Many a European thought this week that Adolf Hitler had forced Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden out of the British Cabinet by a brutally successful maneuver (see p. 19) only to be compared with Kaiser Wilhelm's historic humiliation of the French in 1905 when he forced them to drop Delcasse from their Cabinet.
Ever since he became Prime Minister, businesslike Neville Chamberlain has shown he meant to clean up what he considers the mess his predecessor Stanley-Baldwin made of British foreign policy. It was Stanley Baldwin's idea in 1935 to equip Great Britain in effect with two foreign secretaries: 1) a popular young idealist who could win pacifist votes for the Conservative Party; and 2) a veteran statesman who could unobtrusively do such dirty work in foreign policy as might be necessary. He appointed handsome young Anthony Eden to the completely new office of Secretary for League of Nations Affairs and put in Sir Samuel Hoare as Foreign Secretary.
Mr. Eden, quickly popularized as a sort of League of Nations Knight-in-Shining-Armor. was a big factor in enabling Conservative Party Leader Baldwin to win the next General Election. Meanwhile, Sir Samuel Hoare and French Premier Pierre Laval were privately engaged on a deal to condone Italy's seizure of Ethiopia. The Hoare-Laval "Deal" leaked into the news a few days before its makers were ready to present it to the public as a high-minded effort to make peace on the basis of joint Anglo-French-Italian "carrying of Civilization to the barbarians of Ethiopia." It made such an ugly scandal that Mr. Baldwin had to take it all back in the House of Commons; Sir Samuel Hoare sat with tears trickling down his cheeks; Mr. Eden was made Foreign Secretary; and within a few weeks many a hard-headed London businessman was saying, "Hoare was absolutely right." One of those hard-headed businessmen was Neville Chamberlain, then Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Downing Street. Last week Mr. Chamberlain invited to No. 10 Downing Street the Italian Ambassador, spade-bearded Count Dino Grandi, and in Mr. Eden's presence himself made, as Prime Minister, opening moves for quickly closing the breach between London and Rome opened by Il Duce's conquest of Ethiopia and sending of troops to Spain. Mr. Eden was thus subjected by the head of the House of Chamberlain to acute personal humiliation. Saturday and Sunday, for the first time since the Abdication Crisis there were meetings of the British Cabinet. A patient, drably-dressed crowd almost filled the short blind alley called Downing Street, shouting: "Good old Eden! No more Italy! Down with Musso!" Members of the Cabinet, including Mr. Eden, came & went repeatedly without taking more than the merest notice of the crowd before the official residence of the Prime Minister. Even after Hero Eden had actually handed in his letter of resignation, he only raised his black Homburg hat once or twice, diffidently. To a few friends waiting for him on the steps of the Foreign Office, Anthony Eden said: "It's all over."
Next morning's papers carried the Eden letter of resignation, addressed to "My Dear Prime Minister," giving his reason: "I cannot recommend to Parliament a policy with which I am not in agreement." In a letter to "My Dear Anthony" Chamberlain accepted it.