At first the host inquired about my impressions of the general mood in Moscow. I replied in the same vein as in my talk with Halifax on 17 August. Vansittart was apparently alarmed at the growing disappointment in Moscow over Anglo-French policy and our shift toward isolation. He began arguing passionately that we should not despair and that major processes were unfolding in the thick of British life and would soon produce concrete results. He concluded: ‘For Britain and the USSR to pass to an isolationist policy means to serve Europe to Germany on a platter.’

I answered that I had to agree with his formula. Yet if, contrary to our will, we had to face this eventuality, Great Britain would bear the brunt of the responsibility. It was Great Britain that for the last three years had been delivering blow after blow to the League of Nations and collective security.

Vansittart was in raptures about the Spanish Republicans. What fighters! What resistance! He asked me anxiously how long Barcelona could hold out. When I assured him that it would hold out for a long time, he cheered up at once and exclaimed: ‘That’s very good! Very good!’ Vansittart also expressed the opinion that the French government wouldn’t be able to keep the border closed for long following Franco’s response to the Committee’s evacuation plan.

Franco, fully re-equipped with German and Italian weaponry, launched a counteroffensive which led the Republican prime minister, Juan Negrín, to announce on 21 September the unilateral unconditional withdrawal of the International Brigades from Spain. By 16 November, the battle was lost. Any hope of Western help had vanished after the Munich Agreement. Barcelona fell to the Nationalist troops on 26 January 1939; A. Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 (London, 2006), pp. 352–4.

‘Perhaps the British government could ask Paris to open the border?’ I asked ironically.

Vansittart got slightly embarrassed and once again referred to the internal processes unfolding in the thick of British life.

Vansittart’s view of China is as follows: if Jiang Jieshi could hold out for another 12 months (even with the loss of Hankou), Japan would find itself in a critical position. I gained the firm impression from today’s meeting that Vansittart has found his feet again. Good luck to you, old chap! But for how long?