"Divide et Impera " • The time-honoured device of despots,
"Divide and Govern," is being systematically applied by the Germans in occupied countries. In Belgium they have not failed to make the most of the old antagonisms of the Flemish nationalist leaders against the French-speaking majority. In France they have far- reaching schemes for splitting up the country into its original constituent parts. Plans for establishing a separate Breton State appear to have reached an advanced stage. According to the Swiss newspaper, Basler Nachrichten, which quotes an official German communiqué, the German authorities, recog- nising a separate Brittany, have set up an "Executive Com- mittee of the Breton National Council." It is added that the new Breton State is to have its relations with France and Germany determined by bilateral treaties. Inadvertently the Petah' Government is helping the Germans in their grand scheme of splitting up France by enlarging the powers of regional Governments at the expense of the central Govern- ment and so helping to strengthen provincial feeling at the expense of national unity. German policy looks perhaps to a future Europe in which France would be no more than a small area round Paris surrounded by a number of small States— Brittany, Normandy, Gascony, Savoy, Provence, &c.
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