MOSAIC OF FRICTION

Taranaki Daily News, 4 January 1935, Page 5

MOSAIC OF FRICTION

EUROPEAN POSITION alleged war danger. GERMANY PREPARING?

•‘The year 1935 will see the start of a super-crisis in Europe. By next spring Germany, will be entirely ready for war even by her own high standards of readiness. . . “She will have her Reichswehr of 300,000 men (the figure named in her own armament proposals). They will be perfectly equipped with all modem weapons —■automatic rifles, gas, tanks, even heavy artillery (though this is the weakest arm). She will have 4000 warplanes. “These two forces represent to German eyes the ideal combination for making war. Her new strategy consists of air attack upon civilian centres of population and sources of supply, supported by a superb striking force. “The German General Staff believes no longer in mass armies. These embody the inefficient and disaffected elements of a nation as ■well as its strength. “But if numbers are wanted, Germany has 1,000,000 Black Guards and 2,000,000 Storm Troopers so well trained and disciplined that they can be mobilised in three days, whereas the armies of France, Italy and Britain would need three weeks. “Of these facts every General Staff in Europe is aware. “I do not say that war will come. Ido say that froifi next spring onwards the peace of Europe will be at the mercy of an incident. . Its only sure guarantee would be an Anglo-French defensive alliance." . The man who said this knows. He is the most experienced among half a dozen Central European statesmen whose names are familiar to all of us, and with whom, during the past fortnight, I have had long and intimate conversations, writes G. Ward Price in the Daily Mail. In these fateful times German and Italian Ministers seem to be the only ones with the courage to speak out. Yet the peoples of Europe cannot prepare to face the dangers ahead if these are only to be whispered behind the closed doors of Foreign Offices.

THREATENING LETTERS. The reasons for such caution are comprehensible. All prominent Continental politicians constantly receive letters threatening them with death. Detectives and police surround their houses. You are under the closest scrutiny long before you reach them. Machine-guns have become an essential part of the equipment of a Central European Foreign Office as quill pens used to be. As for the specific dangers of this part of Europe, I find a unanimous opinion in every country that the danger of the Anschluss, or union between Germany and Austria, has been postponed for several years by the failure of the Nazi putsch of last July, which led to the murder of Dr. Dollfuss. Hitler himself being of Austrian birth, may still hold to this aim, but his closest advisers are against it.. On the possibilities of a Hapsburg restoration, I heard the views of all parties—Austrian and Hungarian, monarchist and governmental. Unless France forces the Little Entente to agree to Archduke Otto’s return as Emperor of Austria— or even, as the Hungarian royalists and clericals wish, of AustriaHungary—he has no chance .of being raised to this precarious position. The Hungarian Government neither wants to introduce a foreign element into the present organisation of Magyar independence nor desires once more to play second fiddle to Vienna in national administration.

ITALY AND YUGOSLAVIA. Hostility is still intense between Italy and Yugoslavia. The Yugoslavs were infuriated by Mussolini’s dispatch of troops to the Brenner Pass last July, and his claim to play the part of protector of Austrian independence. Had ; a- single Italian soldier crossed the. frontier, the armies of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and even of Hungary would instantly have done the same. A European war over the partition of Austria would have been almost inevitable. . This list of hatreds and hostilities could be prolonged. Central Europe is a muddled mosaic of malevolence. “Never have foreign politics been so complicated and difficult,’’ said a former Premier of long experience. “In these days of instantaneous communications events crowd so fast upon each other that there is no time to think, and the modern statesman has also to reckon with the force of popular opinion, which until a generation ago hardly existed. “The confusion is increased by the fact that so many States are on wrong sides. The old eternal tendencies, like the. trend of the Russians towards Constantinople, of the Serbs to Salonika, of the Germans to the Adriatic, and such natural principles as the unity of the interests of the States of the Danube basin, are obscured by the artificial arrangements of peace tT6at^€S» ,, It is the fact that Hungary is the key to the peace and prosperity of. Central Europe. Her mutilation and isolation within a ring of the States that despoiled her is the outstanding element of.unrest in this part of the Continent. As the statesmen of the Little Entente openly proclaim, they could crush Hungary in a fortnight—but they can never know assured peace and prosperity until tney have come to a settlement with her. Even the most faltering step in this direction would be worth making. in Prague I have news of one which I am assured the Czech Government would now be prepared to take. Some weeks ago Dr. Tibor Eckhardt, the Hungarian delegate to the League of Nations, proposed that a League Commission should be sent .to each of the countries of the Little Entente and to Hungary to. report • on the treatment of racial minorities in e3 Dn Benes then declined the suggestion. From an excellent source I learn that though he still opposes the idea of an international commission he would not be against the visit for this purposeto the countries concerned of a group of officials belonging to the Minorities Department of the League of Nations.

ENGLAND DRAWN IN. To the British public at home the mutual recriminations of these small Central European States may seem comfortably far away. But it is from petty frictions .such as these that the spark of general war is struck. , _ - “What exactly do you mean by saying that Britain and France would stop another Continental war?” I asked one statesman. “Both would fight in selfdefence, but I do not think that either would send troops to take part in a foreign quarrel.” “We believe that France would send money and aeroplanes,” he answered. “We hope that Britain would send money and ships—but whether you want to intervene or not, you would certainly be drawn in before the end.”