Evening Post. SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1937. UNPREDICTABLE NEW YEAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 10

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1937. UNPREDICTABLE NEW YEAR

We know now that the past year, and indeed the past three years, defied prophecy. Before Herr Hitler arrived, would anyone have predicted that the Nazis would dictate not only to Gesmany but to Europe? Could any prophet have foreseen the bloodless Rhineland coupbrilliant but ill-omened audacity— and the Nazis' political capitalisation of the universal fear of the new warfare, which fear-r-plus German capacity to bluff—has enabled Herr Hitler to tear up the Treaty of Versailles without firing a gun? Because all peoples outside the Dictatorship countries shrink from modern war, and because the Dictatorship peoples are not allowed :o shrink from anything, Herr Hitler can keep all Europe in suspense with baffling methods now of action and now of silence; and Signor Mussolini can tear up the League Covenant, annex Abyssinia, and not find opposed to him a single gun except such as the tribesmen Could muster. Considering the awful and veil-grounded fear of the new warfare, which Italy vented on the Abyssinians, the shrinking of the free peoples from giving the League Covenant a military edge is logical, and the success of the bluffing Dictators is understandable. Everyone now sees how the bluffing is done. But its material and moral results, paralysing European collective action, were unpredictable in 1935. The British National Government won the election of November, 1935, on quite a different view of the trend of events in 1936.

One thing that was foreseen in 1935 or early in 1936 was the passing of France's military ascendancy in Europe. As soon as Herr Hitler tore up that part of the Versailles Treaty that prohibited conscription in Germany, it was realised that in time the French military machine could be, and would be, eclipsed. This anticipation of French military cecline—relatively to Germanylad moral effects everywhere in Europe and particularly in France irself. To meet the new German danger, France sought the help of Russia in the Franco-Soviet Pact. Such help is always bought at a price. Given no commitments to Russia, France had no RussianCommunist embarrassments which would worry her friends, Britain and Belgium, and enrage Germany. French non-commitment in Eastern Elurope was a help to Franco-British-Eelgian solidarity in Western Europe. Nevertheless, France decided, at whatever price, to conclude the Soviet Pact; and the price already began to appear a few days before the Pact was actually concluded, when Germany in March last entered the Rhineland. Months later another instalment of the price paid by France for Russian co-operation became evident when Belgium announced that she saw no ruason to renew, on its expiry, the Locarno (Western) Agreement, now handicapped with the complications oE the Franco-Soviet Pact. Th»s the old story of West and East reappeared when the horizontal line oE affinity was drawn across Europe bitween Republican Paris and Communist Moscow. The price paid did not end there. Signor Mussolini and his son-in-law and Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, began to talk of a "vertical line" (Rome-Berlin) as Europe's counter to "the Asiatic intrusion into Europe" represented by the horizontal line Paris-Moscow. The possibilities grew of a Dictatorship Front founded 01 Nazi and Fascist hatred of Communism (both in France and Russia) aid on the Fascist-Red clash in Spain. And that brings the question right up to this very moment, because between Christmas and New Year Britain and France have deemed it not unseasonable nor unreasonable to expect from Berlin a prompt answer to a proposal to stop volunteers going to Spain. If Berlin now hus an open clash with London and Paris, where will Rome go—with

further into Dictatorship Front machinations? The Italian Embassy's Note, though not unfavourable, leaves the question open. Italy says that she is "willing to give the volunteers question priority provided other aspects of indirect intervention are considered by the London committee, and "other aspects" covers a wide range. What more striking testimony to the critical condition of Europe could there he than the fact that even at Chrislmastide no one knows what this momentous choice will be. That is to say, no one knows whether Germany is about to become isolated on the question of intervention in Spain, or whether the two Dictators will stand together in circumstances tending to spread the Spanish war over half Europe. So it is now clear that the price paid by France for Russian help includes German troops in the Rhineland, consequent Belgian coolness, the dangerous Spanish embarrassments, and a flirtation (or worse) with Hitler by Mussolini, who soon forgot that the French Government of M. Laval had helped him to win in Abyssinia. What value-in-rcturn has France received for aiding Mussolini's Abyssinian plot? What help is she likely to receive from Russia herself in the event of war? The price paid is surely worth a substantial military return. Whether Russia can and will make it is a matter of opinion. So unpredictable were the events of 1936 and 1935 —so serious is the issue now confronting London, Paris, and Berlin, and so uncertain is the attitude of Rome—that no one will attempt to prophesy for 1937. But the surest line of approach to the problem is still the Russian policy of Fiance, what it costs France, and what she may get out of it. In certain circumstances, France's Russian policy could enter upon a diminishing stage; that would, moreover, be not inconsistent with the recent British and French pledges of military help against unprovoked aggression. But if the Blum Government fell and the French Communists took power, the tendency would be in the opposite direction; indeed, a French Government composed of or dominated by Communists would be to Europe a most dangerous New Year gift, yet less unpredictable than the Abyssinian and Spanish wars and the Rhineland coup. A hardening of Nazi-Fascist policy in Spain, and a hardening of Communist purpose in France, would be equally threatening to European peace; the balancing and moderating influences of a rearming Britain are already strained, and might prove to be inadequate if the situation in 1937 were altered so as to include a Communist Paris. But if Anglo-French policy is maintained on its present even keel, it seems likely that the two Dictators will be kept apart, and that neither of them alone will convert bluff into irrevocable action. This purely hypothetical hope offers no basis for a European settlement, but it does promise postponement of European war. That decisive Hitler action which Mr. Baldwin described as "pressing the button for peace" seems lo be as far off as ever.