GERMANY'S MOVES

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 32, 6 August 1936, Page 4

GERMANY'S MOVES

OFFENSIVE ON STRESA

THE ITALIAN POLICY

The German reply to the British questionnaire is not expected for some time to come, wrote the diplomatic correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian" at the end of May. The uncertainty of the international situation makes the, German Government desire a delay at least until that situation can be reconsidered in the light of the June meeting of the'Le'ague'of Nations Council.- It, will then perhaps be.possible for the German Government (when it drafts its reply) to make allowances for any change in its relations with Mussolini. . As was pointed out in the "Manchester Guardian"^ previously, there is in, Berlin a j new tendency towards cooperation with Rome. It is'as yet no more than a tendency, but it would seem to be .growing. Mussolini's attitude is not clear-as yet, but it does not appear to be unfavourable, though he, too, will hardly come to any decision until the League Council has met. The Italian Minister of Agriculture, Signor Rossoni, returned to Rome from Berlin recently. He informed Mussolini that his reception in Berlin had been ''more than hearty." Signor Rossoni, who is on specially intimate terms v with Mussolini,' conferred not only with Hitler but with the other Nazi leaders. The German Charge d'Affaires in Addis Ababa was the first member of;the Diplomatic .Corps-there to congratulate) Marshal Badoglio on his triumphal entry. Count Ciano, Mussolini's - expressed^ himself enthusiastically on the subject of Hitler arid of Nazi Germany. Germany has hot yet'decided what attitude she will take towards the coro^nation of the King of Italy as Emperor of Abyssinia. Official German recognition of'the King of Italy's new title would, of course, differentiate Germany from the members of the League of Nations as a friend of Italy.. . THE STRESA FRONT. 1 What.. Germany is, above all, aiming at in her Italian policy is to prevent the "Stresa Front" from being re-estab-lished. The-German Press,, particularly the "Frankfurter Zeitung" of May 15, tries to argue that the "Stresa Front" has lost its Value in ■ Italian eyes and that as far as France is concerned a Government led by Leon Blum could not, be pro-Italian.' Behind all, Germany's ■ preoccupation with Italy there continues to lurk the more intense preoccupation ' with France and Great Britain. . The consolidation ,of "regional security" as between Great Britain, France, and Belgium since the Rhineland .was reoccupied is the chief (and perhaps the ,only) setback suffered by Hitlerite Germany until now, for in one part of Europe at least the principal effort of German foreign policy is thereby counteracted —namely, the effort to "atomise" the European order by, eliminating the principle, of mutual assistance. COMPLETE BAKRIER. If German-Italian relations become so intimate, that the re-emergence of the Stresa Front, or of its equivalent, is prevented, then the barrier, created by the reoccupation and m'ilitarisatkm of the Rhineland, which will be complete by the end of the year, will, so to speak, be extended to include, Italy. Western Europe will then be separated altogether from Central and Eastern Europe and the "Locarno system" will have been broken up. The process of "atomisation" will then have gone very far indeed. But it will not have extended to North-western Europe, where Germany desires it most. That the ' Wilhelmstrasse should misapprehend what is, after all, one of the great and wellknown realities of European history is hard to believe. It seems most unlikely that German diplomacy, which, after all, is not made up exclusively of Rosenbergs andßibbentrops, does not realise that the security of Great Britain, France, and Belgium is one organic and indivisible whole. But German published comments— especially the "Frankfurter Zeitung" of May 15-^----oass over this fundamental fact as though it did not exist at all and very significantly designate the German "peace plan" as making special AngloFrench co-operation" superfluous.