Ensconced among the motto-stitched cushions of his rustic snuggery at Berchtesgaden, Adolf Hitler, ever since the close of the Olympic Games, has been receiving numbers of mysterious visitors. To judge from the opulence of their sharp-nosed Mercédès limousines, most of them were bigwigs of the Nazi Reich who are privileged to come & go without a word of their movements in the German Press. Last week everything was ready for Hitler & Co. to execute one of the complicated kiss-kick-and-wheedle Nazi plays which European statesmen find so difficult to deal with.
In Berlin one morning last week, brisk and rich little French Ambassador Andre François-Poncet was invited to the Wilhelmstrasse, cordially received by large and wealthy German Foreign Minister Baron Constantin von Neurath, and handed a most welcome communication. This was Germany's formal adherence to the embargo prohibiting arms shipments to Spain (TIME, Aug. 17) which was originally proposed by the new French Cabinet of Socialist Premier Léon Blum, promptly accepted by Britain and belatedly agreed to fortnight ago by Italy. After a beaming exchange of compliments, the French Ambassador hurried off to flash the good news to his Government. Paris afternoon papers were the most friendly to Germany in months. In effect a kiss of diplomatic accord had been given by Aryan Hitler to Jew Blum, and that was news at which every lover of Peace rejoiced.
Evening editions of German papers brought the blow: Adolf Hitler had decreed that the term of conscripts in the German Army should be upped from one year to two, thus enlarging it from 600,000 to 800,000 at minimum estimate, and making every Frenchman gulp with alarm. It appeared to all European military experts that the German infantry machine was being put on a footing more powerful than the French for the first time since 1914. Amid the yelps of every Paris paper appeared such cold, professional judgments as this from General Auguste Edouard Hirschauer: "It is my opinion that bringing the conscription period up to two years enables Germany to begin a war without prior mobilization."
It was impossible for French Cabinet Ministers to vent their feelings publicly but M. Jean Fabry, recently War Minister, cried: "This super-armament of Germany means that we must totally reorganize our national defenses!" In fear of a Nazi onslaught, even the French Communists, traditional opponents of long-term conscription, urged that French youths be compelled to serve with the colors for three years.