ABSTRACT
The commission drew up an indictment of the French foreign service: ‘the diplomats negotiated’, ran the report, and created ‘juridical constructions which reflected rigid adherence to a system rather than political views grounded in realities’. The disregard which the dictators displayed for their professional advisers was strikingly paralleled in the two western democracies. The British Foreign Office and the French Foreign Ministry were frequently bypassed by the statesmen. In London the inability or unwillingness of French leaders to keep secrets was almost proverbial. Alexis Leger, permanent head of the Foreign Ministry from 1933 to May 1940, was an enigmatic individual, as complex as his poetry. The critics of the central administration were numerous and vociferous. A parliamentary report of 1933 indicted the Quai d’Orsay on several counts: inadequate intelligence services, insufficient consultation between the ministry and agents in the field, lack of administrative coherence.
