Evening star., 1938-10-20
Hitler on the March.

Sir Edward Grey told the House of
Commons on an historic occasion in
July, 1914, that Great Britain had
spurned an offer from Germany looking
to British neutrality in the impending
World War, in exchange for German
pledge not to attack French territory
in Europe. The proposition connoted
that the Germans would make no COM
mitnents to refrain from attacking
French colonial Africa. The London
government scornfully rejected a plan
whereby British sanction for spoliation
Of overseas France was sought. To make
such bargain the foreign secretary
said, would have dealt British honor
an irretrievable blow. Britains answer
was declaration of war on Germany.
Today, exactly three weeks after
Munich, the Reich appears to be on the
verge of receiving from France on
silver platter not the French African
possessions on which the Germans in
1914 had designs, but the former German
colonies of Togo and the Cameroons
Togo, lying between the Gold Coast col
ony on the west and French Dahomey
divided between the French and British.
France controls about two-thirds of it,
some $4,000 square miles. The Cameroons
were also split between the French and
British, France being allotted $4,000
square miles. So Hitler, having added
10000 square miles of European ter
ritory to the Nazi domain, is now about
to demand 1877, 900 square miles of Africa.
But these territorial concessions do
not begin to exhaust the territory the
Fuehrer wants from Germanys tradi-
tional enemy across the Rhine. Paris
dispatches state that the current discus
sions at Berchtesgaden between Hitler
and the French Ambassador to Germany
and between Foreign Minister Bonnet
and the German Ambassador to France
embrace far more momentous conditions.
The French are not only to recognize
believed at present to be in the ratio of
about three to one, with correspondingly
heavy superiority in productive capacity
France also is to renounce her neutral
assistance treaty with Soviet Russia and
accord Germany free hand in Central
and Southeastern Europe. AS a quid
pro quo for acceptance of terms tanta-
mount to those a conqueror might dictate
to defeated enemy. Hitler offers to
guarantee all French frontiers against
German attack. For how long, one
wonders? 1t was in "Mein Kampf" that
the Fuehrer called France as the i'm
placable foe that must be destroyed.
1t is difficult to conceive of more
graphic evidence of the impotent state
to which France has been reduced than
is supplied by the Reich's demands upon
her: CD to surrender colonial territory
CD to place herself virtually at the mercy
of the German air fleet, 80 to scrap
the Russian alliance which until thirty
days ago was considered an even stronger
bulwark of French security than even
the mighty Maginot line, and "a to
certify the Nazis plan to dominate
Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
If Frapce accepts these terms for
Franco German peace" Hitler will have
achieved another bloodless victory and
one that pales his conquest of Czechoslo-
vakia into insignificance. French sub
mission on the reported lines seems
almost among the inevitabilities, mas
much as the Daladier government realizes
Frances vulnerability to German attack
under existing conditions. The Nazis
have struck again while the iron is hot.
They choose not to wait until the French
are strong. They have moved to work
their will while Paris has no alternative
but to yield, or court ruthless destruction
by Goering's bombers.
Will Britain be the next object of
Berlin's mailed fist diplomacy? Will
Chamberlain succumb as Daladier is
being pressed to do? And then in which
direction will this Caesar turn his gaze?
That is question which the western
world this day must anxiously ponder,
for it may suddenly be called upon to
face 1t In concrete terms