On 14 May in Moscow our reply to the British proposals of 8 May was handed to Seeds. It boils down to the following:

[Commenting on the new draft proposal to the Russians, the chiefs of staff embarrassed Chamberlain and Halifax on 16 May by insisting that any arrangement short of a full-blown alliance might have ‘serious military repercussions … of ultimately throwing the USSR into [Germany’s] arms’. The Cabinet was split on the issue. While Chamberlain, tacitly backed by Halifax, rejected the idea of a grand alliance, underlining the ‘political’ aspects which were overlooked by the chiefs of staff, Lord Chatfield, the minister of defence, warned that – ‘distasteful’ as it was for him personally to contemplate an alliance with the Soviet Union – the chiefs of staff were ‘very anxious that Russia should not, in any circumstances, become allied with Germany’. Irritated by Maisky, who was ‘working hand in hand’ with the opposition, Chamberlain hardly budged from his position, warning that an alliance would increase Britain’s ‘liabilities’ as well as the ‘probability of war’. He anticipated ‘trouble’ from the Russians, who had ‘no understanding of other countries’ mentality or conditions and no manners’. Halifax, however, wished the Cabinet to reach a decision before his departure for Geneva. It was clear to him that the only choices were for the negotiations to be ‘allowed to break down, or a full military alliance with Russia accepted’. This precipitated Vansittart’s evening meeting with Maisky, which was aimed at toning down the terms of the proposed agreement.

TNA FO 371 23066 C7268, 7400 & 7401/3356/18, and Halifax’s conversation with Corbin in the same vein in TNA FO 371 23066 C7268/3356/18, 17 May 1939; Self, Chamberlain Diary Letters, IV, p. 416, 14 May 1939. See also the excellent reconstruction in Manne, ‘The British decision for alliance with Russia’, pp. 22–4.

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