Ja!

Diplomacy is only diplomacy but facts are facts, and last week what was actually being done in Germany had great effect on what was being decided in London. There, in a most exhausting morning, afternoon and all-night session, statesmen of the Great Powers and the League of Nations sought to grapple with the Rhineland Crisis created by Adolf Hitler when he sent his troops goose-stepping onto German Rhineland soil from which they were barred by Germany's signature to the treaties of Locarno and Versailles. The sentiments of the London statesmen could not help being affected by the unprecedented methods by which Adolf Hitler was trying to win the election he ordered so as to have German ballots endorse his Rhineland treaty rupture.

Since the Rhineland is German soil, the election might have seemed a setup, the issue foolproof. Yet last week Adolf Hitler was taking no chances.

Impossible Nein. In Adolf Hitler's last election German ballots were printed with two circles. A cross in the first meant "Ja," a cross in the other "Nein." The new ballots rolling off German presses last week to be used March 29 have only one circle. By making a cross in this the German citizen votes "Ja," and it is impossible for him to cast any other vote. Blank ballots or ballots on which a daring voter might scrawl "Nein" automatically are void.

Not satisfied even with this, Adolf Hitler had the entire police force of Germany ordered last week to engage in the most active "Vote Ja!" propaganda, even among the German criminal classes, and on March 29 to see that every qualified voter makes his mark. The sick & aged are to be carried to the polls on stretchers.

Thus in the most candid German fashion the Nazi election cat was extracted from the bag last week by Adolf Hitler and swung by the tail before the eyes of London statesmen. Whatever they did not see, they heard in Nazi electioneering speeches (see p. 28).

Brothers-in-Law. If treaty-breaking, Rhineland-remilitarizing Germany was to feel the punishing rod of that "collective security" to which every British statesman pays verbal tribute, the co-operation of His Majesty's Government with France was essential. Last week opened with Britain's Cabinet still split for & against Adolf Hitler (TIME, March 23).

Thundering in from Berlin to London went airplane loads of the Realmleader's most experienced diplomats and most trusted advisers on foreign affairs. Captains of these two distinct groups are the Brothers-in-Law Dr. Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff & Herr Joachim von Ribbentrop. The former is a career diplomat of masterly attainments. The latter is a one-time German champagne salesman and husband of a German champagne heiress.

Only Rumanian champagne is really inferior to German champagne, but in years gone by Salesman von Ribbentrop also carried a nice line of flower-scented German hocks much esteemed by British aristocrats. They tasted, bought, liked Joachim von Ribbentrop. After he married money many of these contacts ripened into friendships. Piquant was the fact last week that the violent treaty rupture committed by vegetarian & teetotaling Adolf Hitler should be defended and explained to the Council of the League of Nations gathered in beef-eating Britain by a onetime Rhine wine salesman whose duty was to champion & excuse remilitarization of the Rhineland.

Two Hours. It would have been hoped by pro-Germans in the Baldwin Cabinet that Joachim von Ribbentrop would have something new to offer or suggest. Instead his speech to the Council last week was a paraphrase of Orator Hitler's brawling Reichstag speech ten days before. Germany's excuse for remilitarizing the Rhineland remained her contention that France and Russia, by concluding a mutual assistance treaty, violated and thereby voided the Locarno Pact under which remilitarization of the Rhineland is barred as it is also barred under the Treaty of Versailles. Juridically the German case was so feeble as to be almost non-existent last week, and even the bright Brothers-in-Law Dieckhoff & von Ribbentrop were plainly out of bright ideas.

As Diplomat von Ribbentrop sat down, he realized that the Council must almost certainly vote to condemn Germany, hastily popped up again to plead that it would be "unfair" to Germany to vote at once. Seemingly the brothers-in-law hoped that even a brief delay would bring intervention favorable to Germany from Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. This was still possible, but French Foreign Minister Pierre Etienne Flandin, tall, big-boned and fair, again showed that he knows remarkably well how to handle Britons. The usual sort of Frenchman would almost certainly have demanded an immediate vote, and in so doing he would have been well within France's juridical rights. Instead, towering M. Flandin rose to say with a broad-minded casual mien worthy of Squire Baldwin himself: "I have too much sense of courtesy, even toward Germany, not to accept Herr von Ribbentrop's suggestion. I propose therefore that we do not vote until the afternoon session."

After luncheon and a total of three hours in which Germany's friends had time to telephone Berlin and attempt in London their most hectic wangles, the question whether Germany is guilty of violating the Locarno Pact was for the first time formally voted on by the League Council. The Councilman from Ecuador was absent, the Councilman from Chile abstained. ''Guilty!" said the eleven votes of Argentina, Australia, Britain, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Russia, Spain and Turkey. No one voted "Not Guilty."

Shouted Joachim von Ribbentrop: 'If the honorable members had had more time to consider my statement this morning, the vote would have been different!''

Peace without Punishment. In signing the Locarno Pact (TIME, Dec 14, 1925), Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Belgium agreed that a formal decision by the League of Nations that it had been violated should "automatically" bring punitive measures against the treaty-breaker and free the injured parties to make appropriate use of their armed forces.

Thus on the legal face of things British, French, Italian and Belgian troops had every "right" to start marching on Berlin with no taint of "aggression" after the Council voted last week. Yet it was never clearer that those who talk loudest about "collective security" are the ones most unwilling to fight for it.

In London the entire course of negotiation was toward Peace without Punishment last week, and in their efforts to contrive this the harassed statesmen daily got to bed about 3 a. m. Faces grew haggard and tempers short, but there was always French champagne at London's diplomatic meals and the pleasure of being accorded a private audience with His Majesty the King--a pleasure generously bestowed all round by Edward VIII last week, notably upon Hitler's von Ribbentrop.

Finally the officially injured Locarno Powers (Britain, France, Italy and Belgium) adopted and sent to the guilty State proposals which M. Flandin said were the minimum France could accept and which British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden said were submitted to evoke from Germany either acceptance or counter proposals. Exhausted Mr. Eden then took a nap in the Foreign Office, after which he motored to spend a quiet country weekend with Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. Behind him he left instructions that he could not be reached by telephone unless the call was from Berlin. Exhausted Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain who, like Adolf Hitler, finds music a powerful restorative, went to hear Beethoven's Quartet in A Minor (Opus No. 132). "I think," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "that it is the most soothing music ever composed."

Meanwhile M. Flandin had bustled to Paris for the weekend. The Chamber of Deputies was about to adjourn for French general elections on April 26 and May 3. Stuffy Premier Albert Sarraut looked to his Foreign Minister to make a speech Frenchmen would like to hear. Applause rang out when M. Flandin told the Chamber that Italy was supporting France with the "frankest friendship" in London.

"Shall I also stress," continued the Foreign Minister, "how much I endeavored--and how much I rejoiced in so doing--to prepare for reconstitution of the pacific front of Stresa!"--i. e. the British-French-Italian decision, with Benito Mussolini as host at Stresa, to stand together against Germany's rupture at that time of the Treaty of Versailles by rearming in violation of its terms (TIME, April 22).

The so-called "Stresa Front" was cracked by Britain's opposition to Italy's war in Ethiopia. Cried M. Flandin amid fresh cheers: "I am seeking to bring about simultaneous suspension of hostilities in Ethiopia and of sanctions against Italy!"

After that the Chamber adjourned, satisfied that behind the Rhineland scenes in London a fresh deal concerning Ethiopia is being shaped. The deal which Britain, France. Italy and Belgium offered Germany this week was released as the French Chamber rose in the form of a British White Paper (see below). Therefore, in the eyes of British public opinion, it did not have the "foreign" taint of the Hoare-Laval deal to make peace between Italy & Ethiopia which His Majesty's Government in abhorrence repudiated.

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