Worst Week

By formally lining up Spain in their anti-Comintern Pact last fortnight, Italy and Germany welded an iron ring around France. Last week France and her ally, Britain, struck back by beginning at long last to forge an even bigger one around the Axis powers. Europe had not been so close to a general war since an armistice was declared to the last one, November 11, 1918.

In seven days of swift diplomatic action, punctuated by movements of men and ships, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Premier Edouard Daladier: 1) committed their Governments to unqualified defense of Greece and Rumania in case of attack; 2) prepared to give a similar pledge to Turkey; 3) were able to report progress in bringing big, powerful Soviet Russia at least partly into their "Peace Front."* On the sidelines, Rumania and Poland (whose borders had already been guaranteed) doctored their own 18-year-old alliance against Russian aggression to include German aggression.

To coax the Soviet Union into the Grand Alliance was a ticklish business. The last thing the Polish and Rumanian Governments want is a Red Army on their soil, even one fighting in their defense. They are more than willing, however, to accept Russian planes and munitions. Off early this week from London for Moscow was Soviet Ambassador to the Court of St. James's Ivan M. Maisky. He was carrying home to Dictator Joseph Stalin and Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinoff the outlines of a plan of "limited aid" in case of war. Far from being insulted at being told that only one kind of support was wanted, Russia was expected to be elated. A successful defense of Poland and Rumania would mean that never would Joseph Stalin's men have to face Adolf Hitler's across a common border.

Alarms. By lining up on their side Eastern European countries from the Baltic to the Aegean, the British and French did much to restore the balance of power that had recently been weighted heavily in the dictators' favor. They also convinced many an observer that war had been made inevitable. When the British guarantee to Poland was announced three weeks ago, the Axis answered by the seizure of Albania. With Greece and Rumania added to the Peace Front last week, all Europe knew that it was again Hitler's and Mussolini's move. The German press screamed again that the Fuehrer would strike before he would allow the Reich to be "encircled" as it was before 1914.

Probably no week in the history of latterday power politics has heard so many alarms in such widely separated parts of the continent as were heard last week. Little Lithuania reported Nazi trouble: Germany was said to demand a "revision" of its recent Memel treaty--i.e., more territory. The Polish-German dispute over Danzig was close to crisis (see p. 21). Bulgaria dissolved its Nazi organization. Hungary suppressed a Nazi newsorgan. The Netherlands prepared for invasion (see p. 21). Greece was elated that Britain had guaranteed her frontiers, but fearful she had provoked dire Italian anger. Defense measures were taken as far away from the probable scene of action as Kenya, in equatorial Africa, which is, however, next door to Italian East Africa. The defenseless International Zone of Tangier feared a quick invasion from Spanish Morocco (see col. 2) and just to make matters complete even Portugal, heretofore left out of European crises, was alarmed at the rumor (later denied) of Spanish-Italian troop concentrations on her border.

The week's basic alarmist news was that in round numbers some 8,000,000 men could be counted under arms; 2,500,000 in Germany, 1,200,000 in France, 1,300,000 in Poland, 1,250,000 in Italy, 750,000 in Spain, to say nothing of armies in Britain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Rumania, Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey. War risk insurance for ships going to Germany and Italy was canceled. To the safe haven of the U. S. continued to flow a steady stream of European gold.

Yet even the British press was less excited over the prospects of war than the press of the U. S., for the mood of Britain appeared to be one of acceptance of war's inevitability. There was no war "fever," no hatred manifest for the Germans, merely a desire to go ahead and get it over with. Nobody bothered to blame anyone for the "appeasement" period, which may or may not have been a net loss to the British when the loss of the Czecho-Slovakian divisions is compared to the six months' breathing space gained by British armorers. The British were particularly cheerful about their Navy, big as Italy's and Germany's together, and on the ways is another fleet as big as Germany's.

The French, reported a New York Timesman from Paris, regarded the beginning of war as the end of civilization, but were ready "to die game." The Italians, in spite of their Latin roarings, were not "enthusiastic." The Germans were apathetic but prepared.

Roosevelt Appeal. At this miserable eleventh hour Franklin Roosevelt tossed in his appeal for peace (see p. 13). No one, probably not even Mr. Roosevelt, expected the message would get much of an answer. Paris, London, all the threatened capitals of Europe and most of the Latin American countries were jubilant, but for a full day after the messages, amazingly blunt for diplomatic usage, reached Hitler and Mussolini, no official notice of them was taken.

Italian diplomats called the appeal, unofficially, "the most incredible document in diplomatic history." In Berlin Fuehrer Hitler's Voelkischer Beobachter called it "scallawaggery which has a Jewish taint." But the Axis leaders understand tough talk (such as the President's: "in conference rooms . . . it is customary and necessary that [both sides] leave their arms outside. . . ."). Apparently both Signer Mussolini and Herr Hitler had second thoughts, perhaps engendered by the fact that the appeal had been broadcast as well as cabled and the home folks would expect some sort of reaction. In Rome Field Marshal Hermann Goering hurried to talk the matter over with Il Duce. The Italian Dictator framed a reply which the Field Marshal hastened to take back to Berlin with him. Adolf Hitler went down from his haven at Berchtesgaden, where he had been resting, to Munich, and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop flew from Berlin to discuss the matter.

Suddenly early this week came the announcement :

"The Fuehrer considered this affair so important that he has decided to make known his answer to the American President in the name of the German people before the Reichstag. For that purpose he has called the Reichstag for April 28 to hear this statement."

*New name for the Stop-Hitler alliance system, formerly called the "democratic front," in which Polish Dictator Smigly-Rydz, Greek Dictator Metaxas, and Rumanian Monarch King Carol outnumber the democrats, Chamberlain and Daladier. In the first three months of 1939 the "democratic front" did nothing to prevent two democracies, Spain and Czechoslovakia, from perishing.

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