Evening Post. MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 1934. MUSSOLINI SPEAKS OUT

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 49, 27 August 1934, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, AUGUST 27, 1934. MUSSOLINI SPEAKS OUT

On Friday Dr. Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor, was reported to have arrived at Nice, "ostensibly for a few days' rest," and to have expressed the hope that within a fortnight he would see the dissolution of the Austrian Nazis' organisation in Germany, and the resumption of neighbourly relations. There is no harm in hoping, but the mission which had brought him from Austria was not of a kind to encourage the fulfilment of this hope. On the preceding Monday he had been in Florence where the Italian Army was holding its manoeuvres and Signor Mussolini gave him a great reception. Elaborate pageantry, both modern and medieval, had been prepared in the visitor's honour. He was received on a platform which was "lined with Fascists, including small 'boys carrying dummy rifles," and altogether the display appears to have been as brilliant as that which had greeted Herr-Hitler at Venice about two months previously, and probably a good deal more sincere. According to the statement made by the Austrian Chancellor immediately afterwards "a complete agreement" had besfti reached not only on general policy but on all AustroItalian problems. The most important of these results was declared without qualification to be an agreement "that active collaboration between Italy and Austria was necessary."

When Herr Hitler left Venice on June 16 the official report of the conclusions arrived at on the subject of Austria was of a much vaguer character, but they were given a fairly specific form by Signor Gayda in an article in the "Giornale d'ltalia" of that date, which may doubtless be regarded as at any'rate semi-official. The basis of these conclusions was, he said: 1. No question ,as to tho independence of Austria and no interference with it; 2. Germany and Italy to collaborate for as speedy a Teturn as possible to a normal political state in Austria; 3. Tho two countries to continue, a joint examination of the problem and the conversations relating thereto. But many things have happened since June 16 to delay and to complicate the joint examination of the Austrian problem which the two dictators had projected, and to intensify the fundamental conflict of interests which they had sought to gloss over in their friendly interchanges at Venice. On June 30 there was the "putsch" of the Storm Troop leaders, and the conscience of the world was shocked by the gang-ster-like methods to which Herr Hitler resorted for its suppression. Another shock came on July 25 when tho murder of Dr. Dollfuss by Austrian Nazis removed the man who had been keeping Germany out of Austria, and threatened his country with the anarchy which would make it an easy prey. Any obstacle on the other side of the frontier to Herr . Hitler's designs seemed to have vanished when the death of Hindenburg on August 2 enabled him to seize the last scrap of power that was not already in his hands. Whether the understanding reached at Venice was quite shadowy or fairly definite, it is not surprising that such a succession of shocks was more than it could stand. Herr Hitler himself had indicated that in his opinion the understanding was not absolute when he spoke of a General Election in Austria as a condition of peace:—a condition* 1 which Dr. Dollfuss had always rejected and which after his death had become more perilous than ever. On the other side, a closer rapprochement between Signor Mussolini, who had sent troops to the Austrian frontier after the Vienna revolt and again in July, and the Austrian Government was inevitable. The meeting of the Duce and Prince Starhemberg on August 12 and the extraordinary frankness of their ,public speech lo the young Austrians encamped at Ostia revealed how intimate these relations had become. Signor Mussolini, said the Prince, had "shown himself Austria's greatest friend, not merely by words but by actions." Standing before a large portrait of the murdered Chancellor, Signor Mussolini said in his reply: "Dr. Dollfuss's death more than anything else demands a continuation of Austria's independence. We must not permit the tiniest violation of it." If Austria is, as reported, "relying on Italy entirely for her support against any kind of German penetration," it is no more than these words justify. A year ago Signor Mussolini was so afraid of hurting Germany's feelings that he declined to join with Britain and France in their protest to Germany on Austria's behalf, and thus exposed them to the snub that came in due course. Neither Sir John Simon nor M. Barthou would dream of imitating the candour of his speech at Ostia.

But Signor Mussolini's conversations with the Austrian Chancellor and his speech at Ihe close of ihe JliiliiU) Ai'mv manoeuvres show lhal

he has now beaten his Oslia record. The conversations, as we have already mentioned;, are said to have completely settled all the problems affecting the relations between the two countries. In the speech reported on Saturday Signor Mussolini informed the world of the imminence of war and of his readiness, not to say eagerness, to meet it. Nobody in Europe wants war, but war is in the air and might break out any moment, he said. \Yo must not prepare for war tomorrow, but for war today. . . . We must bring up Italians to be militaristic. Nations rise and fall as the result of force. Every man in Italy must respond as one- when the call comes. lln this intensely flamboyant passage Signor Mussolini reverts to the vein which was more familiar from five to ten years ago, though he had given Herr 'Hitler a touch of tHe old quality at Venice in his reference to "the song of our machineguns." The emphasis la'id on the need of preparations "not for war tomorrow but for war today" and the mention of his dispatch of troops to the Austrian frontier in July—a reference considered to be meant for the special benefit of the German and Yugoslavian officers present —seem to put the Duce's latest utterance quite on a level with the best of the old ones. "Nobody in Europe wants war," he says, and he is probably correct. Not even Herr Hitler wants war if he can get everything he needs without it. A few months ago he may well have thought Austria to be one of the things that he might get without fighting, but it is possible that Signor Mussolini's change of attitude has satisfied, him that he was wrong.