the governments. The Foreign Ministry remained
from 1944 to 1954 in the hands of the MRP,
alternately in the charge of Georges Bidault and
Robert Schuman.
Against the disasters of the colonial wars have
to be set the success of the Fourth Republic’s
West European policies, and the conciliation and
practical cooperation of France and the Benelux
countries with their former enemies, the Federal
Republic of Germany and Italy. During the years
of the Fourth Republic, the Christian Social
Democratic leaders of West Germany, Italy and
France, Adenauer, de Gasperi and Schuman, laid
the foundations for the new economic and polit-
ical relations of the principal Western Europe
nations, which proved so powerful a force in pro-
moting their mutual economic growth and pros-
perity, and settled their historic and territorial
enmities.
The French recognised that the imbalance in
Europe had only been temporarily solved by
Germany’s defeat. German vitality would lead, so
the French feared, to a resurgence of power and a
renewed threat of aggression. De Gaulle at first
followed past traditions in maintaining the
‘French thesis’ that even after the East–West divi-
sion of Germany, West Germany would need to
be curbed further and permanently. In the wider
European context he saw the continued need for
an Eastern link with Russia. In the treatment of
occupied Germany the French stubbornly resisted
the Anglo-American efforts to bring the Western
occupation zones together and to centralise
their administration. What is more, the French
demanded the economic detachment of the Ruhr
and the Saar from West Germany, and some form
of internationalisation of the industrial Ruhr. The
Cold War, and the resulting American and British
military presence on the continent of Europe,
shattered de Gaulle’s vision, shared for a time by
many French ministers after his withdrawal in
1946, that France could be the dominant conti-
nental West European state, acting as arbiter
between East and West. Instead, the French risked
total isolation. They therefore went along with
Anglo-American plans put forward at the London
Conference in 1948 on the future of Germany. A
West German state would be created with a fed-
eral constitution; safeguards would remain, espe-
cially Allied supervision of heavy industry, coal,
iron and steel in the industrial Ruhr complex. But
the US and Britain, for whom the occupation was
proving a costly strain, were determined to help
West Germany to recover economically and to sta-
bilise it politically and socially. With the continued
threat from the Soviet Union, a chaotic and dis-
satisfied West Germany could be dangerous. The
French accepted the need for change.
In September 1949 the federal West German
state came into being, its government, however,
still subject to some Allied supervision and con-
trols. The occupation of the French zone came to
an end. France would have to find a new way of
living with its powerful neighbour.
France’s foreign policy adjusted to the
changed international conditions of the Cold War
and the revival of West Germany with difficulty
and only after fierce debates in the National
Assembly, which had to ratify the treaties
embodying the shift in France’s position. In 1949
France agreed to become a founding member of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, but the
spectre of Germany was what most concerned
the French. Would Germany be built up militar-
ily by the Americans and also become a member
of NATO, eventually overshadowing France?
Despite Schuman’s robust rejection of such a pos-
sibility ‘even in the future’, and his insistence that
Germany would remain disarmed, others saw the
writing on the wall. The debates in the National
Assembly show how far France was from recon-
ciliation with Germany.
There was also another current at work, the
call for a federation of Europe – a cause strongly
espoused by Winston Churchill. The ideal of a
united Europe was appealing, especially to a
younger generation seeking an escape from the
recent past. The high point of the European
movement was reached at The Hague Congress
in May 1948, but practical results were few.
In May 1949 ten West European governments
agreed to set up the Council of Europe, the
purpose of which was to achieve a greater unity
between its members. There was to be no pooling
of sovereignty, however. The Council’s work was
largely confined in the 1950s to cultural spheres.518 THE RECOVERY OF WESTERN EUROPE IN THE 1950s AND 1960s