War Aims

Last week snow clogged Balkan mountain passes and the skies over Britain were stormy. But over the coast of Europe the R. A. F. pounded the invasion ports as it never had before (see p. 30), and in Africa British arms put Italy to a historic disgrace. The tempo of diplomacy also quickened. Europe's statesmen played long-range power politics to pitch newer battlefronts on grounds of their own choosing.

Adolf Hitler's chosen battleground is the British Isles. Both his Propaganda Minister, wry little Paul Joseph Goebbels, and his Deputy Party Leader, hairy Rudolph Hess, warned Britain last week that the blow was coming soon. Dr. Goebbels' foreboding was particularly ominous. All enemies of the Fuhrer are given a last warning, said he: "Bruning, Schuschnigg, Benes, Beck, Daladier and Reynaud all received that warning. Mr. Churchill belongs to that category . . . and Germany only grants him a last respite before the sentence is executed."

There was little doubt that Britain would soon experience a Schrecklichkeit (terror) as a preliminary to a planned invasion. But there was also little doubt that Hitler would go through with the invasion only if, after the Schrecklichkeit, he believed it had a 90% chance of success. And so Hitler was busy last week on other fronts, both to stabilize them for the attack on Britain and to prepare new battlegrounds if that fails.

On the French front he suddenly backed down on his demands for use of the naval base at Bizerte and for reinstatement of Pierre Laval (see p. 24). This made for temporary stability behind his front against the British Isles.

On the Balkan front Adolf Hitler gave a neat illustration of his Mephistophelean trick of making politicians so indebted to him for their power that he can count on their absolute loyalty. Bulgaria's Minister of Agriculture Ivan Bagrianoff was, until last week, in a very strong position. He was popular with the peasants, who form 82% of Bulgaria's population. He was popular with King Boris, who last year dismissed a Premier, George Kiosseivanoff, at Bagrianoff's request. And he was popular with Hitler, whose outstanding protagonist in Bulgaria he was. Last week, most probably at Hitler's request, Minister Bagrianoff presented a demand to King Boris that German troops be given the freedom of Bulgaria. The King refused and Bagrianoff resigned. Next day Boris decorated him with the Cross of St. Alexander, which is usually given to politicians who have permanently retired.

But about that time Bulgaria's railroads began canceling passenger and freight schedules, clearing the way for troop movements. The Bulgarian Minister to Germany, Parvan Draganoff, hurried to Sofia on one of the few trains still running. What he had in his brief case may have been a demand, not only for the passage of German troops through Bulgaria, but also for Ivan Bagrianoff's reinstatement in the Cabinet. If Bagrianoff becomes Premier or Foreign Minister of Bulgaria, Bagrianoff and Bulgaria will be Hitler's.

Hitler can use Bulgaria as a springboard to attack either Greece or the Near East, where he may have to go for oil if he fails to subdue Britain by next autumn.

Winston Churchill would like him to try either one right now, and said so in another of his eloquent interim reports last week (see p. 15, p. 30). A Balkan diversion would create a further respite for the British Isles. With an African army beating its chest, Britain has the troops for a fight. And it looked very much as if Winston Churchill were trying to pick a fight. After warning Bulgaria that military objectives would be bombed "distastefully" if German troops entered that country, he declared that German troops were already there.

Next day Great Britain formally severed diplomatic relations with Rumania, on the ground that Germany was building an expeditionary force in that country. On behalf of Prime Minister Churchill's Government it was explained that this did not "necessarily" mean that oil fields and troop concentrations would be bombed. It merely meant that Britain "did not like the Rumanian Government and did not see the point of having anything more to do with it." Nevertheless, Britain "reserved the right of action."

Benito Mussolini was on the run last week, but he had not quite reached the end of his diplomatic tether, although disasters less terrible than the Libyan rout have toppled regimes in every century. With bases in the Balearic Islands, in Spain and in Spanish Morocco he might still retrieve his position in the Mediterranean; with Ceuta in Morocco he might even make Gibraltar untenable and cut one of Britain's supply lines.

All last week Spain's Supreme War Council held secret meetings and the press blustered about the bread shortage, which it blamed on the British blockade. This week Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his brother-in-law, Foreign Minister Ramon Serrano Suner, hopped into a car in Madrid and set out for the Italian Riviera to meet Benito Mussolini and his son-in-law, Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano, who undoubtedly would remind the Spaniards of all the favors Italy did for Franco's Spain when Italy seemed bigger potatoes. As Vichy denied Marshal Petain would join the conference, the Frenchman started for a "few days' rest" at his wife's villa, a short drive from the Italo-Spanish rendezvous.

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