journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

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Book reviews – Comptes rendus – Buchbesprechungen
Schaad’s central theme is how the British government developed a profound antipathy
towards the EEC which it saw as a major threat which could only be contained in a larger free
trade area. ‘Little Europe’ was an expression of contempt on the British part. But what could
be done to parry this potential threat? France and the Benelux countries had gone beyond the
pale in their steadfast commitment to the EEC so Germany became the target. If Germany
could be persuaded to support a wider free trade area then the circle could be squared with
‘little Europe’ firmly enveloped in a wide British-conceived free trade area. And there were
voices in Germany that embraced such a concept, notably that of Ludwig Erhard. But Konrad
Adenauer and his Foreign minister Heinrich von Brentano would have nothing of it. The battle
was therefore Anglo-German and intra-German and it became quite vicious.
I had always thought that the classic statement of British arrogance and misjudgement on
European matters was the closing (and departing) statement of the relatively lower-level
British official as he took Britain out of the Messina talks in 1955. But consider Harold
Macmillan's rage against France and Germany in 1958 as he realised that the game was up
(Schaad pp.91-92):
”I feel we ought to make it quite clear to our European friends that if little Europe is
formed without a parallel development of a Free Trade Area we shall have to reconsider the
whole of our political and economic attitude towards Europe. I doubt if we could remain in
NATO. We should certainly put on highly protective tariffs and quotas to counteract what
Little Europe was doing to us. In other words, we should not allow ourselves to be destroyed
little by little. We would fight back with every weapon in our armoury. We would take our
troops out of Europe. We would withdraw from NATO. We would adopt a policy of
isolationism. We would surround ourselves with rockets and we would say to the Germans,
the French and all the rest of them: ‘Look after yourselves with your own forces. Look after
yourselves when the Russians overrun your countries’”.
One wonders if the archives will have similar outbursts from Tony Blair, Alastair
Campbell et al regarding France and Germany over Iraq. In the end, then as now, France and
Germany stood firm. Adenauer kept faith with France and put the French-German
relationship first and weathered the internal and British pressure and the British eventually
had to compose with Little Europe.
Unfortunately the quotation cited from Schaad’s work is out of character with the rest of
his monograph in the sense that his is essentially a bloodless account of a bloody episode.
Bullying Bonn is part of the highly eclectic St Anthony's Series published by Macmillan. It
is a version of Dr. Schaad’s doctoral thesis and its provenance shows. There are 173 pages of
text and 50 pages of notes. The monograph is a study of the archives and little beyond the
archives. This is a pity since the real world does not get fully into the archives. Where is
Parliament, the press, pressure groups and the people? But perhaps this is a political
scientist’s view of an historian’s work and it must be acknowledged that the archives seem to
be well and truly rummaged. On the other hand there are no interviews with participants of
whom some might still have been available when Dr. Schaad was undertaking his research.
An opportunity has also been missed to look at relevant conceptual literature in
decision-making theory and international political economy. What would Graham Allison
have made of it all? Surprisingly many French names are mis-spelled and principal is
confused with principle. Bad marks to the author and publisher!
On the more empirical side the concentration on Britain and Germany leads to France
and the United States being black-boxed, while Italy is not even mentioned in the index.
Moreover, outside events are missing. Suez seared Britain both internationally and
throughout society, but it has barely a mention. The 0EEC played an important role but there
is little analysis of its impact as an organisation and not just as a neutral forum. Britain's
relations with the ECSC could have been more sympathetically treated since the ECSC
came at a difficult moment for Britain following nationalisation of coal and steel. The huge