Evening star., 1933-10-08
MARCH ON FRANCE BY WAY
OFSWTTZERLAND DOUBTED
War Forecasts Have Reached Point
Where Opinion Is Divided Only
on Date of New Conflict.

over the invading army would still be
further from Paris than when it quit
German soil and it would be faced by
many physical obstacles before it could
repeat the achievements of its prede-
cessors in 1870 and 1914.
If 1T be assumed, as seems natural,
that the bulk of active German military
forces were to be embarked upon such
project, it is plain that the way would
be clear for combined French, Polish
and Czech counter-offensives directly
and Czech counter -offensives directly
into Germany. with Berlin, Dresden and
Frankfort as objectives - operations
which could produce decisive results even
before the foray through Switzerland
could have any effective outcome. for
all three Of these important cities are
barely a hundred miles from the from
tier
Surprise Chance Lessened.
Beyond much debate, if it be assumed
that Germany is again preparing to IN
wade France, she will choose the Bel
gian road of 1914 Once her armies
have passed the Meuse at Liege no con-
siderable natural obstacle will bar their
parkway to Paris, while today even the
Inadequate Notifications of 1914 are
lacking Unquestionably the fact that
the Treaty of Versailles transferred
Metz and Thionville to France and i'm
posed a demilitarization of the Rhine
land would compel concentration behind
the Rhine and not at the frontier as
before, thus lessening the chances OF
surprise and of success. What was
daring venture in the earlier case would
be a desperate gamble today. But by
comparison with the Swiss project 1t
would still hold out far greater chances
of achievement.
Laying aside all question OF the rela.
tive merits of the old and the alleged
new plan of invasion, one cannot mis-
take the significance of the fact that
as We approach the fifteenth anniversary
of that armistice which ended the
fighting in the last war, the world IS
soberly discussing not the possibility
of a future conflict but the line OF
march of a new German invading army
in the next war. 1t is no longer the
few whose forecasts can be discounted
as pessin,ists or sensationalists whose
warnings are heard but a European
prime minister from the platform OF the
Assembly can remind the League OF
Nations itself that a new general war
in Europe has become a day-to-day
peril.
What has become self evident since
the rise of the Hitler National Socialists
to power in Germany is the fact that
while actual conflict may still be post
poned for an indefinite period there is
no possibility of reconciling the pur-
poses of the masters of the Third
Reich and the passions they are instlll-
ing in the masses of the German people
with any system of peace and order on
the European Continent. Patiently HIT
ler and his followers hope for period
of preparation and perceive the 1oIly
of precipitating war today.
Preventive War Discussed.
But on the other hand the peoples
whose security and unity are threatened
by the undisguised purposes OF the
Nazis, whose provinces are marked down
for partition. whose frontiers are des-
tined for violation may well choose to
fight at a moment more favorable to
themselves than that selected by Hitler
after preparation. Thus while an
eventual destruction of European peace
by Germany seems no longer open to
question. the possibility of preventive
war forestalling the German prepara-
tions and launched by the nations whose
ruin the Nazis are preparing is also not
merely obvious, but it is topic OF cur
rent discussion.
What the new masters of Germany
demand is the restoration of all the lost
provinces and ceded colonies of the
HohenZollern era, the annexation OF
Austria, the inclusion Of German popu-
lations in Switzerland, Czechoslovakia
and French Alsace and Lorraine within
German frontiers and in addition the
cession of vast areas in Russia to serve
as places for German colonization. In
| n r-I, c n
merely the restoration of the prewar
| Germany, but the creation of the empire
outlined by the Pan-Germans of the
| pre-war era.
1 Only military triumph as complete
and as far reaching as that of Napoleon
! could insure the realization Of such
program. However, it is folly longer to
refuse to recognize that the program is
not the dream of a few extremists, but
the accepted doctrine of a dominant
group who are rapidly converting the
German masses to their own fanaticism
and morally as well as materially are
preparing for conflict in the spirit of
new crusade.
Date Alone Is Question.
That the new conflict will be opened
by a German dash into France by way
VI OWlIItlldllU may Ut OOubtCo
| for practical strategic reasons precisely
so long as there is no hard and fast
Italian German military alliance And
/ of this there is no present or prospective
promise. But that the Nazis faithfully
| adhering to the ideas proclaimed by
Hitler himself in his own book-which
| has become the Bible of his followers
mean, once they have completed their
preparations, to strike at France again
as the armies of the Kaiser struck in
| 1914, cannot be doubted.
If moreover the question of exclusive
German responsibility for the last war
is no longer viewed in the same light
as it was decade and half ago, today
there can be no challenging the fact
that the next war is already stamped
with the trade mark made in Ger
many" and will result from a state Of
mind and a program of action which
are already too apparent to be sub
ject for debate. In sum. while the
next war in Europe may come in 1885.
as many competent observers have long
forecast. or in 1910, as another school
now believes, what is significant Is that
European public opinion is today di-
vided not on the question of the pos
sibilty of a new conflict, but only over
| the date when it will come.
(Copyriqht 1o33l