Evening star., 1939-10-13
No Nuzi Peace

No Nuzi Peace
Adolf Hitler barked up the wrong
tree in thinking he could browbeat
or inveigle the western powers into
discussion of peace on the basis of
letting Germany keep her ill-gotten
gains In Czecho-Slovakia and Po-
land. Premier Daladier on Tuesday
and Prime Minister Chamberlain on
Thursday, in almost Identical terms,
rejected any thought Of ending the
war without surrender of the Nazis'
military conquests, plus adequate
guarantees that aggression is aban-
doned as an instrument of German
national policy. Unless the Reich can
convince the world by practical
means that required pledges of
real and settled peace will be kept"
Britain and France will persevere
in their duty to the end"
Thus comes to quick and en-
phatic finish the high-powered Nazi
peace offensive, launched in Hit
ler's truculent speech to his pup
pet Reichstag on October 6. 1t was
in the climactic hours Immediately
preceding the World War that Sir
Edward Grey denounced Germany's
Infamous proposal" for the purchase
of British neutrality-a pledge not
to despoil France of European
territory If Britain would stand idly
by while Germany violated Belgium
and ravished the French colonial
empire. If in a crisis like this" Grey
told the House Of Commons on
August 3, 1914, I'VE run away from
the obligations of honor and interest,
I doubt whether, whatever material
force we might have at the end, it
would be of very much value in face
of the respect we should have lost"
It was the spirit Of Grey and of
that historic utterance which lowered
over the ancient battlements of the
Houses of Parliament yesterday when
Neville Chamberlain calmly, dispas-
sionately, but with devastating firm
ness, stripped Hitler's peace proffer
Of It's trappings Of insincerity and de-
ception, branded 1t for the sham it
is, and affirmed that such basis for
peace could not be accepted without
''forfeiting of British honor" Berlin
must realize now, If it did not do so
before, that certain fundamentals Of
British international practice and
policy are immutable. Refusal to
bend the knee to sheer intimidation
is one of them.
Thus evaporates, too, the flimsy
. Nazi hope that the President Of the
United States could be bamboozled
into offering mediation that no.
body wants-or needs-at this stage
half as badly as Reich hemmed in
at sea by the British blockade and
on land by the forces of France and
Britain massed on the western front,
hemmed in, incidentally, too, in
Eastern Europe by power-drunk,
imperialist Soviet Russia, for whose
politically intoxicated condition Adolf
Hitler himself is to blame. There
never was danger that Mr.. Roosevelt
would yield to any Berlin siren song
OF peace unless assured that his in
tervention would have Anglo-French
approval. That Hitler -Ribbentrop
dream is over.
Mr.. Chamberlain blasted 1t into
fragments. Not only must the Nazi
marauders make amends in Czecho-
Slovakia and Poland, he said, but do
so under conditions affording guaran-
tees more reliable than the "unsup-
ported word of the present German
government" There must be def
mite acts" before peace is debatable-
proposals less vague and uncertain"
than Hitler's. The Prime Minister
does not slam irrevocably shut the
door that might lead to peace dis
cussions. But before the democracies
will even approach its threshold, the
Nazis must scrap once for all the
idea of IAN uneasy truce interrupted
by constant alarms and repeated
threats" The German government
and it alone, Mr.. Chamberlain in
short declares, stands in the way Of
the peace we are determined to
secure"
Early German reaction to these
latest allied pronouncements is that
they "straddle" the peace issue. In
neutral countries such a view is not
likely to prevail. Rather does it look
to objective eyes as if the western
powers have now recovered the in
itiative in the war Of words and
nerves, and put Der Fuehrer on a
spot where he has no choice but to
make concessions or fight.
That the allies have proflted, in a
military sense, from the respite af-
forded them while the Nazi peace
offensive was getting under way, can
hardly be questioned. The Maginot
Line Is more strongly held than
ever-on It's British sector In force
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