His Majesty's impatient Loyal Opposition in Parliament demanded action. Eloquent Laborite Herbert S. Morrison wanted "more vigor and liveliness" in war and diplomacy than he felt Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who turned 71 at week's end, has been giving. Retired Permanent Secretary to the Treasury Sir Warren Fisher was blunter. "We are up against the creed of the devil," he said.
"Your German is, of all foul and dirty fighters, the foulest and dirtiest. We must . . . give them hell in every sort of way." As rebellious criticism mounted, political dopesters even mentioned David Lloyd George the "Welsh Wizard" who won the last war for Great Britain, as a possible last-ditch Cabinet appointee. And from France came censored dispatches predicting soon the formation of a "sacred union," Government of all parties.
So far, in Austria. Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, and now in Finland, Adolf Hitler had managed with devilish cunning to give his western opponents no place to lay a hand on him. Their chosen strategy for the past six months had perforce been tenacity—hang on, if unable to smoke him out, starve him out. Had the time now come for audacity? Such was the questioning mood, gloomy yet determined, uneasy though defiant, that was rapidly developing in the Allied countries early this week. And just at that point Adolf Hitler, that gifted diplomatic poker player with a hand full of jokers, raised his opponents' hair by producing another one.
Learned Insult. It all started about the time that Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop returned to Germany early last week after an apparently cool reception in Rome. Conclusion was reached that the Axis was bending. Fascist Journalist Giovanni Ansaldo even wrote an editorial for Leghorn's Telegrafo which contained a studied, learned insult.
"To him [Ribbentrop] who, while we write, is mounting the Alps, which close Lamagna above Tiralli, we send our respectful salute," wrote Signer Ansaldo. The quotation is from Dante's Divine Comedy and no educated Italian needs to be told, it is often used to express the Italian command to the Germanic hordes to stay beyond the Alps.
Good Offices. In the Italian Chamber of Fasces and Corporations announcement was made that a fine new set of forts protected Italy's Alpine border, but scarcely was the Foreign Minister back in Berlin before Nazi officials began to taunt newsmen with hints of impending "big doings." A Rumanian Army mission mysteriously turned up in Berlin, and reports came out that Adolf Hitler had offered to lend his "good offices" in persuading Russia and Hungary to be nice—not to invade King Carol Il's domain. For these good offices, the Führer "hoped" that Rumania would: 1) demobilize half her Army; 2) give the Nazis a monopoly on oil and grain exports; 3) admit a pro-Nazi Iron Guard into the Rumanian Cabinet to "safeguard German interests."
Moreover, before the Rumanian Senate, Youth Leader General Theophilus Sidorovici disclosed that Benito Mussolini would guarantee Rumanian frontiers. That Carol was at any rate listening to Herr Hitler's propositions was evident when Premier George Tatarescu's Government released 786 Iron Guard terrorists from jail.