Tantrums Into Triumphs?

Adolf Hitler had one of his better tantrums last week. Once more the pudgy but intuitive little Fuehrer put the fear of Wotan into baffled British statesmen, and once more France was a prey to apprehensive fury as the Berlin-Rome Axis

(TIME, May 17) hourly bored deeper and more ruthlessly this week into the Spanish Civil War.

Always unexpected are Hitler tantrums. The British Foreign Office last week was counting hopefully on easing of European tension after the visit of German Foreign

Minister Baron Constantin von Neurath, a diplomat of the old regime and no Nazi hothead, who was coming to London last week. The pro-German clique in Mayfair was purring. Anthony Eden had plucked up courage to ignore wholly unproved German charges that a Leftist Spanish torpedo or submarine had "grazed and dented" the German cruiser Leipzig. Finally, the German Ambassador to Britain, Joachim von Ribbentrop, extremely unpopular in London, was supposed to have been only bluffing when he demanded, a few days prior, that Britain and France join Germany and Italy in staging a mighty four-power naval demonstration off Valencia to warn the Spanish Leftist Government not to do any more "denting" with submarines or torpedoes. In the House of Commons open charges had been heard that the whole "Leipzig incident" was a Nazi fiction or nightmare. The visit of Baron von Neurath to London was expected to reduce feverish international wrangling over Spain to a cool, almost a British temperature--and then suddenly in Berlin last week the Fuehrer summoned his Cabinet, had his tantrum.

For some 48 hours Adolf Hitler grew more and more excited about the "insult to German honor" which he saw in the coldness of Britain and France to all schemes for doing anything about the dent in the Leipzig. He was also emboldened by the daily bad news, from Russia, bitterest foe of Germany (see p. 18). Telling old von Neurath not to stir out of Berlin, Herr Hitler rasped orders which sent flashing off to London this stiff announcement: "The situation caused by the repeated attacks of the Reds in Spain on German warships does not allow the absence of the Foreign Minister from Berlin. The British Ambassador has been informed that von Neurath's intended visit must be postponed."

When the German Cabinet convened, the Fuehrer spoke with rising fervor for nearly an hour and a half. The condensed official summary issued afterward ran to nine typewritten pages of fulminations against "the Bolshevist incendiaries of Valencia" and praise for the attitude of Benito Mussolini "which absolutely corresponds with that of Germany!" Even the newsorgan closest to mild von Neurath screamed in Berlin: "The only way to cope with the Red pirates is to weaken their military position!"

Reasonable Claim, Great Joke. All

this was a good deal more than most British or French editors cared to swallow and their tart comments made Adolf Hitler angrier still, as the Government of His Britannic Majesty learned with grave concern. King George VI was so worried that harassed Anthony Eden was kept reporting constantly in person at Buckingham Palace.

It was up to new British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, since he is now bossing Mr. Eden's every move (see p. 16), to rise in the House of Commons and either publicly swallow what so many Britons could not swallow last week, or take a dominant line with Hitler & Mussolini. These dictators had meanwhile announced that, while Germany and Italy would not withdraw from the London Nonintervention Committee on Spain, they would withdraw their warships from its neutral patrol of Spanish waters. In this move by Rome & Berlin, Prime Minister Chamberlain saw an opening to suggest that British and French ships would be willing to fill any gaps in the patrol--a suggestion which Der Fuehrer and II Duce angrily rejected within 48 hours--and Mr. Chamberlain went on to make a speech soon warmly praised by German papers. "I must say I think the German Government . . . have shown a degree of restraint which we all recognize," cried Neville Chamberlain. Of the German claims in connection with the Leipzig incident he said: "That was a reasonable claim and ought not to be subject to hostile criticism."

In a very British conclusion, widely approved, the new Prime Minister declared:

"In high mountains there are sometimes conditions to be found when an incautious move or even a sudden loud exclamation may start an avalanche. That is just the condition in which we are finding ourselves today. I believe that although the snow may be perilously poised it has not yet begun to move. If we can all exercise caution, patience and self-restraint we may yet be able to save the peace of the world."

In very Welsh rebuttal, up popped David Lloyd George. "Any fish can keep a cool head!" sneered the Wartime Prime Minister at Neville Chamberlain. "The Prime Minister says we must have cool heads. Yes, but I say we must also have stout hearts! Our great failure in the last four or five years has been that our hearts have failed us. The dictators of Europe are very clever men, daring men, astute men. They are taking, at the present moment, a rather low view of the intelligence and courage of ourselves. I wish to God I could say it was too low!"

This touched off the House's angriest, most random debate of the year upon great issues. Pacifist George Lansbury, who recently talked with Adolf Hitler, seemed to fear the British lion was about to spring upon the German lamb. He wailed: "How many times will you crush the German people?" The Leipzig incident fired belligerent Sir Archibald Sinclair, M. P., to make a fiery speech, at the climax of which he cried: "Remember the Maine !"

Foreign Secretary Eden kept interjecting that it would be easy for His Majesty's Government to seem courageous, but only at the expense of the peace of Europe. Therefore the Government's policy, said Mr. Eden, is "peace at almost any price." The Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, Laborite Clement Attlee, took occasion to call Britain's placid Government "swine" and their Conservative supporters at one point in the confused debate took to chanting "Peace! Peace! Peace!"

With such poor debating competition as this, oldster Lloyd George came off with the day's forensic honors, taunting the Prime Minister with the memory of his late, great halfbrother, Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain, K. G. "Many times the late Austen Chamberlain in this House," cried Mr. Lloyd George, "said: 'What is the good of making any pact with Germany? She will only keep it as long as it suits her, and the moment she has a good excuse for breaking it, and it suits her, she will break it?' I am sorry to say that during the last few months Germany has done her best to justify that criticism. . . . We sit around and hold meetings of the Non-intervention Committee, and I have no doubt that the German Ambassador [Ribbentrop] and the Italian Ambassador [Grandi] regard it as a great joke. . . . Is this cruel imposture going on any longer?"

"Obliged by Circumstances." Neville Chamberlain went away from London to spend his first week end as Prime Minister in the official country residence Chequers, and the Non-intervention Committee went on & on.

Its arrangements as to Spain have never prevented either the Rightists or the Leftists from bringing through its purely technical cordon of observers and warships absolutely all the men, munitions and aircraft they could afford to buy and manage to sneak past their enemies. The neutral cordon has jurisdiction only over "non-Spanish ships" and in practice a Spanish ship has been anything flying either a Leftist or a Rightist flag. Chronic last week were such cases as the troopships which arrive from Italy flying the Italian flag and escorted by Italian destroyers. hoist the Spanish flag as they enter Spanish waters, then on leaving hoist the Italian flag again and steam back to Italy escorted by II Duce's war dogs. Leftist ships, although they lack destroyer escorts, hoist the British or French flag when that seems a good idea, and from any point of view the Non-intervention Committee is cutting so poor a figure that last week its chairman, Lord Plymouth, suggested that unless something be done to give it greater effectiveness it might as well wind itself up.

Plain as pikestaffs to most European observers were these facts: i) Now that Rightist General Franco has taken the iron mines and smelters of the Basque country, upon which Britain relies for many of her sinews of war (see below), His Majesty's Government are less favorably disposed than ever toward the Spanish Leftists, and this week official London was considering whether it may be "obliged by circumstances" to grant the Rightists diplomatic recognition. 2) The panic in Soviet Russia over wholesale "treason" and the shaky position of the French franc (see p. 17) were major indirect factors working against the Spanish Leftists. 3) Mr. Chamberlain's speech gave the impression that he thought Mussolini & Hitler were right, from their points of view, in thinking that now was the time, before Britain has completed her rearmament, to throw heavier forces into Spain and try to secure on that peninsula a Fascist triumph which the stout-hearted Britons of 1914 would have resisted to the utmost.

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