THE BERLIN VISIT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 110, 5 November 1937, Page 18

THE BERLIN VISIT

EFFECT ON MUSSOLINI

WHERE WILL IT LEAD?

It would be interesting to know the thoughts that scurried through the active, sometimes antic, mind of Benito Mussolini as he wakened in the state t chamber of the pleasant old president tial palace in the Wilhelmstrasse, wrote i Anne O'Hare. McCormick in the "New s York Times"' recently. Did he think of r the previofb occupant, the old Junker marshal who used to clump about the parklike garden, his mind befuddled by, the pretensions of the upstart Hitler? Yon Hindenburg belonged,to the caste that prides itself on descent c from the virile Goths that overran £ the effete empire of Rome. He would turn in his grave to see another upstart c —and an Italian!—closeted with the t Austrian in imperial conference. f Or was the Roman visitor reminded J of Bismarck, the Prussian empire builder who schemed and plotted in the f older house nearby to make the Wil- c helmstrasse as important a diplomatic j thoroughfare as Downing Street and the Quai d'Orsay. The Iron Chancel- * lor hardly thought of the feeble little States of Italy, and although he foresaw many things that have happened c in Europe, he never imagined swas- i tikas on the imperial flag or. German I and Roman eagles intermingling on I triumphant standards outside his'win- < dow. / SHEER SURPRISE? * More probably the Italian's first I thought was sheer surprise to see I Benito Mussolini where he was, the l extravagantly-honoured guest of Ger- * many. He must have smiled a little * at his own enlarged reflection in the j ornate mirrors with which he was sur- j rounded. Fifteen years after the March j on Rome he finds himself acclaimed I in Munich and Berlin as the inventor j of the system of government which the j Germans have adopted, and to under- < stand what' that "means il is necessary |j to recall how pre-war Italy was over- ] shadowed, 'overawed, financially and \ industrially controlled by the German 1 giant., ■. ' Mussolini's reception goes beyond the welcome usually accorded to the head of a foreign 'State, even .when that State is a 'faithful' ally instead "of a| former enemy and a present rival. It was blatantly-turned intoaiJageant de- ' signed to give him a sense of his im- •* portance as .the founder of the faith c as well as of a new empire. For some { reason the Germans were ostentatiously overdoing-their welcome. If this meant c merely that a long-outlawed people were seizing their first opportunity to » celebrate the visit of the ruler of a J great State, it would be pathetic. If it expressed spontaneous popular feeling, it would be remarkable. But it t was to impress Mussolini himself or to impress the outside world. A MYSTERY MEETING. Beyond their immediate entourage nobody will ever know precisely what passed between the two dictators. Except for Stalin they are the only men . in the- world who have power to en-!. force the condition deemed essential by President Roosevelt, when last ." year he toyed with the notion of a peace . conference of the responsible heads of the world's dominant Governments. With no inquiring1 parliaments, no nagging opposition, with reporters under complete control, they wereij practically on a desert island when) 1 they conferred in the guarded room ia the White House of the Wilhelmstrasse. Anxious observers and commentators in other capitals speculated on the warnings, pledges, and confidences, if any, exchanged in these secret dialogues. One line of speculation has escaped attention. This is the possible effect of the exaggerated acclamation on Mussolini himself. Dictators live enlarged by a frame of pageantry, but it is a home-made frame. In Germany, for the first time, the Italian Premier listened to cheers from a foreign crowd. Away from home he was hailed as "Duce,"the father of Fascism, and heard this word, unheard of until he coined it, echoing on the shores 6f the North Sea. MUSSOLINI'S LAST VISIT. Looking back oh the way he has come, he must have remembered his last visit to Berlin, made as the unknown and unnoted editor of hia paper not long I - >re he went to Rome. At that time his movement tended towards republicanism, and it is said that his observations of the young Weimar republic helped to ; decide him to ■ hang on to the Italian monarchy.. Then he was nobody. Fascism was an insignificant little party, like a minority group of the American Legion. Even ten years later it was a nonexportable Italian commodity. Now, -einforced by Germany, it has drawn an imaginary line across Europe which snarls up the Whole map. Supose this well-stated play overimpresses the actors. Could flattery divert Mussolini from his main purposes, and is that the intention behind the display? F five years this purpose has been to supplant what he calls "the illusion of collective security" by a working agreement of the four Western powers. The axis was formed not to separate France from England, recognised by every European to be an indissoluable union, but from Russia, and for this Italy would withdraw from Spain., . , . . ; . The writer interviewed Mussolini the night his Four Power Pact was signed. France, "under pressure from her Eastern allies," he explained, signed reluctantly, and this pressure, later strengthened by Russia, rendered the pact abortive. But the Fascist leader was jubilant that night, predicting the beginning of a new European order. Iri Berlin he was back where he was then, weaker diplomatically, less trusted, but swinging more weight,in the power balance and pretty certain to agree with his host on one pointto pivot on the axis until some stronger tight-rope develops.