Czech industrial areas, it instead caused Germany to be encircled from both East and West. The British publicly guaranteed Polish independence and opened negotiations with the Soviet Union to make this guarantee credible, while the United States became increasingly supportive of the Allies, and steadily more belligerent towards Germany. The U.S. had imposed a punitive 25 per cent tariff on German exports to the U.S., a move seen as tantamount to a declaration of economic war in Berlin. 159 With tensions mounting, the British Foreign Office worried that if pressured Hitler would ultimately commit a ‘mad dog act’. 160 Indeed, seeing himself surrounded on all sides by potential enemies, Hitler did just that. He decided on war with Poland, but he also stepped up attempts to secure the backing of the Italians and Japanese. 161 For while Germany alone could not hope to confront the power of Britain and France – least of all if they had the backing of the Soviet Union and the United States – with Italian and Japanese support, and acting in concert, the Axis would to be able to severely stretch their adversaries. The Reich also aimed to consolidate its dominant economic position in south-eastern Europe, so as to protect itself from being starved of resources and food, as had happened in the First World War. 162 In pursuit of such a strategy it signed the German-Romanian commercial treaty on 23 March, 1939, which Berlin hailed as vital to securing the Reich’s oil and grain supplies in the future, a plan that was scotched by Britain and France who guaranteed Romanian independence. With the pressure off, Romania refused to deliver sufficient quantities of oil and grain, unless it was 159 Tooze, pp. 306-307. 160 Richard Overy, ‘Germany, “Domestic Crisis” and War in 1939, Past & Present , No. 116, (Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 142-143. 161 Overy, (1987), p. 309. 162 Diest et al, p. 690.
87
Made with FlippingBook HTML5