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"Shall We Join the Ladies?" In London at No. 10 after luncheon, the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, before they joined the ladies, took Herr Ribbentrop off into a separate room. Afterward, in high British quarters, they were said to have asked him to give "guarantees" that Germany would not violate the territory or independence of Austria— guaranteed already by no less than seven treaties, to all of which Britain & France are parties. Herr Ribbentrop was said on the same authority to have replied that this was "impossible,"* and to have added that it might be best for Britain and Germany not to attempt negotiations until Germany had secured advantages she expected shortly to obtain elsewhere.
The German Foreign Minister agreed to transmit most anxious British warnings to Adolf Hitler, and then Ribbentrop with Chamberlain and Halifax joined the ladies. Later in the day Der Führer. who was holding his secret Privy Council on Foreign Affairs in continuous session at Berlin as German military radio flashed moment-by-moment technical details of the troop movements, was waited upon by the British & French Ambassadors with identical, very sharply-worded protests. But they were not accompanied by anyone representing Russia, or the U. S., or Italy, or Japan. An agonizing interval of many hours elapsed before incredulous official London fully believed the German occupation of Austria was taking place, and at the British Foreign Office it was said that when Lord Halifax became convinced he clutched his forehead like a man distracted, exclaimed: "Horrible! Horrible! I never thought they would do it!"†
Meanwhile Schuschnigg. Jesuit fathers correctly judged Kurt Schuschnigg in his boyhood to have the character of a great fighting Catholic, such as, for example, Ferdinand Foch. Schuschnigg, Jesuit-trained, brilliant and devout, fought in the World War right up to the Armistice, at which time he laid down his arms on Austria's Italian front. It was then, as Dr. Schuschnigg has bitterly complained in his memoirs, that some Scottish soldiers who had been aiding the Italians took not only his rifle and ammunition but also his watch, his ring and his pocketbook. After this he never again felt the same about Protestants.
A rising young lawyer and Catholic politician, Dr. Schuschnigg had become Minister of Education and Justice by May 1, 1934, the date on which diminutive Austrian Chancellor Engelbert ("Millimetternich") Dollfuss formed his Christian Authoritarian State. It was said of Dr. Schuschnigg that he had come with "clean hands" through the welter of financial scandals involving many Austrian politicians since the War. So had Dollfuss, for that matter. Nobody thought of the Minister of Education and Justice as a future Austrian Chancellor—until he happened not to be with Dollfuss and most of the Cabinet on the day Nazi assassins captured the Chancellery (TIME, Aug. 6, 1934). While they were murdering Dollfuss and figuring that German troops would do the rest, Benito Mussolini was bluffing down Adolf Hitler with his mobilization of Italian troops, and Minister of Education and Justice Kurt von Schuschnigg was coldly, efficiently acting as emergency Chancellor, rallying the troops and police "for God and Austria!"