High Diplomacy, with Trumpets

Europe's "honest broker," French Premier Pierre Laval, achieved one of the outstanding triumphs of post-War diplomacy last week, and a Gallic jest. After enjoying a repast in one of Paris' best restaurants and paying like the very devil for it, with 10% "for service" on top, M. Laval was approached by the fawning Patron who murmured, "Perhaps M. le President would pen a precious thought in our Golden Book?"

Taking the pen without a flicker, sardonic Premier Laval wrote as his precious thought of the moment, "10%." Then, scribbling his autograph beneath, he strolled out as pleased with himself as only a French statesman can be when he knows that France is not only acclaiming his heavy statecraft but will soon be chuckling at his light wit.

Terrible Cost. What M. Laval had accomplished was well measured by the lead sentences on two successive days last week of the chief war stories in the New York Times.

First lead: "The bitterness against France for its pro-Italian leanings threatened to burst all bounds in London today, while tension in the Mediterranean grew worse every hour."

Next lead, 24 hours later: "The black war clouds which have hung over the Mediterranean all week were blown apart today. . . . Millions . . . do not yet realize how dangerous it was. . . . Today's solution has the merit of giving all three countries [Britain, France, Italy] something they can call a victory."

Out to drum up every ounce of prestige they can in the eyes of British voters, His Majesty's Government were booming along early last week with nearly 500,000 tons of war boats in the Mediterranean and with the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill making a banquet speech in such elated Rule-Britannia vein that he woke up the next morning to say: "I do not think we should go about striking these attitudes. There might be a terrible cost for these fine gestures."

French public opinion had already held for some time this British morning-after view. Early last week Premier Laval had at last intimated strongly to London that some of Britain's 147 war boats should be withdrawn from the zone of tension, leaving only some 80 fighting craft, the usual British Mediterranean Fleet. This fleet has secured to Britain command of the Mediterranean since the War of the Spanish Succession 230 years ago, according to Mr. Churchill, who is slated to be the next First Lord of the British Admiralty. The French position was that Britain should not now have more than her usual "control of the Mediterranean."

Knuckle Down? Having raised this issue, honest Broker Laval was visited daily thereafter by cultivated but crusty Sir George Clerk. This be-monocled British Ambassador looks and acts very much like the sort of diplomat Gilbert & Sullivan set to the bray of trumpets. So frequent and so overbearing were Sir George's calls that tempers were progressively lost until extreme London newsorgans like the Star began to report that, unless M. Laval knuckled down completely to His Majesty's Government, he would soon find himself forced to resign as Premier of France because all Frenchmen would see that he had driven Britain into the arms of Germany.

The knuckle-down demanded by Sir George was that France should "answer yes or no" without reservations to the question of whether she would place her naval bases at British disposal if Italian war boats should attack the British in the Mediterranean. At the same time the British Cabinet announced that they would "not withdraw one ship" and British voters were stirred by the headline BRITAIN WILL NOT WITHDRAW.

Steady M. Laval finally flew into what Sir George's aides called a "passion" and accused His Majesty's Government of adopting wantonly an attitude making conciliation in the Italo-Ethiopian dispute impossible. It was at this point that Dictator Mussolini blazed out in Rome to the local British Ambassador that the game of British prestige had gone far enough (see p. 19)-

Three Wins. As broker, M. Laval took prompt advantage of the impact with which II Duce's warning smote London. Within 24 hours he and Sir George were seeing reason and the triple victory of Italy, France and Britain was secretly negotiated and partially divulged, in effect, thus:

1) Italy won, according to the British Reuters Agency, the paramount concession that individual British "military sanctions and blockade of the Suez Canal are ruled out." There was an understanding, mutually conditional, that at least the British super-war-boats Hood and Renown would be withdrawn from the Mediterranean, and that II Duce would withdraw several thousand troops from Libya, facing the British in Egypt.

2) France won silent acceptance by Britain of an undisclosed French answer to Sir George's imperious "yes or no" question. This answer by Pierre Laval was "yes" in 3,000 words, of which 2,999 were reservations so elaborate that French naval aid to Britain in the present crisis becomes a matter of interpreting the League Covenant. Said one of M. Laval's aides: "Our interpretation will be as good as theirs until the matter is carried to some legal tribunal such as The Hague."

3) Britain won the "yes" her prestige demanded and the entire British Press gave everyone to understand that His Majesty's Government had arrived at no Mediterranean bargain with Italy, although it was II Duce who originally proposed exactly last week's naval-military bargain. According to London newsorgans, whatever His Majesty's Government promised M. Laval to do last week was in return for the acceptance by France of her obligations to Peace under the League Covenant. Wavering France, in the British view, was recalled to these sacred obligations by Sir George Clerk, and consequently British moral pre-eminence this week was something inexpressible.

Significance. After all this strife and histrionics, the solution reached was almost without significance. The enormous tactical skill of French Diplomacy made a situation that was becoming unendurable last week endurable, but no man could say for how long. On Sunday the Premier was simultaneously elected Senator in two departments (see p. 19). On Monday the newspapers of all France were so full of congratulations that the Peasant-Statesman snorted: "All very well, but they don't help me in the least to make Peace."

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