"// Faut en Finir"

To most of Great Britain, since war broke out, no news has been bad news. For months the country had been preparing itself for a sudden, overwhelming, spectacular shock. And when war came, nothing seemed to happen: darkness, silence, expectancy, laconic communiques. "What kind of war is this?" asked impatient Lord Beaverbrook in his Evening Standard. Was anything ever going to happen? Were Britain and France in it up to their necks, or had they just put a toe in to see how cold it was? Were they stalling until Poland was beaten to accept the expected German peace offer?

Three responsible men tried last week to tell Great Britain just what sort of war the Government thought it would be--how long, how cruel, how futile.

The war, said Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain before Parliament on his return from meeting with the Supreme War Council "somewhere in France" (see p. 28), would not end if & when Poland broke. It would end only when Britain and France had "put an end, once and for all, to the intolerable strain of living under the threat of Nazi aggression. . . . There can be no peace until the menace of Hitlerism has been finally removed." The Prime Minister's voice rose only once, when he spoke the ally's language, perhaps echoing something he had heard over there. It was the Allies' first slogan: "Il faut en finir"--it must be ended.

The war would be no more cruel than Germany chose to make it, said Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax to the House of Lords. As to the war's futility, it was Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for the Dominions, the young hopeful, who went to bat. His was the hardest job of all. Why fight? Why kill off millions for another Versailles, another poor peace, yet another war? Anthony Eden took to the radio and said to the world: "The Nazi System and all that it has implied (naked aggression . . . cynical dissimulation . . . flagrant mockery . . . lawlessness . . . bloodshed . . . ) must go." The Nazis purged, said he, civilization might again nourish--"for some forces are bigger than men. And in that new civilization will be found liberty and opportunity and hope for all."

The great shock of Russia's invasion of Poland did not shake Britain out of her aim. Although Lord Beaverbrook shrieked "Murder!" in the Evening Standard, the official communique made it clear that Britain would not declare war on Russia. Said a Government declaration: "This attack [the Russian invasion of Poland] made upon their ally, at a moment when she is prostrated in the face of overwhelming forces brought against her by Germany, cannot ... be justified by the argument put forward by the Soviet Government. The full implication of these events is not yet apparent. ..." A Government spokesman made it clearer: "His Majesty's Government do not think a declaration of war on Russia follows automatically as a matter of good faith on the invasion of Poland."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.