Between the European Army and the NATO: initiatives of British diplomacy in the sphere of military-political integration in 1952-1954

After the Second World War in the circumstances of arising confrontation between the two superpowers and the beginning of the Cold War, European countries took a course on military-political integration. One of the leaders of this process in Europe was France which, following the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), proposed to create the European Army or European Defence Community (EDC). In 1952, six countries - France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg - signed the treaty establishing EDC. United Kingdom, as in the case of the ECSC, did not sign the treaty, but did not reject the possibility of partial participation in the new community. Problems with the ratification of the treaty led to debate within the UK and in other countries - especially in France - on the prospects of the British participation in the European Army. The article shows the evolution of the approaches of the British government of Winston Churchill to the European Defence Community, or European Army established in 1952. Britain was not a signatory of the treaty, but monitored closely the ongoing processes in the continent. The process of ratification of the treaty was difficult. France was concerned about US plans to integrate West Germany into NATO. This situation gave Britain, on the one hand, the opportunity to mediate and bring closer the positions of Paris and Washington on the German question, on the other hand, forced to take on additional military commitments. The author of the article analyzes the British initiatives to promote the ratification of the EDC treaty and focuses on intergovernmental discussions that accompanied the elaboration of such initiatives. The debates within the cabinet showed that the country's leadership did not discard the idea of British involvement in the European Army, even though the position of Prime Minister W. Churchill and Head of the Foreign Office A. Eden on this issue differed. Cabinet Papers allowed the author to make a conclusion that despite a comprehensive position of London on the supranational model of integration in general and its military-political aspect in particular, the British government was still interested in the ratification of the EDC treaty. Therefore, British diplomacy sought various forms of strengthening European defence and the solution of the German problem, including putting forward the idea of combining EDC and NATO and extra military guarantees on their part. In the future, these initiatives, despite the failure of the ratification of the EDC treaty in Paris, will be the basis for new projects to strengthen the role of Great Britain in European affairs and international detente.

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