The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945
Page 19
German Chancellor Adolf Hitler at a 1939 Nazi rally.
Where does that prospect leave Britain and France if they agree now to take back the declaration of war on Germany? What future do they face? What would happen to the Continent of Europe if they agreed that Hitler could have his Polish spoils with impunity? On the other hand, it may be argued that they should ask the question as to where they would be if they fought Germany and lost.
If Britain and France call off the war now, it means that Germany would be free to go ahead with her plans of economic collaboration with Russia, becoming in the next two or three years immensely more powerful. It would mean that Hitler and Stalin would almost certainly continue their expansion in Central Europe and in the Baltic regions. In other words, it would mean that Britain and France would, in the comparatively near future, confront a much more serious peril unless Hitler changed all his spots, and that they do not believe will happen.
MUSSOLINI’S POSITION
As for Mussolini, he is on the anxious seat. When he suggests peace, if he does, it will be not only altruism which actuates him. It is doubtful indeed that in a prolonged war Italy would be able to remain neutral—especially as a friend and purveyor to Germany. It seems that a realization of this is percolating through the Peninsula. If some day, London and Paris told Rome it would have to take a more positive position, Mussolini would be in a very tough position. What he has to think about today is whether Italy will be given the six months she got the last time to decide which way she would go.
The coming week promises to bring some clarification to the situation. There will be the expected peace offer of Hitler, accompanied by the threats he will emit. There may be the intervention of Mussolini and then there would be the replies of London and Paris.
The best guess seems to be that a week from now the war will still be on. In fact, it seems something better than a ten to one bet.
OCTOBER 4, 1939
FRANCO OFFERS AID TO RESTORE PEACE
Says ‘This War Is Absurd’ and Sees Little Hope for a Quick, Decisive Victory
Wireless to The New York Times.
MADRID, Oct. 3—Declaring that “this war is absurd” and “the hope of a quick, decisive victory does not exist,” Generalissimo Francisco Franco today appealed to the belligerents to make peace so that Germany could be a bulwark against the ideas of Soviet Russia.
General Franco’s statement, which was the first he has made since he enjoined the Spanish nation to observe the “strictest neutrality,” was made in the course of an interview with Manuel Aznar, chief of the Madrid Press Association.
“Spain,” said General Franco, “is disposed to do all within her power without limitation or reserve to conciliate the present belligerents. In this way we can best serve the historic destinies of our country and defend that Western civilization which for Spain is sacred.”
Discussing the unexpected alliance of Russia, the great enemy of Nationalist Spain during the recent civil war, with Germany, General Franco declared:
“The Russians’ incursion in Europe is a matter of the deepest gravity; nobody can hide that fact.
“In view of what has already happened, it is necessary to agree quickly on some step to avoid greater damage: the evil must be minimized so that from the East of Europe will not come newer, stronger dangers for the spirit of Europe.
“This will not be attained without peace in the West of Europe. Germany should be a sufficiently strong and solid barrier to oppose the orientation of Europe toward those political and social ends of a great and expanding Russia.”
OCTOBER 4, 1939
TROTSKY SAYS U. S. WILL JOIN CONFLICT
Asserts Only Washington Can Get Russia to Shift From Supporting Germany
By LEON TROTSKY
North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc.
MEXICO CITY, Oct. 3—The policy of the Soviet Union, full of surprises even for interested observers, flows in reality from the Kremlin’s traditional estimation of international relations, which could be formulated approximately in the following manner:
Since a long time ago the economic importance not only of France, but of Britain, has ceased to correspond to the dimensions of their colonial possessions. A new war must overthrow those empires. Not by accident, they say in the Kremlin, the smart opportunist, Mohandas K. Gandhi, already has raised a demand for the independence of India.
This is only the beginning. To tie one’s fate to the fate of Britain and France, if the United States does not stand behind them, means to doom one’s self beforehand.
The “operations” on the Western Front during the first month of the war only strengthened Moscow in its estimation. France and Britain do not decide to violate the neutrality of Belgium and Switzerland—their violation is absolutely inevitable in case the real war develops—nor do they attack seriously the German Westwall. Apparently, they do not want to wage a war at all, not having in advance the guarantee that the United States will not acquiesce in their defeat.
Moscow thinks, consequently, that the actual confused and indecisive manner of acting of France and Great Britain is a kind of military strike “against the United States,” but not a war against Germany.
In these conditions, the August pact of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler was supplemented inevitably by the September agreement. The real meaning of the algebraic formulas of the new diplomatic instrument will be determined by the course of the war during the next week.
STALIN SEEKS TO AVOID WAR
It is very improbable that Moscow will not intervene on Herr Hitler’s side against the colonial empires. Mr. Stalin entered the extremely unpopular bloc with Herr Hitler only to save the Kremlin from the risks and disturbances of a war. After that, he found himself involved in a small war in order to justify his bloc with Herr Hitler. In the crevices of a great war, Moscow will try, also, to attain some further new conquests in the Baltic Sea and in the Balkans.
It is necessary, however, to view these provincial conquests in the perspective of the World War. If Mr. Stalin wants to retain the new provinces, then, sooner or later, he will be forced to stake the existence of his power. All his policy is directed toward the postponement of this moment.
But, if it is difficult to expect the direct military cooperation of Moscow with Berlin on the Western Front, it would be sheer light-mindedness to underestimate the economic support that the Soviet, with the help of German technology, particularly in the means of transportation, can render the German Army. The importance of the Anglo-French blockage will certainly not be annihilated, but considerably weakened.
The German-Soviet pact will have, under these conditions, two consequences. It will greatly extend the duration of the war and bring closer the moment of intervention of the United States. By itself, this intervention is absolutely inevitable.
It is a question of the struggle for world domination, and America will not be able to stand aside.
The intervention of the United States, which would be capable of changing the orientation not only of Moscow but also of Rome, is, however, a song of the future. The empiricists of the Kremlin stand with both feet on the basis of the present. They do not believe in the victory of Britain and France, and consequently they stick to Germany.
To make the Kremlin change its policy there remains only one way, but a sure one. It is necessary to give Herr Hitler such a decisive blow that Mr. Stalin will cease to fear him. In this sense, it is possible to say that the most important key to the Kremlin’s policy is now in Washington.
OCTOBER 7, 1939
DALADIER REJECTS HITLER PROPOSALS
Declares France Will Fight To Establish ‘Real Justice And Lasting Peace’
By P. J. PHILIP
Wireless to The New York Times.
PARIS, Oct. 6—To Chancellor Hitler’s speech before the Reichstag Premier Edouard Daladier replied this afternoon: “We must go on with the war that has been imposed on us until victory, which will alone permit the establishment
in Europe of a regime of real justice and lasting peace.”
The Premier was speaking to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, which had asked for a full account of the diplomatic position of the country. Every member of the committee was present and at the end of the meeting the Premier was subjected to extensive questioning. His thesis was, as it was a few days ago before the Chamber of Deputies Foreign Affairs Committee, that France and Britain were making war to end the reign of aggression and to end the necessity of mobilizing every six months.
He said they wanted a lasting peace that would depend on respect for the given word and on honor and would guarantee the security of France and of all nations. Such a peace, he stressed, would exclude all domination in Europe and could be founded only on the right of peoples to their life and their liberty.
Neither France nor Britain, he declared, would lay down their arms until such a peace had been effectively secured.
UNCERTAINTIES STILL REMAIN
But millions of men are standing to arms all over Europe. Whether they will fight and where they will fight has still been left uncertain, just as it is uncertain where and how the Rome-Berlin Axis, the anti-Comintern pact and the Third International are in accord and disaccord.
That puzzlement is not confined to France. Every country is suffering from it. Amid the confusion the French have this firm faith to hold to: that their men and their Maginot Line will resist any attack, whether the war be a waiting war or a lightning war.
They know that they do not want for themselves or for any other peoples a Europe on the Hitler model and, whether they must stand still and wait for victory or fight for it, they are prepared. They are confident, too, that the British Government, people and army are equally determined to stand fast and keep cool while Herr Hitler alternates between promising peace on his own conditions and threatening to spread the war further.
French War Minister Edouard Daladier.
OCTOBER 8, 1939
CHURCHILL AWAKENS BRITONS
Of All Leaders He Best Rouses The Confidence Of the People and Their Fighting Spirit
By JAMES B. RESTON
Wireless to The New York Times.
LONDON, Oct. 7—Great Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, who agreed with the poet Milton that it is “better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,” has emerged from the first five weeks of war as the most inspiring figure in Great Britain and ultimate successor to the 71-year-old Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
War is Mr. Churchill’s natural element. Like a happy old tugboat captain with a battered sailor’s hat on his head and a dead cigar between his teeth he has looked and sounded like a war leader. And more than any other man he has spread a little confidence about the land.
In the newspapers and—what is probably more important—in pubs, the people are beginning to talk about him and smile approvingly at his chip-on-the-shoulder attitude. He is the Cabinet member who gives the impression that he is getting a big kick out of fighting Adolf Hitler. He has dropped the diplomatic double talk of the Front Bench and has spoken in simple, blunt language.
“THE PERFECT MAN”
When Mr. Churchill went to the United States to lecture in 1900, Mark Twain introduced him.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the American humorist, “The lecturer tonight is Mr. Winston Churchill. By his father he is an Englishman; by his mother, an American. Behold the perfect man!”
That American connection is important. Mr. Churchill has inherited a deep vein of American candor from his mother, and while this very quality has made him many enemies and helped keep him out of No. 10 Downing Street, it is working definitely to his advantage today.
He has been condemned as a Russophobe and a Teutophobe, as an irresponsible genius, but even his old critics seem to agree now that he will make a great wartime leader. They read in Germany’s tendency to vilify him a sign that Germans fear and respect him and many are beginning to believe that he and he alone has the drive and imagination to lead the British Empire through the greatest crisis in its history.
Winston Churchill making a recruiting speech at London’s mansion house for the territorial army in April, 1939.
OCTOBER 13, 1939
Prime Minister Says Bar to Peace Is the Present German Government
By RAYMOND DANIELL
Wireless to The New York Times.
LONDON, Oct. 12—The answer of Great Britain to Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s offer of a “white” peace was given by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain today in the House of Commons. It was an emphatic “No!” delivered with all the vehemence at the Prime Minister’s command and echoed by spokesmen for all parties.
Deeds, not words were necessary now, Mr. Chamberlain declared, to the accompaniment of cheers, if Herr Hitler hoped to convince the Allies that he wanted peace. Thus did the Birmingham business man who had tried to trade with the dictators return the onus for the final fateful decision of peace or war to the erstwhile Austrian house painter who is now German war lord.
Not by the slightest word or hint had Herr Hitler shown any intention or desire to right the wrongs done to Poland and Czecho-Slovakia, Mr. Chamberlain pointed out. Even if he had, his record of broken pledges was such that any further promise from him would require very substantial guarantees.
One thing and one thing alone, the Prime Minister declared, stood between the world and the peace so ardently desired by the people of all nations and that one thing was the present German Government.
Mr. Chamberlain spoke as an apostle of peace transformed by disillusionment into a man of action and of war. In some quarters it was felt that his blunt rejection of Herr Hitler’s peace terms would be a signal for the unleashing of all the horrors of war by the Nazis. But bombs did not rain at once on British ports, nor was there any immediate assault on the Western Front.
In the distinguished strangers’ gallery, as Mr. Chamberlain began speaking, sat August Zaleski, Foreign Minister of the new Polish Government established on French soil since the Nazi conquest. Before this afternoon’s session of Parliament he had been received by King George and had read the parts of the Prime Minister’s address dealing with the Allies’ attitude toward restoration of his native land.
The Ambassadors of Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Russia, Spain and Poland listened intently to every word from their gallery. Near by were the Ministers of Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Iran, Yugoslavia, Latvia, the Netherlands, Rumania, Liberia, Denmark, Nepal and Finland and the High Commissioners for South Africa, Australia, Canada and Eire.
From the outset there was no doubt in the House of Commons about the tenor of Mr. Chamberlain’s reply, which had been endorsed before its delivery by France and by the British Dominions. The Prime Minister’s demeanor was that which he reserved for occasions when he intends to be firm and uncompromising. His face was grim, and his voice was raised to an unusual degree for that British leader whose umbrella had become a symbol of the school of diplomacy known as appeasement of dictators. Instead of adopting his characteristic stance, leaning with one elbow on the Treasury table, he stood stiffly upright, away from the lectern on which his manuscript lay.
CHEERS GREET REFUSAL
At first the members listened eagerly like litigants waiting for some word in the judge’s opinion that would show whether he had found for or against them. Before long that word came in the declaration that Britain could not accept Herr Hitler’s terms without forfeiting her honor and abandoning her stand that international disputes should be settled by discussion and not by force.
Cheers greeted this firm refusal to surrender without fighting for the ideals for which Britain went to war. As the Prime Minister’s speech proceeded in even more unequivocal terms, the enthusiasm of the Commons grew until at the end it was cheering every other phrase and leaders of the Opposition groups were outdoing each other in endorsing the rejection of Herr Hitler’s terms, while expressing disappointment that this n
ation’s war aims had not been more clearly enunciated.
OCTOBER 15, 1939
U-BOAT SINKS BRITISH BATTLESHIP; 396 OF 1,200 ON ROYAL OAK RESCUED; SOVIET-FINNISH ACCORD HELD NEAR
By RAYMOND DANIELL
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, Oct. 14—A torpedo from a German submarine sent the battleship Royal Oak to the bottom of the sea today and struck grief into more than 800 British homes.
Of approximately 1,200 officers and men aboard, only 378 are known to have been saved and the Admiralty feared tonight that all the others are lost.
[Shortly before midnight the Admiralty gave out a list of eighteen names, bringing the list of survivors to 396 and indicating that 804 still were missing, The United Press reported.]
It was the second heavy blow Germany has struck at the navy of this island center of a far-flung empire since the war broke out on Sept. 3. Exactly a fortnight later the aircraft carrier Courageous was sunk by a submarine with a loss of 518 lives.
Such is Great Britain’s superiority over Germany at sea, however, that it was human beings of flesh and blood instead of ships of steel that were mourned the most in government circles.
SPEEDY SINKING FEARED
Inquiry at the Admiralty regarding the probable cause of so heavy a loss of life elicited the opinion that the ship must have gone down rapidly after being hit. While British Navy ships carry lifebelts for every man and 30 per cent extra for emergencies, it was said these usually are stowed below. Probably few of the crew had time to get them. Most of those saved, it was believed, got off on carley floats or rafts.