"Castles of Illusion"

Two fateful airplanes fascinated Europe last week. One soared up from Rome with Benito Mussolini at the controls and fought its storm-tossed way over the Apennines. Setting the trimotored ship down at last near Dovia di Predappio, his birthplace in the Romagna, Il Duce tossed his flying helmet to a mechanic, drove off to concentrate at his country home on what moves he will make this week on Europe's chessboard when he opens the Stresa Conference.

The other airplane, sent especially from London to Prague last week, picked up at the Czechoslovak capital a handsome but sadly wilted young Englishman for whom the Empire has had high hopes. Two weeks of high pressure contacts with three dictators -- Hitler, Stalin -- and Pilsudski--had definitely proved too much for Captain Anthony Eden, George V's Lord Privy Seal.

Nobody knew quite so well as Mr. Eden that the international peace effort, begun when he and British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon called on Adolf Hitler (TIME, April 1), was cracking up last week. The Lord Privy Seal's head swam as his plane took off for London. On approaching Cologne he had to be set down, tottered to a hotel where for two hours he lay on his back, knowing only that he "felt queer."

Heart Strain. A firm believer that one can always buck up and that "the war was won on the playing fields of Eton" is Eton's gallant Eden. He was up next day and on a train for London, dictating to worried aides. He seemed fit, though tired, when Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon met him at the station. Two days later the Lord Privy Seal's doctors told him he was suffering from serious heart strain, made him cancel all engagements for six weeks. With pert and pretty Mrs. Eden hovering at his bedside, Captain Eden had the rare honor of a sickroom visit from the Prime "Minister who afterwards told reporters, "I am distressed beyond measure, both on private and public grounds."

So was Stalin. So was French Premier Flandin. So was Mussolini. Any virility, any decisiveness which young Captain Eden has injected into British foreign policy oozed away as his heart faltered and Sir John Simon prepared to represent the Empire at Stresa in his usual "great lawyer" fashion, temporizing and indecisive.

"Mediate?" The Stresa Conference was called to enable Britain, France and Italy to take common action in the face of 1) German rearmament, and 2) the refusal of Germany and Poland to enter military pacts for punishment of armed aggression, particularly the Eastern Locarno Pact. In London this week Sir John and Prime Minister MacDonald, who decided to go to Stresa too, seemed to have no policy except a vague notion that Britain should try to ''mediate.''

In Paris this was interpreted as British reluctance to take sides for or against Nazidom--even after the "clarifying talks" of Hitler with Sir John and Captain Eden. It was. Frenchmen angrily declared, just one more case of perfidious Albion's persistence in trying to maintain in Europe a "balance of power'' with herself as the fulcrum.

Worse still, in Paris the Cabinet was split. Supple Foreign Minister Pierre Laval who is a disciple of Peace Apostle Aristide Briand, held that negotiation with Germany can still bring peace. Kinetic Premier Pierre Etienne Flandin insisted that Germany must be ringed around with "an alliance cordon of steel."

Fixed Point. Not to be found in headlines this week was the obscure but basic crux of Europe's crisis: The German people stand with Hitler; but the people of France and Britain have no stomach to stand today against Nazidom or with leaders who would take strong action. To Premier Mussolini, brooding alone, this state of affairs seemed to demand candor and he gave it straight from the shoulder in Il Popolo d'Italia:

"At Stresa necessary responsibilities should be assumed without worrying particularly about the results of the French municipal elections or the fluctuation of British by-elections, which seem rather favorable toward Labor, indicating a 'race to pacifism' purely for reasons of internal politics. Stresa, in other words, should represent a fixed point in the stormy sea of European politics."

This fixed point could only be achieved by a decisive agreement among the Great Powers. Realmleader Hitler, with his scorn of Democracy, felt safe enough, since at Stresa Democracy will rule two to one over Fascism. "All their tricks," exulted the Berliner Tageblatt, "will be at best contraptions ... of short duration."

Castles & Teeth. IlDuce. who will open the Stresa Conference in the tall-terraced, fairylike palace on Lago Maggiore where Napoleon dallied for some months with Josephine, sternly warned his people to expect little from the Great Powers' conference. "You must," the Dictator told Italians, "build no castles of illusion."

As valets packed statesmanly baggage rumors vapored in Paris and London that "perhaps at Stresa teeth can be put into the League of Nations."

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