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The Italians had evidently been expecting just this to happen. The Rome-Berlin Axis was no longer an imaginary line. It had become an uninterrupted strip of Nazi-Fascist territory bisecting Europe, stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. In Paris the most eminent anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist French journalist, Mme Genèvieve Tabouis, urged Leftists not to console themselves with the theory that Hitler had surprised, discomfited Mussolini, declared that by prearrangement II Duce had given Germany a free hand in Austria, in return for which Der Führer shipped recently so much extra war material to General Franco as to account, charged Mme Tabouis, for the smashing success last week of the Rightist offensive in Spain (see p. 23).
All over Germany grinning Nazi mouths were opening to say: "Austria is finished! Franco is victorious!"
* By this time German troops were already en route to Vienna. †Weeks ago Halifax might have read in London papers strong rumors that Hitler told him at their meeting (TIME, Nov. 29) that he was resolved to do it. *l.e., of Austrians and Germans.