MARGIN AL COMMEN T
By HAROLD NICOLSON IN December, 1938, M. Gregoire Gafenco became Rumanian Minister for Foreign Affairs. In the following April, a few weeks only after Hitler by occupying Prague had destroyed the Munich agreement, he paid an official visit to the main European capitals. When Rumania changed her policy and became the uneasy satellite of the Axis, M. Gafenco retired from politics and sought indignant but dignified exile in Switzerland. During the last few days he has revisited London. To his old friends he has brought the un- diminished charm of his personality and a touch of that detached philosophy which comes from years of exile ; and from England, I feel, he has derived an impression of sense and solidity which has convinced him that his old loyalties and principles, although they drove him into exile, were not in themselves incorrect. He brought with him his latest book, Derniers lours de I'Europe, which has been published in Paris and which I understand is appearing in an English translation. In this book he describes his diplomatic travels of April, 1939, and records in detail his conversations with Ribbentrop and Colonel Beck, with Leopold III and Daladier, with Chamber- lain, Churchill and Halifax, with Ciano and Mussolini, with Metaxas and Prince Paul. M. Gafenco is too modest and too scholarly a man to indulge in wisdom after the event. He is well aware that we, who read his record with minds bruised by six atrocious years, will regard the diplomatists of the pre-war years as men of little vision and no courage ; to us the issue appears a clear-cut conflict, on the one hand between rights and principles, and on the other between an almost daemonic spirit of cruelty and aggression. To us it may seem incredible that the statesmen of the peace-loving nations did not realise from the outset that they were dealing with forces which were impervious to reason and impelled by a hurricane of madness. M. Gafenco indulges in no such generalisations ; he affirms that those who during those alarming months of 1939 sought to maintain the peace were honourable and often enlightened men ; what went wrong was that each one of the leading figures in the crisis had his own fixed idea, his own special angle of misunderstanding ; and that there was no common conception which could unite these disparities. It is for this reason that his book is of such absorbing interest.
* * * * We begin with Colonel Beck, who climbed into M. Gafenco's train while it was on its way from Bucharest to Berlin. The Polish Foreign Minister was a courageous and persistent man ; but his judgement was warped by the obstinacy with which he clung to his own misunderstanding of the situation. Colonel Beck did not believe in collective security ; he had no confidence whatsoever in the League of Nations ; he was convinced that the essential conflict was one between Germany and Russia and that Poland's friendship and sup- port must therefore be essential to Hitler. This fixed idea tempted him to attribute to the Fiihrer qualities of constancy and reliability which were non-existent. He imagined that he could speak to Hitler " as man to man, as soldier to soldier." He imagined that he alone of all European statesmen really understood Germany and the Germans. He believed that Hitler, unlike his predecessors, was convinced of the " reality " of the Russian danger and that as com- pared to that vast oriental menace little things like Danzig could be arranged by minor adjustments. He believed that, with the occupa- tion of Czechoslovakia, Germany would in fact become a satisfied PoWer. He poured out all these convictions and deductions to M. Gafenco as the ministerial train sped on its way to Silesia. The Rumanian Foreign Secretary was impressed by the force of his con- victions ; he saw in him a man doomed by his own fixed idea.
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Two days later M. Gafenco arrived in Berlin. He was met at the railway station by Herr von Ribbentrop, the fanfares of trumpets, and all the apparatus of military conceit. Ribbentrop, for his part, " did not try to render himself agreeable " ; Goering was far more expansive and frank. And then came the interview with Hitler in the Chancellery. M. Gafenco found the Fiihrer " a smaller man than I had expected, and more paltry ; his appearance at first sight was astonishingly unimpressive. Nothing in him seemed to. depart from the ordinary." As the conversation proceeded M. Gafenco began to feel lonely ; he realised that this strange feeling was due to the fact that this little man on the sofa behind him was not a human being, but the voice of a powerful nation ; " I felt," he records, " as if I was not talking to a single man, but to a million men." Listening to the monologue of Hider, " at one moment insidious, at the next menacing," he became afraid. Suddenly the Fiihrer mentioned England, and at that his whole appearance changed ; he rose from the sofa, paced the room and began to yell aloud. The fixed idea became apparent. England was all-powerful, aggressive, dangerous. England was too stupid to realise that what he, Adolf Hitler, was offering her was a half-share in the dominion of the world. And how dared England defy his plans?" England who was not able to put two armoured divisions into the field ; England whose air-force was incapable of resistance. " Our air- force," shouted Hitler, " is the finest in the world ; no single city of our enemies will remain intact." And even if England were not defeated, what would be the result? " Each of us," screamed Hitler, "the conqueror and the conquered, will lie buried under ruins ; the only man to gain will be the man in Moscow—nur einem wird es niitzen, dem da von Moskau." Thus Hitler also was suffering from his fixed idea ; to him our refusal to share world-power was nothing more than blind obstinacy. Against such stupidity even the gods must fight, in vain.
* * * * M. Gafenco recounts an incident which occurred during his visit to Berlin, which should become the classic illustration of German tactlessness. The object of Hitler and Herr von Ribbentrop was to convince the Rumanian Minister of Germany's conciliatory inten- tions while allowing him.to realise implicitly the proportions of her power. They could not resist, however, the temptation of obtruding that power upon his attention in a way that was bound to cause humiliation. It was the occasion of Hitler's fiftieth birthday and a vast parade was to be held ; Hitler attempted, almost by force, to drag M. Gafenco to this ceremony and to place him between M Hacha and Mgr. Tiso, the representatives of a violated Bohemia and a violated Slovakia : M. Gafenco was only able to avoid this Roman triumph by simulating sudden illness and by taking to his bed. It was these lunges of arrogant violence which brought about the failure of the Nazi conspiracy. " The world," write M. Gafenco, " woke up too soon "; it was the inability of the Nazis to limit their boastfulness which aroused us from our slumbers. It was with relief, after this distressing episode, that M. Gafenco continued his journey to Brussels and London. Here again he found a special angle of misunderstanding. " Mr. Chamberlain's idea of Germany was about as imaginary as Hitler's conception of England." But there was a difference. Instead of the fanfares and the steel helmets M. Gafenco was met at Victoria by a gentleman in a lounge suit. He was deeply impressed by " the undeniable moral quality " which Mr. Chamberlain possessed. He was encouraged by his London visit and by his conversations with Churchill ; it was when he crossed to Paris and felt that " France seemed to have lost her feeling for Europe" that his acute anxiety returned. * * * * What therefore are the conclusions, implicit rather than explicit, which M. Gafenco comes to when he looks back upon this strange journey across the gulf of thunderous years? First, that in spite of much good will and energy, the statesmen of Europe did not develop "a deep moral reaction" against the Nazi evil. Secondly, that when a system of general security is abandoned in favour of a system of zones of influence, war is bound to result. Thirdly, that when the interests of the strong become more important than the rule of law, then all sense of legitimacy goes. Fourthly, that European culture is something more than an empty name, but is an organism which has developed for two thousand years ; it cannot be cut into slices or zones without damage to the whole organism. And lastly that the greatest enemy of good diplomacy is the fixed idea, the single formula, the closed mind.
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