REIGH BARRAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 5, 6 July 1939, Page 23

REIGH BARRAGE

the Military Training Bill, the pacts with eastern and south-eastern European countries, represent fairly the

change not only in Government opinion

but in the trend of public opinion itWORK OF PROPAGANDA seU- :t is anxious and alarmed, but "Vim V 1 iiwinumwn no longer hesitant and afraid. German machinery, including its engine of propaganda, open and underground, is still at work to foster what has inelegantly, but expressively, been called "the jitters," but it is proving increasingly ineffective. The people have taken philosophically to the idea that we must be strong militarily and diplomatically before any fresh overtures to Germany or Italy are tendered. The time for discussions is still far off, and if the present temper of the British people is maintained the longer it is postponed the stronger will be Britain's position to enter into them. It is becoming generally recognised, however, that in the meantime a heavy barrage of propaganda aimed at frightening Britain into further concessions will have to be withstood. It will be cunningly done, but we are now becoming accustomed to be on the lookout for it in the most unsuspected guises. The propaganda hand has, perhaps, already been overplayed.

SUCCESSES OF THE PAST

OVERPLAYED HAND

At the moment the Germans are giving the world a good example of propaganda that is overdone, writes the London correspondent of the Melbourne "Age." In his own country Dr. Goebbels and the gigantic machine which he controls have done their job too thoroughly, and the people are becoming a little suspicious. Abroad, the early successes that were scored have not been sustained, and the injured innocence story which has for years been put over effectively can no longer be counted upon to win sympathy.

; In England the Germans got away ■ with one or two tales with such surprising skill that only a few months ago even in high places it was difficult to find anyone who had a good word to say for the Versailles Treaty. Herr Hitler's assertion that it was the word of "mad politicians" and not of "victoi'ious soldiers" was allowed to pass almost undisputed. The complacency with which the rape of Austria was tolerated with tribute to the success of the underground propaganda which spread the legend that "after all Austria was always German." In the same quarters the so-called "return" to Germany of the Sudetenland had plenty oil apologists, and it was not until Bohemia and Moravia were seized that the public began to wonder whether all the hard things, that were said of the Versailles settlement were justified.

In recent weeks there has been a big swing round. People are beginning to examine the peace treaties anew, and whatever may be said of their reparation clauses—which were in fact first revised and then abandoned long ago— this re-examination has gone far to defend the territorial provision of Versailles. "VICTORIOUS SOLDIERS" PEACE. If propaganda on the other side were being as vigorously pursued a good deal of play could be made with the sort of peace which "victorious soldiers" of the Reich imposed on Russia at Brest Ldtovsk, and on Rumania at Bucharest. There was nothing half-hearted about Brest Litovsk, which included the recognition by Russia of the attachment of all the old Polish territories of Russia to the Central Powers, the independence of the Ukraine—subject to an annual tribute to Germany and Austria of 1,000,000 tons of foodstuffs—and the cession of various areas to Turkey. Set against Brest Litovsk there is something to be said for Versailles, which, with all its faults, freed about 80,000.----000 people from a foreign yoke and contained the. promise of better things for the future —the charter of the League of Nations.

Another example of the arcest of German propaganda is the check that has been given to the stories that the peace was a betrayal of Wilson's fourteen points, that Germany was victorious in the field, and was foully tricked when she sought an armistice on' the basis of the Fourteen Points The rising generation in Germany knows nothing whatever of Germany's crushing military defeat. That is understandable, but there is no excuse for us for taking our history from Hitler and Goebbels* None with access to the papers should be so hoodwinked.

President Wilson himself told the! Germans a month before the war ended that the only armistice he would submit to the Allies was one that would leave them in a position to enforce; any arrangement entered into and make a renewal of hostilities impossible. Admission of defeat was insisted upon and accepted. Herr Hitler's appeal to the Fourteen Points in his recent Reichstag speech was in all the circumstances a daring piece of bluff, particularly at a moment when the future of Danzig was threatening a world conflagration, for Point 13 reads: "Poland to be an independent State with • access to the sea." Indeed the surprising feature of the Wilson points lis that they . were on the whole so , faithfully carried out in the peace I treaties. I NO MORE APPEASEMENT. I To what extent unsuspected German propaganda is responsible for the present somewhat mild and half-hearted revival of the appeasement policy in a new guise, which is receiving considerable support in the correspondence columns of certain newspapers, is a matter of opinion. The energetic and lavish defence preparations that are being made here provide unfavourable ground for its development. Diplomatic successes in Warsaw, Bucharest, and Athens, and the conclusion of the Anglo-Turkish bilateral pact, tend to negative any movement towards conciliation.

I Long before the Great War—in 1907, to be precise—Sir Eyre Crowe, who later became head of the Foreign Office, gave the answer to those who believe that Germany is to be won over by fair words and concessions. "There is one road." he wrote, "which, if past experience is any guide to the future, will most certainly not lead to any permanent improvement of relations with any Power—least of all Germany—and which must therefore be abandoned. That is the road paved with graceful British concessions— concessions without any convictioneither of their justice or their being set off by equivalent counter-services. The vain hope that in this manner Germany can be "conciliated" must be. : definitely given up. ;,

A timely reminder that the positionjl today demands in essentials much thei same treatment as in 1907 is afforded in Sir Artluir Salter's "Security: Can We Retrieve It?" which has just been published. A great new experiment has taken the stage in the interval, and Sir Arthur Salter, who, owing Ito his varied administrative experijence, domestic and international, has [had unique opportunities of judging che work of the League ol Nations, is insistent that its organisation must be .Sept active and efficient by developing the useful work it can still do. He does not despair of the ultimate restoration of a true Leaeue system. In the meantime he urges Britain must be strong. "NOT AFRATO." The author of this book has no more faith in the appeasing of dictators than had Crowe himself. He does not wrap uphis views in ambiguous phrases. "In practice," he writes, "that policy seemed, to potential friends and foes alike, no more than a readiness to yield under menace to the demands which were successively made with an ultimate intention to resist only where British interests or Fi-ench territory were directly assailed. The suqe«ss of the policy rested more and teore upc-i hope in the moderation and good faith of the dictators. On the Ides of March of 1939 that hope perished." But the Muuich phase is over and