Bullying & Bluffing

President Roosevelt last week ordered the only U. S. war boat in the Mediterranean, the brand new destroyer Dale, to up anchor at Leghorn, Italy and steam to Washington in time for the celebration of Navy Day. Oct. 28.

Meanwhile 204-lb. British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was showing 185-lb. Benito Mussolini, whom most Britons consider a "Big Bully," how to be a Bigger Bully while remaining every inch an English Gentleman.

Italians, Frenchmen, Germans, Americans and other foreigners--but not His Majesty's subjects in the United Kingdom --daily received news that John Bull in the person of Squire Baldwin was hurling into the Mediterranean last week the most colossal and unprecedented array of war boats in modern times, denuding the British Isles themselves of virtually all sea defense.

Fleet movements as they occurred were not reported in British papers, by request of the Admiralty. Alien news services were encouraged to transmit via London every fact they could glean about the sudden, sensational and unannounced dispatching of the British Home Fleet, which was scheduled last week to be maneuvering off Scotland, to join the British Mediterranean Fleet. With charm and polish, Admiralty officials said that they "really did not know" the whereabouts of Britain's famed super-warboats, the Hood, the Rodney and the Nelson.

Mare Nostrum. When the British Home Fleet's flagship Nelson left Portland for Gibraltar this departure was officially described as "for one day's maneuver." Previously the Renown and the Hood and three smaller ships had slipped away so unobtrusively that those of their 6,000 officers & crew who happened to be ashore were recalled on a few hours' notice spread by flashing the order on cinema screens at Portland and circulating it among the pubs. In strict technicality the Admiralty's knowledge of exactly where the Home Fleet might be was locked in the resolute bosom of the fleet's immediate commander aboard the 33,500-ton battleship Nelson, Admiral Sir Roger Roland Charles Backhouse (pronounced back-house).

Gunnery is Admiral Backhouse's specialty and his favorite yarn is about a retired gunner's mate who dozed off and let his evening newspaper fall against the red-hot kitchen stove. "Fire!'" screamed his wife as the paper blazed. Waking up with a start, the mate rammed the family cat into the oven, banged the door and roared, "Ready, Sir." Though the United Kingdom never heard last week that whimsical Admiral Backhouse & Home Fleet had sailed for Gibraltar, the fact of their arrival finally appeared tucked quietly away in London papers, while world headlines were screaming "WAR!" from Chicago to Canton.

None of His Majesty's subjects in the United Kingdom saw last week any such thing as a news map (see cut) of the actual Mediterranean situation: roughly one million tons of fighting craft jammed into the small sea which Romans have called for over 2,000 years Mare Nostrum ("Our Sea"). On paper the Mediterranean seemed "bottled up'' by British ships at its two outlets, Gibraltar and Suez. But the paws of the British Lion remained relaxed last week. Italy's transatlantic liners continued to shuttle on schedule through the Straits of Gibraltar. Italian transports moved methodically through the Suez Canal, carrying an average of 2,000 Italian troops per day to face Ethiopia, 1,000 miles south.

League Trap? Squire Baldwin's diplomats at the Foreign Office and on Britain's delegation at Geneva repeated daily last week that His Majesty's Government were not acting "against" Italy but "for" the League covenant. They firmly deprecated all suggestions that Britain was bent on curbing Italy to protect her own imperial interests in Africa. "No selfish or imperialist motives enter into our minds," they all said, recalling the similar declaration at Geneva of new British Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel John Gurney Hoare (TIME. Sept. 23).

"Flying Sam" had been silenced in London last week by arthritis but his predecessor as Foreign Secretary, courtly Sir John Allsebrook Simon, now Home Secretary, took up the Empire theme. To a gathering of sturdy Britons at Cleckheaton in Yorkshire, Sir John cried: "Our moral authority is extremely high."

Thus doubly bullied by the world's most powerful fleet and most plausible statesmen, Big Bully Benito Mussolini raged in Rome: "We find it monstrous that the nation which dominates the world refuses us a small bit of land under the African sun! Many times I have given Britain assurance that her interests in Ethiopia would be scrupulously respected. Her attitude, I repeat, is monstrous! The real reasons why Britain so strongly opposes Italy she does not mention."

This drew a final British retort from the most potent statesman in Prime Minister Baldwin's Cabinet, lean, hook-nosed Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain, frequently mentioned as a future Prime Minister. Speaking at Floors Castle in Scotland, Mr. Chamberlain asked for an even larger British Navy. "The dangerously low level to which our defenses have fallen has caused some to treat us contemptuously," said he. "This is not a tolerable situation. . . . Italian opinion has been led to regard Britain as a monster of hypocrisy and selfishness. This is not true."

What was true was that Squire Baldwin and his National Government had seized intuitively upon the Italy-League-Ethiopia situation as offering sure-fire means of enabling them to win Britain's next election. Their foes, the British Labor Party, have since the War stood for extreme Pacifism and peace-at-any-price; but the British Trades Union Congress recently switched around, demanding that "force if necessary" be used against Fascist Mussolini. If force is to be used, if there is to be War for Peace again or anything approaching it. then the British voter can be depended on to swing to the British party which has always conducted the best wars, the Conservative Party of Stanley Baldwin.

Perhaps too late last week Britain's more experienced Labor politicians realized the trap into which their Party was being led by the anti-Fascist zeal of the Trades Union Congress's proletarian Socialists. Believing that not "force" but consistent Pacifism must always and ultimately be the guiding principle of British Labor, Lord Ponsonby, the Labor Party's leader in the House of Lords, resigned last week. Its leader in the Commons, "Old George" Lansbury, again threatened to resign. The Young Labor rival Herbert Morrison, who is most anxious to succeed him, announced that he smelt a Geneva rat.

"If the League of Nations is being secretly used for the interests of Imperialism," cried Mr. Morrison at Hackney, "then our Party must be free to make a new declaration superseding that of the Trades Union Congress. Labor can give no blank check of approval to this Government. We are not interested in the struggles of rival imperialisms [British & Italian], and we are not going to be drawn into them!"

All this went over the average British head but the public was vaguely troubled when Wartime Prime Minister David Lloyd George arose and bellowed with Welsh impetuosity, "We are within two weeks of War!"

"Derisory!" Fleet movements in last week's gigantic international game of bluff & bully overshadowed the League of Nations, but its dynamo of diplomacy whined on. The Committee of Five, instructed to find a formula for the Ethiopian crisis (TIME, Sept. 16), labored zealously under the chairmanship of Spain's Chief Delegate, idealistic Philosopher-Diplomatist Salvador de Madariaga in Geneva. At first inclined to recommend that Italy be given a status over Ethiopia similar to that which Britain holds over the nominally independent Kingdom of Irak, the Committee finally decided to recommend for Ethiopia the status recommended by the League two years ago for Liberia and indignantly refused by that Negro Republic.

In effect this scheme was for Ethiopia's Emperor to consent to receive in Addis Ababa a League High Commissioner who would reorganize the Ethiopian police, finances, jurisprudence, education and health services. Numerous Europeans, nominated by the League, would be needed to put through these reforms. Depending on whether the reforming Europeans were predominantly Italian--and the Committee of Five omitted the vital question of their nationality completely last week--this plan might offer something or nothing to Il Duce.

While the Committee was thrashing its scheme out Italy's Premier heard they were going to offer him two strips of territory in Ethiopia's more arid areas. "It looks as if the League thinks I am a collector of deserts!" joked the Dictator with one of the few Englishmen he likes, the London Daily Mail's Ward Price. "The plan is not only unacceptable but derisory!"

Not wishing to be derided, the Committee of Five left out the deserts, offered to Ethiopia's dusky but non-Negro ruler and to Il Duce only what the Negroes of Liberia have refused.

"In Quanto Esse." Rome was first to reply. The Italian Government had just taken four steps: 1) announced a 5% war loan so huge that it shook down Rome's stock market several points; 2) obtained from King Vittorio Emanuele III a decree making Benito Mussolini the sole Italian arbiter of Peace or War; 3) set up a board of Italian fighting service commanders to co-ordinate army, air force and fleet move ments; 4) placed 10.000,000 Italians of both sexes on call for a "practice mobilization"--really a nationwide Fascist pep rally--liable to be announced at any hour this week. In Rome it was supposed to be highly significant that Il Papa, previously lukewarm toward Il Duce in the present crisis, gave his permission as Supreme Pontiff last week that the signal for Fascist mobilization shall be the ringing of Catholic church bells.

With this under their belts, Mussolini & Cabinet announced: "The Cabinet, although appreciating the efforts made by the Committee of Five, has decided that the proposals are unacceptable insofar as (in quanta esse) they do not offer a minimum basis sufficient for a conclusive realization which would finally and effectively take into account Italy's vital rights and interests."

When this communique first came through from Rome the phrase in quanta esse was mistakenly translated, "as," and Anglo-Saxon headlines announced MUSSOLINI SAYS "NO." On the contrary, Italy's Geneva Delegation declared, Premier Mussolini could only have inserted "insofar as" (in quanta esse), "to leave the door ajar for negotiation." Next day Il Duce, having thus far done nothing but reject offers, made Italy's first proposals. His League Delegate Baron Aloisi asked, in effect, for a partial League mandate over Ethiopia. The country's armed forces would be largely under Italian advisers to the Emperor, and exclusively mandated to Italy would be a part of Western Ethiopia similar to the area His Majesty tried to grant as a concession to "Standard Oil" (TIME, Sept. 9) but smaller. Since Britain and France each hopes to tap Ethiopia's trade by offering the Empire a corridor to the sea through its colony. Dictator Mussolini was again overindulging his irrepressible sense of humor when he ended by declaring: "Italy, and not Britain or France, should make that sacrifice!"

This jibe sorely vexed the League Committee of Five which meanwhile had received Ethiopia's guarded acceptance of their scheme "as a basis for discussion." Italy's scheme, the Committee hotly reported to the League Council, is "unacceptable and not susceptible of discussion within the framework of the League Covenant," thus deadlocking Geneva. Scheduled were meetings of the British Cabinet and the League Council to discuss some form of punitive action ("sanctions") against Italy if Italy makes "war"--a term the League has never succeeded in defining.

King to King. With most Italians feeling last week that evidently Britons do not understand how little Italy wants in Africa, their Little King sat down in his Quirinal Palace and wrote to King George, asking him to explain things in London-- or so the British Reuters Agency reported. George V, having finished up his Scottish grouse shooting, announced that he would return to Buckingham Palace this week several days ahead of schedule. All his life a practical Navy man, His Majesty was far more alive than politicians like Squire Baldwin to the queer fact that big guns have a way of going off by themselves, and that His Majesty's Government had in fact placed the peace of Europe last week at the mercy of an incident.

Even London correspondents called "strange" an abrupt announcement by His Majesty's Government giving the "violence" of anti-British articles in Italian newspapers as their reason for flinging a vast display of naval might into the Mediterranean. Never before has the Power of the Press been thus saluted by British statesmen. Numerous British newsorgans last week were calling Premier Mussolini a maniac and London's Sunday Referee published an article hopefully suggesting that Italians will rise under Crown Prince Umberto and Air Marshal Balbo in a "revolt against the Dictator." Neutrals observed that, if the British "reason" is valid, Adolf Hitler may, with even better reason, use the excuse of press attacks upon Nazi-land to send German bombing planes roaring in "maneuvers" over Manhattan, Paris or London.

Key & Key. Almost the entire British submarine fleet had been thrown into the Mediterranean and such craft, notoriously cranky, are apt to rise by accident in such fashion as to be crushed by a surface ship. Suppose an Italian cruiser thus "ran down" a British submarine?

As sea King George V studied his Admiralty charts he saw an amazing thing. Malta, traditionally Britain's "Key to the Mediterranean." had become last week an inviting naval keyhole. In fear of Italian bombing planes, the big British ships normally based at Malta had withdrawn to Egyptian and Syrian waters, leaving in the keyhole only a British aircraft carrier, its complement of battle planes and a few-light destroyers as the best weapons to be left there.

Simultaneously the Island of Pantelleria achieved fame as Italy's "Key to the Mediterranean." Its inhabitants of nearly 10,000 were placed by Benito Mussolini in a "state of siege" and preparations were rushed full blast to use it as an Italian submarine and bombing plane base. Boasted proud Pantellerians prematurely: "Our island, because it lies in the middle of the narrowest part of the Mediterranean, commands the channel and divides the British forces!"

"Gentlemen's Ships." Perfectly fascinating to naval experts this week became the game of comparing British and Italian war boats, sea demons everyone hoped would not fight. According to London's famed Dr. Oscar Parkes, editor of the standard Jane's Fighting Ships, who wallows authoritatively in potential gore. Italy's Navy--considered ship for ship where the comparison is possible--has distinct advantages over the larger British Navy in speed and modernity.

It would appear, according to Dr. Parkes. that King Vittorio Emanuele's 10,000-ton, 8-inch gun cruisers of the Pola class could outduel King George's London class cruisers of similar tonnage and gun calibre because the Italian ships with a speed of 35 knots are from two to three knots faster than their British peers and much better equipped with anti-aircraft guns. After running the long gamut from submarines to capital ships and pulling a long face the whole way, Dr. Parkes comfortably quoted a remark made to him by a distinguished British admiral: "The Italians build better ships than they can fight."

The British Navy, Dr. Parkes finally explained, is composed of "gentlemen's ships" with every comfort and convenience, whereas the Italians have "ruthlessly curtailed" space and weight until no gentleman would care to fight in them. Oddly enough Dr. Parkes seemed more alarmed by the Fascist "suicide boats" (super-speedboats carrying torpedoes) than by any of Italy's other weapons. "Should the Mediterranean become a scene of naval operations." wrote anxious Oscar Parkes, "I should hazard the guess that these boats and torpedo planes will play a more vital part than the big ships."

Renouncer Renounces. At The Hague, as war clouds gathered, the World Court announced the resignation from its bench this week of ailing Judge Frank Billings ("Nervous Nellie") Kellogg who was U. S. Secretary of State when he and the late great Aristide Briand persuaded virtually every nation in the world to underwrite their Peace Pact renouncing war "as an instrument of national policy."

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