Evening star., 1935-05-12
EAGLES OF WAR POISED
FOR ATTACK In EUROPE
Race to Match Wings of Reich Army
Engrosses Military Brains of
Great Powers.

ately upon requirements. The Italian
mystery bomber" 1t Is claimed. will
carry $500 pounds of high explosive
at 275-miles-per hour speed at an ali-
tude of 10000 feet. The cruising radius
will be 1850 miles-far more than
enough to reach Berlin.
Great Britain thus far is modest
An additional $140 100000 for air de-
fense is authorized. Stanley Baldwin
has marked down the Rhine as Eng
lands first air line Eleven new squad
rons will shortly be ready and univer-
sites. such as Cambridge. Oxford and
London. are organizing student air
forces" with government sanction.
Soviet Russia-like Naz Germany
has an unknown air potential, largely
because Of Bolshevik secretiveness. 1t
is known, however. that the Red air
force, considerable four years ago. has
increased in strength $50 per cent
since. Machines fly twice as fast and
their effective operating radius has
been trebled. The Japanese believe
Russia has the most powerful air force
in Europe today.
France Has Air Allies.
Poland and czechoslovakia. Ger
many's two other eastern neighbors,
can, if necessary, match Frances air
forces. Poland. which flirted once too
often with the Nazis. returned to her
first love. France. at the Geneva Coun-
Gil. Col. Beck voted for the League
resolution branding Germany as a
treaty breaker. To do so required con-
siderable convincing" on Col. Beck's
part. The foreign affairs mouthpiece
of General Dictator Pilsudski never has
been overly affectionate toward the
French. As military attache at Paris
he was -shouldered because he had
been an ex-enemy officer. He served
in the Austrian Army during the war.
But necessity makes strange bed
fellows in international diplomacy as
well as national politics. And while
the Poles found their interlude with
the Nazi hausfrau pleasant-until the
Germans started filtering into Memel
Hithuania) and Danzig with their
Brownshirt Legions, their almost for
gotten alliance with France proved to
be more attractive. Czechoslovakia Is
the backbone of the Little Entente and
the Balkan pact, although she is not
signatory of the latter alliance. She
will shortly sign a bilateral nom
aggression and mutual assistance pact
with Soviet Russia, which will. letter
for letter, be identical with the Franco
Soviet pact which will sooner or later
emerge from the muddled European
waters. The Czechs have an air force
which the Nals can well fear and II
raining death starts falling on the
fatherland much Of 1t will be brewed
in the works Of Skoda.
Franco German Race Hot.
The real race in air ornaments to-
day is between France and Germany.
While the French general staff is CIV
ing free hand to foreign ministers
and diplomats to conclude offensive
and defensive alliances, they hold to
the Theodore Rooseveltian theory that
preparedness for war Is the best
guarantee Of peace"
Foreign Minister Laval's Franco-So-
Wet alliance brings but Q smile from
the G. H. @. They have not forgot
ten the impotence of the Czarist
steam roller which got all mixed up In
the Mazurian Lakes. Nor are French
military experts convinced that Rus
slams who cannot operate mechanical
farm machinery OK bring order OUT o.