FRANCE AND BRITAIN

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 113, 14 May 1936, Page 25

FRANCE AND BRITAIN

DISCORD FACTORS. ! I 1 CLASH OF AIMS RECALLED.! 1 • FRENCH EASTERN ALLIANCES.' (By a Special Correspondent.) PARIS. England, allied with Prussia and Austria, defeated France in the Napoleonic wars. England, allied with France,! defeated Germany and Austria in the j World War. Hence the importance | which Reichsfeuhrer Adolf Hitler, with j his mind bent on the next war, attaches | to separating England and France. j So long as the two western European democracies stand together Dor Fuehrer | knows that his goal, a pan-German j hegemony over Central Europe, is an ! idle dream. The Nazi leader has gone a long way to achieving his ambition, for never, since the days of the Ruhr invasion, have the relations between England and France been so taut as they are to-day. For this, France has largely Pierre Laval io thank. Missed Alliance Opportunity. The French Government of last year, when Laval was Premier and Foreign 1 Minister, lost an exceptional opportunity to obtain a British alliance. But with trying to hold Great Britain without losing his new ally, Italy, Laval hesi--1 tated and then was lukewarm about supporting the sanctions against Premier Benito Mussolini. The French Government almost had to be dragged into supporting the League of Nations against Italy. Then Laval torpedoed the oil sanctions by bringing forward the Laval-Hoare proposals for settlement of the Italo-Ethiopian conflict. The result was that France alienated British public opinion without winning Italy's gratitude.

The two nations also Jo not see eye to eye 011 Germany's denunciation of the Locarno pact. To the British, Hitler's action in sending German troops into the Rhinelaiul is not as reprehensible as Premier Mussolini's policy of shipping his Black Shirts into Africa. l T or the English argue that Hitler's deed, while infringing on the treaty, is not an act of aggression, since, after all, the German soldiers are only entering German cities, while Mussolini is trying to destroy the independence of another nation. To which the French reply that Hitler's action is a far more eerious offence, since, carried out in Europe, it constitutes a threat to the peace of the world, while Premier Mussolini, in the eyes of the French, is only conducting a petty colonial operation. Diverse Objectives Cited. More fundamental is the difference between the British and French approach to Germany after the World War. While Great Britain always has been anxious to set Germany on her feet again, in order to restore the balance of power, France, fearing war revenge, has constantly sought to keep Germany down and encircled. Hence the French invasion of the Ruhr and unsuccessful plots to detach the Rhineland from the Reich. French unwillingness in recent years to envisage Germany as an equal was illustrated when the late Louis Bartliou rejected Hitler's offer to limit the armies of the two countries to 300,000 men each in liis famous Note of April 17, 1U34. The British, regarding this negative as the loss of a great opportunity to achieve disarmament, made amends by concluding their naval agreement with Germany in June of last year. With the typical British lack of logic, which is the despair of the French, they thus condoned Hitler's unilateral denunciation of the military clauses of the Treaty of j Versailles just three months after they j had solemnly taken part in the League of Nations' solemn condemnation of that | action. And so to-day, while London regards Hitler's peace offer as a heaven-sent opportunity to make real peaeej Paris mistrustfully considers it just an artful manoeuvre on Der Fuehrer's part to make his violation of the Locarno pact palatable to the English. Then, again, the French, holding that war with Germany is inevitable unless such a powerful coalition is erected against the Reich that Hitler will realise that another war would be suicide for his country, have been making alliances in the Fast with the Little Entente and Soviet Russia. But these very alliances, even from the French viewpoint, are a doubtful asset. For they make the British timid about . making any military commitments with , France.

For while Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin has said in the House of Commons that Great Britain's frontier is 011 the Rhine ajid while England would doubtless not permit Germany to march into France, nevertheless the British do not want to be dragged into war automatically because of France's Eastern alliances. Fortunately, though strained, the entente between England and France still remains intact. For now, as before, cordial co-operation between tho two great democracies of western Europe remains the best insurance against Hitler's making a concentration camp out of Europe, as he has out of Germany.