Evening star., 1932-10-30
FRANCO.CERMAN ALLIANCE
SEEN VONPAPEN'S REAL AIM
Attitude of Paris in Spurning Such Over
lures Believed Back of Present
Reich Attitude.

! account current here. he argued that
it would be a mistake for France tc
disarm or to try to prevent Germany
from rearming. for the two together,
and strongly armed. could maintain
peace and order throughout Europe.
What you mean" Herriot is said
to have answered, lis that you would
like three or four French divisions
to help you handle your Communists
and revolutionaries in Germany"
Not bad idea" is said to have been
Won Papen's laughing reply.
Herriot discontinued the discussion.
He simply told Macdonald about it and
in this form it may have been factor
in the subsequent F'ranco-BritiSh agree
ment at Lausanne.
But the Germans in private talks
with the French Ambassador in Berlin,
Andre FrancoiS-POncet. seem to have
persisted until finally, in August. they
dispatched to Paris confidential note
requesting secret Franco-German con-
versationS. The French answer was to
publish the gist of parts of the note and
once more tell the British everything.
1t was from that moment 1t is said
here, that the present extreme bitter
ness of the Germans against France
began to be manifest. Yet even in the
midst of this bitterness certain informal
talks. it is learned have taken place
between French liberal politicians and
German officers in Berlin.
Could Rearrange Europe.
Germany, it was unofficially explained
would rearrange Eastern Europe by
! peaceful means. for once French sup
| port was withdrawn from Poland and
Czechoslovakia this would be easy.
And what" one Frenchman asked,
would France get?"
oh" was the alleged answer, France
would get recognition by Germany of its
right to keep AlsaceL Lorraine"
But that is already recognized both
| in the treaty of Versailles and in the
Locarno treaty"
Yes, but this time we would recog-
nize it seriously once for all"
Rechberg in his latest open letter
published here admits that the French
honestly fear that Germany is getting
ready for a new war of conquest and
then begs the French to try to realize
| the German state of mind, which he
describes thus:
Virtually the whole German people
believe that they fought in 1914 war
of legitimate defense against imminent
encirclement. They think that Ger
/ many was tIell UlSIlltIllUelSu anu NUuIu
/ have lost even the Rhineland, except
! that Great Britain, after sinking the
| German fleet and crushing the German
! economic structure under reparations,
was unwilling to see France get too
! strong.
They fear that, if the British are
ever handicapped by difficulties in other
parts of the world, France will seize
the opportunity to reoccupy the Rhine
land and the Ruhr. They are convinced
that Poland is only waiting for chance
to grab East Prussia, while in Saxony
everybody expects, ..-aaaz....,.-.-s-....-.-.
Persistence of this misunderstanding
Rechberg continues, bids fair to wreck
Europe The only solution, he says. is
close Franco-German agreement lin
dissolubly uniting these two nations in
such way that new Franco-German
war becomes materially impossible"
The Russians, it is said, are well
aware of these German ideas, with the
result that German-Russian relations
are anything but improved. For what
it is asked, would free hand for Ger
many in Eastern Europe mean for
Russia?
| (Copyright, 1922