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Nations, in the pious hope of getting back some of its lost colonies. Then Europe will be ready for disarmament, the outlawing of gas. poison and incendiary bombs, long-range bombardment of cities, heavy guns and tanks and in general the humanizing of all new weapons of war. Thus, concluded Adolf Hitler, will come "a new Europe on the basis of mutual respect and confidence between sovereign States."
"Impertinence, etc." To this "irresistibly attractive" spiel, the British Foreign Office did not respond like a German election crowd. It looked in vain for one "positive" amelioration of the fact that after all Hitler had violated two international treaties when his soldiers marched into the Rhineland. Foreign Secretary Eden read the document's 3,000 words through carefully, listened to Ambassador von Ribbentrop's further remarks and strode to No. 10 Downing Street where waited the British Cabinet.
The British Cabinet listened to Mr. Eden, then coldly agreed that the staff conversations with France and Belgium must begin soon and if possible in London, decided further to send letters to the French and Belgian Governments guaranteeing Britain's assistance in case of war. Mr. Eden announced that the German Peace Plan, though far from satisfactory, was certainly "conciliatory." Could not Germany, Mr. Eden asked, promise at least not to fortify the Rhineland during the period of negotiation? Ambassador von Ribbentrop thought not. Anyway, he said, four months was obviously too short a time in which to match on the German side France's Maginot Line of steel and concrete that had taken five years to build. Mr. Eden pressed the point. Ambassador von Ribbentrop telephoned Berlin. The answer was No. The French understood why. As their spies discovered long ago, Germany already had field fortifications along the frontier.
Back in Paris from a campaign tour of his home constituency of Auxerre-Avallon, France's Foreign Minister Pierre Etienne Flandin reacted sharply to the German proposals. He called in to the Foreign Office the French Ambassadors at Berlin, London, Rome and Brussels, suggested to the Locarno Powers a new conference at Brussels this week to crack down once more on Germany.
Screamed Petit Parisien: "In impertinence, hypocrisy and false sentiments the German memorandum surpasses anything imaginable. The whole plan is an attempt to impose on the European problem a 100% German solution."
French Peace. The tone of the French Press was that of an aging coquette whose friends are about to leave her. But she had their friendship in black & white. Wearied by French intransigence, Britain's Foreign Secretary Eden suggested that the Powers next meet, not in the stuffy boudoir atmosphere of Brussels or Paris but in the cool objective air of Geneva.