The Franco-Belgian Alliance continued

Cook

Cook

Banned
What if the Franco-Belgian Alliance continued?

We’ve had various threads bouncing around concerning different possibilities for the Western Front 1939-40 here lately and they’ve inspired me to pose a question. Historically France and Belgium had a defensive alliance from 1920 until 1936 when the relationship broke down and Belgium reverted to neutrality.

What if Belgium had remained an ally of France? And what would have been required for this to happen?
 
Last edited:

Starkad

Well, your first problem is that the belgian objective is to avoid war, period.
While french objective is that the war - when it comes - will be fought outside france.
A major reason the belgians opted out, is that they lost confidence in french foreign policy. Specifically french attempts to find allies in eastern europe was seen as increasing the risk of war, rather than reducing it.

Also the alliance was unpopular in the vlaams speaking population, as it was seen to guarentee the french speakers would always win out.
 
Cook

Cook

Banned
Starkad said:
Well, your first problem is that the belgian objective is to avoid war, period.
While french objective is that the war - when it comes - will be fought outside france.
A major reason the belgians opted out, is that they lost confidence in french foreign policy. Specifically french attempts to find allies in eastern europe was seen as increasing the risk of war, rather than reducing it.

Also the alliance was unpopular in the vlaams speaking population, as it was seen to guarentee the french speakers would always win out.
Click to expand...
But France’s alliances with Eastern European countries in the Little Entente all dated back to 1920-21, and with Poland from 1921; they were coincident with the Franco-Belgian alliance. If anything France was losing allies, they lost Poland in 1934 when the Poles lost confidence that the French would fight Germany on their behalf. They were hunkering down behind the Maginot Line in the face of the threat of a resurgent Germany and adopting Appeasement: Peace at any price.
 

Flubber

Banned
Cook said:
If anything France was losing allies, they lost Poland in 1934 when the Poles lost confidence that the French would fight Germany on their behalf. They were hunkering down behind the Maginot Line in the face of the threat of a resurgent Germany and adopting Appeasement: Peace at any price.
Click to expand...


I would think that's the nub of the problem. France just wasn't projecting the confidence or competence her allies required and they grew understandably nervous. Also, if France was choosing to first accommodate and then appease Germany, why shouldn't the other smaller powers do the same?

Because I know very little about French domestic politics during the period other than the fact that there was almost constant political turmoil, I don't know how some kind of stability could have occurred. On the foreign policy side of things, I believe if France had been able to prevail or perceived to prevail on some major international issue her allies would be less nervous.

Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland comes first to mind. I know the French reaction to that move was made primarily on an economic basis; France believed they'd need to fully mobilize and simply could not afford the economic dislocation such a mobilization would spark. If you juggle the economic situation somehow or have the French general staff believe full mobilization wouldn't be necessary, you might be able to give France a foreign policy success which would soothe the nerves of both France and her allies.

I'm sure other, more knowledgeable people will be able to come up with more plausible scenarios however.
 

philjd

If the Frencjh promised to install (and pay for) an extension to the maginot line that included the Belgian/German border, then perhaps, perhaps, the Belgians might go for it.
Of course, it would, ordinarily, be staffed by the Belgians...
 

James1010

The French mindset needed to evolve differently. If they had maintained their aggressive diplomatic ideas Belgium would not have been the only little ally to remain solvent aka; Czech, etc. A larger Allied coalition would have made it progressively harder for Hitler to convince the anti-war elements in Germany to back the hyper-aggressive foreign policy advocated by Hitler, Goring etc.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top