Abstract
When the European Defence Community (EDC) Treaty failed to be ratified in the French National Assembly at the end of August 1954 it was the British Government which led the Western Allies to a new security framework, thereby resolving a major crisis. In order to make German rearmament acceptable to France, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden offered a British commitment to maintain armed forces on the continent of Europe for the lifetime of the Brussels Treaty, and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer accepted limitations on the future size and weaponry of the armed forces of the Federal Republic.1 This solution has proved to be extremely stable for as long as the Soviet military threat prevailed and has provided a reliable structure for the Atlantic Alliance.
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Notes
For further reading see Paul Noack, Das Scheitern der Europäischen Verteidigungsgemeinschaft. EntScheidungsprozesse vor und nach dem 30. August 1954, Düsseldorf, Droste, 1977
Edward Fursdon, The European Defence Community. A History, London, Macmillan, 1980
Saki Dockrill: ‘The Evolution of Britain’s Policy Towards a European Army 1950–54’, in The Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, March 1989, pp. 38–62
John W. Young: ‘German Rearmament and the European Defence Community’ in John W. Young (ed.) The Foreign Policy of Churchill’s Peacetime Administration 1951–1955, Leicester University Press, 1988, pp. 81–107.
Nathan Leites, Christian de la Marlène, Paris from EDC to WEU, Research Memorandum RM-1668-RC, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, 1956
F.S. Northedge, Descent from Power. British Foreign Policy 1945–1973, London, Allen and Unwin, 1974, p.166.
Rolf Steininger, ‘Das Scheitern der EVG und der Beitritt der Bundesrepublik zur NATO’, in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parliament, B17/85, 27 April 1985, p. 17.
See for instance David Carlton, ‘Großbritannien und die Gipfeldiplomatie 1953–1955’, in Bruno Thoss and Hans-Erich Volkmann (eds), Zwischen Kaltem Krieg und Entspannung, Boppard am Rhein, Boldt Verlag, 1988, p.62.
Donald Cameron Watt, ‘Die Konservative Regierung und die EVG 1951–1954’, in Hans-Erich Volkmann and Walter Schwengler (eds), Die Europäische Verteidigungsgemeinschaft. Stand und Probleme der Forschung, Boppard am Rhein, Boldt Verlag, 1985, p. 85.
Sir Anthony Eden, The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden. Full Circle, London, Cassell, 1960, p. 34.
For the origins of the’ special relationship’ see David Reynolds, ‘1940: Fulcrum of the Twentieth Century?’, International Affairs, vol. 66, no. 2, April 1990, pp. 329–33.
Memorandum regarding Western support for the European Defence Community, 27 May 1952, misc. No.9, Cmd. 8562, Annex C, London, HMSO, 1952, p. 7.
John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939–1955, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1985, p. 687.
The European Defence Community Treaty, April 1954, Cmd. 9127, London, HMSO, 1954.
See also Olaf Mager, Die Stationierung der britischen Rheinarmee. Großbritanniens EVG-Alternative, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 1990.
Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin once admitted that Western Union was just ‘a sprat to catch the mackerel’. Quoted in Avi Shlaim, Peter Jones and Keith Sainsbury, British Foreign Secretaries since 1945, London, David and Charles, 1977, p. 48.
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© 1992 Macmillan Academic and Professional Ltd
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Mager, O. (1992). Anthony Eden and the Framework of Security: Britain’s Alternatives to the European Defence Community, 1951–54. In: Heuser, B., O’Neill, R. (eds) Securing Peace in Europe, 1945–62. St Antony’s/Macmillan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21810-3_7
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