EVENTS THAT LED TO WAR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23827, 30 November 1940, Page 4 (Supplement)

EVENTS THAT LED TO WAR

WHAT are the important events which from 1931 onward led to the outbreak of war? How many people who have watched the growth of Nazi power could confidently say at what point peace was doomed and by whose hand or voice Europe was condemned to the ordeal of German domination 1 ?

If tlie second question is too profound to bo wholly answered, some progress toward its elucidation may bo made by intelligent comprehension of the answer of the first question. "To recall to the plain ma'n and woman, in such fashion as can he readily understood, tho developments which have culminated in setting half the world aflame," Mr. Frederick T. Birchall, chief European correspondent of The New York Times from 1932 to 1939, has written, in "The Storm Breaks" .a record of scenes and events, in proportions measured by their importance and significance i;i rotrospeet. Most of the great events that aro recalled as contributing to tho storm wore watched by Mr. Birchall from "a front seat," and while he ddes not' conceal his feelings, he

By G.M.

always writes as a dispassionate observer, striving to discover the truth and to present it fairly. Though' ho disclaims any intention to make unexpected revelations, there is one statement at least that arrests attention —a positive assertion that there • is one obstacle which the Nazis cannot overcome. "The one thing the German people will not stand, from a Nazi Government or any other, is another inflation," Mr. Birchall declares. "So inflation, except by stealth or indirection has been impossible." There has not been wanting envious recommendation of Nazi methods of financing public expenditure, and representation of them as a form of benevolent manipulation of public credit. "Stripped of their camouflage, these measures amount to confiscation and robbery in one form or another," says Mr. Birchall. Banks and insurance companies were' compelled to exchange their reserves for Government paper; German citizens were compelled to surrender their foreign investments. Continuous spoliation of the Jews has done a great deal to keep Nazism a going concern, but in November, 1938, the punishment of tho Jews for tho shoot-

jng of an. Embassy official in Paris, robbed them of the little they had left. Territorial aggression has enlarged the opportunity for looting, "but still the oconomic hole yawns for Nazism unless this war provides fresh plunder on a scale imaginable only in dreams. That was written before the occupation of Denmark and Scandinavia, of Holland, Belgium and France, and of Rumania. Two passages may be quoted as indicative of the provisional judgments Mr. Birch all interpolates in his narrative. Between Italy's seizure of Ethiopia and Germany's first invasion there was "a period oii hectic preparation on one side, and of almost unbelievable credulity on the other," ho says; "of gaining time by diplomatic manoeuvres as ingenious as they were dovoid of good faith; and of fruitless conferences and advances encouraged only to bo ultimately repulsed. Lost opportunities and vain speeches. . . . assurances that all would bo well nevertheless and beneath these the furtive hope that something would happen to avert disaster." The other: "There was a 'crime' and it was completed at Munich. But it antedated Munich, and Chamberlain and Daladier were not the only representatives of Democracy responsible for it. Tho crime was in the long neglect of preparations to meet tho aggressions for which Hitler's new Reich had been openly gotting ready. It was a crime of misfeasance, of neglected duties, and lost opportunities. . . . The Blum Cabinet and other Cabinets in France and tho Mac Donald and tho Baldwin Cabinets in England shard responsibility for that neglect and for the glib assurances to their publics under which it was concealed." Yet after fifteen months of open war against the British Empire there are still many who cling as blindly as any statesman in those neglected years to tho furtive hope that something will happen to avert disaster. A smaller volume entitled "Guilty Men," of which many editions* had been published in England boforo supplies were exported, is a very simple explanation of why Britain was not prepared for war, but it is the simplicity of a police dossier. It tells one side of tho story with stark realism, with 110 reference to tho background of events and influences. It is very clever, sometimes quite amusing, but it is not history. Mr. Birchall does not pretend to be smart, but he does try to bo honest, and his hook is a salutary correctivo for the tendency to form and to publish dogmatic judgments upon tho parts played by leading figures in tho years beforo tho storm broke.

"The Storm Brenks," by Frederick T. Bircliall. (Kohort llale, Ltd., London.) "Guilty Men," by "Cuto" (Victor Gollancz, Ltd., London.)