Brenner Pass Parley

His Majesty's impatient Loyal Opposition in Parliament demanded action. Eloquent Laborite Herbert S. Morrison wanted "more vigor and liveliness" in war and diplomacy than he felt Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who turned 71 at week's end, has been giving. Retired Permanent Secretary to the Treasury Sir Warren Fisher was blunter. "We are up against the creed of the devil," he said.

"Your German is, of all foul and dirty fighters, the foulest and dirtiest. We must . . . give them hell in every sort of way." As rebellious criticism mounted, political dopesters even mentioned David Lloyd George the "Welsh Wizard" who won the last war for Great Britain, as a possible last-ditch Cabinet appointee. And from France came censored dispatches predicting soon the formation of a "sacred union," Government of all parties.

So far, in Austria. Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, and now in Finland, Adolf Hitler had managed with devilish cunning to give his western opponents no place to lay a hand on him. Their chosen strategy for the past six months had perforce been tenacity--hang on, if unable to smoke him out, starve him out. Had the time now come for audacity? Such was the questioning mood, gloomy yet determined, uneasy though defiant, that was rapidly developing in the Allied countries early this week. And just at that point Adolf Hitler, that gifted diplomatic poker player with a hand full of jokers, raised his opponents' hair by producing another one.

Learned Insult. It all started about the time that Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop returned to Germany early last week after an apparently cool reception in Rome. Conclusion was reached that the Axis was bending. Fascist Journalist Giovanni Ansaldo even wrote an editorial for Leghorn's Telegrafo which contained a studied, learned insult.

"To him [Ribbentrop] who, while we write, is mounting the Alps, which close Lamagna above Tiralli, we send our respectful salute," wrote Signer Ansaldo. The quotation is from Dante's Divine Comedy and no educated Italian needs to be told, it is often used to express the Italian command to the Germanic hordes to stay beyond the Alps.

Good Offices. In the Italian Chamber of Fasces and Corporations announcement was made that a fine new set of forts protected Italy's Alpine border, but scarcely was the Foreign Minister back in Berlin before Nazi officials began to taunt newsmen with hints of impending "big doings." A Rumanian Army mission mysteriously turned up in Berlin, and reports came out that Adolf Hitler had offered to lend his "good offices" in persuading Russia and Hungary to be nice--not to invade King Carol Il's domain. For these good offices, the Fuehrer "hoped" that Rumania would: 1) demobilize half her Army; 2) give the Nazis a monopoly on oil and grain exports; 3) admit a pro-Nazi Iron Guard into the Rumanian Cabinet to "safeguard German interests."

Moreover, before the Rumanian Senate, Youth Leader General Theophilus Sidorovici disclosed that Benito Mussolini would guarantee Rumanian frontiers. That Carol was at any rate listening to Herr Hitler's propositions was evident when Premier George Tatarescu's Government released 786 Iron Guard terrorists from jail.

Sumner Welles, official U. S. roving factfinder, arrived back in Rome after a trip to Berlin, Paris, London. Without delay he saw Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano for 70 minutes, King Vittorio Emanuele for 45, Il Duce for 75. Mr. Welles held his tongue, but postponed his sailing back to the U. S. for a day. U. S. Secretary of State Hull denied in Washington that Mr. Welles had acted as an intermediary in Europe's quarrels.

Intermediary or not, Mr. Welles suddenly found himself a spectator at what could well be the greatest diplomatic squeeze play of the war. Sunday, from a Rome platform, Il Duce, wearing a dark civilian suit and carrying a heavy black coat, jumped into a special train and headed north. At about the same time in Berlin, the Fuhrer caught a southbound special express. Nobody but the diplomats involved--and Mr. Welles--had received the slightest notice of the rendezvous.

Monday at 9:30 a. m., Il Duce's trim train pulled in at the little mountain village of Brennero, in the famed Brenner Pass, just over the German border in Italy. Forty minutes later the Fuehrer's train arrived in a driving snow storm.

Steel-helmeted Alpine troops carrying bayoneted rifles stood guard while Benito Mussolini and Count Ciano escorted Herren Hitler and Ribbentrop from their train to Il Duce's salon car. A red carpet, flanked by specially provided potted palms pointed the way.

The shades of the car were drawn and Europe's two domineering dictators, onetime partners in aggression, who swore less than a year ago a rigid "pact of iron" to stand together in war as well as peace, sat down to talk for two hours and twelve minutes. Then, after a cordial good-by--Mussolini smiling, Hitler pale--they hurried back to their capitals.

"What did they say or decide?" was the question all Europe wanted answered. Tight-lipped Mr. Welles might be the first to know, since he was expected to be received by Mussolini before he sailed.

The Germans were exultant. A shortwave radio from Berlin reminded hearers that Italy was not neutral but merely "non-belligerent," volunteered that the "subject of the talk was the problems which concern the present situation." An Italian radio gave a clue when it admitted that the "meeting is related to Sumner Welles's presence in Rome." But Germany was pointedly reminded that she would be deceiving herself if she thought "she can influence Italy's policy of freedom of action."

Eleven Points. One guess was that the dictators talked of an Allied-German peace, with Italy and the U. S. as guarantors--if anyone could conceive of any terms now mutually acceptable or any that the U. S. people would be willing to underwrite. As Mr. Welles prepared to sail for home. Rome reported that he carried a Hitler eleven-point peace proposal. The points: 1) general disarmament; 2) formation of a small, independent Poland; 3) Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians to be allied to the Reich; 4) Austria forever in the Reich; 5) return of German colonies within 25 years; 6) formation of a Danubian Federation bossed by Germany and Italy; 7) guarantee of the Balkan status quo; 8) Germany's remaining Jews to migrate; 9) no trade barriers; 10) free passage of the Suez beginning in 1945; 11) Tunisia!

At any rate, the Brenner parley was the prelude to Hitler's diplomatic--if not military--spring drive, and the Allies certainly did not like it.

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