Evening Post WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1939. HITLER'S PEACE DRIVE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 70, 20 September 1939, Page 8

Evening Post WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1939. HITLER'S PEACE DRIVE

The Nazi short-war policy is based on the performing of two feats: (1) a short war in Poland; (2) following Poland's collapse (which has happened) a complete peace secured by "threats and cajolings." Except through such cajolery and threats, Herr Hitler has not dreamed of any short war against Britain and France; I he knows that, if the war against those Powers reaches magnitude, years and not weeks will count its duration. It is therefore not merely to be expected, but it is practically inevitable* that the peace carrots will be dangled before the Anglo-French donkey—was it not for this that the immense military effort was made to shorten the Polish campaign? The peace drive, initiated by Herr Hitler's speech at Danzig, is simply chapter II following chapter I (Polish debacle) and the speedy completion of chapter I made II inevitable. What length of time Herr Hitler will take to write it is not clear, but this fact is obvious—the war machine which is to write chapter 111 and succeeding chapters is daily increasing in momentum. Unless this already rapidly-revolving machinery of war is stopped*at once by some miracle, it is unlikely to be stopped for a long time. And as the military part of the story unfolds, chapter 11, the peace chapter,, may be left unfinished, for some neutral Government to resume at some future date. Once a war is in progress, peace is very difficult to discuss without an armistice. With the peace chapter and the war chapters unfolding at the same time, the mind is distracted from peace, because it dare not be distracted from war; for we know that neither the enemy nor ourselves can (or will) afford to abate one jot in military energy because a Nazi Government that a month' ago gambled in war is now gambling in peace. Herr Hitler is playing the peace .card as a military hazard not to be despised, but only as a hazard, and quite without prejudice to the activity of his war machinery. His argument is the argument of the dog that has swallowed the bone, and thereupon asks the other dog what he is fighting for. But bones may disappear altogether and cease to be; and that is not true of Poland any more than it was true of Servia in 1914-18. Herr Hitler, again, accuses Britain and France of being responsible for the intractability of Poland. Probably they were, and they were responsible, a quarter of a century ago, for the intractability of Belgium. Herr Hitler also tells the Danzig people that some time ago he warned the world against the Churchills and Edens, and ( here they are in power again! The answer is that they^are in power because Herr Hitler himself has done .all those things with which they charged him, and has justified not his warning, but theirs. One report of Herr Hitler's Danzig address indicates his surprise that, according to his enemies, "the real problem is now not Poland but tKe German regime." The real problem has always been the Nazi regime. It is out of the Nazi regime that all the causes of possible war have sprung. The Nazi regime alone is responsible for substituting violence for negotiation. The problem is not a Polish dog witH" a Nazi tailbut a Nazi dog with tails in Czecho-Slovakia, in Poland, and in other successive small States—unless the Nazi regime and its ambitions can be stopped. As to personal attacks, the British attitude to HenHitler is no more personal than is his attack, by name, on the Ministers mentioned above.' In disclaiming ambitions!, this much perjured Dictator declares that his understanding with Russia is "proof that Germany's aspirations are limited"; but nothing is more obvious than that M. Stalin has relied not on Herr Hitler's word but on his own armed occupation. What would Herr Hitler's pledge be worth to M. Stalin if the Nazi peace drive in Britain and France did actually succeed? In the spirit of "East is East and West is West" Herr Hitler says that his country will remain Nazi, and that M. Stalin's country will remain Bolshevik, side by side; but . this Bolshevism is the same Bolshevism as was lately deemed by Herr Hitler a pestilence. This portion of the Nazi cajolery is already a comedy. Against the Nazi threats Britain and the British Empire must steel themselves while awaiting the French reaction, and hoping for the best from the U.S. Congress session now at Ihan4 .