Posted on 05/03/2008 6:15:27 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
The British House of Commons delivered a salute to Premier Mussolini as Chancellor Hitler was on his way to Rome, ratifying the Anglo-Italian treaty, 316 to 108. Praise of Italian good faith by Prime Minister Chamberlain brought furious attacks from Labor and Liberal leaders. Revelation was made that Italy had agreed to cease agitation in Palestine.
Hitler left Berlin for Rome after a great popular demonstration. The press and semi-official sources emphasized that his visit would deepen the ties between the two nations and that there would be a vigorous reaffirmation of the Rome-Berlin axis.
All stations in Italy through which Hitler will pass were decorated and the populations were bidden to cheer him. A fairy scene of splendor was ready in Rome. Extensive precautions were taken in the capital to safeguard the visitors.
Foreign Secretary Halifax of Britain told the Czechoslovak Minister his country must make more concessions to the Germanic population.
The ratification followed a speech by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that was so fulsome in praise of Italian good faith that the Opposition parties were stung to fury. The prime Minister has not had to withstand such abuse from the Labor and Liberal benches since Anthony Eden resigned as Foreign Secretary.
But Mr. Chamberlain was not thinking of his parliamentary opposition today. This time he chose his words for their effect upon the Italian people and the Italian dictator who will be meeting a much stronger dictator during the next few days.
Mr. Chamberlain had heard, for example, that the Italian Fascisti disliked the constant references by British politicians to “our old friendship” with pre-Fascist Italy. Accordingly, the Prime Minister thought it was a good time to commend the Italy of Mussolini.
“In former days,” said Mr. Chamberlain, “we had a close friendship with old Italy – the Italy which . . . won her independence and unity under such leaders as Cavour, Mazzini and Garibaldi.
“Today there is a new Italy – an Italy which, under the stimulus and personality of Signor Mussolini, is showing a new vigor, in which there is apparent a new vision and a new efficiency in administration and in the measures which they are taking to improve the conditions of their people. . . .
“The signing of this agreement has already effected a radical change in the relations between our two countries. The clouds of mistrust and suspicion have been cleared away. The peoples now regard one another with a determination to promote mutual friendship instead of hostility. I believe that between Italy and ourselves this agreement marks the beginning of a new era.”
Laborites taunted him, but Mr. Chamberlain let the interruptions pass. He was out to bolster Mussolini’s prestige today, to make him stand up to Hitler in the knowledge that Britain was Italy’s friend.
Mr. Chamberlain revealed for the first time that an oral understanding on Palestine had accompanied the written agreement of Easter Saturday in Rome. Mussolini, he said, promised the British Government that Italy would “abstain from creating difficulties or embarrassments for His Majesty’s Government in the administration of Palestine.” In return, said Mr. Chamberlain, Britain promised to preserve and protect legitimate Italian interests in the Holy Land. In other words, Italy has agreed to call off her propaganda and money payments to the Arabs, while Britain will consult Italy before taking any action to partition Palestine or alter the mandate.
“Why was this assurance left oral?” asked Hugh Dalton, Labor member.
“I find some difficulty in saying what the reason was,” the Prime Minister replied. “At any rate, the matter was not considered to be quite of the same order as the other matters which were the subject of written exchanges. But we are perfectly satisfied with the declaration we have received, as I believe the Italian Government is perfectly satisfied with what we have given in return.”
Mr. Chamberlain also hinted that Britain would not recognize the Italian conquest of Ethiopia until there had been a Spanish “settlement.” But he refused to define the word “settlement,” although the Opposition parties pressed him angrily to tell them what he meant.
Mr. Chamberlain stirred up more trouble for himself by an incomplete quotation from President Roosevelt’s recent statement on the Anglo-Italian treaty. He had been telling proudly of the approval the treaty had received all over the world except, according to Mr. Chamberlain, on the Opposition benches in the British Parliament.
“The President of the United States has signified his sympathetic interest because he considers this affords proof of the value of peaceful negotiation,” Mr. Chamberlain said.
But Laborite Herbert Morrison, just back from a visit to the United States, replied with a scathing speech charging that Mr. Chamberlain had deliberately distorted the President’s meaning.
“I know,” said Mr. Morrison, “that all good-thinking elements in America who want cooperation with Britain, with all that is good in Europe for the collective promotion of peace, despair at the policy of the Prime Minister in this particular agreement.
“The Prime Minister had no right to quote Roosevelt as approving the agreement. It was taking advantage of a statement carefully prepared which was little more than a courteous gesture to the government of this country such as takes place between such nations.
“The President said he did not pass judgment on the political implications and provisions of this treaty. I am surprised that the Prime Minister should have gone out of his way to make a statement on what was really a misrepresentation of the President of the United States.”
Mr. Chamberlain rose to protest that “the honorable gentleman has no right to say that; I quoted the words used.”
But Mr. Morrison stuck to his guns.
“The Prime Minister only quoted one phrase and left out an important provision,” he said. “I say he ought not to have taken light liberty with the head of a very great nation with whom it is important that we should have no misunderstanding.”
Mr. Morrison and other Laborites were especially incensed at the Prime Minister’s praise of Mussolini.
“We must assume,” said Mr. Morrison, “that the leader of the Conservative party in this country admires the Mussolini regime, with all its tyranny, its suppression of political opinion, its murders and assassinations.”
He warned the Conservatives that they would “hear more of it” from political platforms in the coming months.
Mr. Morrison denounced the Anglo-Italian agreement as dangerous to British interests and described the treatment of Ethiopia and Spain as “scandalous.”
“We are asked to believe that two wrongs make a right,” Mr. Morrison exclaimed. “It constitutes a double shame to the honor of the country, a double disgrace to the British name in the eyes of the world. It is the ethics of the double cross.”
David Lloyd George was equally bitter in protesting against the agreement as “one of the most abject, dishonorable and cowardly surrenders of all.” He predicted it “won’t stand the strain for twenty-four hours if war is proclaimed.”
“There is nothing in the Rome pact which binds Mussolini even to neutrality in the event of war,” Mr. Lloyd George went on. “The government has retreated so often before the dictators that they have come to the conclusion that there is no point at which Britain will stand.”
The bitterness reached a climax when Clement R. Attlee, leader of the Labor party, launched a personal attack on Mr. Chamberlain.
“We have heard something about the Chamberlain tradition,” he declared. “I don’t believe Joseph Chamberlain would have signed to feeble a document as this or that Sir Austen Chamberlain would have put his hand to so dishonorable a document.”
But Conservative speakers loyally backed up their Prime Minister and his treaty. Richard A. Butler, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who wound up the debate, assured the House that the Anglo-Italian agreement contained no hidden understanding of any kind providing for a loan or credits to Italy. In a parting shot at Opposition critics Mr. Butler accused them of stirring up ill-will among nations.
The following dispatch is from a correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES who has visited the vital battle front in South Shantung,, where the Japanese and Chinese have been locked for weeks in a major struggle. His revelations bear out reports that the second Japanese offensive has been checked:
The Japanese are attacking along a jagged line running roughly northward, eastward and southward along the Tientsin-Pukow Railway and the branch Taierhchwang Railway, the line then bulging around Yihsien and bending south-eastward six miles above Taierhchwang toward Pihsien, twelve miles north of the Lung-Hai Railway, the objective of the spearhead of the Japanese drive in South Shantung.
The Chinese are holding their positions firmly all along this line, and Chinese commanders believe lessening of the Japanese assaults, which up to a few days ago had been continuous, indicate the Japanese forces in this area have spent their offensive strength and are now trying to hold their positions.
The heavily reinforced Chinese armies have, therefore, prepared to launch a counter-offensive coinciding with a Chinese counter-attack all along the South Shantung fronts.
The lull in the Japanese attacks has permitted the Chinese to entrench themselves firmly and defenses are being built around hundreds of small stone-walled villages, typical of the Shantung countryside. Trenches, barricades and dugouts honeycomb the environs of these towns. The Japanese infantry attacks upon these defenses, unaided by tanks or intensive artillery bombardments, are making no headway.
Hsiaochi is the most advanced Chinese outpost north of Taierhchwang. Visiting that village during a lull late in the afternoon the writer found the Chinese troops enjoying a rest after having repulsed Japanese force from Howan, 150 yards away. The Japanese attack had been preceded by an artillery bombardment, during which the north corner of the village was set afire.
The infantry then attacked, but was driven back by sweeping Chinese machine-gun fire. To the right of Hsiaochi and about a mile away a bloody fight was going on for control of Tsaochwang, where four days previously the Japanese had succeeded in taking over half the town. Since then Chinese and Japanese have been battling at close quarters, each in an effort to dislodge the other.
The casualties have reached hundreds on both sides, and two days ago Major Gen. Hu Hsien-mei was killed leading a charge against the Japanese.
At Hsiaochi and a number of other front-line villages visited the Chinese morale seemed excellent. The troops were confident, well fed and neatly uniformed. Although they admitted the inferiority of their weapons, they always declared their spirit and their numerical superiority would offset this. Often the men were in groups singing China’s few war songs.
The lines north and east of Taierhchwang are held by divisions of General Yu Hsueh-chung’s Fifty-first Army, and the discipline and invariable courtesy of the men were particularly impressive. To the left, between the Taierhchwang Railway and the Tientsin-Pukow line, General Sun Lein-chung’s Twentieth Army, part of which recaptured Taierhchwang, is holding out against only occasional Japanese attacks, a visit to one outpost, Peishan, revealed.
Territory for miles behind the front lines is without civilian inhabitants, except for an occasional aged man or woman who was too old to flee and survived the Japanese conquest of those areas. The intensity of previous fighting during the Japanese advance and the subsequent Chinese counter-advance was shown by the fact that virtually every village was reduced to blackened ruins and roads were lined with corpses. Fields of Spring wheat are untended.
The Chinese troops suffer from lack of water, and they say that this condition is due to the fact that most of the wells were poisoned by retreating Japanese troops. Blazing villages light up the countryside at night as a result of Japanese bombardment with incendiary shells designed to light fires so that Chinese attacks, which are usually carried out at night, can be spotted.
Thus this little city of Taierhchwang, once taken by the Japanese and then recaptured by the Chinese, is the center of a continued struggle and remains a strategic stumbling block in the way of the Japanese drive toward Suchow, strategic center on the Tientsin-Pukow and Lung-Hai railways.
On a visit to the headquarters of General Sun Lien-chung, who is the commander of this section of the South Shantung front, and his colleague, General Yu Chung, leader of the Fifty-second Army, holding a line bending east and south of here, the writer had found Chinese troops stanchly resisting repeated Japanese attacks that often resulted in bitter hand-to-hand fighting. The casualties on both sides were obviously heavy.
Chinese commanders then believed the Japanese were attempting a sweeping flank attack eastward of here, pointed toward Pisien. If this met with success the Japanese could then push westward in an attempt to envelop Taierhchwang and advance across the Grand Canal toward Suchow. Simultaneously large Japanese forces that broke through at Lini, about thirty-four miles eastward of Taierhchwang, and joined Japanese troops from Yihsien were attacking Pihsien from the north. Thus, despite the critical position of the Taierhchwang front a few days ago, the Chinese troops were cheerful and confident.
In Taierhchwang itself a brigade of General Yu’s men were busily going about strengthening fortifications throughout the ruined city. Six civilians are the only inhabitants besides the garrison, and among the civilians is Taierhchwang’s “town crier,” who faithfully tramps his rounds beating out the hours on a bamboo gong.
The writer reached Taierhchwang, which is fifty miles from Suchow, after a half-day bus ride over tortuous rutted roads running through smiling fields in which peasants were quietly carrying on their traditional labors, apparently confident that the Japanese military machine would be halted short of overrunning their fruitful acres.
The bus left Suchow just as fifteen Japanese planes finished bombing the north and east railroad stations. In the area of the east station the explosives fell wide of the mark and demolished scores of near-by residences, killing or injuring more than a score of civilians. Some of the bombs damaged a wall of the American mission compound near the station.
In a desperate effort to halt the reinforcements, Japanese warplanes subjected them to almost continuous bombardment. The Chinese attack on Tancheng, however, had already developed into a battle of major proportions, threatening communication lines of the Japanese advance guard near the Lung-Hai.
The question of whether the Japanese were approaching their second major military disaster in Shantung was being discussed openly by foreign military experts, who expected decisive action within a week.
The Japanese spokesman, however, continues to declare that Japanese forces are “pursuing, attacking and preparing.” Humor was injected into those repetitions when a suggestion was made that such pursuing must place the contending armies back to back.
Although the Chinese forces were consolidated along the Lung-Hai Railway, a change in tactics was apparent in other sectors of North China, where mobile bands are now taking the place of massed Chinese troops. Although the Japanese refuse to admit the existence of these guerrilla fighters, sufficient evidence is prevalent in the Peiping area to make it clear that small bands of Chinese raiders are causing considerable embarrassment to the Japanese lines of communications and outposts.
Both the Peiping-Hankow and Tientsin-Pukow Railways have been attacked and bridges and trackage destroyed, necessitating suspension of traffic, while territories removed from the lines of communications continue to provide sufficient men whose raiding tactics point toward organized warfare of this type, rather than sporadic bandit raids.
Three different political parties claim they won the election.
The dead are Jesus Maria Martinez, a lawyer, and Leonardo Gonzaga, a farm worker. Leopoldo Heredia, former Federal Deputy and campaign manager for Senor Perdomo, was injured.
Long before the Chancellor and his official party entrained the streets leading to Anhalter Station were lined with formations from various party units, behind which 100,000 men, women and children stood on tiptoe for glimpses of the parade of automobiles conveying government and party dignitaries. The Chancellor’s car arrived last, and a half hour was required for the numerous ceremonies. There were more flashlights and more music as Hitler waved farewell from the window of his car.
Although Hitler’s visit to Rome was decided on four months ago, special significance now attaches to it in view of recent European developments, according to the press. The size and rank of the delegation accompanying the Chancellor were cited in support of a semi-official warning to the outside world that the visit stands for something more than a conventional meeting of two statesmen.
The visit will give unequivocal and renewed emphasis, the semi-official comment says, to those national policies of Germany and Italy that are being carried out openly before the whole world. It would be a grave error, the warning adds, if the outside world should profess to see in this unity of purpose a casual or chance development instead of something founded on genuine conviction.
Hitler’s political and diplomatic advisers, led by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, travel in the Fuehrer’s train, while the second of his specials is occupied by army, navy and air force leaders, party chiefs and invited guests.
One of the last documents compiled for the Chancellor’s perusal before he left was a transcript of the Anglo-French talks concluded in London last week. If any cognizance is to be taken of them in the course of the Rome conversations, such reference, it was hinted, will be in the nature of a vigorous and unmistakable reaffirmation of the Rome-Berlin axis. The emphasis, it was added, would be of a sort that British and French statesmen could not fail to understand.
The Anglo-French accord continues to receive skeptical appraisal in the German press, and while Prime minister Neville Chamberlain is credited with having retained politically a superior strategic position in relation to France, his acceptance of military commitments is criticized as representing “antiquated diplomatic methods of a sort that do not harmonize with his more recent public professions.”
The British memorandum on the Sudetan German issue has not yet reached the German Foreign Office, it was declared today. If it arrives during Hitler’s absence, the Foreign Office will “receive” it. If a more formal approach should be attempted after Herr von Ribbentrop’s return, Germany’s reply, as far as could be ascertained today, will bluntly notify the British that the nature of the subject of the demarche definitely precluded discussions with “third” parties and that the Sudeten issue as such is not, in the German view, a topic for political barter.
BERLIN, May 2 (AP). – Field Marshal Hermann Goering, Chancellor Hitler’s right-hand man, had charge of the German Government tonight as his chief speeded toward Italy for a State visit.
Informed circles saw in the inclusion of Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Gaus, legal expert of the Foreign Office, in Hitler’s entourage an indication that at least the basic lines of a pact might be drafted in Rome.
By The Associated Press. ROME, May 2. – Chancellor Adolf Hitler, exponent of the airplane and automobile, will return to the horse and buggy era when he arrives tomorrow on his state visit.
As head of the German State, Hitler will be the guest of King Victor Emmanuel who has not succumbed to streamlining.
The King will take his guest to the Quirinal palace in a royal coach, drawn by four horses with silver harness and mounted by red-coated, white-wigged postilions.
Reply #3 relates to the main story.
Shouldn’t the posted date be “real time MINUS 70 years”?
See my tagline.
This was a very interesting read. Though Neville Chamberlain is condemmed today as an appeaser, Hitler and Mussilini were much more popular at the time than it is realized today. The Munich Pact was extremely popular at the time. Chamberlain was greeted by cheering crowds after the agreement. US ambassidor to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy said that American influence was responsible for the Munich Pact. FDR sent Chamberlain a letter congratulating him for the Munich Pact and praising his efforts. Chamberlain had asked the US to stand with him against Hitler over Czechoslovalia but Kennedy and Roosevelt refused and encouraged him not to honor Britain’s Treaty to defend the Czechs. When Hitler threatened to invaded Poland, Chamberlain again asked the US to stand with Britain in facing down Hitler. This time, even ambassidor Kennedy asked FDR to intervene on behalf of the US. FDR refused. Chamberlain then honored Britain’s treaty with Poland and declared war on Germeny.
Ron Paul got a handful of primary votes this year as a stand-in for old Neville Chamberlain and his all purpose cowardice masked as foreign policy.
Oh my.
Chamberlin certainly was the Jimmy Carter of his day!
History repeating itself again in real time...
JMO.
Thank God for Winston Churchill!
A man with the right stuff!
Yes it should. This error is repeated over and over in this thread series.
Thank you very much for taking the time and consideration to remind us all of what is still the darkest chapter in all of human history, bringing this most timely, timeless of issues to the fore as we face a nemesis every bit as ruthless and diabolical as were the Nazis.
"When Hitler threatened to invaded Poland, Chamberlain again asked the US to stand with Britain in facing down Hitler. This time, even ambassador Kennedy asked FDR to intervene on behalf of the US. FDR refused."
There's no record I know of showing Chamberlain requesting Roosevelt's help in "facing down Hitler."
Such a request would have been pointless anyway, considering America's well known determination to remain isolationist and not involved in European squabbles.
Indeed, there's no record of Chamberlain EVER seriously wavering from his appeasement policy. That's one reason he was finally replaced by Churchill.
And Ambassador Kennedy, if anything, was even more defeatist, and a bigger appeaser -- when push came to serious shoving (in that, the old man resembled Teddy more than John. Old Joe hated FDR, among other things, for getting the US into Europe's war).
You just can't seriously portray Kennedy as a "war hawk."
“Indeed, there’s no record of Chamberlain EVER seriously wavering from his appeasement policy.”
Chamberlain declared war on Germany after Germany invaded Poland. Calling his country to war can not be called achievement. Ambassidor Kennedy said America was responsible for the Munich Agreement. Kennedy strongly encouraged appeasement of Hitler during his role as US ambassidor to England.
Correction. Calling his country to war could not be called appeasement.
What strikes me most is to confirm what some historians had pointed out about the Spanish civil war. After the confrontation in Spain a democracy could have not arised because, among other things, lack of democrats.
It is clear that many people in that era, including both governments in Britain in America believed that democracy, after a experience of barely 100 years, was over in Continental Europe, and that Fascism constitued the “modern” way of government at that time.
IMHO this helps to explain the rapid collapse of France before the German armies. There was no faith in Democracy then.
Germanophiles in Britain, therefore, simply advocated for what was trendy those times.
Unfortunately, those ideas are not so uncommon today in modern Continental Europe.
Almost without exception, historians are relentless in criticizing Chamberlain for the weakness of his policies toward Hitler.
For example, even Britain's declaration of war, in 1939, is said to have been forced on Chamberlain by his still-timid opposition, and resulted in NO serious aid to Poland, or attacks on Germany.
Do you remember how "blitz krieg" in 1939 against Poland became "sitz krieg," the "phony war," in France? For eight months Britain and France did nothing, sat patiently waiting for Hitler to make his next move.
Of course, the same failure of leadership could be said of Roosevelt. In 1938 he was still hoping to talk Hitler into behaving himself, and so isolate the US from Europe's disputes.
The only real difference is that in May of 1938, Roosevelt's America was a self-avowed isolationist country, while Chamberlain was, in effect, the Leader of the Free World.
We expect more of our leaders.
Good post, good points, well said!
“We expect more of our leaders.”
I agree. But I think historians tend to portray Chamberlain as the epitome of appeasement when at the time his policies reflected the popular opinion of the British people and the American policy enacted through ambassador Kennedy encouraged the same world view. Britain was not prepared for war in 1939 and could not have successfully attacked Germeny. They did try to secure Norway against a German attack but Britain was so unprepared for war it turned into a total disaster.
Churchill was extremely unpopular at the time as are many statesmen with integrity, foresight and courage. Churchill was not elected Prime Minister in 1940 he was appointed just as the allies were losing in France. Churchill himself said, “They never would have let me be Prime Minister if they thought there was any meat left on the bone.”
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