Germans Preferred

In cinema theatres up & down the United Kingdom newsreels showing Adolf Hitler's troops rupturing the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by marching into the Rhineland were received with murmurs of approval, applause and even cheers as last week opened. Newsreels of Poilus marching up to defend the French frontier were almost everywhere received by Britons in silence. Inquiring reporters for Baron Beaverbrook stopped 5,000 citizens to ask: "Do you on the whole prefer the French or the Germans?" The answer, blazoned next day in London's Daily Express, was that 21% had no preference, 24% preferred the French and 55% preferred the Germans.

What to do about the great rupture was scheduled to be decided at Geneva. Setting out by way of Paris, Britain's handsome young Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was accompanied by the Lord Privy Seal, Viscount Halifax, generally considered pro-German. In a parting speech to the House of Commons the Foreign Secretary had indicated that since the Versailles and Locarno eggs had been broken there was nothing to do but hatch new pacts and trust Germany not to break them too.

Just 24 hours later Captain Eden and Lord Halifax returned to London from Paris, hastily and much perturbed. They had not been to Geneva, and frantic longdistance telephone calls to 14 European Foreign Ministers informed those statesmen that there was not going to be any going to Geneva last week. A call to this effect caught Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff as he was about to entrain in Berlin, switched his destination from Geneva to London. Emphatically in Paris "something had happened."

It happened because big-boned, tall and sportsmanly French Foreign Minister Pierre Etienne Flandin is one of the few Latins who knows England and the English thoroughly. More often than any other French statesman he slips across the Channel to shoot grouse in Scotland or ride to hounds with English country squires. M. Flandin knows Mr. Baldwin. He is familiar with the reluctance of the Prime Minister to use the telephone, his refusal to read newspapers on Sunday and his instinctive habit of not feeling strictly bound by promises which British statesmen may make outside the United Kingdom (TIME, Dec. 30). If the Council of the League of Nations should proceed to meet in London, virtually "in Baldwin's lap," not only the Prime Minister but also the John & Jane Bulls he so much resembles might take the Hitler Rupture into their "thinking machines."

Abruptly the British found in their midst sportsmanly Pierre Etienne Flandin, who on reaching London spoke to them in their own sort of language thus:

"I have every confidence in the ultimate issue of the conversations which have begun. Indeed, I know how great a place idealism and scruple occupy in the British temperament. In the present circumstances, which are serious for the future of peace, France upholds that same notion of collective security by means of the covenant which is so dear to British popular opinion. I need only ask every Englishman carefully to read once more the text of the Locarno Treaty that he may exactly take stock of the obligations resulting from it."

Little Belgium. The last thing most subjects of King Edward had been in a mood to do was to read the obligations shouldered by His Majesty's Government when they signed and Britain's Parliament ratified the Locarno Pact (TIME, Nov. 30, 1925). Instead they had inclined to lend ear to Adolf Hitler's emotional claim that somehow or other the Locarno Pact had simply vanished with the making by France and Russia of an altogether unrelated Military Treaty of Mutual Assistance (TIME, March 9 et ante). Last week M. Flandin in his efforts to get British thinking machines in motion was greatly assisted by Belgian Premier Paul van Zeeland who, just before rushing to London to attend the League Council, spoke as follows to the Belgian Chamber:

"The Locarno Treaty has been repeatedly said to be the foundation and the essential part of Belgium's international status. Germany's action in tearing it up strikes Belgium more gravely and severely than any other country. Yet Belgium has adhered firmly to her part in this pact. The German memorandum takes as a pretext a pretended violation in the Franco-Soviet pact, but Belgium had no part in nor connection with the Franco-Soviet negotiation. For us it has no consequences, for we are neither directly nor indirectly concerned. We can say without fear of contradiction that we have kept the Locarno Treaty not only in letter but in spirit. We have been absolutely loyal and clear, and the rights on our side are 100%. The existence of a demilitarized zone on our German frontier constituted protection behind which we felt less exposed. If it is true that no country in the world today is able to assure its own security alone, it is even surer when applied to a small nation, for which respect for international law assumes capital importance."

After Pierre Etienne Flandin and Paul van Zeeland had thus spoken in clear, temperate language, His Majesty's Government found the honor and good faith of the United Kingdom engaged and tested. Famed British elder Statesman Sir Austen Chamberlain (who was the chief architect of the Locarno Pact and was made a Knight of the Garter by King George for having erected this supposedly unbreakable barrier to war), vigorously jammed last week into British thinking machines his opinion that, since Germany in 1870 "dictated" to France and stripped her of two provinces, Germany in 1936 has no right to object to what Germans call the Diktat of Versailles, much less to the freely negotiated and not dictated Locarno Pact. "Once again we are asking ourselves," summed up Sir Austen Chamberlain, K. G., " 'Is any treaty made with Germany more than a scrap of paper?'. . . For Britain the only possible course is to follow the same policy as she has done in the case of Italy" -- i. e., hurl League sanctions against Germany.

"No Smoking." The Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin could not retreat from London, but he retreated as far as he could into homely reticence and obfuscation at No. 10 Downing St. With the peace of Europe at stake, according to all the newspapers Squire Baldwin does not read, attendance by the Prime Minister as the League Council convened in Queen Anne's Room at St. James's Palace would have been in accord with British tradition. He stayed home.

Proceedings were opened by the statesman whom alphabetical rotation had made President of the League Council at this session, the Rt. Hon. Stanley Melbourne Bruce, High Commissioner in London of the Commonwealth of Australia and onetime Premier. In a few words Mr. Bruce voiced thanks to the King for having loaned a portion of his residence to the League. It was not felt necessary, added Mr. Bruce, to put up "No Smoking" signs since members of the Council would realize that if they smoked this would pollute the King's hangings & rugs.

Without having been turned upside down, one of the big, red St. James's Palace fire extinguishers mysteriously became active by itself during the proceedings and there was spectacular squirting & dodging. Most exceptionally the British police guards thrown around the Council carried loaded pistols, the picturesque London "Bobby" being traditionally without firearms. After the first few droning moments of public Council session last week, it became obvious to all that in London, as in Geneva, the League Council was going to settle nothing and say nothing of importance publicly, that all actual negotiation was going to be at secret Council sessions and between them in British drawing rooms -- an improvement over the hotel bedrooms of Geneva.

Out of sheer Geneva habit a pretense was indulged in that some of the sessions were the Council, some of them were the plenipotentiaries of the Locarno Powers, excepting Germany (i. e., Britain, France, Belgium and Italy), and some were the League Sanctions Committee. Yet the same statesmen turned up again & again. An exception was that since Soviet Russia is not a Locarno Pact signatory, Foreign Minister Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff was not directly in on the Locarno palavers.

Brass Tacks, The actual maneuvers last week, once the honor of England had been engaged, took their departure from the fact that Britain's Cabinet was split, with the Prime Minister confiding in none of his colleagues, while they did their best to influence him for & against Germany. His Excellency the German Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Dr. Leopold von Hoesch, amazingly blurted to German correspondents in London: "The situation is becoming very dangerous for us. It is uncomfortably like that of 1914-The British are wavering as they did then. But also, as in the eleventh hour in 1914, they are now beginning to stiffen."

Stiffening was too strong a word. The British made unanimous a decision by all Locarno Powers present that the guilt of Germany in remilitarizing the Rhineland was "clear and irrefutable." This did not prevent Captain Eden from telling Ambassador von Hoesch that, if Germany would cut down her new Rhineland garrisons to a total of only 10,000 troops, Britain might be able to wangle France into some kind of deal.

At that moment last week Adolf Hitler dashing about Germany delivering was election speeches. He was quite out of touch with the experienced German diplomats of the Wilhelmstrasse whose shrewd advice in foreign policy he so often takes. Therefore the rough Realmleader's natural reaction to the Eden "smoothie" was to order von Hoesch to tell Britain in effect to go to hell. Ran the official Hitler text: "The German Government cannot enter into a discussion with regard to lasting or provisional limitation of German sovereignty in the Rhineland territory."

Such a direct slap across the face made His Majesty's Government uncomfortable, but it by no means closed the British Cabinet split, by no means halted new hints and proposals by Mr. Eden to Dr. von Hoesch.

Dispatches finally reported "victory for Mr. Eden" in getting Flandin and van Zeeland to agree that Germany should be invited to send a German delegation this week to London. This implied a return to the week's early British wish to hatch new accords with egg-breaking Germany. Simultaneously going forward in London last week were Eden-Flandin conversations of a most discreet character. An indiscreet French underling even said. "Of course it will not be necessary to bring sanctions to bear on Germany if we can get something better."

Something Better? The "something better" was being urged upon harassed, obfuscated Squire Baldwin by the Permanent Undersecretary of the British Foreign Office, tenacious Sir Robert Vansittart, who nearly enabled his chief, Sir Samuel Hoare, to make peace between Italy and Ethiopia by the Hoare-Laval Deal (TIME, Dec. 16). Last week Sir Robert was busy with a prospective Baldwin-Flandin scheme of audacious reasonable ness, nothing less than that Britain should enter a new treaty nailing down not only the Western Locarno frontier but also the Eastern frontier of Germany with a British-French-German-Russian-Polish- Dutch-Danish-Lithuanian-Belgian round-robin agreement, under the terms of which Britain would specifically agree to FIGHT at any breaching of the Locarno Rhineland frontier.

If anything, the undertaking of such a peace obligation was last week to most Britons a great deal more repugnant than talented Sir Robert Vansittart's earlier scheme for making peace between Italy and Ethiopia, but the thinking machines of Britons were definitely whirring, the Honor of England was engaged, and Adolf Hitler was howling his head off.

Me und Gott! To the eyes & ears of Anglo-Saxons were presented monster Nazi campaign rallies all over the Reich at which Germans, massed in individual gatherings as large as 300,000. were told by Nazi orators that Adolf Hitler and the Fatherland have done no wrong.

In Munich magnetic Bavarian Minister of Interior Adolf Wagner, warming up the multitude before Der Fuehrer's arrival, thundered: "What Adolf Hitler has done is and remains right into all eternity. It is right because it has profited the German people, and whatever profits the German people profits the entire world."

Not many speakers would have been able to surpass this, but for Orator Hitler in his bellowing frenzy of last week the job was easy. "I am indifferent," he cried, "to compliments, threats, warnings, disrespect or disapproval. With trance-like surety, I go the way on which Destiny guides me. . . . Therefore, with His grace. I will act for the Germans and their interests. . . . Nobody shall tell me there is such and such an international institution that I must respect!"

Wildly though the Munich throng of 300,000 Germans cheered Adolf Hitler, and plain though it had become that Germany was back on the "Me und Gott" standard of exiled Kaiser Wilhelm, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin still remained irresolute. Britain's Ambassador to Germany, Sir Eric Phipps, "almost begged" Realmleader Hitler to send a delegation to London unconditionally. Instead the Destiny-guided Realmleader came back with another slap. As his price for sending a delegation to London he asked Britain to get from all nations concerned promises that they will make Adolf Hitler's terms the basis of negotiation. These terms and Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Realmleader designated as "a whole, the component parts of which cannot be separated from one another."

"I Formally Refuse." To London simultaneously rushed a pair of the Wilhelmstrasse's ablest practitioners of diplomacy, smartsters who have helped Adolf Hitler draft his more considered speeches. These were Herr Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff and Dr. Friedrich Gaus, whom any professional diplomat would recognize as aces in their line. They said that Dr. Gaus had made the discovery, after analyzing all treaties concerned, that legally the League cannot punish Germany's present treaty violations by sanctions. This "discovery" the Poles, though they have a ten-year non-aggression pact with Hitler, greeted by sarcastically remarking in London, "Germany is making it easier for us to support France."

Speaking in London for the Little Entente (Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia) Rumanian Foreign Minister Nicholas Titulescu urged immediate and drastic League Sanctions. These had not yet been asked by the Belgians and the French, for M. Flandin had based his whole policy last week on patience, asking his British friends to read what they had signed. As Squire Baldwin still hesitated and His Majesty's Government appeared to desire that France should join in paying Adolf Hitler's price for sending a delegation to London, the French Foreign Minister finally said:

"I formally refuse to admit the propositions of Hitler for one reason only: I came to London to have recorded a violation of the Locarno Treaty. I shall not agree to discuss anything else than that, and, if necessary, I shall leave London and even the Council!

"The communications from Berlin," continued M. Flandin, "betray a condition of mind that wishes to impose a kind of moral direction of affairs on the rest of Europe. It now remains to be seen whether other nations will agree to be morally directed in this way."

This week French spokesmen stubbornly maintained that their Foreign Minister's stand remained unchanged. But after high-pressure conferences with M. Flandin. Captain Eden had been able to offer Realmleader Hitler "assurances" concerning the discussion of his peace proposals which brought from Berlin prompt notice that a German delegation would be in London within the week.

Meanwhile last week the Franco-Soviet Mutual Assistance Treaty, ratified by the French Chamber three weeks ago, was ratified by the French Senate. Although Soviet Minister Litvinoff is usually the most talkative statesman at diplomatic gatherings, in London last week he was glowering, tousle-haired Silence.

1914, 1918 & 1936, It was rumored that if the League Council (which acts in vital matters by unanimity) should attempt to impose sanctions on Germany this would be blackballed-by the vote of Denmark, scared Socialist neighbor of the Nazis. It was said that if the Council sought to re-admit Germany to membership in the Council, that would be blackballed by the Bolsheviks. As for the Fascists, there was a sardonic grin last week on the face of Benito Mussolini, who has mobilized in Europe 1,000,000 soldiers, not to mention his 300,000 in Africa. In London II Duce's envoy, Dino Grandi, kept saying: "Now is the time to settle everything" -- i.e., to make a Vansittart Ethiopian peace and a Vansittart German peace. The august London Times raised its deep voice in harmony with this attitude:

"What would stand forever in the common memory would be the beginning of the pacification of Europe," intoned the Times. "Three dates would stand apart -- 1914 and the break-up of Europe; 1918 and the cessation of War; 1936 and the return to peace."

Baldwin's Frontier. To hard-headed Europeans one fact dominated all others: Stanley Baldwin was still spending $160,000 per day to keep British ships within striking distance of League-defying Italy but not one farthing to put British ships within range of League-defying Germany. Yet it was Mr. Baldwin who not two years ago solemnly declared that, for defensive purposes, Britain's frontier is now the Rhine (TIME, Aug. 13, 1934). In all parts of Germany correspondents reported Nazis spontaneously boasting with broad grins: "Well we have crossed the 'British frontier' of Herr Baldwin -- the Rhine!"

661 Human Blanks. Although Adolf Hitler was in full swing with a campaign to elect an entire new German Reichstag, he had not yet announced this week the names of any of the 661 candidates for whom Germans will vote. Reason: they are all human blanks, der Fuehrer's stooges, and their names do not matter. Latest German electioneering transports were in the remilitarized Rhineland where 25,000 jammed a domed hall from the balcony of which floated a white banner reading, "THE WORLD LOOKS TOWARD HITLER -- BUT DER FueHRER LOOKS TO YOU! EACH VOTE ON MARCH 29 WILL BE A WEAPON IN THE HAND OF DER FUHRER!"

"Public life had to be simplified!" shouted Orator Hitler when he appeared. "I eliminated everything not clear and not simple!"

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