Sia,—Discussing the latest volume of diplomatic documents, your reviewer writes
that both Sir Eric Phipps and Lord Perth "seem to have been as defeatist as their Berlin colleague." So far as Sir Eric Phipps is concerned, either the alit:aide " defeatist " is misused or your critic confuses the functions of an Ambassador with those of a Secretary of State. Obviously it is for the Ambassador to supply the facts and leave his Government to take the decisions. For years Phipps had been reporting from Berlin (as the later documents will show) that Germany was re-arming, and now he reports from Paris (Document 1076) that "all that is best in France is against war, almost at any price. . . . To embark on what may be the biggest conflict in history with an ally who will fight, if fight she must, without eyes (Air Force) and without seal heart, must surely give us furiously to think. . . . They (the French) were convinced that if Great Britain spoke with sufficient firmness, Hitler would collapse. Only now do they realise that Hitler may be meaning to take on both our countries." -
Sir Eric Phipps was francophile, but facts were facts, however dis- agreeable. France succumbed in 1940 after a few weeks of fighting, confirming Phipps's pessimism. This pessimism was, however, prescience,
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