"The United States policy not to recognize the results of aggression has been reaffirmed by Mr. Sumner Welles, the Assistant Secretary of State, in regard to the German conquest of Yugoslavia. The policy, it will be recalled, has been followed since 1931, when Col. Henry L. Stimson. then Secretary of State, enunciated it in connection with Manchuria, which was seized by the Japanese. There is nothing new about it, and therefore a certain amount of surprise may be felt over the strong reaction which Mr. Welles' pronouncement has evoked from Berlin. There his declaration has been described as "grotesque," for apparently Dr. Goebbels and his followers are prepared to contest the statement that Yugoslavia was invaded and dismembered by force. They are ready to go even further, and to put the blame for whatever happened in Yugoslavia on to the shoulders of Mr. Welles, on the ground that he had promised aid to Yugoslavia which the United States was unable to give. The facts are too fresh in the public mind to need restatement. The former Yugoslav government agreed to ce-operate with the Axis "new order" and was overthrown by a coup d'etat staged by King Peter and his ad-wisers who remained loyal to the idea of independence and freedom. The Nazis, deprived of what they had hoped would be a diplomatic walk-over, thereupon invaded Yugoslavia, before that country had had time properly to mobilize its defence, and after a severe and bloody battle, succeeded in forcing the Yugoslav commanders to capitulate. The Nazi operation wi admittedly extremely well carried out. By driving through southern Yugoslavia, they were able to cut the Yugoslav army off from whatever assistance they might have received from the Greeks and the British, At the same time. they were table. with a little Italian assistance, to seize the main communications centres ofthe country, and place the Yugoslav armies in a position from which they could not escape. If this is not invasion, what is? The only offence committed by the Yugoslavs was their refusal to bow the knee, as the rulers of Rumania and Bulgaria had done. Because of this, they were attacked by the most powerful army in the world today, their capital was virtually laid waste by bombs, and their soldiers ruthlessly slaughtered. If this is not aggression. what is? If the "grotesque" is to be brought into the matter at all, if is surely applicable to the Nazi assertion that the United States are more to blame for what happened in Yugoslavia than are the Germans. The. United States have absolutely no responsibility at all. It may seem incredible to the one-track Nazi mind that any country should believe that it knows better what is good for it than Hitler. Yugoslavia desired nothing more than to be left alone to work out its own destiny in its own way. If to ensure this, the country had received promises of assistance) from the United States, that cannot by the utmost stretching df the imagination be interpreted as a cause for aggression. That nevertheless seems to be the line that Dr. Goebbels is taking.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.