。军队领导人物，如甘末林、乔治、魏刚和（在幕后的）贝当，年龄大都在六七十岁，都主张防御，个个谨小慎微，对战术革新毫无兴趣。他们不但拒绝了戴高乐关于建立一支小规模现代化坦克部队的建议，而且他们自己也不肯尽力去抓在战争中采用新式武器和新的作战方法等问题。合成兵种政策未付诸实施，作战控制和通信（例如无线电通信）中存在的问题被忽略了，飞机的作用下降了。尽管法国情报部门提供了很多关于“德国人正在考虑什么”的情报，但这些情报都被忽视了；人们对运用大规模装甲部队（如德国人在军事演习中所做的那样）的有效性表示公开怀疑；德军将领古德里安著的《小心，坦克》的多种译本都送到了法国各驻军的图书馆里，但却无人阅读。这说明，当法国工业受到刺激而生产出数目可观的坦克（很多坦克质量都是上乘的，如索米亚-35型坦克）时，却还没有与之相适应的作战理论来指导坦克的使用。一旦再发生一场大战，那么，法国军队想弥补社会政治的弊端和经济的衰退将是极其困难的。
Nor could such weaknesses be overcome, as was the case prior to 1914, by successes in French diplomacy and an advantageous alliance strategy. On the contrary, as the 1930s unfolded, the contradictions in France’s external policy became more open. The first of these had already been there, of course, in the irreconcilability of the post-Locarno adoption of the strategic defensive behind the Maginot Line, and the desire to stop German expansion in eastern Europe, if need be by going forward to aid France’s continental allies as the treaties demanded. The German recovery of the Saarland in 1935 and Hitler’s reoccupation of the demilitarized Rhineland zone made a French advance less possible, even had its army leaders been willing to contemplate offensive operations. But that was nothing to the blows which rained upon France’s diplomatic and strategic position in 1936: the quarrel over the Abyssinian Crisis with Italy, turning the latter from a potential ally against Germany into a potential foe; the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, with its prospect of another fascist power being established in France’s rear; and Belgium’s withdrawal into neutrality, with its strategical implications. At the end of that calamitous year, France could no longer concentrate upon its northeast frontier alone; and the idea of its rushing into the Rhineland in order to help an eastern ally had become remote. At the time of the Munich crisis, therefore, many leading Frenchmen were petrified at the prospect of having to fulfill their obligation to Czechoslovakia. 104 Finally, once the Munich agreement had been signed, Paris found the USSR much more hostile to collaboration with the West, and unwilling any longer to take seriously the Franco-Russian pact of 1935.
同1914年以前的情形一样，法国在外交上的成功和一个有利的联盟战略都不能克服这些弱点。相反，随着30年代序幕的拉开，法国对外政策中的矛盾变得更加公开化。当然，第一个矛盾是，《洛迦诺条约》签订后，法国在马其诺防线后采取的战略防御，同按照条约要求法国阻止德国向东欧扩张，必要时出国援助其大陆盟国这样一种愿望，形成尖锐对立。1935年德国收复了萨尔区，重新占领了莱茵兰非军事区。这使法国向国外进攻的可能性更小了，即使法军领导者愿意采取进攻作战的话。但是，这些同1936年法国在外交和战略地位上遭到的接连不断的打击相比，简直算不了什么，这些打击包括：同意大利在阿比西尼亚危机问题上发生的争吵，这使意大利从反对德国的潜在盟国变成了潜在的敌人；西班牙内战的爆发，预示着在法国后方又建立了一个法西斯政权；比利时出于战略上的考虑，退居中立。在这不幸的一年年底，法国再也不能把注意力仅仅集中在东北边界上了，闯入莱茵兰去帮助一个东方盟国的想法已变得脱离实际了。因此，在慕尼黑危机时期，许多法国领导人对于他们要对捷克斯洛伐克履行义务的前景感到惊恐万分。最后，一旦《慕尼黑协定》签订了，巴黎发现，苏联对于同西方合作怀有更深的敌意，不再愿意认真履行1935年签订的《法苏条约》了。
In such gloomy diplomatic, military, and economic circumstances, it was scarcely surprising that French strategy essentially came to rest upon gaining full-scale British support in any future war with Germany. There were obvious economic reasons for this. France was heavily dependent upon imported coal (30 percent), copper (100 percent), oil (99 percent), rubber (100 percent), and other vital raw materials, much of which came from the British Empire and was carried by the British merchant fleet. If “total war” came, the sagging franc might again need the Bank of England’s help to pay its way in the world; indeed, by 1936–1937, France already felt heavily dependent upon Anglo-American financial support. 105 Conversely, only with the Royal Navy’s aid could Germany once more be cut off from overseas supplies. By the late 1930s, the assistance of the Royal Air Force was also required—as was the commitment of a fresh British expeditionary force. In all these respects, it has been argued, there was a long-term logic in the French policy of strategic passivism; assuming that any German strike on the west could be halted as in 1914, the superior resources of the Anglo-French empires would eventually prevail—and no doubt also compel the recovery of the Czech and Polish territories temporarily lost in the east. 106
在外交、军事和经济这样不景气的情况下，法国的战略实际上是希望在未来同德国的战争中全面依赖英国的支持，这不足为奇，其中显然有很多经济上的原因。法国严重依赖进口煤（30%）、铜（100%）、石油（99%）、橡胶（100%）和其他重要原材料，其中大部分原料来自大英帝国，并且靠英国商船队运输。如果“总体战”发生，疲软的法郎又将需要英格兰银行的资助才能在世界上勉强维持。的确，到1936～1937年，法国已经严重依赖于英国和美国的财政支持了。反过来说，法国只有在英国皇家海军的援助下，才能再次切断德国来自海外的供应。到30年代末，法国也要求英国皇家空军提供援助，而援助法国也成了英国新远征军的任务。从各个方面来说，一般认为，法国的战略被动主义政策有其长期的逻辑性，假设德国对西方的任何攻击能像1914年那样被阻止，那么，英法帝国拥有的优势资源最终将占上风，而且毫无疑问，会使捷克和波兰在东部暂时失去的领土得到恢复。
Yet it could hardly be said that this French strategy of “waiting for Britain” was an unqualified blessing. Obviously, it handed the initiative to Hitler, who after 1934 repeatedly showed that he knew how to take it. In addition, it tied France’s hands (although there is considerable evidence that people like Bonnet and Gamelin preferred to be so constrained). Since 1919, the British had been urging the French to adopt a softer, more conciliatory policy toward Germany and strongly disliked what they perceived to be Gallic intransigence; and for years after Hitler’s seizure of power, both Britain’s government and its people exhibited little appreciation of France’s security dilemma. More specifically, the British strongly disapproved of French military commitments to the “successor states” of eastern Europe, and when Anglo-French cooperation became unavoidable, they pressured Paris to repudiate its obligations. Even before the Czech crisis, Britain had dislocated and undermined the old, hard-line French policy toward Berlin—without, however, offering anything substantive in its place. Only in the spring of 1939 did the two countries really come together into a proper military alliance, and even then their mutual political suspicions had not fully dissolved. 107 As we shall see below, it seems fair to argue that Albion was not so much “perfidious” as it was myopic, wishful-thinking, and obsessed with a score of domestic and imperial problems; but that merely confirms the fact that it was a weak and uncertain reed for French policy to rest upon if German expansionism was to be contained.
法国“等待英国”的战略很难说是一件好事。显然，这是把主动权拱手让给希特勒。1934年后，希特勒不断显示出他懂得如何争取主动。此外，这一战略也束缚了法国的手脚（尽管有许多证据表明，像博内和甘末林这样的人宁愿被这样束缚住）。自1919年以来，英国一直敦促法国对德国采取一种较温和的调和的政策；希特勒上台后的几年里，英国政府及其民众对法国安全上出现的困境不以为然，英国人尤其强烈反对法国对东欧“继承人国家”所承担的义务；当英法合作不可避免时，英国人向巴黎施加压力，让法国放弃它所承担的义务。甚至在捷克危机之前，英国就已经搅乱并暗中破坏法国对柏林一直推行的旧的强硬路线政策——然而，英国却没有为法国提供任何有实质内容的政策来加以代替。只是到了1939年春天，两国才真正走到一起，形成一个正式的军事同盟，即使在那时，双方之间的政治怀疑也没有消除。如我们下面将要看到的，英国虽然目光短浅，心里打着如意算盘，为一连串内政和殖民地问题所困扰，但“背信弃义”的行为并没有那么严重，这种看法似乎较为公正。但这仅仅肯定了这样的事实：即使德国的扩张主义得到遏制，英国也不过是法国政策所依靠的一根细弱的摇摆不定的墙头草。
Perhaps the greatest miscalculation of France was that Britain in the late 1930s was as capable of helping check the German challenge as it had been in 1914. Britain was still a considerable power, of course, enjoying many strategical advantages and with a manufacturing output and industrial potential twice as large as France’s; but its own position, too, was less substantial and assured than it had been two decades earlier. Psychologically, the British nation had been badly scarred by the First World War and disenchanted by the fruitlessness (so far as the populace could see it) of the “Carthaginian” peace which followed. This public turnaway from militarism, continental involvements, and any concern for the balance of power coincided both with the full advent of parliamentary democracy (through the 1918 and 1928 franchise extensions) and with the rise of the Labour Party. Even more, perhaps, than in France, national politics in these decades seemed to revolve around the “social” question—a fact reflected in the small amount (10. 5 percent) of public expenditure being devoted to the armed forces by 1933 compared with the sums allocated the social services (46. 6 percent). 108 This was not a climate, Baldwin and Chamberlain frequently reminded their Cabinet colleagues, in which votes could be gained by interfering in the intractable problems of east-central Europe, whose boundaries were (in Whitehall’s eyes) less than sacred.
对法国来说，也许最大的失算是他们以为在30年代末期，英国还能够像1914年那样来帮助法国制止德国的挑战。当然，英国仍然是一个具有相当实力的大国，享有许多战略优势，在制造业的产量和工业潜力上是法国的两倍。但英国本身的地位同20年前相比，已经不大稳固了，而且有点自身难保。第一次世界大战给英国国民的心理带来了巨大的创伤，他们对随后而来的、毫无成果的“迦太基式”和平（就平民大众所能看到的）不再抱有幻想。英国公众厌恶军国主义，讨厌英国卷入欧洲大陆事务，不再关心大国间的力量对比问题，这些倾向同议会民主以崭新的面貌出现（通过1918～1928年公民权的扩大）以及工党的崛起完全合拍。也许，英国这几十年的政治同法国相比似乎更多的是围绕着“社会”问题——其中一个事实是用于武装部队的开支在1933年只占公共开支的很小一部分（10.5%），而社会服务却占了46.6%。鲍尔温[6]和张伯伦[7]经常向他们的内阁同僚提醒说，通过干涉中欧东部国家的一些难以处理的问题来获得选票，这不是一种好风气（在白厅看来），这些国家的边界并不是神圣不可侵犯的。
Even to those political groups and strategic planners who concerned themselves more with foreign affairs than with social issues or electoral maneuvering, the post- 1919 international scene suggested caution and noncommitment. As soon as the war was over, the self-governing dominions had pressed for a redefinition of their status. When that had been effected, through the 1926 Balfour Declaration and the 1931 Statute of Westminister, they had evolved into virtually independent states, with (if they wished) separate foreign policies. None of them was eager to fight over European issues; some, like Eire, South Africa, and even Canada, were reluctant to fight over anything. If Britain wished to maintain the image of imperial unity, it followed that it could go to war only over an issue which would attract the support of the dominions; and even when such separatism was modified as the threat from Germany, Italy, and Japan increased, London remained aware of the important extra-European dimension to all its foreign-policy decisions. 109 More important still, in strictly military terms, were the “imperial-policing” activities in which the British army, and also the RAF, were engaged in India, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, and elsewhere. For much of the interwar years, in fact, the British army found itself reverting to a Victorian role: the Russian threat to India was perceived as the greatest (if rather abstract) strategic danger; and keeping the natives quiet was the day-to-day operational activity. 110 Finally, this imperial strand in British grand strategy was powerfully reinforced by the Royal Navy’s obsession with sending a “main fleet to Singapore” and with Whitehall’s justifiable concern about defending its distant and vulnerable possessions against the Japanese. 111
即使对那些关心外交事务甚于关心社会问题或选举活动的政治集团和战略计划制订者来说，1919年以后的国际舞台也意味着小心翼翼和不负责任。战争一结束，那些自治领就迫切要求重新确立自己的地位。当这一要求根据1926年的《贝尔福宣言》和1931年的《威斯敏斯特法》得到实施时，这些自治领实际上已成为独立国家，（如果它们愿意的话）还可以享有自己独立的外交政策。没有一个自治领热衷于为欧洲的争端而战，某些自治领，如爱尔兰、南非甚至加拿大，不情愿为任何问题而战。如果英国希望维持帝国大一统的形象，那么它只能在可以获得自治领支持的争端上参战；即使在由于来自德国、意大利和日本的威胁与日俱增，从而促使英国的这种孤立主义有所缓和时，伦敦仍然意识到这一重要的欧洲附属部分在其所有外交决策中的分量。从严格的军事意义来说，更为重要的是英国陆军以及皇家空军在印度、伊拉克、埃及、巴勒斯坦和其他地区的“帝国警察”行动。事实上，在两次世界大战之间的大部分年头里，英国陆军又回复到维多利亚时代所起的作用：视苏联对印度的威胁为严重的战略威胁（尽管这种威胁比较抽象），日常的军事活动是使当地居民保持安定。最后，英国大战略中的这一思想，由于皇家海军力主派遣一支“主力舰队到新加坡”和白厅对保护它距离遥远且容易受到日本攻击的殖民地表示合乎情理的关注而得到加强。
It was true that this strategical ambivalence of the British “Janus” was centuries old; but what was altogether more frightening was that it now had to be carried out with a much weakened industrial base. British manufacturing output had been sluggish in the 1920s, in part because of the return of sterling to the gold standard at too high a level. Although it did not suffer as dramatically as Germany and the United States, Britain’s ailing economy was shaken to its roots by the worldwide slump after 1929. Textile production, which still provided 40 percent of British exports, was cut by two-thirds; coal, which provided another 10 percent of exports, dropped by one-fifth; shipbuilding was so badly hit that in 1933 production fell to 7 percent of its prewar figure; steel production fell by 45 percent in the three years 1929–1932 and pig-iron production by 53 percent. With international trade drying up and being replaced by currency blocs, Britain’s share of global commerce continued in a downward trend, from 14. 15 percent (1913) to 10. 75 percent (1929) to 9. 8 percent (1937). Moreover, the invisible earnings from shipping, insurance, and overseas investment, which for over a century had handsomely covered the visible trade gap, no longer could do so; by the early 1930s, Britain was living on its capital. The trauma of the 1931 crisis, involving the collapse of the Labour government and the decision to go off gold, made politicians all too aware of the country’s economic vulnerability. 112
的确，英国在战略上的这种两面性有着几百年的历史。但总的说来，让人更为惶恐的是，它现在不得不在极其虚弱的工业基础上来推行这种战略。20世纪20年代，英国的制造业已陷于萧条，原因之一是英镑恢复金本位的比率太高。尽管1929年后世界范围的大萧条使英国所遭受的灾难不如德国和美国的那样巨大，但毕竟动摇了英国衰弱的经济根基。仍占英国出口40%的纺织品生产削减了2/3；占出口10%的煤下降了1/5；造船业遭到的打击最为惨重，到1933年时，其生产下降到战前的7%；钢铁生产在1929～1932年的3年里下降了45%，生铁产量下降了53%。由于国际贸易停滞并为货币集团所取代，因此，英国在全球贸易中所占份额继续呈下降趋势，从1913年的14.15%，下降到1929年的10.75%，继而下降到1937年的9.8%。此外，过去一个世纪中靠从航运、保险和海外投资所获得的无形利润来弥补相当可观的明显贸易逆差的办法，已经行不通了。到20世纪30年代初，英国只能靠其资本来维持局面。1931年危机的创伤导致了英国工党政府垮台，并使政府做出抛售黄金的决定，这使政治家们意识到国家经济的脆弱性。
To some degree, indeed, those leaders’ apprehension may have been exaggerated. By 1934, the economy was slowly beginning to recover. While older industries in the north languished, newer ones—aircraft, automobiles, petrochemicals, electrical goods—were growing. 113 Trade within the “sterling block” provided a certain crutch to British exporters. The drop in food and raw materials prices aided the British consumer. But such palliatives were not sufficient to a Treasury worried about Britain’s delicate credit abroad and about further runs on sterling. In their view, the overwhelming priority was for the country to pay its way in the world, which meant balancing the government’s books, keeping taxes to a minimum, and controlling state spending. Even when the Manchurian crisis caused the government in 1932 to give up the famous Ten-Year Rule,* the Treasury was swift to insist that “this must not be taken to justify an expanding expenditure by the Defense Services without regard to the very serious financial and economic situation which still obtains. ”114
某种程度上，这些领导人的忧虑也许被夸大了。1934年时，经济开始慢慢回升。当北方原有工业失去活力时，新兴工业——飞机、汽车、石油化工和电器产品正在兴起。“英镑集团”内的贸易给予英国出口商以一定的支持。食品和原材料价格的下降帮助了英国消费者。但是这些表面现象对财政部来说是不够的，它担心英国在海外脆弱的信誉以及挤兑英镑的情况进一步发生。在他们看来，使国家在世界上不负任何债务应是头等大事，这意味着平衡政府收支，把税收降低到最低限度，并控制国家开支。甚至当中国东北危机在1932年打破了著名的“十年规定”[8]时，英国财政部仍迫不及待地声言：“决不能将此举理解为可以不顾当前严峻的财政和经济形势而增加国防开支。”
This combination of domestic-political and economic pressures ensured that, like France, Britain was cutting its defense expenditures during the early 1930s just when the dictator states were beginning to increase theirs. Not until 1936, following several years of studying the country’s “defense deficiencies” and the twin shock of Hitler’s open rearmament followed by the Abyssinian crisis, did British spending upon the armed services take its first substantial upward rise; but that year’s allocation was less than Italy’s and only one-third or one-quarter of Germany’s. Even at that stage, Treasury controls and politicians’ worries about domestic opinion prevented full-scale rearmament, which only really began in the crisis year of 1938. Well before that date, however, the armed services were warning of the impossibility of safeguarding “our trade, territory and vital interests against Germany, Italy and Japan at the same time,” and urging the government “to reduce the number of our potential enemies and to gain the support of potential allies. ”115 In other words, diplomacy—the diplomacy of appeasement—was required in order to defend this economically weakened, strategically overstretched empire from threats in the Far East, the Mediterranean, and Europe itself. In no foreign theater of war, the chiefs of staff felt, was Britain strong enough; and even that dismal fact was overshadowed by the alarming rise of the Luftwaffe, which made the inhabitants of the island state directly vulnerable for the first time to the military operations of an enemy. 116
国内政治和经济压力交织在一起，促使英国同法国一样，在20世纪30年代初期削减了国防开支，而就在这时，独裁国家则开始增加它们的国防开支。随后，英国用了好几年时间痛苦地研究自己的“防务不足”，同时又受到希特勒公开重整军备以及阿比西尼亚危机的震动，才在1936年对军费开支首次作了实质性的增加，但那一年的军费开支还是少于意大利，仅是德国的1/3或1/4。甚至在这个阶段，由于财政部的控制和政治家们对国内舆论的担心，全面扩充军备仍然受到阻挠，直到1938年那个危机年才真正开始实施。不过，在这之前，军方早就发出警告说，他们已不可能保卫“我们的贸易、领土和重要利益，使之同时免遭德国、意大利和日本的侵犯”，并敦促政府减少“潜在的敌人，争取潜在盟国的支持”。换句话说，需要外交——绥靖外交来保卫这个经济上虚弱、战略上铺得太宽的帝国免遭来自远东、地中海以及欧洲本身的威胁。三军参谋长们认为，无论在哪个海外战区，英国都不够强大。即使这样一个阴暗的事实，也被德国空军惊人的飞速发展所掩盖了，后者使这个岛国的居民破天荒第一次直接暴露于敌人的军事打击之下。
There is some evidence that the British chiefs of staff, too, were excessively gloomy about their country’s prospects,117 like the military professionals in virtually every other state; the First World War had made them cautious and pessimistic. 118 But there was no doubt that Britain had been overtaken in the air by Germany by 1936–1937, that its minuscule long-service army could do little on the continent of Europe, and that its navy would find it impossible to control European waters and to send a main fleet to Singapore. Perhaps even more perturbing to British decisionmakers was that it was now extremely difficult to find those “potential allies” which the chiefs of staff demanded. The coalitions which Britain had woven together to counter Napoleon, the successful ententes and rapprochements which had been effected in the years after 1900, could no longer be found. Japan had drifted from being an ally to being a foe; the same had happened to Italy. Russia, the other “flank” power (to use Dehio’s term)119 which traditionally had joined Britain in opposing a continental hegemon, was now in diplomatic isolation and deeply suspicious of the western democracies. Almost as inscrutable and unpredictable, at least to frustrated Whitehall minds, was the policy of the United States in the early to middle 1930s; avoiding all diplomatic and military commitments, still unwilling to join the League, strongly opposed to the various British efforts to buy off the revisionist states (e. g. , by admitting Japan’s special place in East Asia, or offering special payments and exchange arrangements to Germany), and making it impossible—through the 1937 neutrality legislation—to borrow on the American markets in the way Britain had done to sustain its war effort between 1914 and 1917, the United States was persistently dislocating British grand strategy in the same, perhaps inadvertent, way that Britain was dislocating France’s eastern European strategy. 120 This left, then, as potential allies only France itself, and the rest of the British Empire. France’s diplomatic needs, however, drew Britain into commitments in Central Europe, which the dominions strongly opposed and which the whole structure of “imperial defense” was incapable of defending; on the other hand, the extra-European concerns of the empire took away the attention and resources required to contain the German threat. In consequence, the British during the 1930s found themselves engaged in a global diplomatic and strategical dilemma to which there was no satisfactory solution. 121
还有迹象表明，如同其他所有国家的职业军人一样，英国的三军参谋长们对自己国家的前景也是忧心忡忡。第一次世界大战使他们变得谨小慎微、悲观失望。毫无疑问，1936～1937年，在空中力量方面英国已经落后于德国；它那支微不足道的长期服役的陆军部队在欧洲大陆上起不了多大作用；同时，它的海军将不可能控制欧洲海域并把一支主力舰队派往新加坡。使英国决策者们更为不安的，也许是要找到参谋长们所企求的“潜在盟国”是极其困难的。英国为对付拿破仑而细心组成的多次联盟，1900年以后多年内达成的卓有成效的协约国和建立的友好关系，已不复存在。日本已从盟国变成了敌人，意大利也是这样。苏联，这个传统上一直同英国站在一起反对大陆霸权的“侧翼”大国（用德希奥的话说），如今在外交上陷于孤立，并且深深怀疑西方民主国家。美国，至少对受到挫折的白厅来说，其政策在20世纪30年代初期到中期变得简直不可思议、难以预料：它避免承担一切外交和军事义务，至今仍不愿意加入国际联盟，强烈反对英国为收买修正主义国家而做的各种努力（如承认日本在远东的特殊地位，向德国提供特别付款和互相交换的安排）。它通过1937年的中立法，使英国曾在1914～1917年为支持战争而采取的向美国市场借贷的方式不再适用。这样，美国固执地干扰着英国的大战略，也许是无意的，其方式如同英国干扰法国的东欧战略一样。于是，潜在的盟国只剩下法国一家和英帝国的其他自治领。然而，法国在外交上需要英国在中欧承担义务，而这是自治领所强烈反对的，也是整个“帝国防御”体系所不能承担的。另一方面，英帝国在欧洲之外的利害关系也分散了用来遏制德国威胁的注意力和资源。结果，在20世纪30年代，英国人陷入了全球外交和战略上的困境，找不到任何满意的对策。
This is not to deny that Baldwin, Chamberlain and their colleagues could have done more, or to claim that the determinants of British appeasement policy were such that all alternative policies proposed by Churchill and other critics were impracticable. There was a persistent willingness on the British government’s part, despite all the counterevidence, to trust in “reasonable” approaches toward the Nazi regime. The emotional dislike of Communism was such that Russia’s potential as a member of an antifascist coalition was always ignored or downgraded. Vulnerable eastern European states, like Czechoslovakia and Poland, were all too often regarded as nuisances, and the lack of sympathy for France’s problems showed a fatal meanness of spirit. Germany’s and Italy’s power was consistently overrated, on the basis of slim evidence, whereas all British defense weaknesses were seized upon as a reason for inaction. Whitehall’s views of the European balance of power were self-serving and short-term. Critics of the appeasement policy such as Churchill were systematically censored and neutralized, even as the government proclaimed that it could only follow (rather than give a lead to) public opinion. 122 For all the plausible, objectively valid grounds behind the British government’s desire to avoid standing up to the dictator states, therefore, there is much in its ungenerous, narrow attitude that looks dubious, even at this distance in time.
这并不是否认鲍尔温、张伯伦及其同僚们本可以有更多的建树，也不是说英国执行绥靖政策的决定性因素使丘吉尔和其他批评家所建议的别的政策方案都行不通。尽管有许多反证，但在英国政府中确实长期存在着一种对纳粹政权采取“合理的”亲近方式的意愿。对共产主义如此厌恶，使得作为反法西斯联盟潜在成员的苏联总是被忽视或贬低。脆弱的东欧国家，如捷克斯洛伐克和波兰，常常被视为讨厌的东西。对法国缺乏同情心则显示出灵魂非常卑鄙。根据不充足的证据，对德国和意大利的力量总是估计过高，而英国所有防御上的弱点都被用来作为不采取任何行动的理由。白厅关于欧洲大国均势的看法是利己的，只顾及眼前利益的。绥靖政策的批评家，如丘吉尔，受到有计划的审查和压制，而此时政府却宣称它只能顺应公众舆论（不是去引导公众舆论）。所以，在英国政府竭力避免同独裁国家发生冲突的背后，所有那些貌似有理、客观、正确的理由，在很大程度上在于英国政府长期以来看起来暧昧的狭隘心胸和短浅目光。
On the other hand, any investigation of the economic and strategical realities ought also to admit that by the late 1930s, the basic problems affecting British grand strategy were not soluble merely by a change of attitude, or even of prime ministers. Indeed, the more Chamberlain was compelled—by Hitler’s further aggressions, and by the outrage of British opinion—to abandon appeasement, the more the fundamental contradictions became evident. Though the chiefs of staff insisted upon massive increases in defense spending, the Treasury argued that such spending would be economically ruinous. Already in 1937, Britain, like France, was spending more of its GNP upon defense than either of those countries had done in the crisis years prior to 1914, but without any significant improvement in security— simply because of the far higher arms spending of the manically driven, overheated German state. But as British defense expenditures soared further—roughly, from 5. 5 percent of GNP in 1937 to 8. 5 percent in 1938, to 12. 5 percent in 1939—its delicate economy also began to suffer. Even when money was released for arms increases, the inadequacy of British industrial plant and the critical shortage of skilled engineers slowed down the hoped-for production of aircraft, tanks, and ships; but this in turn compelled the services to place ever-larger orders for weapons, sheet steel, ball bearings, and other items with neutral countries such as Sweden and the United States, which further drained foreign-currency reserves and threatened the balance of payments. As the country’s stocks of gold and dollars shrank, its international credit became shakier than ever. “If we were under the impression that we were as well able as in 1914 to conduct a long war,” the Treasury coldly pointed out in response to the fresh rearmament measures of April 1939, “we were burying our head in the sand. ”123 This was not a pleasant forecast for a power whose strategic planners assumed that they had no chance of winning a short war, but somehow hoped to prevail in a drawn-out conflict.
另一方面，通过对经济和战略现实的调查研究，也应当承认，到20世纪30年代末，影响英国大战略的主要问题仅仅靠改变态度甚至更换首相是不能解决的。张伯伦越是被迫放弃绥靖政策——由于希特勒的侵略行动得寸进尺，加上英国舆论的愤慨——根本矛盾也就显得越清楚。尽管英国三军参谋长们坚持要求大规模增加国防开支，但财政部认为这样的开支将导致经济崩溃。早在1937年，英国同法国一样，用于防务上的开支超过它们在1914年前危机时期的防务开支，但安全仍没有任何实质性的改善，原因很简单：利令智昏、头脑狂热的德国所花的军费还要比这高得多。但随着英国防务开支扶摇直上——从1937年占国民生产总值的5.5%上升到1938年的8.5%，到1939年的12.5%，其脆弱的经济也开始蒙受损失。甚至当政府花钱增加武器生产时，由于工厂不足和严重缺乏熟练工程师，而使期待已久的飞机、坦克和军舰的生产速度被迫放慢。这种情况反过来又迫使军方向中立国家，如瑞典和美国订购越来越多的武器、钢板、滚珠轴承以及其他物资，而这些订货又进一步耗费了外汇储备，使收支平衡受到威胁。由于国家黄金和美元储备减少，因此国际信誉变得更为不可靠。英国财政部对1939年4月新的军备扩充议案冷静地指出：“如果我们以为自己能够像1914年那样打一场持久战，那么我们无异于把头埋在沙子里。”对于英国这样一个大国来说（它的战略制定者设想他们没有可能赢得一场速决战，而只期望在一场持久战中取胜），这不是一个令人感到欣慰的预言。
Equally serious contradictions were also surfacing in the military sphere on the eve of war. While Britain’s 1939 decision to accept once again a formal “continental commitment” to France and its almost parallel decision to give the Mediterranean priority over Singapore in terms of naval deployments settled some long-standing strategical issues, they also left British interests in the Far East totally exposed to the next act of Japanese aggression. In a similarly contradictory way, Britain’s swift guarantees to Poland in the spring of 1939, followed by further guarantees to Greece, Rumania, and Turkey, were signs of Whitehall’s rediscovery of the importance of eastern Europe and the Balkans within the continental balance of power; but the fact was that the British armed forces had little prospect of defending those lands against determined German attack.
战争前夕，军事方面也暴露出同样严重的矛盾。1939年英国决定再次对法国正式承担“大陆义务”，同时还决定海军部署的重点在地中海，而不是新加坡，从而解决了一些长期存在的战略问题。但这样一来，英国在远东的利益就完全暴露在日本下一个侵略行动的威胁之下。同样自相矛盾的是，1939年春，英国迅速对波兰做出保证，接着又先后对希腊、罗马尼亚和土耳其做出保证，表明白厅在大国的大陆均势中再次发现了东欧和巴尔干半岛的重要意义，但事实上，一旦这些地区遭到德国人坚决的进攻，英国武装部队是无能为力的。
In sum, neither Chamberlain’s stiffer policies toward Germany after March 1939 nor even his replacement by Churchill in May 1940 “solved” Britain’s strategical and economic dilemmas; all they did was to redefine the problems. For an overstretched global empire at this late stage in its history—still controlling onequarter of the globe but with only 9 to 10 percent of its manufacturing strength and “war potential”124—both appeasement and anti-appeasement brought disadvantages; there was only a choice of evils. 125 That the right choice was made in 1939, to stand up to Hitler’s further act of aggression, is undoubted. But by that stage the balance of forces aligned against British interests in Europe and even more in the Far East had become so unfavorable that it was difficult to see how a clear-cut victory against fascism could be secured without the intervention of the neutral Great Powers. And that, too, would bring its problems.
总之，无论是1939年3月后张伯伦对德国所执行的较为强硬的政策，还是1940年5月丘吉尔取而代之，都没有“解决”英国在战略和经济上的困境，他们所做的一切不过是重新确定问题。对于一个处于其历史最后阶段的、摊子铺得过大的全球性帝国来说（这个帝国仍然控制着地球表面的l/4，但制造能力和“战争潜能”却只占世界的9%到10%），绥靖政策和反绥靖政策都有不利的后果，只能两害相权取其轻。1939年所做的决定，即抵抗希特勒的进一步侵略行动，无疑是正确的。但到那时，为反对英国在欧洲的利益，尤其是在远东的利益而结盟的力量对英国如此不利，以致没有中立大国的干预，就很难预料怎样才能确保战胜法西斯。而争取中立大国的干预，也有不少问题。