Evening Post. FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 1942. A HISTORY-MAKING TREATY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 137, 12 June 1942, Page 4

Evening Post. FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 1942. A HISTORY-MAKING TREATY

Not less important than a major victory in the field is the war-and-peace treaty signed by Britain and Russia, and now awaiting ratification. Political policy has its victories "no less renowned than war"; and this treaty ranks diplomacy with what a Dutch commentator has called admiralship and generalship. While the admirals have been busy in the Pacific Ocean, and the generals in Europe and Africa, statesmen and diplomats have been working unseen to present Hitler's Germany with an immense '' concentration of power, politically interwoven. The roar of the thousand-bomber night ride overj j.Gerniany had hardly died away when the Russian missioner Molotov and the British representatives put their signatures to a history-making treaty of war and post-war co-operation, to be followed by what the radio calls a Russian-American "agreement on the safeguarding of peace after the war." The Russian missioner's visits to London and Washington have resulted in I the finest Molotov cocktail that Hitler ever gulped. If there are still some missing ingredients they will be supplied in due course. On the subject of. "creating a second front in Europe in 1942," a London communique is reported as stating that, in London, "full understanding was reached between Britain and Russia"; and, in Washington, "President Roosevelt and M. Molotov also reached full understanding." Nineteen readers out of twenty may conclude, from this, that the Allies will land armies on a large scale in Western Europe in 1942; but if the phrases "full\ understanding" and "second front in Europe" be read strictly, it will be seen that other interpretations could be fitted to the communique^ In fact, the communique does not tell Germany very much. .It synchronises either with the roar of thousand-bomber night rides, or with commando raids scattered in a diverting manner over a very long European coastline, or with the bump of invasion barges on shelving beaches in the darkness. The communique leaves open the question what constitutes a "second front," and what military direction the "full understanding" of Britain, Russia, and the United States has taken. Hitler is still left ;guessing as to whether thousand-bomber

attacks are, for 1942, an end or a small beginning. At long last, the biter is bit, and the war of nerves is turned against Germany. One myth at any rate is exploded by this treaty of "full understand^ ing" and "pledge of war-winning ro-operation." The myth that Moscow is at loggerheads With London and Washington as to the degree and the kind of diversionary assistance 'provided by Britain and America in or over occupied - Europe is now deprived of substance. Enemy propaganda -is always alert to separate the Allies and to poison the Russian-mind against the British. For instance.; Berlin and Rome long ago ridiculed the ability of -the Western Allies *to con vey to Russia the means of avoiding Russian collapse. Berlin and Rome have also attacked the /sincerity of the AngloRussian ; Alliance—a sincerity now affirmed by a treaty which will stand (unless, it. expand into a wider international instrument), for twenty years. -In line with Berlin and Rome, Laval recently uttered the lie that the British Army deserted the French army in 'Flanders; and if . Rommel could have exterminated the Free French, garrison in Bir Hacheim. without doubt ..Laval would have joined Berlin and Rome in asserting that the Eighth Army deserted the Free French. When Hitler's Russian "blitz" broke down, Moscow itself announced that a German peace offer had been made. But all these Axis efforts to poison Allied relations and to wreck the alliance with Russia have resulted merely in a tighter drawing; of the bonds,. specified in the new treaty and "crystallised in the Churchill-Stalin messages. ; Messages to hand at time of writing deal more with ; the Anglo-Russian treaty ■ than with the AmericanRussian agreement, but- there is, in Mi Stalin's reply to Mr. Churchill, a sufficiently comprehensive sentence: I am convinced that the treaty will be of -great significance in- the further strengthening of the friendly relations between the Soviet Union and Great Britain as well as between our countries and the United States of America, and tha,t it will .further close collaboration after the victorious conclusion of the war.. May I ask you to accept my sincere good wishes and my expression of. rhy Arm belief in our common, complete victory. Ribbentrop, who in 1939 claimed to liave won a diplomatic victory in Moscow, and who evidently sought a fresh one there even since Hitler's treachery of last June, will not find much comfort in the above sentences, nor in the following sentences from Mr. Churchill's message:

As we have pledged ourselves to remain friends and allies for the next twenty years, I am talcing this opportunity of sending you my best wishes and expressing .my conviction that victory will be. ours. V. . I am convinced that from now on the three great Powers will be able to march step by step together to whatever is expected of them.

The AngloJlussian, treaty renounces territorial aggrandisement, diisHiase

any separate r peace or armistice, renews promises of mutual co-opera-tion in Avar and peace, and disclaims any peace with airy German Government'that "does not clearly renounce all aggressive intentions." But if, in the post-war period, either Britain or Russia becomes "involved in hostilities with Germany," or with an associate of. Germany, Britain and Russia will at once give each other full military and other support. All these and other vital provisions in the Anglo-Russian treaty werte embodied with the knowledge of Washington, who was "kept informed during the London conversations." ;