"MADMEN AND FOOLS"

Benito Mussolini's growing Roman Empire last week grew a very little more. On Good Friday it absorbed the very little Balkan Kingdom of Albania. Only that and nothing more. Il Duce's coup was neither more nor less cynical and coldblooded than those of Adolf Hitler. But added to all that has taken place in recent months, this small plus quantity of aggression all but upset the status quo in Europe. The brink of war, already almost worn out with Europe's trembling, was trembled on once more.

No European government seriously considered jumping in to save Albania's independence, nor did the protests against the Rome-Berlin axis aggression seem any louder than those that accompanied the German seizure of Czecho-Slovakia last month. Clearly Albania itself was not worth fighting over.

As a forerunner of bigger & better grabs, however, the Albanian coup served as an unmistakable warning to all small countries which lie in the path of the Nazi-Fascist eastbound steam roller, the very countries which Britain has tried to persuade to join up with her. To belatedly aroused Britain and France, Italy's action was possibly more serious than Herr Hitler's recent challenges. In pushing boldly into the Balkan Peninsula, traditional spawning ground of wars, the Fascist military machine had come perilously close to clashing with the "vital interests" of the British and French Empires. Greek naval bases used by the British Navy are next door to Albania; beyond the Balkans are the rich oil fields, the coveted markets of the Near East.

Parallel? To nervous Europeans behind their taut frontiers, last week's events seemed as world-shaking as those of the fateful summer of 1914. No ordinary diligence caused Premier Edouard Daladier to call a meeting of the French Council of National Defense on Easter Sunday. Nor did any ordinary crisis cause Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to break a well-earned fishing holiday in Aberdeenshire to hurry back to London and summon for the first time since the World War a full Cabinet session for Easter Monday. Parliament was also convened in special session.

Scattered British warships hastily steamed out of Mediterranean ports for unnamed stations and the British fleet at Malta was warned to be ready for instant duty. Leaves were cut short. Admittedly a French-British "naval demonstration" in the Mediterranean was under way and blunt notice was expected to be served on Italy that any attempt to attack Greece and especially to take Corfu, the Greek island at the Adriatic's mouth, would mean war. In 1923 Dictator Mussolini himself seized Corfu, left only after extensive diplomatic maneuvering by Britain and France.

At Innsbruck, in old Austria, General Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the high command of the German Army, and Undersecretary for War General Alberto Pari-ani, Italy's chief of Army staff, conferred on "common military problems." Field Marshal Hermann Goring was in Italian Libya as the guest of Governor Air Marshal Italo Balbo. German Propaganda Minister Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, after a brief and none-too-cordial reception in Egypt, arrived at the Italian island of Rhodes, in the Eastern Mediterranean, where 45,000 Italian troops were reported as having landed. On the neighboring Dodecanese Islands, strongly fortified Ital ian naval base at the mouth of the Aegean Sea, 15,000 troops awaited orders. Albania was being made a strong Italian military base. In Italy more reservists were called to the colors until 950,000 were under arms. British warships making scheduled trips to Italian ports suddenly left.

Home from Paris went Britain's top soldier, General Viscount Gort, who had "visited" French Chief of Staff General Maurice Gamelin; while in London French Air Minister Guy La Chambre paid his respects to British Air Secretary Sir Kingsley Wood. Early July 1914 saw no events more ominous.

Vanishing Faith. The neat notion that Dictator Mussolini could be bought or wooed away from his alliance with Adolf Hitler all but vanished last week, and with it went the last shreds of trust in II Duce's words. Of all Prime Minister Chamberlain's dubious achievements in foreign policy, he was proudest of the Anglo-Italian Treaty "guaranteeing" the status quo of the Mediterranean. In January Dictator Mussolini had personally promised Mr. Chamberlain that he had no intention of changing that status quo. Last week Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano gravely assured British Ambassador Lord Perth that Italy did not intend to take "drastic action" in Albania. Just three days later Italian warships raced across the Adriatic, Italian legionnaires landed under protective gunfire at four Albanian ports, Italian aviators bombed Albanian towns.

Italian explanations of why it had become "necessary" to take over Albania were more grimly humorous than usual. Mountainous Albania, about the size of Vermont, was already an Italian economic dependency. With its population of only 1,000,000, with few industries, no railroads, precious little natural wealth, Albania could not plausibly be pictured as a menace to powerful Fascist Italy, but some attempt was made to do so. Even more ludicrous were the Fascist press claims that: 1) Italians were showing their undying love for the Albanians; 2) King Zog, heretofore an unusually obliging Italian puppet, had recently shown ingratitude; 3) King Zog had been hoarding Italian loans meant to develop the country for his own private uses; 4) Prominent Albanians had pleaded with Dictator Mussolini to come over and straighten things out. Of all the Italian explanations, the best was that Rome had a "sacred right" there because Albania was subdued by Romans in 229 B.C. So, for that matter, was Britain in 43 B.C.

Cheap. For months Dictator Mussolini has eyed well-armed French Tunisia, has made passes at French Somaliland, has shouted for a share in the Suez Canal. He got nowhere while Partner Hitler snatched territory right & left. In Albania he got a cheap victory; he also gave a ringing answer to Britain's anti-aggression moves and served notice that Rome and Berlin were still on the offensive.

The move also served to tighten the Fascist-Nazi pincers on Yugoslavia. That nation is now surrounded on three sides, with Nazi Austria on the north, Fascist Albania on the south, and an Italian sea, the Adriatic, on the west. To make the picture complete, dissatisfied little Bulgaria, most defeated of Germany's World War allies, lies on the east. When Britain hastily suggested that Yugoslavia join the anti-aggression pact there came only stony silence from Belgrade. The Yugoslav Government dared do nothing to offend its powerful neighbors.

Nicolas Socrates Politis, the Greek minister to France, reported that a "state of gravest anxiety" had descended on Greece, but Greek Dictator John Metaxas had no inclination to be the first to stick his neck out at the onrushing aggressors. Dictator Mussolini might next decide that Greece constituted a "grave menace" to Italian rights. Instead, Dictator Metaxas jubilantly announced that Greek "independence and integrity are absolutely assured," but failed to say whether Britain or Italy had assured them. Dictator Metaxas hinted that he would not oppose British occupation of Corfu, but that he would not go so far as to invite Britain to take the island over.

Signer. Even in western Europe it was aggressors' week. At Burgos it was announced that Generalissimo Francisco Franco had definitely thrown in his lot with the Dictators: had signed up with Germany, Italy, Hungary and Japan in the anti-Comintern Pact. For the French Government this was a severe defeat. Before recognizing Franco's Government France had tried to get a promise that Spain would not sign the anti-Comintern Pact. Failing that, France had sent her most distinguished soldier, Marshal Philippe Petain, as Ambassador to Burgos to deal gently and well with the Spanish soldier-dictator. Moreover, the Spanish War was now over and not only had II Duce not withdrawn his troops from Spain (as he so many times promised), but there were rumors in Paris and London that more had been recently landed.

Unfriendly? Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Josef Beck returned to Warsaw from London carrying the outline of a Polish-British Treaty of alliance in which not only Britain promised to go to war if Poland were attacked but Poland agreed to reciprocate. The alliance was expected to be signed this week.

Even as the Foreign Minister traveled through Germany on his way back, an anti-Polish Nazi diplomatic and press barrage was going full blast. A Polish-British treaty, said Herr Hitler's diplomats and newspapers, would be considered an unfriendly act against the Third Reich. Furthermore, the signing of such a treaty was likely so to incense the Fuehrer that, instead of asking merely for the return of the Free City of Danzig and a road across the Polish Corridor as he is now doing, Aggrandizer Hitler would raise the ante and want Polish Silesia, a slice of the Polish Ukraine, the Corridor in toto.

With Aggressors Hitler and Mussolini still at large, with the small European countries fearing invasion almost any hour, with France and Britain only lately awake to the perils of the hour, many a man-in-the-street would agree with Albania's exiled King Zog's estimate of European conditions as given to a United Press correspondent in Fiorina, Greece: "There are in Europe two madmen who are disturbing the entire world--Hitler and Mussolini. There are in Europe two damn fools who sleep--Chamberlain and Daladier."

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