in turn pointed out that France had alliances with both Poland and Romania, which led him to strongly advise Litvinov that the Soviet Union should not to enter the territory of either state without obtaining transit rights first as otherwise France would be obliged to declare war on its ally the Soviet Union. Just when Coulondre believed it might finally be possible to open staff talks between the French and Soviet armies, he was recalled to Paris by the new foreign minister Georges Bonnet whom he learned had very different ideas about French policy in Eastern Europe, favoring a deal that would let Germany have Eastern Europe as its sphere of influence in exchange for leaving France alone. On the day he left for Paris, 16 May 1938, Coulondre visited the British Embassy in Moscow to share information about the Red Army and to argue that the executions of much the Red Army's leadership in the Yezhovshchina had not fatally weakened the Red Army as many had believed. The British chargé de affairs, Gordon Vereker reported to London that he was "slightly mystified as to the motives of M. Coulondre's invitation, for I have always understood that he is usually reserved and uncommunicative". Vereker told Colondre that his view was that the "Russians were Asiatics...and that with present Byzantine regime in the Kremlin anything might happen", concluding that the Red Army would be no match for the Wehrmacht and there was no point in trying to have the Soviet Union as a counterweight to Germany for that reason. Upon arriving in Paris, Coulondre was caught up in the May crisis. It was during the May crisis that Coulondre first learned of Bonnet's views about letting Germany have "a free hand in the East" in exchange for leaving France alone. Couldondre recalled that during the May crisis that the more he talked about France going to war with Germany, the more Bonnet insisted that it would not possible to do so unless Britain agreed to come in, which Couldonre noted did not seem very likely. Bonnet vetoed Coulondre's plans for joint Franco-Czechoslovak-Soviet staff talks, saying it might "incite certain French elements to appear bellicose". After hearing various excuses from Bonnet, which the combative Coulondre proceed to dismiss, he finally learned of what Bonnet was really seeking, namely to end all of France's alliances in eastern Europe. During the Sudetenland crisis of