MOSCOW RETIRES FROM LOCARNO CRISIS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 17 June 1936, Page 8

MOSCOW RETIRES FROM LOCARNO CRISIS.

Convinced that Great Britain has adopted an equivocal attitude towards Adolf Hitler’s violation of Locarno, which can result only in a rearmed and ambitious Germany that will have her own dangerous way, the Soviet Union appears to have washed its hands of the matter and for the time being lapsed into a concerned silence, wrote Harold Deny from Moscow to the New York Times on April 5. Since Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinoff’s speech to the League of Nations Council in London two weeks ago the journalistic outcry immediately following, both Soviet officials and the Soviet Press have treated the subject as taboo and have been unwilling to say anything that might embarrass any future efforts by Mr Litvinolf or stir smouldering fires. Behind this screen of silence, however, serious thought is being given here to the future as it affects the U.S.S.R. In private conversations with Soviet officials and foreign diplomats one learns the consensus is that the war danger is real but not immediate.

It is felt here that Germany’s recent manoeuvres can have only one purpose —to make secure her western borders so that when the time comes she can move to the east without interference from the west. Whether these foreign moves to the east will involve actual fighting no one can now predict. Observers here believe Hitler will not fight if he can get what he wants without doing so, but that he is preparing to fight if necessary. They calculate that he will not bo ready to fight on a large scale for two more years at least. What Hitler wants, as diagnosed here, is to build Germany into a strong empire, which naturally must mean taking territory now under other flags. A Breathing Space. Some months at least are expected to elapse before Hitler makes his next big move. Meanwhile, it is thought he will simply maintain his position in the Rhineland, perhaps strengtheing his forces there, beginning to fortify the area and dragging out the negotiations with the Locarno Powers as long as possible. He has gambled on the fact that a large body of public opinion and a large section of the ruling classes in Britain are willing to go a long way to avoid w r ar. Moscow believes this is short-sighted —that failure to check Germany now only increases the ultimate danger to Western Europe —but Hitler’s gamble has thus far proved correct.

Obscure Outlook. Diplomats here understand that Hitler debated two choices before occupying the Rhineland. The other alternative was some form of anschluss, or union with Austria. Having now apparently got aw r ay with one of these moves, they believe, the probabilities favour his getting away with the Austrian step when he considers the time right. After that the picture is less clear, though observers here believe Hitler \Vill seek to carry out a programme of bringing under the German flag the segments of Imperial Germany that were lost in the peace settlement. With Austria in his grasp and with German influence in Hungary and growing in Rumania and other Balkan states. It is generally believed that Hitler in the not distant future could weave a cordon around much of Czechoslovakia—a cordon that would almost entirely encircle that precariously situated republic if Poland stood fast with Germany. Such a step would bring German forces close to the Soviet border, but not actually to them since Lithuania is not contiguous w T ith the Soviet. Whether so near a threat would involve the Soviet in war remains to be seen. Lithuania has no mutual assistance pact with the Soviet and the Soviet has not know r n a desire to have one with a country that while, having nothing to give, could rea lily pull Ihe Soviet into war. And the Lithuanian problem is one that Soviet officials dislike to mention. In the background of thought here is the possibility that sometimes Germany and Poland will move in concert upon the Soviet Ukraine, but that arouses loss concern now than ever before, as it is envisaged only as a remote possibility, while meantime the Soviet Union’s defensive strength is increasing by geometrical progression.