Evening Post. TUESDAY, JULY 14,' 1936. RUSSIA AND THE FASCISTS

Evening Post, Issue 12, 14 July 1936, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, JULY 14,' 1936. RUSSIA AND THE FASCISTS

The Russian angle of the GermanItalian situation now shows up prominently. There are three main Dictatorships in Europe, hut as the Russian Dictatorship is Eurasian, and is not Fascist, it has been eclipsed in the news by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, who, by virtue of geography, politics, and economics, must lead the Middle European drama in the temporary eclipse of France. So the German and the Italian Dictators have recently made "all the running" in Europe. Yet the fact that Russia was in a sense the pacemaker, through the Franco-Soviet Pact, must never be forgotten. If the whole question of sanctity of treaties be eliminated from the argument, then Germany had a military case for re-entering the Rhineland. In military logic, her counter to any form (however guarded) of Franco-Soviet military co-operation is to re-enter the demilitarised Rhineland and complete a chain of German western defences, broadly parallel with and equal to the French chain. Thus Germany "contains" the French army—keeps it occupied and prevents it moving eastward to the aid of the Russian member of the Pact.

As the final stages of the FrancoSoviet Pact approached in March, the German Dictator anticipated it and confronted France and the Russian Dictatorship with a remilitarised Rhineland, which seems to be becoming a refortified Rhineland. The German Dictator, fracturing treaties, but without going off.German territory, drovea wedge through the east-west line of the new FrancoRussian co-operation. France, having just hamstrung the League of. Nations in the matter of preventive measures against the Italian attacker of Abyssinia, could find in the League and the Locarno group no elective counter to Hitler's Rhineland coup. Italy, having made use of France for Abyssinian aggression, but being none the less sore over sanctions, vievyed the Franco-Soviet Pact with Fascist aversion; and thus the stage was set .for diplomatic efforts in Rome and. in Berlin to find further common ground, and further means to remove a French ascendancy now vitiated (at any rate in Nazi and Fascist eyes) by the Soviet taint. In the direct order of events now comes the GermanAustrian agreement, vastly important in itself; yet still more important if it indicates a broad and wellfounded efFort of German and Italian diplomacy to revive the Four Powers Pact, to Russia's exclusion. Analysis of the main detail of European affairs in 1935-36 makes the above succession of events both clear and illuminating. The German eagle and the Russian bear continue to fight a duel, though the eagle does not attend either Geneva or Montreux. Steps towards renewal of the old connection between France and Russia are followed by steps towards renewal of the old connection between Germany and Italy—which, it is conjectured, France may be forced to join as a safer life-raft than the Russian Pact. Looking ahead, it seems that adhesion of Britain, who opposes Russia at the Dardanelles Conference at Montreux, would then produce the Four Powers Pact of recent memory. But, without looking ahead, a good deal of education springs directly out of the recent past, which tells its own story. The beginning was the refusal of France to disarm, unless given military guarantees by the United States (who declined) or by Britain (who, without the Dominions, gave guarantees only in the limited Locarno terms). France refusing to disarm, Germany illegally armed. France then set out on her diplomatic mission to buy support in Italy and Russia as a counter to German re-armament. From this diplomacy, and its reactions, has come the present European "situation," including certain entries and departures from the League of Nations, 'and including the paradox of continued Italian membership of that body.

As a writer in the "Round Table" sees it, Europe is passing from a system of stability by a French preponderance to a system of stability by balance. The balance is still undefined, but die German-Austrian agreement, blessed by Italy, may be a pointer. Pursuing her diplomatic course to counter the German rearmament of 1934-35,

France first composed her quarrel with Italy (incidentally probably agreeing informally to give her a free hand in Abyssinia) so that each could move the forces they had previously maintained on the Franco-Italian front to the German front. Russia—moved by her anxiety about National Socialisi Germany—then joined the League; and France, and also her ally Czechoslovakia, initialled military treaties of mutual assistance with Russia. This precipitated the recent Locarno crisis. Hitler contended that the unilateral demilitarisation of the Rhineland, guaranteed by Britain and Italy, had been accepted by Germany at Locarno as security against another invasion of the Ruhr, but that once France entered into a military pact with Russia, conditions were fundamentally altered and, German/ could no longeff be re-

quired to keep open the back door to her most vital industrial regions.

Hitler turned argument to fact by sending troops into the Rhineland on March 7.

The writer quoted above goes on to say that "the pivot of llie European complex at this moment is Austria." He wrote, of course, with no knowledge ihat Dictator-accord (German and Italian) in Austria was about to be reached on paper; and that it would be hailed as peace by bilateral agreement, in competition with League peace or multilateral peace. A new problem—what arc the limits of Dictator-accord?—now obtrudes, with the questionnaire still unanswered, and the future of the League still undisclosed. Equally undisclosed is the future relationship of Germany and Japan with Russia. But that the Gernian-Italian co-opera-tion in Austria is meant to prove, among other things, that Middle Europe can be regulated without Russia, and even without a France that leans on Russia, there seems to be very little doubt. Moscow's reaction to these events, at Montreux and elsewhere, must be interesting, and may give the world a chance to hear more of and from M. Litvinoff.