GERMANY FIRM

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 80, 16 March 1936, Page 8

GERMANY FIRM

NO RECALL OF TROOPS Military Action Would Mean War SANCTIONS LITTLE BETTER By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. LONDON, March 15. “The Times” Berlin correspondent says; "The general view is that Germany will neither withdraw her troops from the Rhineland nor surrender to a show of force, however overwhelming. In the Bhineland, as the Germans see it, lies the question of their fundamental rights as a nation. Military action, it is believed, would mean a European disaster and many think that sanctions would not be much better.

“Two questions, therefore, are anxi ously being asked:

(1) Whether German action constituting no military threat to anyone must become a cause of European war? (2) Can no formula bo found by which Germany can help regularise the position in the Rhineland without being compelled to give way on a question of honour!” Official diplomatic correspondence from Berlin declares that the Locarno Treaty, at the crucial point, made the defence of Germany against France impossible by placing such overwhelming forces at France’s disposal that the guarantor Powers could not successfully help a Germany thus deprived of the power of resistance or even attack. The position when Locarno was signed was different from that now created by the erection of France’s vast frontier fortifications, and her policy of alliances with Poland and Czechoslovakia. In the face of this, Germany’s reaction seemed trifling. Berlin public opinion is apparently being prepared for an unpleasant development. Morning newsaers are revealing a fatalistic attitude towards the League meeting. They plead with Britain to enforce “a reasonable solution.”

HUGE FORCES IN RHINE

Britain Must Support France CABINET SPLIT OTHERWISE LONDON, March 15. The “Daily Telegraph’s” diplomatic correspondent says: “I am assured that, were the British Government to decide that it would not stand by France and Belgium, Cabinet would split from top to bottom. Ministers are further influenced by more accurate estimates of the German forces in the Bhineland available yesterday from reliable sources. It is considered that 30,000 regulars marched into the Rhineland last week-end, to which must be added 30,000 of the Labour Corps, trained for military work, who are reported as being armed and incorporated in the regulars. There are also in the Bhineland 150,000 Storm Troopers in semi-military formation, between 8000 and 10,000 members of the Austrian Legion and a number of motor-car units.

“Faced with this force, France is arguing that she may be compelled to mobilise a number of units on the border-frontier and she is also pressing Belgium and Britain to join her in a new Locarno Pact of mutual assistance with immediate staff consultations.”

The German Embassy states that the military forces in the Rhineland, including organised police, number only 36,500. There are no armoured fighting units and no bombing ’planes. The Embassy contends that, since the. Rhineland is one-eighth the area of Germany and contains one-fifth of her people, such co-operation cannot be regarded otherwise than as symbolic.