Alliance With France

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 28 March 1938, Page 11

Alliance With France

I Mr. Winston Churchill considers that ! Britain's arrangements with Franc? | amount to a definite alliance, j This was exactly the position in J(#l4. A large body of opinion believed that the Great War of 1914 assumed the proportions it did by tbe refusal of Britain to make plain its intentions toward France in the event of Franco becoming involved in a war with Germany. As it was, Britain entered the war on account of Germany's invasion of Belgium, Britain, along with other countries, being party to a treaty guaranteeing the independence and neutrality of that country. ‘•For many years,” said Sir Edward drey, Secretary of Stare for Foreign Affairs, in the House of\Commons ou August 3, 1914, "we have had a longstanding friendship witli France. . . . But how far that friendship entails an obligation . . . let every man look into bis own heart, and his own feelings, and construe the extent of the obligation for himself. . . Si r Edward went on to say that under arrangement with Britain the French fleet was maintained in the Mediterranean, leaving the Channel and North Sea coast undefended. France, Sir Edward maintained, had a right to know Britain’s intentions in the event of the German fleet attacking those undefended coasts. Sir Edward gave the French Ambassador a statement giving an “assurance that if the German fleet comes into the Channel or through tbe North Sea to undertake hostile operations against the French coasts or shipping, the British Fleet will give all the protection in its power. This assurance is, of course, (subject to the policy of His Majesty’s Government receiving the support of Parliament, and must not be taken as binding His Majesty’s Government to take action until the above contingency of action by the German fleetakes place.”