DRIVE EAST

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20140, 9 January 1940, Page 3

DRIVE EAST

FRENCH FORECAST GERMANY AND RUSSIA EVENTS LEADING TO WAR ENVOY’S REVELATIONS PARIS, Dec. 24. The fact that France and Britain had early information regarding the rapprochement between Germany and Russia emerges from the publication by the French Foreign Office of a Yellow Book, similar in many respects to the British White Book, recounting from diplomatic papers the events leading to the war. In one chapter, M. Franeois-Poncet, who was Ambassador for France to Germany until October, 1938, when he was appointed Ambassador to Italy, describes his farewell visit to Herr Hitler’s mountain .retreat at Berchtesgaden, when the Fuehrer was “manufacturing new grievances.” Hitler’s Retreat M. Francois--Poncet states: “I was received at What might be pictured as an eagle’s eyrie, perched on a summit tiUOOft. high. The twisting road toff, hewn out oi’ rock, suddenly ended at the entrance to a long tunnel, which was barred, by huge bronze doors, behind which a lift shaft, 350tt. high, led to Herr Hitler's refuge. It was a blend of fairy castle and luxury hotel.” M. Francois-Poncet, referring further to the Fuehrer’s retreat, asks: “Is it the work of a man tormented by madness or by fear?” Every access is protected, he states, by machineguns and defended like a fortress. “Here, Herr Hitler asserted that Mr. Chamberlain, ‘in a war-like mood,’ was rearming. Here he accused England of being fundamentally antagonistic and of being responsible for the continuance of tension, but he declared his readiness to sign an agreement with France, mutually recognising existing frontiers.” “The Berchtesgaden Stoker” One of the most prophetic passages in the Yellow Book is a report made by M. Coulondre, after he had succeeded M. Francois-Poncet as French. Ambassador to Germany. “In my opinion,” states M. Coulondre, who is now diplomatic director of the French War Cabinet, “Germany’s will for expansion eastward is as certain as her renunciation of her conquest in the west. The one is the corollary of the other.” Referring to the Czechoslovakian conquest, he states: “Like an engine,, supercharged with steam, tiie wheels of the Reich are whirling madly, but the Berchtesgaden stoker shows no inclination to reduce the pressure.” M. Francois-Poncet considered by March that the Munich agreements would be valueless, because Germany had interpreted them as giving her full freedom of action. The Final Chapters The final chapters reveal that tiie ! French Minister at Sofia telegraphed to the French Government in December, 1938, alluding to the possibility oi a rapprochement between Germany and the Soviet. M. Coulondre supplied a well-docu-mented warning on May 7 of last year, it is also revealed. “Herr von Ribbentrop,” he stated, “appears to consider the partition of Poland by Germany and Russia, and a Berlin-Mos-cow agreement, indispensable and inevitable. “Herr Hitler’s final objective," lie adds, “appears to be to employ Soviet material and human resources for his own ends, and as an instrument for the destruction of the British Empire.”