EASTER INFLUENCE IN EUROPE

Dunstan Times, Issue 3382, 11 July 1927, Page 8

EASTER INFLUENCE IN EUROPE

(By Wilbur Forrest.) Europe’s brilliant Easter week just closed hears notable, even historical, distinction. Chronologically it has been the week which stands out as the most blatantly peaceful and most utterly uneventful week since the thunder of German cannon echoed across the Belgian frontier early in August, 1914. Since that time according to best calculation, 664 weeks have elapsed, every one except the latest teeming with some fretful international reaction.

Just twelve full years and forty weeks have gone since European humanity suddenly began to slay itself and destroy the wealth and happiness accumulated during half a century. To observers who followed this struggle f o its bloody, disastrous conclusion, ’nd the post-war period in which the whole continent writhed for years in "olitical, economic and financial agony, ’ike wounded men burning up with fever. Continental Europe’s last seven days have been a startling revelation.

All Europe, so far as is known, and France in particular, reacted to the 1927 Eastertide with more peace and apparent Christian spirit than at any time in three-quarters of a generation. France, the focal point for world news f or almost thirteen years, has been lolling in news doldrums, and public opinion bas had little more to think about than the Easter holidays amid spring flowers, birds, open air, winds and countrysides. No angry domestic politics and no threatening European crises marred the picture this year as before. Why such a situation should be extraordinary may be realised only by a retrospective glance at the thirteen preceding Easter weeks. Nineteen fourteen saw the bloodiest and most dismal time within Europe’s living memory; 1915 and 1916 saw no improvement, and in 1917 a German long-range shell crashed the roof of a nr rent Paris church during worship, killing 70 and maiming 150, adding fresh national mourning to the Verdun slaughter house then draining the country’s best manhood. Easter in ’lB found the nation and, in fact, all Europe enduring the climax of the nightmare’s bereavement and anxiety. Easter in ’l9 found the peace conference squabbling over the spoils of war. framing a treaty which accentuated rather than diminished international turmoil. Just a year later at Easter time French troops were occupying the German cities of Frankfort and Darmstadt, while Germany was in the throes of Communist revolt and gray green troops were occupying the Ruhr in violation of Versailles treaty. The allies were talking war. Still another Easter, 1921, saw Europe still in a state of turmoil with Germany refusing to pay reparations on the verge of bankruptcy, France talking further invasion, Great Britain objecting and the Soviet threatening Poland. Easter 1922 was a little better. Leading European statesmen were gathered in Genoa with -a hopeless scheme to draw Russia back into the family of nations, their reward being what Lloyd George termed a blow in the dark, when Russia and Germany signed a working agreement called the Rapallo treaty Pass on to Faster. 1923 with France and Germany virtually at war, France’s and Great Britain’s troops in the Ruhr and both governments determined to crack Berlin’s resistance. International controversies also were beginning to develop in Turkey over not entering in’the Lausanne conference called to avert war between the British and the Turks. The first ray of light came in Faster, 1923, when the Dawes plan partially settled the reparations problem, loading toward Franco-Belgian evacuation of the Ruhr. A year later public anxiety was still high, mainly in France, with Cabinet crises over the country’s desperate financial plight, Easter, 1920. dawned in an atmosphere of pessimism. Germany had just been barred from the League, France and Spain were locked in war with Abd-el Krim, the Riff; Mussolini was rattling bis sabre with alleged threats to annex Tunis, Russia was refusing to participate in the League disarmament parley, Great Britain was still suffering acutely the effects of the coal strike.

Compare all those preceding Eastertides with the present one. Students of European politics this year are unable to envisage any immediate threat of war on any European horizon. Financially and economically Europe appears to he gradually improving. The Conservative Governments are sitting almost, everywhere, minimising radical moves in anv direction. All this presents a situation unique since 191-1, and observers who have watched the most active news-producing continent in the world for the last dozen vears have wondered this Easter if Europe is entering a new cycle of stability.