CURRENT LONDON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 16 November 1935, Page 21 (Supplement)

CURRENT LONDON TOPICS

CRISIS OVER THE WAR MOMENTOUS LEAGUE DECISION. INVOCATION OF ARTICLE 15. (By Air Mail—Special to Daily News). London, October 3. The Council of the League, representing, without' Italy, 13 nations, has invoked for the first time in its history Article 15 of its Covenant. This is the solemn pledge which, in the event of failure to settle a dispute, binds the Council either' unanimously or by a majority vote to report on the facts with relevant and suitable recommendations. Thus Geneva passes, after much preliminary sparring, direct to the vital question of “sanctions.” The door is still left carefully open for negotiation and compromise, but the League now prepares to function in the event of failure, even at the eleventh hour, to avert a breach of the international peace. It is a historic as well as momentous crisis, and reactions of the most farreaching kind, both geographically and historically, may well turn on the next move. The forces of international pacifism and national ambition are at grips. Ourselves and France. Once the Italo-Abyssinian trouble emerges from, the preliminary domain of words into that of deeds, the crux of the situation obviously is whether the League will show a united front. Which means in reality whether France will back us staunchly now as we backed her in 1914 and she may want us. to back her on some future occasion. France has asked for an' explicit assurance on the latter point, with particular reference to German moves at Memel or in Austria. Our Cabinet has declined to, bind itself in advance of hypothetical instances, but offers the solid general pledge of firm support, hereafter as now, in any case of infringement of League Convention principles by aggression. This ought to satisfy France up to the hilt, because it implies a very significant fact. Mr. Baldwin said not long ago that our frontier is now on the Rhine. It might more accurately now be said, after this explicit declaration, to be at Geneva. We are League whole-hoggers.; ;' War Fever. .

After hearing a first hana description by a reliable eye-witness of feeling in Italy at this moment, I am forced to a far more serious view of the immediate European outlook than before seemed necessary. Any idea that Mussolini is dragging a reluctant people into an unpopular adventure must be entirely abandoned. War fever runs as strong in Italy to-day as it did in Germany in 1914. Educated professional and business people, even university professors, share as fervently as a semi-illiterate democracy the dream that the 20th century is about to witness a resurrection of the splendour of the old Roman Empire. This is the result of years of the Fascist gospel, plus millions spent on Press propaganda. But most disturbing of all is the nature of Italy’s war preparations. • To What End?

Abyssinia is a country without a port, possessing no fleet and no real air force. Yet long before the situation reached its present tense pitch, the chief Italian harbours were elaborately mined, and new forts, heavily gunned, have been improvised along the coast. The civil population has been officially warned, in the event of air attcak, not to crowd into one room, but scatter about the house, avoid the centre of the floors, and. keep close to a wall. They have also been told to lay in stocks of candles in case the electric light fails or is switched off, and to buy stores of food against emergency. Food-hoarding is already going on to an extraordinary extent. Feeling against the British runs dangerously. high. This picture, which may be taken as accurate, lends little hope that Italy’s plans will be checked by even more drastic action than socalled sanctions. Haig’s Diaries.

The published excerpts from -Earl Haig’s war diaries make melancholy reading at best. True they throw a fresh light on some of L.G.’s bitter criticisms of the late Field Marshal, and in "part refute these sweeping attacks, or explain things more creditably to the . 'British Commander’s military reputation. But the revelations of Brass Hat jealousies, and of shockingly defective staff, work, are disillusioning. L.G. may not always have given Haig a fair deal, but there is little in the latter’s diaries to convey any impression of great personality or ipspired military genius. One excerpt must impress any dispassionate reader as wellnigh incomprehensible. Haig quotes, with obvious self-satisfaction, favourable comments by distinguished observers on the bearing of his First Division troops during the Mons retreat as contrasted with Smith-Dorrien’s Second Division. As the latter had just fought the desperate Le Catteau action, unsupported by the First, this seems, to put it mildly, highly invidious. Lawrence. I have just finished reading “The Seven Pillars” a second time. My reaction at the end is amazement that anybody could ever have urged that the world should be denied such a literary masterpiece. Its English is as terse and beautiful in places as the Bible, and its grim drama, grimmer humour, pungent philosophy, and tense interest reduce even the finest fiction to commonplace. But it makes one realise that all along Lawrence of Arabia’s small body encompassed two personalities. Colonel Lawrence, the consummate scholar-soldier, a ruthless realist and when need be steely autocrat, wrestled in his soul with Aircraftsman Shaw, the poet-idealist, who burst joy’s grape against his palate fine, and found its wine corked. But how relentlessly the Colonel could drive the Aircraftsman. What unspeakable ordeals the twain endured, and what epic physical feats they achieved. Lawrence rode camels as hard as D’Artagnan drove horses. Subjunctive Death. There are chapters in this great book more dreadful than Dante’s vision of Hell. Others, like the final entry into Damascus, as uplifting as an Homeric Saga. Lawrence idolises Allenby, Feisal, and paints with sympathetic gusto his fighting Sheiks, the romantic Princes of the Desert. But how mercilessly, because with such succinct contempt, he satirises the conventional thick-witted Brass Hat of the typical Aidershot brand. Their invincible stupidity and arid la6k of imaginative gumption nearly wrecked the Arab revolt that enabled us to knock out the Turk and start to win the war. Lawrence points out the weakness of a system which, “seeing men’s jealousy, puts power in the hands of arbitrary old age, with its petulant activity: additionally corrupted by long habit of control, an indulgence which ruined its victim by causing the death of his subjunctive mood!” I doubt that the typical Brass Hat could quite grasp that. But how cleanly the born soldier’s scholarship runs the barrack martinet through.