The Germans fear the French will make a "preventive" war. A preventive war is a war you think you can win to-day to prevent a war you fear you may lose to-morrow. Coldly realistic Germans torment their fancies with this picture:
'The French Foreign Minister one) day asks the German Ambassador to} visit. him, "Your Excellency," says the Minister, "both our nations love peace. Your' government has been Untiring in its declarations to tha effect. We are united in our love of peace. But" unfortunately, certain, institutions in your country appear not to share our mutual desire.
"To-day we have decided to assist you in removing those institutions which so. flagrantly sabotage the: peaceful wishes of your government. Here is a list of munitions and aeroplane factories. Within twenty-four! hours the French air fleet will remove these obstacles to our continu-(ed friendship. Meanwhi'e your Excellency has plenty of time to notify the population of the areas involved to remove themselves from the zone of our visit:
Twenty-four hours later a swarm! Jot French airplanes rise. Equipped with maps from the famous "secret Gossier" of the French, esplonage service, they locate the institutions: France regards as menacing her curity. A rain of high explosives falls, But where would the echo stop?
The Anclent Quarrels Again around the rim of Austria, the "armies of Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Germany " bivounc with, bayonets fixed. They watch the fading health of the new "Sick Man of Europe," and each is keen t0, that none of, the others—steals ihe inheritance.
Then, 100, there is the ancient quarrel over Danzig, There isthe Question. of the Polish-Russian_rela-ions. There are. the" Tialo-French differences; the Itslo-Jugoslav differences: the Jugoslav Bulgarian dlitferences: the Rumanian-Russian di ferences; the Sear question.
aly has many fears but her most acute' one for the moment is that Austria should go. Nazi, become in fact if not in law, a part of Ger many, and thus put a" nation Seveniy-two million German Nazis next the Taian border.
'The Neutral camp is most slarm-, fed at the. prospect of Pan-German-fom, the prospect that a re-armed Germany may really attempt to unite' the Germans of Denmark and Switzetland, as well as the many million more Germans in the Little Entente and Poland, into Hitler's Third Reich,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.