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Paul Reynaud

Paul Reynaud (15 October 1878 – 21 September 1966) was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Nazi Germany.

Reynaud opposed the Munich Agreement of September 1938, when France and the United Kingdom gave way before Hitler's proposals for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. After the outbreak of World War II, Reynaud became the penultimate Prime Minister of the Third Republic in March 1940. He was also vice-president of the Democratic Republican Alliance center-right party. Reynaud was Prime Minister during the German defeat of France in May and June 1940; he persistently refused to support an armistice with Germany and unsuccessfully attempted to save France from German occupation in World War II, and resigned on 16 June. After unsuccessfully attempting to flee France, he was arrested by Philippe Petain's administration. Surrendering to German custody in 1942, he was imprisoned in Germany and later Austria until liberation in 1945, where he was released after the Battle of Itter Castle in which one of the leaders, German Major Josef Gangl, declared a hero by the Austrian resistance, took a sniper's bullet to save Reynaud.

Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1946, he became a prominent figure again in French political life, serving in several cabinet positions. He favoured a United States of Europe, and participated in drafting the constitution for the Fifth Republic, but resigned from government in 1962 after disagreement with President de Gaulle over changes to the electoral system.

Early life and politics
Reynaud was born in Barcelonnette, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, the son of Alexandre and Amelie (née Gassier) Reynaud. His father had made a fortune in the textile industry, enabling Reynaud to study law at the Sorbonne. He entered politics and was elected to the French Chamber of Deputies from 1919 to 1924, representing Basses-Alpes, and again from 1928, representing a Paris district. Although he was first elected as part of the conservative "Blue Horizon" bloc in 1919, Reynaud shortly thereafter switched his allegiance to the centre-right Democratic Republican Alliance party, later becoming its vice-president.

In the 1920s, Reynaud developed a reputation for laxity on German reparations, at a time when many in the French government backed harsher terms for Germany. In the 1930s during the Great Depression, particularly after 1933, Reynaud's stance hardened against the Germans at a time when all nations were struggling economically. Reynaud backed a strong alliance with the United Kingdom and, unlike many others on the French Right, better relations with the Soviet Union as a counterweight against the Germans.

Reynaud held several cabinet posts in the early 1930s, but he clashed with members of his party after 1932 over French foreign and defense policy. In June 1934, Reynaud defended in the Chamber of Deputies the need to devalue the French franc, whose belonging to the gold standard was increasingly harmful for the French economy, but in those years French public opinion was opposed to any devaluation.

He was not given another cabinet position until 1938. Like Winston Churchill, Reynaud was a maverick in his party and often alone in his calls for rearmament and resistance to German aggrandizement. Reynaud was a supporter of Charles de Gaulle's theories of mechanized warfare in contrast to the static defense doctrines that were in vogue among many of his countrymen, symbolized by the Maginot Line. He strongly opposed appeasement in the run-up to the Second World War. He also clashed with his party on economic policy, backing the devaluation of the franc as a solution to France's economic woes. Pierre Étienne Flandin, the leader of the Democratic Republican Alliance, agreed with several of Reynaud's key policy stances, particularly on Reynaud's defence of economic liberalism. The franc was devalued, in a range between 25% and 34%, by the Popular Front government presided by Leon Blum on 1 October 1936.

Return to government
Reynaud returned to the cabinet in 1938 as Minister of Justice under Édouard Daladier. The Sudeten Crisis, which began not long after Reynaud was named Minister of Justice, again revealed the divide between Reynaud and the rest of the Alliance Démocratique; Reynaud adamantly opposed abandoning the Czechs to the Germans, while Flandin felt that allowing Germany to expand eastward would inevitably lead to a conflict with the Soviets that would weaken both. Reynaud publicly made his case, and in response Flandin pamphleted Paris in order to pressure the government to agree to Hitler's demands. Reynaud subsequently left his party to become an independent. However, Reynaud still had the support of Daladier, whose politique de fermeté ("policy of firmness") was very similar to Reynaud's notion of deterrence.

Reynaud, however, had always wanted the Finance ministry. He endorsed radically liberal economic policies in order to draw France's economy out of stagnation, centered on a massive program of deregulation, including the elimination of the forty-hour work week. The notion of deregulation was very popular among France's businessmen, and Reynaud believed that it was the best way for France to regain investors' confidence again and escape the stagnation its economy had fallen into. The collapse of Léon Blum's government in 1938 was a response to Blum's attempt to expand the regulatory powers of the French government; there was therefore considerable support in the French government for an alternative approach like Reynaud's.

Paul Marchandeau, Daladier's first choice for finance minister, offered a limited program of economic reform that was not to Daladier's satisfaction; Reynaud and Marchandeau swapped portfolios, and Reynaud went ahead with his radical liberalization reforms. Reynaud's reforms were implemented, and the government faced down a one-day strike in opposition. Reynaud addressed France's business community, arguing that "We live in a capitalist system. For it to function we must obey its laws. These are the laws of profits, individual risk, free markets, and growth by competition." With Reynaud as Minister of Finance, the confidence of the investors returned and the French economy recovered. Reynaud's reforms involved a massive austerity program (although armament measures were not cut). At the outbreak of war, however, Reynaud was not bullish on France's economy; he felt that the massive increase in spending that a war entailed would stamp out France's recovery.

The French Right was ambivalent about the war in late 1939 and early 1940, feeling that the Soviets rather than Nazi Germany were the greater long-term threat. Daladier regarded the war with Germany as the greater priority and so refused to send aid to the Finns, who were under attack from the USSR, then loosely allied to Germany, in the Winter War. News that the Finns had sued for peace in March 1940 prompted Flandin and Pierre Laval to hold secret sessions of the legislature that denounced Daladier's actions; the government fell on 19 March. The government named Reynaud Prime Minister of France two days later.

Appointment
Although Reynaud was increasingly popular, the Chamber of Deputies elected him premier by only a single vote with most of his own party abstaining; over half of the votes for Reynaud came from the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) party. With so much support from the left, and opposition from many parties on the right, Reynaud's government was especially unstable; many on the Right demanded that Reynaud attack not Germany, but the Soviet Union. The Chamber also forced Daladier, whom Reynaud held personally responsible for France's weakness, to be Reynaud's Minister of National Defense and War. One of Reynaud's first acts was at a meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council held in London on 28 March 1940, whose main outcome was the signing of a declaration with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that neither of the two countries would sign a separate peace. A joint communiqué declared 'Both Governments mutually undertake that during the present war they will neither negotiate nor conclude an armistice or treaty of peace except by mutual agreement. They undertake to maintain after conclusion of peace a community of action for so long as may be necessary'. On 15 June 1940 the French cabinet rejected a British proposal, imagined by Jean Monnet and defended by De Gaulle, for the union of both countries. Reynaud abandoned any notion of a "long war strategy" based on attrition. Aiming at diverting German attentions from France, Reynaud entertained suggestions to expand the war to the Balkans or northern Europe; he was instrumental in launching the allied campaign in Norway, though it ended in failure. Britain's decision to withdraw on 26 April prompted Reynaud to travel to London to lobby the British personally to stand and fight in Norway.

The German breakthrough
The Battle of France began less than two months after Reynaud came to office. France was badly mauled by the initial attack in early May 1940, and Paris was threatened. On 15 May, five days after the invasion began, Reynaud contacted Churchill and famously remarked, "We have been defeated... we are beaten; we have lost the battle.... The front is broken near Sedan." Indeed, such was the situation regarding equipment and morale that Reynaud received a postcard found on the body of an officer who had committed suicide in Le Mans. It stated: "I am killing myself Mr President to let you know that all my men were brave, but one cannot send men to fight tanks with rifles."

On 18 May Reynaud removed commander-in-chief Maurice Gamelin in favour of Maxime Weygand.

On 26 May, around lunchtime, Reynaud attended a meeting in London with Churchill. At 2 pm Churchill reported to the War Cabinet that Reynaud had stated that the French military situation was hopeless, that he had no intention of signing a separate peace with Germany, but that he might be forced to resign and that others in the French government might sign such a treaty. At this stage Churchill told Reynaud that he did not rule out talks with Mussolini altogether (Italy was still neutral). The Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax met Reynaud later in the afternoon, before the latter's return to France. This was the beginning of the British May 1940 War Cabinet Crisis, in which Halifax favoured what was euphemistically described as "the Reynaud Option": approaching the Italians to see if acceptable peace terms could be negotiated, perhaps by giving up some British territory in the Mediterranean. Halifax was eventually overruled by Churchill.

On 28 May Churchill sent a telegram to Reynaud stating that there would be no approach to Mussolini at that time but still leaving the possibility open. Mussolini had rejected an approach by President Roosevelt along the lines suggested by Britain and France. On 28 May, it was learned that Italy was planning to enter the war on Germany's side, which would happen on 10 June.

In early June Charles de Gaulle, whom Reynaud had long supported and one of the few French commanders to have fought the Germans successfully in May 1940, was promoted to brigadier general and named undersecretary of war.

Support for an armistice; Reynaud's resignation
Reynaud vacillated a little on his return from London on 26 May, but otherwise wanted to continue to fight. However, he was unable to persuade enough of his colleagues. Italy entered the war on 10 June; on that same day, Commander-in-Chief General Weygand strode into Reynaud's office and demanded an armistice. At around 11 pm that night Reynaud and de Gaulle left Paris for Tours; the rest of the government followed the next day. De Gaulle was unable to persuade Reynaud to sack Weygand.

At the Anglo-French conference at the Chateau du Muguet, Briare, on 11–12 June, Churchill urged the French to carry on fighting, either in Brittany or in French North Africa, or by guerrilla warfare, meeting strong resistance from Deputy Prime Minister Marshal Pétain. At the Cabinet meeting on the evening of 12 June it was clear that there was a growing movement for an armistice, and it was decided to move to Bordeaux rather than to a fortified Brittany.

At the next Anglo-French conference at Tours on 13 June, Reynaud demanded that France be released from the agreement which he had made with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in March 1940, so that France could seek an armistice. Churchill said that he "understood" the French action but (contrary to later claims that he approved) that he did not agree with it. At the Cabinet meeting that evening (Churchill had returned to London rather than address the French Cabinet as Reynaud had wished) Pétain strongly supported Weygand's demand for an armistice, and said that he himself would remain in France to share the suffering of the French people and to begin the national rebirth. President Albert Lebrun refused Reynaud's resignation on 13 June.

Edward Spears recorded that Reynaud was, from the evening of 13 June, under great stress. Paul Baudouin and Marie-Joseph Paul de Villelume had been leaning on Reynaud to seek an armistice with Germany, as had his mistress, the Comtesse Hélène de Portes, a Fascist sympathizer. On 14 June Villelume and de Portes called on the American diplomat Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr. and stated that France had no alternative but to seek an armistice and that they were speaking on behalf of Reynaud, although Biddle did not believe them.

At Cabinet on 15 June, Reynaud urged the Cabinet to adopt the Dutch example, that the Army should lay down its arms so that the fight could be continued from abroad; Pétain was sympathetic. Pétain was sent to speak to General Weygand (who was waiting outside, as he was not a member of the Cabinet). Weygand persuaded him that this would be a shameful surrender. Chautemps then suggested a fudge proposal, an inquiry about terms. The Cabinet voted 13-6 for the Chautemps proposal. Reynaud tried to resign on the spot but Lebrun shouted at him. Admiral Darlan, who had been opposed to an armistice until 15 June, now agreed, provided the French fleet was kept out of German hands. On 15 June, Reynaud threw two glasses of water over de Portes at dinner; a key telegram had been found in her bed after it went missing.

On 16 June de Portes kept putting her head around the door during a meeting and US diplomats testified that she was constantly coming and going from Reynaud's office. President Roosevelt's reply to Reynaud's inquiry, stating that he could do little to help without Congressional approval, was then received on the morning of Sunday 16 June. Churchill's telegram also arrived that morning, agreeing to an armistice provided the French fleet was moved to British ports, a proposal unacceptable to Darlan, who argued that it would leave France defenceless. De Gaulle was in London that afternoon for talks about the planned Franco-British Union, a far-reaching and imaginative proposal which Churchill and his advisers had hastily put together in a desperate effort to support Reynaud against his armistice-minded ministers and keep France - but especially its extensive naval fleet - in the war on the side of Britain. It was De Gaulle who telephoned Reynaud to inform him that the British Cabinet had agreed, reporting that "a sensational declaration" was imminent, amounting to a proposal for no less than the union of the two nations into a single Franco-British government. Time was desperately short, and De Gaulle ended up dictating the "Declaration of Union" to an astonished and gratified Reynaud over the telephone, word for word, so that Reynaud could present it to his Cabinet that very afternoon in a bid to fend off armistice. What Reynaud did not know was that General Weygand had instructed army listeners to tap his phone, and therefore had advance warning of what was coming, robbing Reynaud of the element of surprise. When the French Cabinet met in Bordeaux that afternoon, Reynaud presented the British union plan and - with Georges Mandel - declared his determination to fight on, but events were moving fast and the grand British offer was by then not sufficient to win round the waverers. Contrary to Lebrun's mistaken recollection, no formal vote appears to have been taken at Cabinet on Sunday 16 June. The outcome of the meeting is unclear. Ten ministers wanted to fight on while seven favoured an armistice, though these included the two Deputy Prime Ministers: Pétain and Chautemps. An armistice was also favoured by Weygand. Another eight ministers were undecided, but ultimately swung towards an armistice. This time, Lebrun reluctantly accepted Reynaud's resignation, and the government of France - at this historic and fateful moment - fell into the hands of Petain and those who favoured armistice and, ultimately, collaboration with the German invader. De Gaulle later wrote that Reynaud was "a man of great worth unjustly crushed by events beyond measure".

After resignation
Julian Jackson writes that Reynaud felt guilty for 20 years for having let Pétain into power, and gave ever more convoluted explanations of what had happened: despite his own fighting spirit, apart from a brief vacillation on 26 May, "he had failed to be Clemenceau (France's great war Prime Minister of 1917-18), but missed the chance to be de Gaulle and never forgave himself". Reynaud later claimed that he had hoped Pétain would resign if the armistice terms were too harsh, which if true was wishful thinking in Jackson's view. There were claims that he could have mustered a majority in the Cabinet for fighting on, so he later claimed that he could not have argued against the political weight of the "softs", especially Pétain and Weygand, France's two leading soldiers.

Spears recorded that Reynaud appeared relieved to be rid of his burden. In the immediate aftermath, he appears to have been in denial, hoping still to meet Churchill at Concarneau on 17 June (in fact Churchill, who was at Waterloo Station, had cancelled his travel plans on learning of Reynaud's resignation).

Jules Jeanneney and Édouard Herriot, Presidents respectively of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, urged Lebrun to reappoint Reynaud as Prime Minister (all four men wanted to continue the war from North Africa). Lebrun felt he had little choice but to appoint Pétain, who already had a ministerial team ready, as Prime Minister. Pétain became the leader of the new government (the last one of the Third Republic), and signed the armistice on 22 June. De Gaulle had returned to Bordeaux at around 10pm on 16 June. He visited Reynaud, who still hoped to go to North Africa and declined to come to London. Reynaud still had control of secret government funds until the handover of power the next day, and made money available to de Gaulle. De Gaulle flew to London with Edward Spears at 9 a.m. on 17 June, and the next day made his famous broadcast announcing that he would fight on. It has been suggested that Reynaud had ordered de Gaulle to go to London, but no written evidence has ever been found to confirm this.

Reynaud would later provisionally accept Pétain's offer of the post of French Ambassador to the USA. Lebrun refused to confirm the appointment, apparently as he admired Reynaud and wanted to save him from association with the Pétain government.

On 22 June 1940, after the French cabinet had resolved to seek an armistice, Weygand as Commander in Chief ordered French forces to stop fighting :538.

Reynaud states that this was the day France ceased to be admitted to the meetings of the Great Powers. In post-war Europe, French prominence would be much diminished. Tokyo, with London and New York (unchanged), had replaced Paris as one of the world's financial centres, and having replaced Latin as the world's international language, French had now been superseded by English 109-111.

On 24 June the British government stated that France had broken its agreement with Britain :343,539,559. At the beginning of the war it had been agreed that neither Britain nor France would make a separate peace :367. Britain was prepared to release France from the agreement, providing the French fleet sailed forthwith to British harbours or to a neutral country, so it was out of reach of the Germans, pending negotiations :366. Notwithstanding the agreement between Britain and France, and in complete disregard of her obligations to Britain, France allowed her fleet to fall into Germany's hands :343,537,559. Further, Paul Reynaud agreed with Britain that if peace were made with Germany, German airmen who were prisoners of war would be sent to Britain. Again, the Pétain Government did not honour this pledge, and the German airmen, many of whom had been shot down by the RAF, were returned to Germany.: 497

Accident and arrest
Reynaud and de Portes left the Hotel Splendid, Bordeaux, driving southeast ahead of the advancing German armies, intending to stop at Reynaud's holiday home at Grès, Hérault, (other sources state they were bound for his daughter's home at Sainte-Maxime ) before fleeing to North Africa. On 28 June, with Reynaud at the wheel, their Renault Juvaquatre car inexplicably left the road and hit a plane tree at la Peyrade, near Sète; de Portes was all but decapitated while Reynaud escaped with relatively minor head injuries. While hospitalized at Montpellier, Reynaud allegedly told Bill Bullitt, American ambassador, "I have lost my country, my honour, and my love."

Reynaud was arrested on his discharge on Pétain's orders and imprisoned at Fort du Portalet. Pétain decided against having Reynaud charged during the Riom Trial of 1942, but handed him over to the Germans instead, who removed him firstly to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, thence Itter Castle near Wörgl, Austria, where he remained with other high-profile French prisoners until liberated by Allied troops on 7 May 1945. Major Josef Gangl, a Wehrmacht officer who had gone over to the anti-Nazi Austrian resistance, was killed by a sniper's bullet while trying to move Reynaud out of harm's way during the Battle for Castle Itter on 5 May 1945.

Postwar career
After the war, Reynaud was elected in 1946 as a member of the Chamber of Deputies. He was appointed to several cabinet positions in the post-war period and remained a prominent figure in French politics. His attempts to form governments in 1952 and 1953 in the turbulent politics of the French Fourth Republic were unsuccessful.

Reynaud supported the idea of a United States of Europe, along with a number of prominent contemporaries. He was a member of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe for ten years, from 1949 to 1959, where he worked alongside his old wartime allies Churchill, Spaak and others to build a united Europe as a way of preventing future wars and a recurrence of the Nazi atrocities. Reynaud presided over the consultative committee that drafted the constitution of France's (current) Fifth Republic. In 1962, he denounced his old friend de Gaulle's replacement of the electoral college system by a direct public vote for the Presidency. Reynaud left office the same year.

Appearance and private life
Reynaud was a physically small man, with "the countenance of a samurai who had been educated at Cambridge". His head was set deep between his shoulders, and he had "a sharp, nasal, metallic voice" and "mechanical" bearing.

By his first marriage in 1912 to Jeanne Anne Henri-Robert, he was the father of a daughter, Collette, born in 1914. At some time in the early 1920s, Reynaud was introduced to Hélène Rebuffel by André Tardieu, a friend of her father's. Rebuffel's father, however, was displeased at her relationship with a married man, actively seeking other suitors for her, and she was eventually persuaded to marry Comte Henri de Portes. After she had borne him two children, the marriage failed, and when Reynaud and his wife separated in 1938, Hélène de Portes was his mistress until her death in the road accident at Frontignan in 1940. Reynaud and his first wife were finally divorced in 1949. Reynaud then married Christiane Mabire (one of his former office assistants, who had voluntarily joined him at the Castle Itter in 1943) at Versailles in the same year, at the age of 71. Mabire had already borne him a son, Serge Paul-Reynaud, in 1945; they had two more children, Evelyne, in 1949, and Alexandre in 1954.

Reynaud died on 21 September 1966 at Neuilly-sur-Seine, leaving a number of writings.

Reynaud's government, 21 March – 16 June 1940

 * Paul Reynaud – President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs
 * Camille Chautemps – Vice President of the Council, Minister for Coordination
 * Édouard Daladier – Minister of National Defense and War
 * Raoul Dautry – Minister of Armaments
 * Henri Roy – Minister of the Interior
 * Lucien Lamoureux – Minister of Finance
 * Charles Pomaret – Minister of Labour
 * Albert Sérol – Minister of Justice
 * César Campinchi – Minister of Military Marine
 * Alphonse Rio – Minister of Merchant Marine
 * Laurent Eynac – Minister of Air
 * Albert Sarraut – Minister of National Education
 * Albert Rivière – Minister of Veterans and Pensioners
 * Paul Thellier – Minister of Agriculture
 * Henri Queuille – Minister of Supply
 * Georges Mandel – Minister of Colonies
 * Anatole de Monzie – Minister of Public Works
 * Marcel Héraud – Minister of Public Health
 * Alfred Jules-Julien – Minister of Posts, Telegraphs, Telephones, and Transmissions
 * Ludovic-Oscar Frossard – Minister of Information
 * Louis Rollin – Minister of Commerce and Industry
 * Georges Monnet – Minister of Blockade

Changes
 * 10 May 1940 – Louis Marin and Jean Ybarnegaray enter the Cabinet as Ministers of State
 * 18 May 1940 – Philippe Pétain enters the Cabinet as Minister of State. Reynaud succeeds Daladier as Minister of National Defense and War.  Daladier succeeds Reynaud as Minister of Foreign Affairs.  Georges Mandel succeeds Roy as Minister of the Interior.  Louis Rollin succeeds Mandel as Minister of Colonies.  Léon Baréty succeeds Rollin as Minister of Commerce and Industry.
 * 5 June 1940 – Reynaud succeeds Daladier as Minister of Foreign Affairs, remaining also Minister of National Defense and War. Yves Bouthillier succeeds Lamoureux as Minister of Finance.  Yvon Delbos succeeds Sarraut as Minister of National Education.  Ludovic-Oscar Frossard succeeds Monzie as Minister of Public Works.  Jean Prouvost succeeds Frossard as Minister of Information.  Georges Pernot succeeds Héraud as Health Minister, with the new title of Minister of French Family.  Albert Chichery succeeds Baréty as Minister of Commerce and Industry.

title: Paul Reynaud


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Eiger

The Eiger is a 3967 m mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mönch to the Jungfrau at 4158 m, constituting one of the most emblematic sights of the Swiss Alps. While the northern side of the mountain rises more than 3,000 m (10,000 ft) above the two valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, the southern side faces the large glaciers of the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, the most glaciated region in the Alps. The most notable feature of the Eiger is its nearly 1800 m north face of rock and ice, named Eiger-Nordwand, Eigerwand or just Nordwand, which is the biggest north face in the Alps. This huge face towers over the resort of Kleine Scheidegg at its base, on the eponymous pass connecting the two valleys.

The first ascent of the Eiger was made by Swiss guides Christian Almer and Peter Bohren and Irishman Charles Barrington, who climbed the west flank on August 11, 1858. The north face, the "last problem" of the Alps, considered amongst the most challenging and dangerous ascents, was first climbed in 1938 by an Austrian-German expedition. The Eiger has been highly publicized for the many tragedies involving climbing expeditions. Since 1935, at least 64 climbers have died attempting the north face, earning it the German nickname Mordwand, literally "murder(ous) wall"—a pun on its correct title of Nordwand (North Wall).

Although the summit of the Eiger can be reached by experienced climbers only, a railway tunnel runs inside the mountain, and two internal stations provide easy access to viewing-windows carved into the rock face. They are both part of the Jungfrau Railway line, running from Kleine Scheidegg to the Jungfraujoch, between the Mönch and the Jungfrau, at the highest railway station in Europe. The two stations within the Eiger are Eigerwand (behind the north face) and Eismeer (behind the south face), at around 3,000 metres. The Eigerwand station has not been regularly served since 2016.

Etymology
The first mention of Eiger, appearing as "mons Egere", was found in a property sale document of 1252, but there is no clear indication of how exactly the peak gained its name. The three mountains of the ridge are commonly referred to as the Virgin (German: Jungfrau – translates to "virgin" or "maiden"), the Monk (Mönch), and the Ogre (Eiger; the standard German word for ogre is Oger). The name has been linked to the Latin term acer, meaning "sharp" or "pointed".

Geographic setting and description
The Eiger is located above the Lauterbrunnen Valley to the west and Grindelwald to the north in the Bernese Oberland region of the canton of Bern. It forms a renowned mountain range of the Bernese Alps together with its two companions: the Jungfrau (4158 m) about 5.6 km southwest of it and the Mönch (4107 m) about in the middle of them. The nearest settlements are Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen (795 m) and Wengen (1274 m). The Eiger has three faces: north (or more precisely NNW), east (or more precisely ESE), and west (or more precisely WSW). The northeastern ridge from the summit to the Ostegg (lit.: eastern corner, 2709 m), called Mittellegi, is the longest on the Eiger. The north face overlooks the gently rising Alpine meadow between Grindelwald (943 m) and Kleine Scheidegg (2061 m), a mountain railways junction and a pass, which can be reached from both sides, Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen/Wengen – by foot or train.

Politically, the Eiger (and its summit) belongs to the Bernese municipalities of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen. The Kleine Scheidegg (literally, the small parting corner) connects the Männlichen-Tschuggen range with the western ridge of the Eiger. The Eiger does not properly form part of the main chain of the Bernese Alps, which borders the canton of Valais and forms the watershed between the Rhine and the Rhône, but constitutes a huge limestone buttress, projecting from the crystalline basement of the Mönch across the Eigerjoch. Consequently, all sides of the Eiger feed finally the same river, namely the Lütschine.

Eiger's water is connected through the Weisse Lütschine (the white one) in the Lauterbrunnen Valley on the west side (southwestern face of the Eiger), and through the Schwarze Lütschine (the black one) running through Grindelwald (northwestern face), which meet each other in Zweilütschinen (lit.: the two Lütschinen) where they form the proper Lütschine. The east face is covered by the glacier called Ischmeer, (Bernese German for Ice Sea), which forms one upper part of the fast-retreating Lower Grindelwald Glacier. These glaciers' water forms a short creek, which is also confusingly called the Weisse Lütschine, but enters the black one already in Grindelwald together with the water from the Upper Grindelwald Glacier. Therefore, all the water running down the Eiger converges at the northern foot of the Männlichen (2342 m) in Zweilütschinen (654 m), about 10 km northwest of the summit, where the Lütschine begins its northern course to Lake Brienz and the Aare (564 m).

Although the north face of the Eiger is almost free of ice, significant glaciers lie at the other sides of the mountain. The Eiger Glacier flows on the southwestern side of the Eiger, from the crest connecting it to the Mönch down to 2400 m, south of Eigergletscher railway station, and feeds the Weisse Lütschine through the Trümmelbach. On the east side, the Ischmeer–well visible from the windows of Eismeer railway station–flows eastwards from the same crest then turns to the north below the impressive wide Fiescherwand, the north face of the Fiescherhörner triple summit (4049 m) down to about 1600 m of the Lower Grindelwald Glacier system.

The massive composition of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau constitutes an emblematic sight of the Swiss Alps and is visible from many places on the Swiss Plateau and the Jura Mountains in the northwest. The higher Finsteraarhorn (4270 m) and Aletschhorn (4190 m), which are located about 10 km to the south, are generally less visible and situated in the middle of glaciers in less accessible areas. As opposed to the north side, the south and east sides of the range consist of large valley glaciers extending for up to 22 km, the largest (beyond the Eiger drainage basin) being those of Grand Aletsch, Fiesch, and Aar Glaciers, and is thus uninhabited. The whole area, the Jungfrau-Aletsch protected area, comprising the highest summits and largest glaciers of the Bernese Alps, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001.

In July 2006, a piece of the Eiger, amounting to approximately 700,000 cubic metres of rock, fell from the east face. As it had been noticeably cleaving for several weeks and fell into an uninhabited area, there were no injuries and no buildings were hit.

North face

The Nordwand, German for "north wall" or "north face", is the north face of the Eiger (also known as the Eigernordwand: "Eiger north wall" or Eigerwand). It is one of the three great north faces of the Alps, along with the north faces of the Matterhorn and the Grandes Jorasses (known as 'the Trilogy') and also one of the biggest sheer faces in Europe, between 1,600 m and 1,800 m (over a mile) high. The face overlooks Kleine Scheidegg and the valley of Grindelwald. At 2,866 metres inside the mountain lies the Eigerwand railway station. The station is connected to the north face by a tunnel opening at the face, which has sometimes been used to rescue climbers. The Eiger Trail, at the base of the north face, runs from Eigergletscher to Alpiglen railway stations. The approach hike to the base of the face takes less than an hour from Eigergletscher.

Some of the notable features on the north face are (from the bottom): First Pillar, Eigerwand Station, First Ice-field, Hinterstoisser Traverse, Swallow's Nest, Ice Hose, Second Ice-field, Death Bivouac, Ramp, Traverse of the Gods, Spider and Exit Cracks.

In 1938, Alpine Journal editor Edward Lisle Strutt calls the face "an obsession for the mentally deranged" and "the most imbecile variant since mountaineering first began." In the same year, however, the north face was finally climbed on 24 July by Andreas Heckmair, Ludwig Vörg, Heinrich Harrer and Fritz Kasparek, a German–Austrian group.

A portion of the upper face is called "The White Spider", as snow-filled cracks radiating from an ice-field resemble the legs of a spider. Harrer used this name for the title of his book about his successful climb, Die Weisse Spinne (translated into English as The White Spider: The Classic Account of the Ascent of the Eiger). During the first successful ascent, the four men were caught in an avalanche as they climbed the Spider, but all had enough strength to resist being swept off the face.

Since then, the north face has been climbed many times. Today it is regarded as a formidable challenge, not only because of its technical difficulties, exceeding those of some of the 8,000 m peaks in the Himalaya and Karakoram, but also because of the increased rockfall and diminishing ice-fields. Climbers are increasingly electing to challenge the Eiger in winter, when the crumbling face is strengthened by ice.

Since 1935, at least sixty-four climbers have died attempting the north face, earning it the German nickname, Mordwand, or "murderous wall", a play on the face's German name Nordwand.

Climbing history
While the summit was reached without much difficulty in 1858 by a complex route on the west flank, the battle to climb the north face has captivated the interest of climbers and non-climbers alike. Before it was successfully climbed, most of the attempts on the face ended tragically and the Bernese authorities even banned climbing it and threatened to fine any party that should attempt it again. But the enthusiasm which animated the young talented climbers from Austria and Germany finally vanquished its reputation of unclimbability when a party of four climbers successfully reached the summit in 1938 by what is known as the "1938" or "Heckmair" route.

The climbers that attempted the north face could be easily watched through the telescopes from the Kleine Scheidegg, a pass between Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, connected by rail. The contrast between the comfort and civilization of the railway station and the agonies of the young men slowly dying a short yet uncrossable distance away led to intensive coverage by the international media.

After World War II, the north face was climbed twice in 1947, first by a party of two French guides, Louis Lachenal and Lionel Terray, then by a Swiss party consisting of H. Germann, with Hans and Karl Schlunegger.

First ascent
In 1857, a first recorded attempt was made by Christian Almer, Christian Kaufmann, Ulrich Kaufmann guiding the Austrian alpinist Sigismund Porges. They did manage the first ascent of neighboring Mönch instead. Porges, however, successfully made the second ascent of the Eiger in July 1861 with the guides Christian Michel, Hans and Peter Baumann.

The first ascent was made by the western flank on August 11, 1858 by Charles Barrington with guides Christian Almer and Peter Bohren. On the previous afternoon, the party walked up to the Wengernalp hotel. From there they started the ascent of the Eiger at 3:30 a.m. Barrington describes the route much as it is followed today, staying close to the edge of the north face much of the way. They reached the summit at about noon, planted a flag, stayed for some 10 minutes and descended in about four hours. Barrington describes the reaching of the top, saying, "the two guides kindly gave me the place of first man up." After the descent, the party was escorted to the Kleine Scheidegg hotel, where their ascent was confirmed by observation of the flag left on the summit. The owner of the hotel then fired a cannon to celebrate the first ascent. According to Harrer's The White Spider, Barrington was originally planning to make the first ascent of the Matterhorn, but his finances did not allow him to travel there as he was already staying in the Eiger region.

Mittellegi ridge
Although the Mittellegi ridge had already been descended by climbers (since 1885) with the use of ropes in the difficult sections, it remained unclimbed until 1921. On the 10th of September of that year, Japanese climber Yuko Maki, along with Swiss guides Fritz Amatter, Samuel Brawand and Fritz Steuri made the first successful ascent of the ridge. The previous day, the party approached the ridge from the Eismeer railway station of the Jungfrau Railway and bivouacked for the night. They started the climb at about 6:00 a.m. and reached the summit of the Eiger at about 7:15 p.m., after an over 13 hours gruelling ascent. Shortly after, they descended the west flank. They finally reached Eigergletscher railway station at about 3:00 a.m. the next day.

1935
In 1935, two young German climbers from Bavaria, Karl Mehringer and Max Sedlmeyer, arrived at Grindelwald to attempt the ascent of the north face. After waiting some time for the weather to improve, they set off, reaching the height of the Eigerwand station before stopping for their first bivouac. The following day, facing greater difficulties, they gained little height. On the third day, they made hardly any vertical gain. That night, the weather deteriorated, bringing snow and low cloud that shrouded the mountain from the observers below. Avalanches began to sweep the face. Two days later, the weather briefly cleared, and the two men were glimpsed a little higher and about to bivouac for the fifth night, before clouds descended again. A few days later, the weather finally cleared, revealing a completely white north face. Weeks later, the German World War I ace Ernst Udet went searching for the missing men with his aircraft, eventually spotting one of them frozen to death in what became known as the "Death Bivouac". Sedlmeyer's body was found at the foot of the face the following year by his brothers Heinrich and Martin Meier, who were part of a group looking for the victims of the 1936 climbing disaster. Mehringer's remains were found in 1962 by Swiss climbers below the "Flat Iron" (Bügeleisen) at the lefthand end of the second ice field.

1936
The next year ten young climbers from Austria and Germany came to Grindelwald and camped at the foot of the mountain. Before their attempts started one of them was killed during a training climb, and the weather was so bad during that summer that, after waiting for a change and seeing none on the way, several members of the party gave up. Of the four that remained, two were Bavarians, Andreas Hinterstoisser and Toni Kurz, and two were Austrians, Willy Angerer and Edi Rainer. When the weather improved they made a preliminary exploration of the lowest part of the face. Hinterstoisser fell 37 m but was not injured. A few days later the four men finally began the ascent of the face. They climbed quickly, but on the next day, after their first bivouac, the weather changed; clouds came down and hid the group from the observers. They did not resume the climb until the following day, when, during a break, the party was seen descending, but the climbers could be seen only intermittently from the ground. The group had no choice but to retreat, since Angerer had suffered serious injuries from falling rock. The party became stuck on the face when they could not recross the difficult Hinterstoisser Traverse, from which they had taken the rope they had first used to climb it. The weather then deteriorated for two days. They were ultimately swept away by an avalanche, which only Kurz survived, hanging on a rope. Three guides started on an extremely perilous rescue attempt. They failed to reach him but came within shouting distance and learned what had happened. Kurz explained the fate of his companions: one had fallen down the face, another was frozen above him, and the third had fractured his skull in falling and was hanging dead on the rope.

In the morning the three guides came back, traversing the face from a hole near the Eigerwand station and risking their lives under incessant avalanches. Toni Kurz was still alive but almost helpless, with one hand and one arm completely frozen. Kurz hauled himself off the cliff after cutting loose the rope that bound him to his dead teammate below and climbed back onto the face. The guides were not able to pass an unclimbable overhang that separated them from Kurz. They managed to give him a rope long enough to reach them by tying two ropes together. While descending, Kurz could not get the knot to pass through his carabiner. He tried for hours to reach his rescuers who were only a few metres below him. Then he began to lose consciousness. One of the guides, climbing on another's shoulders, was able to touch the tip of Kurz's crampons with his ice-axe but could not reach higher. Kurz was unable to descend further and, completely exhausted, died slowly.

1937
An attempt was made in 1937 by and Ludwig Vörg. Although the attempt was unsuccessful, they were nonetheless the first climbers who returned alive from a serious attempt on the face. They started the climb on 11 August and reached a high point of a few rope lengths above Death Bivouac. A storm then broke and after three days on the wall they had to retreat. This was the first successful withdrawal from a significant height on the wall.

First ascent of the north face
The north face was first climbed on July 24, 1938 by Anderl Heckmair, Ludwig Vörg, Heinrich Harrer and Fritz Kasparek in a German–Austrian party. The party had originally consisted of two independent teams: Harrer (who did not have a pair of crampons on the climb) and Kasparek were joined on the face by Heckmair and Vörg, who had started their ascent a day later and had been helped by the fixed rope that the lead team had left across the Hinterstoisser Traverse. The two groups, led by the experienced Heckmair, decided to join their forces and roped together as a single group of four. Heckmair later wrote: "We, the sons of the older Reich, united with our companions from the Eastern Border to march together to victory."

The expedition was constantly threatened by snow avalanches and climbed as quickly as possible between the falls. On the third day a storm broke and the cold was intense. The four men were caught in an avalanche as they climbed "the Spider", the snow-filled cracks radiating from an ice-field on the upper face, but all possessed sufficient strength to resist being swept off the face. The members successfully reached the summit at four o'clock in the afternoon. They were so exhausted that they only just had the strength to descend by the normal route through a raging blizzard.

Other notable events

 * 1864 (Jul 27): Fourth ascent, and first ascent by a woman, Lucy Walker, who was part of a group of six guides (including Christian Almer and Melchior Anderegg) and five clients, including her brother Horace Walker
 * 1871: First ascent by the southwest ridge, 14 July (Christian Almer, Christian Bohren, and Ulrich Almer guiding W. A. B. Coolidge and Meta Brevoort).
 * 1890: First ascent in winter, Ulrich Kaufmann and Christian Jossi guiding C. W. Mead and G. F. Woodroffe.
 * 1924: First ski ascent and descent via the Eiger glacier by Englishman Arnold Lunn and the Swiss Fritz Amacher, Walter Amstutz and Willy Richardet.
 * 1932: First ascent of the northeast face ("Lauper route") by Hans Lauper, Alfred Zürcher, Alexander Graven and Josef Knubel
 * 1970: First ski descent over the west flank, by Sylvain Saudan.
 * 1986: Welshman Eric Jones becomes the first person to BASE jump from the Eiger.
 * 1988: Original Route (ED2), north face, Eiger (3970m), Alps, Switzerland, first American solo (nine and a half hours) by Mark Wilford.
 * 1991: First ascent, Metanoia Route, North Face, solo, winter, without bolts, Jeff Lowe.
 * 1992 (18 July): Three BMG/UIAGM/IFMGA clients died in a fall down the West Flank: Willie Dunnachie; Douglas Gaines; and Phillip Davies. They had ascended the mountain via the Mittellegi Ridge.
 * 2006 (14 June): François Bon and Antoine Montant make the first speedflying descent of the Eiger.
 * 2006 (15 July): Approximately 700,000 cubic metres (20 million cubic feet) of rock from the east side collapses. No injuries or damage were reported.
 * 2015 (23 July): A team of British Para-Climbers reached the summit via the West Flank Route. The team included John Churcher, the world's first blind climber to summit the Eiger, sight guided by the team leader Mark McGowan. Colin Gourlay enabled the ascent of other team members, including Al Taylor who has multiple sclerosis, and the young autistic climber Jamie Owen from North Wales. The ascent was filmed by the adventure filmmakers Euan Ryan & Willis Morris of Finalcrux Films.

Books and films

 * The 1959 book The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer describes the first successful ascent of the Eiger north face.
 * The Climb Up To Hell, 1962, by Jack Olson, an account of the ill-fated 1957 attempted climb of the north face by an Italian four-man team and the dramatic rescue of the sole survivor mounted by an international all-volunteer group of rescuers.
 * Eiger Direct, 1966, by Dougal Haston and Peter Gillman, London: Collins, also known as Direttissima; the Eiger Assault
 * The 1971 novel The Ice Mirror by Charles MacHardy describes the second attempted ascent of the Eiger north face by the main character.
 * The 1972 novel The Eiger Sanction is an action/thriller novel by Rodney William Whitaker (writing under the pseudonym Trevanian), based around the climbing of the Eiger. This was then made into the 1975 film The Eiger Sanction starring Clint Eastwood and George Kennedy. The Eiger Sanction film crew included very experienced mountaineers (e.g., Mike Hoover, Dougal Haston, and Hamish MacInnes, see Summit, 52, Spring 2010) as consultants, to ensure accuracy in the climbing footage, equipment, and techniques.
 * The Eiger, 1974, by Dougal Haston, London: Cassell
 * The 1982 book Eiger, Wall of Death by Arthur Roth is a historical account of the first ascents of the North Face.
 * The 1982 book Traverse of The Gods by Bob Langley is a World War II spy thriller where a group escaping from Nazi Germany is trapped and the only possible exit route is via the Nordwand.
 * Eiger, 1983, a documentary film by Leo Dickinson of Eric Jones' 1981 solo ascent of the North Face.
 * Eiger Dreams, 1990, a collection of essays by Jon Krakauer, begins with an account of Krakauer's own attempt to climb the north face.
 * Eiger: The Vertical Arena (German edition, 1998; English edition, 2000), edited by Daniel Anker, a comprehensive climbing history of the north face authored by 17 climbers, with numerous photographs and illustrations.
 * The IMAX film The Alps features John Harlin III's climb up the north face in September 2005. Harlin's father, John Harlin II, set out 40 years earlier to attempt a direct route (the direttissima) up the 6000 ft face, the so-called Harlin route. At 1300 m, his rope broke, and he fell to his death. Composer James Swearingen created a piece named Eiger: Journey to the Summit in his memory.
 * The 2007 docu/drama film The Beckoning Silence featuring mountaineer Joe Simpson, recounting—with filmed reconstructions—the ill-fated 1936 expedition up the north face of the Eiger and how Heinrich Harrer's book The White Spider inspired him to take up climbing. The film followed Simpson's eponymous 2003 book. Those playing the parts of the original climbing team were Swiss mountain guides Roger Schäli (Toni Kurz), Simon Anthamatten (Andreas Hinterstoisser), Dres Abegglen (Willy Angerer) and Cyrille Berthod (Edi Rainer). The documentary won an Emmy Award the subsequent year.
 * The 2008 German historical fiction film Nordwand is based on the 1936 attempt to climb the Eiger north face. The film is about the two German climbers Toni Kurz and Andreas Hinterstoisser, involved in a competition with an Austrian duo to be the first to scale the north face of Eiger.
 * The 2010 documentary Eiger: Wall of Death by Steve Robinson.

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title: Eiger


text:
Édouard Daladier

Édouard Daladier (18 June 1884 – 10 October 1970) was a French Radical-Socialist (centre-left) politician, and the Prime Minister of France who signed the Munich Agreement before the outbreak of World War II.

Daladier was born in Carpentras and began his political career before World War I. During the war, he fought on the Western Front and was decorated for his service. After the war, he became a leading figure in the Radical Party and Prime Minister in 1933 and 1934. Daladier was Minister of Defence from 1936 to 1940 and Prime Minister again in 1938. As head of government, he expanded the French welfare state in 1939.

Along with Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, Daladier signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, which gave Nazi Germany control over the Sudetenland. After Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany. During the Phoney War, France's failure to aid Finland against the Soviet Union's invasion during the Winter War led to Daladier's resignation on 21 March 1940 and his replacement by Paul Reynaud. Daladier remained Minister of Defence until 19 May, when Reynaud took over the portfolio personally after the French defeat at Sedan.

After the Fall of France, Daladier was tried for treason by the Vichy government during the Riom Trial and imprisoned first in Fort du Portalet, then in Buchenwald concentration camp, and finally in Itter Castle. After the Battle of Castle Itter, Daladier resumed his political career as a member of the French Chamber of Deputies from 1946 to 1958. He died in Paris in 1970.

Early life
Daladier was born in Carpentras, Vaucluse, on 18 June 1884, the son of a village baker. He received his formal education at the lycée Duparc in Lyon, where he was first introduced to socialist politics. After his graduation, he became a school teacher and a university lecturer at Nîmes, Grenoble and Marseilles and then at the Lycée Condorcet, in Paris, where he taught history. He began his political career by becoming the mayor of Carpentras, his home town, in 1912. He subsequently sought election to the Paris Chamber of Deputies but lost to a Radical-Socialist Party candidate; he later joined that party.

Daladier had received military training before the war under France's conscription system. In August 1914, he was mobilised at the age of 30 with the French Army's 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment when World War I started with the rank of sergeant. In mid-1915, the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment was destroyed in heavy fighting against the Imperial German Army on the Western Front. The surviving remnant of it was assigned to other units, Daladier being transferred into the 209th Infantry Regiment. In 1916, he fought with the 209th in the Battle of Verdun and was given a field commission as a lieutenant in the midst of the battle in April 1916 having received commendations for gallantry in action. In May 1917, he received the Legion of Honour for gallantry in action and ended the war as a captain leading a company. He had also been awarded the Croix de Guerre.

After his demobilisation, he was elected to the Paris Chamber of Deputies for Orange, Vaucluse, in 1919.

Later, he would become known to many as "the bull of Vaucluse" because of his thick neck, large shoulders and determined look. However, cynics also quipped that his horns were like those of a snail.

Interwar period
After he entered the Chamber of Deputies, Daladier became a leading member of the Radical-Socialist Party and was responsible for building it into a structured modern political party. For most of the interwar period, he was the chief figure of the party's left wing, supporters of a governmental coalition with the socialist Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO). A government minister in various posts during the coalition governments between 1924 and 1928, Daladier was instrumental in the Radical-Socialists' break with the SFIO in 1926, the first Cartel des gauches with the centre-right Raymond Poincaré in November 1928. In 1930, he unsuccessfully attempted to gain socialist support for a centre-left government in coalition the Radical-Socialist and similar parties. In 1933, despite similar negotiations breaking down, he formed a government of the republican left.

In January 1934, he was considered the most likely candidate of the centre-left to form a government of sufficient honesty to calm public opinion after the revelations of the Stavisky Affair, a major corruption scandal. The government lasted less than a week, however, since it fell in the face of the 6 February 1934 riots. After Daladier fell, the coalition of the left initiated two years of right-wing governments.

After a year of being withdrawn from frontline politics, Daladier returned to public prominence in October 1934 and took a populist line against the banking oligarchy that he believed had taken control of French democracy: the Two Hundred Families. He was made president of the Radical-Socialist Party and brought the party into the Popular Front coalition. Daladier became Minister of National Defence in the Léon Blum government and retained the crucial portfolio for two years. Besides for serving as Defense Minister, Daladier was appointed the chairman of the newly founded Supreme Defense Committee. At the first meeting of the committee on 26 June 1936, Daladier complained that other nations had someone to direct their defense policies, citing the example of the War Minister Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg in Germany; the Defense Commissar Marshal Kliment Voroshilov in the Soviet Union; Benito Mussolini in Italy and Sir Thomas Inskip in Britain. Daladier stated from now on he would be playing that role in France. He then moved on to say that the first order of business was the nationalisation of the entire French arms industry as he accused French arms firms of failing to provide the military with the necessary weapons on time or in full, and stated that henceforward the French state would take direct control of all production. Daladier had a difficult relationship with Marshal Maxime Weygand-a man whom he greatly disliked-but Daladier was very close to Weygand's successor, Maurice Gamelin, whose views and judgements on military matters he greatly trusted and valued.

Daladier was much influenced by intelligence reports from the Deuxième Bureau that the factories of the German arms firms such as Krupp AG, Rheinmetall AG, and Borsig AG were being run at full capacity, suggesting that the Reich was preparing for war in the near-future. Daladier complained that Germany as the world's second largest economy had an automatic head-start in the arms race while France as the world's fourth largest economy was by definition behind the Reich in terms of arms production. In early July 1936, Daladier appeared by the Defense Committees of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate to warn that Germany was winning the arms race; the Wehrmacht would soon field 650,000 men; and that the Wehrmacht was buying tanks in massive numbers to win a "war of movement". Gamelin expressed much concern to Robert Jacomet, a senior civil servant at the Defense Ministry about the plans for nationalization of the arms industry, which he described as a "left-wing gimmick" instead of being a practical policy to win the arms race. Jacoment replied that Daladier was all for nationalization as he stated that "Time is short" and to create a "powerful parallel state industry" alongside the private sector arms industry would take too long. Jacoment stated: "Our interest is therefore to get our hands on the existing factories and modernise them fast". On 11 August 1936, the nationalization bill was approved by the National Assembly, and the French state took control of the arms industry.

As Defense Minister, Daladier asked the commander of the military, General Maurice Gamelin to submit a four-year plan for military modernization. When Gamelin submitted in a plan that was budgeted at 9 billion francs for the French Army, Daladier rejected it as too low and instead added in an extra 5 billion francs. During an "emotional" interview with Blum, Daladier persuaded him to accept the 14 billion franc plan as he issued a stark warning that the Reich was winning the arms race at present. On 7 September 1936, the Blum cabinet approved Daladier's 14 billion franc plan for rearmament. The American historian Joseph Maiolo wrote the rearmament program launched in 1936 was "the biggest arms program ever attempted by a French government in peacetime". As Defense Minister, Daladier favored a hawkish line towards Italy, and in January 1937 played a crucial role in having Admiral François Darlan appointed commander of the Navy as Darlan saw Italy as France's primary opponent unlike his predecessor Admiral Georges Durand-Viel who was an admirer of Fascist Italy. The French Navy was not large enough to patrol both the Atlantic coastline and the Mediterranean Sea.

A key element in France's war plans against Germany was bringing in a massive number of soldiers from North Africa to France, and the prospect that Italy would cut the sea lanes linking Algeria to France was considered a major problem in Paris. Darlan argued that France needed control of the Mediterranean not because of the need for troops from Algeria, but because it was the only way for France to reach its allies in Eastern Europe and for reasons of trade. In the debate between Darlan vs. Maurice Gamelin who saw Italy more as a potential ally rather an potential enemy, Daladier came to favor Darlan. The Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War along with Benito Mussolini's openly pro-German foreign policy convinced Daladier by late 1937 that Italy was only a potential enemy and it should be assumed that France became involved in a war with Germany that Italy would inevitably enter the war on the side of the Reich. At a meeting of Comité Permeant de la Défense National in November 1937, Daladier stated: "The hypothesis of conflict with the Mediterranean as the center of preponderant action, raises different problems for our foreign and military policy...Given the two-bloc composition [in the Atlantic and Asia] of the Franco-British empire, an attack in the Mediterranean, the stem between these two blocs would allow Germany and Italy to obtain the most decisive results". In addition, Daladier noted that the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez canal was equally important to the British as almost all of the shipping that linked the United Kingdom to its colonies in Asia went through the Mediterranean, and the possibility of a potential Italian naval threat was the best way of securing an alliance with Britain. Daladier pushed for war planning that called for making the defeat of Italy the first priority while France remained on the defensive against the Reich along the Maginot Line.

After the fall of the Blum government, Daladier became head of government again on 10 April 1938, orienting his government towards the centre and ending the Popular Front.

Munich Agreement

Daladier's last government was in power at the time of the negotiations preceding the Munich Agreement during which France pressured Czechoslovakia to hand the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. In April–May 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain strongly but unsuccessfully pressed Daladier to renounce the French-Czechoslovak alliance, which led to Britain becoming involved in the crisis. From the British perspective, the problem was not the Sudetenland but the French-Czechoslovak alliance. British military experts were almost unanimous that Germany would defeat France in a war unless Britain intervened. The British thought that allowing Germany to defeat France would unacceptably alter the balance of power, and so Britain would have no choice but to intervene if a French-German war broke out. The Franco-Czechoslovak alliance would have turned any German attack on Czechoslovakia into a French–German war. As British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax stated at a Cabinet meeting in March 1938, "Whether we liked or not, we had to admit the plain fact that we could not afford to see France overrun." At the Anglo-French summit in London on 28–29 April 1938, Chamberlain pressured Daladier to renounce the alliance with Czechoslovakia, only to be firmly informed that France would stand by its obligations, which forced the British to be involved very reluctantly in the Sudetenland Crisis. The summit of 28–29 April 1938 represented a British "surrender" to the French, rather than a French "surrender" to the British since Daladier made it clear France would not renounce its alliance with Czechoslovakia. Daldier's unwillingness to renounce France's alliance with Czechoslovakia forced the British very much against their will into involvement with the Sudetenland crisis since because the French refused to renounce the alliance led to the British taking the next best course of action, namely pressuring Czechoslovakia into concessions to the Sudeten Germans.

Unlike Chamberlain, Daladier had no illusions about Hitler's ultimate goals. In fact, he told the British in a late April 1938 meeting that Hitler's real aim was to eventually secure "a domination of the Continent in comparison with which the ambitions of Napoleon were feeble". Daladier went on to say, "Today, it is the turn of Czechoslovakia. Tomorrow, it will be the turn of Poland and Romania. When Germany has obtained the oil and wheat it needs, she will turn on the West. Certainly we must multiply our efforts to avoid war. But that will not be obtained unless Great Britain and France stick together, intervening in Prague for new concessions [i.e. to the Sudeten Germans] but declaring at the same time that they will safeguard the independence of Czechoslovakia. If, on the contrary, the Western Powers capitulate again, they will only precipitate the war they wish to avoid." At the same time, Daladier was well aware that France could not hope to win a war against Germany without the "continental commitment" that the British empire would commit a large expeditionary force to the defense of France as had occurred in World War I. Furthermore, 60% of French imports came via the sea, making France dependent upon help from Britain, the world's largest naval power. The way that Italy came to be aligned with Germany from 1936 onward led to the majority of the French Navy being concentrated in the Mediterranean Sea to face a potential threat from Italy, leaving the French Atlantic coastline wide open to the German Navy, which led France to seek Britain as an ally to protect the Atlantic sea-lanes. The greater population of Germany left the French dependent upon bringing soldiers recruited in Algeria to France, and which in turn made the French Navy's primary task was in securing control of the western Mediterranean. Daladier had pushed very strongly during the London summit for Anglo-French naval staff talks for a possible war against Italy as he argued that both Britain and France needed command of the Mediterranean. Daladier had pressed Chamberlain for the Royal Navy to abandon the Singapore strategy of sending the main British battle fleet to Singapore to defend Britain's Asian colonies against a Japanese threat and instead wanted the Royal Navy concentrated in European waters.

The French economic situation was very worrying since the French franc had been devalued on 4 May 1938 for the third time since October 1936. Daladier wanted to stabilise the franc and so had fixed the exchange rate to 176 francs per pound sterling. The crisis of 20–22 May 1938 made the franc come under immense financial pressure since many investors did not wish to hold French assets or debts if France went to war. Jacques Rueff, the director of direction générale du mouvement des fonds and special adviser to Finance Minister, Paul Marchandeau, stated in a report that the government must cut defense spending or find more sources of short-term loans, as the French government was running out of money. Marchandeau stated that ordinary charges upon the treasury in 1938 would "exceed" 42 billion francs, and Rueff warned that France would go bankrupt once the legal limits upon short-term loans from the Bank of France was reached. Marchandeau, in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, stated that the government had only 30 million francs in its account and 230 million francs available from the Bank of France.

As French government expenditure for the month of May 1938 alone totalled 4,500 million francs, the British historian Martin Thomas wrote, "Daladier's government was utterly reliant upon the success of its devaluation". To provide revenue, the government needed to sell more short-term bonds, but investors were highly reluctant to buy French bonds if Germany was threatening Czechoslovakia and put France on the brink of war. Because the franc was tied to the pound, France needed loans from Britain, which were not forthcoming, and so France was left "with its hands tied". British and American investors were unwilling to buy French bonds as long as the Sudetenland Crisis continued, which caused "severe monetary problems" for the French government in August–September 1938. Only when Daladier moved the "free-market liberal" Paul Reynaud from the Justice Ministry to the Finance Ministry in November 1938 did France regain the confidence of international investors, who resumed buying French bonds.

Reports from the embassy in Warsaw and the legations in Belgrade and Bucharest emphasised that Yugoslavia and Romania would probably do nothing if Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, and Poland might very well join in with Germany since the Teschen conflict between Poland and Czechoslovakia had made them bitter enemies. Of France's potential allies in Eastern Europe, only the Soviet Union, which had no border with Czechoslovakia, professed a willingness to come to Czechoslovakia's aid if Germany invaded, but both Poland and Romania were unwilling to extend transit rights for the Red Army, which presented major problems. Daladier was advised by General Maurice Gamelin that the Yezhovshchina which had seen a significant number of the Red Army's generals shot on charges of treason for Germany and Japan in 1937-1938 had destroyed the Red Army as an effective fighting force. Daladier was told by the French General Staff that the Red Army was "une belle facade" whose contribution to a war against Germany would be "almost zero".

On 25 September 1938, at the Bad Godesberg Summit, Hitler rejected Chamberlain's offer to have the Sudetenland join Germany in few months, declared that the timeline was unacceptable and that the Sudetenland had to "go home to the Reich" by 1 October, and stated that the Polish and Hungarian claims against Czechoslovakia must also be satisfied by 1 October or Czechoslovakia would be invaded. Upon hearing what Hitler had demanded at the summit, Daladier told his cabinet that France "intended to go to war".

The next day, Daladier told his close friend, US Ambassador William Christian Bullitt Jr., that he would much prefer war to the "humiliation" of the Bad Godesberg terms.

Daladier ordered the French military to mobilise and to put France on a war footing, with a blackout being imposed at night so that German bombers would be not guided to French cities by the lights. On 26 September, Daladier ordered General Maurice Gamelin to London to begin staff talks with the Imperial General Staff. On 27 September, Gamelin, when asked by his chef de cabinet if Daladier was serious about war, replied, "He'll do it, he'll do it".

However, on 29 September 1938, Chamberlain announced to the British House of Commons that he just received a phone call from Benito Mussolini, who said that Hitler had reconsidered his views and was now willing to discuss a compromise solution to the crisis in Munich. Ultimately, Daladier felt that France could not win against Germany without Britain on its side, and Chamberlain's announcement that he would be flying to Munich led him to attend the Munich Conference as well, which was held the next day on 30 September.

The Munich Agreement was a compromise since Hitler abandoned his more extreme demands such as settling the Polish and Hungarian claims by 1 October, but the conference concluded that Czechoslovakia was to turn over the Sudetenland to Germany within ten days in October and would be supervised by an Anglo-Franco-Italo-German commission. Daladier was happy to have avoided war but felt that the agreement he had signed on 30 September in Munich was a shameful treaty that had betrayed Czechoslovakia, France's most loyal ally in Eastern Europe. Although Daladier feared public hostility to the Munich Agreement on his return to Paris, he was acclaimed by the crowd, which cheered the fact that there would not be another war. Most famously, when he saw the enthusiastic crowds waving at his plane as it landed at Le Bourget Airfield before landing, he turned to his aide Alexis Léger (a.k.a. Saint-John Perse) and commented: "Ah! les cons! s'ils savaient..." ("Ah! The fools! If only they knew...").

Rearmament
Daladier had been made aware in 1932 by German rivals to Hitler that Krupp manufactured heavy artillery, and the Deuxième Bureau had a grasp of the scale of German military preparations but lacked hard intelligence of hostile intentions.

In October 1938, Daladier opened secret talks with the Americans on how to bypass the Neutrality Acts and to allow the French to buy American aircraft to make up for the underproductive French aircraft industry. Daladier commented in October 1938, "If I had three or four thousand aircraft, Munich would never have happened". He was most anxious to buy American war planes as the only way to strengthen the French Air Force. Major problems in the talks were how the French would pay for the American planes and how to bypass the Neutrality Acts.

In addition, France had defaulted on its World War I debts in 1932 and so fell foul of the 1934 Johnson Act, which banned American loans to nations that had defaulted on their World War I debts. In February 1939, the French offered to cede their possessions in the Caribbean and the Pacific, together with a lump sum payment of 10 billion francs, in exchange for the unlimited right to buy American aircraft on credit.

After tortuous negotiations, an arrangement was worked out in the spring of 1939 to allow the French to place huge orders with the American aircraft industry, but as most of the aircraft ordered had not arrived in France by 1940, the Americans arranged for French orders to be diverted to the British.

At a rally in Marseille in October 1938, Daladier announced a new policy: J'ai choisi mon chemin: la France en avant! ("I have chosen my path; forward with France!"). He stated that his government's domestic and foreign policies were to be based on "firmness". What that meant, in practice, was the end of the social reforms of the Popular Front government to increase French productivity, especially by ending the 40-hour work week. In a series of decree laws issued on 1 November 1938 by Finance Minister Paul Reynaud, which bypassed the National Assembly, the 40-hour work week was ended, taxes were sharply increased; social spending was slashed, defence spending was increased, the power of unions was restricted and (most controversially) Saturday was once again declared to be a workday. In a radio broadcast on 12 November 1938, Reynaud stated, "We are going blindfold towards an abyss". He also argued that however much pain his reforms might cause, they were absolutely necessary. As part of the effort to put the French economy on a war footing, Reynaud increased the military budget from 29 billion francs to 93 billion francs. In response, the French Communist Party called for a general strike to protest the decrees that ended almost all of the reforms of the Popular Front.

The one-day general strike of 30 November 1938, which pitted the government against unions supported by the Communist Party, proved to be the first test of Daladier's new policy of "firmness". Daladier declared a national emergency in response to the general strike, ordered the military to Paris and other major cities, suspended civil liberties, ordered the police to disperse striking workers with tear gas and to storm factories occupied by the workers and announced that any worker who took part in the strike would be fired immediately with no severance pay. After one day, the strike collapsed.

At the time, Daladier justified his policy of "firmness" under the grounds that if France was to face the German challenge, French production would have to be increased and said that was the price of freedom. At the same time, the energetic Colonial Minister Georges Mandel was set about organising the French Colonial Empire for war. He established armament factories in French Indochina to supply the French garrisons there to deter Japan from invading, increased the number of colonial "coloured" divisions from 6 to 12, built defensive works in Tunisia to deter an Italian invasion from Libya and organised the colonial economies for a "total war". In France itself, Mandel launched a propaganda campaign emphasising how the French colonial Empire was a source of strength under the slogan "110 million strong, France can stand up to Germany" in reference to the fact that the population of Germany was 80 million and that of France was 40 million, with the extra 70 million credited to France being the population of its colonies.

The 40-hour work week was abolished under Daladier's government, but a more generous system of family allowances was established and set as a percentage of wages: for the first child 5%, for the second child 10% and for each additional child 15%. Also created was a home mother allowance, which had been advocated by natalist and Catholic women's groups since 1929. All mothers who were not professionally employed and whose husbands collected family allowances were eligible for the new benefit. In March 1939, the government added 10% for workers whose wives stayed home to take care of the children. Family allowances were enshrined in the Family Code of July 1939 and, with the exception of the stay-at-home allowance, are still in force. In addition, a decree was issued in May 1938 to allow the establishment of vocational guidance centres. In July 1937, a new law, which was followed by a similar law in May 1946, empowered the Department of Workplace Inspection to order temporary medical interventions.

On 30 November 1938, a major crisis in Franco-Italian relations began with stage-managed "spontaneous" demonstrations in the Italian Chamber of Deputies. On cue, the Italian deputies rose up to shout "Tunis, Corsica, Nice, Savoy!" Mussolini had expected that his "Sudeten methods" would lead to France ceding Tunisia, Corsica, Nice and Savoy to Italy, but Daladier rejected the Italian demands completely. In his annual Christmas radio broadcast to the French people, Daladier gave what the British historian D.C. Watt called "an extremely tough speech" rejecting all of the Italian demands and warned that France would go to war to defend its territory.

The British historian Richard Overy wrote: "The greatest achievement of Daladier in 1939 was to win from the British a firm commitment", the so-called "continental commitment" that every French leader had sought since 1919. Daladier had a low opinion of Britain and told Bullitt in November 1938 that he "fully expected to be betrayed by the British.... he considered Chamberlain a desiccated stick; the King a moron; and the Queen an excessively ambitious woman.... he felt that England had become so feeble and senile that the British would give away every possession of their friends rather than stand up to Germany and Italy". In late 1938 to early 1939, the British embassy was bombarded with rumours from reliable sources within the French government that France would seek an "understanding" with Germany that would resolve all problems in their relations. The fact that French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet was indeed seeking such an understanding lent credence to such rumours.

Daladier let Bonnet pursue his own foreign policy in the hope that it might finally spur the British into making the "continental commitment" since a France aligned with Germany would make the Reich Europe's strongest power and leave Britain with no ally of comparable strength in Europe. In January 1939, Daladier let the Deuxième Bureau manufacture the "Dutch War Scare". French intelligence fed misinformation to MI6 that Germany was about to invade the Netherlands with the aim of using Dutch air fields to launch a bombing campaign to raze British cities to the ground. As France was the only nation in Western Europe with an army strong enough to save the Netherlands, the "Dutch War Scare" led the British to make anxious inquiries in Paris to ask the French to intervene if the Netherlands were indeed invaded. In response, Daladier stated that if the British wanted the French to do something for their security, it was only fair for the British do something for French security. Daladier gave evasive answers to the British ambassador Sir Eric Phipps that France would do if Germany invaded the Netherlands, and that "French military authorities do not consider France is now in a position to defend herself without the military assistance from the United Kingdom". On 6 February 1939, Chamberlain, in a speech to the House of Commons, finally made the "continental commitment" as he told the House: "The solidarity that unites France and Britain is such that any threat to the vital interests of France must bring about the co-operation of Great Britain". On 13 February 1939, staff talks between the British Imperial General Staff and the French General Staff were opened.

Daladier supported Chamberlain's policy of creating a "peace front" that was meant to deter Germany from aggression but was unhappy with the British "guarantee" of Poland, which Chamberlain had announced to the House of Commons on 31 March 1939. France had been allied to Poland since 1921, but Daladier had been bitter by the German-Polish Nonaggression Pact of 1934 and the Polish annexation of part of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Like other French leaders, he regarded the Sanation regime ruling Poland as a fickle and unreliable friend of France. The rise in French industrial output and the greater financial stability in 1939 as a result of Reynaud's reforms led Daladier to view the possibility of war with the Reich more favourably than had been the case in 1938. By September 1939, France's aircraft production was equal to Germany's, and 170 American planes were arriving per month.

The Neutrality Acts were still in effect, but the supportive stance of US President Franklin Roosevelt led Daladier to assume that the Americans would maintain a pro-French neutrality and that their tremendous industrial resources would aid France if the Danzig Crisis ended in war.

Daladier was far keener than Chamberlain was to bring the Soviet Union into the "peace front" and believed that only an alliance with the Soviets could deter Hitler from invading Eastern Europe. During the Danzig crisis, Daladier was far committed to bringing the Soviet Union into the "peace front" meant to deter Germany from invading Poland than was Chamberlain, and Daladier often expressed with the British "go slow" negotiating tactics with Moscow.

Daladier did not want a war with Germany in 1939 but sought to have such an overwhelming array of forces arranged against Germany that Hitler would be deterred from invading Poland. Daladier believed that Polish Guarantee by Britain would encourage Poland to object to having the Soviet Union join the "peace front", which indeed proved to be the case. The Poles refused to grant transit rights to the Red Army, which the Soviets made a precondition for their joining the "peace front". Daladier felt that Chamberlain should not have made guarantee until the Poles had agreed to grant transit rights to the Red Army. He charged that the guarantee made British and French diplomats have more leverage over Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Jozef Beck, who was widely disliked by other diplomats for his stubbornness and haughty manners.

Daladier felt that on economic and military grounds, it was better to have the Soviet Union serve as the "eastern pivot" of the "peace front" than for Poland to do so, as the British preferred. Daladier disliked the Poles and the guarantee but believed in maintaining the alliance with Poland; he believed that France should stand by its commitments.

A public opinion poll in June 1939 showed that 76% of the French believed that France should immediately declare war if Germany tried to seize the Free City of Danzig. For Daladier, the possibility that the Soviet Union might join the "peace front" was a "lifeline" and the best way of stopping another world war. He was deeply frustrated by the Polish refusal to permit transit rights for the Red Army.

On 19 August 1939, Beck, in a telegram to Daladier, stated: "We have not got a military agreement with the USSR. We do not want to have one".

Though the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August ruined Daladier's hopes of an Anglo-Franco-Soviet "peace front", he still believed that France and Britain could stop Germany together. On 27 August 1939, Daladier told Bullitt, "there was no further question of policy to be settled. His sister had put in two bags all the personal keepsakes and belonging he really cared about, and was prepared to leave for a secure spot at any moment. France intended to stand by the Poles, and if Hitler should refuse to negotiate with the Poles over Danzig, and should make war on Poland, France would fight at once".

World War II
After the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed, Daladier responded to the public outcry by outlawing the French Communist Party on the basis that it had refused to condemn Joseph Stalin's actions. During the Danzig Crisis, Daladier was greatly influenced by the advice that he received from Robert Coulondre, the French ambassador in Berlin, that Hitler would back down if France made a firm enough stand toward Poland. On 31 August 1939, Daladier read out to the French cabinet a letter he received from Coulondre: "The trial of strength turns to our advantage. It is only necessary to hold, hold, hold!"

After the German invasion of Poland on 1 September, he reluctantly declared war on 3 September and inaugurated the Phoney War. On 6 October, Hitler offered France and Britain a peace proposal. There were more than a few in the French government who were prepared to take Hitler up on his offer, but in a nationwide broadcast the next day, Daladier declared, "We took up arms against aggression. We shall not put them down until we have guarantees for a real peace and security, a security which is not threatened every six months". On 29 January 1940, in a radio address delivered to the people of France, The Nazi's Aim is Slavery, Daladier explicitly stated his opinion of the Germans: "For us, there is more to do than merely win the war. We shall win it, but we must also win a victory far greater than that of arms. In this world of masters and slaves, which those madmen who rule at Berlin are seeking to forge, we must also save liberty and human dignity".

In March 1940, Daladier resigned as prime minister because of his failure to aid Finland's defence during the Winter War, and he was replaced by Paul Reynaud. Daladier remained defence minister, however, and his antipathy to the new prime minister prevented Reynaud from dismissing Maurice Gamelin as Supreme Commander of the French armed forces. As a result of the massive German breakthrough at Sedan, Daladier swapped ministerial offices with Reynaud and became foreign minister while Reynaud became defence minister. Gamelin was finally replaced by Maxime Weygand on 19 May 1940, nine days after the Germans began the Battle of France.

Under the impression that the French government would continue in North Africa, Daladier fled with other members of the government to French Morocco, but he was arrested and tried for treason by the Vichy government during the Riom Trial.

Daladier was interned in Fort du Portalet, in the Pyrenees. He was kept in prison from 1940 to April 1943, when he was handed over to the Germans and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. In May 1943, he was transported to the Itter Castle, in North Tyrol, with other French dignitaries, where he remained until the end of the war. He was freed after the Battle for Castle Itter.

Postwar
After the war ended, Daladier was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1946 and acted as a patron to the Radical-Socialist Party's young reforming leader, Pierre Mendès-France. He also was elected as the Mayor of Avignon in 1953. He opposed the transferral of powers to Charles de Gaulle after the May 1958 crisis but, in the subsequent legislative elections of that year, failed to secure re-election. He withdrew from politics after a career of almost 50 years at the age of 74.

Death
Daladier died in Paris on 10 October 1970, at the age of 86. He was buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

The Canadian historian Robert Young wrote that Daladier's historical reputation has been tainted by his association with appeasement with his image being of a "weary Sancho Panza to Chamberlain's Don Quixote", namely of a weak, cowardly man who signed the Munich Agreement out of personal weakness rather than conviction, which has made his historical reputation even worse than that of Chamberlain. Young further noted that though Daladier was no longer premier in May-June 1940, the popular image of the French defeat of 1940 is that of an effortless German triumph with French hardly fighting at all in defense of their nation, which in turn has been linked to appeasement as the popular image of the appeasers is of cowardly, wimpy men unable to stand to Hitler. Young wrote that in the English-speaking world, a key difference in the historical writing about the origins of the Second World War is that British appeasers such as Chamberlain are seen as individuals with their support for appeasement being explained to their own personalities while the support of French appeasers such as Daladier for appeasement is explained by them being French with the clear implication that cowardice is the principle national characteristic of all French people. Young argued that the popular image in the English-speaking world of the French not fighting at all in defense of France in 1940 is not true as about 120, 000 French servicemen were killed in action between 10 May-21 June 1940. Young has argued that the picture of Daladier as a key figure in a process of inexorable national decline that ended in France's defeat in 1940 is too teleological and deterministic and failed to address Daladier's efforts at increased rearmament and his attempts to forge an alliance with Great Britain against Germany. Young has further maintained too much of the historical writing on Daladier is more concerned about making sweeping generalisations about the French with the implied message that English-speaking peoples such as the British and the Americans are more courageous and honorable, which he deplored as nationalistic history-writing that prevented the historical understanding of what happened in France and why.

In visual media

 * Daladier is portrayed by the English actor David Swift in Countdown to War (1989) and by French actor Stéphane Boucher in Munich – The Edge of War (2021).
 * The Czech comedy Lost in Munich (2015) is about a 90-year-old parrot who used to live with Daladier and is still repeating his quotes related to the Munich Agreement

Daladier's first ministry, 31 January – 26 October 1933

 * Édouard Daladier – President of the Council and Minister of War
 * Eugène Penancier – Vice President of the Council and Minister of Justice
 * Joseph Paul-Boncour – Minister of Foreign Affairs
 * Camille Chautemps – Minister of the Interior
 * Georges Bonnet – Minister of Finance
 * Lucien Lamoureux – Minister of Budget
 * François Albert – Minister of Labour and Social Security Provisions
 * Georges Leygues – Minister of Marine
 * Eugène Frot – Minister of Merchant Marine
 * Pierre Cot – Minister of Air
 * Anatole de Monzie – Minister of National Education
 * Edmond Miellet – Minister of Pensions
 * Henri Queuille – Minister of Agriculture
 * Albert Sarraut – Minister of Colonies
 * Joseph Paganon – Minister of Public Works
 * Charles Daniélou – Minister of Public Health
 * Laurent Eynac – Minister of Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones
 * Louis Serre – Minister of Commerce and Industry

Changes
 * 6 September 1933 – Albert Sarraut succeeds Leygues (d. 2 September) as Minister of Marine. Albert Dalimier succeeds Sarraut as Minister of Colonies.

Daladier's second ministry, 30 January – 9 February 1934

 * Édouard Daladier – President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs
 * Eugène Penancier – Vice President of the Council and Minister of Justice
 * Jean Fabry – Minister of National Defence and War
 * Eugène Frot – Minister of the Interior
 * François Piétri – Minister of Finance
 * Jean Valadier – Minister of Labour and Social Security Provisions
 * Louis de Chappedelaine – Minister of Military Marine
 * Guy La Chambre – Minister of Merchant Marine
 * Pierre Cot – Minister of Air
 * Aimé Berthod – Minister of National Education
 * Hippolyte Ducos – Minister of Pensions
 * Henri Queuille – Minister of Agriculture
 * Henry de Jouvenel – Minister of Overseas France
 * Joseph Paganon – Minister of Public Works
 * Émile Lisbonne – Minister of Public Health
 * Paul Bernier (minister) – Minister of Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones
 * Jean Mistler – Minister of Commerce and Industry

Changes
 * 4 February 1934 – Joseph Paul-Boncour succeeds Fabry as Minister of National Defence and War. Paul Marchandeau succeeds Piétri as Minister of Finance.

Daladier's third ministry, 10 April 1938 – 21 March 1940

 * Édouard Daladier – President of the Council and Minister of National Defence and War
 * Camille Chautemps – Vice President of the Council in charge of coordination of the Office of the Presidency of the Council
 * Georges Bonnet – Minister of Foreign Affairs
 * Albert Sarraut – Minister of the Interior
 * Paul Marchandeau – Minister of Finance
 * Raymond Patenôtre – Minister of National Economy
 * Paul Ramadier – Minister of Labour
 * Paul Reynaud – Minister of Justice
 * César Campinchi – Minister of Military Marine
 * Louis de Chappedelaine – Minister of Merchant Marine
 * Guy La Chambre – Minister of Air
 * Jean Zay – Minister of National Education
 * Auguste Champetier de Ribes – Minister of Veterans and Pensioners
 * Henri Queuille – Minister of Agriculture
 * Georges Mandel – Minister of Colonies
 * Ludovic-Oscar Frossard – Minister of Public Works
 * Marc Rucart – Minister of Public Health
 * Alfred Jules-Julien – Minister of Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones
 * Fernand Gentin – Minister of Commerce

Changes
 * 23 August 1938 – Charles Pomaret succeeds Ramadier as Minister of Labour. Anatole de Monzie succeeds Frossard as Minister of Public Works.
 * 1 November 1938 – Paul Reynaud succeeds Paul Marchandeau as Minister of Finance. Marchandeau succeeds Reynaud as Minister of Justice.
 * 29 July 1939 – Jean Giraudoux enters the Cabinet as Minister of Information.
 * 13 September 1939 – Georges Bonnet succeeds Marchandeau as Minister of Justice. Daladier succeeds Bonnet as Minister of Foreign Affairs, remaining also Minister of National Defence and War. Raymond Patenôtre leaves the Cabinet and the position of Minister of National Economy is abolished. Alphonse Rio succeeds Chappedelaine as Minister of Merchant Marine. Yvon Delbos succeeds Zay as Minister of National Education. René Besse succeeds Champetier as Minister of Veterans and Pensioners. Raoul Dautry enters the Cabinet as Minister of Armaments. Georges Pernot enters the Cabinet as Minister of Blockade (France).

title: Édouard Daladier