Pie

Not for generations has British diplomacy had to eat so much humble pie as during the current year. Such violent indigestion has this diet given Captain Anthony Eden that last week His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was still recuperating from a near-breakdown in the country. Therefore it was stolid hard-working Sir James Richard Stanhope, ;th Earl Stanhope, who dutifully opened his mouth for a large and bitter slice last week when the Montreux Conference resumed its deliberations in Switzerland.

The Montreux Conference was called three months ago to answer Turkey's request to tear up the Treaty of Lausanne and refortify the demilitarized Dardanelles (TIME, April 27). Ever since the Armistice Britain has strenuously opposed such action by Turkey, bitter with memories of her disastrous Gallipoli campaign. Responsible for Britain's interests at Montreux was the 7th Earl Stanhope, intimate friend of Stanley Baldwin.

Besides Turkey, bent on fortifying the Straits whether Britain liked it or not, Lord Stanhope's opponents were Russia, eager for permission to send her fleets to the Mediterranean, and Russia's new ally, France. Force was the only thing that would stop Russia and Turkey from getting what they wanted, and Britain dared not risk force.

As the Montreux Conference drew up a final agreement last week Lord Stanhope found in his humble pie the following bitter bits:

P: Turkey is allowed to refortify the Dardanelles and will have complete control of the Straits, superseding the present international commission.

P: Britain's claim to "belligerent rights" to send a full fleet into the Black Sea in case of war with a Black Sea power, (i.e., Russia) had to be chopped because of Balkan outcries (TIME, July 20).

P: Russia's Black Sea Fleet, kept out of the Straits for almost a century, won free passage to the Mediterranean in peace time.

P: In any war in which Turkey is a neutral, the Dardanelles will be closed to all belligerents except fleets acting under League of Nations authority.

P: British airplanes, which now have free passage over the Straits in any direction, must in future stick to certain narrow lanes.

No party to the Dardanelles convention was Germany, but Nazi authorities promptly hit the ceiling on reading the draft of the proposed Montreux pact, claimed that its concessions to Russia completely upset the balance of power. Germany claimed that before a war between Russia and Germany the Soviets would have plenty of time to move their Black Sea Fleet into the Mediterranean and around to the Baltic, thus getting an unfair headstart on the German Navy. Openly Nazis threatened to tear up their agreement to limit their fleet to 35% of the British Navy unless something was done about this contingency.

Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff, Soviet spokesman at Montreux, was 60 years old last week. Because in Bolshevik theory a Foreign Commissar is a most unimportant character, not to be compared with such weighty men as Defense Commissar Voroshilov or Commissar of Transportation Andreyev, photographs of rotund Commissar Litvinoff are practically non-existent in Russia. Millions of good Communists do not even know of his existence. As a birthday present Joseph Stalin decided last week that his Foreign Commissar had been neglected long enough. To him the Red dictator sent the rosette of the Order of Lenin, highest Soviet decoration, and all Soviet papers suddenly burgeoned with photographs of the rotund face, familiar to all Europe, under the caption: "The Stalinist Bearer of Peace." From Montreux Comrade Litvinoff modestly replied: "I shall continue to fight against the forces of war and aggression and go ahead with my work for peace, which is the only justification for the activities of a Soviet diplomat.''

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