HELP FOR FRANCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 January 1938, Page 5

HELP FOR FRANCE

JUGOSLAVIA AND POLAND

PARIS. November In

Interesting disclosures on recent critical events in Europe were made in a lecture to-day by M. Berenger, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate.

M. Berenger said that on March 7 last year, when the German reoccupation of tiie demilitarised zone became known at Warsaw, Col. Beck, the Polish Foreign Minister, informed France that if a Franco-German war resulted from the action, Poland would mobilise and place herself at the side of France. Col. Beck also confided to friends that in such an eventuality he would resign from the Government and go to the front at the head of his regiment.

The lecturer further stated that the Jugoslav Government also informed the French Foreign Office that it was ready to order mobilisation to assist France if war resulted from the reoccupation. “If France did not mobilise.” continued the lecturer, “it was for very honourable motives, of which the chief was the determination always to march in step with England in all our military and naval action.” M. Berenger advised Frenchmen “to reflect before criticising Viscount Halifax’s visit to Germany and the Earl of Perth’s diplomatic discussions at Rome.” France, he said, would lose nothing through these “semi-official consultations” and “would fall into the most dangerous of traps if she relaxed in the slightest degree her close union with Great Britain.” The lecturer closed with these words —“The British community and the French Republic are to-day sufficiently armed. To-morrow they will be more so. They represent 500 million human beings who 20 years ago gave proof of their courage, tenacity and success. “Present on all the continents, keeping watch on all the oceans, vigilant in all the skies, they have the authority, in agreement with the United States, to summon the world to a supreme rally for peace.” He said that the final aim of Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini was to establish a German .Empire in Central Europe and restore the Roman Empire on all Mediterranean shores. In case of a conflict, he said, France. could count on the British Empire, Jugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland and “perhaps Russia.”- _ j i