THE ANSWER TO MUSSOLINI
WRITTEN, as it necessarily must be, before the Prime Minister':; statement in Parliament is made, this article cannot deal with the British Cabinet's considered decisions regarding the situation created by Signor Mussolini's Good Friday felony. It is well that the Prime Minister should have summoned Parliament ; it is to be hoped that he will so impress it by the statement he makes that the unity and resolution created by the Government's declaration regarding Poland will not merely remain unimpaired, but be appreciably and visibly strengthened. One factor unfortunately militates against that. It is a disturbing reflection that all the leading politicians who have been consistently right— as subsequent events have proved—for the last twelve months in their diagnosis of the international situation are outside the Cabinet and the politicians who have been consistently wrong are inside. Let anyone turn back to Mr. Eden's or Mr. Duff Cooper's resignation speeches, or any single utterance by Mr. Churchill, compare them with the speeches of the Prime Minister (down to March i 7th) or Sir John Simon or Sir Samuel Hoare, and ask himself whether it is in the Treasury bench's or in the back benches' reading of the international map that reliance is to be placed. Mr. Chamberlain, it must be readily recognised, radically changed his attitude after the seizure of Czecho-Slovakia, but he needs to change more than that. He has asked for and been accorded the united support of Parliament and the country. That requires, as logical and reasonable corollary, the construction of a Cabinet in which Parlia- ment and the counts y can place confidence. It is less than just, and much less than wise, to ask so much and make no return.
What, at the moment of writing, is most disquieting is the series of indications, which it may be trusted will soon be belied, that the Cabinet and the Prime Minister are tending to drop back into their old facile and baseless optimism, and even to attach some weight to new assurances by Signor Mussolini. If there is any lesson which the events of the past month ought to have im- printed indelibly on the mind of every politician, as they have on the mind of every common man, in the country it is the utter worthlessness of any undertaking entered into by the Governments of Germany and Italy. Competent statisticians have estimated the number of formal pledges Signor Mussolini violated when he made his brigand attack on Albania on Good Friday. The precise figure is immaterial ; it even surpasses that of the treaties broken by the invasion of Abyssinia. Diplo- macy is gravely complicated by the established fact that no agreements reached with two of the Great Powers of Europe have any validity except so far as, and so long as, the Powers in question think it to their interest to abide by them ; but to conclude from that that trust must be credulously reposed in their assurances none the less, in order that diplomacy may continue to exist, is a subordination of the actual to the fictitious of which the Prime Minister in his new mood can surely be hardly capable.
Signor Mussol; ai has invaded Albania in violation of half a dozen assurances, and the immediate sequel to his crime is the issue of further assurances right and left—to Greg e, to Yugoslavia, and apparently to Mr. Chamberlain that he has no designs beyond Albania and will withdraw his troops from Spain immediately after the triumphal entry into Madrid on May 2nd. If Albania, a virtually unarmed country of just over a million inhabitants, is the sole objective, why, it may well be asked, are Italian troops still being poured into the conquered country, and why are Italian reservists still being called to the colours by tens of thousands ? As for Spain, what comfort derives from an assurance which, even if it could be believed, means that the Italian troops will stay where they are for another vital fortnight, though the war was last month declared to be formally ended ? To dictators a fortnight provides immense potentialities of action. It took less than two days for Herr Hitler to annex Czecho-Slovakia, no more than one for Signor Mussolini to annex Albania. And six days after the latter crime was perpetrated the world was still in complete ignorance of the policy of the British Government. That is a grave matter, in spite of the difficulties with which the Cabinet is faced. Small States, which must necessarily submit to the dictators in self-defence unless they are sure of British and French protection, feel that resolution and the lightning-stroke on one side are being met by debate and hesitation on the other. The German Press waxes derisive—which matters little—and in America, no less than in south-eastern Europe, it is recognised that to temporise while the dictators act is to proclaim defeat.
No one can imagine that the Government's course is easy. To construct a common defensive front on the basis of a series (.4.: reciprocal agreements with half a dozen States is not a twenty-four-hour job. And with both Poland and Rumania unwilling to make any direct agreement with Russia, and Bulgaria's assent to a general Balkan Pact apparently dependent on some territorial concessions by Rumania and Greece, the dictators may well feel confident of keeping their possible opponents and victims divided, to be dealt with singly. How urgently time presses from the democ- racies' point of view is evidenced by the fact that M. Gafencu, the Rumanian Foreign Minister, is due at Berlin for Herr Hitler's birthday celebrations on April loth. Dr. Schuschnigg went to Berchtesgaden, Dr Hacha to Berlin, but the change of scene does not import a change of method. Unless Rumania imme- diately takes her place in a security pact in which all the Balkan States, as well as Britain and France and Poland and Russia are associated, her prospects of escaping the toils that have involved Austria and Czecho-Slovakia and Albania are small indeed.
The key of the situation to a large extent is the U.S.S.R., and here again it is necessary to realise what Lord Halifax's difficulties are. Some of the Govern- ment's critics have written and spoken as though the Cabinet had only to tell M. Litvinov of its desires and compliance would be assured. Actually Russia can be the most elusive as well as the most astute negotiator in the world, and no Foreign Minister is to be envied the task of seeking to reach conclusions with her. In this case Russia, no doubt, as an article by Mr. Duranty on a later page demonstrates, believes she has good reasons for her hesitations. That the hesitations exist is undeniable. But it must be acknowledged that Russia is in essentials right. It is perfectly true that a series of bilateral agreements like that with Poland will not meet the need ; real collective security in Europe must be established. It is hard to see why the Cabinet should object to that, for we are already committed to France, to Belgium, to Poland, to Portugal, by specific and published undertakings and to Holland and Switzer- land (it is confidently affirmed) by unpublished pledges ; we are notoriously ready to give guarantees to Rumania, Greece and Turkey, and perhaps to Yugo- slavia and Bulgaria as well, and we desire a reciprocal agreement with Russia. Why, then, hesitate to em- body all these pledges in a general security agreement such as Russia advocates, and which she makes the condition of her full and active co-operation? There may be good reasons why not. And there may be one bad one, that the Cabinet—as Mr. Duff Cooper, speak- ing from inner knowledge, said happened so often in his day—is still afraid of irritating Herr Hitler.
Previous page
