The Evening Star MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1939. THE WAR OF NERVES.

Evening Star, Issue 23350, 21 August 1939, Page 8

The Evening Star MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1939. THE WAR OF NERVES.

One can imagine Herr Hitler and Hr Goebhels rubbing their hands together and agreeing that it has been a good week-end. The technique that is designed to reduce peace front nerves to a state of prostration in which demands, or a new coup, of the Nazi aggressors will meet with the least resistance increases its tempo. The week-end, as has been explained, is the favourite time for augmenting the tension because alarmist reports that are issued then cannot immediately be answered. Time is given for the objects of intimidation to stew in their own juice and make authentic dangers worse with the help of their imaginations. Five out of six new alarms are produced at the week-end. So on Saturday we were told—London and Europe on Friday, in time for the Saturday morning’s Press editions that the time has passed when Germany can back down. Only the democracies have a choice still left to them—to give in to her, or make their reckoning with force, A Bratislava radio station was reported ns announcing that Germany had taken military possession of Slovakia. The station has since denied the announcement. As this broadcast was supposed to have been made in English Slovaks generally would be disqualified for giving evidence in regard to its purport. Precisely what—if anything—has happened in Slovakia is obscure, but it was impossible to suppose that the independence of that half a State, conferred on it by Germany in March, could be real. Poles interpret the extension of Germany’s military control which is alleged, with conflicting evidence, to have taken place there as part of the Nazi design to “encircle” Poland, but “encirclement,” as the Nazis use it, is a word to be applied only to the self-protective measures of the democratic Powers. The dismemberment of Czecho-Slovakia in September last, the aid given to General Franco (most disturbing to France), and other acts of German policy in the last twelve months have had nothing to do with “encirclement.” The chorus of alarms and threats was maintained right over the week-end, with support from Dr Gayda, representing the Italian partner, for its concluding note. And Herr Hitler will only be disappointed with the result if he hears that democratic nerves—and all sorts of agencies, no doubt, will have had instructions from him to report on their reaction—are unperturbed. The crux which has been reached is bad enough, but it is worse for the German Government than for Britain. It is that Government which will decide between peace and war, knowing that, if it makes the worst choice, its actions of the last twelve months and its insistence that all questions involved in its desire for aggrandisement at the expense of its neighbours must be determined by its own will, and that alone, will have stamped it in the eyes of every nation the world over as the aggressor. It is possible that the Nazis do believe that, though they missed the tide for really hopeful militarism a year ago, when the democratic Powers were weak instead of strong, they have gone too far now with blustering to assist the cause of peace without a. loss of “ face,” for them, which would bo worse than defeat in war. Something liko that happened in 1914, when some Germans wanted war and some did not, and the Kaiser’s Government, as if grown fatalistic at the last, did nothing to restrain its ally Austria from precipitating the catastrophe. “ Encirclement ” was the cry then as it is now. As to the actual claims that are being made to-day, no one is likely to regard them as more than first'instalments. A correspondent writes to the London ‘ Times ’: “Is German annexation of Danzig in any sense urgent? No Nazi pretends that it is. Is it a vital issue? No Nazi contends it. Is not the German claim to Danzig as a German city destroyed or at least impaired by the seizure by Germany of two whole provinces which contain fifteen times as many Czechs ns there are Gormans in Danzig!-' There arc Nazis who frankly admit that it is. .Would not Danzig

suffer economically from annexation to the Reich? Nazis in Danzig and Danzig business men agree that it would. Do the people of Danzig desire to incur even a remote risk of war in order to join the Reich? They emphatically do not. (I recently asked a good many of them that question.) They are already completely governed by the Third Reich, through the Nazi Party (the. Gauleiter of Danzig is a Bavarian).” That seems to sum up the Danzig question, to which the issue of the “Corridor,” with increasing emphasis, already is being added.